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Borg Cube Spotted Near Solar Limb

There I was idly checking out SpaceWeather.com, seeing whether there was any sunspot activity going on… and then I saw this. At first, I assumed it was a highly symmetrical sunspot, but no! It was something far more sinister, but I didn’t recognize the hallmark signature. Neal Wiser saw it instantly and informed me via Twitter. A Borg Cube!

Of course it isn’t a Borg Cube (it’s just missing data), but this little Twitter joviality reminded me of the 2012/Planet X doomsday conspiracy theorists who seem to have the uncanny ability to read anything into, well, anything. Take the observations made by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) which have been used over and over again as “proof” that UFOs and other scary things are orbiting the Sun, preparing for Armageddon… or the next Star Trek movie.

Oh look! SOHO has spotted a star! A comet! With wings!! Hold on? Isn’t that just an effect of saturated CCD pixels? No? Okay, it must be aliens then.

Dear STFC, WTF? Sincerely, Ian

This week has been a horrid few days for UK physics. The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) announced on Wednesday that it was going to plug a hole in their funding deficit by withdrawing the UK’s participation in a number of astronomy, nuclear and particle physics projects.

This measure will have a huge impact on the number of PhD and postdoc positions that will be available for students pursuing research training. In fact, a whopping 25% of fellowships and student grants for PhD projects will be eliminated next year.

On reading some of the reports, anyone would think the UK’s institutions are pissing their funds away Enron-style. How many billions of pounds is the STFC hoping to hide from these money-hungry physicists? After all, tea breaks and lasers don’t come cheap.

£115 million.

WTF?

Perhaps I’m just a little numb of hearing national debt topping “hundreds of billions” and “trillions,” but doesn’t £115 million sound petty by today’s standards? In a world where banks have vaporized zillions of pounds/dollars/euros and world governments are baling them back out again, just over one hundred million pounds doesn’t strike me as a huge number by a nation’s standards.

It’s okay, let’s pass the mic over to Prime Minister Gordon Brown for an explanation, surely he has a clue why baling out banks is better than baling out a research funding body? Actually, I think he’s got his work cut out in Copenhagen at the moment, but he seemed pretty upbeat about science in Feb. 2009 when he made the grand statement, “The [economic] downturn is no time to slow down our investment in science but to build more vigorously for the future.”

(I followed up the STFC turmoil on the Number 10 Downing Street website, but it appears the Prime Minister’s search engine is unavailable for comment on the issue.)

This statement came after a fairly ratty time during 2008 when I had a rant (across a series of articles) about the UK government’s stupidity when handling astronomy funding. The STFC — a then-recently appointed funding body that was formed after the merging of PPARC and CCLRC — had announced to the world that the UK was going to back out of its commitment as joint funding nation for the Gemini observatories in Hawaii and Chile.

Astronomer outrage and ceremonial Union Jack Flag-burning ensued.

In an effort to plug an £80 million hole in the STFC’s budget, the funding body appeared to slam the door shut on Gemini. But that was the straw that broke the camel’s back and after huge protests by astronomers, the UK’s involvement in Gemini was reinstated. Good times.

However, it would seem that the STFC deficit is getting worse and increasingly desperate measures are being taken. For a full run-down of STFC funding problems, have a look at Paul Crowther’s growing list on STFC Funding Crisis: Astronomy. Also see STFC Funding Crisis: Particle Physics and STFC Funding Crisis: Neutron & Muon Science.

Ian Douglas, Telegraph science producer, has compiled a sobering list of the projects that are facing the axe in this new round of science culling. However, for me, this is the most alarming part:

SOHO, a collaboration between ESA and NASA, was to study the structure of the sun and its solar wind. The loss of Venus Express again puts Britain on the back foot when it comes to the exploration of other planets. Withdrawing from ALICE at CERN means that Britain will lose influence at the site of the largest experiments ever conducted and the Boulby underground laboratory is one of the leading centres of research on dark matter.

SOHO? Cassini? Venus Express? ALICE? It’s beginning to sound like a Who’s Who of projects you would never withdraw from. This shouldn’t be a budget cut hit list. Granted, all the projects, no matter how big or small, will be an irreplaceable loss for all scientists involved.

The Institute of Physics President Prof. Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell echoed some of my points in a recent statement, but also highlighted a fundamental flaw in this STFC strategy (emphasis added):

The greatest shame about today’s announcement is the reduced investment in people. With all of the challenges we face, from climate change and energy security to a rapidly ageing population, we urgently need individuals well-trained in physics. Today’s announcement, which includes a 25 per cent reduction in studentships and fellowships, runs counter to this need.

The amount needed to avoid this unfortunate cut is minor in comparison to the huge sums of money spent saving the financial sector, surely money can be found to avoid it.

Money to one side, this is the thing that worries me the most: If the STFC cuts back on the research opportunities available to postgrads and postdocs, the UK’s future in a huge swathe of physics disciplines could be crippled. If you start weakening the UK’s ability to lead, or at least be involved with, international physics projects, you ultimately damage the nation’s competitive edge. This impacts employment, innovation, industry, education and the economy.

Although it is fairly easy to paint the STFC with an incompetence gloss, it is really the UK government that’s screwing up. I’d find it insane if any government didn’t step in to fill a science funding deficit of this size (yes, the money could be found), but for the UK — a world leader in science and technology innovation — to stand by, citing the current economic climate as a reason for not investing in the future, is idiotic.

Unfortunately, politics is short-sighted and politicians have a shelf-life of a few years, it’s too easy to let the next administration sweep up the mess.

Actually, Obama Hasn’t Decided on the Future of NASA

You may be forgiven for thinking that President Obama had decided on the future of NASA’s human spaceflight plans yesterday, but in an official (note: official) statement from the White House today, Obama says that he has made no such decision.

Quoting “knowledgeable” (yet anonymous) sources, Science Magazine’s ScienceInsider blog said:

The president chose the new direction for the U.S. human space flight program Wednesday at a White House meeting with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, according to officials familiar with the discussion. NASA would receive an additional $1 billion in 2011 both to get the new launcher on track and to bolster the agency’s fleet of robotic Earth-monitoring spacecraft.

In a nutshell, NASA would get an additional $1 billion in funding and start work on a new (yet undetermined) heavy-lift launch system. Good news for NASA, but not-so-good news for the Ares I (and possibly Ares V, although the larger rocket wasn’t mentioned). Also, this magical silver bullet of a “new” launch vehicle would be ready for blast-off in 2018.

However, Space Flight Now has just reported that the White House hasn’t made a decision yet:

NASA and White House officials claim such reports are mere speculation, but they are providing no information on when a decision could be announced. The administration will file its fiscal year 2011 budget request in February.

Still mulling over the findings from the Augustine Commission report, Obama and Bolden have yet to arrive at an agreement as to how to progress with NASA’s human spaceflight plans. It’s now very clear that ex-President Bush’s bold “Vision for Space Exploration” was lacking a little thing called money, and the commission’s findings indicated that NASA needs an extra $3 billion in funding to keep the agency’s human spaceflight plans alive.

Although these anonymous sources are no doubt credible, it’s wise to wait until the final word from the White House is known before saying “bye-bye” to Ares.

Via: @SpaceFlightNow

An Explanation for the Norway Cloud Spiral

The mysterious cloud spiral that appeared over Norway at 7.50am on Wednesday morning took the internet by storm. Every major news outlet was talking about it and Google Search was stuffed full of results.

Like with any unexplained phenomenon, the knee-jerk reaction of conspiracy theorists (and tabloid press, naturally) was that the beautiful blue-white glowing spiral was either of UFO origin (no, not of the “unidentified kind”, but of the “probing-alien kind”), top secret “energy weapon” origin, LHC origin (yes, the Large Hadron Collider black holes are back) or some other supernatural origin. Well, it would appear that only one of those options are partially correct.

All indications pointed to some kind of Russian naval military missile test (because, um, the Northern Fleet was carrying out missile tests in the White Sea at the time), and Doug Ellison, ace space 3D animator from UnmannedSpaceflight.com, put together a demo of how the missile scenario might have played out in the above animation.

I was captivated by his first animation on the phenomenon that Nancy Atkinson presented in her Universe Today post on the subject, but this new animation shows how a failed rocket stage could spin out of control, spiraling fuel into the atmosphere.

Although it might be tempting to rush to the extraterrestrial reasons for the spiral, it would appear the missile scenario is the most plausible answer.

But… there’s a chance that it could have been a wormhole opening up from another universe, allowing the Annunaki to return to Earth ahead of their Planet X invasion force in 2012, but I’ll leave that theory for the doomsday wingnuts to mull over.

Now THAT is what I call a fireball!

Three frames from the South African CCTV footage.

Having seen some footage of the South African fireball last weekend, I thought it was quite impressive. However, a new video looking along a Johannesburg motorway has appeared online, and it’s superb.

I can’t find much information about this event, but it happened on November 21st and no fragments have been found so far.

Just in case you were in any doubt as to how much energy is released when a chunk of rock hits our atmosphere, this should give you a good impression:

I could almost feel the heat and hear the *KABLAAAM*.

Star Birth Dominates Energy Production in Ultra-Luminous Galaxies

Artists impression of an ultra-luminous galaxy heating the surrounding dust (JAXA/ISAS/LIRA)

In the early 1980’s, NASA’s Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) detected a number of unknown objects lurking in the depths of the cosmos.

At the time, these IRAS objects stirred speculation in the press. Were the infrared signals being emitted by comets inside the Solar System? Or were they failed stars (brown dwarfs) lurking beyond the orbit of Pluto? The latter theory spawned the idea that the hunt for Planet X was back on (stoking the smoldering conspiracy embers of the flawed doomsday theory that Nibiru is coming to get us). Alas, it was neither, these intense infrared signals were coming from much, much further away.

It turned out that the infrared emissions were being generated by galaxies that, bizarrely, had little optical signal. Although a high proportion of them were known to be interacting galaxies (i.e. they were colliding with other galaxies), the exact energy mechanism driving their emissions was not known.

Ultra-luminous galaxies have the luminocity of a trillion Suns, whereas our galaxy has the luminosity of a pedestrian ten billion Suns. Obviously, ultra-luminous galaxies are different animals to the Milky Way, but a galaxy is a galaxy and the energy sources are similar whether they are ultra-luminous or not. It would appear that the only difference is how active the galaxy is.

The first obvious energy source in a galaxy is star formation; the more stars that are forming, the brighter the galaxy. Secondly — as with our galaxy — the central supermassive black hole’s accretion rate contributes to the galaxy’s energy budget; the more matter being accreted by the black hole, the more energy is being generated (and therefore the brighter the galaxy).

So, when observing these ultra-luminous galaxies, surely it should be an easy task to work out where all this energy is coming from? Actually, this isn’t the case, astronomers are having a difficult job in understanding the nature of IRAS galaxies and the reason for this comes from the source of the infrared emissions. Galactic dust is being heated by the energy source, but this dust obscures the source of this heating (it is opaque to optical wavelengths).

Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) researcher Guido Risaliti and his team have been analyzing Spitzer data to try to characterize the infrared emissions from 71 ultra-luminous galaxies. Using a “dust emission diagnostic technique,” the team have deduced that approximately 70% of the galaxies have active nuclei (i.e. their supermassive black holes have high accretion rates). Although most of the galactic nuclei are active, it is star formation that dominates the energy production in two-thirds of the galaxies. Also, these account for the highest fraction of the brightest galaxies.

This is a significant finding as it demonstrates how a galaxy reacts when it interacts with another galaxy. It would appear that the black hole in the core of the galactic bulge is kick-started during the massive gravitational interaction, boosting energy output as it eats more matter. The interaction also boosts star birth and this energy source becomes a dominant factor. Both energy sources heat up interstellar dust, making the galaxy glow in infrared wavelengths while optical light is masked.

Source: SAO (Harvard)

The World Needs Sagan-Man [Update]

I love today’s XKCD comic. It depicts Sagan-Man, a superhero who possesses Carl Sagan’s ability to communicate science to the world. In this case Sagan-Man uses his inspirational tone to stop a thief in the act.

Unfortunately, I was too young to experience Carl Sagan when he was in his prime years presenting Cosmos, and it is only comparatively recently that I have been watching recordings of this legendary series. I have since brought the book too.

Sagan captures the child-like wonder of the Universe that is so often missing in the world today, and while there are many outstanding scientists and presenters who fill this roll of outreach, nobody does it quite like he did.

Update: With thanks to @acsnotsettled for the suggestion, perhaps the next Carl Sagan should team up with Buzz Aldrin. That way they can really smack down the crazy conspiracy theorists (i.e. if Sagan can’t convince then the Universe is way cool without UFOs and Bigfoot, Aldrin will beat it into ’em).

Some Doomsday Crazy With That Google Search?

After collecting myself from the bout of giggles when I read The Bloggess’ post about the rather bizarre auto-suggestion in Google Search, I was ready to find some more. (Awesome, the old classic, “french military victories” followed by clicking the “I’m feeling lucky” button is still working.)

But what’s this? @Mactavish shoots me a tweet telling me to check out typing in “why will” to the Google Search box. As innocuous as it may sound, the auto suggestions are not. I mean, why the heck would anyone need the suggestion: “why will a carrot slice when placed in tap water for several hours become very stiff”?

Kidding. Mary isn’t referring to stiff carrots, I think she might be pointing out the sheer amount of doomsday Crazy going on. Wow. Type in “why will” and you get “why will the world end in 2012”? How about typing in “why won’t” and get redirected here.

Sigh.

The Dawn of a New Age for Sci/Tech Reporting

You may have noticed the increased chatter about the quality of sci/tech reporting in recent years. I know I have.

In this age of incredible technological advancements and scientific discovery, it can often be very hard for reporters to root out what is important and what isn’t. Also, with the increasing reach of online media, there’s a massive opportunity for media outlets to communicate science through good science journalism. This is essential, as pseudo-science and bad science reporting is often being communicated faster. Unfortunately, with the continuing cutbacks being made by traditional media sources of their science coverage, disinformation is finding an unprecedented foothold in popular culture, culminating in irrational fears of scientific achievement and scaremongering hype.

But this has created an unprecedented opportunity for a small band of professional correspondents, editors, producers and publishers known as Discovery News.

For the last 11 years, Discovery News has been working hard to report on advancing sci/tech trends as the news body of the Discovery Channel. On Sunday, Discovery News came of age; it was re-launched and re-branded with a new design and URL.

At a time where cutbacks are becoming the norm, it might seem strange to see a new sci/tech news resource appear on the Internet, but we have identified a gap in reporting that needs to be filled urgently. What makes us even more special is the fact we are coming from a TV-based network (rather than the bedraggled press-based news), so we already know how to “do” online media through a variety of platforms.

On the new-look Discovery News, you’ll find the main 3 Discovery topic hubs (Space, Earth and Tech) combined seamlessly with news across 8 key topic areas (from Dinosaurs to History). We have combined the skills of dozens of correspondents, media experts and scientists to ensure that we have an unparalleled coverage of breaking news as well as in-depth analysis. We are also addressing the need for a massive reader-based interaction by incorporating reader comments and connecting with the rapidly growing population of social media users. The site is personality-driven so our readers can interact directly with the people who are producing the news at ground level.

But the best thing is that all of our producers and contributors are professionals in the fields they are reporting on, ensuring a high level of journalistic integrity and knowledgeable opinion.

All in all, this is the most exciting project I have ever been involved with, and I hope you will all join me over on Discovery News to embark on this voyage of discovery.

Now that we have launched, I now have a bit more time to do some more Astroengine posts!

A Bevvy of Doom

On the red carpet: John Cusack tells me what he'll be doing on Dec. 21st, 2012. Skiing (credit: Debra O'Neill/Discovery News)

Currently sitting in the departure lounge in LAX before I fly out to Washington D.C. to meet up with the Discovery News crew ahead of the launch of our brand new site (keep an eye on Discovery Space, it will soon be integrated into the Discovery News redesign — the beta version looks awesome).

Before I fly, I just wanted to post the news that the Discovery Channel will be airing the documentary I was interviewed for by KPI Productions in August. According to my DVR, the show “Surviving 2012” will be showing on Sunday (Nov. 8th). I’m not certain when it will be showing internationally, but in the US it will be on at 9pm PDT — so check your local listings for any slight changes in schedule. I think it’s going to be a great show as science is the focus, not the hype (unlike the idiotic History Channel-esque Nostradamus nonsense). However, I think fellow interviewee Dr. Alex Young and myself arrived at a very interesting conclusion as to the realities of being hit by an aggressive solar storm. Although our conclusions are far from the rip-roaring, solar blowtorch popular in sci-fi, we do point out that solar physics research is horribly underfunded considering our dependence on vulnerable power and communications systems.

In other news, on Tuesday night I attended the 2012 premier red carpet event in Downtown Los Angeles. I met some bloke named John and another called Roland. Apparently they’re quite famous, but what would I know. For more on my A-list adventures, have a read of “What Will John Cusack be Doing on Dec. 21, 2012? Skiing.” and check out some of the photos from the event via my Facebook account.