Will the real Planet X please stand up?

So around 11:15 a.m. on Friday,
I followed this link on Robot Wisdom:

Yet another new planetlike object beyond Neptune

"On Thursday, an email with the subject, 'Big TNO discovery, urgent' was sent to a popular astronomy mailing list. The message described the discovery of a 'very bright' object that was creeping along slowly beyond the orbit of Neptune -- making it a Trans-Neptunian Object or TNO...

"If [the object's] reflectivity is as dim as most other distant, rocky objects that have been studied, then this object 'would be larger than Pluto,' Jose-Luis Ortiz, an astronomer at the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain, wrote in the email. Pluto is about 2300 kilometres across...

"Initial calculations suggested [that this] Kuiper Belt object could be up to twice as big as Pluto, but new data indicates it is about 70% the diameter of that planet. This makes its size second only to Pluto itself among objects beyond Neptune.

"The new object has been temporarily named 2003 EL61 by the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts... Newly disclosed observations of the giant world revealed on Friday [morning] show that it has a moon."

Now all of this certainly made for interesting reading.
However, it seemed fairly certain that this Kuiper Belt
object was smaller than Pluto, so the news didn't have
the full import of evidence of a new planet.

As noted in some articles, the discovery of 2003 EL61
simply posed the latest challenge to Pluto's status
as a planet (and added to the controversry
about what qualifies as a planet).

I skimmed for photos of this object, moved on to
the latest news about the space shuttle,
and then I went back to work.

After dinner I checked the news again, and I started
to tell my Lady Friend that some wire story about
"the discovery of a 10th planet" was taking
the 2003 EL61 story too far. I began to re-read
the article that I had seen that morning,
and that's when I realized that this next story
was about an entirely different object:

Object bigger than Pluto discovered, called 10th planet
or, with the best headline yet:
New planet or just a notch on the Kuiper Belt?


"Astronomers have discovered an object in our solar system that is larger than Pluto. They are calling it the 10th planet, but already that claim is contested.

"The new world's size is not at issue. But the very definition of planethood is...

"The announcement, made today by Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology, came just hours after another newfound object, one slightly smaller than Pluto, was revealed in a very confusing day for astronomers and the media.


These time-lapse images of a newfound planet in our solar system, called 2003UB313, were taken on Oct. 21, 2003, using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, Calif. The planet, circled in white, is seen moving across a field of stars. The three images were taken about 90 minutes apart. Scientists did not discover that the object in these pictures was a planet until Jan. 8, 2005.

"The object is round and could be up to twice as large as Pluto, Brown told reporters in a hastily called NASA-run teleconference Friday evening. The briefing was arranged after Brown received word that a secure Web site containing the discovery was hacked and the hacker threatened to release the information.

"The new object, temporarily named 2003 UB313, is about three times as far from the Sun as is Pluto. It is currently nine billion miles away from the Sun, or 97 times as far away from the Sun as Earth. Its 560-year elliptical orbit brings it as close as 3.3 billion miles. Pluto's orbit ranges from 2.7 billion miles to 4.6 billion.

"'This is the first object to be confirmed to be larger than Pluto in the outer solar system.'"

"Brown's best estimate is that the object is 2,100 miles wide, about 1-1/2 times the diameter of Pluto. The object is inclined by a whopping 45 degrees to the main plane of the solar system, where most of the other planets orbit. That's why it eluded discovery: nobody was looking there until now, Brown said.

"Brown has submitted a name for the new planet to the International Astronomical Union, which has yet to act on the proposal, but he did not release the proposed name Friday.

"Brown labeled the object as a 10th planet, but there are scientists who dispute the classification of Pluto as such. There is no official definition for a planet and setting standards like size limits or orbital patterns potentially invites other objects to take the 'planet' label.

"Brown and colleagues Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory and David Rabinowitz of Yale University first photographed the object in 2003 using a 48-inch telescope at the Palomar Observatory. But it was so far away that its motion was not detected until data was analyzed again this past January. It will take at least six months before astronomers can determine its exact size."



"Some astronomers view 2003 UB313 as a Kuiper Belt object and not a planet. The Kuiper Belt is a region of frozen objects beyond Neptune. Pluto is called a Kuiper Belt object by many astronomers.

"Brown himself has argued in the past for Pluto's demotion from planet status, because of its diminutive size and eccentric and inclined orbit. But today he struck a different note.

"'Pluto has been a planet for so long that the world is comfortable with that,' Brown said in the teleconference. 'It seems to me a logical extension that anything bigger than Pluto and farther out is a planet.'

"Offering additional justification, Brown said 2003 UB313 appears to be surfaced with methane ice, as is Pluto. That's not the case with other large Kuiper Belt objects, however...

"Brian Marsden, who runs the Minor Planet Center where data on objects like this are collected, says that if Pluto is a planet, then other round objects nearly as large as Pluto ought to be called planets. On that logic, 2003 UB313 would perhaps be a planet, but it would have to get in line behind a handful of others that were discovered previously.

"'I would not call it the 10th planet,' Marsden told SPACE.com.

"Alan Boss, a planet-formation theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, called the discovery 'a major step.' But Boss would not call 2003 UB313 a planet at all. Instead, he said Pluto and other small objects beyond Neptune should be called, at best, 'Kuiper Belt planets.'

"'To just call them planets does an injustice to the big guys in the solar system,' Boss said in a telephone interview.

"The 'new planet' will be visible during the next six months and it [can be observed] almost directly overhead in the early-morning eastern sky, in the constellation Cetus."


"A map shows the position of 2003 UB313 in the eastern sky as of about 1:30 a.m. from mid-northern latitudes for the next several days [in summer 2005]. Seasoned amateur astronomers with large backyard telescopes should be able to find it."

Saturn is a giant Theremin.

"Saturn is a source of intense radio emissions. The radio waves are closely related to the auroras near the poles of the planet. These auroras are similar to Earth's northern and southern lights.

"The Cassini spacecraft began detecting these radio emissions in April 2002 when Cassini was 2.5 astronomical units from the planet, using the Cassini Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument. The RPWS has now provided the first high-resolution observations of these emissions that show an amazing array of variations in frequency and time."

Shuttle goes head overrocket-boosted heels;appears to be undamaged

"Space shuttle Discovery escaped any serious damage from the potentially deadly piece of foam that broke off from the fuel tank during liftoff and looks safe to fly home in a week, NASA said Thursday.

"The welcome news came after Mission Control received stunningly detailed photographs of Discovery taken by the crew aboard the International Space Station. The shuttle executed an unprecedented backflip in order to bare its belly to the cameras before docking with the space station."

[Check out the chase plane video, also.
Track the shuttle and space station here.]

The Lenswork of Evlampya Polikarpovna

More of Polikarpovna's work

T Flower: Takashi Takayama

MercRet in effect!

I've thought, over the course of the last couple of weeks, that this was going to be a wild and perhaps trying Mercury Retrograde period. Personally, the last few days have lent strong support to that assessment.

"Mercury goes retrograde from July 23-August 15, a perfect time to review, reconsider, reorganize our thinking and our communications tools (including files and computers). Yes, it is true there can be heightened glitches and misunderstandings between people, so take extra care in those important exchanges. Plenty of internal dialogue and insight can occur; Mercury retrograde is brilliant for original thinking, which will be more effectively shared after August 15th.

Mercury goes retrograde three times a year, providing a perfect stellar organizational tool, though with four other planets retrograde at this time, this Mercury Rx may be more potent than most. It may be wise to back up computer files before July 23.

Because I am now fairly confidentthat DNS issues have been resolved...

Here are the most recent
indexed image highlights
from nmazca.com/3142857/.

Celestial triple play

"A NASA-funded astronomer has discovered a world where one sun sets over the horizon, followed by a second sun and then a third, as pictured in this artist's conception released by NASA July 13, 2005.

"The new planet, called HD 188753 Ab, is the first known to reside in a classic triple-star system. The astronomer, Dr. Maciej Konacki of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, found the planet using the Keck I telescope atop Ma'una Kea in Hawai'i."

Nuclear weapons turn 60 today...

...and some of our brightest minds
keep finding new ways to reinvent them.


Emmett Hatch's grandmother ordered him to drop to his knees and pray on July 16, 1945, shortly after the world's first atomic blast.

She was awake at 5:29:45 Mountain War Time that morning in Portales, New Mexico, to make breakfast and saw the explosion from more than 220 miles away.

"She thought it was the coming of the Lord, because the sun rose in the west that day," said Hatch, who was 8 years old at the time.

Hatch joined thousands of others at Trinity Site on Saturday in a restricted area of the White Sands Missile Range for the 60th anniversary of the dawn of the nuclear age.

The Manhattan Project resulted in the two atomic bombs that killed hundreds of thousands of people in Japan in August 1945, essentially stunning Japan into surrender and ending World War II.

The depression created by the blast at ground zero on what is now the White Sands Missile Range is marked by an obelisk with a simple inscription: "Trinity Site, Where the World's First Nuclear Device Was Exploded on July 16, 1945."

A long stretch of dirt road leads to a chain-link fence surrounding the monument. On the fence hang photographs of Manhattan Project scientists from Los Alamos assembling the device and of the brilliant mushroom cloud.

Visitors stooped to pick up (?!) pieces of trininite, a radioactive, turquoise crystal-like material that was created by the blast. About a dozen people walked over the site with Geiger counters that beeped sporadically.

Missile Range officials tell visitors not to fear radiation. On average, an American is exposed to 360 millirem of radiation from natural and medical sources every year. In an hour at the Trinity site, visitors are exposed to one half millirem, according to a brochure distributed by the missile range.

Andy Aranda, an Albuquerque high school student, said he learned about the Trinity test from textbooks.

"It's kind of creepy, kind of eerie to be right here where it happened," he said.

Clemente Deister of Socorro was in the Marines fighting in the South Pacific during World War II when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

He watched the faces of visitors to the Trinity Site on Saturday. "I find all kinds of expressions of sadness and horror," he said.

The blast produced a flash of light that was seen 250 miles away, a roar heard 50 miles away and a mushroom cloud that rose 40,000 feet.

"The most amazing part of it to all of us is that it seemed to last so long," Jay Wechsler of Espanola, who measured the explosion that day, recalled in an interview before the Trinity Site tour. "The cloud just looked like it was boiling and luminescent and kept on going up and up and up and seemed like it was never going to stop."

"I had no conception that it could wipe out a small city," said Herb Lehr of Mesa, Ariz., who helped put the bomb together at Trinity Site.

Ben Benjamin, a photographer who documented the Manhattan Project, recalled that after seeing the blast he said: "My God, it's beautiful."

But Benjamin, who did not go on Saturday's tour, said another man who worked on the project told him the blast was horrible and that he could think of nothing more than the moral implications.

"I thought about it, of course," said Benjamin, who now lives in Albuquerque. "But I also thought, 'Didn't these guys bring it on themselves?' Look what they did at Pearl Harbor."

Longtime Los Alamos lab critic Greg Mello [executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group] said on the eve of the [atomic bomb test's] 60th anniversary that the United States still has not come to grips with the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"These acts we still consider to be somehow, if not noble, then somewhat justified. They were manifestly illegal at the time and terribly immoral. By any standard, they were crimes," he said.

Check out Trinity and Beyond when you have the opportunity.

Thurisaz/Thorn

The rune stone featured at the bottom of this image is Thurisaz.

"Thorn is a force of simultaneous defense and destruction and the rune is symbolic of brambles or thorny bushes which were used to enclose and protect boundaries or to conceal entrances to sacred or secret spaces. This then, goes a long way toward explaining the pictogram which depicts a single thorn jutting out from an otherwise smooth surface...

"You have already, no doubt, been exposed to the challenging and protective thorn barricade from the time you were a small child and learned in childrens' stories of such things as Sleeping Beauty's castle, even today the thorn that protects sacred space is represented by the hedges that traditionally surround many private places.

"Finding your way through these thickets and hedges is sometimes a trick and requires special knowledge or education. Think for a moment about hedge mazes. They may not be merely ornamental -- although they are pretty darn cool to look at -- but may also contain an instruction elemental to the concept of this rune. That being that only those who know the secret of the maze will make it to the center unscathed by the thorns which protect it."

Another rune-inspired image by Svetlana Bakushina is featured here.

Portentous preflight problem;shuttleminders say it's solved[Pray anyway.]

"With the countdown for Discovery in its final hours, NASA was dealt an embarrassing setback Tuesday when a window cover fell off the shuttle and damaged thermal tiles near the tail. But the space agency quickly fixed the problem and said it was still on track for launch Wednesday (at 3:51 p.m. EDT).

"The mishap was an eerie reminder of the very thing that doomed Columbia 2 1/2 years ago -- damage to the spaceship's fragile thermal shield.


"The lightweight plastic cover on one of Discovery's cockpit windows came loose while the spaceship was on the launch pad, falling more than 60 feet and striking a bulge in the fuselage, said Stephanie Stilson, the NASA manager in charge of Discovery's launch preparations.

"No one knows why the cover -- held in place with tape and weighing less than 2 pounds -- fell off, she said. The covers are used prior to launch to protect the shuttle's windows, then removed before liftoff.

"Two tiles on an aluminum panel were damaged, and the entire panel was replaced with a spare in what Stilson said was a minor repair job."

Ubuntu OS

"Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". Ubuntu also means "I am what I am because of who we all are". The Ubuntu Linux distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world.

Ubuntu is a complete Linux-based operating system, freely available with both community and professional support.

The Ubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Ubuntu Manifesto: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customise and alter their software in whatever way they see fit.

[I've got I had this running on my Lady Friend's laptop,
and I'm quite pleased I became more than a bit frustrated.
It is a nice OS, but I don't have time or the inclination
to delve into seemingly arcane system architecture ]

Deep Impact +7

"Data from Deep Impact's instruments indicate an immense cloud of fine powdery material was released when the probe slammed into the nucleus of Comet Tempel 1 at about 10 kilometers per second (or 23,000 miles per hour)...

"'The major surprise was the opacity of the plume the impactor created and the light it gave off,' said Deep Impact Principal Investigator Dr. Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, College Park. 'That suggests the dust excavated from the comet's surface was extremely fine, more like talcum powder than beach sand. And the surface is definitely not what most people think of when they think of comets -- an ice cube.'"

And even though the low tidesin the Sound are really low...

"NASA is taking advantage of its unique space-based satellite observations of Earth's oceans and atmosphere, in combination with satellite observations and sea surface measurements from domestic and international partners, to learn more about why and how the world's waters are rising."

Mushroom Girls

"A guide to the identification and study of our commoner fungi, with special emphasis on the edible varieties."

Storm cell

The War against Teflon

I recently disposed of a number of the Teflon-coated pans at work (just a couple days after reading a story in the SF Chronicle*). Since my Lady Friend and I just moved, and my summer residence has plenty of steel cookware, I replaced the nonstick with our stuff. "Do it for the children," ne?

Anyhow, another story about Teflon's harmful potential just moved today**, so please follow the links*** if you're interested (and especially if you have this stuff in your kitchen).

Alternatives, you ask? Stainless steel, cast iron, ceramics and glass. But not aluminum!

That is all.

* Nonstick pans are a boon to cooks,
but are there dangers lurking beneath the surface?

** Health Screenings for Teflon to Start

*** Review Says EPA Downplayed Teflon Cancer Risk

Keeping cool on Mars

"Scientists combined several images from Mars Express to create this 3-dimensional image of a 35-kilometer-wide, unnamed crater in the far northern hemisphere.

"Last week, ground controllers successfully deployed the second of two 20-meter-long booms belonging to MARSIS, the Mars Express' powerful ground-penetrating radar. The successful deployment of its third boom, which is seven meters long, could be announced very soon. Once science operations commence, that instrument could map water ice as much as several kilometers beneath the planet's surface.

"Meanwhile, the High Resolution Stereo Camera continues to take breathtaking images, like the one above. On February 2nd, the spacecraft flew over this 35-kilometer-wide crater in Vastitas Borealis, a broad plain that covers much of Mars's far northern latitudes. Back on Earth, scientists at Free University in Berlin, Germany, combined several HRSC images of the crater to create this three-dimensional picture. The image reveals a patch of ice that could be a few tens of centimeters thick. The ice itself overlies a dune field."

Nearly a New Moon, with new paradigms,patterns and psychopyrotechnicsof which you will want to be aware.

The Inner Sky for July 2005
By Gretchen Lawlor
Danku, Barbie.

"The biggest astrological news of July is the shift of Saturn into Leo on July 16th. After two years in Cancer, Saturn completes its project of challenging us to handle our sensitivities with more personal responsibility. We have had to work hard to find comfort and refuge in these challenging times. The New Moon in Cancer on July 6 (5:02 a.m. PDT)* is an extremely powerful time to set intentions to stabilize our material and emotional homes, as it coincides with the last 10 days of Saturn in Cancer for 29 years.

"Saturn in Leo now shifts to molding our self-expressiveness, to how we are responsible for being the creators, the authors, and the sculptors of our own lives. Don't worry- we¹ll have until fall of 2007 to get it right.

"Initially, the strongest impression of this stellar shift may be a sense of not having much influence at all, acutely aware of where and how we have abdicated our personal authority and allowed others to define us. The wise soul will look to become more disciplined in any creative outlet, to taking seriously the urge to become more competent in some expressive field. Schedule time to connect with your playful heart.

"Also up is a responsibility to be wise leaders, parents, and/or lovers. Each requires patience and discipline to do well. When Saturn enters Leo, we become more aware of: where we control (or refuse to take control) from our paranoid fantasies, our inadequacies as parents or as lovers. The Full Moon on July 21 is a rare second Capricorn Full Moon for the year, illuminating opportunities to parent ourselves rather that expect that others will care for us (obviously we need the nudge as we also had a Capricorn Full Moon on June 21st).

"Mercury goes retrograde from July 23-August 15, a perfect time to review, reconsider, reorganize our thinking and our communications tools (including files and computers). Yes, it is true there can be heightened glitches and misunderstandings between people, so take extra care in those important exchanges. Plenty of internal dialogue and insight can occur; Mercury retrograde is brilliant for original thinking, which will be more effectively shared after August 15th. Mercury goes retrograde three times a year, providing a perfect stellar organizational tool, though with four other planets retrograde at this time, this Mercury Rx may be more potent than most. It may be wise to back up computer files before July 23.

"Uranus turned retrograde in mid-June (until mid Nov 2005) giving us time to review and integrate the paradigm shifts and awakenings of the last five months. In July we will be getting more comfortable with the Uranian acceleration of energy frequencies in our emotional bodies, which manifested in May and June as a significant upswing in collective anxiety and significant chaos. Quantum physics calls this chaos that precedes particles shifting into new coherent fields "phase transition." Focus your attention on the transitional moments in your day; give yourself stillpoints to allow for shift and reorientation. This will help you adjust your particles."

* - From Henry Seltzer's AstroGraph site:

"As the month begins, Mercury and Venus are in close conjunction in Leo, a conjunction that remains active for the first ten days of the month, until Mercury begins to slow down for its retrograde station that takes place on July 22nd.

"The most exciting moment of this weeks-long conjunction between Mercury and Venus occurs just at the time of the July 6th New Moon, when Mercury and Venus are separated by a mere half-degree... This very tight configuration, known as a Yod or 'Finger of God' formation, occurring precisely on the Cancer New Moon, presages some unexpected relationship oriented and largely positive events at this time that are likely to be productive of surprising epiphanies and insightful realizations.

"The days surrounding this New Moon, which include the July 4th holiday, therefore represent an excellent time to wed the heart and mind in a conscious association with each other, and to explore our relationships with others around us."

Men hit space rockwith giant marble;elation ensues

"This is a picture of Comet Tempel 1 taken by the Deep Impact probe's impactor targeting sensor. The probe collided with the comet at at 10:52 p.m. Pacific time, July 3 (1:52 a.m. Eastern time, July 4)."

Not everyone was thrilled with this achievement.

'White man's medicine' is secondaryto time-honored customs

"When a chronically depressed 9-year-old girl at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota became so sad that she stopped eating, Ethleen Iron Cloud-Two Dogs came up with a treatment plan: not antidepressant drugs, but a spiritual assessment, followed by a healing ceremony at a Lakota purification lodge that represents the womb.

"'There is a hole dug in the middle and rocks that are heated,' she said. 'Because we believe that everything has a spirit, rocks are addressed as grandfather spirits. The water is taken in and poured on the rocks -- the steam that results is the breath of the grandfathers which then purifies and renews us.'

"Over the next three months, the girl recovered, said Iron Cloud-Two Dogs, who treats emotionally disturbed and suicidal children at a federally funded Native American mental health program called Nagi Kicopi (Calling the Spirit Back).'The healer dismissed those who demand evidence that her techniques work.

"'They will say, "Where's the proof, where's the research base, how can you document this?'" -- all the Western aspects of clinical interventions,' she said. 'We understood from the beginning that we would get those reactions, so our stance is, "We are Lakota people and these are Lakota children, and we will use the methods that have worked for thousands of years and that's all there is to it."'"

via Magpie

Shy Dragonfly

Under the Tuscan Sun[did i just type that?]

Sunflowers cover a field near the Tuscan city of Siena.