Replies to post #216109 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Why is everyone so angry about generating energy?

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"The scramble for energy .. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22455024 .. [the article below is the top one in that link, inside "Energy: What's the least worst option?], exacerbated by Chinese growth, is bound to throw up further controversy in the coming year. Russia's arrest of Greenpeace activists and Ed Miliband's pledge to freeze energy prices are both reflections of mounting tension over the future of fuel." .. your first link .. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25301485 .. England's situation is similar in obvious ways to some of all of ours ..
~~~

VIDEO - What is the least worst option? David Shukman investigates

More from David

A deep sea mission of genuine exploration .. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21559029

Legacy of Britain's great flood .. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21258341

Can UK science navigate around the Valley of Death .. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21187610

Is graphene really a wonder-material? .. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21014297

Britain faces difficult choices about its future energy supplies yet every proposal meets strenuous, sometimes hostile, objections. For The Editors, a programme that sets out to ask challenging questions, I wanted to find out why everyone was so angry about energy.

Propose a new wind farm for some beautiful uplands one morning and you can guarantee a protest group furious at the ruined views will have formed by the afternoon.

Suggest that we extract gas by fracturing a layer of deep shale and you can be sure celebrities will be superglued to the drilling rig before you have finished speaking.

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Find out more


David Shukman examines the nuclear option

BBC News: The Editors features the BBC's on-air specialists asking questions which reveal deeper truths about their areas of expertise. Watch it at 23:20 GMT on Monday 25 November on BBC One (except in Wales or Northern Ireland) or later on iPlayer.

The Editors .. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rnbq6
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Energy: What's the least worst option? .. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24985531

Want to burn more coal because it's cheap?

You'll have climate scientists warning of the consequences and direct action campaigners reaching for the climbing kit.

And the merest hint that nuclear might be a good idea will trigger complaints about the cost and placards bearing images of Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Everyone is angry about energy, and I am not talking about the fury sparked by the prices charged by the Big Six.

So why is the generating of electricity attracting such heat?

One answer is geography.


Oil drilling in the Sussex village of Balcombe triggered protests by people fearing the consequences of fracking

Originally our mains power came from stations burning coal close to where the electricity was needed - in our cities.

Then, as the National Grid spread its network of pylons across the country, the old Central Electricity Generating Board opted to stick the biggest plants close to the coal mines.

Hence the giant power stations in Yorkshire, among others.

Later, the government of Margaret Thatcher launched a "dash for gas" to capitalise on home-produced fuel from the North Sea and to weaken the stranglehold of the miners' unions.


Many people feel wind turbines, like these within view of Stirling Castle, are a blot on the landscape

The result was that Britain built up a mix of electricity, from power stations burning coal and gas with nuclear plants providing the rest, mostly in coastal locations close to abundant water and far from conurbations.

But suddenly the business of making electricity and extracting fuel is barging into areas that have previously been spared it.

Quiet fields everywhere from Lancashire to Sussex lie above potentially rich reserves of oil and gas.

Hills made famous by Thomas Hardy and landscapes portrayed by Turner are ideally windy for massive turbines.

No wonder the banners are out in force.

So energy is threatening to become a feature of regions that are used to receiving it rather than making it, and that's throwing up some interesting challenges and contradictions.

The conservation director of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, Gary Smith, is convinced climate change is a serious threat and renewable power is an important part of the solution.

He likes wind energy in principle and admits windswept uplands like the Dales would - in a purely technical sense - be ideal for rows of turbines.

But he's steadfastly opposed to them.

"As a society we need more energy," he tells me as a stiff breeze buffets us near the beauty spot of Malham Cove, "and climate change feels like it's happening but that doesn't merit putting up massive wind farms here and ruining some of the country's biggest treasures.

"Commercial developers would think this is a cracking place for a wind farm but the price would be too high - there are plenty of other places where you can put them."

So if wind turbines are regarded as scenery wreckers, what about the more traditional route of a fuel that powered the Industrial Revolution?

Coal provides about 40% of the country's electricity, a remarkably high proportion given the government's commitment to be the greenest ever.

At the moment coal is cheap, partly because it is plentiful and partly because US power stations are switching to much cheaper shale gas. The downside is that it gives off more carbon dioxide than any other form of fuel, so burning too much of it would make it impossible for Britain to meet its targets for cutting emissions.


The Drax power station in North Yorkshire

At Drax in North Yorkshire, the vast towers of the country's biggest power generator - and biggest carbon emitter - loom over the flat landscape but they are no longer alone: flanking them is a new line of wind turbines.

Phil Garner, spokesman for CoalPro, the UK coal producers, says: "Wind has its place - I'm not against it. But in the last 12 months this wind farm produced less than 1% of the electricity generated by Drax.

"Drax is chucking out a load of carbon dioxide but equally it's also producing a lot of affordable electricity and, if it wasn't there, the electricity would be from far more expensive forms."

His solution is to keep open coal stations currently slated to close and to build new more efficient ones that could eventually trap the carbon dioxide, though he accepts that technology is a long way off.

So if coal is cheap but too polluting and wind is seen as an intermittent eyesore, what about the nuclear option?

It is low-carbon but also relatively expensive and strenuously opposed by environmental groups.

Behind a carefully guarded security fence at Harwell in Oxfordshire stands all that is left of Britain's days in the 1950s as a pioneer of nuclear power.

A heavy steel door leads into one of the old reactor buildings. The nuclear fuel has long since gone and a Geiger counter registers no radiation.

Green activist Mark Lynas says: "If you want to deal with climate change, then you have to generate large amounts of zero-carbon power and while I want a massive expansion of renewables, they can't provide what you need when there's no wind and at night."


David Cameron unveiled plans for a new nuclear power station in Somerset recently

He was opposed to nuclear power for years but was then suddenly converted.

Mr Lynas says: "People are against everything these days - the only acceptable form of energy is magic. People are 'Nimby-istic', if that's a word, but if I had to have power generation close to me I'd prefer nuclear to coal or gas."

Gas is one of the government's great hopes, not so much imported as produced by fracturing shale rock .. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14432401 .. here in this country.

But fracking has produced yet another wave of opposition, and in Downing Street I met protesters who had travelled to deliver a petition to the prime minister.

Kathryn McWhirter, who helped set up an anti-fracking group in Balcombe in Sussex, says she would prefer wind turbines around her village.

But Andrew Pemberton, a farmer from Lancashire worried about drilling pollution affecting his herd's milk, is not keen on wind, and he is not happy about nuclear or coal.

But to keep the lights on and a lid on energy bills and at the same time do something about carbon emissions, the country is going to need some very big energy projects - and very soon.

They have to go somewhere and, whichever type of power you choose, it is going to make someone angry.

BBC News: The Editors features the BBC's on-air specialists asking questions which reveal deeper truths about their areas of expertise. Watch it at 23:20 GMT on Monday 25 November on BBC One (except in Wales or Northern Ireland) or later on the BBC iPlayer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24985531

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Rise and shine Rosetta! Comet-hunting spacecraft gets wake-up call

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excerpt from your first link

"There is little doubt in my mind where the excitement is going to come from in 2014 in the realm of space exploration. It is Europe's Rosetta mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It is 10 years since the Esa probe was dispatched to rendezvous with the 4km-wide hunk of ice, but the long engagement is very nearly over and the marriage ceremony is about to begin.

Rosetta will be woken from hibernation on 20 January. And after a period of instrument check-out and some rendezvous manoeuvres, the spacecraft should find itself in the vicinity of 67P in August. Mapping and remote-sensing will then be followed by an audacious attempt to put a lander, called Philae, on the comet's surface in November."
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Arist rendering of the Rosetta spacecraft deploying the Philae lander to Comet 67P/
Churyumov-Gerasimenko. (European Space Agency / January 20, 2014)


Supernova dust factory seen at last; may explain early galaxy formation
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-supernova-dust-seen-20140106,0,6334031.story


Hubble harnesses gravity to find dim, ancient galaxies near big bang
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-hubble-distant-galaxy-early-universe-spitzer-nasa-20140108,0,5532721.story


NASA gets some funding for Mars 2020 rover in federal spending bill
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-federal-spending-omnibus-bill-nasa-congress-65-million-mars-2020-mission-20140115,0,7107985.story


The California drought as seen from the edge of space [Photos]
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-california-drought-edge-of-space-20140116,0,1603595.story

By Monte Morin
January 20, 2014, 3:17 p.m.

After 31 months of electronic slumber, the Rosetta spacecraft awoke to a pre-programmed alarm Monday and signaled anxious ground controllers that it had indeed woken up on schedule.

"This was one alarm clock not to hit snooze on," said Fred Jansen, manager of the European Space Agency .. http://www.esa.int/ESA 's Rosetta mission. "After a tense day we are absolutely delighted to have our spacecraft awake and back online." (Watch an animated video of the wake-up sequence here.)

PHOTOS: Amazing images from space
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-amazing-photos-from-the-hubble-space-telescope-20130405,0,5356652.photogallery

Rosetta and its on-board lander, Philae, are scheduled to become the first-ever probes to attempt a landing on the surface of a comet this November. The probe, which was launched 10 years ago, is pursuing Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

ESA controllers in Darmstadt, Germany, shut down nearly all of the spacecraft's systems in June 2011 because it had traveled so far from the sun that its solar array was unable to generate all the power it required. A pre-programmed "alarm clock" reactivated the spacecraft on Monday however, after its orbit brought it closer to the sun.

"After warming up its key navigation instruments, coming out of a stabilizing spin, and aiming its main radio antenna at Earth, Rosetta sent a signal to let mission operators know it had survived the most distant part of its journey," the ESA said in a press release.

That signal was received by NASA's Goldstone ground station, in California's Mojave Desert, at 10:18 a.m. PST, as well as the Canberra, Australia, ground station. (The ground stations are part of the Deep Space Network .. http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-nasas-deep-space-network-dont-leave-earth-without-it-20131220,0,6175137.story , which is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory .. http://www.latimes.com/topic/science-technology/space-programs/nasa-ORGOV000098.topic .. in La Canada Flintridge. The DSN's third station is located in Madrid, Spain.)

Rosetta remains more than 5 million miles from its quarry, and is not expected to rendezvous with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko until August. At that point it will begin mapping the comet's surface, measuring its gravity and analyzing its coma -- the cloud of gas and debris that surrounds a comet as it travels near the sun.

Then, in mid-November, the spacecraft will disgorge the Philae lander, which will secure itself to the surface of the comet with screws and harpoons. Once in place, Philae will drill into the comet and study its composition.

Aster kometes, or "long-haired stars" as the Greeks called them, have long captured the public's imagination. It's only recently however that scientists have begun to understand their origins and composition.

Often described as "dirty snowballs," comets are leftover debris from the formation of the solar system, according to scientists, and likely "seeded" earth with water. Others speculate that they may have delivered the basic ingredients for life.

"All other comet missions have been flybys, capturing fleeting moments in the life of these icy treasure chests," said Matt Taylor, a Rosetta project scientist, in a press release.

"With Rosetta, we will track the evolution of a comet on a daily basis ... for over a year, giving us a unique insight into a comet's behavior and ultimately helping us to decipher their role in the formation of the solar system," he said.

ALSO:

Jury is out on health effects of e-cigarettes
http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-e-cigarettes-science-20140117,0,7562029.story

The California drought as seen from the edge of space [Photos]
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-california-drought-edge-of-space-20140116,0,1603595.story

Scientists strap cameras to alligator backs to study hunting habits
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-crittercam-florida-alligator-camera-crocodilian-hunting-20140116,0,1072389.story

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-rosetta-comet-probe-20140120,0,7672325.story#axzz2qziEoPpK

[fuagf]

Rosetta -- the story so far

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ROSETTA SETS SIGHTS ON DESTINATION COMET


Rosetta’s first sighting of its target in 2014 – narrow angle view

27 March 2014

ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has caught a first glimpse of its destination comet since waking up from deep-space hibernation on 20 January.

These two ‘first light’ images were taken on 20 and 21 March by the OSIRIS wide-angle camera and narrow-angle camera, as part of six weeks of activities dedicated to preparing the spacecraft’s science instruments for close-up study of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

OSIRIS, the Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System, developed under the leadership of the Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung in Göttingen, Germany, has two cameras for imaging the comet. One covers a wide angle, while the narrow-angle camera covers a smaller field at higher resolution.


Rosetta’s first sighting of its target in 2014 – wide angle view

OSIRIS is one of a suite of 11 science instruments on the Rosetta orbiter that together will provide details on the comet’s surface geology, its gravity, mass, shape and internal structure, its gaseous, dust-laden atmosphere and its plasma environment.

Rosetta has been travelling through the Solar System for 10 years, and will finally arrive at the comet in August this year. It first imaged the comet .. http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2011/06/Remarkable_images_Rosetta_s_first_view_of_Comet_67-P_March_2011 .. in a long exposure ­of over 13 hours from a distance of 163 million kilometres, three years ago, before entering deep-space hibernation.

Rosetta is currently around 5 million kilometres from the comet, and at this distance it is still too far away to resolve – its light is seen in less than a pixel and required a series of 60–300 second exposures taken with the wide-angle and narrow-angle camera. The data then travelled 37 minutes through space to reach Earth, with the download taking about an hour per image.

“Finally seeing our target after a 10 year journey through space is an incredible feeling,” says OSIRIS Principal Investigator Holger Sierks from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany. “These first images taken from such a huge distance show us that OSIRIS is ready for the upcoming adventure.”

“This is a great start to our instrument commissioning period and we are looking forward to having all 11 instruments plus lander Philae back online and ready for arriving at the comet in just a few month’s time,” says Matt Taylor, ESA’s Rosetta project scientist.

VIDEO: When can we see the comet?

more .. http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_sets_sights_on_destination_comet

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Tomorrow’s Super-Soldiers Will Wear Night Vision Contact Lenses

By Allen McDuffee
04.01.14 | 6:30 am |


The ideal crystalline structure of graphene is a hexagonal grid. Image: Wikimedia Commons

As the Pentagon continues to build a lighter, faster and stronger soldier .. http://www.wired.com/2013/10/ironman/ .. of the future, new technology that could provide night vision without bulky goggles has caught the Army’s eye.

Researchers at the University of Michigan, Ted Norris and Zhaohui Zhong, have created a super-thin infrared light sensor using graphene — an atom-thin material related to graphite — that could be layered onto contact lenses. Graphene absorbs infrared rays and translates them into an electrical signal, in a similar fashion to how silicon chips work with visible light in a digital camera.

The team of engineers and computer scientists placed an insulating layer between two graphene layers and then added electric current. When infrared light hits the layered product, its electrical reaction is amplified strongly enough to be converted into a visible image.

“If we integrate it with a contact lens or other wearable electronics, it expands your vision,” said .. http://www.engin.umich.edu/college/about/news/stories/2014/march/infrared-detector .. Zhong. “It provides you another way of interacting with your environment.”

Night vision contacts are still years away — the research needs to produce greater light sensitivity, as well as the ability to work in a broader range of temperatures.

To move the project forward, Norris and Zhong say they need commercial or governmental partners beyond the initial support that came from the National Science Foundation. They say that the technology could have widespread application, including smartphone cameras for photos in the dark and car windshields to enhance nighttime driving.

In 2011, some speculated that “cat vision .. http://kitup.military.com/2011/06/hi-tech-night-vision-on-bin-laden-raid.html ” contact lenses were used by the Navy Seals in the Osama bin Laden raid.

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/night-vision-contact-lenses/

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High carbon dioxide levels set a record

May 1, 2014
http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/High-carbon-dioxide-levels-set-a-record-5443592.php [with comments]


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Carbon Dioxide Levels in Atmosphere Reach Terrifying New Milestone
Keeling_Curve
@Keeling_curve
And another first: April 2014 average CO2 value was 401.33, the first monthly average over #400ppm in human history. #globalwarming
11:11 AM - 1 May 2014 [

And another first: April 2014 average CO2 value was 401.33, the first monthly average over #400ppm in human history. #globalwarming

— Keeling_Curve (@Keeling_curve) May 1, 2014

]


May 1 2014
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/05/01/mauna_loa_atmosphere_measurements_carbon_dioxide_levels_above_400_ppm_throughout.html [with comments]


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Carbon Dioxide Levels Rocketed to an Apex in April — and It's Not Stopping

May 3, 2014
http://mashable.com/2014/05/02/april-2014-highest-co2-levels/ [with comments]


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[F6]

Let Slip the Dolphins of War


Kris Mukai

By PHILIP HOARE
MAY 4, 2014

SOUTHAMPTON, England — Fifty years ago, at the New York World’s Fair in 1964, the science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke spoke [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT_8-pjuctM ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XosYXxwFPkg (next below)]

of things to come. He foresaw a 21st century that would witness “the development of intelligent and useful servants among the other animals on this planet, particularly the great apes and, in the oceans, the dolphins and whales.” Clarke saw this as a way of solving “the servant problem,” although he also imagined that the animals would form labor unions, “and we’d be right back where we started.”

I thought of Clarke when I read recent reports [ http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/04/russian-and-american-military-dolphins-might-face-off-this-summer/360973/ ] of the military employment of dolphins in a Cold War-style face-off of cetaceans near Crimea. According to the Russian newspaper Izvestia [ http://izvestia.ru/news/569579 ], marine mammals trained by the United States will take part in exercises in the waters of the Black Sea where their counterparts in the Russian Navy already swim.

In fact, the military was already researching dolphins even before Clarke made his prophecies. As D. Graham Burnett, a professor of the history of science at Princeton, points out in “The Sounding of the Whale: Science and Cetaceans in the 20th Century [ http://www.amazon.com/The-Sounding-Whale-Cetaceans-Twentieth/dp/0226081303 ; http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo9845648.html ],” the United States Navy has run a once-classified marine mammal program since 1960.

Dolphins, orcas and beluga and pilot whales have all been investigated for their military usefulness. According to the Navy’s website [ http://www.public.navy.mil/spawar/Pacific/71500/Pages/default.aspx ], dolphins are trained to locate mines “so they can be removed or avoided.” Dolphins were deployed [ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/03/0328_030328_wardolphins.html ] in both the Persian Gulf wars on such tours of duty, flown in and out on aircraft, like cetacean Marines. They were used [ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/uncle-sams-dolphins-89811585/ ] in the 2003 invasion of Iraq to locate mines in Umm Qasr’s harbor.

There have been rumors that cetaceans have also been employed as dolphin drones, remote deliverers of death. During the Vietnam War, it was claimed that dolphins were used in lethal “swimmer nullification programs,” their beaks fitted with needles to deliver fatal injections of carbon dioxide gas to Vietcong divers. The Navy denies [ http://www.public.navy.mil/spawar/Pacific/71500/Pages/faqs.aspx ] the stories.

Dr. Burnett notes [ http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203550304577138690517618880 ] that the use of cetaceans, imagined and otherwise, in acts of warfare fed the “countercultural tensions” that surrounded cetaceans during the 1960s and ’70s, contributing to the way they became the “totemic organisms of peaceniks, freaks, and ecoterrorists.” He also points out that the most notorious name in dolphin studies — John C. Lilly, who proposed that the marine mammals spoke “dolphinese,” and experimented by dosing them with LSD — drew on research done by the Navy for much of his controversial work.

We humans, it seems, can’t leave the natural world alone. Assuming our biblical rights of dominion, we must reshape the world in our image. So, on one hand, whales and dolphins can be sleek and cute, the stuff of Flipper and Free Willy. On the other, their intelligence can be used to do our dirty work. If man may be venal and warlike, so, too, must be his animal servants.

There’s a delicate moral dilemma here. We know that these are intelligent animals, with advanced social skills. Bottlenose dolphins have signature whistles that act as “names.” Dolphins can use their sonar to read one another’s physical states and, possibly, emotional moods. Some dolphins and larger whales possess [ http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10661-whales-boast-the-brain-cells-that-make-us-human.html ] spindle neurons, specialized brain cells found elsewhere only in great apes, elephants and humans, creating the capacity for empathy and self-awareness — and, perhaps, the ability to feel love and loss.

Scientists posit that cetaceans exhibit moral behavior and have a collective sense of one another’s individuality. And as the esteemed scientists Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell describe in their forthcoming book, “The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins [ http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Lives-Whales-Dolphins/dp/0226895319 ; http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo12789830.html ],” they may be said to possess culture as a result of longstanding social skills, passed down through generations. In their apparently carefree lives, cetaceans appeal to us in our less buoyant existence. Their supposed benevolence is part of our culture, in myths from ancient Greece and from the Haida and Maori people, up to present-day stories of dolphins protecting [ http://www.travelerstoday.com/articles/9655/20140428/dolphins-saving-swimmer-shark-cook-strait-new-zealand-video-watch.htm ] humans from sharks.

Yet dolphins can be as mindlessly violent as humans. In 2011, I attended the dissection of a harbor porpoise at the Zoological Society of London. The four-foot-long animal looked untouched as it lay on the stainless-steel slab. But as the scientist, Rob Deaville, sliced open the carcass with the skill of a sushi chef, he revealed that its body cavity was flooded with blood.

One side of its rib cage had been smashed, the liver torn in two. The event took on the air of a “C.S.I.” episode, as Mr. Deaville announced the cause of death: butting by a bottlenose dolphin.

Cute Flipper? Cute killer, more like. Other dolphins have been known to take part in sex parties. Caught up in a superpod off New Zealand, I’ve seen dusky dolphins (a southern hemisphere species) mating up to three times in five minutes. Bottlenose dolphins have been filmed appearing to get high after sucking [ http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/5495/20140102/dolphins-use-puffer-fish-toxin-achieve-trance-state-video.htm ] on the toxins of puffer fish.

Many ethicists and environmentalists question the morality of keeping cetaceans in captivity. But if we accept cavorting orcas and dolphins at SeaWorld, then why not working dolphins in the Navy?

In his book, “In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier [ http://www.amazon.com/In-Defense-Dolphins-Moral-Frontier/dp/1405157798 ],” Thomas I. White, a professor of business ethics at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, writes that “the military use of dolphins is just as ethically questionable as any other captive program.” To Dr. White, as to some other forward-thinking ethicists and scientists [ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-17116882 ], dolphins are sentient beings, due the rights of a “nonhuman person.” We accept the servitude of domesticated animals, from seeing-eye dogs to horses in Central Park, but don’t cetaceans and apes, by their very genetic closeness to us, demand greater respect — as well as freedom from Arthur C. Clarke’s prospective slavery?

Our objections to the use of dolphins in war may be sentimental, because we project idealized notions of placidity on their perennially smiling faces. We are imposing our own values, good and bad, on wild animals. But if we apprehend that dolphins are moral beings, then might they themselves object to being weapons of war? Perhaps we need to work on our dolphinese.

Philip Hoare [ http://www.philiphoare.co.uk/ ], a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of Southampton in Britain, is the author of “Leviathan or, The Whale [ http://www.amazon.com/Leviathan-Philip-Hoare/dp/0007230141 ]” and, most recently, of “The Sea Inside [ http://www.mhpbooks.com/books/the-sea-inside/ ; http://www.amazon.com/The-Sea-Inside-Philip-Hoare/dp/0007412118 ].”

© 2014 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/opinion/let-slip-the-dolphins-of-war.html

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[fuagf]

Rosetta spacecraft set to rendezvous with rubber-duck comet

European probe due to catch up with oddly-shaped comet 67P/CG on
Wednesday and prepare to make history by going into orbit around it

Ian Sample, science editor
The Guardian, Wednesday 6 August 2014 04.12 AEST
Jump to comments (38)


Artist’s impression of Rosetta approaching comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Photograph: Spacecraft: ESA/ATG medialab/PA

With a gentle kick from its onboard thrusters, a European spacecraft will arrive at a speeding comet on Wednesday morning and prepare for a spectacular first in space history.

Planned for 10am BST (0900 GMT), the seven-minute burn should bring the €1bn Rosetta .. http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/ .. probe to within 100km of the strangely-shaped comet which is tearing through space at up to 135,000km/h.

The comet is so far from Earth that mission controllers at the European Space Agency (ESA) will have to wait half an hour before they receive any signal back that the manoeuvre has worked. For those who have devoted much of their careers to the mission, the pause will not be pleasant.

“It’s the first time we have ever done this,” said Matt Taylor .. https://rosetta.jpl.nasa.gov/matt-taylor , a project scientist on Rosetta at ESA in the Netherlands. “Even the smallest manoeuvre can go wrong. Nothing is straightforward in spaceflight.”

The Rosetta probe launched from French Guiana more than 10 years ago .. http://sci.esa.int/where_is_rosetta/ .. on a mission to chase down comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, known to some space researchers as “Chury” for short.

67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko [ .. orbits and chase interactive inside.. ]
is a comet that comes
around every
6.45 years


But catching up with the comet is merely the end of the beginning of the mission .. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/20/rosetta-comet-chasing-spacecraft-wakes-up . In coming weeks, Rosetta will become the first spacecraft in history to go into orbit around a comet and, on 11 November, drop a lander on to the surface. The gravitational pull of the Mont Blanc-sized comet is so weak that the lander, Philae, must attach itself with an explosive harpoon.

With Philae latched on and Rosetta circling above, the mission will give scientists their first close observations of a comet as it streaks towards the sun and becomes active. As the solar radiation rises, the comet will start billowing hundreds of kilos of dust and gas that could grow into a spectacular tail more than one million kilometres long.

Images taken by Rosetta’s cameras have already shown that the landing might be trickier than mission controllers had hoped. The comet appears to be two space rocks stuck together. With one lump smaller than the other, the comet looks like an enormous rubber duck .. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jul/24/spacewatch-rubber-duck-comet-view .

Rosetta will spend August flying around the comet in a triangular orbit to give scientists time to map the terrain, and the shape and strength of its gravitational field. Armed with those details, Rosetta will then move closer, to within 30km of the surface, and settle into a more conventional circular orbit.

“The time pressure at the moment is phenomenal. It’s a race against the clock to learn about the comet and select a landing site. We have to land before the comet becomes too active,” said Taylor. “We’ll get an inference of what’s possible in September, but we won’t want to land near the neck of these two parts of the comet. We need the best communications with the orbiter and also to maximise the sunlight the lander receives to give it the best chance to survive as long as possible.”

Once in orbit, instruments on board the spacecraft will start collecting and analysing dust and gas coming off the comet. If Philae lands safely in November, it will relay measurements from its own suite of instruments back to the mother ship. While the electronics on Philae will likely die as the comet swings around the sun, the little lander may cling on for several laps around the sun before it loses its grip and falls off.



Comets formed from debris left over from the early solar system around 4.6 billion years ago. By studying the composition of Churyumov-Gerasimenko, scientists hope to learn more about how Earth and the other planets in the solar system came to be.

The comet swings past the sun at a distance of 185 million kilometres before heading out to 800 million kilometres in the deeper reaches of the solar system.

“The reason we look at comets is that they were there right at the beginning. Lea[r]ning about them gives us an idea of where Earth came from and where the whole solar system came from, what that primordial material at the beginning of the solar system was made up of,” said Taylor.

One of the main instruments on the lander was built by researchers at the Open University in Milton Keynes and the Rutherford Appleton laboratory near Didcot. Called Ptolemy .. http://ptolemy.open.ac.uk/frames.htm , it will take samples drilled from the comet and bake them at different temperatures. By analysing the gases given off, researchers can build up a picture of the comet’s composition.

Measurements from Ptolemy might shed light on whether Earth originally formed as a dry planet that was seeded with water and organic molecules carried by comets that slammed into the planet.

“It’s fair to say everyone was a bit gobsmacked when they first saw these images coming back of the comet’s nucleus. The scientists are saying which bit do we want to land on, and the engineers are saying, blimey, how will its shape affect the gravitational field?” said Simeon Barber, project manager for the Ptolemy instrument at the Open University.

“At the end of the day we just want a safe landing. We’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

Hermann Böhnhardt, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Lindau and lead scientist on the Philae lander, said information from Rosetta’s sensors will help the team to select the best landing site in the coming weeks. So little is known about the comet’s makeup that Philae’s harpoon was designed to penetrate a surface as hard as a table or as soft as snow.

“The nucleus shape came as a surprise and, of course, it has implications for the landing site selection,” he said. “Apart from the shape itself, also the gravity field, the nucleus rotation, the activity and illumination of the surface play important roles and, on top of all, scientific criteria related with physical properties of the nucleus and its surface layers.”

The European Space Agency is live-streaming the final burn that will rendezvous Rosetta with the comet on Wednesday.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/aug/05/rosetta-spacecraft-rendezvous-rubber-duck-comet

.. all this money and time spent in search of what? why? when?, all that stuff .. when it's
really all so unnecessary if ya KNOW it all was created by God .. what a waste .. grin ..

[fuagf]

Rosetta watch: Follow history's first comet landing live

On November 12, the Philae lander will detach from the Rosetta spacecraft and attempt a tricky landing on a comet. Here's how to follow the historic happenings.

by Eric Mack
@ericcmack
November 11, 2014 2:53 PM PST

IMAGE: The first robot-comet rodeo happens here this week. European Space Agency

It's going to be history's first cosmic rodeo. The European Space Agency's Rosetta .. http://www.cnet.com/news/after-a-decade-chase-rosetta-preps-to-tag-a-comet/ .. spacecraft is set on Wednesday to deploy its Philae lander, which will attempt a difficult landing on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The whole maneuver will last much more than 8 seconds and you can follow it all live via the video at the bottom of the post, and chat with us about it on Twitter @crave .. https://twitter.com/crave .. and @EricCMack .. https://twitter.com/ericcmack.

Philae is currently scheduled to separate from Rosetta at 1:03 a.m. PT time on Wednesday, and touch down on the comet should happen just under seven hours later at 8:02 a.m.

Related stories

After a decadelong chase, Rosetta preps to tag a comet
http://www.cnet.com/news/after-a-decade-chase-rosetta-preps-to-tag-a-comet/

'Game of Thrones' slimeball stars in new sci-fi salute to space
http://www.cnet.com/news/game-of-thrones-villain-stars-in-new-sci-fi-salute-to-space/

Rosetta's comet is singing, and it sounds like Predator
http://www.cnet.com/news/rosettas-comet-is-singing-and-it-sounds-totally-bizarre/

Philae and Rosetta have already ticked off the first box on their "Go/No go" checklist for attempting the landing -- mission control has confirmed that Rosetta is on a correct trajectory. We're still awaiting confirmation that the separation commands are ready for upload, which will be followed by other final preparations for separation and a required pre-separation maneuver. If all this goes as planned, the final "Go" for separation will be given.

At this point, the video feed from mission control in Germany is already live below, but the real action isn't likely to start until separation draws closer Tuesday evening here in the United States. While you're waiting for history to be made, get caught up on our coverage of just how hard .. http://www.cnet.com/news/landing-on-a-comet-is-hard-rosetta-searches-for-the-sweet-spot/ .. the landing will be, and what a comet sounds .. http://www.cnet.com/news/rosettas-comet-is-singing-and-it-sounds-totally-bizarre/ .. and smells like .. http://www.cnet.com/news/the-scent-of-a-comet-rotten-eggs-and-pee/ up close.

http://www.cnet.com/news/rosetta-watch-follow-historys-first-comet-landing-live/

.. there are people in and out of a door .. one guy at a screen looks he is rocking in his chair .. right now the video feed is feeding COOL JAZZ .. LOL, LOOKS IT'S ALL GO!