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WEDNESDAY 5 APRIL 2017

Suspected chemical gas attack in Syria kills scores The world has reacted in horror to images of a chemical attack on a rebel-held area in Syria which has killed dozens of people, including children.         Russia identifies metro bomber as St. Petersburg mourns 14 dead Russian investigators Tuesday identified the bomber in the deadly Saint Petersburg metro blast as 22-year-old Akbarjon Djalilov, as Russia's second city mourned the 14 people killed.         French election: Nice attack fresh in the minds of voters Opinion polls show two political outsiders locked in a battle to win the first round of the French presidential election.         Rockhampton's Fitzroy River to see major flood level The Fitzroy River is tipped to reach a major flood level on Wednesday, inundating many parts of Rockhampton, as it climbs towards a high of 9 metres on Thursday         RBA sends warning signal on home loans The Turnbull government can expect to be further pressed on its intentions for tackling housing affordability as house prices continue to soar.         Iceland introduces world first bill to mandate equal pay for women Iceland is set to mandate equal pay for women in order to address a seven per cent wage gap - the law would require businesses to prove they don't discriminate.         Pink Star diamond sells for $94.3 million A pink diamond the size of a quail egg and known as the "Pink Star" has gone under the hammer for $US71 million dollars.

Wheelchair martial arts master knows no limits For Eduardo Salazar, martial arts isn't a hobby, it's a way of life. A belief that didn't change in 2014 when a devastating motorbike accident left him with a broken back and confined to a wheelchair.         Afghanistan needs more women on the battlefield, says country's first female governor Governor Habiba Sarobi says decades of war have taken their toll on Afghan women, with millions left widowed and many impacted by violence, including rape.         Gay people can have straight relationships, Abetz says Tasmanian Senator Eric Abetz has been accused of declaring that homosexual people are capable of becoming heterosexual.         'Burqa just like wearing the IS flag': Ayaan Hirsi Ali Controversial speaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali has not backed down from her divisive comments about Islam despite having cancelled her upcoming Australian tour over concerns for her safety.         Dylan Voller breaks his silence over double standards following Royal Commission In his first interview since an interim report found the Northern Territory's juvenile justice system is completely broken, Dylan Voller asks why some people were allowed to work with children and calls for accountability.         Melania Trump's new portrait divides public opinion The White House on Monday released the official portrait of First Lady Melania Trump, with the photograph of the former model dividing public opinion.         Wanted: 20,000 Australians for depression study Australians who've been treated for clinical depression are needed for a large study designed to detect genetic factors that contribute to the mental illness.     On SBS TV Nightly at 6:30pm Mon to Fri 10:30pm   On SBS Online sbs.com.au/news   On SBS Radio 1 Mon to Fri 6am and 6pm

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[New post] TRAPPIST-1 Is Showing A Bit Too Much Flare

Evan Gough posted: "It turns out that the TRAPPIST-1 star may be a terrible host for the TRAPPIST planets announced in February. The TRAPPIST-1 star, a Red Dwarf, and its 7 planets caused a big stir in February when it was discovered that 3 of the rocky planets are in th" New post on Universe Today TRAPPIST-1 Is Showing A Bit Too Much Flare by Evan Gough It turns out that the TRAPPIST-1 star may be a terrible host for the TRAPPIST planets announced in February. The TRAPPIST-1 star, a Red Dwarf, and its 7 planets caused a big stir in February when it was discovered that 3 of the rocky planets are in the habitable zone. But now more data is coming which suggests that the TRAPPIST-1 star is much too volatile for life to exist on its planets. Red Dwarfs are much dimmer than our Sun, but they also last much longer. Their lifetimes are measured in trillions of years, not billions. Their long lives make them intriguing targets in the search for habitable worlds. But some types of Red Dwarf stars can be quite unstable when it comes to their magnetism and their flaring. Our own Sun produces flares, but we are protected by our magnetosphere, and by the distance from the Sun to Earth. Credit: NASA/ Solar Dynamics Observatory, A new study analyzed the photometric data on TRAPPIST-1 that was obtained by the K2 mission. The study, which is from the Konkoly Observatory and was led by astronomer Krisztián Vida, suggests that TRAPPIST-1 flares too frequently and too powerfully to allow life to form on its planets. The study identified 42 strong flaring events in 80 days of observation, of which 5 were multi-peaked. The average time between flares was only 28 hours. These flares are caused by stellar magnetism, which causes the star to suddenly release a lot of energy. This energy is mostly in the X-ray or UV range, though the strongest can be seen in white light. While it's true that our Sun can flare, things are much different in the TRAPPIST system. The planets in that system are closer to their star than Earth is to the Sun. The most powerful flare observed in this data correlates to the most powerful flare observed on our Sun: the so-called Carrington Event.The Carrington Event happened in 1859. It was an enormously powerful solar storm, in which a coronal mass ejection struck Earth's magnetosphere, causing auroras as far south as the Caribbean. It caused chaos in telegraph systems around the world, and some telegraph operators received electric shocks. Earth survived the Carrington Event, but things would be much different on the TRAPPIST worlds. Those planets are much closer to their Sun, and the authors of this study conclude that storms like the Carrington Event are not isolated incidents on TRAPPIST-1. They occur so frequently that they would destroy any stability in the atmosphere, making it extremely difficult for life to develop. In fact, the study suggests that the TRAPPIST-1 storms could be hundreds or thousands of times more powerful than the storms that hit Earth. A study from 2016 shows that these flares would cause great disturbances in the chemical composition of the atmosphere of the planets subjected to them. The models in that study suggest that it could take 30,000 years for an atmosphere to recover from one of these powerful flares. But with flares happening every 28 hours on TRAPPIST-1, the habitable planets may be doomed. The Earth's magnetic field helps protects us from the Sun's outbursts, but it's doubtful that the TRAPPIST planets have the same protection. This study suggests that planets like those in the TRAPPIST system would need magnetospheres of tens to hundreds of Gauss, whereas Earth's magnetosphere is only about 0.5 Gauss. How could the TRAPPIST planets produce a magnetosphere powerful enough to protect their atmosphere? It's not looking good for the TRAPPIST planets. The solar storms that hit these worlds are likely just too powerful. Even without these storms, there are other things that may make these planets uninhabitable. They're still an intriguing target for further study. The James Webb Space Telescope should be able to characterize the atmosphere, if any, around these planets. Just don't be disappointed if the James Webb confirms what this study tells us: the TRAPPIST system is a dead, lifeless, grouping of planets around a star that can't stop flaring. Evan Gough | April 4, 2017 at 4:55 pm | Tags: Featured, TRAPPIST-1 | URL: http://wp.me/p1CHIY-z5w Comment    See all comments Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from Universe Today. Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://www.universetoday.com/134882/trappist-1-showing-bit-much-flare/

Pakistan still spearheads anti-Bangladesh propaganda: Haq

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DHAKA, April 4, 2017 (BSS) - Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haq today accused Pakistan of spearheading anti-Bangladesh campaign the way they led propaganda in 1971 to debar different countries from extending supports to Bengali cause.

"The Pakistani campaign in 1971 made it difficult for us to draw supports of different countries for the Liberation War," he told an Iranian parliamentary delegation at his office on the sidelines of the IPU assembly in the capital.

He added: "Pakistan still spearheads anti-Bangladesh propaganda, but Bangladesh continues to move ahead defying their campaign".

Iranian parliamentarian Gholamali Jafarzadeh led the delegation at the meeting when Haq sought Tehran's support and cooperation of Iran in Bangladesh's campaign for development.

Jafarzadeh said both Iran and Bangladesh came to their current stage overcoming the horrendous experience of wars and therefore both the nations could share their experiences for social and economic developments.

He said Bangladesh's initiatives for its freedom fighters saying Iran could replicate the projects for its own fighters.

They also exchanged the backgrounds of the two countries respective initiatives in preserving war histories and relics alongside the recording their war heroes.

[New post] Extraterrestrial Origin Of Fast Radio Burst Phenomenon Confirmed

Nancy Atkinson posted: "Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) have puzzled astronomers since they were first detected in 2007. These mysterious milliseconds-long blasts of radio waves appear to be coming from long distances, and have been attributed to various things such as alien signals or" New post on Universe Today Extraterrestrial Origin Of Fast Radio Burst Phenomenon Confirmed by Nancy Atkinson Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) have puzzled astronomers since they were first detected in 2007. These mysterious milliseconds-long blasts of radio waves appear to be coming from long distances, and have been attributed to various things such as alien signals or extraterrestrial propulsion systems, and more 'mundane' objects such as extragalactic neutron stars. Some scientists even suggested they were some type of 'local' source, such as atmospheric phenomena on Earth, tricking astronomers about their possible distant origins. So far, less than two dozen FRBs have been detected in a decade. But now researchers from the Australian National University and Swinburne University of Technology have detected three of these mystery bursts in just six months using the interferometry capabilities of the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (MOST) in Canberra, Australia. In doing so, they were able to confirm that these FRBs really do come from outer space. "Figuring out where the bursts come from is the key to understanding what makes them," said Manisha Caleb, a PhD candidate at ANU, and lead author of a new paper. "While only one burst has been linked to a specific galaxy we expect Molonglo will do this for many more bursts." The unique long and narrow configuration of MOST provides a huge collecting area of about 18,000 square meters for a very large field of view, about 8 square degrees of the sky. In an effort to boost the capabilities of this telescope for hunting for the elusive FRBs, MOST has been upgraded and reconfigured, with the ultimate goal of localizing the bursts down to an individual galaxy. Caleb produced software to sift through the 1,000 terabytes of data produced by MOST each day, and that allowed her and her team to make the three new FRB discoveries. They determined the three new FRBs really were from space because the events were well beyond the 10,000 km near-field limit of the telescope, which ruled out local (terrestrial) sources of interference as a possible origin. Caleb and her team wrote in their paper that they also demonstrated with pulsars that a repeating FRB seen with MOST has the potential to be localized quite precisely, which is "an exciting prospect for identifying the host," they wrote. Gemini composite image of the field around FRB 121102, the only repeating FRB discovered so far. Credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA/NSF/NRC. So far, however, just one FRB has repeated, and although Caleb and her team were able to observe the area of each of the new FRBs for several hours, (105 hours following FRB 160317, 43 hours on FRB 160410 and 35 hours on FRB 160608) they found that "no repeat pulses were found from any of the FRB positions." But with the nature and source of these FRBs still being highly debated, the capabilities of MOST and an Australian collaboration called BURST provides the most promising hope for determining what FRBs truly are. The BURST project will perform deep FRB searches with MOSTS's wide field-of-view and nearly constant single pulse searches of the radio sky. You can read more about the project here. Read the team's paper: The first interferometric detections of Fast Radio Bursts Press release from Swinburne Nancy Atkinson | April 4, 2017 at 4:19 pm | Tags: fast radio bursts (FRBs), Featured | URL: http://wp.me/p1CHIY-z5p Comment    See all comments Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from Universe Today. Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://www.universetoday.com/134875/extraterrestrial-origin-fast-radio-burst-phenomenon-confirmed/