Category Archives: Uncategorized

When Galaxies Collide

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What happens when two galaxies collide? Galaxies are mostly empty space, so none of the stars are likely to suffer collisions. What happens is the gravity of each galaxy will distort or destroy the other galaxy. In some cases, the galaxies may merge to form a single larger galaxy. However, gas and dust clouds will collide and set off waves of star formation. This video is a computer simulation of two spiral galaxies colliding interspersed with real still images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Our Milky Way galaxy has absorbed several smaller galaxies during its existence, and it’s projected to merge with the larger neighboring Andromeda galaxy in a few billion years.

Video Credit: NASA, ESA

Hurricane on Saturn

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Saturn_hurricane1The Cassini spacecraft has relayed to Earth the first close-up, visible-light views of a monster hurricane swirling around Saturn’s north pole. It’s 2,000 km wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. The clouds at the outer edge of the hurricane are moving at 150 meters per second as the storm swirls inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as the hexagon. This false-color image highlights the storm at Saturn’s north pole.

Saturn_hurricane3A natural color image is at left.

Hurricanes on Earth feed off warm ocean water, but there is no body of water on Saturn. Learning how these Saturnian storms use water vapor might tell scientists more about how terrestrial hurricanes are generated and sustained. Both terrestrial hurricanes and Saturn’s north polar vortex have a central eye with no clouds or very low clouds. Both have high clouds forming an eye wall, other high clouds spiraling around the eye, and a counter-clockwise spin in the northern hemisphere. But the one on Saturn is much bigger than its counterparts on Earth and spins surprisingly fast. On Saturn, the wind in the eye wall blows more than four times faster than hurricane-force winds on Earth. Terrestrial hurricanes move around, but Saturn’s hurricane is parked over the planet’s north pole. On Earth, hurricanes tend to drift northward because of the forces acting on the winds as the planet rotates. Saturn’s does not drift; it’s already as far north as it can be.

Saturn_hurricane2Scientists believe the massive storm has been churning for years. When Cassini arrived in the Saturn system in 2004, Saturn’s north pole was in winter darkness. Cassini‘s composite infrared spectrometer and visual and infrared mapping spectrometer detected the great vortex, but a visible-light image had to wait for the equinox in 2009 when sunlight begin falling on the higher latitudes of Saturn’s northern hemisphere. Cassini‘s orbit had to be changed so the spacecraft could see the poles. The spacecraft changes its orbital inclination for such an observing campaign only once every few years. Because the spacecraft uses flybys of Saturn’s moon Titan to change the angle of its orbit, the inclined trajectories require careful planning years in advance to ensure sufficient fuel is available for the spacecraft to reach future planned orbits and encounters.

Image Credits: NASA

Water, Water, Everywhere:

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Nor any drop to drink.Jupiter_water

Astronomers have finally found direct proof that almost all water present in Jupiter’s stratosphere, an intermediate atmospheric layer, was delivered by comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which struck the planet in 1994. The findings are based on new data from the Herschel space observatory and reveal more water in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere, where the impacts occurred, than in the north. Herschel is a European Space Agency mission.

Jupiter_Shoemaker_LevyThe origin of water in the upper atmospheres of the solar system’s giant planets has been a hot topic among planetary astronomers since the late ’90s. Astronomers were quite surprised when water was found in the stratospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune by ESA’s Infrared Space Observatory.

The composite photo at left was assembled from separate images of Jupiter and comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1994.

Image Credits: Top, ESA. Left, NASA

Cool Andromeda

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Cool_AndromedaThis view of the Andromeda galaxy from the Herschel space observatory shows relatively cool lanes of forming stars. Herschel is sensitive to the far-infrared light from cool dust mixed in with the gas where stars are born. This image reveals some of the very coldest dust in the galaxy (colored red here) that is only a few tens of degrees above absolute zero. Warmer regions such as the densely populated central bulge, home to older stars, appear as blue. Star-formation zones are in the spiral arms with several concentric rings interspersed with dark gaps where star formation is absent.

Andromeda (aka M31) is the nearest major galaxy to our own Milky Way about 2.5 million light-years away. Herschel is a European Space Agency mission.

Image Credit: ESA

The Comet

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panstarrs_mar13_cmeV0 Naked-eye Comet PanSTARRS continues to rise in northern hemisphere skies. I haven’t had clear skies to see the comet yet, but many have been forunate to see it with a young crescent Moon near sunset. This remarkable picture from last Tuesday shows the comet with the Earth in the background as seen from the STEREO Behind spacecraft. That spacecraft is nearly opposite the Sun trailing the Earth in its orbit. The Sun just off the left side of the image. The blob on the left is a huge enormous coronal mass ejection (CME) erupting from the Sun. Of course, the Sun’s CME, comet, and the Earth are all at different distances from the spacecraft—with the comet nearest. The image was processed from two consecutive frames from the spacecraft’s SECCHI Heliospheric Imager, causing the strong shadowing effect for objects that moved from one frame to the next. Objects that were too bright created the sharp vertical lines. Note the complicated feather-like structures in Comet PanSTARRS’s dust tail.

Image Credit: NASA

Who’s on First?

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Someone using the sock puppet identity of Nemesis has a post over at Breitbart Unmasked (I read it so you don’t have to, and, no, I won’t link to it.) about how Aaron Walker is melting down. I lost count of the false and/or misleading statements in the piece. However, Nemesis does ask one question that is worthy of discussion:

When one person lives in Maryland and another doesn’t but somehow finds himself at the courthouse in the presence of someone he claims to “fear”, who is the stalker and who is the stalkee?

I would suppose the proper answer might depend on other facts surrounding the situation.

Suppose, for instance, the person from out of state had official business in the courthouse because he was a party in a hearing. Suppose the Maryland resident was from a different county and had no particular business at the courthouse. Suppose the Maryland resident drove around the parking lot twice (30+ minutes apart) obviously searching for something or someone, and suppose he drove off each time without ever getting out of his car or even parking it.

Given those facts, Gentle Reader, who would you guess might be a stalker?

BREAKING: #BrettKimberlin, Stalker

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I have had to be very circumspect in what I’ve published about Team Kimberlin for the past couple of weeks because of my status as a potential witness and as a litigant. It’s now time for some of what has happened to come to light. Rather than rehash someone else’s story, I’m sending you off to Aaron Walker’s blog and his recounting of his family’s stalking by Brett Kimberlin.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE–Look, folks, Mr. Down Twinkles is back. He seems to show up to hit the thumbs down button whenever a post gets under TDPK’s or CBBS’ skin.

Statement In Re a Peace Order

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A hearing was held this morning in District Court in Westminster, Maryland, on a Peace Order that I was seeking. While Judge Rasinsky did not issue a final order because of a possible technicality relating to notice, he warned the Respondent that his activities would violate the law given notice and that he was now on notice. The Judge also informed the Respondent that there is no exception to the Maryland harassment and misuse of electronic communication statutes for “journalism.”

I will not have any further comment on this matter until I consult with lawyers concerning an appeal to Circuit Court.

Important Civil Rights Victory

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The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a ruling striking down the Illinois law preventing the carrying of handguns in public. Last fall, that court gave the state a 180-day stay in the ruling to allow the legislature to enact a new law that would pass constitutional muster. If the legislature fails to act soon, Illinois will join Vermont, Wyoming, Alaska, and Arizona as a constitutional carry state.

Everything You Know is Wrong

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Weekly_Heater

Especially if you’ve been trying to follow the Steubenville rape case via the Main Stream Media who have been picking up claims made by sources like Anonymous that have no real world connection to the case. Their coverage hasn’t been much more reliable than the copy of the Firesign Theatre promotional piece on the left. Fortunately, Lee Stranahan has been digging into the facts.

Here’s some of the wrong claims floating around that Mr. Stranahan debunks:

 

Steubenville is so corrupt that no justice is possible.
There has been a massive cover-up in the case.
The victim was drugged, put in a car trunk to bring her to a series of parties, urinated on, and left for dead in a field.
That there a number of witnesses to the assaults who have not come forward.
The school’s football coaches were involved in the night’s activities.
That football players were given easy or preferential treatment in this case.
No media was covering the case except for one blogger until Anonymous got involved.
That no justice would happen in this case were it not for the intervention of Anonymous.
The infamous video of Michael Nodianos joking has nothing to do with the legal case.

I have no idea whether or not the accused are guilty of anything, but a fair trial and an honest verdict require the truth.

BREAKING: Paul Krugman Gets Something Correct

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How is Paul Krugman like a stopped 24-hour military clock? Both can be right once a day, and Dr. Krugman got one thing right in his 30 September post at the NYT. He says that the real referendum this fall is not on Obamanomics but on the welfare state.

This election is, as I said, shaping up as a referendum on our social insurance system …

It’s the welfare state that has caused the structural deficits that are the driving the uncertainty about our economic future. But, of course, since he’s Paul Krugman, he blows the rest.

… and it looks as if Mr. Obama will emerge with a clear mandate for preserving and extending that system. It would be a terrible mistake, both politically and for the nation’s future, for him to let himself be talked into snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Well, you can’t blame him for expecting an Obama victory. After all, no one he knows is planning to vote for Mitt Romney. To have a different opinion he’d have to burn some shoe leather and get out past the Hudson River.

In the Hall of the Mountain King

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If the phrase In the Hall of the Mountain King means anything to most people, it’s as the title to one of the parts of Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite. Cinema buffs may also associate that tune with the movie M, as the music played just as the serial killer played by Peter Lorre strikes.

I was reminded of the phrase while reading this post about Neal Rauhauser over at The Other McCain. Stacy McCain wonders whether Mr. Rauhauser is evil or crazy or both. (My guess is that both is the correct answer.)

Rauhauser thinks of his evil acts as heroic, avenging the wrongs he alleges have been done by the dehumanized scapegoats whom he alternately diminishes (as insignificant “trolls,” etc.) and magnifies as dangerous enemies, as suits his selfish purposes.

I would argue, and this where the Hall of the Mountain King comes in, that what Neal Rauhauser wants to be is King of the Trolls like the character in Act II of the Ibsen play Peer Gynt. After Peer Gynt meets the Troll King’s daughter, the Troll King offers him the opportunity to become a troll—if Peer marries the daughter. Peer declines in the end. An important plot point that is crucial to understanding the play is a question asked by the Troll King: “What is the difference between troll and man?” The answer given is: “Out there, where sky shines, humans say, ‘To thyself be true.’ In here, trolls say, ‘Be true to yourself and to hell with the world.’” Egoism is a defining trait of the trolls in the play.

So it is with Mr. Rauahauser. His seeming lack of empathy might allow him to believe that he is merely following Polonius’ advice (and the Troll Motto)—To Thine Own Self Be True—while ignoring “And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Neal Rauhauser, wannabe King of the Trolls. That might explain a lot.

Oh, and one more thing … Stacy McCain describes Neal Rauhauser as Patient Zero in the Weinergate nonsense. A better description might be the virus.

Yet one more thing … You can tell that I didn’t go to Harvard. I referred to M as a movie instead of a film.

Blogger Defense Team Goes to Court on Friday

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I just got off the phone with Aaron Walker. He is preparing for the default judgment hearing this Friday against Neal Rauhauser and Ron Brynaert in the Walker v. Kimberlin, et al. lawsuit in Virginia. While most of our conversation was off the record, I can say that Mr. Walker and his lawyers seem to have an excellent strategy.

I wish I my schedule would permit me to be at the hearing, but Mr. Walker says that he will be tweeting the results as soon as he is out of the courthouse. It will an interesting day on Friday.

Pass the popcorn.

Oh, one more thing … You can support Aaron Walker’s effort to vindicate our First Amendment rights. Go here and click on the DONATE button for the Blogger Defense Team.

The Charts of Doom

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Steve Hayward posts The Charts That Doom Obama over at Powerline. He takes a look at gasoline price futures, actual unemployment v. Obama’s predictions, the Beveridge Curve (a measure of job mobility in the overall economy), and the percentage of folks on unemployment who have been out of work for a six months. None of these charts look good for the President.

Read the whole thing.

The last chart, the one about long-term unemployment, is the most striking.

Is it November yet?