June 6, 2011


Good Morning,

Scientists tackle the category of undiscovered species and their future on this planet. Research predicts that many of these species live in "threatened" areas of the globe, which makes discovery a dismal task. Check out the last article for all the details.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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Scientist accurately gauges Neptune's spin

TUCSON - Neptune's rate of rotation has been accurately determined, something extremely difficult to do with the solar system's gas giant planets, U.S. astronomers say. By tracking atmospheric features on Neptune, University of Arizona planetary scientist Erich Karkoschka has found a day on the gas-covered planet lasts exactly 15 hours, 57 minutes and 59 seconds. His result is one of the largest improvements in determining the rotational period of a gas planet in almost 350 years since Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini made the first observations of Jupiter's Red Spot, a UA release said. "The rotational period of a planet is one of its fundamental properties," said Karkoschka. "Neptune has two features observable with the Hubble Space Telescope that seem to track the interior rotation of the planet. Nothing similar has been seen before on any of the four giant planets." Unlike the rocky planets of the inner solar system -- Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars -- which are solid balls spinning in a straightforward manner, the giant gas planets -- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune -- rotate more like giant blobs of liquid with a lot of sloshing, swirling and roiling which has made it difficult for astronomers to get an accurate grip on exactly how fast they spin. "On Neptune, all you see is moving clouds and features in the planet's atmosphere. Some move faster, some move slower, some accelerate, but you really don't know what the rotational period is, if there even is some solid inner core that is rotating," Karkoschka said. Using Hubble Space Telescope images of Neptune, Karkoschka was able to track two permanent features of the planet's atmosphere, known as the South Polar Feature and the South Polar Wave, to accurately determine the planet's rotation rate. "The regularity suggests those features are connected to Neptune's interior in some way," Karkoschka said. "How they are connected is up to speculation."


Study: Australian volcanoes 'overdue'

MELBOURNE - Australian researchers studying the age of volcanoes in Western Victoria and South Australia say the regions are overdue for an eruption. Scientists from the University of Melbourne's School of Earth Sciences and the Melbourne School of Engineering have calculated the ages of the regions' small volcanoes and established the recurrence rate for eruptions at 2,000 years. With the last volcano eruption happening more than 5,000 years ago, scientists say the areas are overdue, a university release said Tuesday. "Although the volcanoes in the region don't erupt on a regular sequence, the likelihood of an eruption is high given the average gap in the past has been 2,000 years," Bernie Joyce of the School of Earth Sciences said. "These are small eruptions and very localized but depending on the type of eruption, they could cause devastation to thousands of people," he said. The regions studied demonstrate a history of activity by young monogenetic or single short-lived activity volcanoes, the researchers said. "Among the hazards which may need to be prepared for in this closely-settled region are the localized effects of cone building leading to lava flows which run downhill towards the coast," Joyce said. "The long lasting and often extensive lava flows can travel for tens of kilometers, and so would be hazardous to modern infrastructure such as bridges, roads and railways, power lines and pipelines, as well as being a major fire hazard on the dry grassland plains of summer in Western Victoria."


Astronomers study 'zombie' stars

SANTA BARBARA - U.S. astronomers say they are studying so-called zombie stars that explode as they die only to come back from the dead by sucking matter out of other stars. The phenomenon happens all the time in the universe, they say, but a study of zombie stars could aid astronomers and physicists in their search for so-called dark energy, which is thought to make up about three-fourths of the universe and which scientists believe is related to the expansion of the universe. "We only discovered this about 20 years ago by using Type Ia supernovae, thermonuclear supernovae, as standard or 'calibrated' candles," Andy Howell, professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara said. "These stars are tools for measuring dark energy. They're all about the same brightness, so we can use them to figure out distances in the universe." Howell calls Type Ia supernovae "zombie" stars because they're dead, with a core of ash, but they come back to life by sucking matter from a companion star, a UCSB release said. Astrophysicists are using Type Ia supernovae to study the history of the universe's expansion. "What we've found is that the universe hasn't been expanding at the same rate," Howell said. "And it hasn't been slowing down as everyone thought it would be, due to gravity. Instead, it has been speeding up. "There's a force that counteracts gravity and we don't know what it is. We call it dark energy."


Study predicts areas of 'missing' species

DURHAM, S.C. - Most of the world's "missing" or undiscovered species live in regions already identified by scientists as biodiversity hotpots, a U.S. study says. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests recent conservation efforts have been on target and should reduce uncertainty over global conservation priorities, it authors said. However, the extinction threat for many of the as-yet undiscovered species is worse than previously feared, they said. "We show that the majority of the world's 'missing species' are hiding away on some of the most threatened landscapes in the world," said Stuart Pimm, a professor of conservation at Duke University. "This considerably increases the number of threatened and endangered species around the world." And the world's knowledge of species is seriously incomplete, with many as-yet undiscovered, a Duke release said Tuesday. "We know we have an incomplete catalogue of life," said lead author Lucas Joppa of Microsoft Research in Cambridge, England, who received his doctorate in ecology from Duke in 2009. "If we don't know how many species there are, or where they live, then how can we prioritize places for conservation? What if the places we ignore now turn out to be those with the most unknown species?" The researchers said six regions already identified by conservation scientists as hotspots -- Mexico to Panama; Colombia; Ecuador to Peru; Paraguay and Chile southward; southern Africa; and Australia -- were estimated to contain 70 percent of all predicted missing species. "How can you save a species you don't even know exists?" Joppa asked. "You can't. But you can protect places where you predict they occur."

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