William Thompson, SIS member, in an email of February 2012, said he was at the University of Colorado at the same time as John Eddy was teaching, and researching, and I did a post way back then as he had recently died, the link provided by William. It was Eddy that made popular the idea that the Sun was a variable star and low sun spot activity coincided with cool temperatures. This work has recently popped up on a post at Steve McIntyre's blog www.climateaudit.org/2012/09/30/more-on-the-iconography-of-ippc-1990-fig... ...
Astronomy news
Objects from Space
At http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/09/buddhist-iron-man-found-by-nazis-is... ... is all about a 24cm high sculpture thought to be the god Vasravana that was made out of a meteorite. The meteorite in question is said to be one that fell on northern Russia, where it abuts the edge of Mongolia, and dated 10 to 20,000 years ago. This was the Chinga meteorite and it seems a bit of it ended up in Buddhist Tibet. A paper in Meteoritics and Planetary Science says it is made of iron, nickel, cobalt and other trace elements, a geochemistry that is said to fit with Chinga.
The Sun is in the News
At http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Scientists_Shed_Light_on_Riddle_of_Sun... ... is a report on a paper in Nature on CMEs.
At www.livescience.com/23586-solar-system-planet-formation-shockwaves.html ... (see also www.space.com) - our solar system's planets may have formed at different times, determined by shockwaves flowing from a young Sun.
The Sun - and CMEs
At http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/21/looking-into-solar-coronal-promine... ... is a fascinating post, scientists are eager to understand what causes coronal mass ejections as they are seen as a threat to satellite communications. Giant columns of hot gas or plasma leap from the surface of the Sun - often into space, others falling back to the surface. Seen from a side view CMEs appear to glow almost like a filament in a light bulb (see the image).
Another hit on Jupiter
At www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2012/09/-fireball-on-jupiter-so-large-and-... ... it was so bright and prominent that amateur astronomers spotted the flash and another filmed it (see also www.spaceweather.com). A video of the flash can be viewed - thought to be a small comet or asteroid striking the atmosphere of Jupiter. This is the fourth strike since July 2009 when amateur astronomers spotted an anomaly the size of the Pacific Ocean in the cloud tops of Jupiter following an asteroid strike. Two more impacts were seen in 2010.
Spherules on Mars
At www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-290&cid=release_2012-290 ... the NASA Opportunity rover, not to be confused with the Curiosity rover now being set loose on the surface of Mars, has returned an image of spherical objects that differ from so called 'blueberries' (iron rich spherules) found in 2004. The new spherules were found on the rim of Endeavour crater and are just 3mm in diameter - and lack iron. Such concretions are thought to form in a wet environment - unlike cold and dry present day Mars.
A dearth of lithium in you know where, a new comet is about to visit us, and a new video on an eruption from the Sun that is simply amazing
At http://phys.org/print266134066.html ... the oather day is was a star that had too much lithium and now we have a dearth of lithium. Scientists think there should be more lithium in the universe than appears to actually exist. A paper in Nature by Christopher Howk and colleagues says the dearth cannot be explained in the consensus models of the universe. There is apparently just one third of the amount of lithium out there than the consensus would allow, and it all stems from the big bang.
The Lithium Star
At www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2012/09/ ... an image from the La Silla Observatory in the Andes (Chile) has picked out a globular star cluster, Menier 4, with an unusual star that the hyped press release claims has 'eternal youth' - an odd thing to say as they have only been looking at it for a short while. It is thought such star clusters go back to the very beginnings of the universe and the eternal youth appears to have a connection with its brightness. This is thought to have something to do with lithium.
Dark Matter ... has it been nobbled
At http://phys.org/print265992535.html ... the ESA satellite Planck, which changes direction every hour as well as rotating once a minute on its axis, may have found dark matter - it is alleged. They've found something and it is described as an unusual form of radiation, originating from electrons and positrons circulating at high energies around the lines of the magnetic field in the heart of the Milky Way.
Supermassive Black Holes
More speculation on black holes - see www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2012/09/the-first-supermassive-black-holes/ ... these were, it says, formed shortly after the Big Bang according to a research group from the University of Zurich, as a result of the collision of galaxies billions of years ago. The research was done by theoretical physicists using computer simulation modelling.