Credit: X-ray: NASA/MSFC/CXC/A.Bhardwaj et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/AURA
Lovely perspective on Saturn - covered in blue sparkles of x-ray. :-)
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Saturn
Credit: X-ray: NASA/MSFC/CXC/A.Bhardwaj et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/AURA
Lovely perspective on Saturn - covered in blue sparkles of x-ray. :-)
Centaurus A
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al.; Submillimeter: MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al.; Optical: ESO/WFI
On Time
Time is important in geodesy and we use all kinds of clocks. It would be a disaster if we'd use this kind though....:-)
Bedtime Galaxies
Credit: Visible--Eric Peng, Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics and NOAO/AURA/NSF IR--Jocelyn Keene, NASA/JPL and Caltech
Friday, January 30, 2009
Water
Cartographer: UNEP/GRID-Arendal
Fresh water is gold. It is pivotal for humans; without it we simply die. But it is also an important factor in understanding the water cycle and hence climate changes. The big unknown is groundwater. How much and where do we find the groundwater?
UNEP/GRID-Arendal have started to gather more systematic data on the subject. For climate change studies we need the help of space geodetic techniques together with traditional in-situ measurements.
- Groundwater represents over 90% of the world's readily available freshwater resource (Boswinkel, 2000). About 1.5 billion people depend upon groundwater for their drinking water supply (WRI, UNEP, UNDP, World Bank, 1998).
- The amount of groundwater withdrawn annually is roughly estimated at 600-700 km3, representing about 20% of global water withdrawals (WMO, 1997).
- A comprehensive picture of the quantity of groundwater withdrawn and consumed annually around the world does not exist.
Geodesists are teaming up with other scientists to reveal more useful information in a big international project called IGCP 565.
Nebula
Credit: Don Goldman
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Solar Eclipse
Credit: Armando Lee
Did you see it, Love Bird, or are you so high in the sky you overlooked it? :-))
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Say It With Science
A woman touches a Van de Graaff electricity generator at the International Trade Fair in Leipzig, Germany
Talking of cyber. This hair raising image reminds me of my starry best cyber friend here on SU. She has generously given me cyber nicknames and massive attention in all sorts of visible and invisible channels. The starry one makes me feel like a true SU star. Hey, that makes me Stellare the star with a starry groupie! :-)
Chinese New Year
Actors and dancers dressed in Qing Dynasty costumes perform at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China
I know, I know. New Years Eve was yesterday. On Saturday the Chinese contingency here in Norway invited me to their annual new year party, but due to a certain blizzard I was stuck in the country side where I live and could not get to Oslo where the party was. Too bad! I guess I was set back to such a degree I forgot to say Happy New Year for more than 24 hours!
Solar Eclipse
Credit: David Cortner
Monday, January 26, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Blue China
Artist: Li Xiaofeng
I fell for this sculpture in blue. Not surprisingly. Generally, I find contemporary Chinese art very interesting.
More images of of Li Xiaofeng's work
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Cosmic Collisions - again
Credit: NASA
Colliding Galaxies
The preceding post was just a teaser, of course. Here is the full package. Excellent collection of all things collision in space. I used to drink 'colliding galaxies'. I strongly warn others than astrophysicist to do that. You need astronomical perspectives to survive them....
Swung my way by the super baby-faced disco lover.
Energy and Environment
The Economist wrote a very comprehensive article on energy and environmental politics in Norway. Though they pretty much got all the major points right, I disagree with both their conclusions and Norwegian politics on these topics. What do you know! :-)
How Norwegians choose to use our energy is hardly relevant compared to the global energy consume. We are after all only 5 million people up here. So it is a bit like the mouse peeing in the ocean.
Do anybody care if a small country like Norway act like a good example? I seriously doubt it. We might like to think we do, but based on my international experience it doesn't account for much in big politics. It's not like we are even invited by the G8 (fill in number, it used to be 7) countries to discuss the matters. Not for real.
What Norway could do with all our money is to develop alternative energy technology. I have no idea who came up with this buying CO2 quotas. It is plain stupid and does not reduce the global production of gases. I can't get how the rest of the world don't get this. They are fooling themselves to think this is green politics. It is nothing but helping poorer countries reach the same level of pollution as the rich world, ideally, as opposed to the alternative that they will produce even more than we are at this point of time. Need I remind y'all that India and China alone are populated by 2.4 billion people? We can't quota buy us out of that energy problem. Why should we ask them to live without the energy we have? We can't and they shouldn't and will not accept that. That is all.
We will be out of oil one day. By then we might have drowned in CO2 or whatever - and we have no alternatives. Not for cars at least. Non-mobile equipment will be fuel by coal or nukes, but the cars will at best start to roll real slow compared to today. And that we can't have. :-)
The solution is using technology to reduce the emissions today and invent alternatives for the future.
The Moon and X-rays
Should you have an urgent need of x-rays when on the Moon you know where to go now.
Seriously, this is rather exciting. Like here on Earth, x-rays reveals all, so we hope to learn a whole lot more about the Moon and its origin by studying x-rays. The Indian Chandrayaan detected the first signals. Yay, for India! :-) ( and for the rest of the international teams, of course. Most missions and programs today are international)
Carnival of Space
Bring your own whips!
Not to be confused with Venetian Carnival. That's in February! :-)
Gorgeous post over at Martian Chronicles in this week's carnival of space.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Chasing Neutrinos
Photo Credit: MINOS
Catching The Particularly Slippery Particles - The Neutrinos!
MINOS - Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search,As you may well have noticed I like to mix languages from time to time. Just for fun. MINOS is far from miniscule or anything mini at all. The only really, really mini are of course the neutrinos. Those sly slipperly particles always getting a way with it. They just go straight through the whole planet. Doesn't cost them one tiny little bitty thing. And we want so bad to catch them we build all sorts of constructions in their honor. To no avail so far. :-)
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Water in Africa
Water body map around the Niger River, near Niamey, Niger, in 2007.
Credits: Advanced Computer Systems S.p.A.
Ground water is the 'new' gold, oil, etc. Wars have been and will be fought over this natural resource. Through a combination of space and ground based earth observation system we hope to gain more knowledge of this big unknown factor in the water cycle models. SAR technology in combination with other space techniques are particularly promising. I'll return to this subject, for sure. :-)
Map of underground water infiltration probability around the Niamey area in 2007.
Credits: Advanced Computer Systems S.p.A.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Mars - Again
Credit: Mars
Oh, I like the sphere. It got plenty of blue on it. Another reason to be content with what it is.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Earth Explorers 2009
I watched the ESA press conference in December 2008 immediately after the Ministerial where ESA's Director General Dordain presented the budgetary results of the negotiations. And for once that was good news, in particular for Earth observation. As an active participant of the global initiative
for Earth observation, GEO, I believe the budgetary success is a consequence of the international focus on better coordination of global earth observation systems. Both space agencies and the
European commission have given GEO high priority resulting in a strengthening of Earth observations benefiting not only European citizens but everyone on this planet.
for Earth observation, GEO, I believe the budgetary success is a consequence of the international focus on better coordination of global earth observation systems. Both space agencies and the
European commission have given GEO high priority resulting in a strengthening of Earth observations benefiting not only European citizens but everyone on this planet.
Three earth observation satellites are ready to be launched, all of them included in the Living Planet Programme.
The Living Planet Program includes the Earth Explorers – a set of satellites missions divided into core missions and opportunity missions. ESA has announced the following schedule for
launching.
Credits: AOES - Medialab
The gravity mission - GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer)
The launch has been postponed several times already, last due to a problem with the Russian launcher. The satellite is however now scheduled to lift-off in March. GOCE will provide the dataset required to accurately determine global and regional models of the Earth's gravity field and geoid. It will advance research in areas of ocean circulation, physics of the Earth's interior, geodesy and surveying, and sea-level change all key parameters in climate change monitoring and research.
Credits: AOES - Medialab
The water mission - SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity)
SMOS is currently stored at Thales Alenia Space in Cannes, France waiting to be launched in July
2009, a few months after GOCE. SMOS will provide global maps of soil moisture and ocean salinity to further our understanding of the Earth's water cycle and contribute to climate, weather and
extreme-event forecasting.
Credits: AOES - Medialab
The ice mission - CryoSat-2
Towards the end of 2009, ESA gives another shot at launching a Cryosat satellite, the first was lost during launch in 2005. CryoSat-2 will determine variations in the thickness of the Earth's continental ice sheets and marine ice cover to further our understanding of the relationship between ice and global warming.
For the sake of our planet Earth, lets hope everything goes approximately according to plans.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Spectroscopy
Oh, there is so much more daylight already I had to celebrate with a prism! :-)
Learn how much we can learn from light by spectroscopy.
Arts
Andrew Wyeth's final sleep
I was actually introduced to this artist via social media (StumbleUpon), by the knowledgeable Mr. Greene. I really enjoy Wyeth's work. For real.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Methane Colors
Credit: NASA
High methane concentrations (reds and yellows) appear during martian summer in localized plumes.
Methane does not necessarily mean life. It could rather be a false alarm.
Mars
We have lots and lots of outstanding images, (with a dash of 'photoshopping') of Mars. This here, published on Discovery Space, is one of my favorites.
Trucks and GPS
With Global Navigation Satellite System GNSS (or GPS if you like) and some other techno stuff.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
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