FINALLY MAINSTREAM NEWS ABOUT: SUN'S BINARY COMPANION - BROWN DWARF
TheSun.co.uk | Earth under attack from Death Star
AN invisible star may be circling the Sun and causing deadly comets to bombard the Earth, scientists said yesterday.
The brown dwarf - up to five times the size of Jupiter - could be to blame for mass extinctions that occur here every 26 million years.
The star - nicknamed Nemesis by Nasa scientists - would be invisible as it only emits infrared light and is incredibly distant.
Nemesis is believed to orbit our solar system at 25,000 times the distance of the Earth to the Sun.
As it spins through the galaxy, its gravitational pull drags icy bodies out of the Oort Cloud - a vast sphere of rock and dust twice as far away as Nemesis.
These "snowballs" are thrown towards Earth as comets, causing devastation similar to the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Now Nasa boffins believe they will be able to find Nemesis using a new heat-seeking telescope that began scanning the skies in January.
The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer - expected to find a thousand brown dwarfs within 25 light years of the Sun - has already sent back a photo of a comet possibly dislodged from the Oort Cloud.
Scientists' first clue to the existence of Nemesis was the bizarre orbit of a dwarf planet called Sedna.
Boffins believe its unusual, 12,000-year-long oval orbit could be explained by a massive celestial body.
Mike Brown, who discovered Sedna in 2003, said: "Sedna is a very odd object - it shouldn't be there.
"The only way to get on an eccentric orbit is to have some giant body kick you - so what is out there?"
Professor John Matese, of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, said most comets come from the same part of the Oort Cloud.
He added: "There is statistically significant evidence that this concentration of comets could be caused by a companion to the Sun."
Obama proposes overhaul of education system, No Child Left Behind Los Angeles Times - - 2 hours ago The president, in his weekly address, says he'll send a blueprint to Congress next week to give high school grads 'the best chance to succeed' globally. Video: Obama Calls for an Educational Overhaul The Associated Press Obama Proposes Overhaul in Education Law New York Times |
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| About Real-Time Magnetosphere Simulation http://www2.nict.go.jp/y/y223/simulation/realtime/index.html March 13, 2010 at 5:43 PM Central Time   | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Current Moon Phase http://www.die.net/moon/  Recommended: What the Hell is Going on Up There? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/sunspots/ http://solarcycle24.com/ http://spaceweather.com/ Classification of Solar Flares Magnetic fields trigger solar wind BUSY SUN: "With a complex sunspot and several bright filaments, the sun is really busy today!" reports amateur astronomer Robert Arnold. He sends this highlight from his backyard observatory on the Isle of Skye, Scotland:  "This huge prominence was so bright, I was able to photograph it using the same camera settings I used for the solar surface," notes Arnold. "It's very easy to see." ANOTHER SURPRISE FROM THE SUN: A massive "current of fire" on the sun has started running at high speed, surprising researchers and challenging some models of the solar cycle. Get the full story from Science@NASA. NASA Images Earth-Sized Objects Inside Corona Of SUN  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 http://folkworm.ceri.memphis.edu/recenteqs/Quakes/quakes0.html MAG DATE LOCAL-TIME LAT LON DEPTH LOCATION y/m/d h:m:s deg deg km MAP 3.1 2010/03/13 03:02:44 35.398N 98.069W 5.0 22 km (14 mi) ESE of Hinton, Oklahoma Update time = Sun Mar 14 0:04:11 UTC 2010
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| National Severe Weather Map Surface Temperature Forecast Map www.511nebraska.org  http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_ir_enh_us_loop.html  National Association of Radio-Distress Signalling and Infocommunications Emergency and Disaster Information Services (EDIS) Budapest Hungary GMT/UTC: 10:31:52 PM (Sat)
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CoastToCoastAM.com: IN THE NEWS: Saturday, March 13, 2010 Earth under attack from Death Star Solar Slumber May Have Been Caused by Magnetic Flows Image of Jesus 'appears in a frying pan' Clock invented in the Stone Age Mystery of 75 starlings falling from the sky |
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