Clipmarks | Marcariel's 'atmosphere' clips

Prepare for the Worst - Solar Flares About to Get Ugly

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:23:40 GMT

clipped by: Marcariel
clipper's remarks: I've been waiting for this "End of the Great Cycle" for about 30 years now (I read about it back in the 70's). Solar activity rises and falls in 11-year cycles, swinging back and forth between times of quiet and storminess.

We're at the end of Solar Cycle 23, which peaked in 2001, The next cycle, Solar Cycle 24, is now beginning, and will return the sun to a stormy state.

This is the time that is referred to in the Mayan Calendar as the "End of Days". The date December 21st, 2012 A.D., 11:11 am GMT is foretold in the Mayan and Aztec cultures as the "End of the Great Cycle". Read more here: http://www.greatdreams.com/2012.htm

Buckle up people ... we're in for a tough ride, if the predictions are correct!

Clip Source: www.wired.com

Every 11 years or so, the sun gets a little pissy. It breaks out in a rash of planet-sized sunspots that spew superhot gas, hurling clouds of electrons, protons, and heavier ions toward Earth at nearly the speed of light. These solar windstorms have been known to knock out power grids and TV broadcasts, and our growing reliance on space-based technology makes us more vulnerable than ever to their effects. On January 3, scientists discovered a reverse-polarity sunspot, signaling the start of a new cycle — and some are predicting that at its peak (in about four years) things are gonna get nasty. Here's a forecast for 2012.

Falling Satellites
Increased solar energy heats Earth's atmosphere, causing it to expand. That's a drag on low-flying satellites and can even knock them out of orbit. A solar storm in 1979 deposited Skylab on Australia.

Electrons absorb the energy in shortwave signals, causing radio blackouts

aurora oval grows, bringing the "northern lights" as far south as Key West.

Tags: solar, flares, sun spots, end of days, mayan

Solar Plasma Plumes Disrupt Airline GPS

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:43:32 GMT

clipped by: Marcariel
clipper's remarks: Plasma plumes disrupting airline navigation is a dangerous problem. The article says the fix for this is "years away". Doesn't sound good!

Clip Source: space.newscientist.com

Mysterious plumes of plasma at the edge of the Earth's atmosphere are threatening airline navigation by throwing off GPS positioning information by up to the length of a football field.

A plasma plume over North America was mapped on 20 November 2003 by its effects on GPS signals (Image: Anthea Coster/John Foster/MIT)

Scientists have long understood that outbursts from the Sun called coronal mass ejections can interfere with communication between Earth-orbiting satellites and the ground.

More recently, they have learned that at least some of the disruptions are due to giant plumes of charged particles, or plasma, that form in response to the solar outbursts in the Earth's ionosphere

the plumes can disrupt airline navigation and radio communications

If we could go up to space and put an imager looking down, we could see these plumes form and have a much better picture of why they formed in the first place

Tags: plasma, gps, atmosphere, ionosphere, solar

Space Shuttle Launch Despite Heat Shield Worries

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 03:39:22 GMT

clipped by: Marcariel
clipper's remarks: I guess NASA hasn't learned it's lesson on space shuttle disasters.

Clip Source: www.usatoday.com

Top NASA officials decided Tuesday to proceed with next week's launch of space shuttle Discovery, despite worries that its heat shield could suffer catastrophic damage during flight.

Discovery is scheduled to lift off next Tuesday at roughly 11:40 a.m. ET. Its mission will be devoted to building the International Space Station.

At a pre-launch review last week, an independent safety team pointed out that engineers don't know the cause of tiny cracks in the panels along the front of the shuttle's wings. Those panels provide protection during the spacecraft's superheated dive back to Earth through the atmosphere.

Other engineers agreed last week that the cracks' cause was unclear but said they were highly unlikely to lead to catastrophic "burn through." That is what happened to shuttle Columbia in 2003. Columbia's panels allowed hot gases to stream into the vehicle during re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere, melting the ship's interior. The crew of seven was killed.

Tags: space shuttle, heat shield, columbia, burn through, cracks

New Horizons Spacecraft Sees Jupiter Changes

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:59:15 GMT

clipped by: Marcariel
clipper's remarks: Close fly-by shows "more than 20 geological changes since the Galileo Jupiter orbiter provided the last close-up look in 2001."

We really know so little about our own solar system. This kind of technology has just not been available til now. Imagine the future!

Clip Source: www.sciencecentric.com

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft provided a new bird’s-eye view of the dynamic Jupiter system as it travelled through the planet’s orbit on 28 February.

The spacecraft revealed lightning near the Jupiter’s poles, the life cycle of fresh ammonia clouds, boulder-size clumps speeding through the planet’s faint rings, the structure inside volcanic eruptions on its moon Io, and the path of charged particles traversing the previously unexplored length of the planet’s long, magnetic tail.

The spacecraft captured the clearest images to date of the tenuous Jovian ring system, showing clumps of debris that may indicate a recent impact inside the rings or some more exotic phenomenon.

Io, the closest to Jupiter, which has active volcanoes that blast tons of material into the Jovian magnetosphere and beyond.

fastest spacecraft ever launched, it reached Jupiter in just 13 months.

will fly past Pluto and its moons in July 2015

Tags: new horizons, spacecraft, jupiter, io, moons, atmosphere, clouds

Doing Paris Like A Local

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 17:59:40 GMT

clipped by: Marcariel
clipper's remarks: I would love to visit Paris. I know we Americans are not that welcome there ... but I am not the typical tourist. Being le flâneur, (one who strolls or loiters, usually without a destination in mind) sounds like it's my way to see the sights!

Clip Source: www.fodors.com

To appreciate the City of Light as locals do, you can start by learning some of the daily rituals of Paris life. These simple pleasures will get you into the swing of being Parisian.

Shop Like a Parisian
Parisians prefer the boisterous atmosphere of bustling street markets to the drab supermarchés. We do too. Among our favorites is Le Marché d'Aligre, just off the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine beyond the Opéra Bastille. Open Tuesday through Sunday, the market has fruit, veggies, cheese, meat, fish, and poultry, as well as a host of other products. The best selection is on the weekend.

Eat Pastries Like a Parisian

Another traditional pastry is the mont-blanc, a mini-mountain of chestnut purée capped with whipped cream, best rendered by Jean-Paul Hévin (3 rue Vavin, 6th , 01-43-54-09-85). And those really in the know watch for anything from the Tokyo-born Sadaharu Aoki (35 rue Vaugirard, 6th, 01-45-44-48-90). His green-tea madeleines and black sesame éclairs are heavenly.

Tags: paris, eating, drinking, shopping, coffee