We'll se whether there is life on Mars

Mission to search for life on Mars is being prepared

Mars is of particular interest to researchers, because it has water on it! It's frozen at Mars' poles, but it's still water. And as we have been told countless times, water means life. So, even though Mars seems like a dead rock, floating in the vastness of space, it may house at least simple single-celled organisms. But none of that can be done by gazing through a telescope. We'll have to fly up to Mars, land on it, and survey the land for life signs. Luckily, the design of a probe capable of accomplishing this mission is already constructed, and has recently received more funding in order to improve. The journey to Mars and back is a long one, and we wouldn't want the probe with data to malfunction and get lost in space, would we?

The probe is named in honor of the late Nobel laureate Harold C. Urey. After (hopefully) successfully landing, it will start taking samples of Mars' surface and will try to identify organic material (if any) in it. It will dry freeze the sample, so that any liquids would be removed, heat it up again and concentrate the organic molecules. And all this will be performed by an apparatus barely the size of a palm! The huge probe itself is needed to successfully traverse Mars' rough surface and face any other dangers. If no organic material will be found, the mission won't be a waste, as the probe will also measure the environment's ability to degrade organic compounds through oxidation. This may provide insight on why no organic material is found on Mars.

The mission is scheduled for 2013 and everything is being done for it to happen on time. Life on Mars would mean that life isn't as rare in the universe as we may think. It's like, when you're in an uninhabited island, and you find a parrot to talk to and treat as your friend. With the galaxy being millions of light years wide, simple organisms on Mars may prove to be the closest friend to us.

An improved way to fight carbon dioxide.

The fight on CO2 continues...

Some say it's a problem, some don't care, some can't care. Yes, can't care. Most of the carbon dioxide is produced by power plants, and with all our television sets, computers and other household appliances, we can't live without electricity. Sure, they're not essential to our survival, but we simply need them. Even now I'm sitting here, in front of my computer with a light turned on, writing this post. So, the best thing to do is lower the carbon dioxide emissions without significantly altering our way of life. Sounds utopic, imposible even? Well, it's not!

What you see above is a catalytic converter. I'm sure you've heard of one before, but just in case you haven't, it's made of very thin layers of platinum group metals. They act as a catalyst in the reaction when exhaust fumes turn into water, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Wait, carbon dioxide?!?! Well believe me, the stuff that's in exhaust gasses is much more dangerous than carbon dioxide.

Using the same principles, a process of breaking carbon dioxide into cyclic carbonate was developed. Until now, this process required high temperature and pressure in order to be successful. Recently, a catalyst that could speed up the reaction between carbon dioxide and epoxide was invented. Moreover, the reaction can now happen at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, so the process is much cheaper. And if that wasn't enough for you, the cyclic carbonates, produced from emitted carbon dioxide, can be used in various industries, such as manufacturing of biodegradable packaging.

Other methods have been suggested to diminish the carbon dioxide levels. Filtering and storing it in containers is an idea worth considering, but no-one knows how much storage space will we need. We could also lauch containers with carbon dioxide into space, but maybe this is just my idiotic fantasy. Converting it to cyclic carbonates would produce material for chemical industries and reduce it's levels by about 4% in the UK. Applied in other countries worldwide, this would strike carbon dioxide pollution down by a considerable ammount.

Scientists aim to identify Earth-like planets.

We have the knowledge, but not the means

Finding out that we're not alone, stumbling uppon tracks of a different intelligent civilization - these are one of the many space researcher goals. But noticing a spaceship rushing towars us on a telescope is not likely to happen. So, researchers turn to simpler criterions. No water - no life. By that I mean that searching for other life-forms starts from finding habitable planets - not too close to it's star, yet not too far. You won't see space-people through a telescope. In fact, you'll barely see the planet, but there is a way to find out if it has water on it.

To better understand other planets, we have to look upon our own. Water reflects light and we see it best if the object with water is crescent. So to find out whether there is water on the surface of an another planet, scientists have to observe it for several weeks, in order to find out how the planet reflects light. If it's brightest when it's at crescent phase, there is water and we may have found a potential planet for life to evolve on.

Quite a simple process, isn't it? Well, the only problem is that we don't have a telescope able to find distant watery planets. Researchers hope that one will be released in to space in the following decades.

New images taken by the Hubble space telescope released!

59 images of colliding galaxies

Our dear friend Hubble space telescope. He has been searching the skies for 18 years now, and as a gift for this anniversary, 59 new images were released. Each showing colliding galaxies. In fact, this is annoucned as the largest collection of Hubble's pictures released to the general public at one time. 59! Without further ado, here's where you can download these images:
www.spacetelescope.com At the lower-right part of the screen, under the "Downloads" you can (obviously) download the pictures. They are all actually merged into one file, so if you want high quality, you'll have to download either the 88MB .JPEG, or the original 181MB .tif.

So, you may still have one question. Galaxies collide? Well, they do! In fact, many relics of galaxies devoured by our Milky Way can be found in space. Scientists say that now Milky Way is absorbing the Saggitarius galaxy. Alas, our aggresive space-mother is on a collision course with our neighbour - the Andromeda galaxy, which is much more massive. 500.000 km/h is the speed of the galaxies drifting towards each other. Thus Earth's home in 2 billion years will be "Milkomeda". Why such a long time? Galaxies are huge, and it will take them millions of years to become one, larger galaxy. Another thing that popped up in my mind is what if Sun collides with an another star? Apparently, since empy space takes up most of the cosmos, there is little chance that we'll be devoured by an another gas giant. Besides, stars depend on each other's gravitational pull. So that means if a giant star passes nearby us, Sun might get caught in it's gravitational pull and either we're cooked or have a lot of daytime.

So, we find out that continents were moving around Earth. Similarly, galaxies are moving around space. What's further? The black empty mass? Or maybe something we haven't discovered yet...

Earth Day

Appreciate what we have

So, today's April 22, Earth day. I'm a bit confused, because there are several Earth days. This one, apparently, was founded in the U.S. I'm guessing you have already seen Google's Earth day exclusive picture. If you're reading this a bit too late, this is what it looked like:
Quite pretty, isn't it? Makes you want to forget about modern life and appreciate the raw land, that gives us food and shelter (houses are built on ground, aren't they?). But, then again, what would humanity be without progress? We'd be living in stone castles at best, as the invention of gunpowder marked the coming of a new age. It's like history is divided into periods by what weapons people used to kill each other: sharp sticks, sticks with sharp stones attached to them, swords and axes, muskets, rifles, automatic weapons, nukes, sharp sticks again.... But back to Earth day, it's nice that there's a whole day dedicated to increasing people's awareness about global warming, pollution and other dangerous environmental issues. Though in my opinion, awareness isn't nearly enough. You need to encourage people into stopping pollution, for example: bring us recyclable plastics, get your name mentioned in the newspaper, be granted a title "tree-hugger" in your passport or something. Maybe these kind of programs are already running in the society, i don't know. If you'd like to learn the history of Earth days, refer to the Wikipedia article.

And on a side note, April 22 is also Lenin's birthday. The man, who wanted to create a perfect society where every man is equal and depends on other men. Maybe he aimed too high. Making hundreds of millions of people working for a "better future", for one goal, is impossible. Some want to start their own businesses, be better than others, they start to behave disorderly and have to be "suppressed". Maybe communism would work amongst robots?

Nuclear power could help us suppress the greenhouse effect.

Although hazardous, nuclear power plants are more environmentally friendly than coal power plants

Currently, most of the electricity we use come from fossil fuel power plants. Coal is and always has been the main source of power. Tons of coal are burnt in each power plant every day, in order to supply power for our daily needs. By 2030 the consumption will rise by 60%, with 85% of the whole world's power being produced in fossil fuel power plants. Can you imagine the environmental impact? How much carbon dioxide will be emitted into the air? An excess of sulphur in the air will cause acid rains, destroying forests and pushing the cataclysm one step further. So what could we do to stop this? Nothing, in my opinion, but some environmentalists turn their attention to nuclear power.

Nuclear has always meant disaster: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Tsar bomba (that could have fractured the Earth), Chernobyl. A single mistake made the whole zone inhabitable for decades, killed hundreds (the liquidators). But we simply can not cower and neglect nuclear power because of one accident, no matter how devastating it was. The only world-wide damage that could be done is if dozens of Nuclear power plants exploded in a chain-reaction. But what are the odds of that happening? And, after all, nuclear power plants do not emit as much carbon dioxide as coal plants. The only problem that the researchers see is uranium's price rising as known deposits are emptied out. As it is a dangerous material, prospecting for new deposits will require a lot of resources. But, in my view, it's still better than black clouds of soot above what could be a beautiful park, full of dogs and hippies.

Can Earth's magnetic field be affecting the moon?

What can possibly go on between Earth and Moon at this distance?

The distance between Earth's center and Moon's center is 384403 kilometers (238856.950 miles). With no atmosphere, weak gravity and no life on it, Moon seems like a floating dead rock to us. It's like time has stopped on it, everything remains in it's place for decades. Who knows how long Neil Armstrong's footprints will stay there? Unless some freaky alien guys mess them up and steal the American flag, that is. On the other hand, the flag may have been blown away by the blast of the astronauts ascending back into space. We'll know in the following decades, i suppose, as NASA is planning to return man to the Moon, maybe even establish an outpost there. But, back on topic, how does Earth affect Moon at this huge distance? The phenomenon is called "MAGNETOTAIL".

In the above picture you can see the whole Earth's magnetosphere. The magnetotail is the right side of the ovally-shaped magnetic field. Believe it or not, it influences objects even beyond the Moon. You probably already know that Earth's magnetic field comes from a molten dynamo right at the planet's core. What you may not know, however, is that the magnetic field extends way into space, but is blown away by powerful rays. If i understood correctly, the magnetotail appears in the form of an oval because the plasma streaming from the Sun at a 400km/s speed kind of shapes it in this way. Like blowing on a burning candle, the flame will lean towards the direction you are blowing. Sort of the same, yet really different.

So, if the magnetotail is shaped like an oval, the Moon passes through it once in a while. Three days before it's full, to be exact, and it takes it six days to exit. During that period, a lot of crazy ( for a dead planet) things can happen. Electrons from the magnetotail give the Moon a negative charge. During daytime UV photons (coming from the Sun) keep electron levels to a minimum, but when it gets dark, the electrons accumulate. If an astronaut were to walk on the Moon during this period, he would gather a lot of charge. Any sudden discharge would be unpleasant, to say the least. The electrons can also push Moon dust away from the surface, making things foggy for astronauts. And as if that wasn't enough, the dust could start flying from the negatively charged night-side to the weakly-negative day-side, causing a moondust-storm.

Much of this is speculation, because no-one has been on the Moon during a magnetotail period. But with all these phenomenons, like dust storms, floating objects and electrically-charged people (like tesla troopers from red alert 2), who would want to try? NASA will have to look into this if they want to set up an outpost on the Moon. Wouldn't want the equipment flying away into the abyss because of electrons, would you?

We don't know as much as we may think about Sun

Solar Flare on Wikipedia

Sun can be examined by listening to it's vibration

Isn't it amazing? I mean a giant flaming ball hanging in space that emits rays which heat the planets surrounding it. Think simply -- a giant ball of fire that's burning for billions of years. Alas, science is not satisfied by simple things. We must delve deeper to truly understand the complex objects that surround us. Scientists already know about Sun's structure, but new discoveries may completely change the way we think.

It is confirmed, that the outermost part of Sun is a storm of hot burning gas with occasional flares jumping out. The interesting thing about these flares is that they jump around Sun's surface up and down, left and right, like a drop of ink poured into a glass of water. A joint project of both ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA (I think you are well aware of what NASA is), called the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has been studying these flares for some time now, measuring the oscillations emitted by them. One particular oscillation 5-minute with a frequency of 3milliherz proved to be quite useful. According to calculations, this oscillation would equal the sound of a bell that's being hit by sand grains in the desert. But what the researchers saw in SOHO's accumulated measurement differed greatly. It was more of a sound like occasionally someone would hit the bell. The mismatch of sounds created by equal oscillations proved that we don't know quite as much as we'd like to about the Sun.However, this was soon explained. It seems that when the number of flares went up, so did the strength of the oscillations. A similar phenomenon occurs on Earth, when after an earthquake, the whole planet vibrates for several weeks. A global oscillation, if you will.

So, research has shown us that we aren't all-knowing. But science is based on trial and error. Besides, now scientists can research other stars, by listening to their oscillations. Another step forward, i guess.

Research of drifting stars provides insight on how planets form

A star drifting away from it's original place.

The star's name is Horologii and it belongs to the Horologium ( aka. The Clock) constellation. It is also considered to be a part of the Hyades stream, a large group of stars that move together in the same direction. (Hyades is well-known because it can be seen by naked eye. The first recordings of this cluster date back to the ancient Greek civilization.) Previous studies of Horologii have shown that it has a planet, roughly 2 times the size of Jupiter, orbiting around it. None of the researchers were able to discover something about the origin of this star, though. The first ones to examine the star were a team of astronomers, whose leader was Sylvie Vauclair from the University of Toulouse. They used an interesting method in their study.

A high-quality picture of Hyades on Wikipedia

Do you know how geologists examine our planet by listening to the subtle seismic waves? Well, apparently the same method can be applied to stars. By listening to the sound waves that stars emit, scientists are able to find out more about their inner structure. This innovative method was called 'asteroseismology', and proved to be quite useful. If you're interested, here's what they found out about the star:

• average temperature 6150 degrees Kelvin (5877 Celsius).
• mass 1.25 times that of our Sun.
• age over 625 million years.

The star is thought to have formed withing the Hyades cluster, but it drifter away over time. Currently it's located around 130 light-years from it's original place. This new information can provide useful insight on how do galaxies ,and especially Milky way, have formed.

Are we alone in the universe? Could be.

Habitable planets on Wikipedia

Scientists say that intelligent life on other planets is very unlikely

To understand why, think about Earth. The first "true" human civilization was created by the Sumerians, with Eridu as the first city, built around 6000 BC. Sure, cavemen hunted in packs during the stone age, but these were people capable of communicating with each other via language and unique hieroglyphs. This was the product of millions of years of evolution. Signs of the first life on Earth date back to 4 billions of years BC and scientists predict that Earth has around 1 billion more before getting cooked to a crisp by the good Sun. So, in a timescale that big, humans play a really small part, but we are intelligent beings that had to overcome different steps of evolution in order to get to where we are today.

What researchers say is that a species has little chances to overcome the "critical" evolutionary steps, essential for further development. Professor Watson of University of East Anglia thinks that our view on the world is different, as we became an intelligent species late in Earth's life (after 4 billion years). Thus we think that we evolved by luck and think that other species on other habitable planets have the same chances as us. Professor Watson says that there are 4 essential steps we went through to evolve, and they are:

1. the emergence of single-celled bacteria.
   
2. creation of complex cells.
   
3. specialized cells(muscle, nerve, etc.) allowing complex life forms.
   
4. intelligent life, uniting into civilizations and capable of speach
   

Prof. Watson's mathematical model, taking a 10 percent chance of each of the steps happening into account, calculated that the chance of intelligent life evolving over 4 billion years is 0.01 percent. Oh and, don't worry. These are just models, and besides, with a universe that big, maybe 0.01 isn't too bad. And don't forget, this was all about INTELLIGENT life that could be watching us right now just like Hubble is watching the skies. Primitive organisms may still exist in other habitable planets.

Recent invention: thermal nanomotor

The first thermal nanomotor

Isn't it great when we get to witness an invention that could revolutionize
alot of science branches? It's almost...enlightening. Makes me feel like humanity isn't going one step forward and two steps back. Every step is a step forward in my opinion. People used to poke holes in skulls to release evil spirits, now they perform complex microsurgery. People used to kill each other with swords one by one, now they drop a nuclear bomb, wiping off the local population and damaging the whole planet. Some may think that's a step back, but tell me this, did they use nuclear bombs in WW2? I'm sorry, they did, but then what about WW1? See? Every invention is a step forward. But now, let's get back to the matter at hand -- first thermal nanomotor.

Nano basically means really small, 10^-9 to be exact. So a thermal nanomotor means a very small mechanism that reacts to temperature. To explain the picture above, you see a cylindrical nanotube made of carbon atoms (yellow) and a shorter (red) tube that goes around it. The latter is capable of rotating and moving back and forth, thus transporting a metal material (presumably an another nano-mechanism). The operators can control the nanomotor's movement by changing temperatures at the carbon tube's ends.

This conveyor-like mechanism is thought to bring new ways into the fields of biomedicine and new material production. The way I see it, it could build sophisticated nano-mechanisms, maybe even inside a human body. As your grand-grand parents say " I witnessed the invention of cars", so now you'll be able to respond with a "Yeah? Well, i was there before nanomotors changed our lives" which I hope they'll do.

A huge cosmic explosion photograpthed by Hubble telescope

Image via Wikipedia

A record-breaking explosion

An extraordinary thing happened recently. On April 7, our good friend, the Hubble space telescope, photographed an intense light. Apparently, this light was the fading part of an extremely powerful gamma ray burst. It could be seen by naked eye. In fact, it broke and now holds the record for the brightest object that could be seen without any kind of telescope. The light and radiation were noticed on March 17 and scientists say that for a moment, the object was as bright as 10 million galaxies. They also hoped to find out what galaxy the ray originated from, but could not do this as the ray was still very bright.

Be sure to check Hubble's Page for these and more pictures.

However, as I said earlier, the photos were taken on April 7 and that means that the ray has been shining for 3 weeks. What could have caused such a powerful phenomenon? Scientist believe that the ray emitted from a dying star that was at least 50 times bigger than our Sun. I don't know if the ray emitted radiation, but i guess that it wouldn't be exactly healthy for astronauts hit by it. Even if we make protection against conventional cosmic rays, an occasional very strong one or something we couldn't think of could badly damage people in space. But exploring has always been a dangerous business, be that exploring the new world (America) or space.

Efforts to send man back to space continue.

Before sending humans to space, we need to assess the potential radiation damage

The European Space Agency plans to evaluate cosmic ray damage to astronauts. As you may know, cosmic rays are beams of incredible energy, emitted during various events in space, such as a supernova, or meteorite crashing. These rays traverse space, and the heads of astronauts within space shuttles, without notable resistance. In order to protect our brave space explorers from a painful death, experiments have to be performed simulating the cosmic rays in space-like conditions. The only mechanism able to emit ion beams in Europe is UNILAG, owned by the GSI accelerator facility. Thus ESA have chosen it to perform their experiments.

So why exactly do we need this research? Well, here on Earth, the atmosphere protects us from rays and radiation, incoming from space. Astronauts, on the other hand, would be exposed to it constantly, while flying to the moon/mars or wherever they decide to. Radiation can damage human cells or cause genetic damage, which will manifest later as a tumor, or maybe even in the offspring. So the first colonizers reach Mars, establish a small outpost. Everything goes well, they have children... but wait! The children have various mutations, resulting in a colony filled with bloodthirsty laser-shooting mutants. I'm sorry, that was a bit off-topic, but there really is nothing more to this. The experiments are planned to begin later this year. Heh, who knows, maybe this will lead to an ion-cannon like in the Command & Conquer series. Some of the great inventions were made accidentally, like the EMP.

NASA plans new trip to the Moon

A space shuttle will be sent to collect surface dust samples

NASA plans on returning people back to the moon pretty soon. That's why they need to examine the potential threats that the astronauts may face on it's harsh surface. This is where the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer mission (codenamed LADEE) comes in. It's purpose is to gather information on Moon's surface dust and the impact Moon's environment has on it. With this information, scientists hope to discover potential threats that future lunar explorers may face and, hopefully, countermeasures to them.

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The LADEE mission will be carried out by cooperative effort of NASA's Ames Research Center, Goddard Space Flight Center and Marshall Space Flight Center. The price of the space shuttle is thought to reach 80 million USD. Another project, Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) is also underway. It's goal is to measure moon's gravitational force at ultra-high precision. Since both projects are concentrated towards lunar exploration, initiators want to launch them both in one Delta II rocket. The space shuttles will separate in space: GRAIL will orbit around the moon, measuring it's gravitation, while LADEE, after a 4-month trip and a 1-month checkout phase, will perform scientific operations for 100 days.

Another project, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is also planned to launch later this year. So, NASA is again interested in sending people back to the moon, to check if aliens haven't stolen the US flag. But if they did it nearly 40 years ago, why can't they just do it now? I am aware that several Apollo projects failed miserably, so was Apollo 11 just blind luck? At any rate, reaching other planets is kind of enlightening. Even the soviet union, USA's largest nemesis congratulated them on reaching the moon back in the Cold War era. It just goes to show you, there is a higher purpose of the human race, dominating over all petty conflicts we have with each other. The only problem is that we don't quite know what it is.

Supergreenhouse effect can be caused due to a lack of clouds.

Earth has experienced high temperature long ago.

Hundreds of millions of years ago, to be exact, during the Cretaceous and Eocene periods. If you've heard this for the first time, the Cretaceous period started ~ 145.5 millions of years ago and lasted for 75 millions of years. Dinosaurs still walked the land, but modern animals and flowers started appearing. Carbon dioxide levels were close to the ones we see today. The Eocene period started 55.8 millions of years ago and lasted for 18 millions of years. Modern animals started replacing dinosaurs. At the end of the period, the weather started cooling. That's a brief summary, but i can not explain it as well as the wikipedia article on the Geologic time scale can, so if you're interested about the subject, read more there. So, there were no humans back then, the fauna we see today was just forming, so carbon dioxide could not have been the cause. So what was it?

Clouds! They've been with us all the time, covering us from sun's rays. Various factors have been tweaked while trying to simulate the pre-human super greenhouse effect: carbon dioxide, methane gas, ocean current changes, but nothing produced the required results on the models. Researchers Kump and David Pollard tried changing the so-called albedo (the amount of sunlight reflected back into space), by reducing Earth's cloud coverage. And guess what? The results were just as needed!

The researchers have an explanation for why the cloud coverage was lower back then. Apparently, changes in the the production of cloud condensation nucleus ( the particles around which water vapour condensates into rain drops) decreased the overall cloud coverage, reflecting less sunlight and allowing more to reach the earth, thus increasing the temperature. Normally, clouds reflect 30$ of sun's rays back to space. With less cloud coverage, the amount of sunlight reaching the earth is believed to have increased by 6-10%. Today, human-made aerosols and gasses serve as cloud condensation nuclei, but in the pre-human period, there were no such things. Natural gasses were the only one's that can serve as clouds' condensation nuclei, and they were correlated with the oceans. Algae are dependant on water upwelling, but the Cretaceous period is known to have had little of it, so less productivity of algae meant less natural gasses above the oceans. Less gasses - less cloud condensation nuclei, so it all eventually led to cloud insufficiency. Thus the warming started.

It may be a bit too much to swallow for non-paleoclimatologists (people who specialise in researching the weather conditions during various periods of Earth's history), but it's quite comprehensible if you give it more thought. Besides, now on a cloudy day you won't think "MOAR SUN", but "Thank you, Mr. Cloud, because of you, I won't get skin cancer".

NASA captures high-quality photos of Mars' moon Phobos

High-Quality pictures of Phobos show Stickney crater

On march 23, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE)on a NASA's space shuttle took 2 high quality photos of Mars' larger moon Phobos, famous for it's Stickney crater. These are not the first pictures of Phobos, however. Previously, the Mars Global Surveyor has taken higher resolution images of the moon, because it managed to get closer to it.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter flew at about 4,800 km/h, up to 316 kilometers above the surface of Mars. The first picture was taken when the distance between the space shuttle an Phobos was 6800 kilometers. The second picture was taken at a smaller distance - 5800 kilometers, meaning higher quality. By a series of tests and studying the pictures, scientists found out that the material around Stickney crater seems fresher than everything else on the moon. This may be caused by landslides.


To view the images in their full glory, go to NASA's website. A big thank you for all the guys working there for bringing us images of objects millions of miles away. Although traversing space hasn't been around for long, humanity certainly made astounding accomplishments.

Interesting information about Phobos

I could have ended the post there, but phobos really intrigued me, so i'll tell you more about it. Mars has two moons: Deimos and Phobos. Phobos is the inner moon, orbiting closer to Mars (9,377 km) than Deimos. The moon's surface is dotted by craters. One particular crater got my attention, see if you can find it in the picutre below...

The above image is put together from 3 pictures taken by the space shuttle Viking 1 in October 19, 1978. You see the huge crater in the top-left of the picture? That's the infamous Stickney crater, thought to have allmost cracked Phobos into several pieces. Just look at the proportions. The crater takes almost 1/4 of the moon. Looks like the Death Star from Star Wars. It reaches 9 kilometers in diameter, while the Arizona crater on Earth is only 1.2 kilometers.

The humongous crater is probably the only interesting thing about a dead moon that is more like an asteroid. Scientists, however, delve deeper into the newly-aquired material about the moon, hoping to learn more about it's origins. Well, that's their job, and good luck to them!

A small-scale nuclear war can have devastating after-effects

A nuclear bomb here and there can't do much harm, can it?

With all the cold war nuclear weapon testings done by both superpowers (USSR and USA) we are led to believe so. I mean, the soviets developed a 100 megaton nuclear weapon, named Tsar Bomb. Due to it's extraordinary power, it was reduced to 50 megatons, and still was 10 times stronger than all of the explosives used in WW2 combined. The mushroom cloud upon detonation reached a height of 60 kilometers and the blast force could be felt all the way to Finland, even braking some windows there. You can read more about Tsar Bomb in the wikipedia article So if that beast didn't tear Earth apart, what will?

There's a budding conflict between India and Pakistan. Both countries have an estimate of 50 nuclear weapons, similar in power to the Hiroshima bomb back in WW2. Researchers have chosen that scenario for testing. Michael Mills and his colleagues of the University of Colorado at Boulder, used computer models to estimate the amount of damage that would be done globally. The results suggested a world-wide cataclysm. Firstly, due to the large population of India, hundreds of millions of people would starve because of the ruined agriculture. Then, of course, there are the blast victims, those fallen ill to radiation, and those who will in the many years to come.

So what about the rest of the world? No, we won't be safe. The burning rubber, plastic and other chemical products would emit clouds of black soot up to 80 kilometers into the skies. This would greatly damage the ozone layer all around the world, especially in the polar regions. The ozone layer protects us from the many dangerous rays, particularly ultraviolet, incoming from space. With the ozone layer diminished, more rays would reach us, increasing the damage done to human DNA by 213 percent. The ozone layer would return to it's normal state only in 5-10 years.

The research showed how a small-scaled conflict can affect the whole world. We can sleep easily on that, though. If such great powers USA and the Soviet Union didn't nuke each other 40 years ago, there is almost no chance that will happen in much weaker countries. But, who knows. Time changes everything.

Can global warming be stopped?

Too late to stop the greenhouse effect?

Scientists are certain that the warming climate we are experiencing globally is mainly caused by man-made carbon dioxide gases. Two other commonly known gases - methane and nitrous oxide - also play a role in the greenhouse effect, yet carbon dioxide is put above them because it's the main product of almost every man-made machine.

Several scientists performed an experiment at Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology to try and find out what would the carbon dioxide emissions have to be in order for the climate to stabilise and return to it's normal flow. A sophisticated computer program has been used to simulate the earth, taking into account the flow of heat between the atmosphere and oceans, carbon dioxide uptake by the flora and other factors.

So what results did the program produce? Well, they aren't shocking, but still quite startling to be honest. In order for the climate to return to it's former-self before the industrial age and beyond, we would have to completely get rid of carbon dioxide emissions - no gas power plants, no internal combustion engine cars, no airplanes, no nothing. And even then, the climate would stabilise only in 500 years! The scientists themselves think that we could decrease our carbon dioxide emissions considerably by, for instance, deploying wind turbines instead of gas-burning power plants. But what about the poorer countries? Ukraine still makes most of it's power in Nuclear Power Plants, which aren't exactly environmentally-friendly either.

So, it's a long shot, but with so much already thrown onto humanity, won't this be just an another obstacle in a long road?

The trip to Mars is going to be a tough one.

Early exploration

The primitive man has wandered the forests and barrens on Earth in search of food and shelter ever since he acquired a simple stick to protect himself from bloodthirsty predators. When their lifestyle improved considerably, they started exploring not just for food, but to satisfy their curiosity, to gain more knowledge about the world that's surrounding them. After conquering Earth, man has set his sights on space.

The dangers of space

Outer space is a dangerous environment indeed. If your space suit is damaged, due to the severe pressure difference you can die in many different ways. Also, since there is nothing in space (vacuum), nothing offers any kind of ressistance. What i'm trying to say is, if you get pushed, even slightly, you can fly into the empty space for hours until your oxygen runs out or you die of cold. Of course, there are measures against simply flying away into oblivion, but still... it's kind of demoralising. Working in that kind of environment is hard. Physically too, you got to have a strong stomach.

What does this have to do with man flying to Mars? Well, here comes in the second menace. COSMIC RAYS. No, sadly, not lazers. Cosmic rays are energetic particles created during an event in space, such as a supernova. These particles travel through the emptyness of space like a knife through butter, even easier. We're all worried about the cellphone waves causing cancer and similar things. Well, we should be glad. Earth's atmosphere protects us from the infamous cosmic rays. Astronauts, however, are minimally protected. The strength of these rays depends on how much energy the event that made them created. A supernova would probably discharge more energy than two colliding meteors. These cosmic rays can cause some serious damage to the fragile human body.

So, we'll never live on other planets?

Not necessarily. Maybe man will invent better protection against the invisible menace. Inhabiting a planet with an atmosphere still remains possible. Getting to that planet is the hard part. The rays could cause some serious mutations in humans genes during the travel. Imagine a colony of deformed human monsters on mars. Fact or fiction? Hell knows.

If you read this to the end, i'm thankfull. Good luck.