We watched as the bombs shattered the second comet into a million pieces of ice and rock that burned harmlessly in our atmosphere and lit up the sky for an hour. Still, we were left with the devastation of the first. The waters reached as far inland as the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys. It washed away farms and towns, forests and skyscrapers. But, the water receded. The wave hit Europe and Africa too. Millions were lost, and countless more left homeless. But the waters receded. Cities fall, but they are rebuilt. And heroes die, but they are remembered. We honor them with every brick we lay, with every field we sow, With every child we comfort, and then teach to rejoice in what we have been re-given. Our planet. Our home. So now, let us begin.
The serious asteroid watchers know the big ones by name, diameter, composition, orbit, spin and potential troublesomeness.
There’s Apophis, for example, a rock bigger than the Pentagon, which on April 13, 2029, will pass close enough to the Earth to be seen with the naked eye and quicken the pulse. There’s Toutatis, mountain-sized tumbling and, fortunately, at a safe distance. There’s 2005 YU55, a quarter of a mile wide, which passed the Earth at roughly moon distance a little over a year ago.
And now comes 2012 DA14, a rock the size of an apartment building that on Friday will buzz the Earth at a distance of about 17,200 miles. It poses no hazard. It won’t generate the slightest breeze or disturb a single mote of dust meandering in a sunbeam.
DA14 is too small to see with the naked eye. Though it will pass just inside the orbit of communications satellites, the chance that it will obliterate anyone’s favorite TV show is vanishingly remote.
.... The U.S. space agency NASA has said an asteroid known as 2012 DA14, about 46 meters in diameter, would have an encounter with Earth closer than any asteroid since scientists began routinely monitoring them about 15 years ago. Television, weather and communications satellites fly about 500 miles higher. The moon is 14 times farther away.
A meteor shower has rained down on central Russia, sowing panic as hurtling space debris exploded in the air, blew out windows and injured dozens of people.
The Russsian Emergencies Ministry reported a meteoroid exploded in the skies above the Urals region, sending a shock wave that shattered windows.
"A meteorite (sic) disintegrated above the Urals, partially burning up in the lower atmosphere," the local office of the national emergencies ministry said in a statement.
About 400 people have been injured after a meteorite shot across the sky in central Russia.It sent fireballs crashing to Earth, smashing windows and setting off car alarms.Residents on their way to work in Chelyabinsk heard what sounded like an explosion, saw a bright light and then felt a shockwave, according to a Reuters correspondent in the industrial city 1,500km east of Moscow.
On January 13 2013, The New York Times reported that air pollution levels in Beijing, China were elevated to a point “beyond indexing”. The readings help form the Air Quality Index (PDF), which is used to determine levels of harmful particulate matter, and topped out at 755 ppm at a monitoring station at the U.S. Embassy (on a scale of 500).
Around 15,000 crocodiles escaped from a farm in South Africa following heavy rain.
A number of the crocodiles have since been recaptured, but at least half remain on the loose
The crocodiles sprung from the Rakwena Crocodile Farm in the far north of the country when owners were forced to open the gates to prevent a storm surge after the nearby Limpopo river rose. A number have since been recaptured, but at least half remain on the loose, scattered far and wide.
One turned up on a school rugby pitch 75 miles away.
Can they escape so fast? 120km far place?
"There used to be only a few crocodiles in the Limpopo River," said Zane Langman, the son-in-law of Johan Boshoff, who owns Rakwena. "Now there are a lot."
OMG! Adult elephant, too?!
"We've been recapturing them as and when the local farmers phone us to tell us that there are crocodiles on their property," said Zane Langman, the son-in-law of Johan Boshoff, who owns Rakwena. He added the most of the recapturing efforts were taking place at night.
Crocodiles are apparently easier to catch at night because their eyes shine red in the dark. The surrounding South African province of Limpopo province has been hit by serious floods which have killed 10 people and made many more homeless.
The floods have also ravaged neighbouring Mozambique, were tens of thousands of people were being evacuated from their homes.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —The kilogram is losing weight and many international scientists, including some at Sandia National Laboratories, agree that it’s time to redefine it.
Scientists are hoping to redefine the kilogram by basing it on standards of universal constants rather than on an artifact standard.
“The idea is to replace the single master kilogram with something based on physical constants, rather than an artifact that could be damaged accidentally,” says mechanical engineer Hy Tran, a project leader at the Primary Standards Laboratory (PSL) at Sandia.
Sandia is a National Nuclear Security Administration laboratory.
