Space Turbulence
Thunderstorms in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia could influence storms in the upper atmosphere, according to new data from NASA satellites. The conclusion marks the first time scientists have connected weather patterns between Earth and space. The research may help scientists make forecasts of turbulence in space, which can cause troublesome radio transmissions and data reception from the global positioning satellite.
Last Tuesday, a fireball streaked across the bright afternoon sky in New Zealand, fast enough to make a sonic boom that sent nearby Kiwis into panic. On Wednesday, a farmer found the culprit—a four-by-two-inch piece of "almost weightless" meteorite.
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Russia voted against allowing Madonna to add astronaut to her resume—at least, under its supervision. Although the Material Girl, who expressed a wish to go to the International Space Station, had the support of 52 legislators in the Russian parliament, the motion to launch the pop star was overwhelmingly defeated. Her consolation prize was being proclaimed "under the influence of the devil" by some Orthodox Christians in Russia.
Planetary Matters
From now on, Pluto will be known as minor planet 134340 Pluto, according to a new designation by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center. After a controversial decision last month to demote Pluto from planet to "dwarf planet," the icy orb joins the ranks of the large asteroid Ceres and the distant object UB313. UB313, popularly known as Xena until now, has been given an official name of Eris, after the Greek goddess of discord. The name was "too perfect too resist," said Eris's discoverer Michael Brown, since the object's finding began the controversy that ended in Pluto's being ditched from the hallowed nine.
Equipped with nothing but a 4-inch lens and a digital camera, NASA's Sleuth Telescope has spotted a rare transiting planet some 500 light years away. Transiting planets—those that pass directly in front of a host star—make especially valuable targets for researchers because the starlight behind them yields information about the planet's atmosphere and density. Astronomers are particularly excited that this Jupiter-sized planet lies squarely in the field of view of NASA's Kepler mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2007 and will provide more details about moons and rings circling this faraway world.
According to astronomers at theUniversity of California, Santa Cruz, about 13 billion years ago, the number of bright galaxies in the universe skyrocketed. Analyzing three dark patches of sky with the Hubble Space Telescope, the researchers saw hundreds of bright galaxies about 900 million years after the Big Bang. But looking back 200 million years earlier, they found only a handful. During that timespan, there must have been a lot of small galaxies colliding and merging to form big ones, the scientists concluded. The new finding lends support to an idea known as the hierarchical theory of galaxy formation.
From Climate Change, Civilization
Early human beings formed civilization as a last-ditch effort to survive climate change, a warming which cannot be attributed to their activities. As a result of drier weathernomadic groups had to join in order to efficiently take advantage of scarce natural resources, said British scientist Nick Brooks, who formulated his theory based on his study of a civilization that existed in southwest Libya 3,000 to 5,000 years ago.
Two recent summits have stressed that cooperation from China is necessary to curb greenhouse gas emissions and deter global warming. At the two-day Asia-Europe Meeting in Helsinki, Finland, the 10-member group emphasized that growing Asian nations must start using cleaner fuel and that European countries should move toward promoting energy conservation. China, South Korea, and Indonesia have refused to adopt mandatory emissions caps, complaining that these would prevent economic growth.