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richardmitnick 10:00 pm on December 7, 2022 Permalink | Reply
Tags: "NASA Missions Probe Game-Changing Cosmic Explosion", Applied Research & Technology ( 10,619 ), Astronomy ( 10,700 ), Astrophysics ( 8,513 ), Basic Research ( 15,945 ), Cosmology ( 8,630 ), GRB's-Gamma ray bursts ( 26 ), NASA Fermi ( 59 ), NASA Hubble, NASA SWIFT ( 18 ), Scientists sometimes observe short bursts with a following flare of visible and infrared light called a kilonova., The burst named GRB 211211A was paradigm-shifting as it is the first long-duration gamma-ray burst traced to a neutron star merger origin., The decay from the neutron star merger results in the production of heavy elements like gold and platinum., This discovery has deep implications for how the universe's heavy elements came to be.
From The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: "NASA Missions Probe Game-Changing Cosmic Explosion"
From The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
By Jeanette Kazmierczak
jeanette.a.kazmierczak@nasa.gov
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md
Claire Andreoli
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Gamma-ray burst 211211A, the location of which is circled in red, erupted on the outskirts of a spiral galaxy around 1 billion light-years away in the constellation Boötes. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured the image with its Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. Credit: NASA, ESA, Rastinejad et al. (2022), and Gladys Kober (Catholic Univ. of America)
The National Aeronautics and Space Agency European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Hubble Space Telescope Instrumentation annotated.
National Aeronautics Space Agency/European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea][Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Hubble Wide Field Camera 3.
National Aeronautics Space Agency/European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
On Dec. 11, 2021, NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected a blast of high-energy light from the outskirts of a galaxy around 1 billion light-years away. The event has rattled scientists' understanding of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the most powerful events in the universe.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration Neil Gehrels Swift X-ray, and UV/Visible light Observatory.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration Fermi Gamma-Ray Large Area Telescope.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope.
For the last few decades, astronomers have generally divided GRBs into two categories. Long bursts emit gamma rays for two seconds or more and originate from the formation of dense objects like black holes in the centers of massive collapsing stars. Short bursts emit gamma rays for less than two seconds and are caused by mergers of dense objects like neutron stars. Scientists sometimes observe short bursts with a following flare of visible and infrared light called a kilonova.
"This burst, named GRB 211211A, was paradigm-shifting as it is the first long-duration gamma-ray burst traced to a neutron star merger origin," said Jillian Rastinejad, a graduate student at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who led one team that studied the burst.
Merging neutron stars. Image Credit: Mark Garlick, University of Warwick (UK).
"The high-energy burst lasted about a minute, and our follow-up observations led to the identification of a kilonova. This discovery has deep implications for how the universe's heavy elements came to be."
NASA's Fermi, Swift Capture Revolutionary Gamma-Ray Burst.
Watch to learn how an event called GRB 211211A rocked scientists's understanding of gamma-ray bursts – the most powerful explosions in the cosmos. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
A classic short gamma-ray burst begins with two orbiting neutron stars, the crushed remnants of massive stars that exploded as supernovae. As the stars circle ever closer, they strip neutron-rich material from each other. They also generate gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time – although none were detected from this event.
Gravitational waves. Credit: W.Benger-Zib. MPG Institute for Gravitational Physics (DE)
Eventually the neutron stars collide and merge, creating a cloud of hot debris emitting light across multiple wavelengths. Scientists hypothesize that jets of high-speed particles, launched by the merger, produce the initial gamma-ray flare before they collide with the wreckage. Heat generated by the radioactive decay of elements in the neutron-rich debris likely creates the kilonova's visible and infrared light. This decay results in the production of heavy elements like gold and platinum.
Scientists may have detected violent collision between neutron star and a black hole, "All the Gold in the Universe" from The University of California-Santa Cruz 2017.
"Many years ago, Neil Gehrels, an astrophysicist and Swift's namesake, suggested that neutron star mergers could produce some long bursts," said Eleonora Troja, an astrophysicist at the University of Rome who led another team that studied the burst. "The kilonova we observed is the proof that connects mergers to these long-duration events, forcing us to rethink how black holes are formed."
Fermi and Swift detected the burst simultaneously, and Swift was able to rapidly identify its location in the constellation Boötes, enabling other facilities to quickly respond with follow-up observations. Their observations have provided the earliest look yet at the first stages of a kilonova.
Many research groups have delved into the observations collected by Swift, Fermi, the Hubble Space Telescope, and others.
Some have suggested the burst's oddities could be explained by the merger of a neutron star with another massive object, like a black hole. The event was also relatively nearby, by gamma-ray burst standards, which may have allowed telescopes to catch the kilonova's fainter light. Perhaps some distant long bursts could also produce kilonovae, but we haven't been able to see them.
Two neutron stars begin to merge in this illustration, blasting a jet of high-speed particles and producing a cloud of debris. Scientists think these kinds of events are factories for a significant portion of the universe's heavy elements, including gold. Credits: A. Simonnet (Sonoma State Univ.) and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
The light following the burst, called the afterglow emission, also exhibited unusual features. Fermi detected high-energy gamma rays starting 1.5 hours post-burst and lasting more than 2 hours. These gamma rays reached energies of up to 1 billion electron volts. (Visible light's energy measures between about 2 and 3 electron volts, for comparison.)
"This is the first time we've seen such an excess of high-energy gamma rays in the afterglow of a merger event. Normally that emission decreases over time," said Alessio Mei, a doctoral candidate at the Gran Sasso Science Institute in L'Aquila, Italy, who led a group that studied the data. "It's possible these high-energy gamma rays come from collisions between visible light from the kilonova and electrons in particle jets. The jets could be weakening ones from the original explosion or new ones powered by the resulting black hole or magnetar."
Scientists think neutron star mergers are a major source of the universe's heavy elements. They based their estimates on the rate of short bursts thought to occur across the cosmos. Now they'll need to factor long bursts into their calculations as well.
A team led by Benjamin Gompertz, an astrophysicist at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, looked at the entire high-energy light curve, or the evolution of the event's brightness over time. The scientists noted features that might provide a key for identifying similar incidents – long bursts from mergers – in the future, even ones that are dimmer or more distant. The more astronomers can find, the more they can refine their understanding of this new class of phenomena.
On Dec. 7, 2022, papers led by Rastinejad, Troja, and Mei were published in the scientific journal Nature [below], and a paper led by Gompertz was published in Nature Astronomy [below].
"This result underscores the importance of our missions working together and with others to provide multiwavelength follow up of these kinds of phenomenon," said Regina Caputo, Swift project scientist, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Similar coordinated efforts have hinted that some supernovae might produce short bursts, but this event is the final nail in the coffin for the simple dichotomy we've used for years. You never know when you might find something surprising."
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the Swift and Fermi missions.
Swift is a collaboration with The Pennsylvania State University, the DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and Northrop Grumman Space Systems in Dulles, Virginia, with important contributions from partners in the United Kingdom and Italy.
Fermi is a collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, with important contributions from partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the United States.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). Goddard manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington, D.C.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05390-w
NASA/Goddard Campus
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe.
Named for American rocketry pioneer Dr. Robert H. Goddard, the center was established in 1959 as NASA's first space flight complex. Goddard and its several facilities are critical in carrying out NASA's missions of space exploration and scientific discovery.
GSFC also operates two spaceflight tracking and data acquisition networks (the NASA Deep Space Network and the Near Earth Network); develops and maintains advanced space and Earth science data information systems, and develops satellite systems for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
GSFC manages operations for many NASA and international missions including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope; the Explorers Program; the Discovery Program; the Earth Observing System; INTEGRAL; MAVEN; OSIRIS-REx; the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory ; the Solar Dynamics Observatory; Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System ; Fermi; and Swift. Past missions managed by GSFC include the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, SMM, COBE, IUE, and ROSAT. Typically, unmanned Earth observation missions and observatories in Earth orbit are managed by GSFC, while unmanned planetary missions are managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
Goddard is one of four centers built by NASA since its founding on July 29, 1958. It is NASA's first, and oldest, space center. Its original charter was to perform five major functions on behalf of NASA: technology development and fabrication; planning; scientific research; technical operations; and project management. The center is organized into several directorates, each charged with one of these key functions.
Until May 1, 1959, NASA's presence in Greenbelt, MD was known as the Beltsville Space Center. It was then renamed the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), after Robert H. Goddard. Its first 157 employees transferred from the United States Navy's Project Vanguard missile program, but continued their work at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., while the center was under construction.
Goddard Space Flight Center contributed to Project Mercury, America's first manned space flight program. The Center assumed a lead role for the project in its early days and managed the first 250 employees involved in the effort, who were stationed at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. However, the size and scope of Project Mercury soon prompted NASA to build a new Manned Spacecraft Center, now the Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas. Project Mercury's personnel and activities were transferred there in 1961.
The Goddard network tracked many early manned and unmanned spacecraft.
Goddard Space Flight Center remained involved in the manned space flight program, providing computer support and radar tracking of flights through a worldwide network of ground stations called the Spacecraft Tracking and Data Acquisition Network (STDN). However, the Center focused primarily on designing unmanned satellites and spacecraft for scientific research missions. Goddard pioneered several fields of spacecraft development, including modular spacecraft design, which reduced costs and made it possible to repair satellites in orbit. Goddard's Solar Max satellite, launched in 1980, was repaired by astronauts on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1984. The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, remains in service and continues to grow in capability thanks to its modular design and multiple servicing missions by the Space Shuttle.
Today, the center remains involved in each of NASA's key programs. Goddard has developed more instruments for planetary exploration than any other organization, among them scientific instruments sent to every planet in the Solar System. The center's contribution to the Earth Science Enterprise includes several spacecraft in the Earth Observing System fleet as well as EOSDIS, a science data collection, processing, and distribution system. For the manned space flight program, Goddard develops tools for use by astronauts during extra-vehicular activity, and operates the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a spacecraft designed to study the Moon in preparation for future manned exploration.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958.
Since that time, most U.S. space exploration efforts have been led by NASA, including the Apollo moon-landing missions, the Skylab space station, and later the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Commercial Crew vehicles. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program (LSP) which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. Most recently, NASA announced a new Space Launch System that it said would take the agency's astronauts farther into space than ever before and lay the cornerstone for future human space exploration efforts by the U.S.
NASA science is focused on better understanding Earth through the Earth Observing System, advancing heliophysics through the efforts of the Science Mission Directorate's Heliophysics Research Program, exploring bodies throughout the Solar System with advanced robotic missions such as New Horizons, and researching astrophysics topics, such as the Big Bang, through the Great Observatories [Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer, and associated programs.] NASA shares data with various national and international organizations such as from the [JAXA]Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite.
richardmitnick 8:50 am on August 26, 2015 Permalink | Reply
Tags: Astronomy ( 10,700 ), Basic Research ( 15,945 ), NASA Hubble
From Hubble: "The wings of the butterfly"
Mathias Jäger
ESA/Hubble, Public Information Officer
Email: mjaeger@partner.eso.org
The shimmering colours visible in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image show off the remarkable complexity of the Twin Jet Nebula. The new image highlights the nebula's shells and its knots of expanding gas in striking detail. Two iridescent lobes of material stretch outwards from a central star system. Within these lobes two huge jets of gas are streaming from the star system at speeds in excess of one million kilometres per hour.
The cosmic butterfly pictured in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image goes by many names. It is called the Twin Jet Nebula as well as answering to the slightly less poetic name of PN M2-9.
The M in this name refers to Rudolph Minkowski, a German-American astronomer who discovered the nebula in 1947. The PN, meanwhile, refers to the fact that M2-9 is a planetary nebula. The glowing and expanding shells of gas clearly visible in this image represent the final stages of life for an old star of low to intermediate mass. The star has not only ejected its outer layers, but the exposed remnant core is now illuminating these layers — resulting in a spectacular light show like the one seen here. However, the Twin Jet Nebula is not just any planetary nebula, it is a bipolar nebula.
Ordinary planetary nebulae have one star at their centre, bipolar nebulae have two, in a binary star system. Astronomers have found that the two stars in this pair each have around the same mass as the Sun, ranging from 0.6 to 1.0 solar masses for the smaller star, and from 1.0 to 1.4 solar masses for its larger companion. The larger star is approaching the end of its days and has already ejected its outer layers of gas into space, whereas its partner is further evolved, and is a small white dwarf.
The characteristic shape of the wings of the Twin Jet Nebula is most likely caused by the motion of the two central stars around each other. It is believed that a white dwarf orbits its partner star and thus the ejected gas from the dying star is pulled into two lobes rather than expanding as a uniform sphere. However, astronomers are still debating whether all bipolar nebulae are created by binary stars. Meanwhile the nebula's wings are still growing and, by measuring their expansion, astronomers have calculated that the nebula was created only 1200 years ago.
Within the wings, starting from the star system and extending horizontally outwards like veins are two faint blue patches. Although these may seem subtle in comparison to the nebula's rainbow colours, these are actually violent twin jets streaming out into space, at speeds in excess of one million kilometres per hour. This is a phenomenon that is another consequence of the binary system at the heart of the nebula. These jets slowly change their orientation, precessing across the lobes as they are pulled by the wayward gravity of the binary system.
The two stars at the heart of the nebula circle one another roughly every 100 years. This rotation not only creates the wings of the butterfly and the two jets, it also allows the white dwarf to strip gas from its larger companion, which then forms a large disc of material around the stars, extending out as far as 15 times the orbit of Pluto! Even though this disc is of incredible size, it is much too small to be seen on the image taken by Hubble.
An earlier image of the Twin Jet Nebula using data gathered by Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 [WFPC2] was released in 1997. This newer version incorporates more recent observations from the telescope's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS).
WFPC2 No longer in service.
A version of this image was entered into the Hubble's Hidden Treasures image processing competition, submitted by contestant Judy Schmidt.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), is a free-standing science center, located on the campus of The Johns Hopkins University and operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) for NASA, conducts Hubble science operations.
richardmitnick 2:40 pm on July 23, 2015 Permalink | Reply
Tags: Astronomy ( 10,700 ), Basic Research ( 15,945 ), NASA Goddard ( 153 ), NASA Hubble
From NASA Goddard: "NASA Releases Hubble Memorable Moments Video: Brute Force"
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
In celebration of the 25 years since the Hubble Space Telescope's April 1990 launch, NASA is releasing the second in a series of videos showcasing moments in Hubble's history that were memorable for Goddard's engineers and flight operators.
"Hubble Memorable Moments: Brute Force," which was produced by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, describes repairing the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on Hubble Servicing Mission 4 in May, 2009.
Hubble team members at the Goddard Space Flight Center pose with Astronaut Mike Massimino and the handrail mock-up used during the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph repair on Hubble Servicing Mission 4. From left to right: Bill Nilsson, Ken Dickinson, Jeff Roddin, Mike Massimino, Bill Mitchell, James Cooper Credits: NASA
The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, or STIS, was installed on Hubble during Servicing Mission 2 in 1997. A versatile instrument taking measurements in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths, STIS has discovered supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, and made one of the first spectroscopic measurements of the atmosphere of an exoplanet – a planet orbiting another star.
STIS was originally designed to operate for five years, but it lasted 7.5 until a power supply failed in August, 2004. At the time, STIS was being used for about 30 percent of the Hubble observing program. Because STIS was such an incredibly useful instrument, it became a high-priority task for repair on Hubble's final servicing mission.
Most Hubble servicing mission tasks involve replacing an instrument by swapping out large boxes, not repairing an instrument, which involves much more detailed and nimble work. Gaining access to STIS' electronics cards would involve removing 107 small screws, so Goddard engineers custom-designed a fastener capture plate for the task while the astronauts trained tirelessly at the Johnson Space Center for the months leading up to the mission.
The Hubble team was well prepared for this incredibly complex task. Sometimes, however, it's the simplest items that present a huge obstacle, and the highly trained team must scramble to quickly devise an unusual solution.
Watch the video to see how this spacewalk on May 17, 2009 played out.
"Hubble Memorable Moments: Brute Force" can be downloaded at:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11822
For more information about the Hubble Space Telescope and its 25th anniversary festivities, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/hubble or http://hubble25th.org
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe.
richardmitnick 7:32 pm on February 27, 2013 Permalink | Reply
Tags: Astronomy ( 10,700 ), Astrophysics ( 8,513 ), Basic Research ( 15,945 ), Cosmology ( 8,630 ), ESA ( 397 ), ESA Hubble ( 34 ), NASA Hubble
From NASA/ESA Hubble: "Glowing, fiery shells of gas"
"It may look like something from The Lord of the Rings, but this fiery swirl is actually a planetary nebula known as ESO 456-67. Set against a backdrop of bright stars, the rust-coloured object lies in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer), in the southern sky.
Planetary nebula ESO 456-67
When a star like the Sun approaches the end of its life, it flings material out into space. Planetary nebulae are the intricate, glowing shells of dust and gas pushed outwards from such a star. At their centres lie the remnants of the original stars themselves – small, dense white dwarf stars.
In this image of ESO 456-67 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, it is possible to see the various layers of material expelled by the central star. Each appears in a different hue – red, orange, yellow and green-tinted bands of gas, with clear patches of space at the heart of the nebula.
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Tags: Astronomy ( 10,700 ), Astrophysics ( 8,513 ), Basic Research ( 15,945 ), Cosmology ( 8,630 ), NASA Hubble, NatGeo ( 16 )
From National Geographics: "Hubbles Amazing Universe"
"The Hubble Space Telescope is perhaps the most renowned telescope in the world; responsible for unlocking many mysteries of the final frontier. Glimpse the far ends of the universe through the Hubble"
"The Hubble Space Telescope has explored the creation of stars and planets, the glory of supernovas and the formation of super massive black holes, charted dark matter and changed forever our understanding of reality itself."
This video is from 2008. But it is still relevant, with many lessons to teach. I hope that you will watch it and enjoy it.
richardmitnick and Helena are discussing. Toggle Comments
Helena 8:17 pm on February 12, 2013 Permalink | Reply
Thanks for sharing the video.
richardmitnick 11:05 pm on February 12, 2013 Permalink | Reply
Thanks for coming by ScienceSprings. Hubble is still way cool.
richardmitnick 2:19 pm on January 23, 2013 Permalink | Reply
Tags: Astronomy ( 10,700 ), Astrophysics ( 8,513 ), Basic Research ( 15,945 ), Cosmology ( 8,630 ), ESA Hubble ( 34 ), NASA Hubble
From NASA: "Image of the Day Gallery – Large Magellanic Cloud"
Nearly 200,000 light-years from Earth, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, floats in space, in a long and slow dance around our galaxy. Vast clouds of gas within it slowly collapse to form new stars. In turn, these light up the gas clouds in a riot of colors, visible in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
Image Credit: ESA/NASA/Hubble
The Large Magellanic Cloud is ablaze with star-forming regions. From the Tarantula Nebula, the brightest stellar nursery in our cosmic neighborhood, to LHA 120-N 11, part of which is featured in this Hubble image, the small and irregular galaxy is scattered with glowing nebulae, the most noticeable sign that new stars are being born."
Tags: Astronomy ( 10,700 ), Astrophysics ( 8,513 ), Basic Research ( 15,945 ), Cosmology ( 8,630 ), NASA Hubble
From NASA Hubble: "NASA's Hubble Reveals Rogue Planetary Orbit For Fomalhaut B"
"This false-color composite image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, reveals the orbital motion of the planet Fomalhaut b. Based on these observations, astronomers calculated that the planet is in a 2,000-year-long, highly elliptical orbit. The planet will appear to cross a vast belt of debris around the star roughly 20 years from now. If the planet's orbit lies in the same plane with the belt, icy and rocky debris in the belt could crash into the planet's atmosphere and produce various phenomena. The black circle at the center of the image blocks out the light from the bright star, allowing reflected light from the belt and planet to be photographed. The Hubble images were taken with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph in 2010 and 2012.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and P. Kalas (University of California, Berkeley and SETI Institute)
Newly released NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of a vast debris disk encircling the nearby star Fomalhaut and a mysterious planet circling it may provide forensic evidence of a titanic planetary disruption in the system.
Astronomers are surprised to find the debris belt is wider than previously known, spanning a section of space from 14 to nearly 20 billion miles from the star. Even more surprisingly, the latest Hubble images have allowed a team of astronomers to calculate the planet follows an unusual elliptical orbit that carries it on a potentially destructive path through the vast dust ring.
The planet, called Fomalhaut b, swings as close to its star as 4.6 billion miles, and the outermost point of its orbit is 27 billion miles away from the star. The orbit was recalculated from the newest Hubble observation made last year.
'We are shocked. This is not what we expected,' said Paul Kalas of the University of California at Berkeley and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif."
richardmitnick 7:33 pm on January 9, 2013 Permalink | Reply
Tags: Astronomy ( 10,700 ), Astrophysics ( 8,513 ), Basic Research ( 15,945 ), Cosmology ( 8,630 ), Dark Energy ( 274 ), NASA Hubble, Particle Physics ( 2,389 ), Supernovas ( 35 )
From Berkeley Lab: "The Farthest Supernova Yet for Measuring Cosmic History"
Berkeley Lab-based Supernova Cosmology Project uses Hubble Space Telescope data to discover the most distant well-measured Type Ia supernova ever found
Paul Preuss
"What if you had a 'Wayback Television Set' and could watch an entire month of ancient prehistory unfold before your eyes in real time? David Rubin of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) presented just such a scenario to the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Long Beach, CA, when he announced the discovery of a striking astronomical object: a Type Ia supernova with a redshift of 1.71 that dates back 10 billion years in time. Labeled SN SCP-0401, the supernova is exceptional for its detailed spectrum and precision color measurement, unprecedented in a supernova so distant.
Supernova SCP-0401, nicknamed "Mingus," was collected by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2004 but could not be positively identified until after the installation of a new camera that serendipitously acquired more data. (Photo Space Telescope Science Institute)
Hubble Wide Field Camera 3 (HubbleSite)
'This is the most distant supernova anyone has ever found for doing dependable cosmology,' says Rubin, a member of the international Supernova Cosmology Project (SCP) based at Berkeley Lab. 'The most important unanswered question we have about the nature of dark energy is whether it varies over time – whether it affects the expansion of the universe differently in different eras. With SN SCP-0401, we have the first example of a well-measured supernova sufficiently far away to study the expansion history of the universe from almost 10 billion years ago.'"
See the full and really cool article here.
A U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory Operated by the University of California
richardmitnick 6:11 pm on December 28, 2012 Permalink | Reply
From NASA Hubble: "Hubble Eyes a Wanderer Dancing the Dance of Stars and Space" NGC 1097
"The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope provides us this week with a spectacular image of the bright star-forming ring that surrounds the heart of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1097. In this image, the larger-scale structure of the galaxy is barely visible: its comparatively dim spiral arms, which surround its heart in a loose embrace, reach out beyond the edges of this frame.
This picture was taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys using visual and infrared filters.
Another and very different image
This face-on galaxy, lying 45 million light-years away from Earth in the southern constellation of Fornax (The Furnace), is particularly attractive for astronomers. NGC 1097 is a Seyfert galaxy. Lurking at the very center of the galaxy, a supermassive black hole 100 million times the mass of our sun is gradually sucking in the matter around it. The area immediately around the black hole shines powerfully with radiation coming from the material falling in.
The distinctive ring around the black hole is bursting with new star formation due to an inflow of material toward the central bar of the galaxy. These star-forming regions are glowing brightly thanks to emission from clouds of ionized hydrogen. The ring is around 5000 light-years across, although the spiral arms of the galaxy extend tens of thousands of light-years beyond it.
NGC 1097 is also pretty exciting for supernova hunters. The galaxy experienced three supernovae (the violent deaths of high-mass stars) in the 11-year span between 1992 and 2003. This is definitely a galaxy worth checking on a regular basis."
From NASA Hubble: "Hubble Spots a Peculiar Compact Blue Dwarf Galaxy"
"The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured an impressive image of the irregular galaxy NGC 5253.
NGC 5253 is one of the nearest of the known Blue Compact Dwarf (BCD) galaxies (Wikipedia)
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
NGC 5253 is one of the nearest of the known Blue Compact Dwarf (BCD) galaxies, and is located at a distance of about 12 million light-years from Earth in the southern constellation of Centaurus. The most characteristic signature of these galaxies is that they harbor very active star-formation regions. This is in spite of their low dust content and comparative lack of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, which are usually the basic ingredients for star formation.
These galaxies contain molecular clouds that are quite similar to the pristine clouds that formed the first stars in the early Universe, which were devoid of dust and heavier elements. Hence, astronomers consider the BCD galaxies to be an ideal test bed for better understanding the primordial star-forming process.


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People with curly hair usually has many problems: dry, damaged, frizzy and uncontrollable curls. The weather dictate your hairstyle easily and even your mood. You should have to spend an amount of time on take caring and styling your hair. How to say goodbye to the frizz, split ends and other problems? The key is work with your curly hair instead of against.
The first thing that I learned that help me do this is that, it doesn't always have to do with product (although it helps), it's how you handle your hair.
1. Get a curl revitaliser, it's a conditioner you use after conditioning and it's a godsend!
2. Gently squeeze out all excess water before you start the conditioning, this makes your hair fell softer after.
3. Never, ever brush your hair when it's wet! If your hair gets really tangled, brush before you go in the shower.
4. Wash your hair every 2 or 3 of days.
5. Before you turn off the water to get out of the shower, flip your head up side down a couple of times to separate the curls and then run water over them. Then flip your hair back up with a towel on your shoulders. Don't towel dry it and don't wrap it up in one of those towel turbans. After you have done all that use some frizz ease serum and let your hair air dry (if you're really pressed for time, lightly pat it dry with a towel). Then put curl lotion through my hair both upside down and rightside up, then use mousse and scrunch this into your hair until the curls look flawless wet.
6. Blow dry your hair with a diffuser by using the cool shot. After finished, use a frizz sealing cream and a flexible hairspray.
I hope you will learn to love your curls because people will come up to you on the street and compliment your curls.
Curly hair tends to be dryer and more brittle, so it needs better care. Here are some tips to manage your curly hair.
When caring for our curly hair, it is important to use products suitable for our hair type and texture.


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text:
Is journalism official?
MENCIUS MOLDBUG · SEPTEMBER 19, 2007
Readers may have noticed that, where most writers of my general ilk would refer to the mainstream media, I prefer to refer to the official press.
The second half of this eccentricity is easy to explain. At the age of twelve I returned to America from strange foreign parts and was promptly thrust into what was supposedly one of the best public high schools in Maryland. If this is so, and I have no reason to doubt it, God save Maryland. The school had been built in 1971 around the then-fashionable open-school fad, and the teaching areas—in which some crude, ramshackle partitions had been constructed, although "room" would still be an overstatement—swept in a great semicircle around the heart of the building, a large, wall-less library. (Because there should be no barriers to learning.)
Except that it wasn't called the library. It was called the media center, and for the first month or two of my weird, disorienting existence in this appalling primate facility, I struggled to figure out where the media center was, what it was, and why everyone thought the question was so funny.
Since then I've had a profound allergy to the m-word. Moreover, I find McLuhan ridiculous, jejune and sophomoric. Moreover, considering the dignity of the institution, and considering the comical sound of a phrase like freedom of the media, I prefer the old term. It's true that the New York Times is no longer printed by ink compression, and CNN is not printed at all. Nor does a "cable modem" modulate or demodulate.1 Somehow we manage to deal.
We are left with that other word—official. Is journalism official?
Because if journalism is official, we know exactly what it is. A "journalist" is an official writer. A member of the union of writers. If he writes for the Times, he may even be a member of the central committee of the union of writers. In our democratic society, the official press is entrusted with the important social responsibility of informing the public. Therefore, not just any poor schmuck can tell us what George W. Bush said today. No, it takes a "journalist."
Of course, this is consistent with the Polygon hypothesis—that power in modern democracies belongs to those who manage public opinion. This hypothesis is actually not mine—I believe it was first stated by Walter Lippmann in 1922, in his book of that name. And Lippmann himself did quite a bit to put his system into practice. The Polygon is not so crude as to have a name or a mailing address—it is a movement, not a conspiracy. But if it did have a name and address, its name would be the Inquiry and its address would be 68th and Park.
The key to the Polygon hypothesis is that three words are synonyms: responsibility, influence, and power. The New York Times, for example, is responsible because if it does the wrong thing rather than the right thing, it can cause a great deal of suffering.2 It is influential because its actions affect the lives of many people. And it is powerful because there is no conceivable meaningful sense of the English word power which is not synonymous with responsibility and influence. Power is the ability to make a difference, to change the world. Remind me again what people say on their J-school applications?
For example: who is the most powerful man in the United States? There's an easy way for me to answer the question: I can ask which American I would prefer, if I had to choose one and only one, to magically convert into a fanatical and unquestioning disciple of UR. Obviously my plans for the new, improved America involve a level of "social change" that would boggle the mind of even the most diversity-addled Yale freshman. Who would be the best individual to carry out this program? Note that the answer isn't particularly dependent on the extremist ideology—neocameralism, communism, Nazism, whatever.
Suppose, to narrow the question slightly, I could choose between George W. Bush, Warren Buffett, Rupert Murdoch, and Arthur Ochs "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr. Which of these four individuals has more capacity to "create change"?
For example, when we equate power with influence and responsibility, we can see easily that George W. Bush is almost powerless. Our "decider" is often presented with decisions, which have been carefully prespun to ensure the correct outcome. He is treated as a sort of chimp-eared magic 8-ball. He cannot even write his own speeches. If he came to his staff with a policy idea, one which he came up with himself, their first thought would probably be to send him for an MRI.
Carlyle once compared a democratic leader to a rider on a mad stallion run amuck in a forest—his main concern being not to accomplish anything in particular, but just to stay on the horse. If the analogy was apt for the likes of Palmerston, how much more so for George W. Bush! Of course, American Presidents cannot be unseated by a vote of no confidence or a snap election. But one notices that when the President's approval number slips below 30% or so, the White House loses any domestic influence it may once have had. The effect is about the same.
The White House—that is, the faction elected along with the President—has some power. At least, it had power in 2003, at least over military policy. And by force of ancient institutional habit, it strives constantly to equate everything it does with the person of George W. Bush. No one in Washington actually believes this, but no one bothers to contradict it, either. It's just one of those Beltway things.
Anyway. I digress. Back to the Times.
If there was one moment at which I realized how things actually work in this country, it was sometime in 2000, courtesy of a woman I dated for a few months. Since I have nothing bad to say about her, I'll use her real name, Margot.
Margot was about seven years older than me, and she was more or less the Brahmin to end all Brahmins. She was an MD, an internist specializing in the many troubles of the homeless. At the time she was just coming off a stint as chief resident at UCSF. This is not a position that is easy to acquire. I believe she's now a research professor at the same institution. Also not a position that is easy to acquire. Obviously I have no such credentials or ambitions, and Margot retains the distinction of being the only woman who has ever dumped me, a very sensible decision for which I'm quite grateful, as is Mrs. Moldbug—or so I hope.
At the time I had not quite developed my present extremist views, but I would not say I was still taking the blue pills, either. Since Margot's opinions were exactly as one might expect for a person in her line of work, this led to a number of animated conversations.
I still believed, however, that the New York Times was presenting me with a basically accurate picture of current history. Of course it was clear to me that all the reporters were orthodox Universalists—not that I used that term—but I thought I could just read past their occasional devotional flourishes. This was kind of before the whole blog thing.
And one day the subject came up in an entirely different context. Margot was explaining to me how her research career worked. Obviously, the point is publishing, and there were different journals, which at least in her corner of the profession were commonly called by their colors. So the Journal of Endemic Gastroenterology might be the "green journal," the Journal of Unquenchable Sinus Infections the "yellow journal," etc., etc.
"But," said Margot, "everyone's real goal is to get into the gray journal."
This is one of those facts too strange to boggle the mind—whose only option is to accept it as an axiom. So to us it is axiomatic that all the thousands of top-rank scientists in the US (of course Margot had a special political angle, being concerned with "public health"; but I pretty much guarantee you that any scientist in the world would trade any publication for a writeup in the Times) are doing pretty much anything they can to "get into the gray journal."
Of course, they can't do much. You can't submit to the gray journal. There is no formal review process. You simply have to know someone who knows someone who… and who is on the end of this chain? Five or ten very ordinary people, with no particular expertise in anything, perhaps a BA in some science or other. Who happen to have gotten themselves assigned, through whatever feat of bureaucratic mastery, to the "science beat" at the Times.
Can you imagine having this job? Everyone in the universe wants to be your friend. Full professors, geniuses of historic consequence, winners of MacArthur grants, hacks, cranks and crackpots of every description. Because you have some decency, you don't ask them to fall down and lick your shoes. "No, the soles… lower… ah, that's it. Nothing like genius spit for dissolving those nasty wads of gum." But, let's face it, you could.
Don't you think it's slightly strange that this handful of basically-uneducated individuals essentially controls science? That, for example, they could have written up the Wegman report, and consigned global warming—rightly or wrongly—to the same category as cold fusion, N-rays and Hwang Woo-Suk? What do you think will happen the first time they actually do make a mistake, and get caught at it? And who even has the power to catch them?
And this is just science. For example, suppose you see an article about Israel on the front page of the Times with the by-line "Steven Erlanger." Perhaps there is one of these every few days, and no doubt if you put them together they tell a story. But the one thing you are guaranteed not to read in this story is that one of the ten most powerful people in Israel—maybe even one of the most five—is… "Steven Erlanger."
I recommend a lot of old books, but let me switch gears and recommend a new one, Mark Moyar's revisionist history of the first half of the Vietnam War. What Moyar did was to go back through the archives and rewrite history as though the American correspondents in Vietnam were human participants in the story, not dispassionate, angelic observers. It's really a remarkable read.
There is a sense one gets when one reads a history in which some of the players have been airbrushed out. It's like being in a novel in which there's a poltergeist. Plates suddenly fly out of the cabinet and leap across the room to smash on the wall. Flying plates! Irresistible forces of historical destiny! When you see the same story with all the characters restored, and you realize that someone actually picked up the plate and threw it, you get this very comfortable feeling of reality returning.
So I think we have a reasonable understanding of the level of power today's press has. What we haven't looked at is how it got that way.
One fact that every American learns in high school is that there used to be something called yellow journalism. If yellow journalism is with us today, it only exists in the sort of papers which no one of any quality reads, like the New York Post, or the Daily Mail, or Juggs.
Clearly the New York Times would stand out in this list, so clearly it is not yellow journalism. It would certainly dispute the characterization, and I certainly agree. But in order to compare the two, we need a parallel terminology. So I humbly propose gray journalism for the latter.
What is the difference between yellow journalism and gray journalism? Who invented gray journalism, when, and why? And is gray journalism—which its practitioners call responsible journalism, objective journalism, and so on—best defined as official journalism?
One interesting possibility is that the transition from yellow to gray journalism is identical to the transition from ochlocracy to mediocracy. Under this theory, the grayification of journalism is a sort of Gleichschaltung, a coordination or alignment. Yellow journalism, such as that practiced by Hearst, Pulitzer, etc., used its political power to serve a variety of divergent private interests which did not always coincide with the interests of the State. Gray journalism has learned its Hegelian manners, and invariably serves and upholds the State.
(Of course, this does not mean it serves "the government." It means that when the New York Times attacks the White House, it sincerely believes that it is serving as a nonpartisan watchdog in the public interest. Apparently the State Department never does anything wrong, and thus never needs to be barked at. Perhaps this is because State too is a nonpartisan agency, selflessly performing its difficult work of diplomacy in the public interest. Ladies and gentlemen, the Polygon.)
Regardless of whether or not this theory is true, one question we can ask about the transition between yellow and gray journalism is: which is more powerful? We all know about Hearst starting the Spanish–American War. Most of us don't know that Civil War journalism was even more heinous—with some of the things I've been reading, I'm starting to think the Civil War is best understood as a war between the Northern and Southern presses. So, when this evil octopus of yellow journalism was finally defeated by its gray successor, did it lose power? Or did it pull an Obi-Wan Kenobi, and become even more powerful than before?
One way to measure this is to look at social attitudes toward reporters around the end of the yellow-journalism era. Here, for example, is Lippmann, from Public Opinion:
This somewhat left-handed relationship between newspapers and public information is reflected in the salaries of newspaper men. Reporting, which theoretically constitutes the foundation of the whole institution, is the most poorly paid branch of newspaper work, and is the least regarded. By and large, able men go into it only by necessity or for experience, and with the definite intention of being graduated as soon as possible. For straight reporting is not a career that offers many great rewards.
(This is what I love about reading Lippmann. While he has his own agenda and is certainly not a trustworthy fellow, he is certainly describing the real world of 1922. You'll read these long passages in which he could be describing the real world of 2007, and then blam! You're on Mars. "For straight reporting is not a career that offers many great rewards.")
Max Weber, in his famous Politics as a Vocation, is even more vehement. The journalist's situation in Germany in 1919:
The journalist belongs to a sort of pariah caste, which is always estimated by 'society' in terms of its ethically lowest representative. Hence, the strangest notions about journalists and their work are abroad. Not everybody realizes that a really good journalistic accomplishment requires at least as much 'genius' as any scholarly accomplishment, especially because of the necessity of producing at once and 'on order,' and because of the necessity of being effective, to be sure, under quite different conditions of production. It is almost never acknowledged that the responsibility of the journalist is far greater, and that the sense of responsibility of every honorable journalist is, on the average, not a bit lower than that of the scholar, but rather, as the war has shown, higher. This is because, in the very nature of the case, irresponsible journalistic accomplishments and their often terrible effects are remembered. […] Yet the journalist career remains under all circumstances one of the most important avenues of professional political activity. It is not a road for everybody, least of all for weak characters, especially for people who can maintain their inner balance only with a secure status position. If the life of a young scholar is a gamble, still he is walled in by firm status conventions, which prevent him from slipping. But the journalist's life is an absolute gamble in every respect and under conditions that test one's inner security in a way that scarcely occurs in any other situation. The often bitter experiences in occupational life are perhaps not even the worst. The inner demands that are directed precisely at the successful journalist are especially difficult. It is, indeed, no small matter to frequent the salons of the powerful on this earth on a seemingly equal footing and often to be flattered by all because one is feared, yet knowing all the time that having hardly closed the door the host has perhaps to justify before his guests his association with the 'scavengers from the press'.
The 'scavengers from the press'! Today there is absolutely no social context, anywhere in the world, where the presence of a Times reporter would not be a feather in the host's cap. We cannot even imagine this old pre-1914 'society' that held itself superior to the press. Again, Weber might as well be talking about Mars.
So Obi-Wan Kenobi is about right. Powerful as the yellow press was, the gray press appears to be even more powerful. At least judging by its social status. Note also that both Lippmann and Weber, quite presciently, see that this is a temporary misalignment of status and power, and expect it to resolve in favor of the latter.
But is gray journalism official? Can we use this word? After all, the New York Times Company is a private company, just like Microsoft or McDonald's. Its journalists' independence is rigorously guarded, not just from the government, but even from many parts of its own corporate hierarchy. Certainly no one is sending them emails telling them what to write or not to write, whether it's the White House or the Democratic National Committee. Is this really, as the phrase official journalism implies, in a class with Pravda or the People's Daily?
Another way to ask this question is: what is the minimal set of structural changes needed to make gray journalism unarguably official? And, if we make these changes, have we created something totally different, or have we only made a few cosmetic modifications?
First, we'll have to create a Department of Journalism. This will be an elite branch of the Federal Government, with its own grade system—like the Foreign Service, only more elite. Ranks will follow the GS/SES system, but with a special J code, for journalist. A senior journalist, such as "Steven Erlanger," might be hired as a J-15. J-School deans, editors, and the like will carry the special SJ rank, meaning simply "senior journalist."
The Department of Journalism will pull the entire "mainstream media," with all its features and appurtenances, into this system. It will have three branches: Training, Reporting and Investigation, and Editorial. Training will coordinate the journalism schools. RI will align the news desks from all existing newspapers and broadcasters. Editorial will develop opinion content from a diverse mix of political columnists, both Republican and Democrat. And so on.
The critical question is: under this regime, which clearly qualifies as official journalism, how different would the job of a journalist be? I suspect the answer is: not different at all.
For example, it would be unthinkable for any other branch of government to tell RI what to write, or how to write it. It would be like the White House ordering the Justice Department who to prosecute, or how to prosecute them. Absolutely scandalous—if discovered. And, of course, RI is right there to discover it. We usually think of "independent journalism" as a consequence of freedom of speech. But perhaps it's easier to see it as just another form of civil service protection.
For example, the UK has something very close to a Department of Journalism. It's called the BBC. How different is the job of a BBC reporter from the job of a CNN reporter? Not very.
For me, the reason I see journalism as official is that I think journalists are civil servants. Stators, we might say, in the rotary system. They have the same ethos of public service, they have the same protection from political interference, they are nonpartisan—they serve only the State. If you believe in the Hegelian apolitical civil-service state, you believe in official journalism. Of course, then you have to explain what was so wrong with Brezhnevism, but that's another story.
Moreover, the Department of Journalism is clearly one of the most powerful departments in the Western civil-service state. A journalist can attack anyone, and no one can attack him—except a judge, and then only in a limited set of ways that correspond to approved procedures, aka "laws," which journalists have great influence in designing.
This is perhaps the most salient remaining difference between the post-Communist civil-service state, as seen in China and increasingly in Russia, and its Western cousin. In the post-Communist system, power is in the hands of the security services, who can command the journalists and judges. In the Western system, it's the other way around. Of course, as a Westerner, it's easy to see the advantages of our approach. But it's also interesting to look at who runs a trade deficit versus whom.
So, if all this is true, why do people believe this stuff? Why do they still read official journalism? Why, for example, do I visit nytimes.com on a regular basis?
When I think back to when I thought I was getting an accurate history of reality from the Times, I am full of amazement. I mean, when you read the Times, you are reading stories that were written by people. Their names are right there. "Steven Erlanger." "Don Van Natta." "Andrew Revkin."
Do I know these people? Do I trust them? Do I have any reason to believe they are doing anything but feeding me a mile-long crap sausage? Why should I? Is it because they work for an organization called "The New York Times"? What do I know about this organization? How does it select its employees? How and why does it punish or reward them? Do I have any damned idea? If not, why do I trust its correct views on everything? Why not trust the Catholic Church instead? At least its officials make up cool names for themselves, like "Benedict XVI." Imagine if all Times reporters had to choose a Pope name. Would this make them more, or less, credible?
My conclusion is that people trust the Times—and the rest of the official press—not despite the fact that they're basically reading Pravda, but because of it.
We live in a world made by gray journalism. If you don't believe in gray journalism, you believe in nothing. You are a nihilist. I go to nytimes.com and I read a story about Pakistan. Does this "Pakistan" on the page have any resemblance to reality? Is there even a country called "Pakistan"? Once you deny gray journalism, you can deny anything. Your paranoia becomes unlimited.
These days I read the Times not because I think of it as true, but because the Times is the collective reality that, for better or worse, most of the educated planet lives inside. I read the Times to know what Times readers are thinking, much as an atheist might read the Bible to know what Christians are thinking.
While I am revealing personal confidences, let me note that my stepfather (who certainly does not endorse these messages) is actually a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has a PhD in politics from Harvard and was once a protege of McGeorge Bundy, and his story about the Times is that one day in the '60s, when there was a newspaper strike for several days, Bundy said something to the effect of "we've lost the best interoffice memo system we have." This is perhaps the best way to think of the Times, and of the official press as a whole: it tells you what the State is thinking. Which is certainly a sufficient reason to read it.
Of course, if journalism is official, we have to be able to lustrate it. If you agree with me that this system is thoroughly pernicious, and that the State should not be managing the minds of its citizens, how do we get rid of it?
I have many bad things to say about the US system of corporate regulation, but sometimes it turns out a real gem. One such rule—a really well-designed law—is a little thing called Reg FD. The "FD" stands for "Fair Disclosure," and the impact of the law is that when public corporations disclose information, they must disclose everything to everyone at the same time.
My view is that an uncorrupt 21st-century government should adopt its own version of Reg FD. No government has any good reason to practice or allow any kind of selective disclosure. When the State releases information, it should release to everyone at the same time—without according any privilege to "journalists."
This has a larger impact than you might think. Almost every press story you'll see is either (a) a rewritten press release (a practice even the 'scavengers of the press' find degrading), or (b) a product of selective disclosure by some government or other. The practice of talking off the record, or even downright leaking, to journalists, is widespread and uncontrolled, despite the fact that it is generally illegal.
The result is a very complicated power relationship between journalists and the civil servants who are their sources and contacts. Each is using the other. The journalist wants a story, the civil servant wants a story that contains certain information and is told in a certain way. There is plenty of room for compromise and quid pro quo.
Every time I read some piece of "investigative journalism" in the Times, I have one question which is never answered: why is this story being told? How did it happen? How did these events come to the attention of the author? For some reason, this is never in the text.
Compare this to the work of a genuinely free reporter, such as Michael Totten. Totten, because he is not institutionally attached and thus is unofficial, simply cannot participate in these kinds of relationships. Nor does he have any interoffice-memo credibility. His voice is simply his own and he tells us how he gets his stories, and his only tools for convincing us are his words and his pictures. And he succeeds. If the Times and Totten disagree, I simply assume the latter is right and the former is snowing me. Your mileage, of course, may vary.
This species of journalism deserves its own color as well, and I will take the liberty of suggesting my own favorite, orange. Orange journalism is any writing about current history which does not depend on any official credibility, and is not filtered or authorized by anyone. It has only its own voice to create and maintain trust. The eXile is another fantastic example of orange journalism—I don't know that I trust Ames, Dolan & Co. as much as Totten, but I sure as hell trust them more than The Economist.
Imagine if "Steven Erlanger" quit his job at the Department of Journalism and started a blog. Competing with Michael Totten, on his Middle East beat. What would it take for me to trust him, the way I trust Totten? One heck of a lot. So why should I trust him more now, just because he works for the Man? I don't. And I don't think anyone else should, either.
Losing your faith in official journalism is an extremely large mental step. It's really in the category of giving up a religion. It creates an enormous set of questions which you thought were answered, and now suddenly are questions again. And it's very easy to get those questions wrong. To paraphrase Chesterton, when people stop believing in the Times, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything.
So if you're not sure you're prepared for this step, perhaps the safest and most sensible option is to just keep reading the official press. Put the whole thing off for a year or two. Reality doesn't go away—when you're ready for it, it'll still be there.
1. As Moldbug notes in "Comments on 'Is journalism official?'," in fact a cable modem does modulate and demodulate, but the point remains that it would likely be called a "modem" regardless.
2. Although "responsible journalism" generally refers to the ethical principle that journalists should act responsibly, this matters mainly because irresponsible journalism has the power to do harm.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Chernobyl: Undead City
Chernobyl should not be confused with a dead city Prupyat. It has a long and nice history being one of the oldest cities of Rus'. It was first mentioned back in 1193. By the beginning of the XXth century it had population of seventeen thousand people.
The city was named "Chernobyl" after a plant growing there – mugwort which is pronounced in Russian like "chernobylnik".
The first impression of the city – it's not dead! Its streets are cleaned, lawns – cut, five-storey houses have no "eye-sockets" of empty windows. Even buses go from Kiev to its bus station (you should have a permit to use them though). The city still has some functioning shops with a range of goods like in a village, it has all community facilities, a hotel, a canteen and much more.
At the bus station.
Smooth roads and fresh marking.
The city has a lot of flowers. To the right is a hotel – two-storey house built in 1967 where one can stay overnight for 10 bucks. It is like any other hotel of the Soviet past – cheap and cold and dirty, with no hot water, but with perfectly clean linen. Nearby is a canteen/cafe with a waitress in a national Ukrainian dress.
Even if flats are empty they are not plundered.
Still many buildings are abandoned.
Empty house of communication.
There are no many people in the streets. No children and old people at all. Only about 10% are women. Breathless silence at night – no dog will ever bark, no car will make any sound…
Former movie-theater "Ukraine" (1964) became a grocery store later and today it's a museum. What babies will contaminated storks bring?
Wormwood memorial was created in 2011, to the 25th anniversary of the catastrophe.
Locals do not like it much – they say it's not informative enough.
Avenue of the dead villages. There were 231 settlements on the Ukrainian side of the Zone.
Mailboxes where one can symbolically send a letter to any of the abandoned settlements.
The boat and a couple of monuments brought from the abandoned settlements.
The black stone, cranes and replicas of fuel elements – the monument devoted to the Japanese companions in misfortune.
Many houses bear warning tablets "Do not enter! The house belongs to the master".
Old Chernobyl.
This part of the city is really abandoned and being swallowed by the woods. The houses are still in a good condition.
Some houses are very old. This one to the left is dated 1920.
One ore. A school?
Houses, flats, papers…
The biggest building of Old Chernobyl – the overgrown synagogue built in the nineteenth century. 70% of the city population used to be Jews then.
Beautiful details, tablet "Lenin Street, 26", red star instead of Star of Judah – there was subsequently a military registration and enlistment office in the building of the synagogue.
There was a House of Culture in the house of qahal. About 1200 citizens of Chernobyl live in Israel.
Elias church founded in 1749 and reconstructed in 1878.
It was restored in 1999 and it still functions.
Bells of the church.
The bell of sorrow. the should be a nice view of Pripyat from here, but everything is overgrown.
Parish building.
The road to the river port.
The cemetery of ships. Each year their number is decreasing. They are cut into scrap metal (illegally), they sink and get broken by the ice.
There is a shipyard nearby.
The monument to firemen and liquidators of the accident founded in 1996, to the tenth anniversary of the catastrophe.
It was not made by professional sculptors but the firemen themselves. They used real implements which were concreted. These faces don't look perfect from the artistic point of view but they're very convincing. The liquidators depicted what they felt themselves moving towards their invisible death.
One of the liquidators felt bad. The symproms of acute radiation sickness – headache and uncontrollable vomiting. A medical worker is rushing to help him.
So many people died, so many became disabled.
One more monument to liquidators, but another type of liquidators.
These vehicles were the main transport in the Zone in the first months after the accident. They also actively used helicopters, some of them were used as "flying canteens", they brought fresh food to the field bases.
Industrial robots like this were used mainly on the roof of the forth power unit, they building the sarcophagus. They are highly contaminated so one should not come close.
Luckily Pripyat had a factory that made such vehicles.
They look like big toys.
via varandej
Categories History, Other, Photos Tags accident, chernobyl Post navigation
Deer In the Truck
Black And White: Unusual Couple
7 thoughts on "Chernobyl: Undead City"
Fascinating never ending story..
alnum
this is not Russia
Tony Boney
This city looks dead to me. No people in sight and it is very likely contaminated with all kinds of isotopes. Interesting though.
A.Oscar
Enigma Global by A.Oscar (Nuclear of any kind so danger's)
Chernobyl city accident to do with Nuclear Power Plant disaster: couldn't be an example to many other cities around the world? Israel has example having one Nuclear Plant right in the center of that small country: and if them Israel's known's about Chernobyl, would play with fire by instigate so many atrocities around in the Middle East. Iran has example do not need to build any nuclear weapon which Israel are so afraid off. Conventional weapons will destroy Israel. Why Chernobyl not be the master of mal functions of many others around the world, inclusive Japan also having had the same. France would be a country with most of them: also in the middle of Europe: if any catastrophe would be there even from Mother Nature, all Europe will be in turmoil hard to accepter of such disaster. Wonder if any nuclear war come along with Nukes more powerful than the ones dropping in Japan: the living creatures in no World will suffer into the possibility of perishing life to any creature humans too. Why humans do not understand now about the danger's towards for any were in the planet. Would be so nice the greed stay away from human's mind: and all working not just for peace, also to try fix the environment on this planet. 24/08/2013 by A.Oscar
this is not Russia.Ukraine
A very rural place, for a hollyday.
Wow. A ghost town!


text:
Concussion Care
Rehab & Recovery
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Concussion Evaluation
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 135,000 children and youths between the ages of 5 and 18 suffer a concussion every year. Confusion, memory loss, slower reaction times and dizziness are a few of the symptoms indicating that an athlete may be suffering from a concussion, and the field of sports medicine has developed techniques to effectively assess the severity of brain injuries, including ImPACT (Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment & Cognitive Testing) and C3 Logix. Dr. Greg Hendricks and Dr. Andy Gilliland, who are recognized by ImPACT as Credentialed ImPACT Consultants and Passport providers, offer pre-season baseline and follow-up concussion testing for athletes over the age of 13.
The ImPACT System
ImPACT is the most widely used and most scientifically validated computerized concussion evaluation system. It provides trained clinicians with neurocognitive assessment tools that have been medically accepted as state-of-the-art best practices as part of determining safe return-to-play decisions. ImPACT measures many aspects of cognitive functioning in athletes, including:
Working memory
Sustained and selective attention time
Non-verbal problem solving
ImPACT is typically administered before an injury to establish a baseline report on an athlete. If a concussion is suspected later on, the athlete takes ImPACT again, and the results of both baseline reports are compared to assess potential changes or damage and determine the best plan of care.
C3 Logix
The C3 Logix System
C3 Logix is a concussion evaluation system developed by doctors at the Cleveland Clinic. It is capable of performing a baseline assessment consistent with all of the recommendations from the 2012 International Conference on Concussions in Sports, including vestibular (balance) and visual assessment. The system uses an iPad strapped to an athlete's waist to measure changes in the athlete's postural stability on hard and soft surfaces.
C3 Logix provides clinicians with electronic integration through the use of cloud-based storage. This ensures that all participants in the clinical care process have access to the important historical data required for treatment and return-to-play decisions.
Andy Gilliland,
Gregory S. Hendricks,
Marshall Sports Medicine Institute
2211 Third Avenue
Huntington, West Virginia 25703
E-mail: msmi@chhi.org
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