MarkChristopher's Blog

Most of us have heard about the recent race for development on the Moon by various countries, such as Russia, China and of course the United States of America.

These countries plan to develop a station on the Moon in the near future to be occupied by man for different reasons such as further research of the Moon and eventually mining purposes among other plans even as far as possible commercialization!

I am sure NASA knows what they are getting into, and I think it may be a good idea as long as we are careful in what we do, and also that all the countries/ space programs involved keep in communication of their activities which I am sure will happen.

I do have a concern, and that would be the weather on the Moon. First you have very drastic temperature changes, zero gravity, you have rocks/ meteors constantly falling from the sky whether they are large, are even the size of a pellet as the Moon has no atmosphere so nothing burns up as it approaches the Moons surface and these falling rocks can damage the astronaut suits or even kill them without any notice and damage equipment and the "station", then you also have to be concerned about the "Moon Dust" on the surface which can be sandy or rocky and the finer particles are mostly glassy sharp grains and can be very dangerous whether it's tearing the space suit, damaging the equipment, or also can be deadly if the astronaut breaths these grains of sand / dust particals into their lungs. Who knows what other obstacles they may run into as well.

What do you think about us planning to build a permanent base on the Moon?? Is it worth all the money we are going to end up putting into it over the years, and what do you think we will get out of it if anything??

Also do you think given the extreme weather conditions on the Moon is it worth risking the astronauts and our very pricey equipment??

It's a interesting thought thinking of man living on the moon, however I am not so sure it's going to be such a good idea... and seems like it's going to be very expensive given the conditions they will have to deal with on the Moon.

I guess it's worth a try?? What is your opinion and thoughts?

(Oct. 3) - Astronomers have spotted evidence of a second Earth being built around a distant star 424 light-years away.

Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have spotted a huge belt of warm dust swirling around a young star called HD 113766 that is just slightly larger than our sun. The dust belt, which scientists suspect is clumping together to form planets, is located in the middle of the star system's terrestrial habitable zone where temperatures are moderate enough to sustain liquid water. Scientists estimate there is enough material in the belt to form a Mars-sized world or larger.

At approximately 10 million years old, the star is just the right age for forming rocky planets, the researchers say. Their finding will be detailed in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal.

"The timing for this system to be building an Earth is very good," said study team member Carey Lisse of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Baltimore, Md.

If the star system were too young, the planet-forming disk would be full of gas, and it would be making gas-giant planets like Jupiter instead. If it were too old, Spitzer would have spotted rocky planets that had long ago formed.
The star system also has the right mix of dusty materials in its disk to form an Earth-like planet, Lisse said.

Using Spitzer's infrared spectrometer instrument, the team determined that the material around HD 113766 is more processed than the snowball-like stuff that makes up infant solar systems and comets, which are considered cosmic "refrigerators" because they contain pristine ingredients from the solar system's formative period. But it is also not as processed as the stuff found in mature planets and asteroids.

"The material mix in this belt is most reminiscent of the stuff found in lava flows on Earth," Lisse said. "I thought of Mauna Kea [in Hawaii] material when I first saw the dust composition in this system – it contains raw rock and it's abundant in iron sulfides, which are similar to fool's gold."

Earlier this year, scientists announced they had found evidence for one, and possibly two, already formed Earth-like planets around Gliese 581, a dim red star located only 20.5 light-years away. The possible planets, called Gliese 581c and Gliese 581d, are located at about the right distance from their star to support liquid water and life as we know it, but many more observations are needed to confirm this.

To date, planet hunters have discovered more than 250 extrasolar planets, or "exoplanets." Most of the distant worlds, however, are giant gas planets several times the size of Jupiter.

While life is known to exist only on our planet, the range of exoplanet types found so far has astronomers increasingly confident that many worlds in our galaxy could be habitable. Finding Earth-like worlds in habitable zones is a first step toward the technically challenging task of discovering biology outside our solar system.

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We are just now finding planet's like Earth, I can only imagine what we may find in the near future with how fast our technology is growing!!!

The hurricanes that haved formed so far this year seem to have formed very quickly!

From what I understand Humberto formed into a Hurricane from a Tropical Depression in only 14 hours!! That seems extra fast for development!

Also, Dean and Felix (the two major Hurricanes that recently hit Mexico) seemed like they had formed into a Hurricane very quickly.

Do you think that this is normal, or not? I do not remember hurricanes forming so fast, and do you think that in the near future they will only take less time to become a Hurricane?

I would imagine this would have something to do with the warmer ocean temperature.

Drought, a fixture in much of the West for nearly a decade, now covers more than one-third of the continental USA. And it's spreading.

As summer starts, half the nation is either abnormally dry or in outright drought from prolonged lack of rain that could lead to water shortages, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly index of conditions. Welcome rainfall last weekend from Tropical Storm Barry brought short-term relief to parts of the fire-scorched Southeast. But up to 50 inches of rain is needed to end the drought there, and this is the driest spring in the Southeast since record-keeping began in 1895, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

Coast to coast, the drought's effects are as varied as the landscapes:

In central California, ranchers are selling cattle or trucking them out of state as grazing grass dries up. In Southern California's Antelope Valley, rainfall at just 15% of normal erased the spring bloom of California poppies.

In South Florida, lake Okeechobee, America's second-largest body of fresh water, fell last week to a record low — an average 8.89 feet above sea level. So much lake bed is dry that 12,000 acres of it caught fire last month. Saltwater intrusion threatens to contaminate municipal wells for Atlantic coastal towns as fresh groundwater levels drop.

In Alabama, shallow ponds on commercial catfish farms are dwindling, and more than half the corn and wheat crops are in poor condition.

Dry episodes have become so persistent in the West that some scientists and water managers say drought is the "new normal" there. Reinforcing that notion are global-warming projections warning of more and deeper dry spells in the Southwest, although a report in last week's Science magazine challenges the climate models and suggests there will be more rainfall worldwide later this century.

"It seems extremely likely that drought will become more the norm" for the West, says Kathy Jacobs of the Arizona Water Institute, a research partnership of the state's three universities. "Droughts will continue to come and go, but … higher temperatures are going to produce more water stress." That's because warmer temperatures in the Southwest boosts demands for water and cause more to evaporate from lakes and reservoirs.

"The only good news about drought is it forces us to pay attention to water management," says Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute, a think tank in Oakland that stresses efficient water use.

This drought has been particularly harsh in three regions: the Southwest, the Southeast and northern Minnesota.

Severe dryness across California and Arizona has spread into 11 other Western states. On the Colorado River, the water supply for 30 million people in seven states and Mexico, the Lake Powell and Lake Mead reservoirs are only half full and unlikely to recover for years. In Los Angeles County, on track for a record dry year with 21% of normal rain downtown since last summer, fire officials are threatening to cancel Fourth of July fireworks if conditions worsen. On Wednesday, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa urged residents to voluntarily cut water use 10%, the city's first such call since the 1990s.

In Minnesota, which is in its worst drought since 1976, the situation is improving slowly, although a wildfire last month burned dozens of houses and 115 square miles in the northeastern part of the state.

The Southeast, unaccustomed to prolonged dry spells, may be suffering the most. In eight states from Mississippi to the Carolinas and down through Florida, lakes are shrinking, crops are withering, well levels are falling and there are new limits on water use. "We need 40-50 inches of rainfall to get out of the drought," says Carol Ann Wehle of the South Florida Water Management District.

Despite a recent storm, water hasn't flowed in Florida's Kissimmee River, which feeds Lake Okeechobee, in 212 days. The district has imposed its strictest water-use limits ever in 13 counties, cutting home watering to once a week and commercial use by 45%.

The drought also has provided an occasional benefit: Okeechobee's record low level allowed crews to clean out decades of muck and debris.

And some stricken areas are recovering. Texas and Oklahoma, charred by wildfires in the dry winter of 2005-06, are drought-free.

Even in California, where winter snowpack in the Sierra Nevada range was only 27% of normal this year, plentiful runoff from last year's snows filled many reservoirs, so shortages are unlikely this year. But another dry winter would tax supplies.

Gleick says water managers are not reacting forcefully enough to the drought: "The time to tell people that we're in the middle of a drought and to institute strong conservation programs is today, not a year from now." The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is doing that. Last month, it began a "Let's Save" radio campaign.

After nearly a decade of drought in parts of the West, the nation's fastest-growing region wrestles with rising water demands and declining supply.

Donald Wilhite of the National Drought Mitigation Center says the Southwest and Southeast are "becoming gradually more vulnerable to drought" because the rising population will need more water. "We think of water as an unlimited resource," he says. "But what happens when you turn on the tap and it's not there?"

What do you think about all this, and do you think we will be able to act fast enough? Even though scientist have shown the world proof this is real, and only recently has the world become more concerned it still seems to me like a large percent of Americans are not doing anything. We all know global warming is causing this, and whether you think it's from human activities or not, the fact is it's happening and we as people need to change our life style and become more conservative and use natural resources.

At the G8 last week President Bush did not anounce a clear plan for the United States and global warming.  President Bush thinks we have higher priorities, such as the war in the Middle East. In my opinion it should be on the top of our list, as we are running out of time and the United States is the "super power" country and also the largest polluter and we need to set an example for the rest of the world. The changing climate is our biggest threat, far greater than "terrorist".

Seems like the weather has been off to a crazy start this year!

If you are up-to-date with the weather news it has been very active so far this year... between the tornados at home, and elsewhere, the major flooding in the middle of the country, the wildfires in Florida, and in California, and even the temps seem to be different than normal.

Today we have our first named storm, Andrea which is known as a sub-tropical storm, and we are three weeks away from the offical start of hurricane season!

What do you think about how the weather has been so far this year???

Seems like we are in a pretty bad cycle at this point, and who knows what's to come the rest of this year!!!