6469 science, fisticuffs and postal mail

thank you, mintygirl for the swell medicine bear birthday card!


I’ve been getting the urge to box lately. Work the heavy bag, the speed bag, build up my arm strength and precision, and to bleed off any aggressive tendencies that might build up. I’ve been sort of isolated recently.. havent’s spent too much time with my sweetheart, thereians, Danny or the like in a while now. It’s sort of a bummer, but it will pass. The only exception is Sammy, of late, and that’s because he swore off FFXI cold turkey, I think.


@ added to Morse code .–.-. (still no code for !)



Frosted Lucky Charms are magically delicious.


I am sleepily writing this post to tell you that I leaped at the bathtub. Newt, Danny, and I thought it would be a good idea because we saw it on Lance Link, Secret Chimp. After that, we had Zombies and Orange Tofu at the methane-smelling bar. Our waiter was really verbose! Unfortunately, I got food poisoning and threw up in my cupped palms. Haikeeba!
MadBlog by quill18

Scientists believe they have discovered the cause of crop failures and summer frosts some 1,500 years ago – a comet colliding with Earth. The team has been studying evidence from tree rings, which suggests that the Earth underwent a series of very cold summers around 536-540 AD, indicating an effect rather like a nuclear winter. The scientists believe this was caused by a comet hitting the earth and exploding in the upper atmosphere. The debris from this giant explosion was such that it enveloped the earth in soot and ash, blocking out the sunlight and causing the very cold weather.

From Cardiff University:

Astronomers unravel a mystery of the Dark Ages

Undergraduates’ work blames comet for 6th-century “nuclear winter”
Scientists at Cardiff University, UK, believe they have discovered the cause of crop failures and summer frosts some 1,500 years ago – a comet colliding with Earth.

The team has been studying evidence from tree rings, which suggests that the Earth underwent a series of very cold summers around 536-540 AD, indicating an effect rather like a nuclear winter.

The scientists in the School of Physics and Astronomy believe this was caused by a comet hitting the earth and exploding in the upper atmosphere. The debris from this giant explosion was such that it enveloped the earth in soot and ash, blocking out the sunlight and causing the very cold weather.

This effect is known as a plume and is similar to that which was seen when comet Shoemaker-Levy-9 hit Jupiter in 1995.

Historical references from this period – known as the Dark Ages – are sparse, but what records there are, tell of crop failures and summer frosts.

The work was carried out by two Cardiff undergraduate students, Emma Rigby and Mel Symonds, as part of their student project work under the supervision of Dr Derek Ward-Thompson.

Their findings are reported in the February issue of Astronomy and Geophysics, the in-house magazine of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The surprising result of the new work is just how small a comet is needed to cause such dramatic effects. The scientists calculate that a comet not much more than half a kilometer across could cause a global nuclear winter effect. This is significantly smaller than was previously thought.

Dr. Ward-Thompson said: “One of the exciting aspects of this work is that we have re-classified the size of comet that represents a global threat. This work shows that even a comet of only half a kilometer in size could have global consequences. Previously nothing less than a kilometer across was counted as a global threat. If such an event happened again today, then once again a large fraction of the earth’s population could face starvation.”

The comet impact caused crop failures and wide-spread starvation among the sixth century population. The timing coincides with the Justinian Plague, widely believed to be the first appearance of the Black Death in Europe. It is possible that the plague was so rampant and took hold so quickly because the population was already weakened by starvation.Site Meter


The well-known extrasolar planet HD 209458b, provisionally nicknamed ‘Osiris’, has surprised astronomers again. Oxygen and carbon have been found in its atmosphere, evaporating at such an immense rate that the existence of a new class of extrasolar planets – ‘the chthonian planets’ or ‘dead’ cores of completely evaporated gas giants – has been proposed.

From the European Space Agency:

Oxygen and carbon discovered in exoplanet atmosphere ‘blow-off’

The well-known extrasolar planet HD 209458b, provisionally nicknamed ‘Osiris’, has surprised astronomers again. Oxygen and carbon have been found in its atmosphere, evaporating at such an immense rate that the existence of a new class of extrasolar planets – ‘the chthonian planets’ or ‘dead’ cores of completely evaporated gas giants – has been proposed.

Oxygen and carbon have been detected in the atmosphere of a planet beyond our Solar System for the first time. Scientists using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have observed the famous extrasolar planet HD 209458b passing in front of its parent star, and found oxygen and carbon surrounding the planet in an extended ellipsoidal envelope – the shape of a rugby-ball. These atoms are swept up from the lower atmosphere with the flow of the escaping atmospheric atomic hydrogen, like dust in a supersonic whirlwind.

The team led by Alfred Vidal-Madjar (Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS, France) reports this discovery in a forthcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The planet, called HD 209458b, may sound familiar. It is already an extrasolar planet with an astounding list of firsts: the first extrasolar planet discovered transiting its sun, the first with an atmosphere, the first observed to have an evaporating hydrogen atmosphere (in 2003 by the same team of scientists) and now the first to have an atmosphere containing oxygen and carbon. Furthermore the ‘blow-off’ effect observed by the team during their October and November 2003 observations with Hubble had never been seen before.

In honour of such a distinguished catalogue this extraordinary extrasolar planet has provisionally been dubbed ‘Osiris’. Osiris was the Egyptian god who lost part of his body – like HD 209458b – after his brother killed and cut him into pieces to prevent his return to life.

Oxygen is one of the possible indicators of life that is often looked for in experiments searching for extraterrestrial life (such as those onboard the Viking probes and the Spirit and Opportunity rovers), but according to Vidal-Madjar: “Naturally this sounds exciting – the possibility of life on Osiris – but it is not a big surprise as oxygen is also present in the giant planets of our Solar System, like Jupiter and Saturn.”

What, on the other hand was surprising was to find the carbon and oxygen atoms surrounding the planet in an extended envelope. Although carbon and oxygen have been observed on Jupiter and Saturn, it is always in combined form as methane and water deep in the atmosphere. In HD 209458b the chemicals are broken down into the basic elements. But on Jupiter or Saturn, even as elements, they would still remain invisible low in the atmosphere. The fact that they are visible in the upper atmosphere of HD 209458b confirms that atmospheric ‘blow off’ is occurring.

The scorched Osiris orbits ‘only’ seven million kilometers from its yellow Sun-like star and its surface is heated to about 1000 degrees Celsius.

Whereas hydrogen is a very light element – the lightest in fact – oxygen and carbon are much heavier in comparison. This has enabled scientists to conclude that this phenomenon is more efficient than simple evaporation. The gas is essentially ripped away at a speed of more than 35 000 kilometers an hour. “We speculate that even heavier elements such as iron are blown off at this stage as well,” says team member Alain Lecavelier des Etangs (Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS, France).

The whole evaporation mechanism is so distinctive that there is reason to propose the existence of a new class of extrasolar planets – the chthonian planets, a reference to the Greek God Khtôn, used for Greek deities from the hot infernal underworld (also used in the French word autochton). The chthonian planets are thought to be the solid remnant cores of ‘evaporated gas giants’, orbiting even closer to their parent star than Osiris. The detection of these planets should soon be within reach of current telescopes both on the ground and in space.

The discovery of the fierce evaporation process is, according to the scientists, ‘highly unusual’, but may indirectly confirm theories of our own Earth’s childhood. “This is a unique case in which such a hydrodynamic escape is directly observed. It has been speculated that Venus, Earth and Mars may have lost their entire original atmospheres during the early part of their lives. Their present atmospheres have their origins in asteroid and cometary impacts and outgassing from the planet interiors,” says Vidal-Madjar.

Related Posts

  • November 13, 2019 at 07:11AMNovember 13, 2019 November 13, 2019 at 07:11AM "Democracy is an outmoded form of government, once popular on Earth, before the United […]
  • May 20, 2001 watching "when bears attack" ... then going to bed. night night lj world.
  • July 22, 2018 at 07:37PMJuly 22, 2018 July 22, 2018 at 07:37PM Bangkok Punch at Thai Zapp. Tasty for summer! Out with inlaws and Allison. Great meal as […]
  • Backing up your My Documents folderJune 10, 2010 Backing up your My Documents folder Normally windows users use My Documents folder to save data, the reason is that  […]
  • August 10, 2008 S6302130

Leave a Reply