Gizmorama
February 9, 2011
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GENUINE LEATHER MEN'S TRIFOLD WALLET
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Good Morning,
In today?s issue we look at a story that is causing quite a
stir on internet blogs & news sources. An asteroid will pass
not too far above Earth today, but even if it found its way
to the surface it wouldn't do any damage. However, this
raises interests in another asteroid that could cause some
trouble for us earthlings in the year 2036. Read all the
details in the last article.
Until Next Time,
Erin
Questions? Comments? Email me at: mailto:gizmo@gophercentral.com
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Twin probes give 'stereo' view of sun
WASHINGTON, - Two twin NASA probes have moved into position
on opposite sides of the sun to send scientists "stereo"
images of the star, front and back, researchers say. Each
STEREO probe photographs half of the star and beams the im-
ages to Earth where researchers combine the two views to
create a sphere, NASA said Monday. "For the first time ever,
we can watch solar activity in its full 3-dimensional glory,"
Angelos Vourlidas of the STEREO science team at the Naval
Research Lab in Washington said in a release. "This is a big
moment in solar physics," Vourlidas said. "STEREO has rev-
ealed the sun as it really is -- a sphere of hot plasma and
intricately woven magnetic fields." STEREO's telescopes scan
the sun in four wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet radiation
selected to trace fundamental aspects of solar activity such
as flares, tsunamis and magnetic filaments, NASA said. "With
data like these, we can fly around the sun to see what's
happening over the horizon -- without ever leaving our
desks," says NASA scientist Lika Guhathakurta. "I expect
great advances in theoretical solar physics and space weather
forecasting."
Study: Many issues keep women from science
ITHACA, N.Y. - Barriers for women in science fields come
less from overt sexism than from a combination of social,
biological and institutional factors, a U.S. study says. Re-
searchers at Cornell University say overt discrimination
against female scientists in hiring, publishing and funding
when competing against an equally qualified male is largely
a thing of the past, a study published in the journal Nature
said Monday. Rather, compromises between pursuing a career
and raising a family, coupled with gender expectations that
can influence professional choices at a young age, are more
likely to account for the shortage of women in some fields,
the researchers say. The study by Cornell psychologists
Stephen Ceci and Wendy Williams contrasts with reports that
suggest overt discrimination remains a significant problem.
"There are constant and unsupportable allegations that women
suffer discrimination in these arenas, and we show conclu-
sively that women do not," Williams says. Female researchers
fall behind their male counterparts in professional advance-
ment because of a broader set of societal realities, espec-
ially concerning family formation and child rearing, Ceci
and Williams say. Motherhood can make women less likely to
choose research careers than male scientists of equal
ability, or lead them to choose academic positions with
larger teaching loads but more regular hours, sacrificing
time for research, they say.
U.S., European scientists push space plan
WASHINGTON - American and European scientists working on a
possible mission to Jupiter say they've arrived at a joint
vision for the Europa Jupiter System Mission. The mission
is a proposed partnership between NASA and the European Space
Agency, and scientists on the joint NASA-ESA definition team
agreed the science theme for the mission will be "the emer-
gence of habitable worlds around gas giants," a release by
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said
Monday. "We've reached hands across the Atlantic to define a
mission to Jupiter's water worlds," said Bob Pappalardo, JPL
pre-project scientist for the proposed Jupiter Europa Orb-
iter. "The Europa Jupiter System Mission will create a leap
in scientific knowledge about the moons of Jupiter and their
potential to harbor life." The agreement integrates goals
being separately developed by NASA and ESA working groups
into one unified strategy. The proposed mission singles out
the icy moons Europa and Ganymede as natural laboratories
for analyzing the nature, evolution and potential habit-
ability of icy worlds. While the NASA orbiter would investi-
gate Europa, an ESA probe would focus on Ganymede, with each
moon believed to present two different kinds of sub-surface
oceans. NASA and ESA officials gave the Europa Jupiter System
Mission priority status for continued study, agreeing it was
the most technically feasible of the outer solar system sci-
ence missions under consideration.
Car-size asteroid nears Earth Wednesday
PASADENA, Calif. - A car-size asteroid will pass near Earth
today, U.S. scientists say, while one bigger than two foot-
ball fields might hit Earth in 18 years. The 2011 CA7 aster-
oid, measuring 9 1/2 feet across, will be 64,300 miles over-
head today, reaching its closest point around 2:25 p.m. EST,
said NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
A 4-foot-wide asteroid called 2011 CQ 1 sailed 3,400 miles
above Earth Friday, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration said. Both asteroids are so small that even
if they did get pulled to Earth, they would not survive the
fiery trip to the surface and would break up or burn up on
the way down, Space.com said. By contrast, an asteroid larger
than two football fields could strike Earth April 13, 2036,
Russian scientists said, contradicting NASA scientists, who
said in 2009 the 99942 Apophis asteroid had nearly no chance
of hitting Earth on that date. Apophis, which NASA scientists
also said has a 2.7 percent change of smashing into Earth in
2029, will get as close to Earth as about 23,000 miles April
13, 2029 -- and "its likely collision with Earth may occur
on April 13, 2036," Professor Leonid Sokolov of St. -
Petersburg State University said. Still, the chance of a
collision is extremely slim because scientists will develop
ways of preventing it, Sokolov said.
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