Did You Know.....

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NOVA: Finding Life Beyond Earth


....that scientists are on the verge of answering one of the greatest questions in history: Are we alone? Combining the latest telescope images with dazzling CGI, "Finding Life Beyond Earth" immerses audiences in the sights and sounds of alien worlds, while top astrobiologists explain how these places are changing how we think about the potential for life in our solar system. We used to think our neighboring planets and moons were fairly boring — mostly cold, dead rocks where life could never take hold. Today, however, the solar system looks wilder than we ever imagined. Powerful telescopes and unmanned space missions have revealed a wide range of dynamic environments — atmospheres thick with organic molecules, active volcanoes and vast saltwater oceans. This ongoing revolution is forcing scientists to expand their ideas about what kinds of worlds could support life. If we do find primitive life forms elsewhere in the solar system, it may well be that life is common in the universe — the rule, and not the exception.

Uploaded on Feb 13, 2012

NOVA: Finding Life Beyond Earth

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.... that Albert Einstein said, "If the honey bee ever disappeared, man will only have four years left to live."


Illuminati 2012 End of the World Conspiracy Predictions
           

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....that,  according to the government's NASA... if you are preparing for a certain fictional apocalypse this month, forget it. (sounds like the government, huh?)

The idea that the world is ending on December 21, 2012, comes from a misinterpretation of the Mayan calendar. Because their calendar ends on the 21st, some believe the world must be ending, as well.

This idea has become so widespread in popular culture that NASA Science has made repeated efforts to debunk it. They've now even gone so far as to produce a video for the 22nd of December, explaining (again) why the world didn't end:

           

The video should ease any fears you might have that all of humanity is headed for its demise this month. (so they say)

Other doomsday theories for the 21st include the idea that a planet called Nibiru is on a collision course with Earth, a total blackout for the planet due to the "alignment of the universe," solar storms and meteor strikes.  NASA says none of these events is actually a possibility and does a case-by-case debunking. (but it could happen... could happen... could hap....)[/font][/size]

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Railroad Tracks



....that the US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates designed the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.



Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England , because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.



So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.



Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. In other words, bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process, and wonder, 'What horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly right.

Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses.



Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, you will notice that there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah.



The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit larger, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.



So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.

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...that former pop star Frankie Valens becomes pastor of small church in western Kansas

SYRACUSE, Kan. –  Pop star of the 60s and 70s, Frankie Valens, has a new gig — as a preacher at a small church in western Kansas.

The Garden City Telegram reports (http://bit.ly/Wm4Q7y ) that the singer, who had hits with "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," and "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," became the pastor of First Christian Church in Syracuse, KS., about a month ago.

Valens' father pastored the same church in 1978 and 1979.

After his recording career ended, Valens and his wife, Phyllis, toured the country performing gospel songs and skits at various functions.

The 70-year-old Valens says he's never preached from a pulpit but that he says he's been testifying about his faith for years, so he is ready for the new challenge.

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A class photo of the 110th United States Senate.

...that we wonder if some of the first-time candidates running for Senate this year had visions of taking to the floor and delivering old-fashioned barn burners to their colleagues, making passionate, moving and persuasive speeches that ended in thunderous applause and praise from a grateful nation.

If so, some of those winners may be in for a disappointment.

Because when you're watching C-SPAN — yes, we know some of you do — and you see a senator giving an emotional speech about some urgent matter, he or she is very likely speaking to an empty room. "Speechifying," that is, just for the benefit of the TV camera.

If you had no idea that's what they do, you're not alone. Neither did the New Yorker's George Packer, a longtime Senate watcher — and enthusiast — who earlier this year went to Washington to examine the institution he loves. He arrived just as the health care bill reconciliation debate was in full swing. And while the senators tried to reconcile the bill, George Packer tried to reconcile the Senate of his childhood with what he believes the Senate has become.

There are those who like the Senate the way it is — who really do prefer government by gridlock. But for those who share George Packer's frustrations, we can tell you that there are remedies possible, even with a new, more divided senate. In addition to Packer, Need to Know's Jon Meacham spoke with Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico about new rule changes he'll be proposing in the next Senate.

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....that the first truly Earth-like alien planet is likely to be spotted next year, an epic discovery that would cause humanity to reassess its place in the universe.

While astronomers have found a number of exoplanets over the last few years that share one or two key traits with our own world — such as size or inferred surface temperature — they have yet to bag a bona fide "alien Earth." But that should change in 2013, scientists say.

"I'm very positive that the first Earth twin will be discovered next year," said Abel Mendez, who runs the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo.


Planets piling up
Astronomers discovered the first exoplanet orbiting a sunlike star in 1995. Since they, they've spotted more than 800 worlds beyond our own solar system, and many more candidates await confirmation by follow-up observations. [The Strangest Alien Planets (Gallery)]
http://www.space.com/159-strangest-alien-planets.html

NASA's prolific Kepler Space Telescope, for example, has flagged more than 2,300 potential planets since its March 2009 launch. Only 100 or so have been confirmed to date, but mission scientists estimate that at least 80 percent will end up being the real deal.

The first exoplanet finds were scorching-hot Jupiter-like worlds that orbit close to their parent stars, because they were the easiest to detect. But over time, new instruments came online and planet hunters honed their techniques, enabling the discovery of smaller and more distantly orbiting planets — places more like Earth.

Last December, for instance, Kepler found a planet 2.4 times larger than Earth orbiting in its star's habitable zone — that just-right range of distances where liquid water, and perhaps life as we know it, can exist.

The Kepler team and other research groups have detected several other worlds like that one (which is known as Kepler-22b), bringing the current tally of potentially habitable exoplanets to nine by Mendez' reckoning.
http://www.space.com/15716-alien-life-search-solar-system.html


Zeroing in on Earth's twin
None of the worlds in Mendez' Habitable Exoplanets Catalog are small enough to be true Earth twins. The handful of Earth-size planets spotted to date all orbit too close to their stars to be suitable for life. [Gallery: 9 Potentially Habitable Exoplanets]
http://www.space.com/18790-habitable-exoplanets-catalog-photos.html

But it's only a matter of time before a small, rocky planet is spotted in the habitable zone — and Mendez isn't the only researcher who thinks that time is coming soon.

"The first planet with a measured size, orbit and incident stellar flux that is suitable for life is likely to be announced in 2013," said Geoff Marcy, a veteran planet hunter at the University of California, Berkeley, and a member of the Kepler team.

Mendez and Marcy both think this watershed find will be made by Kepler, which spots planets by flagging the telltale brightness dips caused when they pass in front of their parent stars from the instrument's perspective.

Kepler needs to witness three of these"transits" to detect a planet, so its early discoveries were tilted toward close-orbiting worlds (which transit more frequently). But over time, the telescope has been spotting more and more distantly orbiting planets — including some in the habitable zone.

An instrument called HARPS (short for High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher) is also a top contender, having already spotted a number of potentially habitable worlds. HARPS, which sits on the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope in Chile, allows researchers to detect the tiny gravitational wobbles that orbiting planets induce in their parent stars.

"HARPS should be able to find the most interesting and closer Earth twins," Mendez told SPACE.com via email, noting that many Kepler planets are too far away to characterize in detail. "A combination of its sensitivity and long-term observations is now paying off."

And there are probably many alien Earths out there to be found in our Milky Way galaxy, researchers say.

"Estimating carefully, there are 200 billion stars that host at least 50 billion planets, if not more," Mikko Tuomi, of the University of Hertfordshire in England, told SPACE.com via email.

"Assuming that 1:10,000 are similar to the Earth would give us 5,000,000 such planets," added Tuomi, who led teams reporting the discovery of several potentially habitable planet candidates this year, including an exoplanet orbiting the star Tau Ceti just 11.9 light-years from Earth. "So I would say we are talking about at least thousands of such planets."
http://www.space.com/18967-nearby-habitable-alien-planet-tau-ceti.html


What it would mean
Whenever the first Earth twin is confirmed, the discovery will likely have a profound effect on humanity.

"We humans will look up into the night sky, much as we gaze across a large ocean," Marcy told SPACE.com via email. "We will know that the cosmic ocean contains islands and continents by the billions, able to support both primitive life and entire civilizations."

Marcy hopes such a find will prod our species to take its first real steps beyond its native solar system.

"Humanity will close its collective eyes, and set sail for Alpha Centauri," Marcy said, referring to the closest star system to our own, where an Earth-size planet was discovered earlier this year.
http://www.space.com/18097-alpha-centauri-stars-planet-explained-infographic.html

                   


"The small steps for humanity will be a giant leap for our species. Sending robotic probes to the nearest stars will constitute the greatest adventure we Homo sapiens have ever attempted," Marcy added. "This massive undertaking will require the cooperation and contribution from all major nations around world. In so doing, we will take our first tentative steps into the cosmic ocean and enhance our shared sense of purpose on this terrestrial shore."


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/12/28/first-alien-earth-will-be-found-in-2013/?intcmp=obnetwork#ixzz2H6sVvChA

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....that the largest star ever discovered, compared to our Sun, is...

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...that scientists observing a new star 450 light years from Earth say they have caught early glimpses of planets forming around it.

                         

The fledgling star, HD 142527, may be 2 million years old, but it remains a newborn by the universe's standards. Scientists using the ALMA telescope captured a first-of-its-kind look at planetary development, as newly forming gas giants begin to clear out the disk surrounding it.

So far, the international team has determined that at least two young planets have sprouted up around the star.

The novel sighting also confirmed an earlier theoretical concept of gravity-fueled bridges between outer and inner portions of the star's disk that help the star grow. HD 142527 is already about twice as massive as the sun and is still expanding.[/font][/size]

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Published on Dec 31, 2012

...that although as far as planets are concerned Earth is relatively moderate (good thing too!), there are places even in our own world that may surprise you with their level of extremeness.  Whether it's the coldest place on Earth or the deepest trench in the sea, get ready to have your mind blown by 25 of Earth's most incredible extremes!

Check out the text version too! - http://list25.com/25-of-earths-most-incredible-extremes/