If you want to understand what causes the gaps in Saturn’s rings, just look at a picture taken by Cassini on October 27, 2006. The bright object in the middle of Saturn’s Encke gap is one of its moons: Pan. The tiny moon is only 26 km across, but its minor gravity can clear out the ring particles.
https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08317
Solscape
Saturn’s spokes may be made by lightning
The mysterious spokes in Saturn’s rings may be created by massive thunderstorms in the planet’s atmosphere. If the theory is right, these faint features are the signature of awesome events: lightning strokes ten thousand times more energetic than those on Earth, releasing beams of electrons that surge up from Saturn’s surface to whack into the rings and blast out jets of electrically charged dust. The idea, proposed by Geraint Jones of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, and his colleagues remains speculative. No one has ever seen storm-induced electron beams on Saturn. But the researchers say that the theory would explain some puzzling features of the spokes, and that it fits with what is known about the effects of thunderstorms on Earth. The spokes of Saturn’s rings were first discovered by the Voyager I and II spacecraft when they passed close to the gas giant planet in 1980 and 1981.
Source : Jones G. H., et al. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33 . L21202 (2006)
Icelandic Volcano Caused Historic Famine In Egypt
An environmental drama played out on the world stage in the late 18th century when a volcano killed 9.000 Icelanders and brought a famine to Egypt that reduced the population of the Nile valley by a sixth. A study by three scientists from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and a collaborator from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, demonstrates a connection between these two widely separated events. The investigators used a computer model developed by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies to trace atmospheric changes that followed the 1783 eruption of Laki in southern Iceland back to their point of origin. The study is the first to conclusively establish the linkage between high-latitude eruptions and the water supply in North Africa. In June 1783, the Laki volcano began a series of eruptions, regarded as the largest at high-latitude in the last 1.000 years. The eruptions produced three cubic miles of lava and more than 100 million tons of sulfur dioxide and toxic gases, killing vegetation, livestock and people. These eruptions were followed by a drought in a swath across northern Africa, producing a very low flow in the Nile. In the northern hemisphere, the summer of 1783 was the coldest in at least 500 years in some locations, according to tree ring data. Sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere kept the warmth of the sun from the Earth’s surface.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061121232204.htm
NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor May Be at Mission’s End
NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor has likely finished its operating career. The spacecraft has served the longest and been the most productive of any mission ever sent to the red planet.
The orbiter has not communicated with Earth since November 2nd. Preliminary indications are that a solar panel became difficult to pivot, raising the possibility that the spacecraft may no longer be able to generate enough power to communicate. NASA’s newest Mars spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, pointed its cameras toward Mars Global Surveyor on Monday, but preliminary analysis of the images did not show any definitive sightings of a spacecraft.
Mars Global Surveyor launched on November 7, 1996, and began orbiting Mars on September 11, 1997. The mission started its primary mapping phase in April 1999. The original plan was to examine the planet for one Mars year, nearly two Earth years. Based on the value of the science returned by the spacecraft, NASA extended its mission four times.
Mars Global Surveyor revolutionized our view of the Martian surface. Among its accomplishments are its more than 240.000 pictures, offering the best high resolution view of the red planet to date.
Source: NASA
Black Hole Spins Nearly 1000 Times a Second
Black holes bend our understanding of the Universe and laws of physics. But astronomers have discovered a black hole spinning so quickly, it breaks all the speed laws for rotation. The stellar mass black hole in question is known as GRS1915+105, and it’s spinning more than 950 times every second. As the black hole spins, it drags the surrounding space around with it, and gives astronomers an opportunity to study some of Einstein’s predictions about relativity.
Spinning Black Hole Pushes the Limit
Astronomers study unique galaxy
U.S. astronomers using NASA’s Swift satellite have discovered a rare event: two supernovas side by side in one galaxy. The scientists say large galaxies typically play host to three supernovas per century, but Galaxy NGC 1316 has had two supernovas in fewer than five months – and a total of four supernovas in 26 years. That makes NGC 1316 – a massive elliptical galaxy about 80 million light-years from Earth – the most prodigious known producer of supernovas. Although NGC 1316 recently merged with a spiral galaxy, astronomers are quick to note all four supernovas in NGC 1316 appear to be of a variety previously not associated with galaxy mergers and massive star formation. Scientists are using the satellite to investigate whether the high supernova rate is a coincidence or a result of the merger.
http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2006-news/Swift11-2006.htm
Milky Way’s halo of dark matter in unprecedented detail
Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have used NASA’s most powerful supercomputer to run the largest simulation to date of the formation and evolution of the dark matter halo that envelopes the Milky Way galaxy. Their results show substructures within the halo in unprecedented detail, providing a valuable tool for understanding the evolutionary history of our galaxy.
https://news.ucsc.edu/2006/11/977.html
Tonga volcanic eruption seen by yacht crew
A new volcanic island emerged in the Tonga Islands in August 2006. A yacht sailing out of Vava’u motored into a strange „sea of stone“ on August 12, and the following day its crew became possibly the first people to witness the birth of the new volcanic island. The crew of the yacht „Maiken“ have recorded their observations on a weblog along with stunning photos of the pumice rafts that they came across a day out of Neiafu while sailing towards Fiji.
http://yacht-maiken.blogspot.com/2006/08/stone-sea-and-volcano.html
Ein Name für Element 111
Seit der Entdeckung des Elements 111 sind mittlerweile zwölf Jahre vergangen. Nun wurde das schwerste bislang bekannte Element offiziell auf den Namen „Roentgenium“ getauft. 2003 wurde das Element, das 272 mal schwerer ist als Wasserstoff, offiziell anerkannt. Nun akzeptierte die Internationale Union für reine und angewandte Chemie (IUPAC) den Namensvorschlag der Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI), die 1994 das „Roentgenium“ entdeckt hatte. Mit dem Namen „Roentgenium“ wird der Physiker Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen geehrt, der vor 111 Jahren die nach ihm benannten Röntgenstrahlen entdeckte. Diese Entdeckung sei wegbereitend für das Verständnis der Atome und Atomkerne gewesen. Element 111 entsteht durch eine Kernfusion von Nickel und Bismut, dem schwersten nichtradioaktiven Element, und existiert im Labor nur wenige tausendstel Sekunden. Inzwischen hat die GSI noch das Element 112 entdeckt, und vor wenigen Wochen erzeugte ein russisch-amerikanisches Forscherteam ein noch namenloses Edelgas mit der Ordnungszahl 118.
Polar Expedition To Siberian Lake
An international team of scientists led by Julie Brigham-Grette of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has received $3.2 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to fund an expedition to the polar lake El’gygytgyn in Siberia, which should yield data that will provide the most detailed record of past Arctic climate to date. The research will occur during the fourth International Polar Year (2007-2008) which aims to provide a better understanding of the world’s polar regions through a flurry of international coordination and cooperation by scientists and governments. Sediment cores that the scientists took in 2003 have already provided the oldest continuous terrestrial record of the Arctic. One core dated to 300.000 years ago.
$3.2 Million Grant Will Fund Polar Expedition To Siberian Lake, Led by UMass Amherst Scientist