Milky Way's Black Hole Davouring Asteroids

 The giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way may be vaporizing and devouring asteroids, which could explain the frequent flares observed, according to astronomers using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

read here

Surface of Mars an Unlikely Place for Life After 600-Million-Year Drought, Say Scientists

Mars may have been arid for more than 600 million years, making it too hostile for any life to survive on the planet's surface, according to researchers who have been carrying out the painstaking task of analysing individual particles of Martian soil. Dr Tom Pike, from Imperial College London, will discuss the team's analysis at a European Space Agency (ESA) meeting on 7 February 2012.

read here

Revisiting the 'Pillars of Creation'

 In 1995, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took an iconic image of the Eagle nebula, dubbed the "Pillars of Creation," highlighting its finger-like pillars where new stars are thought to be forming. Now, the Herschel Space Observatory has a new, expansive view of the region captured in longer-wavelength infrared light.

read here

Ancient Popcorn Discovered in Peru

People living along the coast of Peru were eating popcorn 1,000 years earlier than previously reported and before ceramic pottery was used there, according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences co-authored by Dolores Piperno, curator of New World archaeology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and emeritus staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

read here

Pink Core of Omega Nebula:Image Captured by ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT)

 A new image of the Omega Nebula, captured by ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), is one of the sharpest of this object ever taken from the ground. It shows the dusty, rose-coloured central parts of this famous stellar nursery and reveals extraordinary detail in the cosmic landscape of gas clouds, dust and newborn stars.

see here

Debris of Pacific Ocean, Possibly Heading to US

ScienceDaily (Dec. 29, 2011) — Debris from the tsunami that devastated Japan in March could reach the United States as early as this winter, according to predictions by NOAA scientists. However, they warn there is still a large amount of uncertainty over exactly what is still floating, where it's located, where it will go, and when it will arrive. Responders now have a challenging, if not impossible situation on their hands: How do you deal with debris that could now impact U.S. shores, but is difficult to find.

read here

Canada to formally withdraw from Kyoto accord

Canada will formally withdraw from the Kyoto accord on climate change, Environment Minister Peter Kent said.
Kent made the announcement in the foyer of the House of Commons, after his return from an international summit in Durban, South Africa, on the issue of global warming.

Canada to formally withdraw from Kyoto accord

Landsat Satellites Track Yellowstone's Geothermal Activity

Yellowstone National Park sits on top of a vast, ancient, and still active volcano. Heat pours off its underground magma chamber, and is the fuel for Yellowstone's famous features -- more than 10,000 hot springs, mud pots, terraces and geysers, including Old Faithful.But expected development by energy companies right outside Yellowstone's borders have some fearing that Old Faithful could be cheated out of its energy.

The park funded a study by Lawrence and his co-author Shannon Savage to apply a new perspective to the problem of tracking geothermal activity. Their work is being presented at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco on December 9. Lawrence and Savage used both visible light and heat-sensitive Landsat data channels to get a broad view of the park's geothermal activity....

read more at source