Beams Are Back

After more than one year of repairs, the LHC is now back on track to create high-energy particle collisions that may yield extraordinary insights into the nature of the physical universe.
"The LHC is a machine unprecedented in size, in complexity, and in the scope of the international collaboration that has built it over the last 15 years," said Dennis Kovar, U.S. Department of Energy Associate Director of Science for High Energy Physics. "I congratulate the scientists and engineers that have worked to get the LHC back up and running, and look forward to the discoveries to come."
American scientists have played an important role in the construction of the LHC. About 150 scientists, engineers and technicians from three DOE national laboratories -- Brookhaven Lab, Fermilab and Berkeley Lab -- built critical accelerator components. They are joined by colleagues from DOE's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Texas at Austin in ongoing LHC accelerator R&D. The work has been supported by the DOE Office of Science.
Circulating beams are a major milestone on the way to the ultimate goal: data from high-energy particle collisions in each of the LHC's four major particle detectors. Over the next few months, scientists will create collisions between two beams of protons. These very first LHC collisions will take place at the relatively low energy of 900 GeV. They will then raise the beam energy, aiming for collisions at the world-record energy of 7 TeV in early 2010. With these high-energy collisions, the hunt for discoveries at the LHC will begin.
"It's great to see beam circulating in the LHC again," said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. "We've still got some way to go before physics can begin, but with this milestone we're well on the way."
In all, an estimated 10,000 people from 60 countries have helped design and build the LHC accelerator and its four massive particle detectors, including more than 1,700 scientists, engineers, students and technicians from 97 U.S. universities and laboratories in 32 states and Puerto Rico supported by the DOE Office of Science and the National Science Foundation.

Space flight of Amelia

As a new major motion picture about famed female pilot Amelia Earhart prepares to launch onto movie theater screens this weekend, a scarf she wore is being readied for its own liftoff, flying on the space shuttle with the astronaut grandson of her personal photographer.
Randy Bresnik, whose grandfather Albert was recruited by Earhart in 1932 to be her only authorized photographer, is set to take the scarf on shuttle Atlantis when it departs with supplies and spare parts for the International Space Station (ISS) in November.
"We are flying Amelia Earhart's favorite scarf that she unfortunately did not take with her on her final mission," revealed the STS-129 astronaut during an interview . "Fortunately, she also decided not to take her photographer with her otherwise I might not be here today."
As the film "Amelia" starring Hilary Swank in the title role recounts, Earhart, who made the first transatlantic solo flight by a woman in 1933, and her navigator Fred Noonan disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean during an attempt in 1937 to become the first female to fly around the world.

Giant Impact which form Shiva Crater in India, killed Dinosaurs

A huge, mysterious basin off the coast of India could be the largest, multi-ringed impact crater ever found on Earth. And if a new study is right, this impact may supercede the one that created the Chicxulub crater off Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula as what may have been responsible for killing the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University and a team of researchers have been studying a 500-kilometer-wide (300-mile-wide) depression on the Indian Ocean seafloor which was likely created by a bolide perhaps 40 kilometers (25 miles) in diameter. Such an event would have triggered worldwide climate changes, including intensified volcanism, that led to mass extinction.Since the 1990's the leading candidate for what killed the dinosaurs was a ten-kilometer-wide (six-mile-wide) asteroid thought to have carved out the Chicxulub crater. This impact may have done the job, but if not, 300,000 later the impact that created the Shiva basin surely would have finished off large life on Earth.
The massive Shiva basin, a submerged depression west of India that is intensely mined for its oil and gas resources. Some complex craters are among the most productive hydrocarbon sites on the planet.
"If we are right, this is the largest crater known on our planet," Chatterjee said. "A bolide of this size, creates its own tectonics."
However, some geologists have disputed whether the Shiva depression was created by an impact, or if it is just a hole in Earth's crust, possibly created by volcanism. Christian Koeberl, a geochemist at the University of Vienna in Austria, has been adamant in the past that Shiva is not an impact crater. He said not only is there no evidence of impact in the case of Shiva, there is no crater structure. He calls Shiva, "a figment of imagination."
"There's not even ambiguous evidence, or inconclusive evidence," says Koeberl. "There are a couple of people that keep pushing for some crater in the Indian Ocean, but this is inconsistent not only with the regional geology and geophysics, but also with anything we know about impact cratering."
But Chatterjee feels sure that Shiva is an impact crater and said the geological evidence is dramatic. Shiva's outer rim forms a rough, faulted ring some 500 kilometers in diameter, encircling the central peak, known as the Bombay High, which would be 3 miles tall from the ocean floor (about the height of Mount McKinley). Most of the crater lies submerged on India's continental shelf, but where it does come ashore it is marked by tall cliffs, active faults and hot springs. The impact appears to have sheared or destroyed much of the 30-mile-thick granite layer in the western coast of India.
If the huge depression was created by an impact, Earth's crust at the point of collision would have been vaporized, leaving nothing but ultra-hot mantle material to well up in its place. It is likely that the impact enhanced the nearby Deccan Traps volcanic eruptions that covered much of western India. What's more, the impact broke the Seychelles islands off of the Indian tectonic plate, and sent them drifting toward Africa.
The team hopes to go India later this year to examine rocks drill from the center of the putative crater for clues that would prove the strange basin was formed by a gigantic impact.
"Rocks from the bottom of the crater will tell us the telltale sign of the impact event from shattered and melted target rocks. And we want to see if there are breccias, shocked quartz, and an iridium anomaly," Chatterjee said.Asteroids are rich in iridium, and such anomalies are thought of as the fingerprint of an impact.

32 NEW PLANETS DISCOVERED

Astronomers have found 32 new planets outside our solar system with the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, better known as HARPS, the spectrograph for the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) 3.6-metre telescope. The number of known exoplanets is now at 406, and HARPS itself has discovered more than 75 exoplanets in 30 different planetary systems. Included in this most recent batch are several low-mass planets – so-called "Super Earths" about the size of Neptune. The image above is an artist's impression of a planet discovered that is 6 times the mass of Earth, which circles the low-mass host star, Gliese 667 C, at a distance equal to only 1/20th of the Earth-Sun distance. Two other planets were discovered previously around this star.
"HARPS is a unique, extremely high precision instrument that is ideal for discovering alien worlds," said ESO astronomer Stéphane Udry. "We have now completed our initial five-year program, which has succeeded well beyond our expectations."No Earth-like planets were discovered in this group that was announced at an exoplanet conference in Portugal.

Opportunity finds Meteorite at Mars

Opportunity must be driving down Meteorite Alley on Mars. The rover has come across still another meteorite, the third space rock it has found the past few months, and fourth overall since 2005. This one is called Mackinac, which continues the "island" theme by which the science team has dubbed the meteorites. Block Island was found in July 2009, and Opportunity came upon Shelter Island the end of September (around sol 2020 for the rover). Mackinac was found on sol 2034 (Oct 13), and it looks very similar in composition to the two earlier meteorites. Opportunity analyzed the Block Island and found it was made of iron and nickel.

Body Art of Mars

see the Bad Astronomer has beat me to the punch by posting this image before I could. But what an amazing and gorgeous image of dunes on Mars! However, my initial thought when I saw this on the HiRISE webpage was perhaps this was the first long-awaited look at Phil's tattoo. Seriously, doesn't this look like it could be body art? The dunes even have a Phil-like flesh color. But this wonderful image was taken by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. There is a great database of dune images gathered for the US Geological Survey on the HiRISE website,

Our INTEGRAL astronomer

Boy from Vadodara wins "Be an INTEGRAL astronomer" competition organised by the European Space AgencyAn 18 year-old secondary school student, Shyamal Patel of Baroda High School, Alkapuri, Vadodara has been declared the winner of the 'Be an INTEGRAL astronomer' competition। This competition was organised by the European Space Agency (ESA) in August this year as a part of the celebrations of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) 2009. The participants were categorised as secondary students and University undergraduates and hailed from many countries. Michelle Knights, from Rhodes University, South Africa, was chosen winner amongst University undergraduates. Vaidehi Sharan Paliya, Banaras Hindu University, was a runner up in this category.ESA's INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) is the most sensitive gamma-ray space observatory ever launched. It has been making groundbreaking observations of the most energetic objects in the Universe since its launch in October 2002. In the competition students were presented with data from INTEGRAL and asked to study the Galactic Bulge, one of the most active regions at the heart of our Galaxy. Entrants were required to perform research tasks using INTEGRAL data of variable X-ray sources. The tasks included interpreting the data, searching for evidence of variability and then writing a report on their research. The competition entries were judged by an expert panel comprising ESA scientists.Shyamal is a keen amateur astronomer who has participated in several activities to promote and increase awareness of astronomy, including a workshop for school students organised by AAAV during the total solar eclipse of 22 July 2009. He was previously the winner of an ASI and ISRO sponsored student competition to attend the 2007 International Astronautical Congress."My interest in the field of astronomy always keeps me excited to explore our Universe," said Shyamal. "(The) 'Be an Integral Astronomer' competition gave me an opportunity and motivation to work, explore and understand the high energy Universe." Prof. Ranjeev Misra of IUCAA, Pune - said " I highly appreciate the hard work put in by Shaymal, Vaidehi and the others. I am very heartened to know that young Indian students are leading in international competitions in advanced subjects like Astronomy. I hope the winners will go on to be professionals by taking up Science and that they will set examples for others to try out this fascinating subject. "
illustrator -David opie
link-http://spacemandave.com/