Ankh's Mostly Science Stuff

It is hard to believe that in less than 90 days Katy and I will be married. Time has gone by so fast since we were officially engaged last May and we seem to be finding new things that need to be done before the big day. It is also even harder to believe that we close on our house a little over a week after we get married and then have to move in (and, of course, get lots of new furniture). Luckily we are not taking our honeymoon right after the wedding, but are waiting for a few months and then taking off for 2 weeks.

Life without hockey has been pretty interesting. It seems that we sit around and play a lot of DOA 3 or Mortal Kombat: Deceptions or watch some Tenchi Muyo! as there is never anything good on tv. Luckily my cousin plays for a local high school team and we at least get our hockey fix this way. Next game is this Friday night at 10pm against last years champions. This should be a true test to see how good the team is.

The house is coming along nicely and looks to be done before the closing date in May. Unfortunately, we will not be able to close on it early due to the wedding being shortly before our actual closing date. When we went to visit it over the weekend of Jan 15th, they were putting up the molding and the doors. The outside looks completely done except for the back patio, finishing the exterior painting, and the landscaping.

Now for some news about the cats. Both Kara and Loki are doing great, and are as content as ever. Kara is back to sleeping on my pillow at night and she still drools. She is sleeping a bit more now than when she was a kitten, but that is expected out of my 9 year old girlie. This April will also coincide with the 9th anniversary of when I adopted her. Loki can be described as a changed cat. He has gone from a scared cat to one who just can't get enough attention. In the past two months he has been caught sitting in my lap (the biggest shocker) and has been known to let Katy pick him up and love on him (his fear of women seems to have gone away since we have moved). I have also heard rumors of Loki coming and visiting Katy for some ear scritches after I leave for work in the morning.

Life is pretty good.

//ankh

The Hubble Space Telescope is about to have its death warrant signed, according to US government sources.

Officials revealed on Friday 21 January that NASA's budget for 2006 contains no cash to save the ageing telescope. Instead, it earmarks funds to decommission the instrument. President George W. Bush will present the budget proposal on 7 February, and the US Congress will then consider it.

The telescope could yet win a reprieve. Congress could insist on boosting NASA's budget to include the costs of a servicing mission, as they did last year. And NASA has enough flexibility in how it spends its US$16.2 billion budget for 2005 to devote some resources to a rescue mission.

"I led the fight to add $300 million to NASA's budget last year for a Hubble servicing mission, and I plan to lead the fight again this year," says senator Barbara Mikulski (Democrat, Maryland).

Don't forget to contact your congressmen/women to try and fight to get the Hubble saved. There is plenty of life left in the Hubble, and there are countless finds that are waiting to be discovered with it.

From Nature.

Growth of the new lava dome inside the crater of Mount St. Helens has gradually slowed since the mountain reawakened in October, scientists said Tuesday.

Molten rock has been oozing out from the surface of the volcano's crater since the fall, building a new lava dome that now has a total volume of 44 million cubic yards. That is big enough to contain 134 buildings the size of the basketball arena where the Portland Trailblazers play.

I was hoping that Katy and myself would be able to make a trek up to see Mt. St. Helens while it was still undergoing dome building, but with the process slowing down, it might not be possible until it comes to life again in the next few years.

Also, another great story regarding dome building of Mt. St. Helens can be found at The Seattle Times.

From Yahoo - Science AP.

NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover has completed its inspection of “Heat Shield Rock” -- an iron meteorite the robot came across at Meridiani Planum, a cratered flatland that the machine has called home since landing on the red planet over a year ago.

The pitted, basketball-size meteorite is mostly made of iron and nickel, as detected by the rover’s set of onboard spectrometers -- devices that map the presence of different elements on the surface of Mars.

Meteors, often called “shooting stars” have been seen blazing through the Martian sky by both Opportunity and its sister ship, Spirit, now rolling through the Columbia Hills at Gusev Crater.

But finding the meteorite was a surprise to scientists running the dual Mars Exploration Rover effort. The researchers now wonder just how prolific meteorites might be, perhaps sitting there strewn across the expanse of Meridiani Planum.

I think the most curious part of this find is that there is no crater, meaning the meteorite must have been buried in the past and has come up to the surface through weathering. Also, the lack of visible oxidation for the iron-nickel meteorite lends us to believe it came crashing down during a time when water was not on the surface of the planet.

From Space.com.

NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover has come across an interesting object -- perhaps a meteorite sitting out in the open at Meridiani Planum. Initial data taken by the robot’s Mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES) is suggestive that the odd-looking “rock” is made of metal.

The curious-looking object stands out in the parking-lot like landscape of Meridiani Planum.

“We're curious about it too. We have Mini-TES data on it now, and they suggest that it may actually be made of metal,” said Steve Squyres, lead scientist on the Mars Exploration Rover mission from Cornell University.

If we are going to be sending a mission to Mars that is going to land, collect samples, and then bring them back to Earth, I would have to put this rock in the category of very desirable to bring back. Sure it would not tell us anything about the composition of Mars, but it allow us to take a look at what happens when (possible) meteorites land on other planets.

From Space.com.

An astonishing new fossil unearthed in China has overturned the accepted view about the relationship between dinosaurs and early mammals.

The specimen belongs to a primitive mammal about 130 million years old and its stomach contents show that it ate young dinosaurs called psittacosaurs.

A US-Chinese team of researchers has described the find in Nature magazine.

This is a great discovery to show that mammals were not dominated by the dinosaurs, but actually could have competed against them for some food sources.

From BBC Online.

You can follow all of the up-to-date information on the landing and data transmissions from the Huygens probe from Spaceflightnow.

Also, here is a story from the BBC regarding the probes landing.

Be sure not to miss the NOVA special on the discoveries of the past year from Mars tonight on PBS.

That is all.