Comet Stinks!
What does a comet smell like? Pretty awful, as it turns out. Data from the European Space Agency's Rosetta probe has revealed that eau de comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is a mixture of rotten eggs, cat urine and bitter almonds.
This bad smell is actually good news. The molecules behind the odours – hydrogen sulphide, ammonia and hydrogen cyanide – are mixed up with frozen water and carbon dioxide, so Rosetta's spectrometers weren't expected to detect such a variety until the comet approached the sun and warmed up. Formaldehyde, methanol and sulphur dioxide are also in the mix.
"It's really fabulous. You wait 10 years and all of a sudden it's there," says Kathrin Altwegg of the University of Bern in Switzerland, who is in charge of Rosetta's electronic nose, otherwise known as the Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA). "What's surprising is we already have extremely rich chemistry at this distance from the sun."
When the icy comet heats up further, ROSINA will be able to detect more complex molecules. Altwegg will compare the comet's molecular make-up to that of other known ice balls in an attempt to determine whether they have a common origin.
Comets are the leftover building blocks from the earlier days of the solar system, and one of the aims for Rosetta is to identify whether they are all made from the same stuff Movie Camera. If some comets differ, that could explain the origin of molecules required to start life on Earth.
As for that smell, the molecules are in very low concentrations so a human standing on 67P probably wouldn't notice the odour, says Altwegg. "You would probably need a good dog to smell it." - New Scientist
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Unknown Beings From Triangular Craft
Picayune, MS - 11/12/2006 - unedited: Me & my late husband had several experiences one night I walked outside on my porch to smoke a cigarette with my husband I looked at him & he looked like he seen a ghost I didn't even ask I followed his eyes I saw the same the brightest neon green light I ever seen it was so bright it was 30-40 feet from us right in my driveway. I remember having a feeling of fallen into the light we have no memory after that.We lost time I remember seeing it from a distance as it made a upside down U shape and shot up in the air so fast.We felt frozen after it disappeared we could feel the air again we could breathe again we could feel our hearts beat again after this occurred birds were chirping in a panic & dogs for miles were barking in a panic.We had vision problems for a few days similar to a welders burn.We don't know what happened who do you tell without looking like your Looney tunes.We kept it to ourselves. We've had several experiences one night I was pulling onto my property I live on acres in the country & caught a clear shaped being running from my vehicle I caught it in my headlights it was clear like the predator movie it turned it's head at me & disappeared. I can't believe what I saw if you told me this I would have never believed it.These lights still hover over my property still till this day several of them always in triangle form.I can walk out my house right now in their there...their always there!Our government has to be aware of this.Sincerely I wish I had a explanation! - MUFON CMS
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Flare Alert: Monster Sunspot Turns Toward Earth
Just as the US prepares to watch the partial solar eclipse today, nearly 100 million miles away on the sun a possible solar storm is brewing.
Amateur astronomers have been wowed by a vast sunspot that has rotated to face Earth, the largest since this solar cycle began in 2008, and solar observatories (on the ground and orbiting Earth) are closely monitoring the region.
The sunspot, a dark patch in the sun’s photosphere, represents intense solar magnetism bursting from the sun’s interior known as an active region. This particular active region, designated AR2192, has been rumbling with intense flare activity, recently exploding with 2 X-class flares, causing some short-lived high-frequency (HF) radio black outs around the globe.
Such blackouts are triggered by the intense extreme ultraviolet and X-ray radiation that solar flares can generate, causing ionization effects in the Earth’s upper atmosphere — a region known as the ionosphere. HF radio can be strongly hindered by this activity, triggering blackouts that can effect air traffic and amateur radio operators.
Currently, the sunspot located at the base of AR2192 has swelled to over 80,000 miles across — Jupiter could almost fit inside the sunspot’s mottled diameter. Read more at Discovery
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Coffee May Protect the Liver
Drinking coffee — even decaffeinated coffee — may protect your liver, a large new study has found.
Researchers examined the coffee-drinking habits of 27,793 people who filled out diet questionnaires in a large national health study from 1999 to 2010. The scientists also tracked blood levels of four enzymes that indicate liver function. The study is online in Hepatology.
More than 14,000 of the subjects drank coffee. After controlling for age, sex, race, education, smoking, alcohol consumption and other factors, the researchers found that compared with people who drank no coffee, those who drank three cups a day were about 25 percent less likely to have abnormal liver enzyme levels. Among the more than 2,000 who drank only decaffeinated coffee, the results were similar.
The reason for the effect is unclear. “There are more than a thousand compounds in coffee,” said the lead author, Qian Xiao, a cancer prevention fellow at the National Cancer Institute. “There are a few candidates, but I don’t know which is responsible.”
Should those who do not drink coffee start doing so? “This is an observational study and not designed to determine cause and effect,” Dr. Xiao said. “So based on this study, I wouldn’t make any recommendations. But it is reassurance that coffee and decaf are not harmful to liver function.” - NY Times
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