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And so do two of it's moons!

I mean, there's nothing out there with pluto

Unless you count it's satellite, Charon, which is almost half as big as it is.

Because some moons are larger than Pluto... would they be considered planets?

Diameters:
Pluto: 2274km
Charon: 1172km
Ganymede (orbits Jupiter): 5262km
Callisto (same): 4800km
Titan (orbits Saturn): 5150km
Triton (orbits Neptune): 2700km

Earth: 12756km
Moon: 3476km (Yes, our Moon is larger than Pluto)

Mars: 6794km
Deimos (orbits Mars): 12.6km
Phobos (same): 22km

(all figures courtesy http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanet s/nineplanets.html )

In other words, simple definitions based on size are inadequate. Also, since they're debating whether or not Pluto is a planet, the criteria that it orbits the sun may also be inadequate.

A planet is something which: orbits a star AND is round AND is larger than an arbitrary size AND.. what? The above criteria still allows for a lot of things to be planets that aren't.

We know so little about massive, non-solar bodies outside our solar system. Let's do a little more research on them before we start redefining things.

Yes, this stuff does get complex.

I wonder if this applies to the seven rules for spotting bogus science?

Believe it or not, basic celestial mechanics still has several unsolved problems.

For instance noone knows exactly how to model the formation of ring structures like the Kuiper Belt(a ring of asteroids orbiting the sun), or Saturn's rings.

If you don't believe me check out this link.

Over a hundred tons a day of meteorites falls to the Earth every day. I don't think mining the Moon is going to make much difference. The Earth is VERY big compared to the works of humanity. General info on meteorites

The Oort cloud is only a proposal the explain what cannot be explained by the alleged billion-year age of the solar system. See this page for a short description. It says this about the Oort Cloud: "The very existence of the Oort Cloud is only a working hypothesis. Our only evidence is very indirect."

Take a look at what Voyager 2 found out about Triton, which it only passed by default.

Pluto is very contrasty, it would be good to find out why that is, too.

Take a look at what Voyager 2 found out about Triton, which it only passed by default.

Pluto is very contrasty, it would be good to find out why that is, too.

(overall a good read. certainly a buttload of speculation but no more (actually probably less) than found in Wolfram's book)

On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with offering a prize for what he believes in. Heck we have the Templeton prize out there (more than the Nobel, no less) for best achievement in religion (christianity specifically, methinks), so what's wrong with offering 100G of his own money? We also have the X-BOX cracking contest - who is willing to bet that the believing in the chance of solving a 2048bit key in a few monthes is MUCH dumber than trying to shoot for some "not everybody agree as AI" AI?

Actually there are about 100 people worldwide searching for NEOs according to NASA's Ames Research Centre Asteroid Coment Impact Hazards Website.

The most productive NEO search program is the USAF/MIT run LINEAR which has discovered more NEOs than all other search programs combined.

Other search progrms include

• NEAT
• Spacewatch
• Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search (LONEOS)
• Catalina Sky Survey
• Japanese Spaceguard Association (JSGA)
• Asiago DLR Asteroid Survey (ADAS)

I haven't been able to read the article because it's slashdotted, but it makes me wonder why they would have something like the Torino Impact Scale if they weren't going to use it to inform the public. So far only one object has ever has ever been classifed a "1" on the tornio scale, but that doesn't look like it's going to a a problem. But with most NEOs still unidentified the most likely warning we will have is none at all.

Actually there are about 100 people worldwide searching for NEOs according to NASA's Ames Research Centre Asteroid Coment Impact Hazards Website.

The most productive NEO search program is the USAF/MIT run LINEAR which has discovered more NEOs than all other search programs combined.

Other search progrms include

• NEAT
• Spacewatch
• Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search (LONEOS)
• Catalina Sky Survey
• Japanese Spaceguard Association (JSGA)
• Asiago DLR Asteroid Survey (ADAS)

I haven't been able to read the article because it's slashdotted, but it makes me wonder why they would have something like the Torino Impact Scale if they weren't going to use it to inform the public. So far only one object has ever has ever been classifed a "1" on the tornio scale, but that doesn't look like it's going to a a problem. But with most NEOs still unidentified the most likely warning we will have is none at all.

Wow!

As a person who's spent about 15 years working with closed-loop controls in computer systems, my mind boggles at the thought of the quantity and variety of feedback devices required to pull this off.

Accelerometers and strain transducers for wind forces, ground vibration and thermal effects on structures at the very least (and multitudes of them, all calibrated with respect to their location, etc). What I'm really having trouble with is how they are managing the thermal and atmospheric compensations.

OTOH, this is an acedemic project and the statement "we have the *potential* to get images that are three times sharper than the Hubble" (my emphesis added) from the article doesn't inspire great confidence in what they may *really* have.

Anyway, I'm off to look for answers at this link to the Center for Astronomical Adaptive Optics at the University of Arizona, the folks doing this work.

They must stop this madness now!

Do you think I want children 'researching' oral sex, or discusting masturbation in a public library? It is completely evil!

If this doesn't go past, you will automatically start to see bums jacking off in libraries!

Or gay rings in public schools!

We Must Put a Stop to This!

This holy law must be passed!

I've been avidly following all the editorials, stories, commentaries, and blogs since Columbia was destroyed last week, and I have yet to see any writer to put their finger on the basic problem with manned spaceflight.

I'll put it in words for you: Humans don't belong in outer space. Lest I be accused of some sort of retro Luddite philosophy, let me clarify the foundation of that statement. Humans evolved on the African plains millions of years ago, and have admirable survival traits for all sorts of circumstances that can be found on this planet. But we don't live (normally) in Antarctica, nor do we live in the ocean. It's the wrong environment. Trying to export an earthlike environment to the rest of the solar system is not only stupid, it's doomed to failure.

So what's the answer? Let's think of it in terms of ecological niches, shall we? What sort of animal can you design to survive and flourish in the Oort cloud? First of all, normal body temperature should be only a few degrees above ambient (4.7K). Secondly, you need the ability to gather energy from the environment (solar radiation, fusion, etc...). Finally, and most importantly, you need the ability to survive the constant bombardment of hard radiation, high energy elementary particles, micrometeorites, and other random junk. This implies redundancy and regeneration on a nanoscale that is as yet unknown to our technology.

So what should we do? We should expand our unmanned space program dramatically (in particular, we *must* map all the potential "dinosaur-killer" near-earth asteroids), kill the manned space program, and concentrate on developing nanoscale technologies that will permit machine based AI's to survive the natural space environment. If you want to visit outer space, you'll have to upload yourself to a machine that's already there!

To recap, there is no point in trying to populate the galaxy with humans. It's the wrong ecological niche! On the other hand, there's nothing wrong in uploading human intelligences into machines that will explore the galaxy. Now that is a project that sounds interesting! But I can't help but wonder, has it been done already?

Mr. Plow

Homer: What I wouldn't give to hear Lisa play one of her jazzy tunes.

Scene: Homer picks up Lisa's saxaphone and attempts to play it by talking into it to the tune of Beethoven's 5th.

Homer: Sax-a-ma-phone... Sax-ma-phone...

---------
Here's a good list of sound bites.

Homer: What I wouldn't give to hear Lisa play one of her jazzy tunes.

Scene: Homer picks up Lisa's saxaphone and attempts to play it by talking into it to the tune of Beethoven's 5th.

Homer: Sax-a-ma-phone... Sax-ma-phone...

---------
Here's a good list of sound bites.

You think that by not entering the technology sector that sector will end up producing products that are less environementally unfriendly?

If you want to see a change become an Electrical Engineer instead (or related field) and WORK on producing processes that are better.

If you want to send people to Mars and minimize the trip, you want to do your shot during a perihelic opposition, or when Mars is closest to Earth.

The next one will be on August 28th. We missed the boat on this one - this is when we should have been launching the rocket.

The next one will be in 2018.

The loss of Mt. Stromlo Observatory facility is very great loss.

A number of the obvious sites related to Stromlo are down, due to the fire or due to the wide spread power outages in the area. I will make links to indirect and cached pages.

Established in 1924, the Commonwealth Observatory at Mount Stromlo, on the outskirts of Canberra. Commonwealth Observatory was recognized for its important research into the origin and future of the universe.

Astronomers at Mount Stromlo made outstanding contributions to astronomy. It would be difficult to list all of the important contributions to Astronomy made by the people working at Mt. Stromlo. Now, a few come to mind:

• Stromlo research in the 1950s provided the first clue that the Magellanic Clouds had evolved differently from our own galaxy. These results gave us important insights into galactic evolution.
• In the 1990's, astronomers from Stromlo and Sliding Springs (many km away from the fire area) showed that about 90% of disc galaxies (such as our own) are greatly influenced by ''dark matter'', in their galaxies' halos.
• They made important observations in the first hours after Supernova 1987A (the first naked eye supernova in several centuries of years) was discovered.
• Then there is the sort of work such as the Stromlo Abell Cluster Supernova Search
• The Massive Compact Halo Objects (Macho project that was the first to record many microlensing events in our Galaxy as well as in the LMC.
• Then there was all of that tedious, but vital work of spectral classification of southern stars.
• Many of the first parallax distances to Southern stars were first made at Stromlo.
• The list goes on and on ... I am sorry that I must leave out so many other significant contributions!

One of the principal instruments at Stromlo was the 74-inch (188-cm) reflecting telescope. The 74-inch telescope was erected in 1953, and until the completion in 1974 of the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring, this was the largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. In 1982, it was used to discover the fossil star CD-38245: a star so old that it is made almost purely of gases left over from the big bang.

It also was home scopes such as the robotic 50-inch (127-cm). It was an excellent example of how an older telescope could be outfitted with new controls and instruments to perform innovative work. The MACHO project was conducted on the 50 inch.

Two historical scopes come to mind, the Oddie, and the Yale-Columbia telescope:

The Oddie, was a wonderful 9-inch Newtonian telescope. The Victorian MP, James Oddie, presented this telescope to the Commonwealth government for use in the proposed Commonwealth Observatory. It was installed on the site at "Mt Strom" (as Stromlo was originally known) in September 1911. Over the years the Oddie telescope has made valuable contributions to Southern Hemisphere astronomy; it did some of the first measurements of the brightness, color and spectral classification of southern stars.

The Yale-Columbia telescope, 26-inch Grubb long-focus refractor was erected at this site for the determination of parallaxes of southern stars (it was the largest refractor in the southern hemisphere when first installed.

Moreover, there were other scopes as well ... But alas, from what can be seen from the air at this time, most, if not all of those telescopes have been lost. At appears that heat from the burning of the nearby bush /trees was hot enough to melt many of the domes at the observatory.

The Canberra Astronomical Society used the Stromlo lecture hall for their monthly meetings. During public nights, the public had access to a domed C14 scope, the Oddie, and a number of scopes brought to the site by members ... all through the hard work and generous efforts of the Canberra Astronomical Society.

I had the privilege of observing at Mt Stromlo several times and spoke at one of the CAS meetings. I still can recall flying down from the US to a CAS member's home to see SN1987, . I was there only 36 hours after the naked eye supernova was first observed. I still recall seeing the single star, at a distance of over 168,000 light-years, change in color and rightness over the course of an evening. I was one of the most important astronomical events I have had the honor to witness. I recall that every scope up at Mt Stromlo was all pointed at the Large Magellanic Could where SN 1987A was blazing away. The previous observing board schedule was cancelled as people raced to collect as much early critical data as they could in the early hours of the event.

I had the privilege of being with the members of the Canberra Astronomical Society on two of my several total solar eclipses: 1991 in Hawaii, US and most recently the 2001 eclipse in Ceduna, AU.

(Both trips count among my several successful viewings of solar totality. Although the 1991 Hawaii was a close call that was saved because my friend (the one who introduced me to the CAS) broke his arm a very short time before the Eclipse ... which allowed both of us to have a full view of Totality in Hawaii ... but that is another story!)

My best wishes and heart felt sorrow go out to all of those people who worked so hard to make Mt. Stromlo such a wonderful place for the public to visit and who helped the observatory make many important contributions to Astronomy. Much of what was lost cannot be replaced. Still it is my hope that those who are left will be able to rebuild something anew out this tragedy.

I have never heard of the term recursive ascent.

Basically the work mentioned in that technical report says that if you convert a table driven LALR parser into a directly executable function then you can get a 2.5 to 6.5 speed up for the parser.

A little background: The tables in bison and yacc generated parsers encode information about what to do at some particular point in the parse.For example the tables could say state 20 should shift token 1 or 2 but if its token 4 then a reduce should take place. Basically the tables in a LALR parser are state machines.

What we showed was that if you replace the tables with executable code the resulting parser will be faster. And the amount of code that is generated is not too big. So the above example could be encoded as a switch statement with case labels for 1,2 and 4.

Of course there are lot more details that need to be taken care of, but those are mentioned in the paper.

I feel very safe concluding that a directly executable parser would always be faster (for any real world language) than a table based parser. I would similarly expect that the recursive descent parser added to gcc would be faster than the old table driven one.

One final note: In case anyone wants the source code, its not ready. I've been wanting to clean it up and release it to the world for the past 7 years now, but I've not yet managed to find the time!!

According to Solar System Extrema, there are thirteen moons with radii below 20km, including both orbiting Mars.

Index operations are several orders of magnitude faster than procedure calls.

Actually a table based solution like bison is slower than implementing the parser directly in code (like recursive descent).

But giving up on LALR parsing is not necessary. You can use recursive ascent. See this article that claims a speedup of 2.5 to 6.5 compared to table based LALR(1).

Check out this fancy contraption. Still, PROPS to these guys!

There's a guy who turned a vax into a whole minibar, too :)

Perhaps you could use those old computers for something more useful than just collecting them.

You might want to look around Italy in a place called "the Vatican." I hear there's a bunch of creationists living there and are...*gasp*...European!

Well, I'm from northern europe, we threw out the catholics in the 1540:s, so I'm not expert on them (even though we've had religious freedom for quite some time, I think I may know one very secular catholic). But see my previous answer about Stephen Hawking and his consultation with the pope. There is even a quite famous astronomer who is a cardinal, though his name escapes me. There may be more, since the vatican has it's own observatory

Their form of creationism is wholly in line with scientific understanding, if their FAQ and other documents are to be belived. They do belive that there is a god that is everpresent and started it all, they are christians after all.

So, if that's the best you can come up with when it comes to european "creationists", it's still quite reasonable for me to say that there are no creationists here to speak of. Certainly none even beginning to come close to the view that has been presented here, and in the referenced links.

check it. I took a class from one of the professors involved with this.

The Garbage Project

In Soviet Russia, the Garbage takes YOU out!!

SO what did clinton EXACTLY do for minorities?


You must not have read my first post, and certainly not the links I included.

just put a bunch of token blacks on the cabinet?

Again, you must not have read my first post. My argument had nothing to do with token black/whatever people. It had to do with the fact that we don't see equal proportions of minorities in the presedency. This means that either minorities are not fit for such a position (which is bullshit), or there's something wrong with america. That was my argument, I didn't say one thing about how to solve it, and certainly not by putting token minorities in office. Read posts before you reply, and don't put words in my mouth.

and what they stand for? um...

sorry, but I won't catch bush's bones, I don't really care that some of his cronies are black women. I want minorities, women, etc.. making it to the PRESIDENCY. I don't buy the "look! these people aren't ALWAYS shafted" argument. If there wasn't a problem, we'd see them in equal proportions everywhere, including the presidency.

Besides, to infer Clinton isn't on the side of minorities is ridiculous. He's been touted as our blackest president ever. Just take a look at what the NAACP thinks of him.

Seems to me that the headline "Jupiter Adds Another to Its Ranks" isn't quite right. How about "Humans Discover 40th Jovian Moon, Take Credit For Putting It There."

Interestingly, a whole stack of these moons were discovered around 2000 when astronomers decided to search existing photographic plates for them, then went looking for more. I remembered Jupiter have about 12. Read about it here. (An intereting solar system site in general.)

As for moon v. satellite, a moon is simply a natural satellite. Some purists say that only the Earth has a Moon (capitalized) whereas other planets such as Jupiter have natural satellites. As mentioned in the link above, "captured asteroid" is another candidate for these irregular-orbit chunks. Our Moon, meanwhile, is very unusual in the Solar System for its great size relative to its planet -- about 25% IIRC. There are bigger moons elsewhere, but the strength the gravitational Earth-Moon attraction has many dramatic effects. (I've also read that the Moon is more greatly attracted by the Sun than the Earth, thus it orbits the Sun. Please don't ask me to explain or defend, but it sounded plausible...)

BTW -- someone suggested non-moons are distinguished by being mostly metal (e.g., Landsat) -- well, many asteroids are mostly free metal, too (Fe, Co, Pt, and so on). If you want to split hairs, most rock is made of metallic compounds (Si, Fe, etc.).

Well, "methane at depth" seems to be a bit more complex than simple CH4 at the surface. Gold points out that methane dissolves other hydrocarbons at greater depths -- see the end of a paragraph just below Figure 1 in this document. I think the isomer mixes refer to oil components other than methane, it's just a tad difficult to make 1C-to-4H molecules of shapes different than the methane shape. "The overall hydrocarbon composition corresponds to the equilibrium state at temperatures 1,300 to 1,500 C and pressures of 20 to 40 kb. The estimate is that this is the condition in the upper mantle at depths of 60 to 160 km."

Mantle volatile concentrations
Note that these concentrations are pretty much steady state now.

"The calculated primary mantle concentrations include (in ppm) 1.5 N; 335 CO2 (where CO2 =total C); 673 H20,; 32 F; 20 Cl; 0.07 Br; 0.011 I; and 174 S."
Oh, good. Carbon is dissolved in the huge amount of magma material. 335 parts per million... of 4.043 x 10^24 kg... is 1.35 x 10^21 kg of carbon in the mantle. That's 1.35 x 10^24 g, compared to 65.5 x10^21 g of carbon in the crust. Based on those numbers (there are many other estimates), there still is ten times more carbon in the mantle than in the crust.

Carbon in subducted rock has to go someplace. There are five possibilities:
So now it's changed from primordial to subducted....

Yup, I'm listening to you. If the carbon did boil off, then carbon going through subduction zones must have been cycled by the oceanic crusts several times...so I listed those possibilities of what could happen to subducted carbon.

now you have to explain why most of the world's oil is found in failed rift basins far from subduction zones.

Subduction is merely how surface carbon can get back underneath the crust, and my above comments were wondering where it could go...and apparently some of it can dissolve in magma. However, if most of the world's oil is in rift basins...a rift basin is due to at least one fracture in the crust, which is likely to offer a path for hydrocarbons to migrate upward through the crust. So I'm not surprised at the relationship with rift basins (although modify "most of the world's oil" to "many of the known oil fields").

Yup, awful crimes. How was Copernicus punished?
Irrelevant.

Not irrelevant when you're claiming that disagreement with popular opinion is relevant.

I haven't seen him dismissing plate tectonics...
Theory outline
Look at the section entitled 'The Formation Process of the Earth'. Here he asserts that many of the earth's features are formed by impact, heat sources (incorrectly indentified as around the pacific) are the result of chemical reactions, and that the mantle is unmixed

Hmm. Yup, he is saying that there is only partial melting. I see at the end of Interpretations Based on the Carbon Stable Isotopes he points out that subduction cycling also would have affected the isotope ratios. I don't see why you think there are not heat sources around the Pacific "ring of fire", but I do find it hard to dismiss plate tectonics and a molten mantle. I wonder how Gold, the namer of the magnetosphere, presently believes the Earth's magnetic field is generated.

He does state that no gases were incorporated in Earth, so carbon, water, and nitrogen must have come from material within the planet.
That sounds like a direct contradiction to me.

I should have quoted: "very little gaseous material was incorporated", which is different from "no elements which are gases in the Earth's atmosphere".

Abiogenic theories don't care what kind of rock is near the surface, although obviously an impermeable cap is needed for a reservoir where we tap one.
I've been trying to get this into your head - IF abiogenic theories were correct, THEN we would find oil where there was no source rock, or where the source rock had never been heated, BUT we don't.

Look over my previous comments, or start with Gold's deep drilling in Sweden. There are many examples of hydrocarbon finds which are not explained by biogenic source rocks.

There also are issues about the temperature and pressures being insufficient to create biogenic oil in shallow sedimentary rocks.
Care to cite any references?

"Temperatures and pressures in the sedimentary blanket are certainly far from the conditions necessary to account for the isomeric composition characteristic of all natural oils."

Carbon dioxide is not methane
Yes, and this is entirely the point; volcanoes are well known for emitting carbon dioxide, but not for methane. It's a pity Gold didn't put in any references for Hawaii, apart from 'eyewitness accounts'. After all, significant non-biogenic methane emissions from Hawaii would actually give him some evidence.

I was just pointing out that there is carbon coming from that Hawaiian hot spot which is a little far from subduction carbon sources. Carbon in any form in this location is interesting, however it has been pointed out to me that the hot spot might be melting ocean-floor carbon deposits, so the carbon could be coming from freshly-melted rock at the edge of the hot area rather than from primary magma.

tRNA and small RNA (snRNA?) are members of the evil plot by scientists bent on intimidating those of us dinosaurs who went to a lot of trouble a dozen years ago to learn all the stuff that was then hot science. And it works!

The progress is staggering, and appears exponential. When HIV was idscovered, they said that a dozen or so years earlier the technology to identify the virus didn't even exist. HIV gets the unwitting assistance of host tRNA and other cellular machinery.

Of the RNA family, let's not forget about mRNA. Any other alpha-RNA's I should know about? Here is a quiz if you'd like to show off your acronymial brilliancce!

Kroto wasn't the first to see crystals of C60, Huffman was. Kroto only saw C60 as a peak in a mass spectrometer.

You will die alone.

there is only so many times in a day you can "go make coffee" or "check your email".

Geek Slack List

• http://www.subgenius.com/
• http://www.slackersguild.com/
• BBC News
• http://www.memepool.com/
• http://www.plastic.com/
• http://www.arstechnica.com/
• http://www.metafilter.com/
• http://www.techdirt.com/
• http://www.bottomquark.com/ (Science News)
• http://newsforge.com/
• http://www.theregister.co.uk/
• http://www.anandtech.com/
• http://www.bjorn3d.com/
• http://cellar.org - Image of the Day
• http://www.collegehumor.com/
• http://www.everything2.com/
• http://www.kuro5hin.org/
• http://www.theonion.com/
• NASA - Astronomy Picutre of the Day
• http://www.majorgeeks.com - Windows Shareware / Freeware
• http://www.advogato.org/
• http://www.sweetcode.org/
• http://www.disinfo.com/ - Disinformation
• http://www.somethingawful.com/
• http://www.astronomynow.com/ - Astronomy News
• http://www.aip.org/ - American Institue of Physics - News
• http://www.adequacy.org/

• The Effects of Moore's Law and Slacking 1 on Large Computations

Hope this helps =)

Once nanotechnology is in full force, how long do you think any encryption is going to stand up once we have the ability to make millions of specialized computers in a matter of weeks/days/hours/minutes?

Um. Encrypting something is easier than decrypting something by force. Therefore, no matter how much processing power is availiable to the world at large, encryption will still hold (discounting quantum computers or a solution to the NP complete set of problems).

Once the technology exists to create a computer for each possible combination in a 128-bit key, how long do you think your encryption is really going to hold up? Long enough for six million more computers to be built?

A 128 bit key has 3.4e38 possibilities. That's a lot of computers. Now, 6.022e23 hydrogen atoms make up one gram of mass (1 mole). Therefore there are at most 6.022e26 atoms in a kilogram. The Earth weights 5.972e24 kg. Therefore there is at most 3.6e51 atoms that make up the Earth.

Therefore perhaps the poster could explain to me how you could have the technology to "create a computer for each possible combination"? It might work for a 128-bit key, in theory. But a 256-bit key has 1.15e77 possibilities, which outnumbers the number of atoms in the Earth by billions to one. Even solving 128-bit encryption by having a computer per combination would require a minimum of weight of 565 million tonnes.

This reminds me of the story of the grains of rice and the chessboard, where one grain was put on the first square, two grains on the second, four on the third, and so forth. It quickly gets out of control, and you find that there isn't enough rice in the world to complete the sequence.

I don't want to think of the poster as an idiot, but he does seem like he's trying quite hard to be.

Jon

According to this website, here's why the huble can't do that. And I quote....

"Earth based telescopes should be able to see the Apollo equipment

A telescope's diffraction limited resolving power depends linearly on the aperture of the telescope. Groundbased telescopes also have to look through the murky and turbulant atmosphere so without corrective techniques that are just now becoming common in large telescopes (called adaptive optics), a telescopes resolution is limited by the atmosphere to about 0.5-1.0 arcseconds (3600 arcseconds are in one degree and 360 degrees around the whole sky). That limits groundbased telescopes to a resolution of about 2 kilometers on the moon. From space, a telescope is limited by its diffraction limited resolution. For the Hubble Space Telescope, that is a little less than 0.05 arcseconds or about 90 meters at the distance of the moon. To resolve the LM descent stage which is about 10 meters across, one would need to have a resolution better than 10 meters, perhaps 2-3 meters which means we need a telescope some 30 times larger than the HST in orbit around the Earth to resolve the largest equipment left on the moon."

How about the guy who turned a VAX in to a mini bar?

Be gentle on them...

Amalthea

Hell, has nobody noticed that the real name is Amalthea?
Where are your classics!?
She was the goat that nurtured baby Zeus = Jupiter!

I'd also argue that the number of people and the technology (goats) being used to defoliate the landscape in the Sahara probably had about a percent of a percent of an effect on the landscape change, while the climate shift probably did just about all of the work there.

You're wrong, according to most students of ecology. You're probably thinking of sopmething along the lines of the Charney Effect. The gross effects on the Sahara were anthropogenic, not physical. Teh Sahara is prone to periods of hyper-aridity, but the geologically recent massive enlargement coincicides with the introduction by humans of domesticated animals: goats, sheep, and cows. These alien species tipped the land over into its modern incarnation of super-desert.

I am curious, though, if they say it's effectively a second moon, why are there no stories about it from 550AD? Or are there stories and we just thought of them as novas or other odd phenomenon? Even if it is 100 meters, I would think it would show up.

Well, I guess with a little simple googling, that is pretty small compared with the moon's diameter (almost 3500 km) and distance (only about 385,000 from earth).

From the article:

The SNPs keep rolling past, revealing more mutations, including a type-2 diabetes susceptibility, which tells me I may want to steer clear of junk food. More bad news: I don't have a SNP called CCR5 that prevents me from acquiring HIV, nor one that seems to shield smokers from lung cancer. "Ja, that's my favorite," says Braun, himself a smoker. "I wonder what Philip Morris would pay for that."

Hearing about CCR5 was the only thing in this article that blew my socks off. Genetic immunity to HIV? Wow.

Google hits a lot of things when doing a search for CCR5. The most approachable is here.

One of my favorites is the sodium acetate tower. It is a very safe demo that gets a good reaction out of just about any age group. You make a supersaturated solution of sodium acetate in a spotlessly clean beaker. Show everyone the clear liquid (looks like water) then start slowly pouring it on the table. Crystals of sodium acetate form as you pour, and the water is trapped within the crystals. You wind up with a pile of fairly dry looking sodium acetate and no liquid. Very impressive. Sodium Acetate Tower

Another one I like is the burning carbon disulfide demo. I've seen this done using a long glass tube full of carbon disulfide gas. Drop a glowing splint in one end of the tube, and as it falls you get an amazing blue flame. Here's a link (hope you speak a little German) CS2

They did it a bit differently. As you might guess, this lab is a bit more hazardous and you do get some stink from the sulfur. It's pretty though.

Making your own mirror is another great demo. You prepare a small batch of silvering solution. ISTR using silver nitrate and nitric acid, maybe using an aldehyde as a reducing agent. I'll try to link to a recipe. Anyway, you mix the solution in a round bottom flask and begin swiriling. It takes about a minute, but as you swirl a silver mirror plates out onto the glass. Tollens Mirror

I used a bit of a different procedure, but this looks like it should work. You may consider keeping the flasks a little on the warm side (100-120 F) just before you do the demo. I've gotten better results compared to using cold glassware.

A great set of books is Tested Chemical Demonstrations, Vol. 1-4, by B. Shakishiri (University of Wisconsin Press.)

I thought you were talking about Nemesis. Our sun's DEATH COMPANION STARRRARARRARRARAAIIIEEEE!

It's known either as Planet X, or a name that starts with N [nemesis]

Try the astronomy pages for an explanation of why this is considered crap.

(p.s. More interestingly, read about our weird 'moon', Cruithne - stranger than fiction!

It's not just the larger asteroids that have names, and they're certainly not all from ancient mythology. Check out this list of minor planetary bodies. It's a long read, but there are some real gems. Lots of dead Greeks, of course, masters of dusty literature, music, science, etc. Seems like almost every city, state, and country has a minor planet named for it. Those who don't can be content to be represented by (6000) United Nations.

Perhaps most apropos to note in this forum are asteroids (9965) GNU, (9885) Linux, (9793) Torvalds and (9882) Stallman (all spotted and named by the Kitt Peak Spacewatch crew).

Childhood fairytales include (14014) Munchhausen, (17627) Humptydumpty, (1773) Rumpelstilz and (5405) Neverland. (2675) Tolkien and (2991) Bilbo are memorialized in minor planetary names as well.

Luminaries of Science fiction are well-represented by planetary bodies such as (5020) Asimov, (9766) Bradbury, (21811) Burroughs, (4923) Clarke, (6371) Heinlein, (12284) Pohl, and (7758) Poulanderson.

(4659) Roddenberry is accompanied by (9777) Enterprise, (26734) Terryfarrell and the dreaded (2913) Horta (2362).

The (3325) TARDIS is floating out there somewhere too, as is (18610) Arthurdent.

(13681) MontyPython and the circus are flying around -- (9617) Grahamchapman, (9618) Johncleese, (9619) Terrygilliam, (9620) Ericidle, (9621) Michaelpalin, and (9622) Terryjones.

(291) Alice may (or may not) be the young friend of (6984) Lewiscarroll -- along with (6042) Cheshirecat, (6735) Madhatter, (17518) Redqueen, (17942) Whiterabbit, (9387) Tweedledee and (17681) Tweedledum.

Beware the (7470) Jabberwock, my son (the jaws that bite, the claws that catch) beware the (9781) Jubjubbird and shun the frumious (9780) Bandersnatch!

Both (4386) Lust and (3162) Nostalgia might be served by a visit to (12382) Niagara Falls. Don't tell (10515) Old Joe.

Hollywood has a presence in space, with (25930) Spielberg and (7032) Hitchcock, (11548) Jerrylewis, (11419) Donjohnson, (20789) Hughgrant and (12050) Humecronyn. (13070) Seanconnery stars as (9007) James Bond.

Too many cool ones to list all at once, but I have to mention (8147) Colemanhawkins, and (6318) Cronkite. There's the trio of (5048) Moriarty, (5049) Sherlock and (5050) Doctorwatson, followed by (5051) Ralph.

Have some (29700) Salmon.