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To announce the new NASA solar dynamics observatory, they released a brand new video of the sun last week. It’s amazing, but it’s also large and takes quite a while to load, even with a fast connection.
NASA writes:
April 21, 2010: Warning, the images you are about to see could take your breath away.
At a press conference today in Washington DC, researchers unveiled “First Light” images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, a space telescope designed to study the sun.
“SDO is working beautifully,” reports project scientist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center. “This is even better than we could have dreamed.”
Launched on February 11th from Cape Canaveral, the observatory has spent the past two months moving into a geosynchronous orbit and activating its instruments. As soon as SDO’s telescope doors opened, the spacecraft began beaming back scenes so beautiful and puzzlingly complex that even seasoned observers were stunned.
For instance, here is one of the first things SDO saw:
“We’ve seen solar prominences before—but never quite like this,” says Alan Title of Lockheed Martin, principal investigator of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), the observatory’s main telescope array. “Some of my colleagues say they’ve learned new things about prominences just by watching this one movie.”
SDO is the first mission of NASA’s Living with a Star (LWS) program. The goal of LWS is to understand the sun as a magnetic variable star and to measure its impact on life and society on Earth. Program scientist Lika Guhathakurta of NASA headquarters envisions big things for the new observatory:
“SDO is our ‘Hubble for the sun’,” she says. “It promises to transform solar physics in the same way the Hubble Space Telescope has transformed astronomy and cosmology.”
“No solar telescope has ever come close to the combined spatial, temporal and spectral resolution of SDO,” adds Title. “This is possible because of the combination of 4096 x 4096-pixel CCDs with huge dynamic range and a geosynchronous orbit which allows SDO to observe the sun and communicate with the ground around the clock.”
A complete gallery of SDO’s First Light images and data may be found at http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/Gallery/ SDOFirstLight.html.
“The main enemy of Mother Earth is capitalism.” — Evo Morales
Mining Protests Overshadow World People’s Summit on Climate Change
3-Day Conference Draws Thousands
By Claudia Lopez Pardo, from Solveclimate.com
See live coverage of Cochabamba here–until it’s over on Earth Day, April 22nd
Bolivian President Evo Morales launched the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth on Tuesday, welcoming over 10,000 people from 135 countries and dozens of social organizations to what he declared to be an alternative to the United Nations climate talks.
An unknown object in the galaxy M82 has started sending out radio waves. The emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before. It does not fit the pattern of radio emissions from a supernova, according to the Coast to Coast radio show. Those usually get brighter over a few weeks and then fade away over months, the spectrum of the waves changing all the while, which this one doesn’t do. So this is something completely unknown and as yet a mystery.
“The co-discoverer of these radio waves Tom Muxlow of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics www.jodrellbank.manchester.ac.uk/ in the UK exclaims ”We don’t know what it is,” The interesting aspect of this story is the radio waves seem to be a very dense object that does not fit the typical criteria for a black hole , or a micro-quasar . The radio waves were somewhat found accidentally using the MERLIN network of radio telescopes in the UK. The possibilities are endless it may turn out to be a galactic echo or it may turn out to be a massive thriving civilization that finally found us and sent a virtual space text message we found unintentionally.”
Rich beyond my wildest dreams Congresswoman Michele Bachmann doesn’t have to worry about money at all, and her friend George Bush started the bailouts, so what is she bitching about?
Let me tell you about this wacko. She has been amusing and horrifying Minnesotans for years, starting when she was in the state legislature. She has publicly admitted hallucinating and talking to “god”. Four years ago, she asked her bigoted and homophobic “god” if she should run for Congress and IT said yes, but then she had to OK “god’s” decision with her husband. Her husband is so powerful, he could have overruled her “god”. Bachmann does not like gay people. She does not like poor people. She hates (apparently) Democrats, which she pronounces, “DemacRATS”. Every good idea, such as national health care, cap and trade, etc., she snidely labels a “tax” and then spends hours giving speeches trying to whip up crowds into righteous anger.
The thing with champions of the middle class, poor and disenfranchised (as she tries to be) is that it helps to be one, so that you have some experience and credibility on the subject. Instead, she’s a rich suburban politician who was a rich lawyer before that, with high political goals, and who has never been overtaxed thanks to rich Republican politicians just like her. So here’s my plea to the Good God, (not her god, the greedy bigoted god):
Dear Good God,
“We need you to send down a lightening bolt aimed at Congresswoman Bachmann. Not to kill her — just render her speechless so she shuts up. It’s getting harder and harder to live in Minnesota with this loudmouth making speeches to crowds of horny Republican men. (Notice her language in this one)…. Michele Bachmann says something insanely stupid at least once a week, leading to horrible columns and analysis about Minnesota and “what are we thinking” on a daily basis. If there is any justice up there in Godland, you gotta have some mercy on us and make her stop. And I would like the liberal state reputation back, as long as you are restoring things to equilibrium. We are not like this horrible creature, we are progressive people and apparently a rip in the fabric of the universe got her elected. (Did you cause that?) Please stuff a giant wad of $100 bills in her mouth. The sound of her voice causes us all migraines. Amen.”
In addition to her mental problems with gays and taxes, she is still repeating the lies about the “energy tax”. She’s still against cap and trade because she thinks CO2 is a “harmless gas”.
“Rep. Michele Bachmann is on a roll. Less than a week after suggesting a link between the swine flu outbreak and Democratic control of the U.S. government, the Minnesota Republican penetrated a heretofore unseen zone of weirdness and accused the Obama administration of premature fiscal ejaculation.
On Saturday, May 2, Bachmann delivered a rally speech in which she said the administration had engaged in an “orgy” of spending and that the government “spent its wad” too early. The previous administration, she noted, hadn’t spent its wad until early August.
“During the last 100 days we have seen an orgy. It would make any local smorgasbord embarrassed,” Bachmann said. She then told the crowd that April 26 was National Debt Day, which conservatives commemorate as the moment government spending outpaces revenue. As Bachmann explains, “The government spent its wad by April 26. Every dime government spends after April 26 throughout the rest of this fiscal year is borrowed money.”
I can’t believe people even get upset about the issue of gay marriage. I don’t understand what the big fuss is about. This is about basic civil behavior and human rights. I never stick my nose into stranger’s love lives, so why the hell should the government? I don’t walk around taking rights from people, so why should the government? This gay marriage issue is the dumbest thing in the world to argue about. Seriously. Of course gay people should be able to get married, just like other people. It’s a basic right, like shopping for clothes you like versus what other people want you to like, or like choosing anything in your life that you want versus what others want for you. You get to choose, not them. (That’s not to say that being gay is a choice, it just means that people should get to choose which consenting adult they want to marry, or whether they want to at all.)
D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8), the only council member to vote against the bill today to legalize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, predicted today there could be a “civil war” in the District if the Council decides to take up a broader gay marriage bill later this year.
“All hell is going to break lose,” Barry said while speaking to reporters. “We may have a civil war. The black community is just adamant against this.”
Why?
Seriously, I would like to know.
I can guarantee you that Jesus doesn’t give a shit who you marry, or if you do, or if you have kids, or whether you paint the kitchen green and take up tennis. He just doesn’t care. I won’t get in to why, it’s just obvious to me that Jesus is way too busy caring about important stuff, not who wants to get hitched. I mean, we’re bombing Afghanistan civilians and people are dying all over the world of stupid things, so if you believe Jesus is so petty that he cares who you marry, you’ve got one petty ass god there. I wouldn’t waste time worshipping a petty ass god like that. I’d get a better one, one that loves all people the same. Right?
People against gay marriage are really just right-wingers who want to tell you how to live and who you can live with. Another case of them trying to control your personal life. Get the government out of people’s personal lives!