(PATRIK STOLLARZ/AFP/Getty Images / October 26, 2010)
British constructor Perry Watkins drives in the world’s smallest car during a press presentation prior to the 'Motorshow' fair in Essen on November 8, 2010. His car is only 41 inches high and has a 150 ccm Cart engine. The Motorshow took place in Essen from November 27 until December 5, 2010 with Dragster, Tuningcars and -parts, Hot Rods Oldtimer and Youngtimer are on display.
A massive cluster of yellowish galaxies is seemingly caught in a spider web of eerily distorted background galaxies in this image, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Photo by NASA/ESA
This newfound planet, dubbed HIP 13044b, is all that remains of a dwarf galaxy that once orbited the Milky Way. About six billion years ago the Milky Way collided with and mostly absorbed this unnamed galaxy, leaving a trail of stars that now zips around our galaxy at more than 600,000 miles (965,600 kilometers) an hour.
Study leader, Johny Setiawan, an astronomer at the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany says "(the planet) likely formed when the star was not yet a part of the Milky Way. It's traveled with the star all this time."
Out of the 500 other planets, so far this one is the only one believed to be born outside of our galaxy.
I really love National Geographic and the History Channel. Never in a million years would I have guessed when I was a kid that those words would ever come out of my mouth, and yet they have! On Sunday, October 10th, National Geographic will be sharing with the world the Lost Crystal Caves. The crystals are so overwhelmingly enormous that I’m not sure even Superman wouldn’t be jealous. These caves seem to put his mere Ice Den to shame. While these crystals may not be packed with all the knowledge and wisdom of Jerrel, Superman’s Father, but at least these caves won’t be melting! You can check out more on the Lost Crystal Caves at http://on.natgeo.com/bpOkMl
Planet discovered that can sustain life as we know it. That really sounds great and I would love to let out a big “HOORAY!” and all, but of course there is a catch…IT’S 20 LIGHT YEARS AWAY!!!
Alan Boyle writes: Astronomers say they've found the first planet beyond our solar system that could have the right size and setting to sustain life as we know it, only 20 light-years from Earth.
"My own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent," Steven Vogt, an astrophysicist at the University of California at Santa Cruz, told reporters today. "I have almost no doubt about it."
The discovery, published online in The Astrophysical Journal, is the result of 11 years of observations at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Astronomers participating in the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey detected the planet by tracking the faint gravitational wobbles it produced in its parent star. Now they say there may well be many more planets out there like this one.
"The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common," Vogt said in a news release.
One of Vogt's co-authors, Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution, reminded reporters during a teleconference today that the first exoplanet orbiting a normal star was detected 15 years ago. Since then, almost 500 other alien planets have been found. "We're at exactly that threshold now with finding habitable planets," Butler said.
The newfound planet, known as Gliese 581g, is estimated to be 3.1 to 4.3 times as massive as Earth, and makes a complete circuit around its sun in just under 37 days. If the planet has a rocky composition like Earth's, it would be 1.2 to 1.4 times as wide as our own planet, qualifying it as a "super-Earth."
Even more intriguingly, the red dwarf star's dimness and the planet's orbital distance (0.146 AU, less than half the distance between Mercury and our sun) suggest that the planet's average surface temperature is not that far below water's freezing point (somewhere between 10 and -24 degrees Fahrenheit, or -12 and -31 degrees Celsius).
Although that average may sound chilly, the astronomers say Gliese 581g appears to be tidally locked to its star, with one side perpetually in the sun and the other side perpetually dark. That means the highs on the day side would be hellishly hot. The lows on the night side would be unendurably cold. But there would be a livable zone along the line between shadow and light.
"Any emerging life forms would have a wide range of stable climates to choose from and to evolve around, depending on their longitude," Vogt said.
Based on this analysis, Vogt and his colleagues say Gliese 581g is in a planetary zone that is, in the words of the Goldilocks tale, "not too hot and not too cold, but just right" for water to exist somewhere in liquid form. Astrobiologists say that life seems to exist anyplace on Earth that has liquid water, and that such a Goldilocks zone should be conducive to alien life as well. Some astronomers have even proposed that super-Earths could be friendlier to life than our own home world.
The Gliese 581 system is already well-known to planet hunters. Gliese 581g is the sixth planet to be detected around the parent star. Two other planets in the system are on the edges of the Goldilocks zone: Gliese 581c (potentially "too hot") and Gliese 581d (potentially "too cold"). "Now we have one in the middle that's just right," Vogt said.
The method that was used to detect the latest member of Gliese 581's planetary family, known as radial velocity, requires painstaking observations over a number of years. As the method is currently practiced, it's not capable of finding Earthlike planets around sunlike stars. The Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey was able to spot this super-Earth because it could exert a relatively large pull on a relatively small star. But the observations weren't easy: It took 238 measurements, conducted over 11 years with the aid of the European-led HARPS team, to confirm Gliese 581g's existence.
Astronomers believe it will be easier in the future to find habitable planets — not only because they're building up a larger database of radial velocity measurements, but also because new space probes such as NASA's Kepler and Europe's CoRoT satellite are detecting hundreds of exoplanets using a different technique known as the transit method.
"The number of systems with potentially habitable planets is probably on the order of 10 or 20 percent, and when you multiply that by the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, that's a large number," Vogt said. "There could be tens of billions of these systems in our galaxy."
But how accessible would they be? Relatively speaking, Gliese 581g is in our celestial neighborhood, but it would take tens of thousands of years to get there using conventional rocket technologies. Vogt said it might be possible to send a robotic probe to the planet using an experimental nuclear propulsion system, such as the Project Orion system that was proposed a half-century ago but never built.
"If you're traveling at a tenth of the speed of light, you could reach this thing in 200 years," Vogt told reporters, "Now, you probably wouldn't send humans there, because that would be multiple generations and you'd need a big crew cabin and there wouldn't be much to do for 200 years. But you could send sophisticated robot cameras. Basically, the equivalent of a Droid cell phone would do pretty well. ... In 220 years, if we started now, you would be able to get close-up pictures and a sense of what kind of atmosphere was there, and radio communications, that sort of thing. And it would be a great thing to do with the world's stockpile of nuclear weapons. Just put 'em up on a rocket and send 'em up there."
More on alien planets:
Ever had that dream that you were falling off a cliff? If you are like me, and you wondered what it could possible mean then check out www.dreammoods.com . There is a fully explanatory and very comprehendible dream dictionary that you can use for free on the site.
Sacrifice is defined as destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else. Therefore when you think you are losing something you are really just passing it on for someone else. War changes men. It fills them fear. It gives them courage and strength. It gives them a sense of adventure. For some, it fulfills their every dream as human beings, in a sense making them whole. I will never understand joining the military, in the state that it is today, as being a great honor or fulfilling of a destiny. I do, however, know that I understand Sacrifice and thus is how I can cope with someone I love joining the military. Although I do not agree with it, I see the Sacrifice not only from his perspective, but now from mine.
No Life is a waste. Each one of our lives affect the other; and the other affects the next. Each Stranger is just family we have yet to come to know. So, you see, hatred is a curved blade in that the harm we do unto others we also do unto ourselves.
1. Bring a pillow. Fall asleep until the last 15 minutes. Wake up, say, "oh geez, better get cracking," and do some gibberish work. Turn it in a few minutes early.
2. Get a copy of the exam, run out screaming, "Andre, Andre, I've got the secret documents!!"
3. If it is a math/science exam, answer in essay form. If it is long answer/essay form, answer with numbers and symbols. Be creative. Use the intregral symbol.
4. Make paper airplanes out of the exam. Aim them at the instructor's left nostril.
5. Talk the entire way through the exam. Read questions aloud, debate your answers with yourself out loud. If asked to stop, yell out, "I'm SOOO sure you can hear me thinking." Then start talking about what a jerk the instructor is.
6. Bring cheerleaders.
7. Walk in, get the exam, sit down. About five minutes into it, loudly say to the instructor, "I don't understand ANY of this. I've been to every lecture all semester long! What's the deal? And who the hell are you? Where's the regular guy?"
8. Bring a Game Boy and play it with the volume at max level.
9. On the answer sheet find a new, interesting way to refuse to answer every question. For example: I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that it conflicts with my religious beliefs. Be creative.
10. Bring pets.
11. Run into the exam room looking about frantically. Breathe a sigh of relief. Go to the instructor, say, "They've found me, I have to leave the country," and run off.
12. Fifteen minutes into the exam, stand up, rip up all the papers into very small pieces, throw them into the air and yell out, "Merry Christmas." If you're really daring, ask for another copy of the exam. Say you lost the first one. Repeat this process every fifteen minutes.
13. Do the exam with crayons, paint, or fluorescent markers.
14. Come into the exam wearing slippers, a bathrobe, a towel on your head, and nothing else.
15. Come down with a BAD case of Turet's Syndrome during the exam. Be as vulgar as possible.
16. Do the entire exam in another language. If you don't know one, make one up! For math/science exams, try using Roman numerals.
17. Bring things to throw at the instructor when she/he is not looking. Blame it on the person nearest to you.
18. As soon as the instructor hands you the exam, eat it.
19. Walk into the exam with an entourage. Claim you are going to be taping your next video during the exam. Try to get the instructor to let them stay, and be persuasive. Tell the instructor to expect a percentage of the profits if they are allowed to stay.
20. Every five minutes, stand up, collect all your things, move to another seat, and continue with the exam.
21. Turn in the exam approximately 30 minutes into it. As you walk out, start commenting on how easy it was.
22. Do the entire exam as if it was multiple choice and true/false. If it is a multiple choice exam, spell out interesting things (DCCAB, BABE, etc..).
23. Bring a black marker. Return the exam with all questions and answers completely blacked out.
24. Get the exam. Twenty minutes into it, throw your papers down violently, scream out "Shut up!" and walk out triumphantly.
25. Arrange a protest before the exam starts (i.e. Threaten the instructor that whether or not everyone's done, they are all leaving after one hour to go drink).
26. Show up completely drunk. (Completely drunk means at some point during the exam, you should start crying for mommy).
27. Every now and then, clap twice rapidly. If the instructor asks why, tell him/her in a very derogatory tone, "the light bulb that goes on above my head when I get an idea is hooked up to a clapper. DUH!"
28. Comment on how nice the instructor is looking that day.
29. Come to the exam wearing a black cloak. After about 30 minutes, put on a white mask and start yelling, "I'm here, the phantom of the opera" until they drag you away.
30. Go to an exam for a class you have no clue about, where you know the class is very small, and the instructor would recognize you if you belonged. Claim that you have been to every lecture. Fight for your right to take the exam.
31. Upon receiving the exam, look it over, while laughing loudly, say, "you don't really expect me to waste my time on this drivel? Days of our Lives is on!!!"
32. Bring a water pistol with you. Nuff said.
33. From the moment the exam begins, hum the theme to Jeopardy. Ignore the instructor's requests for you to stop. When they finally get you to leave one way or another, begin whistling the theme to the Bridge on the River Kwai.
34. Start a brawl in the middle of the exam.
35. If the exam is math/science related, make up the longest proofs you could possibly think of. Get pi and imaginary numbers into most equations. If it is a written exam, relate everything you your own life story.
36. Come in wearing a full knight's outfit, complete with sword and shield.
37. Bring a friend to give you a back massage the entire way through the exam. Insist this person is needed, because you have bad circulation.
38. Bring cheat sheets FOR ANOTHER CLASS (make sure this is obvious...like history notes for a calculus exam...otherwise you're not just failing, you're getting kicked out too) and staple them to the exam, with the comment, "Please use the attached notes for references as you see fit."
39. When you walk in, complain about the heat. Strip.
40. After you get the exam, call the instructor over, point to any question, and ask for the answer. Try to work it out of him/her.
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Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
If you have to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings".
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness".
People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
And when God, who created the entire universe with all of its glories, decides to deliver a message to humanity, He WILL NOT use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.
You should not confuse your career with your life, because if you have a career that probably means you have no life. No matter what happens... somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.
Never lick a steak knife.
Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.
"The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.
You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
… THEN YOU’RE DEAD.
It takes a lot for us to be good and gracious in a world where the mainstream of thinking runs in the opposite direction. We have but one ticket for a single ride on the earth. Everything we know and all we have come from one another. There are days that are good and there are days that are bad. But the best days are when the sun shines and we feel the heat that lets us know we're alive. I often find that I miss being relatively close to someone that they could actually say, “You chew too loud! You’re not allowed to eat chips next to me anymore!”
