Potentially Hazardous Asteroid Zipping by Earth on Close-Approa

Huge asteroid to pass by Earth nearly one year after Chelyabinsk meteorite

Published time: February 17, 2014 23:18

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AFP Photo / Image copyright Mark A. Garlick, space-art.co.uk, The University of Warwick and The University of Cambridge

Potentially Hazardous Asteroid Zipping by Earth on Close-Approa

The space-rock known officially as 2000 EM26 will pass over Earth Monday night at 02:00 GMT February 18 (21:00 EST). Scientists estimated that it is 270 meters (885 feet) in diameter, roughly equivalent to three football fields, and soaring through the stars at a whopping 12.37 km/s (27,000 mph).A massive asteroid is scheduled to make its way past Earth Monday night. Scientists advise it will not make contact with our planet, while amateur astronomers will be able to watch its flight online.

Observers can watch the flight live at either Space.com or below, where a video is embedded from the website for Slooh Observatory Command Center.

At its closest point, the asteroid will be approximately 8.8 lunar distances from the Earth’s surface. One lunar distance is roughly 383,022.92 kilometers (238,000 miles), meaning asteroid 2000 EM26 will be a mere 3,370,601.696 kilometers (2,094,400 miles) away.

“We continue to discover these potentially hazardous asteroids – sometimes only days before they make their close approaches to Earth,” wrote Slooh’s technical and researcher Paul Cox in a statement Monday. “Slooh’s asteroid research campaign is gathering momentum with Slooh members using the Slooh robotic telescopes to monitor this huge population of potentially hazardous space rocks. We need to find them before they find us!”

Coincidentally, the fly-by comes almost one year to the day after a much smaller asteroid exploded in the sky above Chelyabinsk, Russia. The 65-foot rock exploded 18 miles above the ground, but Slooh officials said the energy released was equivalent to 20 atom bomb explosions. The concussion alone was enough to damage thousands of buildings and leave more than 1,000 injured by broken glass.

Another astrological event from 1908 lives on in myth as much as it does in science books. What is thought to have been an asteroid or comet exploded in the air above the Podkamennaya Tunguska River near what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai in the Siberian region of Russia.

The blast is classified as the largest impact event on or near Earth in recorded history and its mysterious cause has partly contributed to the massive number of research papers, over 1,000, to focus on the event.

“On a practical level, previously-unknown, undiscovered asteroid seems to hit our planet and cause damage or injury once a century or so, as we witnessed on June 20, 1908 and February 15, 2013,” astronomer Bob Berman told Slooh.

“Every few centuries, an even more massive asteroid strikes us – fortunately usually impacting in an ocean or wasteland such as Antarctica. But the ongoing threat, and the fact that biosphere-altering events remain a real if small annual possibility, suggests that discovering and tracking all [near Earth objects], as well as setting up contingency plans for deflecting them on short notice should the need arise, would be a wise use of resources.”

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“Gob-Smackingly Huge” Jellyfish Washes Up in Australia

Australia’s largest jellyfish was found on the shores of a beach in Tasmania. (Photograph by Richard Lim)

A regular day at the beach led to a surprising scientific discovery for one family in Australia last month—local resident Richard Lim and his family spotted a shockingly large jellyfish at a beach in Howden, a small town in Tasmania.

The family did what anyone would do—take photos, of course—but they also shared the images withLisa-ann Gershwin, a research scientist and jellyfish expert at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency.

Gershwin’s first reaction upon seeing the photos? Pure shock, despite the fact that she’d already known about the new species.

“I had seen what I thought were large specimens, but now we know they are practically babies in comparison,” she said. “In my 20-plus years of working with jellyfish, it is the largest jellyfish I have seen. It really is gob-smackingly huge.”

Classifying the Creature

The world’s largest known jellyfish is Cyanea arctica, and it can grow to 3 meters across the bell, the central body of the jellyfish. Gershwin said the newfound specimen should also belong to the Cyaneagenus, which is called a lion’s mane jellyfish or a “snottie” thanks to its extremely slimy disposition.

This particular jellyfish is still new to science, however. “It belongs to a species that isn’t yet named and classified,” Gershwin said. “It has structural features that make it distinct from other species of lion’s manes.” (Related: “For a Nearly Hundred-foot-long Jellyfish, It’s Christmas All Year.”)

While there’s little doubt that this jellyfish is Australia’s largest, the researchers do not have an exact measurement for it because the bell is buried under the milky substance otherwise known as “oral arms” used for feeding and reproduction.

But when it comes to the sting factor for this specimen, Gershwin said its stings are painful, but not life threatening. She also added that while you could be well away from it in the water, you may still feel its stings—lion’s mane jellyfish tend to fragment when they get beached, leaving lots of “microscopic stingy bits” in the surrounding water. (Related: “Should Marathon Swimmers Suit Up Against Jellies?“)

Doing Better Science

In the last two months, southern Tasmania has experienced a jellyfish bloom that Gershwin said is unprecedented for the area—much bigger, denser, and longer than previous years. The researchers at CSIRO are working to determine what effect it is having on the ecosystem and whether or not this is an indicator that something may be out of balance.

The jellyfish in the photo washed back into the water with the next tide, but Gershwin is still working to learn more about the new species by studying a smaller preserved specimen. “About a month ago, I was able to finally get photos and specimens of this species, so that gave me the opportunity to study it and confirm that it’s new to science. Then this photo comes to me that is clearly the same species, but a whole lot bigger than I imagined it might get,” she said.

“It simply is a spectacular find, and I applaud the Lim family for going to the trouble to take the photo and send to it to us for ID. It’s a great example of the curious public helping scientists do better science.”

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Proton M Rocket

Δημοσιεύθηκε στις 14 Φεβ 2014

Russia's commercial workhorse rocket opens this year's space deliveries with the launch of a Turkish communications satellite. A Proton-M/Briz-M launch vehicle lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome's Pad 24 at Site 81 on February 15, 2014, at 01:09:03Moscow Time. The rocket is carrying the 4,850-kilogram Turksat-4A communications satellite. The first, second and third stages of the launch vehicle were to use a standard ascent profile to place the payload section including Briz-M upper stage and the Turksat-4A satellite into a sub-orbital trajectory. Briz-M will then perform five engine firings to advance the orbital unit first to a circular parking orbit, then to an intermediate orbit, followed by a transfer orbit, and, finally, to a geostationary transfer orbit. Separation of the Turksat-4A satellite is scheduled to occur approximately 9 hours, 13 minutes after liftoff at a 9,673 by 35,786-kilometer orbit with an inclination 12.7 degrees toward the Equator. The satellite will later use its own propulsion system to enter a geostationary orbit 36,000 kilometers above the Equator.

Paleontologists Discover Oldest Feathered Dinosaur "Archaeopteryx"

The first Archaeopteryx fossils were discovered in the 1860s

A Jurassic fossil that had been languishing in the archives of a Chinese museum may qualify as the first known bird, researchers say. If they are right, it could mean that flight evolved in dinosaurs only once, in the lineage that led to modern birds.

The half-metre tall Aurornis xui, which
lived in China 150 million years ago,
is believed to be the earliest known
member of the bird family tree.

Artist's impression by Masato Hattori

The single specimen of Aurornis xui was unearthed by a farmer in China's Liaoning Province and had been unidentified until palaeontologist Pascal Godefroit found it last year in the museum at the Fossil and Geology Park in Yizhou.

The specimen measures about half a metre from the tip of its beak to the end of its tail. The feathered
dinosaur, which lived about 150 million years ago, had small, sharp teeth. It also had long forelimbs that presumably helped it to glide through Jurassic forests.

“In my opinion, it's a bird,” says Godefroit, who is at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels. “But these sorts of hypotheses are very controversial. We’re at the origins of a group. The differences between birds and [non-avian] dinosaurs are very thin.” Godefroit and his colleagues describe the fossil in a paper published on Nature's website today.

Godefroit says that Aurornis probably couldn’t fly, but that it's hard to be sure because the feathers of the fossil are not well-preserved. Instead, he says, it probably used its wings to glide from tree to tree. But, Godefroit says, several features, including its hip bones, clearly mark it out as a relative of modern birds.

Evolutionary flight path

The Aurornis specimen had lain unidentified in
a Chinese museum's archives until it was
found by a palaeontologist last year.

Thierry Hubin/IRSNB

 The once sharp line between dinosaurs and birds has become blurrier in recent years as new feathered

Godefroit and his colleagues contend that Aurornis is the oldest known member of the Avialae, the group that includes every animal that is more closely related to modern birds than to non-avian dinosaurs such as Velociraptor. With Aurornis rooted at the base of the avian tree, the researchers place Archaeopteryx further up the trunk, firmly within the Avialae lineage, and not with the non-avian dinosaurs as other researchers recently suggested.

Godefroit notes that putting Archaeopteryx back within the bird lineage means that powered flight need have evolved only once among birds and dinosaurs. If Archaeopteryx, with its relatively well-developed wings, was more closely related to Velociraptor than to birds, powered flight would have had to evolve twice.
fossils have surfaced in China. Godefroit sees a clear continuum from Aurornis to the more advanced Archaeopteryx, whose own place on the avian family tree has long been a matter of controversy.

Not everyone is convinced of Aurornis’s primacy. Luis Chiappe, director of the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles in California, believes that Archaeopteryx is still the oldest known creature that deserves the title of 'bird'. Aurornis, he says, “is something that’s very close to the origin of birds, but it’s not a bird”. But, he adds, it is a “great, interesting specimen that pushes our understanding of the evolution of birds back another 10 million years”.

Godefroit says that such institutions such as the museum in Yizhou hold hundreds of yet-to-be described specimens that could further illuminate the picture of avian evolution. “The biodiversity of these small, bird-like dinosaurs was incredible,” he says.

Read more : http://www.geologypage.com/2013/05/paleontologists-discover-oldest.html#ixzz2tNb5OpAh
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'Termite' swarm drones, US Army's smart rifle and China rover isn't dead...

This week on 90 Second Science, we kick off with the unveiling of a swarm of termite inspired drones by Harvard University. The robots operate as a swarm, using their environment and a very basic design plan to work together to build huge, complex structures without any human help. Next, we look at the US Army's field testing of the TrackingPoint smart scope, which stops a rifle from firing unless it will definitely hit a marked out target. Finally, to the moon, where China's Jade Rabbit rover might not be as dead as we first thought.