Makemake: Fourth Dwarf Planet Named For Polynesian God
Topic: Science
10:45 am EDT, Jul 22, 2008
There's been a lot of astronomy news lately. Anyway, 2005 FY9 is now Makemake. It's a shame... "2005 FY9" had such a nice ring to it.
A dwarf planet circling the sun out beyond the orbit of Neptune has been rechristened Makemake after a Polynesian god and designated the third of the solar system's new class of plutoids, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced Saturday.
Makemake is a small, red-tinged world that ranks among the largest objects in the outer solar system. But it is still smaller and dimmer than the already demoted dwarf planet Pluto, which astronomers reclassified as a plutoid last month.
EDIT 1: I had assumed that last part (my bold) was a typo, as Pluto is still listed as a dwarf planet, going back to 2006. Apparently, that's not a typo: Pluto's Identity Crisis Hits Classrooms and Bookstores . Geez... I can't even keep up.
The Makemake article itself is rather matter-of-fact, but the comments below the article are amusing. There's still a lot of fighting over the reclassification of Pluto.
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.
A dwarf planet is a celestial body orbiting the Sun that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity but which has not cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals and is not a satellite. The body has to have sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces in order to assume a hydrostatic equilibrium and acquire a near-spherical shape.
All other objects orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as Small Solar System Bodies. These currently include most of the Solar System asteroids, comets, the centaurs and Neptune Trojans, most Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), and other small bodies. It is not presently clear whether a lower size bound will be established as part of the definition of Small Solar System Bodies in the future, or if it will encompass all material down to the level of meteoroids.
A natural satellite or moon is a celestial body that orbits a planet or smaller body, which is called the primary.
A meteoroid is a small sand to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar System.
EDIT 2: A plutoid is a trans-Neptunian dwarf planet. The IAU developed this category of astronomical objects as a consequence of its 2006 resolution defining the word "planet". The IAU's formal definition of 'plutoid,' announced 11 June 2008, is:
Plutoids are celestial bodies in orbit around the Sun at a semimajor axis greater than that of Neptune that have sufficient mass for their self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that they assume a hydrostatic equilibrium (near-spherical) shape, and that have not cleared the neighbourhood around their orbit. Satellites of plutoids are not plutoids themselves.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! I wasn't planning on drinking this weekend, but now that I've seen the details, I have a reason. In case it went by too quickly in the trailer, I've posted a shot of the new Gort, below. Ugh.
COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft has created a video of the moon transiting (passing in front of) Earth as seen from the spacecraft's point of view 31 million miles away. Scientists are using the video to develop techniques to study alien worlds.
New Photos of Mars Offer Further Evidence of Water in Past
Topic: Miscellaneous
12:28 pm EDT, Jul 16, 2008
Now these astonishing new images - captured by a European spacecraft in orbit around Mars - are helping to fuel that fascination. They show in astonishing detail a network of giant valleys, vast plains and towering waterfalls carved into the surface of our neighbouring planet, millions of miles away.
And while Mars today appears lifeless and parched, they are a reminder of how its surface was shaped by fast flowing streams, rivers and oceans. The pictures were captured by the European Space Agency's Mars Express Probe - a spacecraft the size of a large fridge-freezer that has been circling Mars since Christmas 2003.
TACHOPHOBIA tac·ho·pho·bi·a — n. 1. The irrational fear of speed.
Mark Rask should be running for President, especially now that those wimps at drive55.org are starting to make headlines. We shouldn't return to failed policies.
The BD release is set for Sep 23, 2008. Supposedly, Coppola is personally involved in the restoration and remastering for high definition, so maybe it will be a significant improvement over the DVD release, which wasn't as good as it could've been. I've been impressed by the Blade Runner and Dirty Harry BD collections from Warner, and if Paramount can give The Godfather the same treatment, it'll be worth rebuying the trilogy (hopefully, for the last time).
Speaking of Warner, I'm still waiting for a BD release date for Forbidden Planet (it's still listed as "pending"). I don't know what's taking Warner so long, considering they've already remastered it for the HD-DVD release on November 14, 2006.
Geneon Entertainment (USA) Inc. shut down last year, leaving the future of many anime titles up in the air (regarding distribution in North America).
FUNimation Entertainment and Geneon Entertainment Sign Exclusive Distribution Agreement for North America
First Titles Scheduled for Release in Late Summer
FLOWER MOUND, TX, July 03, 2008 -- FUNimation Entertainment, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Navarre Corporation, and Geneon Entertainment (USA) Inc., a leading producer of Japanese animation, announced today their partnership to distribute select DVD titles in North America.
Under the terms of the agreement, FUNimation Entertainment obtains the exclusive rights to the manufacturing, marketing, sales and distribution of established Geneon titles, including international successes "Ergo Proxy", "Hellsing Ultimate" and "Black Lagoon".
Among the first titles to be released includes the special edition of "Hellsing Ultimate", directed by Tomokazu Tokoro and produced by Satelight (“Aquarion” and “BALDR FORCE EXE Resolution”).
Follow up releases include "Black Lagoon Second Barrage", “Karin”, "Kyo kara Maoh! Season 2", and "Lyrical Nanoha".
“Geneon is a strong producer, known for excellent production and quality of its anime series,“ said Gen Fukunaga, president and CEO of FUNimation Entertainment. “We are pleased to partner with them and we are committed to the successful release of these series.”
"FUNimation's momentum as the leading anime distributor continues to build," said Yushin Soga, president and CEO of Geneon. "We are sure this partnership will only grow the prominence of our portfolio."
Additional titles include: “Black Lagoon”, “Elemental Gelade”, “Fate/stay night”, “Kamichu”, “Ninja Vixens”, “Paradise Kiss”, “Rozen Maiden”, “Rozen Maiden - Träumend”, “Shana”, “Shonen Onmyouji”, “The Familiar of Zero”, “The Story of Saiunkoku”, “When They Cry”, and “The Law of Ueki”.
Kyo Kara Maoh!, Hellsing Ultimate, and Black Lagoon are the main titles I was concerned about. This is welcome news!
The 720-page report compiled by the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, details the effects of having too few coalition troops on the ground when the reality after the fall of Baghdad was "severely out of line" with the anticipated conditions.
"We had the wrong assumptions, and therefore, we had the wrong plan to put into play," Gen. William Wallace, who commanded the Army's V Corps during the invasion, told the authors.
But some of the most critical decisions were made between May and August 2003, which some participants called a "window of opportunity that could have been exploited to produce the conditions for the quick creation of a new Iraq."
MEXICO CITY — Scientists were fascinated by the ghostly find: a human skeleton buried in an Aztec temple with a clay, skull-shaped whistle in each bony hand.
But no one blew into the noisemakers for nearly 15 years.
When someone finally did, the shrill, windy screech made the spine tingle.
If death had a sound, this was it.
Sweet!
On another site, I found the MP3 file of the whistles being played, by archaeologists, I assume. [Not Safe For Life]
Sony Gives PS3 a Shot of Adrenaline: Movies and a Twirling Globe
Topic: Technology
9:42 am EDT, Jun 27, 2008
Sony's Blu-ray won the battle of high-definition DVD formats, but its PlayStation 3 gaming console has been losing the war over networked home entertainment. That will change this summer, promised Kaz Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, during a Tokyo press conference announcing new PS3 services for the U.S. market.
Sony will roll out on-demand movies and TV shows for download via the PS3's broadband-enabled PlayStation Network. It will also launch Life With PlayStation, offering news headlines and weather information with a spinning-globe user interface reminiscent of Nintendo's Wii News.
Sony has lost more than US$3 billion on the PlayStation 3 since its launch, but additional networked services and cost-trimming will bring the PS3 business unit to profitability by March 2009, said Hirai. "Sony said the things they needed to say," Gartenberg remarked. "What Sony has found in this generation was a Microsoft that was much stronger than it had been the last time around. It came to market a year ahead (with the Xbox 360) and didn't squander that year. At the same time, it's facing a revitalized Nintendo, which was the last thing everybody was expecting. All of this is putting tremendous pressure on Sony."
