The New Scientist website, on the 26th of September 2008, has an article about a report given to the UN asking them to take control of defending the earth from asteroids. Its says,
The report asks the UN to assume responsibility for responding to potentially catastrophic asteroid threats. "For 4.5 billion years, we've been bashed continuously by asteroids. It's time for that to stop," former Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart told the assembly.
Currently, NASA is watching 209 NEOs, none of which is considered to be dangerous. But a threat is likely to be detected within the next 15 years, according to the ASE. "New telescopes coming online will increase these discoveries by a factor of 100," said Ed Lu, astronaut on space shuttle Atlantis.
Recent "benign catastrophes", such as the meteorites that recently struck Peru and Canada, and the Tunguska fireball that exploded 120 years ago over Siberia with a force equivalent to 2,000 Hiroshima bombs, may have helped raise public awareness. "The Tunguska fireball could have destroyed a city," warned Schweickart.
The ASE believes the price tag of the project to be around $500 million, half the cost of putting a single geosynchronous satellite into orbit.
How we have managed to survive without this up to now truly is a mystery.
Saturday, 27 September 2008
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
The methane time bomb
The Independent newspaper has an article on their website, on the 23rd September 2008, about the dangerous levels of methane being released from the Arctic and how it will increase global warming. It says,
The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.
Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species.
In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.
Methane is about 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and many scientists fear that its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane.
The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.
Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species.
In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.
Methane is about 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and many scientists fear that its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane.
Saturday, 13 September 2008
Reassuring children about the world's end
The BBC website, on the 13th of September 2008, talks about how some child have been fearful about the world ending because of the Large Hadron Collider experiment creating black holes. It says,
"What is this experiment about, Daddy, and is it going to blow up the Earth?"That was the question many parents collided with as scientists prepared to flick the switch on the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.
In the run-up to the switch-on on Wednesday, doomsayers predicted the £5bn machine could create a world-ending black hole. One teenager was so terrified, she committed suicide in India.
Educational psychologist Alex Griffiths says hearing that the world might end can be "devastating" for a child of a certain age.
"Their brains are not as well developed and they have little experience of scaremongering to draw from. It also appeals to their imagination."
This experiment has played on children's fears, just as the prospect of nuclear annihilation did during the Cold War, and the swirling rumours about the new millennium.
Mr Griffiths says such scaremongering is unlikely to have any long-term effect on children's mental health.
So to talk about the world ending because of black holes is scaremongering, but talking about the world ending because of man made climate change is not? Children have more to fear from people than from the world ending.
"What is this experiment about, Daddy, and is it going to blow up the Earth?"That was the question many parents collided with as scientists prepared to flick the switch on the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.
In the run-up to the switch-on on Wednesday, doomsayers predicted the £5bn machine could create a world-ending black hole. One teenager was so terrified, she committed suicide in India.
Educational psychologist Alex Griffiths says hearing that the world might end can be "devastating" for a child of a certain age.
"Their brains are not as well developed and they have little experience of scaremongering to draw from. It also appeals to their imagination."
This experiment has played on children's fears, just as the prospect of nuclear annihilation did during the Cold War, and the swirling rumours about the new millennium.
Mr Griffiths says such scaremongering is unlikely to have any long-term effect on children's mental health.
So to talk about the world ending because of black holes is scaremongering, but talking about the world ending because of man made climate change is not? Children have more to fear from people than from the world ending.
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
The Sun Will Eventually Engulf Earth
In Scientific American, on September 8th 2008, there is an article about how the sun will end up engulfing the earth and all life on it, sometime in the future. It says,
The future looks bright—maybe too bright. The sun is slowly expanding and brightening, and over the next few billion years it will eventually desiccate Earth, leaving it hot, brown and uninhabitable. About 7.6 billion years from now, the sun will reach its maximum size as a red giant: its surface will extend beyond Earth’s orbit today by 20 percent and will shine 3,000 times brighter. In its final stage, the sun will collapse into a white dwarf.
Although scientists agree on the sun’s future, they disagree about what will happen to Earth. Since 1924, when British mathematician James Jeans first considered Earth’s fate during the sun’s red giant phase, a bevy of scientists have reached oscillating conclusions. In some scenarios, our planet escapes vaporization; in the latest analyses, however, it does not.
But all is not lost. The article also gives a little message of hope.
Could Earth be saved if someone is still left at home? In a bold piece of astronomical engineering, Don Korycansky of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his colleagues have proposed nudging Earth with a large asteroid arranged to pass nearby periodically. It could take one billion years to move our planet out to somewhere safe, like the orbit of Mars. Our moon, though, might have to be left behind, and any miscalculation could mean extinction. Needless to say, more study is required.
The future looks bright—maybe too bright. The sun is slowly expanding and brightening, and over the next few billion years it will eventually desiccate Earth, leaving it hot, brown and uninhabitable. About 7.6 billion years from now, the sun will reach its maximum size as a red giant: its surface will extend beyond Earth’s orbit today by 20 percent and will shine 3,000 times brighter. In its final stage, the sun will collapse into a white dwarf.
Although scientists agree on the sun’s future, they disagree about what will happen to Earth. Since 1924, when British mathematician James Jeans first considered Earth’s fate during the sun’s red giant phase, a bevy of scientists have reached oscillating conclusions. In some scenarios, our planet escapes vaporization; in the latest analyses, however, it does not.
But all is not lost. The article also gives a little message of hope.
Could Earth be saved if someone is still left at home? In a bold piece of astronomical engineering, Don Korycansky of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his colleagues have proposed nudging Earth with a large asteroid arranged to pass nearby periodically. It could take one billion years to move our planet out to somewhere safe, like the orbit of Mars. Our moon, though, might have to be left behind, and any miscalculation could mean extinction. Needless to say, more study is required.
Monday, 1 September 2008
Legal bid to stop CERN from destroying the world
On the Telegraph website, on the 31st of August 2008, there is an article about a legal bid to haut the CERN particle accelerator from starting up because of the possibility of mini black holes destroying the earth. It says,
Critics of the Large Hadron Collider - a £4.4 billion machine due to be switched on in ten days time – have lodged a lawsuit at the European Court for Human
Rights against the 20 countries, including the UK, that fund the project.
Professor Otto Rössler, a German chemist at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen who is one of the most vocal opponents of the LHC and was one of the scientists who submitted the complaint to the court, said: "CERN itself has admitted that mini black holes could be created when the particles collide, but they don't consider this a risk.
"My own calculations have shown that it is quite plausible that these little black holes survive and will grow exponentially and eat the planet from the inside. I have been calling for CERN to hold a safety conference to prove my conclusions wrong but they have not been willing.
"We submitted this application to the European Court of Human Rights as we do not believe the scientists at CERN are taking all the precautions they should be in order to protect human life."
Professor Rössler claims that, in the worst case scenario, the earth could be sucked inside out within four years of a mini black hole forming.
Critics of the Large Hadron Collider - a £4.4 billion machine due to be switched on in ten days time – have lodged a lawsuit at the European Court for Human
Rights against the 20 countries, including the UK, that fund the project.
Professor Otto Rössler, a German chemist at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen who is one of the most vocal opponents of the LHC and was one of the scientists who submitted the complaint to the court, said: "CERN itself has admitted that mini black holes could be created when the particles collide, but they don't consider this a risk.
"My own calculations have shown that it is quite plausible that these little black holes survive and will grow exponentially and eat the planet from the inside. I have been calling for CERN to hold a safety conference to prove my conclusions wrong but they have not been willing.
"We submitted this application to the European Court of Human Rights as we do not believe the scientists at CERN are taking all the precautions they should be in order to protect human life."
Professor Rössler claims that, in the worst case scenario, the earth could be sucked inside out within four years of a mini black hole forming.
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