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POPSJust Missed: Nov. 7th Asteroid 30x Closer Than Moon It was the third-closest known (non-impacting) Earth approach on record for a cataloged asteroid. But before you turn to another Clipmark note: THIS WAS THE SECOND ONE THIS YEAR. The one in March 2009 was close too. Look at the stats on that one 8 months ago: Asteroid's Near Miss A Cosmic Close Call Heavenly Body Buzzes Earth; Comes Within 48,800 Miles The asteroid named 2009 DD45 was about 48,800 miles from Earth. That is just twice the height of some telecommunications satellites and about a fifth of the distance to the Moon. CNN video report on that one here. Real footage Video of 1972 asteroid in Canada here --which actually is seen trailing then "bouncing" off earth's atmosphere.
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POPS2009 Leonid Meteor Shower More from the article below: ""We're predicting 20 to 30 meteors per hour over the Americas, and as many as 200 to 300 per hour over Asia," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "Our forecast is in good accord with independent theoretical work by other astronomers." "A remarkable feature of this year's shower is that Leonids will appear to be shooting almost directly out of the planet Mars," notes Cooke. It's just a coincidence. This year, Mars happens to be passing by the Leonid radiant at the time of the shower. The Red Planet is almost twice as bright as a first magnitude star, so it makes an eye-catching companion for the Leonids"
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POPSDiminishing Returns! An astronomical example of how scale can change encouraging environments to discouraging ones... (what does this have to do with governance or economics?)
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POPS Astronomers See 'Skeleton' of the Universe
Viewed through the world's most powerful telescopes, the discovery "is the first observation of such a prominent galaxy structure in the distant universe, providing further insight into the cosmic web and how it formed," according to a statement by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The assembly of galaxies form filaments "millions of light years long and constitute the skeleton of the universe," it says. "Galaxies gather around them, and immense galaxy clusters form at their intersections, lurking like giant spiders waiting for more matter to digest," it adds. The filaments are located about 6.7 billion light-years away and extend over at least 60 million light-years, the scientists say, adding the structure very likely stretches beyond the area they probed, warranting further observations. "This is the first time that we have observed such a rich and prominent structure in the distant universe," says ESO's Masayuki Tanaka, who led the study.
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POPSInvisible hand in invisible matter. Dark matter might not exist. Dr Famaey added, "If we account for our observations with a modified law of gravity, it makes perfect sense to replace the effective action of hypothetical dark matter with a force closely related to the distribution of visible matter." The implications of the new research could change some of the most widely held scientific theories about the history and expansion of the universe. Lead researcher Dr. Gianfranco Gentile at the University of Ghent concludes, "Understanding this puzzling conspiracy is probably the key to unlock the formation of galaxies and their structures." What about NASA's direct proof on dark matter's existance? Broken study? This is actually makes sense, but so far is a little hard to accept. Does anyone have any ideas about this?
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