Planetary Science - Wiki Article
Planetary science (rarely planetology) is the scientific study of planets (including Earth), moons, and planetary systems, in particular those of the Solar System and the processes that form them. It... Planetary Science - Wiki Article - wikiplays.org Original @ http All Information Derived from Wikipedia using Creative Commons License: en.wikipedia.org Author: US CIA Image URL: en.wikipedia.org Licensed under:This image is ineligible for copyright and therefore is in the public domain, because it consists entirely of information that is common property and contains no original authorship., This work is in the Public Domain., This work is in the public domain in the United States. Author: NASA Image URL: en.wikipedia.org Licensed under:This image is ineligible for copyright and therefore is in the public domain, because it consists entirely of information that is common property and contains no original authorship., This work is in the Public Domain., This work is in the public domain in the United States. Author: NASA/JPL/USGS Image URL: en.wikipedia.org Licensed under:This image is ineligible for copyright and therefore is in the public domain, because it consists entirely of information that is common property and contains no original authorship., This...From:WikiPlaysViews:0 0ratingsTime:19:23More inEducation

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April Flowers for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

In the past week, two new exoplanets have been confirmed; one by the Planet Hunters citizen science project that uses NASAs Kepler mission data, and the other by a European team. The existence of PH1 and the as-yet unnamed planet in Alpha Centauri will reignite the race to find an Earth-like planet that could host extraterrestrial life.

The most powerful telescopes ever built are about to come online, adding more fuel to the discussion about where life could exist. Scientific discussion about the possibility of alien life forms is becoming more mainstream as well.

I think scientists are very happy having a rational conversation about the likelihood of life out there, said Bob Nichol, an astronomer at Portsmouth University in Britain.

New Planets

This conversation is partly driven by the planetary discoveries. Over 800 of these exoplanets have been discovered since the early 1990s.

The high number of planets makes it more likely that life will be found, according to Nichol. He cites the many formats of life that are found on Earth as indirect evidence that life is out there.

A research team from the Geneva Observatory reported that the newest planet found is too close to its own sun to support life; however, previous studies have suggested that when one planet is found orbiting a star, there are usually others in the same system.

The planet in the Alpha Centauri system is Earth-sized, but far from Earthlike. It circles its parent star, Alpha Centauri B, in just 3.2 days, making it likely that the surface is molten with temperatures in excess of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Just finding a new planet so close to Earth, even one inhospitable to life, is a huge success for exoplanetology. It raises the possibility that smaller, more hospitable planets could be found in the same system.

The Alpha Centauri system is 4.3 light-years from Earth in the Centaurus constellation. There are two stars in the system; Alpha Centauri A is a yellow star, slightly larger and brighter than our Sun, and Alpha Centauri B is a red star, fainter than our Sun. The two circle around a common center of gravity, taking about 80 years to complete a circuit. There is a third star, Proxima, which is a very dim red dwarf star. Proxima is actually the closest known star to our Sun.

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New Planet Discoveries Reignite Search For Alien Life

The Board of Trustees of the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) has elected Professor Rafael Rodrigo from Spain to head the Institute as its Executive Director. Rafael Rodrigo will succeed Professor Roger-Maurice Bonnet, who will retire after 10 years of service on December 31, 2012. ISSI is an Advanced Study Institute that invites space scientists from all over the world with the intention to gain deeper insights from data collected by space probes.

Professor Rafael Rodrigo was born in Granada, Spain in 1953 and graduated in Mathematics and Ph. D. in Physics from the University of Granada. His scientific career began at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia, of which he was Director until 2004. Rafael Rodrigo served on a number of high-level international committees particularly for the European Space Agency, where his expertise in Planetology was appreciated. Besides, he has worked with a number of research Institutions in the USA, the UK, Russia, China, Germany, France, Holland and Switzerland. During the last four years he served as President of the Spanish National Research Council, the "Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas". Presently he is on a sabbatical mission in the Arecibo Radio Astronomy Observatory in the Universidad Metropolitana de Puerto Rico.

Rafael Rodrigo will be the third Executive Director of ISSI after Roger-Maurice Bonnet and the "Founding Father" Johannes Geiss. The Institute has continued its spectacular rise in prominence during the 10 years of leadership by Roger-Maurice Bonnet. The number of scientists that come to Bern for high-level scientific work has risen to close to 800 in the last year. Scientific Institutions of several countries have asked to join the ISSI network, among them the Academies of Russia and China. The European Space Agency (ESA), the Swiss Confederation, and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) provide the financial resources for ISSI's operation.

For the Board of Trustees Simon Aegerter

ISSI, October, 2012

Contact: Rudolf von Steiger International Space Science Institute ISSI Tel: + 41 31 631 48 90 Email: vsteiger@issibern.ch

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New Executive Director for ISSI, Bern, Switzerland

September 26, 2012

Image Caption: The shadowy outlines of the terrain in Vesta's northern region are visible in this image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft. The image comes from the last sequence of images Dawn obtained of the giant asteroid Vesta as it departed the giant asteroid. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

Astronomers suggest that water may have been delivered to Vesta through a build-up of small particles during an epoch when the Solar System was rich in dust.

The team presented their research at the European Planetary Science Congress in Madrid on Wednesday, offering up a radically different hypothesis from the way in which hydrous materials are deposited on other cosmic objects.

Using data from NASAs Dawn mission, the team found that Vestas surface shows distinct areas enriched with hydrated materials.

These regions are not dependent on solar illumination or temperature, as we find in the case of the Moon, De Sanctis, of the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Planetology in Rome, said in a press release. The uneven distribution is unexpected and indicates ancient processes that differ from those believed to be responsible for delivering water to other airless bodies, like the Moon.

The team studied data from Dawns visible and infrared (VIR) mapping spectrometer, showing large regional concentrations of hydroxyl clearly associated with geological features like ancient, highly-cratered terrains and the Oppia crater.

Hydroxyl on the surface of the Moon is thought to be created by the interaction of protons from the solar wind with the lunar regolith, or extraterrestrial soil.

Highest concentrations are found in areas near the lunar poles, and in permanently shadowed craters where it is cold.

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Water May Have Been Deposited On Vesta Asteroid Long Ago

ScienceDaily (Sep. 26, 2012) The mechanism by which water is incorporated into the terrestrial planets is a matter of extensive debate for planetary scientists. Now, observations of Vesta by NASA's Dawn mission suggest that hydrous materials were delivered to the giant asteroid mainly through a build-up of small particles during an epoch when the Solar System was rich in dust.

This is a radically different process from the way in which hydrous materials are deposited on the moon and may have implications for the formation of terrestrial planets, including the delivery of the water that forms Earth's oceans. Maria Cristina De Sanctis and the Dawn team will present the scenarios at the European Planetary Science Congress in Madrid on Sept. 26.

De Sanctis, of the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Planetology in Rome, said, "Vesta's surface shows distinct areas enriched with hydrated materials. These regions are not dependent on solar illumination or temperature, as we find in the case of the Moon. The uneven distribution is unexpected and indicates ancient processes that differ from those believed to be responsible for delivering water to other airless bodies, like the Moon."

A team led by De Sanctis studied data from Dawn's visible and infrared (VIR) mapping spectrometer. Analysis showed large regional concentrations of hydroxyl -- a hydrogen and an oxygen atom bound together -- clearly associated with geological features including ancient, highly-cratered terrains and the Oppia crater.

Hydroxyl on the surface of the Moon is thought to be created continuously by the interaction of protons from the solar wind with the lunar regolith. Highest concentrations are found in areas near the lunar poles and in permanently shadowed crater where it is very cold. By contrast, the distribution of hydroxyl on Vesta is not dependent on significant shadowing or unusual cold temperatures. It is also stable over time, so its origin does not appear to be due to short-term processes.

The hydroxyl-rich regions on Vesta broadly correspond to its oldest surfaces. Around relatively large and young impact craters, hydroxyl detections are weak or absent, suggesting that the delivery of hydroxyl is not an ongoing process.

The evidence from VIR suggests that much of Vesta's hydroxyl was delivered by small particles of primitive material, less than a few centimeters in diameter, over a time-limited period. This period may have occurred during the primordial solar system, around the time it is believed water was accreted on Earth, or during the Late Heavy Bombardment, when collisions would have produced a significant amount of primitive material dust.

However, this is not the whole story of hydrous materials on Vesta. The Oppia Crater is hydroxyl-rich, but not covered with the primitive material. This suggests that there is more than one mechanism at work for depositing hydroxyl on Vesta's surface.

De Sanctis said, "The origin of Vesta's hydroxyl is certainly complex and possibly not unique: there could be various sources, like formation of hydroxyl actually on Vesta, in addition to the primordial impactors. Vesta is providing new insights into the delivery of hydrous materials in the main asteroid belt, and may offer new scenarios on the delivery of hydrous minerals in the inner Solar System, suggesting processes that may have played a role in the formation of terrestrial planets."

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Dawn suggests special delivery of hydrated material to Vesta

Call it a blast from the past. Uncovered by Nazis in Tibet, an ancient Buddhist sculpture turns out to have been carved from a meteorite.

(Related pictures: "Three Thousand Ancient Buddhas Unearthed in China.")

Known as the "Iron Man," the 22-pound (10-kilogram) figure is likely a Buddhist god. Seated, he wears a large swastika on his midsectiona good-luck symbol in Buddhism.

In 1938 a team of Nazis traveling in Tibet came across the statue andpossibly intrigued by the familiar bent-armed crossbrought it back to Germany. There, the "Iron Man" remained in a private collection in Munich until 2007, when the statue became available for study.

Since then, Elmar Buchner of the Planetology Institute at Stuttgart University has been analyzing the Buddhist statue, which is thought to hail from 11th-century Tibet. Buchner says the statue was carved from a meteorite that landed somewhere between Mongolia and Siberia roughly 15,000 years ago.

Among the clues is the sculpture's telltale mineral content and structure, which give it away as a kind of meteorite called an ataxite. "It is rich in nickel, it is rich in cobalt. Less than 0.1 percent of all meteorites and less than 1 percent of iron meteorites are ataxites ... It is the rarest type of meteorite you can find," Buchner told the BBC.

No doubt the figure was dear to the artist who sculpted it, but what is it worth today? Its status as the only known human figure carved from a meteorite may give it a value of $20,000, according to Buchner. But, he said in a statement, "if our estimation of its age is correct and [the sculpting] is nearly a thousand years old, it could be invaluable."

More: "'Nazi Twins' a Myth: Mengele Not Behind Brazil Boom?" >>

The new study, "Buddha From Space," appears in the September issue of the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science.

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Swastika-Bearing Buddhist Statue Was Chiseled From a Meteorite

The mechanism by which water is incorporated into the terrestrial planets is a matter of extensive debate for planetary scientists. Now, observations of Vesta by NASA's Dawn mission suggest that hydrous materials were delivered to the giant asteroid mainly through a build-up of small particles during an epoch when the solar system was rich in dust. This is a radically different process from the way in which hydrous materials are deposited on the Moon and may have implications for the formation of terrestrial planets, including the delivery of the water that forms Earth's oceans. Maria Cristina De Sanctis and the Dawn team will present the scenarios at the European Planetary Science Congress in Madrid on Wednesday 26th September.

De Sanctis, of the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Planetology in Rome, said, "Vesta's surface shows distinct areas enriched with hydrated materials. These regions are not dependent on solar illumination or temperature, as we find in the case of the Moon. The uneven distribution is unexpected and indicates ancient processes that differ from those believed to be responsible for delivering water to other airless bodies, like the Moon."

A team led by De Sanctis studied data from Dawn's visible and infrared (VIR) mapping spectrometer. Analysis showed large regional concentrations of hydroxyl -- a hydrogen and an oxygen atom bound together -- clearly associated with geological features including ancient, highly-cratered terrains and the Oppia crater.

Hydroxyl on the surface of the Moon is thought to be created continuously by the interaction of protons from the solar wind with the lunar regolith. Highest concentrations are found in areas near the lunar poles and in permanently shadowed crater where it is very cold. By contrast, the distribution of hydroxyl on Vesta is not dependent on significant shadowing or unusual cold temperatures. It is also stable over time, so its origin does not appear to be due to short-term processes.

The hydroxyl-rich regions on Vesta broadly correspond to its oldest surfaces. Around relatively large and young impact craters, hydroxyl detections are weak or absent, suggesting that the delivery of hydroxyl is not an ongoing process.

The evidence from VIR suggests that much of Vesta's hydroxyl was delivered by small particles of primitive material, less than a few centimeters in diameter, over a time-limited period. This period may have occurred during the primordial solar system, around the time it is believed water was accreted on Earth, or during the Late Heavy Bombardment, when collisions would have produced a significant amount of primitive material dust.

However, this is not the whole story of hydrous materials on Vesta. The Oppia crater is hydroxyl-rich, but not covered with the primitive material. This suggests that there is more than one mechanism at work for depositing hydroxyl on Vesta's surface.

De Sanctis said, "The origin of Vesta's hydroxyl is certainly complex and possibly not unique: there could be various sources, like formation of hydroxyl actually on Vesta, in addition to the primordial impactors. Vesta is providing new insights into the delivery of hydrous materials in the main asteroid belt, and may offer new scenarios on the delivery of hydrous minerals in the inner solar system, suggesting processes that may have played a role in the formation of terrestrial planets."

Images

http://www.europlanet-eu.org/outreach/images/stories/epsc2012/vesta-hydratation-map1-ver2.jpg This map from NASA's Dawn mission of the giant asteroid Vesta indicates the presence of hydrated minerals in white. The data were obtained by VIR, Dawn's visible and infrared mapping spectrometer, in August 2011 from an altitude of 2700 meters. The data included in the map are from Survey and are limited to 30 degrees north latitude because of the poor illumination condition above that latitude (Vesta winter season). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/INAF

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Dawn Suggests Delivery of Hydrated Material to Vesta

More than 600 astronomers from all over the world will convene in Reno, Nevada, in mid-October for the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS). They'll share their latest discoveries about the solar system not only with each other, but also with the general public. At 7:30 p.m. PDT on Monday evening, October 15th, Dr. Patrick Michel will give a presentation entitled "The Fascinating Quest of Asteroids: Remnants of Planetary Formation." Dr. Michel, an asteroid expert at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, is the 2012 recipient of the DPS Carl Sagan Medal, which recognizes excellence in public communication by an active planetary scientist. He'll speak in the Grand Ballroom at the Grand Sierra Resort & Casino, 2500 E. Second St., Reno, NV 89595. Admission is free.

Dr. Michel began his advanced education with a degree in aeronautical engineering and space techniques in 1993, after which he moved to the study of asteroids. He received his PhD in 1997 for a thesis titled "Dynamical Evolution of Near-Earth Asteroids." He leads the planetology group at CNRS and is a participant in several international robotic space missions to asteroids, including Europe's MarcoPolo-R, Japan's Hayabusa 2, and NASA's OSIRIS-REx. In 2006 he received the Young Researcher Award from the French Society of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Scientific sessions at the DPS meeting are scheduled Monday, October 15, through Friday, October 19. The DPS offers complimentary press registration to bona fide working journalists and public-information officers, and news briefings will be held during the lunch break Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; please contact DPS Press Officer Dr. Vishnu Reddy (dpspress@aas.org) for details. More information about the DPS annual meeting: http://www.psi.edu/dps12

The American Astronomical Society (AAS), established in 1899 and based in Washington, DC, is the major organization of professional astronomers in North America. Its membership of about 7,000 also includes physicists, mathematicians, geologists, engineers, and others whose research interests lie within the broad spectrum of subjects now comprising contemporary astronomy. The mission of the AAS is to enhance and share humanity's scientific understanding of the universe.

The Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) is the largest organization of professional planetary scientists in the world. The DPS was formed in 1968 as a sub-organization within the AAS devoted to solar system and extrasolar planet research. Today it is the largest special interest division of the AAS.

SOURCE American Astronomical Society

CONTACT: Dr. Vishnu Reddy, DPS Press Officer, +49 555 697 9246, dpspress@aas.org; or Dr. Rick Fienberg, AAS Press Officer, +1-202-328-2010 x116, rick.fienberg@aas.org

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Asteroid Expert To Give Free Public Talk At Planetary Science Meeting In Reno

ScienceDaily (Sep. 26, 2012) An ancient Buddhist statue which was first recovered by a Nazi expedition in 1938 has been analyzed by a team of scientists led by Dr. Elmar Buchner from the Institute of Planetology, University of Stuttgart. The probably 1,000-year-old statue, called the "Iron Man," weighs 10 kilograms, portrays the Buddhist god Vaisravana and is believed to originate from the pre-Buddhist Bon culture of the 11th Century. Geochemical analyses by the German-Austrian research team revealed that the priceless statue was carved from an ataxite, a very rare class of iron meteorites.

It sounds like an artifact from an Indiana Jones film: a 1,000-year-old ancient Buddhist statue which was first recovered by a Nazi expedition in 1938 has been analyzed by scientists and has been found to be carved from a meteorite. The findings, published in Meteoritics and Planetary Science, reveal the priceless statue to be a rare ataxite class of meteorite.

The statue, known as the Iron Man, weighs 10kg and is believed to represent a stylistic hybrid between the Buddhist and pre-Buddhist Bon culture that portrays the god Vaisravana, the Buddhist King of the North, also known as Jambhala in Tibet.

The statue was discovered in 1938 by an expedition of German scientists led by renowned zoologist Ernst Schfer. It is unknown how the statue was discovered, but it is believed that the large swastika carved into the centre of the figure may have encouraged the team to take it back to Germany. Once it arrived in Munich it became part of a private collection and only became available for study following an auction in 2009.

The first team to study the origins of the statue was led by Dr Elmar Buchner from Stuttgart University. The team was able to classify it as an ataxite, a rare class of iron meteorite with high contents of nickel.

"The statue was chiseled from an iron meteorite, from a fragment of the Chinga meteorite which crashed into the border areas between Mongolia and Siberia about 15.000 years ago. "While the first debris was officially discovered in 1913 by gold prospectors, we believe that this individual meteorite fragment was collected many centuries before," said Dr Buchner.

Meteorites inspired worship from many ancient cultures ranging from the Inuit's of Greenland to the aborigines of Australia. Even today one of the most famous worship sites in the world, Mecca in Saudi Arabia, is based upon the Black Stone, believed to be a stony meteorite. Dr Buchner's team believe the Iron Man originated from the Bon culture of the 11th Century"The Iron Man statue is the only known illustration of a human figure to be carved into a meteorite, which means we have nothing to compare it to when assessing value," said Dr Buchner. "Its origins alone may value it at $20,000; however, if our estimation of its age is correct and it is nearly a thousand years old it could be invaluable."

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Ancient Buddhist statue made of meteorite, new study reveals

Buddhist Statue Made of Meteorite, New Study Reveals

An ancient Buddhist statue which was first recovered by a Nazi expedition in 1938 has been analysed by a scientist team led by Dr. Elmar Buchner from the Institute of Planetology, University of Stuttgart. The probably 1000 years old statue, called the Iron Man, weighs 10kg, portrays the Buddhist god Vaisravana and is believed to originate from the pre-Buddhist Bon culture of the 11th Century. Geochemical analyses by the German-Austrian scientist team revealed that the priceless statue was carved from an ataxite, a very rare class of iron meteorites.

It sounds like an artifact from an Indiana Jones film; a 1000 year-old ancient Buddhist statue which was first recovered by a Nazi expedition in 1938 has been analysed by scientists and has been found to be carved from a meteorite. The findings, published in Meteoritics and Planetary Science, reveal the priceless statue to be a rare ataxite class of meteorite.

The statue, known as the Iron Man, weighs 10kg and is believed to represent a stylistic hybrid between the Buddhist and pre-Buddhist Bon culture that portrays the god Vaisravana, the Buddhist King of the North, also known as Jambhala in Tibet.

The statue was discovered in 1938 by an expedition of German scientists led by renowned zoologist Ernst Schfer. It is unknown how the statue was discovered, but it is believed that the large swastika carved into the centre of the figure may have encouraged the team to take it back to Germany. Once it arrived in Munich it became part of a private collection and only became available for study following an auction in 2009.

The first team to study the origins of the statue was led by Dr Elmar Buchner from Stuttgart University. The team was able to classify it as an ataxite, a rare class of iron meteorite with high contents of nickel.

The statue was chiseled from an iron meteorite, from a fragment of the Chinga meteorite which crashed into the border areas between Mongolia and Siberia about 15.000 years ago. While the first debris was officially discovered in 1913 by gold prospectors, we believe that this individual meteorite fragment was collected many centuries before, said Dr Buchner.

Meteorites inspired worship from many ancient cultures ranging from the Inuits of Greenland to the aborigines of Australia. Even today one of the most famous worship sites in the world, Mecca in Saudi Arabia, is based upon the Black Stone, believed to be a stony meteorite. Dr Buchners team believe the Iron Man originated from the Bon culture of the 11th CenturyThe Iron Man statue is the only known illustration of a human figure to be carved into a meteorite, which means we have nothing to compare it to when assessing value, said Dr Buchner. Its origins alone may value it at $20,000; however, if our estimation of its age is correct and it is nearly a thousand years old it could be invaluable

Paper URL:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1945-5100.2012.01409.x/abstract

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Buddhist Statue Made of Meteorite, New Study Reveals

21-06-2012 14:46 Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) at the University of Hawaii School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).

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Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) at UH SOEST - Video

05-06-2012 08:04 Now Playing- DJ WATAKEN DJ TAYAMA Presents PLANETOLOGY "THE FINAL"

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PLANETOLOGY "THE FINAL"- DJ WATAKEN - Video

In the early morning of Oct. 8, 2007, a small group of British Greenpeace activists slipped inside a hulking smokestack that towers more than 600 feet above a coal-fired power plant in Kent, England. While other activists cut electricity on the plants grounds, they prepared to climb the interior of the structure to its top, rappel down its outside, and paint in block letters a demand that Prime Minister Gordon Brown put an end to plants like the Kingsnorth facility, which releases nearly 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each day.

The activists, most of them in their 30s and 40s, expected the climb to the top of the smokestack would take less than three hours. Instead, scaling a narrow metal ladder inside took nine. It was the most physically exhausting thing I have ever done, 35-year-old Ben Stewart said later. It was like climbing through a huge radiator the hottest, dirtiest place you could imagine.

In the end, the fatigued, soot-covered climbers were only able to paint the word Gordon on the chimney before, facing dizzying heights, police helicopters, and a high court injunction, they were compelled to abandon the attempt and submit to arrest. They could hardly have known then that their botched attempt at signage would help transform British debate about fossil-fuel power plants and that it would send tremors through an emerging global movement determined to use direct action to combat the depredations of climate change.

The case took on historic weight only after the Kingsnorth Six went to court, where they presented to a jury what is known in the United States as a necessity defense. This defense applies to situations in which a person violates a law to prevent a greater, imminent harm from occurring: for example, when someone breaks down a door to put out a fire in a burning building.

In the Kingsnorth case, world-renowned climate scientist James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, flew to England to testify. According to the Guardian, he presented evidence that the Kingsnorth plant alone could be expected to cause sufficient global warming to prompt the extinction of 400 species over its lifetime. Citing a British government study showing that each ton of released carbon dioxide incurs $85 in future climate-change costs, the activists contended that shutting the plant down for the day had prevented $1.6 million in damages a far greater harm to society than any rendered by their paint and that their transgressions should therefore be excused.

What surprised both Greenpeace and the prosecution was that 12 ordinary Britons agreed. The jury returned with an acquittal, and the freed defendants made the front pages of newspapers throughout the country. The tumult also produced political results. In April, British energy and climate change minister Ed Miliband announced a reversal in governmental policy on power stations, declaring, The era of new unabated coal has come to an end. Discussing Kingsnorth, Daniel Mittler, a longtime environmental activist in Germany, told me recently, it was probably one of the most impactful civil disobedience cases the world has ever seen, because it was the right action at the right time.

If not now

The idea that now is the right time for more resolute action to address the climate crisis is spreading fast enough to dot the global map with hot spots of disobedience. As it turns out, the Kingsnorth Six are part of a rapidly growing population. Joining them are the Dominion 11, arrested after forming a human blockade to stop the construction of a coal plant in Wise County, Va., in November 2008, and the Drax 29, who went on trial this summer for boarding and stopping a train delivering coal to a power plant in North Yorkshire, England, last year.

In fact, arrests are piling up quicker than journalists can coin name-and-number nicknames. The Coal Swarm Web site keeps track of an ever-lengthening list of protests. New headlines now appear weekly:

Activists scale 20-story dragline at mountaintop removal site in Twilight, WV

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Preparing for the big one

07-07-2010 15:35

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Comparative Planetology - Video

19-01-2011 13:27 I just got new graphics card so decided to check Eve in highest graphics details possible. If not frapsing i get 60 FPS (limited by monitor refresh rate). Details on some ships are really insane. Like on Noctis - bridge. Best ship so far a saw in space you can check at 19:00 Enjoy 🙂

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Eve Online › Observing ships in Jita 4-4 (max graphics details) - Video

27-03-2012 07:41 DJ TAYAMA Presents "Marvelous"

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Marvelous - Video

13-04-2012 12:17 A view of the extraordinary features related to water signatures observed on the surface of Mars by orbiting spacecrafts.

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Waves Ripples Dunes - Mars - Video

Welcome to the next installment in our blog series highlighting the companies in SoftLayer’s new Technology Partners Marketplace. These Partners have built their businesses on the SoftLayer Platform, and we’re excited for them to tell their stories. New Partners will be added to the Marketplace each month, so stay tuned for many more come.
- Paul Ford, SoftLayer VP of Community Development

Scroll down to read a guest blog from Server Origin’s Kevin Hatfield about ethProxy. ethProxy is perfect for any company that wishes to secure its web presence against DDoS attacks and intrusion-based hacking attempts. Its filtering was built to provide enterprise-grade technology and uptime while still remaining below the cost of the competition.

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Company Website: http://www.serverorigin.com/
Tech Partner Marketplace: http://www.softlayer.com/marketplace/ethproxy

DDoS Protection: Do you need it?

In the last couple of years, you’ve probably seen a references to denial-of-service attacks in the news and how the fallout from those attacks can leave businesses ‘picking up pieces’ for weeks or months after the they occur. Think about the helplessness you’d feel if the business you poured your heart and soul into is shut down by some malicious person or group’s attack on your web presence. Worse yet, those attacks are usually for that person’s or group’s own monetary gain or to satisfy some ego-driven urge to punish you for being successful in either your business or a cause you believe in.

It happens all too often, and most people don’t realize that it can actually happen to them. On a weekly basis, I speak to at least one person that tells me, “We’re small, and we really don’t have any competitors … Our website is down. If we can’t stop this attack, I am going to have to send all of my employees home and close down!”

The truth is that denial-of-service protection providers normally sell “fear.” They do this because people don’t have answers to a few key questions about DDoS protection:

• What are the real statistics?
• What is the probability that my website will be hit with an attack?
• What is the real cost of impact?
• What about my data center? I’m sure they already have protection, right?
• We’ve never been hit before, so why should we consider it a priority?

Many of the causes for hesitation regarding the purchase of denial-of-service protection revolve around the lack of education and valid, statistical data. Most know about Distributed-Denial-of-Service (DDoS), but the details are hard to come by. Most people don’t have experience with attacks, so many assume it’s only the big companies or governments that need to worry.

The untold truth is that DDoS attacks occur on a daily basis, and as many as 2500 attacks occur every 24-hour period throughout the world. In the first 6 months of 2011, ServerOrigin saw 2.3 times the number of attacks we observed and mitigated over the course of the 2010 calendar year.

Let’s say you’re considering protection, and you want to ensure that you remain in control and your business continues operating even if you’re the target of extortion or a collective political or religious movement … and that’s assuming there is a reason behind the attack. Over 86% of attacks occur with no explanation! Considering that statistical tidbit, maybe fear isn’t just a manufactured, marketing gimmick to get you buying.

One of the biggest roadblocks in proactive DDoS mitigation in the past has been cost. The average cost for 12 months of a DDoS mitigation appliance or service to protect 1000Mbps is $78,942.00 – just for the equipment/service. Then you have to factor in the variable cost of the bandwidth USED during an attack.

Server Origin created ethProxy as a service that overlays your current server platform at an affordable price point. SoftLayer provides one of the best dedicated hosting environments, and we’ve built our reputation on DDoS protection, not hosting, so we bring our service to you.

How do I get protected? How time consuming is this process?
Contrary to the belief that DDoS mitigation is some mystical technology that is painful to implement, our ethProxy mitigation service works on the same premise as a Global Load Balancer or reverse-proxy. Setup is as simple as changing your website’s DNS record to a protected IP in our ethProxy filtering cloud, and once that is done, inbound connections are filtered so only clean traffic is sent to your web server. Transition to the ethProxy service is transparent for the end-user and requires no downtime to implement.

The average deployment time is less than 1-hour and the ethProxy protected IP becomes your public interface to the world. Not only does our service pass rigorous PCI certifications, it guarantees your hosted infrastructure is no longer vulnerable to attack, it allows for upgrading your bandwidth/protection in seconds, and it removes the need for additional web application firewalls or accelerators. On average, customers save around 71% by going with ethProxy when they compare us against the cost of traditional filtering methods.

Our ethProxy service is the combination of many different features or services that you may already pay for separately. This allows businesses to transition to our protection service by replacing one of their current providers which would be prove redundant with the ethProxy subscription. Why go through a budgeting process again when you can simply use a different provider that offers you DDoS protection in addition to the service you’re already paying for?

Included in Every ethProxy DDoS Mitigation Package

• Global Load Balancing
• DDoS Protected AnyCast DNS Services
• Multiple US locations / Complete Datacenter Redundancy
• Instant Scalability – Powered by ServerOrigin’s Cloud Network
• Global Content Delivery Network (CDN)

The options and overall value of these services provide protection that no website should be without, while saving you a ton of money … Especially when you consider that running all of these services separately could cost as much as $10,000/mo.

ServerOrigin Communications services more than 1,200,000 million domains worldwide. Our ethProxy service is the single largest globally deployed mitigation service worldwide, and we protect everyone from non-profit organizations to entire governments and some of Wall Street’s largest online providers (No, we’re not allowed to tell you which ones).

Let us show you why our expertise has saved hundreds of businesses and how we can ensure you never have to ‘pick up the pieces.’

- Kevin Hatfield, ServerOrigin Communications

Growing up, one of my heroes was Mohammad Ali. While I admired his athletic ability, with my scrappy build I was never going to be a boxer. What I liked the most about Ali was that he said whatever he wanted and backed up his words with action. That is what distinguished Ali from the others.

I’m sure you’ve been to job fairs and read companies’ websites where they talk about how their company encourages teamwork, employee empowerment and innovation … It’s usually right next to a picture of someone skydiving or kite boarding, right? Well I’ve been with SoftLayer for about a month now, and as you saw from my 3 Bars 3 Questions interview, I spent my first two weeks on the job in Dallas.

I can tell you without hesitation (and with no need for a kite boarding picture) that when you walk around the office in Dallas, you can feel a buzz in the hallways … An energy that only comes from from people who are passionate and work well together. When I made the trek back to Amsterdam, I knew the environment and culture our team in Europe would need to foster to earn our three bars.

Last week, we had our first Truck Day in the new Amsterdam data center, and it was a perfect opportunity to show off the SoftLayer spirit and work ethic to our newest AMS01 SLayers with the help of the Go Live Crew:

As soon as two large truckloads of servers were delivered, the team jumped into action. We unpacked, sorted, scanned and racked the servers in record time, and it was actually a lot fun. When I walked into the data center the next day, it felt like Christmas: new toys, flashing lights and Barbara Striesand.

It’s safe to say that SoftLayer is the Mohammed Ali of hosting. We make bold statements and can back up them up!

If you’re interested in joining the SoftLayer team in Amsterdam, we’re hiring for several different positions right now, and we’d love to have you join us. When talking to prospective employees in interviews, I always tell the SoftLayer story with Ali-like pride, and moving forward, Truck Day is going to be a perfect example to share. Where else are you going to find a company culture where everyone in the company (even the CEO) celebrates the company’s continued growth by helping to unpack and sort hardware?

Based on the conversations I’ve had since Truck Day, I can tell if they are right for the team simply by their reaction to that story. If you’re ready to roll up your sleeves to help out your teammates and have fun doing it, call me.

-@jpwisler

At conferences and tradeshows, I have the opportunity to meet hundreds of people. While a good number of attendees at technical conferences will come up to our booth and tell me they’re already customers, we still come across a few people who glance at our collateral and our graphics with a puzzled look on their face before they say, “What’s Soft … Layer?” This is where I spring into action!

To give some context, I’ll usually explain, “SoftLayer is an on-demand data center provider. We host dedicated servers, cloud computing instances and integrated solutions for customers around the world.” When that overview sinks in and the attendee understands that we are an infrastructure provider, I get to share some of SoftLayer’s biggest differentiators along with some pretty amazing statistics about our business. With a huge sample pool of conversations to pull from, I thought it would be fun to put together a “Top 10″ list of the facts that usually impress attendees the most.

The Top 10 SoftLayer Facts

Based on “oohs” and “ahhs” from attendees

1. No Hidden Fees: Our pricing is listed on our website and is straight-forward.
2. Huge Product Catalog: SoftLayer offers load balancers, CDN, firewalls, managed services, and storage. If you need something we don’t offer, we can usually find a way to make it work.
3. No Long-Term Contracts: Dedicated servers are offered on a month-to-month basis, and cloud instances are available on a monthly or hourly basis. We have to earn your business every month.
4. Built By Geeks For Geeks: We offer a fully programmable API that gives you complete control of your server(s) from your own application or system.
5. Free Private Network Traffic: Every SoftLayer facility is interconnected via our private network. All private network traffic and inbound public network traffic is provided at no charge – We only charge for outbound public network traffic.

The Top 5 are facts that almost always amaze:

1. Global Network: We have 13 data centers in Dallas, Houston, Seattle, San Jose, Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, and Singapore. We also operate 16 additional network Points of Presence (PoPs) around the world.
2. Our Business is Strong: SoftLayer has 24,000+ customers in more than 150 countries. We manage more than 100,000 active servers, hosting more than 20 million domains. Oh, and we’re doing about $350 million in annual revenue.
3. Infrastructure On-Demand: Our dedicated servers can be deployed in less than four hours, and cloud instances can be provisioned in less than 15 minutes.
4. Everything Works Together: Our dedicated servers and cloud instances are fully integrated. You can have a dedicated server in Seattle and a cloud instance in Singapore, and they’re both managed by a single industry-leading portal. The fact that they can communicate with each other over SoftLayer’s private network is a huge plus there as well.

And the simple fact that impresses people most: *drum roll*

1. SoftLayer is the largest privately held hosting provider in the world!

Every time I shock attendees with these facts, I can’t help but be even more proud of our accomplishments. Let’s keep up the good work! We’re taking over the world, one data center at a time.”

-Natalie