Windmills causing localized global warming

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Moonage

This has got to be another blow to the enlightened global warming alarmists:

New research published in the journal Nature Climate Change suggests that large wind farms might have a warming effect on the local climate.

Now, before go too far into this, although both articles are quick to point out that it’s a localized effect only, the problem with the global warming global impact is a whole bunch of localized warming effects. So, to sort of dismiss this as not really sorta being a real problem isn’t fair. Either it’s causing global warming or not. In this case, it is. And since they are spreading fast all over the planet, it’s a rapidly growing problem.

Toss in:

“The cumulative impacts are huge,” said Shawn Smallwood, one of the few recognized experts studying the impact of wind farms on migratory birds. “It is not inconceivable to me that we could reduce golden eagle populations by a great deal, if not wipe them out.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/16/energy-in-america-dead-birds-unintended-consequence-wind-power-development/#ixzz1tpKjGtAj

That’s right, they’re killing endangered species. That’s not indirectly, that’s the blades beating them to death.

Which makes me ponder the obvious:

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March 7, 2012 X5.4 Solar Flare

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Moonage

Too Cool:

A few satellite operators probably won’t agree with me. But the power unleashed in that one flare is beyond anything anyone on this planet has ever dealt with.

H/T: Onorbit

Whooly Mammoths in Siberia?

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Moonage

The Sun, not always the most reliable source of scientific data, is running this pic and VIDEO of a supposed Whoolly Mammoth in Siberia:

And here’s the video courtesy of The Sun:

The author ponders the various possibilities of whether it could be a real mammoth or not. Some things I can buy, like it’s Siberia. It’s a huge place, it’s Ice Age cold there, and there’s just not a whole lot of people to bump into. However, the argument the author makes kind of falls apart on me when he cites a paranormal writer to give their expert opinion on a living animal. There’s just plenty of other more appropriate professionals who deal with living animals than a guy who writes books about the afterlife. They also ponder some of the other things it could be. I think I’m more in that boat than the Whoolly Mammoth one. They’re just too big to go unnoticed for 4,000 years.

Here’s your chance:

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My monster Memories

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Moonage

Very fun blog post about growing up with Lost in Space. I LOVED that show as a kid! No use recreating it here, this guy’s take is fantastic!

My Monster Memories

Another Kentucky aurora?

Image

Spaceweather.com announced this just a few minutes ago:

Active sunspot 1401 erupted today, Jan. 19th, for more than an hour around 16:00 UT. The long-duration blast produced an M3-class solar flare and a CME that appears to be heading toward Earth. Forecasters say strong geomagnetic storms are possible when the cloud arrives during the late hours of Jan. 21st. High-latitude (and possibly middle-latitude) sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend.

This is what happened here the last time this happened:

Comet Lovejoy resurrected

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Moonage

Remember sundiver? That was the comet on a suicide mission plummeting directly into the sun a couple of months ago.

Well, guess what?

It’s BACK!

Comet Lovejoy, aka Sundiver, actually didn’t plunge into the Sun, but apparently skimmed 140,000 miles behind the Sun. It has now re-emerged with a few parts missing. Notably, it no has a tail. Whether it grows back at some point or not remains to be seen.

Romulans invading Mercury!

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Moonage

This is just too cool. Jump straight to the 34 second mark.

That’s right. That’s what you saw. Romulans de-cloaking next to Mercury!

NASA has the usual cover-up, this time’s it’s some crazy far-fetched fantasy like an echo ( ghost ) image on the camera. That takes a lot to buy in order to believe. It’s just so much more obviously Romulans.

UPDATE:

Actually, upon closer examination:

It’s obviously the Enterprise.

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Kepler 22-B

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Moonage

Now we’re getting somewhere.

This artist’s conception illustrates Kepler-22b, a planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone of a sun-like star. It is the first planet that NASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed to orbit in a star’s habitable zone — the region around a star where liquid water, a requirement for life on Earth, could persist. The planet is 2.4 times the size of Earth, making it the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star like our sun.

Finding not-quite suns was pretty cool, but fairly meaningless. Now we’re looking where things should be living. Only problem of course is what we’re looking at is something that existed 600 years ago. Now if we could just over that pesky traveling at the speed of light problem we’d be rockin!

Time Lapse View from Space from ISS

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Moonage

This is just too cool. Makes me want to spend a few days on the International Space Station.

Who says there’s no such thing as magic?

Here comes ROSAT!

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Moonage

Remember everyone freaking out over UARS? It wasn’t that long ago. In fact, it was about a month ago. Well guess what?

This guy’s coming home next week. The difference between ROSAT and UARS is ROSAT’s a LOT sturdier than UARS was. When this one comes down, that entire dish is supposedly going to be intact. It’s made out of gold and some stuff that doesn’t melt until about 1100 degrees. It just won’t get that hot coming down. There’s another big difference between the two as well. UARS’s path was mostly over the Pacific and some pretty remote and isolated areas of the planet such as Siberia and Africa. It spent very brief periods of time over some populated areas. The path for ROSAT is a little different:

ROSAT will be flying over the US, South America, Indonesia, and some pretty crowded places.

One thing that will be the same as UARS tho, they won’t have a clue when it’s coming down until about one day in advance. That of course tells you where it’s coming down.

As with that last one, just keep your head up next week!

We really, really, need to figure what to do with all this space junk.

If you really want to watch ROSAT in motion, this is a really cool page that has a “real-time” map of ROSAT’s orbit.

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