On September 2nd, 1859, an astounding solar storm of charged particles sent by the sun slammed into Earth's atmosphere. It was well overpowered, and caused a bunch of havoc on the ground. Telegraph wires, and some of the other technologies of that time, suddenly shorted out in the United States and Europe. It also ignited widespread fires causing damage. Colorful aurora, normally visible only in polar regions, were seen as far south as Cuba and Hawaii.
Earth's magnetic field normally protects the surface of the planet from some storms. In 1859, the planet's defenses were totally overwhelmed. Over the past decade, similar but less powerful storms have likewise busted through, giving scientists insight into what will eventually happen again.
At least 44 people were killed and dozens were missing after a strong earthquake rocked southern Indonesia, unleashing mudslides that buried villagers in their homes, disaster management officials said Thursday.
At least 110 people were hospitalized after the 7.0 magnitude quake just off the coast of the densely populated Java island, Disaster Management Agency spokesman Priyadi Kardono said, adding that 10 of them were in critical condition.
The Wednesday afternoon temblor caused heavy damage across West Java province, where 700 buildings were severely damaged or toppled. Most of the deaths and injuries were caused by falling debris or collapsed walls and rooftops.
The vast Andromeda galaxy appears to have expanded by digesting stars from other galaxies, research has shown. When an international team of scientists mapped Andromeda, they discovered stars that they said were "remnants of dwarf galaxies". The astronomers report their findings in the journal Nature.
This consumption of stars has been suggested previously, but the team's ultra-deep survey has provided detailed images to show that it took place.
This shows the "hierarchical model" of galaxy formation in action. The model predicts that large galaxies should be surrounded by relics of smaller galaxies they have consumed.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon visited Wednesday a vault carved into the Arctic permafrost, filled with samples of the world's most important seeds in case food crops are wiped out by a catastrophe.
"The world faces many daunting challenges today, one of the greatest of which is how to feed a growing population in the context of climate change," a bundled-up Ban told reporters after he toured the site in the Svalbard archipelago some 1,200 kilometres (745 miles) from the North Pole.
"The seeds stored here in Svalbard will help us do just that. Sustainable food production may not begin in this cold Arctic environment, but it does begin by conserving crop diversity," he said.
As scientists try to learn more about how galaxies evolve, an open question has been whether collisions with our dwarf galactic neighbors will one day tear apart the disk of the Milky Way.
That fate is unlikely, a new study now suggests.
While astronomers know that such collisions have probably occurred in the past, the new computer simulations show that instead of destroying a galaxy, these collisions “puff up” a galactic disk, particularly around the edges, and produce structures called stellar rings.
The finding solves two mysteries: the likely fate of the Milky Way at the hands of its satellite galaxies -- the most massive of which are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds -- and the origin of its puffy edges, which astronomers have seen elsewhere in the universe and dubbed “flares.”
The mysterious dark matter that makes up most of the universe plays a role, the study found.
Emergency workers struggled to evacuate thousands of reluctant slum dwellers as the extremely dangerous Hurricane Jimena approached Mexico's resort-studded Baja California Peninsula.
Jimena, just short of Category 5 status with winds of near 155 mph (250 kph), could rake the region of harsh desert fringed with picturesque beaches and fishing villages as a major hurricane by Tuesday evening
Police, firefighters and navy personnel drove through shantytowns, trying to persuade some 10,000 people to evacuate shacks made of plastic sheeting, wood, reeds and even blankets.
"For the safety of you and your family, board a vehicle or head to the nearest shelter," firefighter Ricardo Villalobos bellowed over a loudspeaker as his fire truck wound its way through the sand streets of Colonia Obrera, a slum built along a stream bed that regularly springs to life when a hurricane hits. (Click to enlarge picture below)
British scientists are working on plans for a spacecraft that could stop large killer asteroids from destroying the Earth.
The 10 ton "gravity tractor" would deflect any orbiting rocks years before any supposed collision could happen.
The device, which would rely on the force of gravity, is being developed by Stevenage space company, EADS Atrium - however the concept is still in its preliminary stages and the company admits a prototype has not yet been produced.
NASA's Near Earth Object Program reports on its website that it has recorded over 1068 known "Potentially Hazardous Asteroids", however there are thousands more estimated to be present in space.
Hurricane Jimena is now a dangerous Category 4 off Mexico's Pacific coast Sunday, and predictions say it could hit the Baja California peninsula as a major storm in the coming days.
Hurricaane Jimena kicked up surf along the northwestern coast and generated strong winds that bent trees in the resort town of Zihuatanejo, uprooting at least one. Strong waves and wind prevented a couple on a boat from reaching port, forcing them to spend the night at sea, said Zihuatanejo coast guard official Jose Angel Lara.
If Jimena stays on its northwestern track, it would carry hurricane-force winds to the tip of resort-dotted Baja California by late Monday and slam into the peninsula by Wednesday morning, said Richard Pasch, a senior specialist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.
Pasch said Jimena's path "is subject to some uncertainty" and that it is difficult to predict exactly how strong the storm will be when it nears Baja.
"I think it's going to be a substantial hurricane by the time it approaches," he said.
* About 2,000 homes under mandatory evacuation orders
* Governor Schwarzenegger says fire "out of control"
* Fire 5 percent contained, 10,000 homes threatened
* Fire threatens major communications facilities (Updates with quotes from residents, new numbers)
A wildfire in the heavily populated Los Angeles foothills threatened 10,000 homes on Sunday, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger warned residents to heed evacuation orders for the "out of control" and "very dangerous" blaze.
The heat-driven fire nearly doubled in size overnight and has now burned 35,000 acres (14,000 hectares) of thick, bone-dry brush in the mountains above five towns, a 12-mile (19 km) stretch from La Crescenta to La Canada Flintridge, the California Fire Department said.
Authorities have ordered residents to evacuate about 2,000 homes threatened by the fire about 15 miles (24 km) northeast of downtown Los Angeles.
Cosmic rays pour down on Earth like a constant rain. We don't much notice these high-energy particles, but they may have played a role in the evolution of life on our planet.
Some of the mass extinctions identified in the fossil record can be linked to an asteroid impact or increased volcanism, but many of the causes of those ancient die-offs are still open for debate.
"There may have been nearby astronomical goings-on that drastically increased the radiation on Earth," says Brian Fields from the University of Illinois.
A supernova going off 30 light-years away could cause such a jump in radiation on our planet that could directly, or indirectly, wipe out huge numbers of species. Currently researchers are looking for possible evidence for this sort of cosmic foul play.
No matter how much warning officials give, some people flock to the shore to see waves from hurricanes. The ocean, however, is not always as predictable as people might like.
Though Hurricane Bill did not make a direct hit on the U.S. East Coast, its wave-making power was made clear Sunday when a surprisingly large wave, termed a "rogue wave" by the Portland Press Herald, struck Acadia National Park. A 7-year-old girl was killed, and three other people had to be pulled from the water.
Scientists don't fully understand how unusually large waves can suddenly emerge among smaller ones. But a study last year revealed one way:
Normally a large wave on the open ocean breaks into smaller waves, in a dampening effect caused by interaction with other waves. But lab tests showed that the opposite can occur: Small waves can join forces to become monsters "that emerge surprisingly quickly," explained researcher Peter McClintock, a physicist at the University of Lancaster in England.
In the early 17th century, William Shakespeare wrote, "Great floods
have flown from simple sources." It turns out, Shakespeare’s conclusion holds up: Scientists are now showing that small streams may hold the secret to great floods.
In June 2008, no one fully expected flood waters to reach the 500-year-flood level in Iowa. The deluge overwhelmed streams and breeched levees in populated areas such as Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, where the Cedar and Iowa Rivers crested at unprecedented heights.
Thousands of residents were evacuated and 83 of Iowa's 99 counties were declared disaster areas. The University of Iowa (UI), caught in the path of rising flood waters, suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.
Despite losses, Witold Krajewski and his colleagues at UI gained a rare opportunity to study the geophysical aspects of flooding in real time and to analyze the after-effects of flooding on residents .
Powerful Hurricane Bill, a dangerous Category 4 storm with 135 mph winds, raged across the open Atlantic on Wednesday, days from land but on a path that could menace Canada's eastern provinces next week.
Sweeping past the Caribbean islands and posing no threat to U.S. oil and gas installations in the Gulf of Mexico, the first hurricane of the 2009 Atlantic season was expected to charge between the U.S. East Coast and Bermuda, well offshore.
Residents of Bermuda, a mid-Atlantic British territory and reinsurance capital, were warned to prepare for the storm. The latest forecast track issued by the U.S. National Hurricane Center would take Bill more than 100 miles to the west.
But Bill's massive size -- tropical storm force winds of 39 to 73 mph extend up to 230 miles from its center -- meant Bermuda would get a good dose of heavy weather, forecasters said.
Hurricane Bill, the first of the Atlantic storm season, reached Category 2 strength, with top winds whizzing at about 100 miles per hour (160 kilometers per hour), US forecasters said.
At 0300 GMT Tuesday, the hurricane was located in the middle of the Atlantic some 865 miles (1,395 km) east of the Lesser Antilles and was churning west-northwestward toward the US mainland at nearly 17 mph (28 kmh), the National Hurricane Center said.
"Additional strengthening is forecast during the next 48 hours," the Miami-based Center said, "and Bill could become a major hurricane within the next day or so."
Meanwhile, what began as Tropical Storm Claudette, which lashed tourist resorts with strong winds and heavy rain, weakened to a tropical depression as it moved across the southern United States.
Two strong earthquakes jolted the ocean floor off southern Japan on Monday, triggering tsunami warnings for a cluster of sub-tropical islands and shaking buildings in nearby Taiwan.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
A 6.7-magnitude quake struck in the morning southwest of Ishigaki-jima island in Japan's far southern Ryukyu Islands, followed by a 6.4-strength tremor in the evening, the US Geological Survey reported.
Japan's meteorological agency issued and lifted tsunami alerts both times for a group of islands in the East China Sea.
The quakes could be felt in Taipei but caused no damage.
wo terrified youths who ran into a Staffordshire police station were in no doubt they had seen a UFO land in a field near Chasetown after they experienced an intense heat when they were walking up Rugeley Road, Burntwood, at 11pm on 4 May 1995.
"Their skin turned a glowing red," said the Staffordshire police inspector's report. "They saw a darkish silver inverted saucer shaped object in a field, which was glowing red beneath. The object was about four houses high in the sky and about 40ft away from them. They then, reluctantly, went on to state that a voice, which came from a lemon-like head, which appeared beneath the machine, said: 'We want you, come with us'."
Neither was drunk or under the influence of illegal substances and the next day both provided the police with detailed written reports of what they had seen, but when the police visited the field a local farmer said he had been crop spraying there but had not seen anything unusual.
Tropical Storm Claudette churned toward the Florida coast well clear of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil patch on Sunday while two other cyclones, Ana and Bill, raced through the Atlantic Ocean toward the Caribbean islands.
The six-month Atlantic hurricane season got off to a slow start with no storms in the first 2-1/2 months but exploded this weekend as three formed in just over a day.
Claudette, the third storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, spun up with surprising speed overnight in an area well east of the heaviest concentration of U.S. energy platforms, which stretch along the coast from Mobile Bay to Brownsville, Texas.
California's acting governor today declared a state of emergency in Santa Cruz County, site of one of two large coastal fires burning out of control and forcing residents to flee their homes.
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi issued the order because Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was out of state attending the funeral of his mother-in-law, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. The governor is expected to tour the fire zone in Santa Cruz County on Saturday.
In the Santa Cruz Mountains, officials said two structures have burned in a 2,800-acre brush fire that has forced evacuations in the hillside communities north of Santa Cruz.
Despite a slow season - Hurricanes in the Atlantic are more frequent than at any time in the last 1,000 years, according to research just published in the journal Nature.
Scientists examined sediments left by hurricanes that crossed the coast in North America and the Caribbean.
The record suggests modern hurricane activity is unusual - though it might have been even higher 1,000 years ago.
The possible influence of climate change on hurricanes has been a controversial topic for several years.- Source : BBC News
