Austin fireball strewnfield discovered
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | March 4, 2009
On this post I gave references to several recent meteor events including the Austin Marathon Fireball.
Now the strewnfield of the meteor has been identified:
m.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Surprise Asteroid Makes Near-Miss of Earth
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | March 2, 2009
200 feet wide - discovered only days ago - and a near miss
The 35-meter-wide space rock is similar in size to the Tunguska impactor of 1908 [1]
Surprise Asteroid Makes Near-Miss of Earth Wait! Did you hear that whooshing sound? A small asteroid buzzed by Earth Monday, though only real astronomy geeks in the Pacific would have noticed. The rock, estimated to be no more than 200 feet wide, zoomed past our planet at an altitude of 40,000 miles at 1:44 p.m. universal time — or 8:44 EST. Dubbed 2009 DD45, it was discovered only on Friday by Australian astronomers. Forty thousand miles may sound like a lot, but it’s only about one-seventh of the way to the moon, and less than twice as far out as many telecommunications satellites. m.
1. www.spaceweather.com
Powered by ScribeFire.
Topics: meteors | No Comments »
Biggest Solar Deal Ever
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | February 16, 2009
Biggest Solar Deal Ever Announced
“The largest series of solar installations in history, more than 1,300
megawatts, is planned for the desert outside Los Angeles, according to
a new deal between the utility Southern California Edison and solar
power plant maker, BrightSource.”
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/02/bigsolar.html
m.
Topics: Alternative Energy, solar | No Comments »
Climate Talk Jan 2009
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | January 19, 2009
It recently amazed me to look back and see that it has been almost a year since I wrote my last significant post on climate issues.[1] And it has been almost two years since I finished my first series of 8 entries on climate.[2] It’s time for a bit of an update and a bit of critical reflection on my thoughts from two years ago.
First let’s consider the status of the politics and current bodies of opinion.
The promoters of the idea of majority position regarding Global Warming are as active as ever. Fmr. Vice-President Al Gore, Jim Hansen of NASA, and many others continue to evangelize the issue urgently, having the upper hand in the message generally presented in the official press. As it now appears, the second half of 2007 represented the zenith of the AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) coalition and consensus. Calls to action have continued since then unabated.
However, the consensus of the majority opinion which was claimed at that time and was to a significant degree demonstrated[3] is no longer so overwhelmingly unified. There are now many organized and significant voices of minority points of view that regularly argue against what must still be admitted as the majority view of AGW.[4]. Somewhat out of impatience, I imagine, and out of reaction to annoying minority voices, the majority view has taken to more extreme political maneuvers to push forward their agenda. They have resorted to demeaning ad hominem attacks on those who do not agree with their truth. Those who do not agree that AGW is the pending disaster portrayed are labeled “skeptics” or “deniers”, as pejorative labels, for example. And Al Gore suggested that those who do not accept the majority view are
“in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re
almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged
in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat”.[5]
All of this is typical of movements that are not winning to their satisfaction in the arena of ideas but still hope to win in the arena of political force. And that is exactly the realm the skeptical minorities are intent on not losing, being mostly unified by common rejection of the majority’s wish to push major legal changes onto society in the name of carbon footprint reduction. In other words, the unifying argument behind much of the “AGW skeptic” movement is an economic argument that big government intervention in the economy in the name of AGW is a bad idea.
And in this fashion much of the AGW argument has landed in the realm of politics rather than science. Just now as the science consensus is not so sure as before for a variety of reasons, the political engines are winding up on both sides. Once that happens the scientific voice is typically drowned out by the voices of rhetorical argument, the facts be damned.
As a final comment, back in 2007 there was the beginning of an interesting movement of evangelical Christians coming out in favor of the idea of AGW and reforms to counter it, the so-called Green Evangelicals who promote “creation care”. The movement was broader than AGW but AGW seemed to be a significant part of the overall platform. At any rate, this movement seems to have struggled to build momentum and not too much is heard from it at this time.
m.
————
1. From this blog, Feb. 19, 2008: Climate in Jan/Feb 2008. And March 2, 2008: “Global Warming” vs “Global Cooling”
2. See Climate Talk#1 through Climate Talk #8.
4. There are many websites now that regularly publish points of view opposing AGW. For example, Anthony Watts, and IceCap. There are now many published opinions (especially from non-US scientists) that the earth is beginning a period of cooling instead of warming. These alternate voices were not nearly so numerous in 2007. There are more scientists now regularly questioning the idea of “consensus”. See the paper Nature, Not Human Activity Rules the Climate, printed by the Heartland Institute, for example.
Topics: climate | No Comments »
Recent meteor events
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | January 3, 2009
There have been several recent large meteor events in the last few
months. There are more and more people on the lookout for these
events, some equipped with full-sky cameras. So it is not surprising
that they are being reported and captured more frequently.
See:
On Sept 25, 2009, a large meteor fireball (100 times brighter than a full moon) was observed over the Great Lakes and Ontario:
University of Western Ontario seeking eye witnesses
sky-camera video
March 29, 2009: Virginia beach meteorite: Virginia fireball said to be meteor
On Feb 15, 2009, in broad daylight a meteor streaked across the sky in
Texas and apparently Kentucky. Here is a video from during the Austin
marathon:
Austin marathon meteor video
JAN 2009 UPDATE: Two more events, both in Scandavia:
Jan 17th Fireball: Jan 17th meteor report page
Jan 19th - Another fireball was seen over Norway.
On Dec 7, 2008, an event was captured over Colorado:
Colorado, Colorado2
Now in early 2009, an event was reported over Alaska:
Alaska, Alaska2
A well documented event on Nov 20, 2008 in Saskatchewan:
Canada, Canada You Tube, Canada Police Vehicle Camera
m.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Topics: meteors | No Comments »
Enhanced Geothermal Systems - to supply 10% to 20% of future engergy needs?
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | January 1, 2009
Geothermal energy isn’t sexy but it is a viable alternative engergy system that is getting more attention and hopefully more funding for some good problem solving, otherwise known as, engineering.
m.
Topics: Alternative Energy, climate | No Comments »
Discovery of leaks in earth’s magnetic field
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | December 18, 2008
There are many many discoveries being announced these days having to do with the solar behavior and sun/earth interaction due to the multiple research space craft that are now in space studying solar behavior. Here are several very recent articles:
Here’s one having to do with the content of a large solar flare - which unexpectedly included an initial wave of pure hydrogen
Solar Flare Surprise: Pure Hydrogen Shot at Earth
Here’s one having to do with a new discovery of cloak of charged particles around the earth:
New Cloak of Plasma Found Around Earth
Here’s another one having to do with surprise behavior found in the earth’s magnetic field:
Leaks Found in Earth’s Protective Magnetic Field
m.
PS: Update (12/19/08) - Here’s another version of the last article. It’s always interesting to see different takes on the same information. All of this is presentation of data gathered by NASA’s Themis mission spacecraft - as originally disclosed here.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Colorado meteor event - Dec 6, 2008
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | December 7, 2008
“COLORADO SUPERBOLIDE: Last night, Dec. 6th at 1:06 a.m. MST, a meteor of stunning brightness lit up the skies of Colorado. Astronomer Chris Peterson photographed the event using a dedicated all-sky meteor camera in the town of Guffey, near Colorado Springs.
Fireballs this bright belong to a rare category of meteors called
superbolides. They are caused by small asteroids measuring a few to 10 meters
in diameter and massing hundreds of metric tons. Superbolides trigger
seismic detectors on the ground, produce waves of infrasound that
can travel thousands of miles, and they are tracked by military
satellites scanning Earth for nuclear explosions. Recent examples
include the El Paso fireball of 1997 and the Slovenian Superbolide of 2007.
Last night’s fireball is on the low end of the superbolide scale.
Nevertheless, it was still a beauty and likely peppered the ground
with meteorites when it exploded.”
Above report from here:
m.
Topics: meteors, space | 1 Comment »
Fusion reactors: progress but slow
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | December 5, 2008
The science associated with power generation through fusion continues to progress. But slowly:
Fusion reactors inch toward commercialization
m.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Topics: Alternative Energy | No Comments »
Solar power as inexpensive as fossil-fuels (coal) within 5 years
By Dr. Mark D. Nispel | December 5, 2008
Even as momentum has been building in recent years for wind energy installations - it looks like solar is getting close to perhaps an even more rapid ramp up:
Will solar power ever be as cheap as coal?
m.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Topics: Alternative Energy | No Comments »
