Cross forms in sky over Miami

continue reading.....

NASA’s Mars Lander has finally made it - and is already sending messages back with incredible clarity. Will we find signs for former life on Mars?

continue reading.....

Singapore Airlines, who has decided to be the first airline to take advantage of the super huge A380 airliner. This huge double-decked airplane includes 12 tastefully decorated private suites - complete with a bed for two (wall to wall), roses on the table and petals on the bed, freely flowing champagne - and a no sex policy. While photographs I’ve examined appear to have two sliding closing doors, they are staunch on their position, ensuring all customers are treated alike (as if someone in coach would really provide a side-show in the center seating section.

continue reading.....

Mass hysteria was the reason people were sick after the meteor crash in Peru. Yep, hysteria. The nausea, headaches and sore throats.. it was hysteria. They were scared.
According to the report on AOL News, “Those who say they are affected are the product of a collective psychosis,” Jorge Lopez Tejada, health [...]

continue reading.....

With the ever increasing rise in worldwide belief that we are not alone, but are visited by others from beyond on a regular basis, it’s an appropriate time to wonder why the story of a UFO crash 12,000 years ago in remote China hasn’t been more thoroughly researched.

continue reading.....

o we have too many aircraft flying? The potential of increased air flight is causing global warming. Yes, airplanes. Others say that the widespread contrails, in the non-overlapping patterns are not contrails at all, but chemtrails - chemically laden materials distributed in the sky.

NASA scientists have found that cirrus clouds, formed by contrails from aircraft engine exhaust, are capable of increasing average surface temperatures enough to account for a warming trend in the United States that occurred between 1975 and 1994.

According to Patrick Minnis, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., there has been a one percent per decade increase in cirrus cloud cover over the United States, likely due to air traffic. Cirrus clouds exert a warming influence on the surface by allowing most of the Sun’s rays to pass through but then trapping some of the resulting heat emitted by the surface and lower atmosphere.

Using a general circulation model, Minnis estimates that cirrus clouds from contrails increased the temperatures of the lower atmosphere by anywhere from 0.36 to 0.54°F per decade. Minnis’s results show good agreement with weather service data, which reveal that the temperature of the surface and lower atmosphere rose by almost 0.5°F per decade between 1975 and 1994.

continue reading.....

Supernova SNLS-03D3bb. Image credit: LBL
Click to enlarge

Astronomers used to believe that all Type 1a supernovae were essentially the same brightness. That’s because they explode with the same amount of fuel. But now a supernova has been discovered that’s twice as bright as all the other Type 1a supernovae. This is a problem, since this kind of supernovae are used as standard candles, to determine distances across the Universe. Most recently, these supernovae have been used to calculate the mysterious force called dark energy that seems to be accelerating the expansion of the Universe.

Read the full story…

continue reading.....

Battlestar Galactic Season 2.5 DVD
Click to enlarge

I just received a review copy of Battlestar Galactica Season 2.5, the DVD that covers episodes 11-20. In case you’ve been living under a rock, this is the new Battlestar Galactica series running on the Scifi channel in the US. I’m going to preface this with the disclaimer that I’m already a huge fan of Battlestar Galactica - I’ve seen every episode multiple times, and I think it’s one of the best television shows on TV. It’s also impossible for me to really talk about what’s in the episodes without ruining some part of the plot for somebody. I’m a notorious show-ruiner, so I won’t even go there. (My friends call ruining the end of a movie “Frasering”).

The boxed set contains 3 DVDs, with episodes 11-20 in widescreen. It’s also got a few minutes per disc of deleted scenes, as well as some video logs by the producers. Perhaps the coolest part is the audio commentary. They were originally released as podcasts on the Internet, but it’s great to have them play in the background while you’re watching the episodes instead of having to synch up your iPod while you’re watching live TV.

If you haven’t seen the show, you can purchase older DVDs (here’s a link to Amazon for the Season 1 (contains the Miniseries) - Season 2.0 and the new Season 2.5). You’d better hurry, though, Season 3 starts up in just 2 weeks.

I’m going to give away my review copy of Battlestar Galactica 2.5 - I did open it, but it’s otherwise undamaged. You know the drill. Send me an email at info@universetoday.com with the subject line “BSG Giveaway” before 12:00pm PDT Tuesday, September 26, 2006. I’ll pick one email address at random, announce a winner, and mail out the copy.

Good luck!

Fraser

Read the full story…

continue reading.....

Soyuz approaches the station. Image credit: NASA TV
Click to enlarge

The next crew of residents arrived at the International Space Station on Wednesday, and they brought a special visitor. Expedition 14, Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and Cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, travelled to orbit with space tourist Anousheh Ansari. Lopez-Alegria and Tyurin will remain on board the station until the Spring, while Ansari will return with Expedition 13 in a week.

Read the full story…

continue reading.....

Saturn’s new ring. Image credit: NASA/JPL/SSI
Click to enlarge

Cassini recently passed behind Saturn, so that the Ringed Planet completely obscured the Sun from view. This revealed intricate details in the planet’s environment, including a brand new ring. This newly discovered ring is outside Saturn’s main rings, but inside the G and E rings - the moons Janus and Epimetheus orbit within it. During its pass behind Saturn, Cassini also captured an image of the Earth, from a vantage of nearly 1.5 billion km (930 million miles) away..

Read the full story…

continue reading.....