January 30, 2012

Good Morning,

Scientists have brought humanity one step closer to what was considered sience fiction as they successfully cloak (or make invisible) a 3-demensional object. Check out the details in the last article.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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Study: Geoengineering not a climate cure

SEATTLE - Geoengineering to combat global warming by injecting sulfate particles into the atmosphere can't fully offset human-caused climate change, U.S. scientists say. Researchers at the University of Washington say that suggested method would likely achieve only part of the desired effect and could carry serious, if unintended, consequences. Tiny sulfate and sea salt particles, called aerosols, are naturally present in the lower atmosphere and reflect energy from the sun into space. Some researchers have suggested injecting sulfate particles directly into the stratosphere to enhance the effect. However, a UW modeling study shows sulfate particles in the stratosphere will not necessarily offset all the effects of future increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Significant changes would still occur because even increased aerosol levels cannot balance changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation brought on by higher levels of atmospheric CO2, researchers said. "There is no way to keep the climate the way it is now," Kelly McCusker, a UW doctoral student in atmospheric sciences, said. "Later this century, you would not be able to recreate present-day Earth just by adding sulfate aerosols to the atmosphere." And the odds of a "climate surprise" would be high because the uncertainties about the effects of geoengineering would be added to existing uncertainties about climate change, the researchers said.


Early star formation in universe studied

LONDON - The most massive galaxies in the universe are linked to violent star-forming activity in its early period, research published in a British journal suggests. An international team of astronomers searching for signs of mysterious "dark matter" in early galaxies says their findings confirm the link. Studying galaxies at great distances allows astronomers to look deep into the universe's past. Scientists say they believe galaxies are surrounded by "haloes" of dark matter, which has never been directly detected but can be inferred by its gravitational influence on galaxy clusters. Using a computer model describing how galaxies and their haloes should evolve, the team determined that frenetic "starbursting" galaxies develop into the enormous elliptical galaxies we see more closely to us. "This is the first time that we've been able to show this clear link between the most energetic starbursting galaxies in the early universe, and the most massive galaxies in the present day," research leader Ryan Hickox of Dartmouth College told the BBC. These energetic bouts of star formation appear to only last about 100 million years before coming to an abrupt halt, the researchers said. The new finding support theories that the burst of star formation feeds a massive black hole at the center of a galaxy, which then releases powerful blasts of energy that disperse the clouds of cosmic gas that otherwise would condense into even more stars. The research was published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.


'Blue marble' image of Earth captured

GREENBELT, Md. - A new high-definition "Blue Marble" image of Earth has been captured by a recently launched satellite, NASA says. The photo, compiled from several images taken Jan. 4 by the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite aboard the Earth-observation satellite Suomi NPP, was released Wednesday. The satellite was renamed Tuesday to honor the late Verner E. Suomi, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin considered "the father of satellite meteorology," USA Today reported. The new image is similar to the original iconic "Blue Marble" image of earth taken on Dec. 7, 1972, by the crew of Apollo 17, the last U.S. manned mission to the moon.


First 'cloaking' of a 3D object announced

AUSTIN, Texas - U.S. researchers say they have "cloaked" a three-dimensional object, making it invisible from all angles for the first time. The process uses a shell of what are known as plasmonic materials that create a "photo negative" of the object being cloaked, effectively canceling it out. However, the demonstration has only been achieved for waves in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum, not for visible light. Andrea Alu and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin have made a 7-inch-long cylinder invisible to incoming microwave light. The success with the cylinder suggests further work with different wavelengths of light is worth pursuing, Alu said. "It's a real object standing in our lab, and it basically disappears," he told BBC News. While the technique is unlikely to work at the visible light part of the spectrum, Alu said, the
approach could be applied to the tips of scanning microscopes to yield an improved view of even smaller wavelengths of light.

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