The recording of the September 1st Paranormal Radio show featuring Captain Jack and myself is now available for your listening pleasure. The show was entitled “Ten Mysteries of the Solar System” and it related to an article of the same name I wrote for the Universe Today on August 18th. It was great to be asked back to the show for the fourth time, and it looks like I might have a regular slot! As Jack said toward the end of the show, I am rapidly becoming PR’s resident “myth buster” – I am very honoured to have been given this task! Hopefully I’ll be appearing monthly to discuss the weird and wonderful goings on in our Universe, and Jack is a fantastic host, so we often go off on a tangent (as can be witnessed in this 3-hour show, I think it took me an hour just to talk about the first two mysteries of the ten!). Continue reading “Listen to “10 Mysteries of the Solar System” With Captain Jack on Paranormal Radio”
On writing the article “Anyone Who Thinks the LHC Will Destroy the World is a Tw*t.” on Astroengine.com, I had no idea it would hit the front page of Digg.com and generate thousands of hits (booting Astroengine offline for 20 minutes). I wrote the supportive post as I believe Brian’s quote (from the Telegraph website), summed up the strain particle physicists are beginning to feel.
The original quote could be misconstrued as being offensive, but I believe the vast majority understood what he was saying. Brian was responding to reports that LHC scientists had received death threats in the run-up to the September 10th start date of the particle accelerator. With a combination of disinformation being spread by certain ill-informed individuals, media hype and mass hysteria, a solid statement was needed by a leading physicist to tame the unnecessary fear being whipped up.
I’ve been banging on about how safe the LHC is for some time, and I even vowed not to post another LHC doomsday debunking article as, quite frankly, I’m sick to death with the idiotic claims that micro-black holes, stranglets or gremlins could be produced by the LHC. The fact is that there is no danger and Brian explains why… Continue reading “A Statement By Professor Brian Cox”
I’m a huge fan of Brian Cox. He’s often referred to as the “rockstar of physics,” which is a big complement considering the stereotypical physicist in everyone’s mind. From the get-go you know that Professor Cox is a guy you want in your laboratory, and you can see why from this excellent TED lecture he gave in Monterey, CA, this year. He is a tireless advocate of communicating science to the world and his outreach style is second-to-none. But like many modern scientists who are working on cutting-edge research, they are often at the mercy of public misconception, media hype and personal attacks. So when I hear news that some Large Hadron Collider (LHC) physicists are receiving death threats, I lose my faith in humanity… Continue reading ““Anyone Who Thinks the LHC Will Destroy the World is a Twat.””
…actually, it’s 50 days until the first particle collisions, but who’s counting?
Right, this is officially the last Astroengine.com article I will write about the fear surrounding the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. All future articles will be consumed by the stunning science being carried out at this historic facility near Geneva in Switzerland. I realised months ago that scientists are on a losing battle when it comes to using scientific reasoning to quell the misinformation being communicated about what the LHC can do. Firstly, micro black holes will most likely not be produced (and besides, if they are, they will only live for an infinitesimally short period of time). Secondly, stranglets and magnetic monopoles have a vanishingly small chance of even existing in theoretical physics (they are speculative at best), let alone the nigh-on impossible event any man-made experiment could ever generate them. They are hypothetical particles.
To put the probability of the LHC creating a doomsday scenario into perspective, there is a better probability that a) all the air in my office will spontaneously drift to the other side of the room, leaving me to suffocate; b) I will spontaneously disappear as every single subatomic particle in my body decides to return their energy to the vacuum, or c) our four-dimensional space (three spatial and one temporal) will instantaneously become more “space-like,” freezing us in a strange new Universe where nothing happens (sorry, I’m getting a little carried away now). The point I am trying to make is that there is a higher risk of something “strange” happening to us in the “real world” than there is of something “strange” happening to the entire planet after being triggered by the LHC…
Gary McKinnon being interviewed via phone by Jerry Pippin (jerrypippin.com)
Gary McKinnon, a British computer analyst, has failed in his appeal against extradition to the US. McKinnon is accused of accessing 97 US military and NASA computers during his search for information about a possible US government conspiracy to cover up the existence of UFOs. According to the Glasgow-born 42 year old, the computers he accessed were totally unprotected and surprisingly easy to hack. However, the US government says his actions were malicious and the biggest breach of US government computers of all time. McKinnon’s activities allowed him access to 16 NASA computers between 2001 and 2002.
For the record, it is my opinion that McKinon is the victim of his own curiosity. He most certainly is not an organized terrorist wanting to bring down the US government. What’s more the UK has tough laws that he can be prosecuted by, so why is he being extradited to a country where he has never set foot before? Having followed this unfolding story for some years, I feel compelled to mention it on Astroengine.com. This man should not be extradited. The apparent ease at which this individual walked into NASA networks is astonishing; it’s not McKinon that needs to be taken to court, it’s NASA’s Internet security experts who need to be taken to task… Continue reading “US Practices Retroactive Computer Protection: NASA Hacker to be Extradited”
The ISS crew are currently trying to purge on board computers of the W32.Gammima.AG worm (NASA)
International Space Station (ISS) software security has been brought into question after on board systems were infected by a computer virus earlier this month. This is possibly the first time that a computer in space has played host to a malicious piece of software code, intended to seek out installed online gaming software and then transmit sensitive information it to an attacker. Although the virus in question, known as the W32.Gammima.AG worm, is pretty harmless (after all, I don’t think the astronauts on board play many online games), the infection comes as a surprise. Why hasn’t the ISS got sufficient anti-virus software installed? How did this security breech pass unnoticed until now? The space station may have narrowly dodged the bullet on this one, as if the worm was a little more virulent, there aren’t many network managers between here and low Earth orbit to find a quick solution to the problem… Continue reading “Computer Worm Infects International Space Station”
Moment of detonation: the ATK ALV X-1 rocket and $17 million NASA payload scrubbed in an instant (Explorer Fish)
Early yesterday morning an Alliant Techsystems (ATK) ALV X-1 rocket launched from NASA’s launch facility at Wallops Island, VA. However, only 27 seconds and 11,000 feet into the flight, a launch anomaly prompted the range safety officer to hit the self-destruct button. According to sources, the ALV X-1 was a new type of launch vehicle costing $17 million (including NASA payload).
The ALV X-1 rocket is a sub-orbital design, otherwise more commonly known as a sounding rocket. Intended to carry instrumentation into the atmosphere, rather than into orbit, the ALV X-1 would complete a parabolic flight path, delivering the payload at a predetermined altitude to carry out experiments and parachute to Earth. At 5am Friday morning, this obviously didn’t happen.
Hubble Space Telescope observation of Polaris – looking through the Oort Cloud, but not resolving any comets (Hubble)
The Oort Cloud is a mysterious entity. Located on the outskirts of the Solar System, this hypothetical region is probably the source of the long-period comets that occasionally pass through the inner planets’ orbits. The strange thing about these comets is that they have orbits inclined at pretty much any angle from the ecliptic which suggests their source isn’t a belt confined to the ecliptic plane (like the asteroid belt or Kuiper belt). Therefore, their proposed source is a cloud, acting like a shell, surrounding the Solar System.
OK, so we think the Oort Cloud is out there, and there is a lot of evidence supporting this, but why can’t we see the Oort Cloud objects? After all, the Hubble Space Telescope routinely images deep space objects like stars, galaxies and clusters, why can’t we use it to see embryonic comets within our own stellar neighbourhood? Continue reading “Why Can’t we see the Oort Cloud?”
The Daedalus star ship, proposed in the 1970s, would propel itself forward using controlled fusion explosions (Nick Stevens, http://www.starbase1.co.uk)
On writing the Universe Today article Bad News: Interstellar Travel May Remain in Science Fiction yesterday, I couldn’t help but feel depressed. So far, in all my years of science fiction viewing, I have never thought that travelling to another star would be impossible. Although I knew it would be hard, and something we won’t be able to consider for a century or so, I always assumed it could be possible. Well, in a recent meeting of rocket scientists at the Joint Propulsion Conference in Hartford, Connecticut, they concluded that even the most advanced forms of propulsion would require gargantuan quantities of fuel to carry a starship over the few light years to the nearest star. Suddenly I realised I had been looking at the question of interstellar travel in the wrong light; it’s not that it would take a stupid number of generations to get from A to B, we would require 100 times the total energy output of Earth to make it there. Where’s Captain Kirk when you need him… Continue reading “Travelling to Another Star? Unfortunately Starship Fuel Economy Sucks”
Ancient prophecy plus a dash of scientific disinformation equals fear (and the potential to make a lot of money)
The Mayan long-count calendar ends on December 21st 2012. For many reasons, this is a very important event, religiously and spiritually. However, there are a huge number of doomsday scenarios that are being pinned on this day too. Why? Well your guess is as good as mine. This is a very strange phenomenon. We’ve heard “end of the world” theories for millennia; from Nostrodamus, the Bible to the Y2K Bug, but as yet (as far as I can tell) the Earth has not been destroyed. Many historic prophecies have been made deliberately vague to make a future event more likely to match the future prediction by the prophet. That’s fine, I have no problem with a mystical historic figure telling us the world is going to fry at an undetermined date by an undetermined harbinger of doom. But I have a huge problem with modern-day authors publishing scientific inaccuracies for personal gain.
astroengine.com 