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The Photonbelt Team…

Though solar eclipses can happen two to five times a year, total solar eclipses with the Sun fully covered by the Moon are rare. The total solar eclipse of 22nd July 2009 was a once-in-a-century event because it lasted so long – 6 minutes and 39 seconds; an event not to be surpassed until at least June 2132. If you missed it, here are some incredible pictures from this rare occurrence.

A solar eclipse almost literally takes place when the stars align, that is to say when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, covering the Sun fully or partially. In addition, it occurs only during a new moon when the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction, meaning they appear closer from Earth than they really are.

Read More Via Environmental Graffiti

From the file marked “Evidently, many scientists have never seen even one scary sci-fi movie”: The Defense Department is funding research into battlefield robots that power themselves by eating human corpses. What could possibly go wrong?

Since they apparently don’t own TVs or DVD players, researchers at Robotic Technology say the robots will collect organic matter, which “could” include human corpses, to use for fuel. But if you picked up anything on flesh-eating robots over the years you know they’ll ignore that tasty soybean field and make a chow line right to the nearest dead body. And, if the machines can’t find enough dead people to eat, they can always make new ones.

Researchers seem to get a kick out of ensuring the demise of the human species, so the project is called the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot, or EATR. Wired.com readers looking to save time and trouble are invited to begin marinating themselves in a mix of 10W30 and Heinz 57 Sauce immediately.

Via wired.com

Uranium exists on the moon, according to new data from a Japanese spacecraft.

The findings are the first conclusive evidence for the presence of the radioactive element in lunar dirt, the researchers said. They announced the discovery recently at the 40th Lunar and Planetary Conference and at the Proceedings of the International Workshop Advances in Cosmic Ray Science.

The revelation suggests that nuclear power plants could be built on the moon, or even that Earth’s satellite could serve as a mining source for uranium needed back home.

The Japanese Kaguya spacecraft, which was launched in 2007, detected uranium with a gamma-ray spectrometer. Scientists are using the instrument to create maps of the moon’s surface composition, showing the presence of thorium, potassium, oxygen, magnesium, silicon, calcium, titanium and iron.

“We’ve already gotten uranium results, which have never been reported before,” said Robert Reedy, a senior scientist at the Tucson-based Planetary Science Institute, and a member of the Kaguya science team. “We’re getting more new elements and refining and confirming results found on the old maps.”

The findings could help decide where to build future lunar colonies, since manned outposts will need energy, and could potentially derive it from nuclear power plants.

Furthermore, since uranium supplies on Earth are scarce, mining uranium on the moon to satisfy our energy needs at home could prove lucrative.

Kaguya, officially named SELENE (“Selenological and Engineering Explorer”), crashed into the lunar surface at the end of its mission on June 10.

Via space.com

Doctors completed an autopsy on the body of Michael Jackson on Friday but said they could not immediately establish a cause of death for the “King of Pop” as speculation centered on his use of prescription painkillers.

“The cause of death has been deferred, which means that the medical examiner has ordered additional testing such as toxicology and other studies,” Los Angeles County Coroner’s spokesman Craig Harvey said.

“Those tests we anticipate will take an additional four to six weeks.”

Speaking to a throng of reporters outside the coroner’s office, Harvey said, “There was no indication of any external trauma or indication of foul play to the body of Mr. Jackson.”

He said his office expected to determine what killed Jackson, 50, when the tests were complete.

The body would be released to family members after they chose a mortuary to handle the funeral arrangements, Harvey added.

Celebrity website TMZ.com, citing an interview with an unidentified “close member” of the Jackson family, reported the superstar singer was injected with Demerol about half an hour before he went into cardiac arrest.

‘HE’S NOT RESPONDING’

Police searched Jackson’s rented mansion in the Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles and planned to interview his personal physician, who was with the entertainer at the time of his death.

TMZ, citing family members, said Jackson received a daily injection of Demerol, a narcotic painkiller. The family believes his death was caused by an overdose of the drug, TMZ reported.

An unidentified man called a 911 emergency phone line from the mansion at 12:21 p.m. local time, saying Jackson was unconscious and not breathing.

In excerpts from the call played on television, the man said the doctor was the only other person present and was performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the unconscious Jackson without results.

“He’s pumping, he’s pumping his chest but he’s not responding to anything, sir, please,” the caller said.

A senior law enforcement official told ABC News that Jackson was “heavily addicted” to the painkiller Oxycontin and was injected daily with that medication, along with Demerol.

Lawyer Brian Oxman, a Jackson family spokesman, told CBS’ “The Early Show” he had been concerned about the prescription drugs Jackson took due to injuries suffered while performing.

I do not want to point fingers at anyone because I want to hear what the toxicology report says and the coroner says but the plain fact of the matter is that Michael Jackson had prescription drugs at his disposal at all times,” Oxman said.

WORLDWIDE HEADLINES

Fans and fellow pop stars everywhere revived memories of Jackson’s musical genius, tarnished over the past decade by accusations of child molestation and eccentric behavior.

U.S. President Barack Obama called Jackson a “spectacular performer” but said he believed aspects of his life were “sad and tragic,” the White House said.

Jackson’s death was front-page news around the world as airwaves filled with his greatest hits from “Thriller” to “Billie Jean” and social networking sites were bombarded with messages and tributes.

“My heart, my mind are broken,” actress Elizabeth Taylor, long a close friend of Jackson, said in a statement.

“He will be in my heart forever but it’s not enough,” Taylor said. “My life feels so empty. I don’t think anyone knew how much we loved each other.”

On Hollywood Boulevard, police put up barricades to control thousands of fans who filed past Jackson’s star on the Walk of Fame to honor the child prodigy who became one of the top singers of all time with an estimated 750 million albums sold.

Jackson’s family has yet to announce details of a funeral.

Facing a battered reputation and a mountain of debt that The Wall Street Journal reported ran to $500 million, Jackson spent the last two months rehearsing for a series of London concerts, including Wednesday in Los Angeles.

Despite reports of Jackson’s ill health, the promoters of the London shows, AEG Live, said in March that Jackson passed a 4 1/2-hour physical examination with independent doctors.

In death, Jackson’s music enjoyed an immediate rebound that eluded him for years. His songs surged to the top 15 on online retailer Amazon.com’s best-selling albums within hours.

He dominated the charts in the 1980s and was one of the most successful entertainers, with 13 Grammy Awards and several seminal music videos. His 1982 album “Thriller” yielded seven top-10 singles. [nN26308702]

But he was twice accused of molesting young boys and was charged in 2003 with child sexual abuse. He was acquitted of all charges in a four-month trial in 2005.

In 1994, Jackson married Elvis Presley’s only child, Lisa Marie, which ended in divorce in 1996. He remarried and had two children, later split with his second wife, and had a third child with an unnamed surrogate mother.

Via Reuters

President Nicolas Sarkozy lashed out Monday at the practice of wearing the Muslim burqa, insisting the full-body religious gown is a sign of the “debasement” of women and that it won’t be welcome in France.The French leader expressed support for a recent call by dozens of legislators to create a parliamentary commission to study a small but growing trend of wearing the full-body garment in France.

In the first presidential address in 136 years to a joint session of France’s two houses of parliament, Sarkozy laid out his support for a ban even before the panel has been approved—braving critics who fear the issue is a marginal one and could stigmatize Muslims in France.

“In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity,” Sarkozy said to extended applause in a speech at the Chateau of Versailles southwest of Paris.

“The burqa is not a religious sign, it’s a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement—I want to say it solemnly,” he said. “It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic.”

In France, the terms “burqa” and “niqab” often are used interchangeably. The former refers to a full-body covering worn largely in Afghanistan with only a mesh screen over the eyes, whereas the latter is a full-body veil, often in black, with slits for the eyes.

Later Monday, Sarkozy was expected to host a state dinner with Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Al Thani of Qatar. Many women in the Persian Gulf state wear Islamic head coverings in public—whether while shopping or driving cars.

France enacted a law in 2004 banning the Islamic headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols from public schools, sparking fierce debate at home and abroad. France has Western Europe’s largest Muslim population, an estimated 5 million people.

A government spokesman said Friday that it would seek to set up a parliamentary commission that could propose legislation aimed at barring Muslim women from wearing the head-to-toe gowns outside the home.

The issue is highly divisive even within the government. France’s junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, said she was open to a ban if it is aimed at protecting women forced to wear the burqa.

But Immigration Minister Eric Besson said a ban would only “create tensions.”

A leading French Muslim group warned against studying the burqa.

Via Breitbart

For 15 years, scientists have benefited from data gleaned by U.S. classified satellites of natural fireball events in Earth’s atmosphere — but no longer.

A recent U.S. military policy decision now explicitly states that observations by hush-hush government spacecraft of incoming bolides and fireballs are classified secret and are not to be released, SPACE.com has learned.

The satellites’ main objectives include detecting nuclear bomb tests, and their characterizations of asteroids and lesser meteoroids as they crash through the atmosphere has been a byproduct data bonanza for scientists.

The upshot: Space rocks that explode in the atmosphere are now classified.

“It’s baffling to us why this would suddenly change,” said one scientist familiar with the work. “It’s unfortunate because there was this great synergy … a very good cooperative arrangement. Systems were put into dual-use mode where a lot of science was getting done that couldn’t be done any other way. It’s a regrettable change in policy.”

Scientists say not only will research into the threat from space be hampered, but public understanding of sometimes dramatic sky explosions will be diminished, perhaps leading to hype and fear of the unknown.

Incoming!
Most “shooting stars” are caused by natural space debris no larger than peas. But routinely, rocks as big as basketballs and even small cars crash into the atmosphere. Most vaporize or explode on the way in, but some reach the surface or explode above the surface. Understandably, scientists want to know about these events so they can better predict the risk here on Earth.

Yet because the world is two-thirds ocean, most incoming objects aren’t visible to observers on the ground. Many other incoming space rocks go unnoticed because daylight drowns them out.

Over the last decade or so, hundreds of these events have been spotted by the classified satellites. Priceless observational information derived from the spacecraft were made quickly available, giving researchers such insights as time, a location, height above the surface, as well as light-curves to help pin down the amount of energy churned out from the fireballs.

And in the shaky world we now live, it’s nice to know that a sky-high detonation is natural versus a nuclear weapon blast.

Where the space-based surveillance truly shines is over remote stretches of ocean – far away from the prospect of ground-based data collection.

But all that ended within the last few months, leaving scientists blind-sided and miffed by the shift in policy. The hope is that the policy decision will be revisited and overturned.

Critical importance
“The fireball data from military or surveillance assets have been of critical importance for assessing the impact hazard,” said David Morrison, a Near Earth Object (NEO) scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center. He noted that his views are his own, not as a NASA spokesperson.

The size of the average largest atmospheric impact from small asteroids is a key piece of experimental data to anchor the low-energy end of the power-law distribution of impactors, from asteroids greater than 6 miles (10 kilometers) in diameter down to the meter scale, Morrison told SPACE.com.

“These fireball data together with astronomical observations of larger near-Earth asteroids define the nature of the impact hazard and allow rational planning to deal with this issue,” Morrison said.

Morrison said that fireball data are today playing additional important roles.

As example, the fireball data together with infrasound allowed scientists to verify the approximate size and energy of the unique Carancas impact in the Altiplano — on the Peru-Bolivia border — on Sept. 15, 2007.

Fireball information also played an important part in the story of the small asteroid 2008 TC3, Morrison said. That was the first-ever case of the astronomical detection of a small asteroid before it hit last year. The fireball data were key for locating the impact point and the subsequent recovery of fragments from this impact.

Link in public understanding
Astronomers are closing in on a years-long effort to find most of the potentially devastating large asteroids in our neck of the cosmic woods, those that could cause widespread regional or global devastation. Now they plan to look for the smaller stuff.

So it is ironic that the availability of these fireball data should be curtailed just at the time the NEO program is moving toward surveying the small impactors that are most likely to be picked up in the fireball monitoring program, Morrision said.

“These data have been available to the scientific community for the past decade,” he said. “It is unfortunate this information is shut off just when it is becoming more valuable to the community interested in characterizing near Earth asteroids and protecting our planet from asteroid impacts.”

The newly issued policy edict by the U.S. military of reporting fireball observations from satellites also caught the attention of Clark Chapman, a planetary scientist and asteroid impact expert at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.

“I think that this information is very important to make public,” Chapman told SPACE.com.

“More important than the scientific value, I think, is that these rare, bright fireballs provide a link in public understanding to the asteroid impact hazard posed by still larger and less frequent asteroids,” Chapman explained.

Those objects are witnessed by unsuspecting people in far-flung places, Chapman said, often generating incorrect and exaggerated reports.

“The grounding achieved by associating these reports by untrained observers with the satellite measurements is very useful for calibrating the observer reports and closing the loop with folks who think they have seen something mysterious and extraordinary,” Chapman said.

Via MSNBC

Some researchers believe that the solar cycle influences global climate changes.  They attribute recent warming trends to cyclic variation.  Skeptics, though, argue that there’s little hard evidence of a solar hand in recent climate changes.

Now, a new research report from a surprising source may help to lay this skepticism to rest.  A study from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland looking at climate data over the past century has concluded that solar variation has made a significant impact on the Earth’s climate.  The report concludes that evidence for climate changes based on solar radiation can be traced back as far as the Industrial Revolution.

Past research has shown that the sun goes through eleven year cycles.  At the cycle’s peak, solar activity occurring near sunspots is particularly intense, basking the Earth in solar heat.  According to Robert Cahalan, a climatologist at the Goddard Space Flight Center, “Right now, we are in between major ice ages, in a period that has been called the Holocene.”

Thomas Woods, solar scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder concludes, “The fluctuations in the solar cycle impacts Earth’s global temperature by about 0.1 degree Celsius, slightly hotter during solar maximum and cooler during solar minimum.  The sun is currently at its minimum, and the next solar maximum is expected in 2012.”

According to the study, during periods of solar quiet, 1,361 watts per square meter of solar energy reaches Earth’s outermost atmosphere.  Periods of more intense activity brought 1.4 watts per square meter (0.1 percent) more energy.

While the NASA study acknowledged the sun’s influence on warming and cooling patterns, it then went badly off the tracks.  Ignoring its own evidence, it returned to an argument that man had replaced the sun as the cause current warming patterns.  Like many studies, this conclusion was based less on hard data and more on questionable correlations and inaccurate modeling techniques.

The inconvertible fact, here is that even NASA’s own study acknowledges that solar variation has caused climate change in the past.  And even the study’s members, mostly ardent supports of AGW theory, acknowledge that the sun may play a significant role in future climate changes.

Via DailyTech

Sometimes, even a great firewall isn’t enough. China has apparently ordered PC makers to bundle access control software—ostensibly to protect its citizens from porn—that may allow it to remotely update a blacklist of sites.

Late last month, China quietly ordered PC manufacturers to bundle Internet access control software with all computers sold in the country. The software, which appears to be Windows-only, looks to provide a mix of features, including whitelists, blacklists, and on-the-fly content-based filtering. But the key feature that appeals to the government may be the fact that it allows blacklists to be updated remotely.

The government has already worked with the developers of the software, called “Green Dam-Youth Escort,” previously. Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co, which developed it, apparently worked out the basic features of the filtering when assisting the Chinese military in securing the distribution of internal documents, according to The Wall Street Journal, which broke the story over the weekend.

Rebecca MacKinnon, who is an Open Society Fellow and worked previously at the University of Hong Kong, has translated some of Jinhui’s press materials, which indicate that the Chinese government has worked with Jinhui to make Green Dam available as a free download, and assisted in getting it installed in schools. Jinhui had apparently already arranged to have the software bundled by a number of manufacturers.

There seems to be some confusion about the exact capabilities of Green Dam, as The Journal reported that one of Jinhui’s founders indicated that the software relies on a database of blocked sites that allows it to be updated remotely. Reuters, however, talked with the same person, who indicated that it can perform semantic and image-based evaluation of incoming content—as such, the founder claimed that it’s impossible for the software to be used for general censorship purposes. Still the two capabilities aren’t mutually exclusive, and it would certainly be possible to tune Green Dam’s semantic engine in a way that enabled it to filter out politics in addition to porn.

In any case, Green Dam will have to have been fairly well integrated into the host operating system in order to function well, which presents manufacturers with a whole host of potential problems. Manufacturers tend to bundle a lot of software with their machines, which raises the possibility of conflicts between Green Dam and other software on the machine. The auto-updating of the blacklist is also mentioned as another potential security risk, and certainly raises the prospect that computer makers will have to support software with behavior that changes over time. Although the government seems to have given manufacturers little time to adjust to the mandatory policy—it’s set to take effect July 1—for now, it appears that they’re being given the option of simply shipping disks in the box, rather than installing and enabling Green Dam.

Although China clearly exerts great control over the political content that reaches its citizens, the government appears to be extremely squeamish about is citizens’ interest in porn. As such, it’s tempting to take this policy announcement at face value: an attempt at social, rather than political control. Still, if the software does have the ability to perform remote updates of a blacklist, it will mean that the Chinese government has given itself the option of having the capacity to filter political content, available at the flick of a server-side switch.

Via Ars Technica