December 26, 2011

Good Morning,

Two Earth-sized planets have been discovered by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope. Read all the details on this significant find and what it means for the inevitability of space discovery in the third article.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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EPA issues power plant emission standards

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued the first national standards for power plant emissions of mercury and toxic air pollution. The standards will reduce emissions of mercury and other dangerous pollutants such as arsenic, acid gas, nickel, selenium and cyanide by relying on widely available, proven pollution controls that are already in use at more than half of the nation's coal-fired power plants, an EPA release said Wednesday. The agency estimates the safeguards will prevent as many as 11,000 premature deaths and 4,700 heart attacks a year and reduce other health risks as well. "By cutting emissions that are linked to developmental disorders and respiratory illnesses like asthma, these standards represent a major victory for clean air and public health -- and especially for the health of our children," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said. The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards are based on the latest data, and give industry considerable flexibility in implementation through a phased-in approach and the ability to use existing technologies, the EPA said.


Galaxy from universe's early period seen

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - A team of international astronomers, including U.S. researchers, says it's discovered a distant galaxy from nearly the beginning of time itself. University of California, Riverside, scientists say the image of galaxy GN-108036 has taken 12.9 billion years to reach us, so we're seeing it as it existed a mere 750 million years after our universe was created 13.7 billion years ago in the Big Bang. Astronomer Bahram Mobasher and his graduate student Hooshang Nayyeri say the distant galaxy is churning out stars at a shockingly high rate, a university release reported Wednesday. Previous surveys had not found galaxies this bright so early in the history of the universe, scientists said, so GN-108036 may be a special, rare object observed during an extreme burst of star formation. Astronomers said they were surprised to see such a rate of star formation in a galaxy is so small and from such an early cosmic era. Galaxies forming in the first few hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang were much smaller than they are today, having yet to bulk up in mass, they said. "The high rate of star formation found for GN-108036 implies that it was rapidly building up its mass some 750 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was only about five percent of its present age," Mobasher said. "This was therefore a likely ancestor of massive and evolved galaxies seen today."


Astronomers find two Earth-size planets

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - NASA says its Kepler space telescope has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system. While the planets, called Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are too close to their star to be in the so-called habitable zone where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface, they are the smallest exoplanets ever confirmed around a star like our sun, a release by the space agency said Tuesday. Kepler-20e is slightly smaller than Venus while Kepler-20f is a bit larger than Earth, and both planets orbit in a five-planet system called Kepler-20, approximately 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra. "The primary goal of the Kepler mission is to find Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone," Francois Fressin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., said. "This discovery demonstrates for the first time that Earth-size planets exist around other stars, and that we are able to detect them." Kepler-20e orbits its parent star every 6.1 days and Kepler-20f every 19.6 days, short orbital periods that mean the planets are very hot, inhospitable worlds. Still, their discovery is yet another milestone in the ultimate search for planets like Earth, scientists said. "In the cosmic game of hide and seek, finding planets with just the right size and just the right temperature seems only a matter of time," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler deputy science team lead and professor of astronomy and physics at San Jose State University. "We are on the edge of our seats knowing that Kepler's most anticipated discoveries are still to come."


Study: Forest thinning not carbon answer

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Forest thinning to help prevent wildfires will release more carbon to the atmosphere than any amount saved by successful fire prevention, U.S. researchers say. While there are valid reasons to thin forests, including restoration of forest structure or health, wildlife enhancement or public safety, increased carbon sequestration is not one of them, scientists at Oregon State University said. "Some researchers have suggested that various levels of tree removal are consistent with efforts to sequester carbon in forest biomass and reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels," John Campbell, research associate in the OSU Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, said. "That may make common sense, but it's based on unrealistic assumptions and not supported by the science." Even in fire-prone forests, researchers said, it's necessary to treat about 10 locations to influence fire behavior in one, and there are large carbon losses associated with fuel treatment and tree removal and only modest savings in reducing the severity of fire. "There is no doubt you can change fire behavior by managing fuels and there may be other reasons to do it," Mark Harmon, OSU professor of forest science, said. "But the carbon does not just disappear, even if it's used for wood products or other purposes. We have to be honest about the carbon cost and consider it along with the other reasons for this type of forest management."

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