Mars Panorama - Curiosity rover: Martian solar (360 Degrees, Baby..)

Picture is at the link.  You control the panorama.  What else do you need? 

M-A-R-S Mars, bitches..

Enceladus: home of alien lifeforms?

Tiny little moon; Enormous possibilities!  The Guardian.  Excerpts:

Enceladus is little bigger than a lump of rock and has appeared, until recently, as a mere pinprick of light in astronomers' telescopes. Yet Saturn's tiny moon has suddenly become a major attraction for scientists. Many now believe it offers the best hope we have of discovering life on another world inside our solar system.



The idea that a moon a mere 310 miles in diameter, orbiting in deep, cold space, 1bn miles from the sun, could provide a home for alien lifeforms may seem extraordinary. Nevertheless, a growing number of researchers consider this is a real prospect and argue that Enceladus should be rated a top priority for future space missions.


This point is endorsed by astrobiologist Professor Charles Cockell of Edinburgh University. "If someone gave me several billion dollars to build whatever space probe I wanted, I would have no hesitation," he says. "I would construct one that could fly to Saturn and collect samples from Enceladus. I would go there rather than Mars or the icy moons of Jupiter, such as Europa, despite encouraging signs that they could support life. Primitive, bacteria-like lifeforms may indeed exist on these worlds but they are probably buried deep below their surfaces and will be difficult to access. On Enceladus, if there are lifeforms, they will be easy to pick up. They will be pouring into space."


The cause of this unexpected interest in Enceladus – first observed by William Herschel in 1789 and named after one of the children of the Earth goddess Gaia – stems from a discovery made by the robot spacecraft Cassini, which has been in orbit of Saturn for the past eight years. The $3bn probe has shown that the little moon not only has an atmosphere, but that geysers of water are erupting from its surface into space. Even more astonishing has been its most recent discovery, which has shown that these geysers contain complex organic compounds, including propane, ethane, and acetylene.


"It just about ticks every box you have when it comes to looking for life on another world," says Nasa astrobiologist Chris McKay. "It has got liquid water, organic material and a source of heat. It is hard to think of anything more enticing short of receiving a radio signal from aliens on Enceladus telling us to come and get them."



Cassini's observations suggest Enceladus possesses a subterranean ocean that is kept liquid by the moon's internal heat. "We are not sure where that energy is coming from," McKay admits. "The source is producing around 16 gigawatts of power and looks very like the geothermal energy sources we have on Earth – like the deep vents we see in our ocean beds and which bubble up hot gases."


At the moon's south pole, Enceladus's underground ocean appears to rise close to the surface. At a few sites, cracks have developed and water is bubbling to the surface before being vented into space, along with complex organic chemicals that also appear to have built up in its sea.


Equally remarkable is the impact of this water on Saturn. The planet is famed for its complex system of rings, made of bands of small particles in orbit round the planet. There are seven main rings: A, B, C, D, E, F and G, and the giant E-ring is linked directly with Enceladus. The water the moon vents into space turns into ice crystals and these feed the planet's E-ring. "If you turned off the geysers of Enceladus, the great E-ring of Saturn would disappear within a few years," says McKay. "For a little moon, Enceladus has quite an impact."

The Week In Review: Under-Reported Stories Edition

Leftist parties win control of French Senate  From Raw Story.  Excerpts:

France's left-wing opposition struck a blow against embattled centre-right leader President Nicolas Sarkozy's hopes for re-election Sunday, winning a historic victory in a senatorial vote.



The Socialist Party and its Communist and Green allies won enough seats to give the left control of the upper house for the first time in French history, a stepping stone towards a presidential win in seven months' time.

Flammable gas detected in Fukushima pipe: TEPCO  Mysinchew.  Excerpts:

Flammable gas has been detected inside a pipe linked to a nuclear reactor at Japan's crippled Fukushima atomic power plant, its operator said Saturday.



Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) was unable to identify the gas but nonetheless said it was unlikely there would be an explosion in the reactor.


The company has been injecting nitrogen into the reactor so that the level of oxygen inside becomes low enough to prevent blasts.


But a TEPCO spokesman said workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant measured a 100-percent flammable gas in a pipe connected to the power station's reactor number one.


"It is not clear exactly where and how this gas was created," the spokesman told AFP. "We are considering ways to deal with it.


"It is likely that we will continue the survey the gas to identify it and use nitrogen to bring its level low enough" to avoid explosions, he said.

It's a gas, gas, gas, gas, gas: Scientists think solar system may have had a FIFTH gas planet  The Daily Mail Online.  Excerpts:

Scientists believe our solar system may have once had a fifth gas planet that was ejected from the solar system and 'orphaned'.

..
A new study by David Nesvorny, from the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, U.S., used different computer simulations to explore what the solar system looked like four billion years ago.


He discovered that back then planets had not yet settled into their existing orbits as they migrated and moved around.
 
However, after a series of tests he worked out that the solar system we recognise today could never have emerged without the existence of a fifth planet.
 
He came to this conclusion by using several different starting positions and ran computer simulations using the four gas planets - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune - but discovered they were to large and one would destroy another eventually.



Even using configurations where the gas planets survived, the solar system's rocky planets like Mars and Venus did not.


However, once Mr Nesvorny had introduced a fifth planet into the equation he found the odds of the current solar system emerging increased dramatically.
 
This theory is backed up by the recent discovery of many rogue planets.

This is exciting..  Japan: piles of tsunami debris turning into giant bonfires  The Telegraph.  Excerpts:

Piles of decomposing organic waste, metals and rubble from the devastated towns of north-east Japan have been bursting into fire, posing a new hazard to emergency teams tasked with clearing away the debris and people who are still picking through the remains of their homes.

Geomagnetic storm warning issued for September 26th  The Extinction Protocol.  Excerpts:

.. “Sunspot 1302 poses a continued threat for X-class solar flares.” We’re also seeing some coronal hole perforation of the Sun, so ionized particles will now also  have a more efficient medium of propagation should a large solar flare erupt from the sunspot. The next few days could get interesting. According to NOAA, the chances of another X-Class flare erupting over the next 48 hours are 40%.

The Scale Of The Universe

Nice work from Primax Studio.  Great information really given perspective.  And scrolling quickly from left to right is a trippy little bonus.  Check it out..