Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON)

Astronomers from the University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP) and Lowell Observatory have used NASA's Swift satellite to check out comet C/2012 S1 (ISON), which may become one of the most dazzling in decades when it rounds the sun later this year.

Using images acquired over the last two months from Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT), the team has made initial estimates of the comet's water and dust production and used them to infer the size of its icy nucleus.

"Comet ISON has the potential to be among the brightest comets of the last 50 years, which gives us a rare opportunity to observe its changes in great detail and over an extended period," said Lead Investigator Dennis Bodewits, an astronomer at UMCP.

Additional factors, including an encounter with Mars followed by a scorching close approach to the sun, make comet ISON an object of special interest. In late February, at NASA's request, a team of comet experts initiated the Comet ISON Observing Campaign (CIOC) to assist ground- and space-based facilities in obtaining the most scientifically useful data.

Like all comets, ISON is a clump of frozen gases mixed with dust. Often described as "dirty snowballs," comets emit gas and dust whenever they venture near enough to the sun that the icy material transforms from a solid to gas, a process called sublimation. Jets powered by sublimating ice also release dust, which reflects sunlight and brightens the comet.

Typically, a comet's water content remains frozen until it comes within about three times Earth's distance to the sun. While Swift's UVOT cannot detect water directly, the molecule quickly breaks into hydrogen atoms and hydroxyl (OH) molecules when exposed to ultraviolet sunlight. The UVOT detects light emitted by hydroxyl and other important molecular fragments as well as sunlight reflected from dust.

See a video of the comet as it passes around the sun netx fall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=40wICUY5VmU

Playing on the bulb...

Big J

Bit of sailing history happened yesterday in St Barths. 5 J-class racing against each other, first time since 1937. Boats on the line : Hanaman, Lionheart, Velsheada, Rainbow, and Ranger. Here’s a shot of Hanaman during pre-start…

Night Train from Moscow...

The Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft carrying three new Expedition 35 crew members docked with the International Space Station’s Poisk module at 10:28 p.m. EDT Thursday, completing its accelerated journey to the orbiting complex in less than six hours.

Soyuz Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin of the Ru
ssian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, who launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:43 p.m. (2:43 a.m. Friday, Baikonur time) are the first station crew members to take this expedited route to the orbiting laboratory. The Soyuz reached the station after only four orbits instead of the usual two-day launch-to-docking mission profile for a Russian spacecraft. While this is the first crewed spacecraft to employ this technique, Russian space officials successfully tested it with the last three Progress cargo vehicles.

After the hatches opened at 12:35 a.m. Friday, Cassidy, Vinogradov and Misurkin joined Commander Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency and Flight Engineers Tom Marshburn of NASA and Roman Romanenko of Roscosmos who have been residing at the orbital laboratory since Dec. 21, 2012. All six crew members crew then participated in a welcome ceremony with family members and mission officials gathered at the Russian Mission Control Center in Star City near Moscow.
Expedition 35 will operate with its full six-person crew complement until May when Hadfield, Marshburn and Romanenko return to Earth aboard their Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft. Their departure will mark the beginning of Expedition 36 under the command of Vinogradov, who along with crewmates Cassidy and Misurkin will maintain the station as a three-person crew until the launch of three additional flight engineers in late May. Cassidy, Vinogradov and Misurkin are scheduled to return to Earth in September.

Churning Out Stars

W3 is an enormous stellar nursery about 6,200 light-years away in the Perseus Arm, one of the Milky Way galaxy’s main spiral arms, which hosts both low- and high-mass star formation. In this image from the Herschel space observatory, the low-mass forming stars are seen as tiny yellow dots embedded in cool red filaments, while the highest-mass stars -- with greater than eight times the mass of our sun -- emit intense radiation, heating up the gas and dust around them and appearing here in blue.

This three-color image of W3 combines Herschel bands at 70 microns (blue), 160 microns (green) and 250 microns (red). The image spans about 2 by 2 degrees. North is up and east is to the left.

Sailing Videos of extreme sailing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FWINygISxDE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QZDS3miKQCc

Changes

Sailing sure has changed and the new CATS are amazing. Funny to think that 20 or 30 years ago, a cat was thought of as a Hobbi only. I sailed with my brother on his H16 and we had some great times blasting around a NorCal lake. Now it is sailing a Santana 30/30 on SF Bay. But to see the new designs coming out, I wonder if the mono-hull will soon be a minority to the multi???

K6

Rye, NY; The new K6 is going to an interesting place–home to one of the very first one-design classes ever, commissioned in 1899.

These 32′ gaff riggers which are still raced on today, making them the oldest one-design class continuously racing. Still sporting Egyptian cotton sails, they are a glorious and beautiful anachronism. Of the 12 original boats, one was donated to a museum, and the remainder have been lovingly maintained and passed down over the generations, remaining on their original home lake.

The new K6 is inevitably compared to the Rondar-built Viper 640. Rondar’s Dan Tucker compared them this way, “The Viper is a muscle car in comparison. The K6 is like a Lotus or Miata, very light and super responsive to the controls and helm and incredibly difficult to stall the rudder or broach.” Weighing in at only 600 pounds, compared to the Viper’s 748 pounds, with the same 262 pounds in the keel, and a narrow, easily driven hull, the K6 has a higher ballast to displacement ratio, making it extremely forgiving in the inevitable sportboat broaches. Just ease the spinnaker sheet and the boat is back on its feet and racing in seconds–no drama!

With a ready-to-race price of only $24,995 for a boat complete with trailer and Class-mandated single-source North Sails, the K6 is a tremendous value in a two-person racing boat. Fleet prices are a mere $22,495 when ordered by the six boat container.

This is a great video!!! Stop motion surfing

https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=543547692334455

Stop motion surfing video, fun and well done.

Tribo Surfon is the site, check it out. I don't usually post other sites but this is worth it.

Global View of Iapetus' Dichotomy

These two global images of Iapetus show the extreme brightness dichotomy on the surface of this peculiar Saturnian moon. The left-hand panel shows the moon's leading hemisphere and the right-hand panel shows the moon's trailing side. While low and mid latitudes of the leading side exhibit a surface almost as dark as charcoal, broad tracts of the trailing side are almost as bright as snow. The dark terrain covers about 40 percent of the surface and is named Cassini Regio. The names of the bright terrain are Roncevaux Terra (north) and Saragossa Terra (south).

On both hemispheres, the dominant landforms are impact craters. The largest known well-preserved basin on Iapetus, called Turgis, has a diameter of about 580 kilometers (360 miles). It lies at 17 degrees north latitude, 28 degrees west longitude at the eastern edge of the dark Cassini Regio and is visible on the right side of the left-hand panel. The prominent basin on the southern trailing side (at the lower left of the right-hand panel) is Engelier. Engelier is located at 41 degrees south latitude, 265 degrees west longitude, and has a diameter of about 504 kilometers (313 miles). Its formation destroyed about half of Gerin, another large basin on Iapetus. Gerin is located at 46 degrees south latitude, 233 degrees west longitude, and has a diameter of about 445 kilometers (276 miles). Tortelosa Montes, a part of the giant equatorial ridge that was discovered in Cassini images on December 25, 2004, is visible in the left panel as a thin line within Cassini Regio, and as a tall prominence at the western limb. It continues onto the trailing side (right side of right panel), where the bright western flanks of the Carcassone Montes appear as dominant bright spots within the western edge of Cassini Regio.

The cause of the extreme brightness dichotomy on Iapetus is likely to be thermal segregation of water ice on a global scale. Thermal effects are usually expected to act latitudinally. That is, polar areas are colder than equatorial terrain in most cases due to the more oblique angle of the solar irradiation. Therefore, an additional process is required to explain the longitudinal difference as well. In one model, dark, reddish dust coming in from space and preferentially deposited on the leading side forms a small, but crucial difference between the leading and trailing hemispheres, which is sufficient to allow the thermal effect to evaporate the water ice on the leading side completely, but only marginally on the trailing side.

Twisted

This charming and bright galaxy, known as IRAS 23436+5257, was captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. It is located in the northern constellation of Cassiopeia, which is named after an arrogant, vain, and yet beautiful mythical queen.

The twisted, wormlike structure of this galaxy is most likely the result of a collision and subsequent merger of two galaxies. Such interactions are quite common in the universe, and they can range from minor interactions involving a satellite galaxy being caught by a spiral arm, to major galactic crashes. Friction between the gas and dust during a collision can have a major effect on the galaxies involved, morphing the shape of the original galaxies and creating interesting new structures.

When you look up at the calm and quiet night sky it is not always easy to picture it as a dynamic and vibrant environment with entire galaxies in motion, spinning like children’s toys and crashing into whatever crosses their path. The motions are, of course, extremely slow, and occur over millions or even billions of years.

The aftermath of these galactic collisions helps scientists to understand how these movements occur and what may be in store for our own Milky Way, which is on a collision course with a neighboring galaxy, Messier 31.

Just because..

Got to love this shot... That must hurt though.

More Spring flowers

The Plum and Cherry trees are in bloom and it is nice to see them after a cold winter.

Pushing it...

From photographer Martin Gilles-Raget: Ingrid Petitjean and Olivier Backes have been pushing Nacra 17 today in marginal sailing conditions in Marseille bay.

GP 42

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Z4bu7UMIaFU

 GP 42 “Team Vision Future” during Massilia Cup 2013, 1st Mediterranean event for IRC’s med championship. Team Vision Future won last year National IRC French Championship and they seems to want doing the same for this year!

The Heineken St. Martin Regatta, not from the video above but a cool shot.

Dragon heading home

The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft was released from the International Space Station’s robotic arm by crew members of Expedition 35 at 6:56 a.m. EDT. The spacecraft now will begin a series of departure burns and maneuvers to move beyond the 656-foot (200-meter) “keep out sphere” around the station and begin its return trip to Earth.

The spacecraft is currently scheduled to splashdown in the Pacific Ocean at 12:35 p.m., hundreds of miles off the west coast of Baja California, Mexico.

Soyuz Rolls Out

The Soyuz rocket is rolled out to the launch pad by train on Tuesday, March 26, 2013, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Launch of the Soyuz rocket is scheduled for March 29 and will send Expedition 35 Soyuz Commander Pavel Vinogradov, and Flight Engineers Chris Cassidy of NASA and Alexander Misurkin of Russia on a five-and-a-half-month mission aboard the International Space Station.

St. Barth

Lionheart and Rainbow prepare to go out for some test sailing.

St. Barth has been pretty quiet for the last 10 days or so, but that all changed this morning as the St. Barth Bucket, which we've often referred to as the "greatest spectacle in sailing," starts later this week and the boats and support troops have started to show up. There will be 36 or more entries in the 100- to 300-ft range. This will include five J-Class yachts, approximately 135 feet in length, the greatest grouping of these magnificent yachts ever.

Super Guppy

A NASA Super Guppy transport plane "swallowed" two NASA T-38 aircraft whole March 18, right out on NASA Dryden Flight Research Center's back ramp.

The SGT Super Guppy-Turbine, the last of its kind still flying, is based at Ellington Airport in Houston, near NASA's Johnson Space Center. The aircraft was at Dryden to transport the two T-38s that Dryden hasn't flown in several years and are no longer airworthy to El Paso, Texas, where they will be cannibalized for parts to keep other Johnson-operated T-38s in El Paso flying. After removing the wings and other usable components, the remaining portions of the airframes will be trucked to the Air Force's Aerospace Maintenance and Recovery Center adjacent to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson, Ariz., for final disposition.

Portland Steel and Flowers

This last Sunday I took a walk along the river in downtown Portland. The Cherry Trees were in full bloom and it was not raining for a change. This was good since the rain has a tendency to wash the flowers away. But the rain last week was light and the flowers stayed on the trees. Portland of course is known by many names, Stump Town, Bridge City to name a few. As for the bridge name, there are ten bridges that cross the river (actually 11 plus a new one being built) so the name kind of fits.

 

Steel Bridge

Where the Cherry Trees are, there is the very old Steel Bridge, I guess it got its name because it is made of steel. But this bridge has a lower deck for trains and an upper deck for cars and now the light rail. Down river is the Broadway Bridge, this one also is for cars and now the trolley as well. There is a train only bridge but it is not counted in the ten bridges, only car bridges make the list. But since it was a nice cool day, many people were out looking at the flowers and enjoying a walk. Clouds always seem to be around this time of year so the flowers were a little muted by not having the bright light but they were still nice to see.

Broadway Bridge

Flying the flag...

Nothing needs to be said..

NZ AC Dope

AC Dope

Team New Zealand failed to provide information required as part of its $36 million deal with the Government for more than a year, a Sunday Star-Times investigation has found. And it took the Ministry of Economic Development that long to do anything about the apparent breach of the funding deal – finally sending an email to the yachting team saying “we haven’t received any quarterly reports from you in quite a while”.

Team boss Grant Dalton apologised in an email, but complained that earlier reports “just seemed to disappear into a black hole”.

The emails form part of hundreds of pages of documents released under the Official Information Act. We asked for financial information provided by Team NZ to the Government after sources close to the team told us they had concerns over a lack of accountability over how the money was being spent.

“So many people are asking these questions. There’s no accountability, no transparency around the public money,” an America’s Cup veteran said. “Questions need to be asked of the Government – you provided the money, what accountability is there?”

The Ministry of Economic Development released cabinet briefing papers and the agreements signed between the Government and Team NZ, but very little financial information. The team's agreement with the Government has a clause stating it must be prepared to be audited, but no audit has been carried out. At least $14m of the $36m has been released.

The America's Cup will be held in San Francisco in September and it is likely to be New Zealand's last chance to win back the cup. Dalton said in a television interview in February that the event had become "ridiculously out of control, expensive" and that "billionaires' egos" were being allowed to set the criteria.

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said the Government's oversight of the money was "disgraceful" and "extraordinary" and it had failed to implement basic accountability measures for the use of $36m of taxpayer money.

He was scathing of the year-long gap in providing information.
"On the face of it, it's a clear breach of the agreement. I think we can say Government was asleep at the tiller."

The Government's "strategic partnership agreement" with Team NZ says it must provide the ministry with an accurate and complete report on all the areas set out in an eight-page reporting template, including a summary of all its activities that utilised Government money and a report on expenditure against budget, within 30 days of the end of every quarter.

On October 14, 2011, an MED staff member, whose name was withheld, contacted Dalton, informing him that the required paperwork had not been completed for 13 months, meaning at least three missed reports.

The documentation was needed to authorise the release of Crown payments - though Team NZ received the payments anyway.

Dalton wrote back: "Sorry about no reports, they just seemed to disappear into a black hole and we have never heard a word since the first one we did for Roger all that long time ago. Anyway, we will fill one out and send it on beginning of next week."

In response to Star-Times questions about the lack of information provided, the ministry said on Friday it now had up to date reports covering the period from January 2010, when the agreement with Team NZ was updated, and any delays in reporting were an "administrative oversight".

The ministry had stayed in regular telephone contact with Team NZ during the period in question and no issues were raised that required action. Two payments were made during that time.

The ministry said quarterly reporting expectations were separate from instalment payment requirements. Team NZ met its contractual requirements prior to payment, which included showing evidence of raising $2 of sponsorship for every $1 of government funding.

Dalton said yesterday the basis of the drawdown of funds was showing proof of sponsorship money. "Team NZ is not aware of any issues outstanding through the time you describe."

"Clearly it's both sides. The Government, at the end of the day, is in the position of allocating money and could have insisted on proper accountability mechanisms, but, because they're asleep at the tiller, they didn't."

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce said officials had told him that under the agreement, funding instalments were solely dependent on the level of sponsorship raised, not the performance reporting.

This appears to be at odds with the papers released to the Star-Times, and Joyce said he would be asking officials for a full report on accountability to date and taking further action if required.
He revealed that the Government had looked at whether it could get out of its contract with Team NZ, which had been signed by the Labour Government at a time when "money was thought to grow on trees".

Labour's former minister for the America's Cup, Trevor Mallard, who first signed the strategic partnership agreement, remains convinced it was a good deal. "It's my understanding now that all the income targets have been met and as a result of that the grant would have been more than paid back in PAYE and GST.

"I think a lot of people think ‘shit, 30 million bucks that's an enormous amount of money and it's all going one way', whereas the whole basis of the agreement . . . and the reason for phasing the payments to them was they had to meet other income targets and be based in New Zealand and a whole pile of other things which were designed to result in the taxpayer being net better off."

From a 'crazy' boat builder... I would like one of these..

"I have built this myself at home in my gararge. Still about 2 months to launching. I’m still finishing off the keel and fitting it out at the moment. It is for 2 crew with self tacking jib and gennaker with a tunnel for launch and retrieval of the gennaker. Lift keel and a under hull spade rudder which is also easy removable. No idea yet how quick it will be.
Its only real purpose is to take it’s aging, over weight owner out for a sail. I don’t care about handicaps, rating rules, politics and all the associated horse shit or anything like that. I figure the guy steering will be a handicap enough. It is built purely for the fun of sailing and a few beers with freinds. If we actually manage to beat anyone, thats just a bonus, and if not we will just open another beer, tell some dirty jokes and start planning the next boat project."

??? Will it float???

So here are a couple of pictures my brother took of a "boat" that is being built in a Marin County lot near San Rafael. A father/son team has been working on it for at least a year and a half. What do you think? Well, it may look OK, but a few things to mention, the hull is not fiberglass, it is plywood painted. Yes just painted. A ketch rig with a radar mast off to one side. I wonder how they will fly a spinnaker with that sticking up? No glass on the main salon deck? Also there are outboard motor mounts on the back.... If they plan to just sit in a dock and never sail it, it may last a year or so. But I think if they try to sail it it will split and sink... We will see....

Dude!!!

Do I have to say anything???? Some people should stay off the water...

J/111

The first J/111 to hit New Zealand... Nice shot of a later summer evening down-under..

Star City man...

 The Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft lies passively on its side March 16 after bringing home Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford of NASA, Soyuz Commander Oleg Novitskiy and Flight Engineer Evgeny Tarelkin to a landing northeast of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan following a one-day delay due to inclement weather in the area. The Soyuz initially landed upright before being tilted on its side for servicing after touching down to wrap up 144 days in space and 142 days for Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin at the International Space Station. The three crew members were flown by helicopter to Kustanai, Kazakhstan en route to their homes in Houston and Star City, Russia.

Francis Joyon

One of the complaints about the current America's Cup boats is that very little of the technological advances will trickle down to regular boats. We suppose that's mostly true, but then we learned that Frenchman Francis Joyon has equipped his 33-meter trimaran IDEC with foils such as those found on the AC boats. That should make IDEC faster still — and a little more sensitive.

For those not familiar with French sailors, Joyon is something special, a soulful singlehander admired by all, who nonetheless has an astonishing record of achievements. We won't go into his whole history, but in the early days it was marked by around-the-world records set with an ancient boat, worn sails, and no outside help — not even a weather router.

Joyon currently holds three of the biggest records in singlehanded racing: First, there is the big one, the singlehanded nonstop around-the-world record of 57 days. That's not too far off the crewed record of 45 days. Last year he improved on the singlehanded 24-hour distance record, 666.2 nm, averaging 27.75 knots. Recently he set a new Columbus Route — Cadiz to San Salvador — record of 8d, 16h (all aboard the 95-ft tri IDEC). No sailor has ever held these three prestigious records at the same time.

And now Joyon — and his foils — has his sights set on the fourth record in what would give him an unprecedented Grand Slam. That record is the New York-to-Lizard Record, currently held by Thomas Colville and his slightly larger and much more sophisticated and comfortable 105-ft trimaran Sodebo. The record will be difficult to beat, as Colville did the 2,980-mile (rhumbline) route in just 5d, 19h, an average of 21 knots on the rhumbline.

Ice boat video, kind of crazy looking but fast..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=v6QamqyKc10


Video of Oracle out on a practice day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=mChzY-u5o4I

And NZ out sailing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GCvq1L4EFak

Oracle flying on the bay...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Y6dnOlE9sjk

This is a great Oracle video... Flying across the bay on one foil... I sailed that area a lot and never even went near that fast on any boat, power or sail...

A CNN story on why the media went along with the Bush Administration's war propaganda

In February 2002, when the Bush administration's campaign to win support for invading Iraq was gathering steam, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was asked at a news conference about insinuations that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with al Qaeda, a collaboration for which there was no evidence.

Rumsfeld's response may not have been illuminating, but it was certainly memorable. "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me," he said, "because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

 

As we approach the 10th anniversary of that invasion, Rumsfeld's musings provide a helpful reminder for members of the news media. When the next war debate comes, our first step ought to be to take careful stock of what we know and what we don't.

 

Journalists regularly have to take crash courses in new subjects. When the economy imploded in 2008, many of us who write about public affairs found ourselves addressing economic matters in greater detail than ever before. To write intelligently about health care reform in 2009, you had to get up to speed on how things such as the health insurance market and Medicare work, and a hundred other details.

 

When a new topic is inherently opaque -- such as the internal politics of a country most journalists could barely find on a map, or the complex consequences of starting a war in a region where U.S. foreign policy is widely reviled -- we should know more than ever about our own personal known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

 

That didn't happen in 2002 and 2003. The campaign to sell the Iraq War was a carefully planned and skillfully executed propaganda effort, and it succeeded because so many journalists and news outlets went along for the ride.

 

To be fair to the news media, they were up against an administration using diabolically clever techniques. To take just one example, in the fall of 2002, the administration leaked a story to The New York Times' Judith Miller claiming that Iraq had purchased aluminum tubes clearly intended for use in centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

 

The truth, as we later found out, was that there was no Iraqi nuclear program, and the tubes in question would have been virtually useless for one. They were meant for conventional rockets. But the administration knew the exclusive would be too juicy for Miller to pass up. Her credulous account, passing all the administration's false claims on as a "scoop," appeared on the Times front page on September 8.

 

Vice President Dick Cheney then went on "Meet the Press" that very day and said, "It's now public that in fact he has been seeking to acquire, and we have been able to intercept and prevent him from acquiring, through this particular channel, the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge." So the administration planted a false story in the Times, then cited the false story on NBC, using the Times' imprimatur to bolster its credibility. That is some Jedi-level media manipulation.

Every major news organization, from national newspapers to television networks to magazines, was complicit to some degree in selling the public a brief of false information, from Hussein's allegedly terrifying arsenal of weapons of mass destruction to the fictional links between the Iraqi government and al Qaeda.

 

It wasn't that you couldn't find journalists questioning the official story, raising doubts about the administration's claims, and doing the hard work to determine what the truth was. You always can. Whenever there's a story that the media as a whole get wrong, there's always a reporter somewhere who got it right. The problem was that those voices were so much quieter, pushed so far to the edge of the national debate.

 

Even within some publications there was a tension. One of the journalistic heroes of the pre-war period was Washington Post national security reporter Walter Pincus, who reported the lack of evidence for the administration's hype. But his articles were buried deep within the paper, while the front page blared scary stories about the fearsome threat from Iraq and the Post's editorial page beat the drums for war. Asked later why his stories were shunted to the back pages, Pincus responded, "The Post was scared."

 

And so were much of the media. When there's a war in the offing, the flags are waving and dissenters are being called treasonous, the media's courage tends to slip away. Which is particularly regrettable, since the time when the government is pressing for war should be the time when they are more aggressive than ever, exploring every possibility and asking every question, over and over again if need be. That's the time when government is most likely to dissemble and deceive. That was when we most needed the press, and when its failure was the most costly.

 

So the next time people in power propose a new war -- and they will -- journalists need to ask some important questions. What are the limits of our understanding of this country we might invade? What are the motivations of the people pushing for the action? What evidence is the government offering to support its claims? Are there knowledgeable people who disagree, and what are they saying? Which of the government's claims have I investigated myself, and which am I taking on face value? What are the potential consequences of military action, good and bad, and have I explored them in enough detail? And in the context of Iraq, which questions do I wish I had asked last time around?

 

That's just a start, of course. Perhaps lessons have been learned, and the next time a president warns the American people that we have no choice but to invade another country or risk our doom, the press will do a better job of being skeptical, thoughtful and rigorous than it did 10 years ago. It couldn't do much worse.

Comet PanSTARRS on March 17th

Comet PanSTARRS on March 17th. Earth's changing viewpoint toward its flat, thin dust tail is making the tail appear wider. Note the hint of a thin, straight ion (gas) tail just to the right of the curving dust tail's edge. Enhanced images show that it's real.

The magnitude is about +2.6 so it is still visible, but fading. A longer exposure photo will show more details. Go to Sky and Telescope website for more info.

How significant would the discovery of life on Mars be?

An interesting little story on the SFGATE.com site:

 

The rover Curiosity recently found that, in the distant past of Mars, conditions were entirely suitable to microbial life as we know it. This increases the likelihood that life once might have existed there.

The question is, would it be a big deal?

Interestingly, Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center in California, says it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, even if it could be shown that life on Earth and Mars developed independently.

That is, in the early days of the solar system, more material in the form of comets and asteroids was flying around than now, so that the source of life for both planets could have been the same. Thus there could be the discovery of Earth-like life on Mars, or something completely new, a second genesis.

But even that, McKay says, probably wouldn’t move the public meter. Here’s what he told Live Science:

Life evolving twice in the same solar system would suggest that life is common throughout the universe, McKay explained. Such a discovery would be huge for biologists, who would suddenly have an entirely new type of biology to study.
McKay doesn’t envision any major shifts in philosophy among the public in response to such a discovery, though. The discovery of microorganisms on another planet wouldn’t necessarily spur the need to re-evaluate humanity’s place in the universe, for example.
“I would put it along the lines of the discovery of the Higgs boson,” McKay said, referring to the particle theorized to explain where other particles get their mass. “It would be that sort of level of event. It would be out in the public and people would be like, ‘Oh, wow,’ but mostly it would be something that scientists would get into.”

I just flatly disagree. I don’t think the discovery of a second source of life would cause an immediate shifts in philosophy, but I do believe it would be a much bigger deal than the Higgs.

The Higgs boson was unquestionably a huge discovery and achievement for physicists, but I contend that it barely made a splash in the public conscience because it’s an extremely difficult concept to understand, and its implications for society are wholly unclear. (Well I can understand that most people wouldn't understand the Higgs Field, since most people have no understanding of physics)

I think the discovery of a second genesis on Mars would create much more discussion and public interest. People understand life. They can debate the philosophical and theological implications of life evolving elsewhere. They can discuss what this means about the likelihood of life existing elsewhere in the universe.

While it would be a step short of a visit by intelligent aliens, the discovery of original life evolving in Mars would, in my opinion, be the astrobiological discovery of our lifetimes.

J/105's outboard motor....

A J/105 going in light air..... Photo from the sucky ocean courses at the sucky dago nood race event.. Though San Diego is a great place to hangout at and the beaches are nice, the wind is not so great. Typical wind is around 5 to 12 knots and it can be a very calm day in the spring. Though the lack of wind makes the ocean glassy for surfing, not so good for sailing a race.

LANDSAILING

Feeling the need for speed, landsailors will gather during the last week in March 2013, on Ivanpah Dry Lake to sail in the premier American landsailing regatta known as AMERICA’S LANDSAILING CUP. 80 + competitors will race in fleets ranging from Miniclass yachts upward to International Class II yachts. Races will be held daily (wind permitting) and spectators are welcome. Watching (or participating) in racing where yachts regularly round leeward marks at 60 mph, is amazing!

Ivanpah dry lake, off I-15 at the California-Nevada state line, a few miles from Las Vegas, is arguably the fastest sailing surface on the planet, home to several past records and the current sail-powered speed record of just over 126 mph. In some ways, it is the speed of normal landsailers that is more remarkable. In daily course racing the smallest racers will hit close to 50 mph while the bigger boats will be cruising closer to 100 mph.

Emirates Team New Zealand flying wing

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10872259

Emirates Team New Zealand finally put a foot wrong earlier today, but despite looking quite scary, the team got off lightly; no injuries and just a day or two in repair time. Today was meant to be Wing No. 2′s debut, but accounts say it was wing 1 that got bit during launch on a very gusty Tuesday. Maybe the team were practicing high-wind launch techniques…

Kepler's supernova

This is the remnant of Kepler's supernova, the famous explosion that was discovered by Johannes Kepler in 1604. The red, green and blue colors show low, intermediate and high energy X-rays observed with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the star field is from the Digitized Sky Survey.

As reported in our press release, a new study has used Chandra to identify what triggered this explosion. It had already been shown that the type of explosion was a so-called Type Ia supernova, the thermonuclear explosion of a white dwarf star. These supernovas are important cosmic distance markers for tracking the accelerated expansion of the Universe.

However, there is an ongoing controversy about Type Ia supernovas. Are they caused by a white dwarf pulling so much material from a companion star that it becomes unstable and explodes? Or do they result from the merger of two white dwarfs?

The new Chandra analysis shows that the Kepler supernova was triggered by an interaction between a white dwarf and a red giant star. The crucial evidence from Chandra was a disk-shaped structure near the center of the remnant. The researchers interpret this X-ray emission to be caused by the collision between supernova debris and disk-shaped material that the giant star expelled before the explosion. Another possibility was that the structure is just debris from the explosion.

The disk structure seen by Chandra in X-rays is very similar in both shape and location to one observed in the infrared by the Spitzer Space Telescope. This composite image shows Spitzer data in pink and Chandra data from iron emission in blue. The disk structure is identified with a label.

This composite figure also shows a remarkably large and puzzling concentration of iron on one side of the center of the remnant but not the other. The authors speculate that the cause of this asymmetry might be the "shadow" in iron that was cast by the companion star, which blocked the ejection of material. Previously, theoretical work has suggested this shadowing is possible for Type Ia supernova remnants.

The authors also produced a video showing a simulation of the supernova explosion as it interacts with material expelled by the giant star companion. It was assumed that the bulk of this material was expelled in a disk-like structure, with a gas density that is ten times higher at the equator, running from left to right, than at the poles. This simulation was performed in two dimensions and then projected into three dimensions to give an image that can be compared with observations. The good agreement with observations supports their interpretation of the data.

Shamrock Run

Well this last Sunday was the 35th running of the Shamrock Run, not a marathon or half, but a number of different length runs in Portland. A 15K was the longest run, with 8K, 5K and kid runs/walk as well. This is one of the largest, by total number, running events on the West Coast. I ran this event with a friend, someone I could use to pace with, and did the 15K.

The one big unknown was the weather. Portland could have rain or snow or hail on a March morning. But the race day brought sunny skies, though it was cold and I was not too thrilled to step out at 6 am and find the temperature in the 30’s. But we drove down and made our way to the starting area, did a little stretching and loosened up.

The 15K had an estimated 9000 runners and we wanted to get in the front, so we positioned ourselves so we would be in the front group. This helps because the first mile is crowed and it is hard to get a stride started. At 10 minutes till they let us on the course and we got in position, we were about 30 yards to the start and this was a good place to be.

The idea was to start in groups so it wouldn’t get too crowed, but that didn’t happen. As they counted down, I could hear a train horn, the course crosses the tracks at two places and I hoped the train would stay on the other side of the river.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1….

Finish medals. Only Portland would have beer openers

Horn sounded and the runners started.  We slowly walked about 10 yards before we could start to run and we were across the line. We had timing chips on our shoes so our actual time would be tracked. The first 100 yards was a lot of moving around slow talking runners and trying to get into a clear area. We crossed the tracks and got going, I could hear the train and then I heard the crossing gates…. The train was coming and the runners would have to stop. I can’t believe the organizers didn’t check with the train schedule. I was worried that the train was a freight train and it would across our path, so I tried to speed up so we could beat it across if need be.

I was glad to see it was an Amtrak train and was stopping at the train station so we would have a clear path.  The next section was through downtown and flat, which helped my time. Open streets and easy to get a good pace going. A couple of turns and we started the climb. For half the course we would go up, the first section was a shallow incline but there were a couple of good climbs to come. As we past the 3 mile mark, the incline increased, at the 4 mile mark we were on the first big hill, a long two mile climb. This really slowed me down but I still was doing OK.

We made the top and started down, then the second climb. More slowly this time, made the top and now I was happy. We were at the 6 mile mark and it was all down hill from here.  3 more miles of down hill running and the speed was back up. I was feeling OK, my pace partner had pulled in front on the hill so I could only chase her. I figured this would happen.

I was trying not to be passed and I kept the pace going. Past the 7 mile mark, 2 more miles… I could do it, pick up the pace, still down hill. 8 mile mark, almost there, I could see where the finish was and was still going strong. Coming up to the 9 mile mark…..

STOP!!!!

What???

A traffic police officer was stopping the runners to let cars by…

What??

We were in sight of the finish, were speeding up to make the last quarter mile, strong finish…. But no, we stopped. Everyone was complaining, the car drivers were slowly crossing, I could feel my legs getting tight.

Some runners tried to cross, ran out in front of the cars.

Traffic stopped, the cop was waving cars on but they weren’t moving.

I ran around a car and kept on going.

Finish in sight!!!

Strong last 100 yards and across the line…

1 hour and 19 minutes. 8 and a half minute mile pace.  Should have been a couple of minutes sooner, but I was happy. I turned in the chip, got my medal and met my friend. She finished 4 minutes a head of me, she was happy too with her pace. We wanted to get going and get a coffee, it was still only 39 degrees. People were drinking beer already, no way. Coffee was what we wanted and that was where we went.

Till next year…

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity at Mount Sharp

Rising above the present location of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, higher than any mountain in the 48 contiguous states of the United States, Mount Sharp is featured in new imagery from the rover.
A pair of mosaics assembled from dozens of telephoto images shows Mount Sharp in dramatic detail. The component images were taken by the 100-millimeter-focal-length telephoto lens camera mounted on the right side of Curiosity's remote sensing mast, during the 45th Martian day of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 20, 2012).

This layered mound, also called Aeolis Mons, in the center of Gale Crater rises more than 3 miles (5 kilometers) above the crater floor location of Curiosity. Lower slopes of Mount Sharp remain a destination for the mission, though the rover will first spend many more weeks around a location called "Yellowknife Bay," where it has found evidence of a past environment favorable for microbial life.

Webb Space Telescope backplane

A massive backplane that will hold the primary mirror of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope nearly motionless while it peers into space is another step closer to completion with the recent assembly of the support structure's wings.

The wings enable the mirror, made of 18 pieces of beryllium, to fold up and fit inside a 16.4-foot (5-meter) fairing on a rocket, and then unfold to 21 feet in diameter after the telescope is delivered to space. All that is left to build is the support fixture that will house an integrated science instrument module, and technicians will connect the wings and the backplane's center section to the rest of the observatory.

 

"This is another milestone that helps move Webb closer to its launch date in 2018," said Geoff Yoder, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope program director, NASA Headquarters, Washington.

Designed, built and set to be tested by ATK at its facilities in Magna, Utah, the wing assemblies are extremely complex, with 900 separate parts made of lightweight graphite composite materials using advanced fabrication techniques. ATK assembled the wing assemblies like a puzzle with absolute precision. ATK and teammate Northrop Grumman of Redondo Beach, Calif., completed the fabrication.

"We will measure the accuracy down to nanometers -- it will be an incredible engineering and manufacturing challenge," said Bob Hellekson, ATK's Webb Telescope program manager. "With all the new technologies that have been developed during this program, the Webb telescope has helped advance a whole new generation of highly skilled ATK engineers, scientists and craftsmen while helping the team create a revolutionary telescope."

When fully assembled, the primary mirror backplane support structure will measure about 24 feet by 21 feet and weigh more than 2,000 pounds. The backplane must be very stable, both structurally and thermally, so it does not introduce changes in the primary mirror shape, and holds the instruments in a precise position with respect to the telescope. While the telescope is operating at a range of extremely cold temperatures, from minus 406 to minus 360 degrees Fahrenheit, the backplane must not vary more than 38 nanometers (about one one-thousandth the diameter of a human hair). The thermal stability requirements for the backplane are unprecedented.

"Our ATK teammates demonstrated the thermal stability on test articles before building the wing assemblies with the same design, analysis, and manufacturing techniques. One of the test articles ATK built and tested is actually larger than a wing," said Charlie Atkinson, deputy Webb Optical Telescope Element manager for Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, Calif. "The mirrors are attached to the wings, as well as the rest of the backplane support structure, so the alignment is critical. If the wings distort, then the mirror distorts, and the images formed by the telescope would be distorted."

The James Webb Space Telescope is the successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. It will be the most powerful space telescope ever built and observe the most distant objects in the universe, provide images of the first galaxies formed and see unexplored planets around distant stars.

Light Echoes from V838 Mon

What caused this outburst of V838 Mon? For reasons unknown, star V838 Mon's outer surface suddenly greatly expanded with the result that it became the brightest star in the entire Milky Way Galaxy in January 2002. Then, just as suddenly, it faded. A stellar flash like this had never been seen before -- supernovas and novas expel matter out into space. Although the V838 Mon flash appears to expel material into space, what is seen in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope is actually an outwardly moving light echo of the bright flash.

In a light echo, light from the flash is reflected by successively more distant rings in the complex array of ambient interstellar dust that already surrounded the star. V838 Mon lies about 20,000 light years away toward the constellation of the unicorn (Monoceros), while the light echo above spans about six light years in diameter.

Moth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wuJ2WePfJEU

Some Moth action here. I would love to try to sail one of these, must be interesting to fly above the water, totally different experience.

Speedboat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_Qz8BJ_Yl6M

The castrated Speedboat is due in Sydney in just a few days with some serious work ahead to get her on the line for the 2013 Hobart, here is a time-lapse look at what it took to get her to sea.

Ides Day

Today is the 15th of March which is the Ides of March. This is a throw back to the Roman calendar in that there were three important days of the month. Nones, Ides and Kalends. Kalends was the first day of the next month and this day set all the days in the preceding month. Nones was either the 5th or the 7th day and the Ides was either the 13th or 15th. Romans though odd days were lucky. Also the Ides of March was the day Cesar was stabbed to death in the year 44 BS (Before the Starting date). The Ides occurred near the midpoint, on the 13th for most months, but on the 15th for March, May, July, and October. "The ides of March have come" was what Cesar told the seer who prophesied of harm coming to him by the Ides. But of course the day was not done and Cesar got his a short time later. The Romans assigned these calends to the first day of the month, signifying the start of the new moon cycle. On that day, the pontiffs would announce at the Curia Calabra the rest days for the upcoming month and the debtors had to pay off their debts that were inscribed in the kalendaria, a sort of accounts book.

Kite boarder and Brazil..

http://vimeo.com/61626080

OK if you like Kite-Sailing and girls, here is a girl Kite Boarder...

I guess there is no hope...

Today during a hearing on gun limits, there was a fiery exchange between the far far right and Democrats in the Senate. It really shows how divided this country is, if I say we need to stop putting poison in our food, someone will stand up and argue that we have the right to eat poison...

 

 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a 20-year veteran Democrat, clashed fiercely with Tea Party-backed newcomer Ted Cruz of Texas, when the freshman began lecturing the Californian about the Constitution during a debate over Feinstein’s assault weapons ban.

The ban passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party line vote. The clash was reminiscent of an exchange Feinstein had nearly two decades ago with the since disgraced Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican, who lectured the “gentle lady from California” on firearms during debate over Feinstein’s successful 1994 ban that expired in 2004. (Craig left the Senate after being charged with soliciting gay sex in a men’s room. Craig is now defending his use of campaign funds to pay for his criminal defense.)

No issue is more emotional for Feinstein. She became mayor of San Francisco as a result of the assassination of George Moscone, and was the first to discover supervisor Harvey Milk’s body, slipping her finger into the bullet hole as she sought a pulse. Feinstein said children at Sandy Hook elementary in Newtown, Conn., were “dismembered” by an assault weapon.

Cruz asked Feinstein whether she would “deem it consistent with the Bill of Rights” if Congress did the same thing to the First Amendment that she contemplates with the Second Amendment. Her assault weapons bill bans certain weapons, so Cruz asked whether Congress could ban certain books.

The Stanford-educated Feinstein replied, “I am not a sixth-grader,” and said her bill specifically exempts 2,271 weapons. “Is this not enough for the people of the United States?” she asked? “Do they need a bazooka?”

Undeterred, Cruz persisted with his rhetorical question. Texas GOP colleague John Cornyn attempted to help him out. But Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy at that point inserted himself in Feinstein’s defense, suggesting that Texas education boards banned books. In the meantime, Feinstein, with an assist from fellow Dems, came up with the rebuttal that the First Amendment indeed does not permit child pornography. Feinstein said all constitutional rights must meet certain tests.

Cruz took offense at the idea that Texans don’t read. Feinstein, who just won a civility award, was clearly offended by Cruz’s tone and method. Just two months into his term, Cruz seems to throw civility out the window.

Oracle out

Well this isn't the best picture... Oracle was out on a nice March day doing some training yesterday. My brother stopped to watch and took this picture from the view point on the north side of the GG (that's the Golden Gate). He is always amazed at how fast the boat is, travels across the bay in a few minutes, the chase boats struggling to keep up.

More on AC cost in San Francisco

Fundraising to help offset city costs for hosting the America’s Cup regatta has fallen well short of targets to reach $32 million in three years, but the city’s costs are also projected to be considerably less, fueling debate Wednesday about what the event will mean for San Francisco’s bottom line.

City staff projects the cost to taxpayers for putting on the races, like increased police, Muni and ambulance services, will be about $22.5 million. That’s notably less than the $40 million to $52million in costs projected a little over a year ago.

But fundraising has also lagged, with only about $14 million raised in either cash or pledges, according to the city controller. About $3 million has gone to related commitments, and almost $2.7 million to operating expenses for the group of civic leaders leading the fundraising effort. Almost $1.6 million of city costs incurred to date have not been paid.

The America’s Cup Organizing Committee, the civic fundraising group, has reimbursed the city for $6.8 million of its expenses, city documents show. If revenue from hotel, payroll and retail taxes linked to the event hits the $13 million projection, that leaves will leave a $2.7million shortfall in city coffers, according to a report from Michael Martin, the city’s America’s Cup project director. He made the presentation Wednesday to the Board of Supervisor’s’ Budget and Finance Committee.

Supervisor John Avalos, though, questioned the use of applying increased tax revenue from the event toward the city’s general fund costs.

“That, to me, was not what the intent was originally,” Avalos said, adding later: “The intent was to (have) $32 million to cover the city’s costs.”

Mark Buell, head of the America’s Cup Organizing Committee, agreed.

“Supervisors, I would not disagree with you that that was clearly the intent going forward” after the host agreement was signed in 2010, Buell said.

But city documents show applying tax revenue was contemplated for more than a year.

A February 2012 report by board Budget and Legislative Analyst Harvey Rose projected city costs for hosting the event at almost $52 million. With $32 million from the America’s Cup Organizing Committee and $22 million from estimated event-related tax receipts, Rose’s report projected the city would have a $2.2 million surplus from the event. If the organizing committee raised only $8 million, the amount it had at the time, the city would have a $22 million deficit, the report noted.

Separate February 2012 documents from the city’s economic development office also applied increased hotel and other tax revenue to the city’s hosting costs. That analysis projected a surplus of $7.7 million to $8.5 million at the end of the day if the organizing committee raised the full $32 million.

It may prove a tough sell, though, trying to convince private donors to contribute to city costs if the money is simply adding to the city’s profit line.

How much in private funds can be raised and whether the projected tax revenues materialize are central questions.

“I want to make sure our general fund doesn’t get hit,” Supervisor Eric Mar said.

With Mayor Ed Lee making his pitch to various CEOs over breakfasts in recent weeks, and other fundraising efforts, some were confident the city would be made whole.

“The bottom line here is we’re going to have an event that in all likelihood is going to cost zero dollars to our general fund,” while generating $900 million of economic activity and the chance to “showcase our city in an international spotlight,” said Supervisor Mark Farrell.

Physicists say they have found a Higgs boson

The search is all but over for a subatomic particle that is a crucial building block of the universe.

Physicists announced Thursday they believe they have discovered the subatomic particle predicted nearly a half-century ago, which will go a long way toward explaining what gives electrons and all matter in the universe size and shape.

 

The elusive particle, called a Higgs boson, was predicted in 1964 to help fill in our understanding of the creation of the universe, which many theorize occurred in a massive explosion known as the Big Bang. The particle was named for Peter Higgs, one of the physicists who proposed its existence, but it later became popularly known as the "God particle."

 

The discovery would be a strong contender for the Nobel Prize. Last July, scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, announced finding a particle they described as Higgs-like, but they stopped short of saying conclusively that it was the same particle or was some version of it.

 

Scientists have now finished going through the entire set of data. "The preliminary results with the full 2012 data set are magnificent and to me it is clear that we are dealing with a Higgs boson, though we still have a long way to go to know what kind of Higgs boson it is," said Joe Incandela, a physicist who heads one of the two main teams at CERN, each involving several thousand scientists.

 

Whether or not it is a Higgs boson is demonstrated by how it interacts with other particles and its quantum properties, CERN said in the statement. After checking, scientists said the data "strongly indicates that it is a Higgs boson."

 

The results were announced in a statement by the Geneva-based CERN and released at a physics conference in the Italian Alps.

 

CERN's atom smasher, the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider that lies beneath the Swiss-French border, has been creating high-energy collisions of protons to investigate how the universe came to be the way it is.

 

The particle's existence helps confirm the theory that objects gain their size and shape when particles interact in an energy field with a key particle, the Higgs boson. The more they attract, so the theory goes, the bigger their mass will be.