Posts by Byron Leigh Hatch @ team Carl Sagan

A scientific panel has narrowly recommended South Africa over Australia as the best site for the proposed Square Kilometre Array (SKA), an enormous radio telescope (see "Astronomy in South Africa: The long shot"). But the project's member states have yet to make a final decision on where the telescope will go.

The SKA Site Advisory Committee's decision was first reported on March 10 in the Sydney Morning Herald. A source familiar with the site-selection process confirmed to Nature that the panel had indeed made a decision, but added that it was a close call. "This is not an enormous preference for one over the other," he says. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)

The $2.1-billion SKA radio telescope will be made up of some 3,000 dishes, each 15 meters in diameter. The project will try to answer big questions about the early universe: how the first elements heavier than helium formed, for example, and how the first galaxies coalesced. The telescope is so sensitive that it could even pick up television signals from distant worlds—something that might aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

Since 2006, South Africa has competed against a joint bid from Australia and New Zealand to host the project. The South African site has some compelling advantages: construction costs are lower, and it sits at a higher altitude. But the Australian site would be cheaper to insure, and is less likely to be encroached on by future development. The margin in favour of the winner was extremely narrow, the source says.

Members of the SKA's board will meet on March 19 in Manchester, UK, to discuss the scientific panel's recommendations. The closed meeting will also provide the two bidders with the opportunity to contest any of the panel's recommendations. After the meeting, the SKA's board will write a commentary to accompany the recommendation, which will inform the final decision.

According to Nature's source, because the two sites are so close in merit, both are still in contention. China, Italy, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands—the SKA voting board members—could yet decide either way. It is even possible that the array could be shared between both nations, although this would probably increase the construction costs.

A final site decision could come as soon as April 4, when a meeting of the board is tentatively scheduled in Amsterdam.

A scientific panel has narrowly recommended South Africa over Australia as the best site for the proposed Square Kilometre Array (SKA), an enormous radio telescope (see "Astronomy in South Africa: The long shot"). But the project's member states have yet to make a final decision on where the telescope will go.

The SKA Site Advisory Committee's decision was first reported on March 10 in the Sydney Morning Herald. A source familiar with the site-selection process confirmed to Nature that the panel had indeed made a decision, but added that it was a close call. "This is not an enormous preference for one over the other," he says. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)

The $2.1-billion SKA radio telescope will be made up of some 3,000 dishes, each 15 meters in diameter. The project will try to answer big questions about the early universe: how the first elements heavier than helium formed, for example, and how the first galaxies coalesced. The telescope is so sensitive that it could even pick up television signals from distant worlds—something that might aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

Since 2006, South Africa has competed against a joint bid from Australia and New Zealand to host the project. The South African site has some compelling advantages: construction costs are lower, and it sits at a higher altitude. But the Australian site would be cheaper to insure, and is less likely to be encroached on by future development. The margin in favour of the winner was extremely narrow, the source says.

Members of the SKA's board will meet on March 19 in Manchester, UK, to discuss the scientific panel's recommendations. The closed meeting will also provide the two bidders with the opportunity to contest any of the panel's recommendations. After the meeting, the SKA's board will write a commentary to accompany the recommendation, which will inform the final decision.

According to Nature's source, because the two sites are so close in merit, both are still in contention. China, Italy, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands—the SKA voting board members—could yet decide either way. It is even possible that the array could be shared between both nations, although this would probably increase the construction costs.

A final site decision could come as soon as April 4, when a meeting of the board is tentatively scheduled in Amsterdam.

In celebration of our 18th wedding anniversary, Eric and I drove a few hours down the state for a short vacation in the central coast area of California.

. . . Dr. C.E.T.I. RETURNS - 02.29.2012 [12th Year w/ the SETI Project]

. . . baCk to the big crunCh

a prayer all of you have been well my friends . . .


. . . also joining: Lady Joanne aka jml_C.E.T.I.

NOTE: we'll be baCk on-line Friday:

"Weekly Outage and Initial Catch Up" http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/index.php

Thank you, one and all.
I can't take credit for the mix up in years Angela. It was the Mrs. who told me 27.
Finally! It wasn't my fault! :)

Applause for Phil and thanks to Graham.

+1

+2

+3 :)

+4

+5

Steve

Applause for Phil and thanks to Graham.

+1

'Ol Pookers got a second science blog accepted at the Huff Post. His first blog was great and he's getting even better!

(I am a little disturbed about that grocery comment though...)

Here's the link. Hope you enjoy!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-korpela/this-is-my-brain-on-science_b_1297489.html

Our galaxy may be awash in homeless planets, wandering through space instead of orbiting a star.

In fact, there may be 100,000 times more "nomad planets" in the Milky Way than stars, according to a new study by researchers at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), a joint institute of Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

If observations confirm the estimate, this new class of celestial objects will affect current theories of planet formation and could change our understanding of the origin and abundance of life.

"If any of these nomad planets are big enough to have a thick atmosphere, they could have trapped enough heat for bacterial life to exist," said Louis Strigari, leader of the team that reported the result in a paper submitted to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Although nomad planets don't bask in the warmth of a star, they may generate heat through internal radioactive decay and tectonic activity ...

Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that manmade greenhouse gases are warming the planet, accelerating the melt of Greenland's ice, and yet resistance to the idea appears to have hardened among many Americans. Why? "The desire to disbelieve deepens as the scale of the threat grows," concludes one scholar who has studied the phenomenon. Analysts now see climate as another battleground in America's left-right "culture wars."

"I don't think there were any newspaper articles about it or anything like that," the author recalls.

But the headline on the 1975 report was bold: "Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?" And this article that coined the term may have marked the last time a mention of "global warming" didn't set off an instant outcry of angry denial.

In the paper, Columbia University geoscientist Wally Broecker calculated how much carbon dioxide would accumulate in the atmosphere in the coming 35 years, and how temperatures consequently would rise. His numbers have proven almost dead-on correct. Meanwhile, other powerful evidence poured in over those decades, showing the "greenhouse effect" is real and is happening. And yet resistance to the idea among many in the U.S. appears to have hardened.

What's going on?

"The desire to disbelieve deepens as the scale of the threat grows," concludes economist-ethicist Clive Hamilton.

He and others who track what they call "denialism" find that its nature is changing in America, last redoubt of climate naysayers. It has taken on a more partisan, ideological tone. Polls find a widening Republican-Democratic gap on climate. Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry even accuses climate scientists of lying for money. Global warming looms as a debatable question in yet another U.S. election campaign.

From his big-windowed office overlooking the wooded campus of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., Broecker has observed this deepening of the desire to disbelieve.

"The opposition by the Republicans has gotten stronger and stronger," the 79-year-old "grandfather of climate science" said in an interview. "But, of course, the push by the Democrats has become stronger and stronger, and as it has become a more important issue, it has become more polarized."