Is this the new Earth? Astronomers discover planet just 20 light years away in 'Goldilocks zone' which could support life

Daily Mail, By DAVID DERBYSHIRE, 29th September 2010

• Planet's gravity means a human could walk on the surface
• Highest average temperature is -12C - cold but survivable
• Scientists say incredible discovery points to universe full of Earth-like planets

The chances that future generations will one day colonise the stars have just got higher.

Astronomers tonight announced the discovery of the most Earth-like planet ever found - a rocky world three times the size of our own world, orbiting a star 20 light years away.

The planet -lies in the star's 'Goldilocks zone' - the region in space where conditions are neither too hot or too cold for liquid water to form oceans, lakes and rivers.

The planet also appears to have an atmosphere, a gravity like our own and could well be capable of life.

This artist's conception shows the inner four planets of the Gliese 581 system and their host star, a red dwarf star only 20 light years away from Earth. The four tiny planets in the background are the planets that have already been discovered. The closer, Blue and green planet is 581G, the most Earth-like planet ever discovered

The discovery comes three years after astronomers found a similar, slightly less habitable planet around the same star - described by astronomers as being 'in our backyard' in the Milky Way.

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Researchers say the findings suggest the universe is teeming with world like our own.

'If these are rare, we shouldn't have found one so quickly and so nearby,' Dr Steven Vogt who led the study at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

'The number of systems with potentially habitable planets is probably on the order of 10 or 20 per cent, and when you multiply that by the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, that's a large number. There could be tens of billions of these systems in our galaxy.'

Planets orbiting distant stars are too small to be seen by telescopes. Instead, astronomers look for tell-tale gravitational wobbles in the stars that show a planet is in orbit.

The findings come from 11 years of observations at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

The planet orbits a small red star called Gliese 581 in the constellation of Libra. The planet, named Glieseg, is 118,000,000,000,000 miles away - so far away that light from its start takes 20 years to reach the Earth.

It takes just 37 days to orbit its sun which means its seasons last for just a few days. One side of the planet always faces its star and basks in perpetual daylight, while the other is in perpetual darkness.

The most suitable place for life or future human colonists would be in the 'grey' zone - the band between darkness and light that circles the planet.

'Any emerging life forms would have a wide range of stable climates to choose from and to evolve around, depending on their longitude,' said Dr Vogt who reports the find in the Astrophysical Journal.

If Gliese 581g has a rocky composition similar to the Earth's, its diameter would be about 1.2 to 1.4 times that of the Earth. It's gravity is likely to be similar - allowing a human astronaut to walk on the surface upright without difficulty.

Astronomers have now found six planets in orbit around Gliese 581 - the most discovered in a planetary system other than our own solar system.

Like the solar system, the planets orbiting Gliese 581 have mostly circular orbits.

Gliese 581, the brightest object in this Nasa image from 2007, is only 20 light years from Earth and is one of our nearest neighbours

Two of its detected planets have previously been proposed as habitable planets. However they lie at the extremes of the Goldilocks Zone - one on the hot side, the other on the cold side.

Gliese 581g, in contrast, lies right in the middle.

The star has not been given a proper name. It appears in a catalogue of stars compiled by the German astronomer William Gliese where it has been given the reference number 581.

Astronomers name planets found orbiting distant with a letter.

The previous five planets found around Gliese 581 were named b to f, making the latest discovery Gliese 581g.

Its star is a red giant - a massive star near the end of its life. It is too dim to see in the night sky from Earth without a telescope.

Astronomers have found nearly 500 exoplanets - or planets outside our own solar system.

However, almost all are too big, made of gas instead of rock, too hot or too cold for life as we know it.

The planet is so far away, spaceships travelling close to the speed of light would take 20 years to make the journey. If a rocket was one day able to travel at a tenth of the speed of light, it would take 200 years to make the journey.

The orbits of planets in the Gliese 581 system are compared to those of our own solar system. The Gliese 581 star has about 30% the mass of our sun, and the outermost planet is closer to its star than we are to the sun. The 4th planet, G, is a planet that could sustain life.

GLIESE 581g FACT FILE

• Diameter - 1.2 to 1.4 times that of the Earth
• Mass - 3.1 and 4.3 times that of the Earth
• Average surface temperature - between -24F and 10F (-31C and -12C)
• Distance from the Earth - 20 light years or 118,000,000,000,000 miles
• Time needed to travel to Gliese 581g in a rocket travelling one tenth the speed of light, or 19,000 miles per second - 200 years
• One of six planets to orbit the star Gliese 581
• Length of year - 37 Earth days
• Gravity - similar or slightly higher than Earth
• Distance from its sun - around six million miles
• The planet orbits a red dwarf which is 50 times cooler and and a third the size of our Sun
• Composition - rocky with liquid water and atmosphere.

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Hang On! Earth's Surface Moving North

Livescience, By Andrea Leontiou, 27 September 2010

As you read this, the Earth's surface is shifting right underneath you, creeping very slowly toward the North Pole. Scientists say the shift is greater than they expected, but other than some minor effects on satellites, life will go on.

Researchers have found that the shift of water mass around the globe, combined with so-called post-glacial rebound, is shifting Earth's surface relative to its center of mass by 0.035 inches (0.88 millimeters) a year toward the North Pole.

Post-glacial rebound is the response of the solid Earth to the retreat of glaciers and the resulting loss of the hefty weight. As glaciers retreated at the end of the last Ice Age, the land under the ice began to rise and continues to do so. Therefore, models predicted, the solid crust at the surface should be moving northward, in relation to the planet’s center of mass.

Now there’s hard data to support the model’s prediction.

To calculate the changes, scientists combined gravity data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites with measurements of global surface movements from GPS and a model developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that estimates the mass of Earth's ocean above any point on the ocean floor.

Study researcher Xiaoping Wu of JPL in Pasadena, Calif., thinks the shift of Earth's surface is largely due to the melted Laurentide ice sheet, which blanketed most of Canada and a part of the northern United States during the last Ice Age.

"The new estimate of shift is much larger than previous model estimates of 0.019 inches (0.48 millimeters) per year," Wu said. "The motion of the center moving upward is not going to affect life on Earth. The motion is only less than one millimeter a year, so it won't have any impact on life, but if it were something like one centimeter, then there would be a huge amount of changes," Wu said.

While this movement will not have an impact on our day-to-day lives, it could impact spacecraft tracking and tell us more about how the Earth deforms under stress and the history of deglaciation.

"Satellites in space orbit around the center of mass record information from space and our corresponding instruments are located on the Earth's surface, so this movement may affect how we track spacecrafts," Wu said.

The research, published this month in the journal Nature Geoscience, was conducted by scientists from JPL, Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, and the Netherlands Institute for Space Research.

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1,000 people could be trapped in Mexico landslide, governor says

CNN, By the CNN Wire Staff, September 28, 2010 11:05 a.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Rescue officials had yet to arrive, some residents complained
• The mudslide could have fallen atop up to 300 homes, Gov. Ulises Ruiz said

For more on this story, go to CNN Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico (CNN) -- Up to 1,000 people may have been trapped by a landslide in the southwestern Mexico state of Oaxaca, Gov. Ulises Ruiz said Tuesday morning.

A hill about 650 feet wide (200 meters) collapsed early Tuesday, sending tons of mud over as many as 300 houses, Ruiz told CNN affiliate Televisa.

Rescue officials, heavy machinery and police and military authorities were on their way to the scene, Ruiz said.

"We expect to get there in time to rescue these people," he said.

Ruiz said several rivers have overflowed their banks due to heavy rain in the area and many roads are blocked by landslides, making it difficult for rescuers to reach the affected areas.

Some residents were complaining Tuesday morning that help was slow in coming.

"Police and rescue officials still have not arrived at the landslide zone and there are many landslides on the road," one person posted on the Twitter internet blogging site.

The region has been plagued by extremely heavy rainfall over the past two weeks, most recently by the remnants of Tropical Storm Matthew, which are still stalled over the area Tuesday, according to CNN Meteorologist Brandon Miller.

Satellite data indicates that 300 mm (11.8 inches) of rain has fallen in the area of the landslide in the past three days, Miller said.

Many houses are built on the edge of ridges on the steep terrain in the state, which stands 2,000 feet above sea level, making it conducive to landslides in severe weather.

More rain is forecast in the region in the next day and a half, Miller said.

The severe weather led civil protection authorities to declare a state of emergency Monday for the Oaxaca state municipalities of Oaxaca de Juarez, San Felipe Tejalapam, San Jacinto Amilpas, San Lorenzo Cacaotepec, San Pablo Etla, Santa Lucia del Camino and Tlalixtac de Cabrera. A municipality in Mexico is a geographic division within a state, similar to a county in the United States.

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DNA barcode library to launch in Toronto

Yahoo/AFP, Fri Sep 24 2010

OTTAWA (AFP) – An international consortium of geneticists on Saturday will activate a DNA barcode library in Toronto representing almost 80,000 species, the International Barcode of Life Project (iBOL) announced.

An international consortium of geneticists on Saturday

will activate a DNA barcode library in Toronto representing

almost 80,000 species, the International Barcode of Life

Project (iBOL)\ announced. To mark the event, Toronto's

CN Tower -- the tallest free-standing structure in the

Western Hemisphere -- is to be illuminated as a giant

bar code, iBOl said. (AFP/File/Geoff Robins)

The aim is to eventually build a digital identification system for all life on Earth to reduce the time and cost of species identification.

To mark the world?s largest biodiversity genomics initiative, Toronto's CN Tower -- the tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere -- is to be illuminated as a giant bar code, iBOl said.

"We are witnessing alarming rates of species extinction," said iBOL scientific director Paul Hebert.

"But efforts to reverse that trend are hampered by huge gaps in our knowledge about the distribution and diversity of life. DNA barcoding promises a future where everyone will have rapid access to the names and biological attributes of every species on Earth."

DNA barcoding, which identifies species using a short DNA sequence from a standard location on the genome, will also be a vital tool for conservation and for monitoring species that have adverse impacts on human health and economic wellbeing, he said.

More than 25 countries are involved in the project.

Work over the past five years has produced barcode records for almost 80,000 species.

By 2015, consortium members are expected to have entered DNA barcode records from five million specimens representing half a million species into the interactive Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD) databank, and eventually all of Earth's animal, plant and fungal species.

Three volcanoes revolt at once in Kamchatka

News BCM, 23.09.2010 18:26

In Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Shiveluch, Klyuchevskoy and Karymsky volcanoes have begun to "spit" ash several kilometers up into the sky.

Karymsky volcano eruption.
Photo from website kcs.dvo.ru

The branch of Geophysical Service of RAS Kamchatka has reported that several gas-and-ash emissions occurred at Shiveluch, the highest reached 5 km above sea level. A thermal anomaly was observed in the growing dome of the volcano, and more than 300 seismic events were recorded in its structure. The ash plume from Shiveluch has risen 1 km 500 meters due to gas-vapor activity.

Volcano Klyuchevskoy keeps up with its "comrade". Its ash emissions have also risen to a height of 5 km above sea level. According to geophysicists, the ash plume has stretched 190 km south-east of the volcano. As a result, the ash went down on the village of Klyuchi located not fat from Klyuchevskoy. In the darkness, the continuous glow above the crater of the volcano is clearly visible: Klyuchevskoy "throws" red-hot lava to the height of 500 meters above the crater; shining, dripping lava flows along the slope of the volcano to the level of 2,500 meters. Significant thermal anomaly has been observed in its crater.

Volcano Karymsky blew off a pillar of ash and gas. The RAS employees noted that the height of the pillar is 2,900 meters above sea level.

Russia's Academy of Sciences warns that now all three volcanoes are dangerous for planes flying in the area, as the particles of ash may cause a plane crash when they get into the engines of the aircraft. However, for settlements nearby, on the contrary, the volcanoes present no danger for the moment, but tourists still have to detour these places.

Seven elephants killed by goods train

BBC News, 23 September 2010 Last updated at 11:49 GMT 

Seven elephants were killed after being hit by a speeding goods train in India as they attempted to rescue two young ones on the track.

Forest officials say trains often collide with
elephants in the area

Officials in West Bengal said five died instantly and two others later succumbed to their injuries. Another elephant was wounded but survived.

The baby elephants became trapped on the track at Moraghat Tea Garden, near Binnaguri in the Jalpaiguri district.

The others wandered onto the line in an attempt to free them.

The track, which connects New Jalpaiguri to Assam, was closed down for several hours after the collision, as other elephants were guarding the dead and injured animals.

'Regular accidents'

Forest officials say that speeding trains regularly hit elephants in the area as the track crosses the elephants' known route, according to the Times of India.

They say they have asked railway officials to reduce the speed limit in the area to prevent such incidents occuring.

Three months ago, an elephant was killed nearby in a similar accident.

Trains have killed 118 elephants in India since 1987, according to the Wildlife Trust of India.

Putin plays down talk of battle for Arctic resources

BBC News, 23 September 2010

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has rejected talk of an impending battle for control of the Arctic region's mineral resources.

Mr Putin's speech was much anticipated

He told an international conference in Moscow he was confident the region's resources could be exploited in a spirit of partnership.

Russia believes the UN will recognise its claim to much of the Arctic seabed.

The scramble for resources has been set in motion partly by improved access caused by the melting of polar ice.

Russia, Norway, Canada, Denmark and the US have all laid claims to territory in the region.

"One comes across all sorts of fantastical predictions about a coming battle for the Arctic," Mr Putin told the conference on its closing day.

"We can see clearly that most of these frightening scenarios in the Arctic have no real foundation...

"I am in no doubt whatsoever that the existing problems of the Arctic, including those of the continental shelf, may be resolved in a spirit of partnership, through negotiations, on the basis of existing international legal norms."

Mr Putin's speech was much anticipated given Russia's fast-moving attempts to claim control of a huge swathe of extra territory in the Arctic all the way to the North Pole, the BBC's Richard Galpin reports from Moscow.

NASA discovers brand new force of nature

MSN, By ninemsn staff, Mon Sep 20 2010

NASA scientists say they may have discovered a new force of nature, after research showed two of their deep space probes were being inexplicably pulled off course.

Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, which have been in space for over 40 years, are being steadily pulled towards the sun by an unknown power, according to London’s Telegraph newspaper

The scientists said it could not be gravity or solar radiation, as they decreased over distance.

They have also discounted gas leaks and nuclear heat leaks from the satellites.

Although the force is relatively weak — around 10 billion times weaker than gravity — the satellites are travelling at around 43,000km/h on a journey expected to last several million years.

Two other satellites in the solar system, Galileo and Ulysses, are also being affected by a similar force.

The Pioneer satellites have photographed planets Jupiter and Saturn, and Pioneer 10 is so far into space it passed Pluto in 1983.

The research will be published in a leading physics journal, The Physical Review.

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Can biofuels beat drugs crops and save lives in Afghanistan?

CNN News, By Dean Irvine, CNN, September 20, 2010

Is there a place for home-grown biofuels in Afghanistan?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• New report suggests biofuels in Afghanistan could save lives of troops protecting fuel convoys
• Report authors say benefits of biofuels would be manifold, including environmental
• Biofuel can be made from poppies, but report suggests a better crop type
• Main purchaser of biofuels would be U.S military

(CNN) -- Among environmentalists, biofuels are almost as divisive an issue as NATO military operations in Afghanistan are in wider public discussions.

Yet two American businessmen believe that home-grown biofuel in Afghanistan could be a "green" solution to some of the larger problems the country is experiencing including military casualties, energy security and the opium trade.

Wayne Arden, who has a background in technology and finance, and John Fox whose career has been in the renewable energy field, published a White Paper on producing and using biodiesel in Afghanistan earlier this summer.

While the authors discovered many benefits to a biofuel industry in Afghanistan the reason for their work came in December 2009 with news of more U.S. troops being sent to the country.

"The main customer here is the U.S. military so we want to make the logistics as easy as possible for them to use the biodiesel," Arden told CNN.

Arden and Fox suggest that casualties from protecting fuel convoys in the country (one death from every 24 convoys, according to their report) could be drastically reduced if home-grown biofuel was used in place of imported diesel.

With the creation of a biofuel plant near the military bases of allied forces around Kandahar, they also suggest the high cost of importing fuel used for military transportation and generators would be seriously reduced.

A medium-sized power plant, they say, would cost $90 million.

As well as the environmental benefit of reduced CO2, Arden and Fox argue biofuels would fit well with the U.S. military's $1.5 billion annual environmental program.

Whether Afghanistan's opium production -- estimated to be worth $2.8bn in 2009, and employing 1.6 million people, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime -- could be switched to biofuel production is another question.

However prior to Arden and Fox's report there have been direct calls for poppies to be turned directly into green biofuel.

Marc Grossman, the former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, suggested in a report in July that counter-narcotics goals and environmental concerns could be matched by such a project.

"The advantages would be manifold: less illicit poppy, less money to fuel narco-terrorism, and perhaps some small impact on the amount of pollution put into the air by trucks in the region," Grossman wrote in a report for The German Marshall Fund for the United States.

Poppy seeds as a biomass for fuel are in limited production; the Macquarie Oil Company has a refinery in Tasmania, Australia that has produced biofuel to power agricultural vehicles.

Arden and Fox admit biofuels could have a role to play in reducing opium production but say that poppy seeds are not as good a biomass for fuel as other crops.

"You can extract oil from poppies and make diesel from it. The issue is it doesn't necessarily do the job of moving the country away from an illicit drugs trade," said Arden.

Instead the report authors suggest the use of a different crop, safflower, as the main biomass, as it native to Afghanistan, works almost as well as petroleum in cold weather and can be used as 100 percent biodiesel in generators.

"[Safflower] is very drought resistant. It doesn't use more water than poppy, which is the crop we're trying to replace," said Fox.

"And we expect unintended consequences. A case where a farmer could rip out a crop like wheat and plant safflower, or there's too much production and in that case if safflower oil is consumed, it is a very healthy oil."

Looking beyond the military action in Afghanistan, the white paper authors are confident biofuels would have future when allied troops left the country.

"The [proposed] plant is sized to provide electricity to 5,000 soldiers, but also it's also sized to provide biodiesel to the local electrical utilities that are currently using petroleum diesel. Someday the U.S. military will leave, but that plant can still serve the region," said Arden.

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Nike's flagship store becomes latest victim of New York bedbug infestation

Daily Mail, By DAILY MAIL REPORTER, 19th September 2010

Nike's massive flagship store in Manhattan has been forced to close after it was infested with bedbugs.

The Niketown store on East 57th Street - one of its most popular in the U.S. - has become the latest in a line of clothes shops and company headquarters to be plagued by the insects.

Last month internet search engine giant Google confirmed its offices in 9th Avenue had become infested with the parasites.

Shut: Nike's flagship Niketown store in East 57th Street,
Manhattan, has been closed after bedbugs were found

Two Abercrombie & Fitch clothing stores were also forced to close after staff complained about being bitten and the Empire State building, a Times Square theatre and Time Warner's Manhattan headquarters have also had problems.

In a statement, Nike - based in Beaverton, Oregon - said it had 'proactively closed Niketown' when the critters were discovered there.

It said: 'Our primary concern is the wellbeing of our consumers and sales associates.

'We are taking all proper steps to eradicate the problem and we expect the store to reopen shortly.'

Spreading: Two Abercrombie and Fitch stores, including this
one in South Seaport, have also shut after bedbug infestations

Infestation: Stores and company headquarters in New York have been
plagued by outbreaks of bedbugs blamed on increased international travel

Hollister, a popular clothing line owned by Abercrombie & Fitch, was another victim of the bedbug spread after its flagship store on Broadway shut in July.

New York city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has said it has provided guidance to stores and businesses about getting rid of bedbug infestations.

Last month the city was revealed as the most bedbug-ridden in the U.S.

The outbreak is blamed on increased international air travel.

Bedbugs live in human clothing and soft furnishings and emerge at night to feed on blood. They are rust coloured and around the size of an apple pip.

They are notoriously difficult to eradicate and can go for up to a year without a meal.

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White House solves the problem of global warming overnight... by officially changing the phrase to 'global climate disruption'

Daily Mail, By CAROL DRIVER, 17th September 2010

Global warming could be a thing of the past, thanks to the Barack Obama administration.

No, the White House has not single-handedly managed to stop the apparent rising temperature – but it does think the terminology oversimplifies the problem.

According to U.S. science adviser John Holdren, the public should start using the phrase ‘global climate disruption’ because it makes the situation sound more dangerous.

'Oversimplified': White House science adviser John Holdren urged the public to use the phrase 'global climate disruption'

During a speech in Oslo, Norway, Mr Holdren said global warming is a ‘dangerous misnomer’ and is not an accurate description of the issues facing the planet.

It comes as Congress prepares to adjourn for the season without completing work on the stalled climate bill. The new terminology could help to revamp climate messaging for next year’s legislative session.

Referring to the Democrats launch of a new logo, Republican pollster Adam Geller told Fox News: ‘They’re trying to come up with more politically palatable ways to sell some of this stuff.’

'Dangerous misnomer': The phrase 'global warming' does not accurately reflect the impact rising sea levels will have on humans, according to NASA

Mr Geller added that the phrase ‘global warming’ is easy to criticise.

‘Every time we’re digging our cars out – what global warming? (Global climate disruption is) more of a sort of generic blanket term, I guess, that can apply in all weather conditions.’

Mr Holdren is not the first scientist to make the recommendations. In 2008, NASA said the term ‘global warming’ should be avoided because temperature change ‘isn’t the most severe effect of changing climate’.

‘Changes to precipitation patterns and sea levels are likely to have much greater human impact than the higher temperatures alone,’ its report said.

It’s not the first terminology change the White House has pushed for – previous examples include ‘man-caused disaster’ and ‘overseas contingency operation’.