Poor Pluto has been demoted again. Calculations published to show that astronomers no longer deem Pluto to be even the largest of our solar system’s so-called dwarf planets — it is smaller than recently discovered dwarf planet Eris.
Brown and Emily Schaller of the California Institute of Technology used data collected from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck Observatory in Hawaii to determine for the first time that Eris had a greater mass than Pluto.
Eris, discovered in 2005 and named for an ancient Greek goddess of strife and discord, is 27% more massive than Pluto, they found. Eris is about half the size of Earth’s moon, Brown said.
Pluto, named for the ancient Greek god of the underworld, was discovered in 1930. It was considered our solar system’s ninth planet until August 2006, when the International Astronomical Union declared it a dwarf planet, a term referring to lesser, round solar system bodies orbiting the sun, mostly in an outer region called the Kuiper belt.
“I don’t think we’re picking on Pluto,” Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy who helped provoke the demotion of Pluto, said in a telephone interview.
“It’s just the truth. It (Eris) just is more massive than Pluto. It’s just the way it is,” Brown said.
The findings were published in the journal Science. Scientists previously had figured that Eris’s diameter was bigger than Pluto’s but did not know about its mass. Like Pluto, Eris is unlikely to become a holiday destination. Both inhabit a remote and frigid region of the solar system. The new data indicated Eris likely is composed of ice and rock, very similar to Pluto. “It is covered in an almost perfectly uniform white frost. So it looks just like a white billiard ball out there,” Brown said.
Pluto and Eris both follow elliptical rather than circular orbits as they journey around the Sun. Eris’s orbit is highly elongated and takes 560 years. It ventures anywhere from 3.5 billion miles to 10 billion miles from Earth, Brown said.
Pluto, whose 250-year orbit on occasion brings it inside the orbit of the outermost planet Neptune, journeys as far as 5 billion miles from Earth, Brown said.
Eris, which has a small moon, has a diameter of 1,500 miles, just bigger than Pluto’s 1,400 miles. Brown said there are roughly 50 known objects in the solar system that can be classified as dwarf planets, including some close in size to Eris and Pluto. Brown said Pluto should be getting accustomed to second place.
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Thursday, June 28, 2007
Monday, June 11, 2007
And found: 24 new wild species
A FROG with fluorescent purple markings and 12 kinds of dung beetles are among two dozen new species discovered in the remote plateaus of eastern Suriname, scientists said.
The expedition was sponsored by two mining companies hoping to excavate the area for bauxite, the raw material used to make aluminum, and it was unknown how the findings would affect their plans.
Scientists discovered the species during a 2005 expedition led by the US-based nonprofit Conservation International in rainforests and swamps about 130 km southeast of Paramaribo, the capital of the South American country, organisation spokesman Tom Cohen said.
Among the species found were the atelopus frog, which has distinctive purple markings; six types of fish; 12 dung beetles, and one ant species, he said. The scientists called for better conservation management in the unprotected, stateowned areas, where hunting and small-scale illegal mining is common.
The study was financed by Suriname Aluminum Company LLC and BHP Bniton Maatschappij Suriname. Suriname Aluminum, which has a government concession to explore gold in the area, will include the data in its environmental assessment study, said Haydi Berrenstein, a Conservation International ofIicial in Suriname, which borders Brazil, Guyana and French Guiana. About 80 per cent of Suriname is covered with dense rainforest.
Thousands of Brazilians and Surinamese are believed to work in illegal gold mining, creating mercury pollution that has threatened the health of Amerindians and Maroons in Suriname's interior.
This discovery is surprising because no previous theories of how the frogs arrived had predicted a single origin for Caribbean terrestrial frogs and because groups of close relatives rarely dominate the fauna of an entire continent or major geographic region," said biology Professor Blair Hedges, who directed the research.
The field work for the study required nearly three decades and some species included in the study are now believed extinct because of habitat degradation and possibly other causes, such as climate change.
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The expedition was sponsored by two mining companies hoping to excavate the area for bauxite, the raw material used to make aluminum, and it was unknown how the findings would affect their plans.
Scientists discovered the species during a 2005 expedition led by the US-based nonprofit Conservation International in rainforests and swamps about 130 km southeast of Paramaribo, the capital of the South American country, organisation spokesman Tom Cohen said.
Among the species found were the atelopus frog, which has distinctive purple markings; six types of fish; 12 dung beetles, and one ant species, he said. The scientists called for better conservation management in the unprotected, stateowned areas, where hunting and small-scale illegal mining is common.
The study was financed by Suriname Aluminum Company LLC and BHP Bniton Maatschappij Suriname. Suriname Aluminum, which has a government concession to explore gold in the area, will include the data in its environmental assessment study, said Haydi Berrenstein, a Conservation International ofIicial in Suriname, which borders Brazil, Guyana and French Guiana. About 80 per cent of Suriname is covered with dense rainforest.
Thousands of Brazilians and Surinamese are believed to work in illegal gold mining, creating mercury pollution that has threatened the health of Amerindians and Maroons in Suriname's interior.
This discovery is surprising because no previous theories of how the frogs arrived had predicted a single origin for Caribbean terrestrial frogs and because groups of close relatives rarely dominate the fauna of an entire continent or major geographic region," said biology Professor Blair Hedges, who directed the research.
The field work for the study required nearly three decades and some species included in the study are now believed extinct because of habitat degradation and possibly other causes, such as climate change.
For more details on Wild species visit www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
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Thursday, June 7, 2007
The Global warming
Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation.
Global average air temperature near the Earth's surface rose 0.74 ± 0.18 °C during the past century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes, "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations," which leads to warming of the surface and lower atmosphere by increasing the greenhouse effect. Natural phenomena such as solar variation combined with volcanoes have probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950, but a small cooling effect since 1950.
These basic conclusions have been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists is the only scientific society that rejects these conclusions, and a few individual scientists also disagree with parts of them.
An increase in global temperatures can in turn cause other changes, including sea level rise, and changes in the amount and pattern of precipitation resulting in floods and drought. There may also be changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, though it is difficult to connect specific events to global warming. Other effects may include changes in agricultural yields, glacier retreat, reduced summer streamflows, species extinctions and increases in the ranges of disease vectors.
The term "global warming" is a specific example of the broader term climate change, which can also refer to global cooling. In common usage the term refers to recent warming and implies a human influence. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) uses the term "climate change" for human-caused change, and "climate variability" for other changes. The term "anthropogenic climate change" is sometimes used when focusing on human-induced changes. read more……
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Global average air temperature near the Earth's surface rose 0.74 ± 0.18 °C during the past century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes, "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations," which leads to warming of the surface and lower atmosphere by increasing the greenhouse effect. Natural phenomena such as solar variation combined with volcanoes have probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950, but a small cooling effect since 1950.
These basic conclusions have been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists is the only scientific society that rejects these conclusions, and a few individual scientists also disagree with parts of them.
An increase in global temperatures can in turn cause other changes, including sea level rise, and changes in the amount and pattern of precipitation resulting in floods and drought. There may also be changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, though it is difficult to connect specific events to global warming. Other effects may include changes in agricultural yields, glacier retreat, reduced summer streamflows, species extinctions and increases in the ranges of disease vectors.
The term "global warming" is a specific example of the broader term climate change, which can also refer to global cooling. In common usage the term refers to recent warming and implies a human influence. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) uses the term "climate change" for human-caused change, and "climate variability" for other changes. The term "anthropogenic climate change" is sometimes used when focusing on human-induced changes. read more……
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Monday, June 4, 2007
World Environment eco-savvy with these gadgets
Environment-friendly PC
THE Acer Aspire L310 desktop PC has a box capacity of three litres as opposed to the usual 10-litre desktop box CPU. It sports a sleek and portable form factor. Smarter component placement leads to better thermal management, resulting in efficient fan speed control for quiet operation (only 26 dB idle). In addition, it boasts a 3.5” SATA 3 Gb/s hard disk drive with up to 400 GB of storage space for speedy data access.
Sun-powered wristwatch
THIS Casio tough stainless steel men’s watch (MTP1227E-5AV) is solar-powered, charging in either sunlight or indoor light. The stainless steel watchcase is topped by a raised bezel with elapsed time markings. The brown dial face is complemented by silver triangular markers, thin silver hands and a digital day/date function.
(Approx $89.99)
EMW Reader
LONG-TERM exposure to high-powered electromagnetic fields may be hazardous to your health. The Ban-Yu 026 EMW Reader is specifically designed to read the magnitude of electromagnetic field radiation generated by power lines, computer monitors, TV sets, video cassette recorders and home appliances.
Pollution monitor
SQUIRREL, a mobile device being developed at the University of California and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, can sample pollutants with its on-chip sensor. It measures carbon monoxide and ozone, but eventually it will be able to sample nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide in the air, as well as temperature, barometric pressure and humidity.
Using a Bluetooth wireless transmitter, it connects to the user’s cell phone. A software programme called Acorn allows the user to see the current pollution alerts through a screensaver on the cell phone’s display.
Solar phone
JAPANESE cell phone maker NTT DoCoMo is prototyping this hybrid mobile phone with solar panels. As this device is powered by the sun’s rays, you can put an end to travel chargers and emergency batteries.
For more details on eco-savvy gadgets visit www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more information on books visit www.Lookbookstores.com
THE Acer Aspire L310 desktop PC has a box capacity of three litres as opposed to the usual 10-litre desktop box CPU. It sports a sleek and portable form factor. Smarter component placement leads to better thermal management, resulting in efficient fan speed control for quiet operation (only 26 dB idle). In addition, it boasts a 3.5” SATA 3 Gb/s hard disk drive with up to 400 GB of storage space for speedy data access.
Sun-powered wristwatch
THIS Casio tough stainless steel men’s watch (MTP1227E-5AV) is solar-powered, charging in either sunlight or indoor light. The stainless steel watchcase is topped by a raised bezel with elapsed time markings. The brown dial face is complemented by silver triangular markers, thin silver hands and a digital day/date function.
(Approx $89.99)
EMW Reader
LONG-TERM exposure to high-powered electromagnetic fields may be hazardous to your health. The Ban-Yu 026 EMW Reader is specifically designed to read the magnitude of electromagnetic field radiation generated by power lines, computer monitors, TV sets, video cassette recorders and home appliances.
Pollution monitor
SQUIRREL, a mobile device being developed at the University of California and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, can sample pollutants with its on-chip sensor. It measures carbon monoxide and ozone, but eventually it will be able to sample nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide in the air, as well as temperature, barometric pressure and humidity.
Using a Bluetooth wireless transmitter, it connects to the user’s cell phone. A software programme called Acorn allows the user to see the current pollution alerts through a screensaver on the cell phone’s display.
Solar phone
JAPANESE cell phone maker NTT DoCoMo is prototyping this hybrid mobile phone with solar panels. As this device is powered by the sun’s rays, you can put an end to travel chargers and emergency batteries.
For more details on eco-savvy gadgets visit www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk
For more information on books visit www.Lookbookstores.com
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