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We often think about interstellar probes only in the context of what they find at the end of their journeys — astrobiologically interesting planets seem to be the whole story. But not so fast. As Ian Crawford (University of London) notes in a recent paper, there are quite a few fascinating — and indeed critical — things we need to learn about interstellar space itself, in this case what is known as the Local Interstellar Medium (LISM). Crawford, who has been analyzing these matters for the Project Icarus team, notes how much we’ve learned about the LISM since the Daedalus...

Close encounter of the cloudy kind: How menacing sights in the sky turned out to be meteorological marvels By David Derbyshire Last updated at 11:37 AM on 23rd June 2010 Looking to the skies, you'd be forgiven for thinking that something worrying was afoot. Surely that's a massive UFO hovering menacingly over the rooftops above? And isn't that an atomic mushroom cloud filling the horizon in the picture below? Space invader: The flying saucer-shaped cloud that was photographed at the weekend by Brian Wilton Well, no. They're clouds - but they were realistic enough to make those who spotted them...

here is a fervent debate going on in the open source community about cloud computing. Will the cloud kill open source? [2] Will multi-tenancy services make cloud providers need to hide the source, as a recent Forbes article [3] suggests? I recently went to the best expert I could find on the matter to ask: Marten Mickos [4]. Mickos is the CEO of "private cloud" software (aka virtualization) maker Eucalyptus Systems [5]. He earned himself Open Source Hall of Fame status as the charismatic former CEO of MySQL. Mickos was adamant that open source not only won't kill the cloud,...

The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist. In the Dec. 24th issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA's Voyager spacecraft have solved the mystery. "Using data from Voyager, we have discovered a strong magnetic field just outside the solar system," explains lead author Merav Opher, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator from George Mason University. "This magnetic field holds the interstellar cloud together and solves the long-standing puzzle of how it can exist at all." The discovery has implications for the future when the solar system will eventually bump...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. Security Council has canceled a trip to Congo because of the volcanic ash cloud over Europe. Diplomats from the 15 council nations were scheduled to leave New York for Paris on Friday night and change planes for Kinshasa, but almost all flights to France and many across Europe have been canceled because of the hazardous cloud from an erupting volcano in Iceland....

TORONTO, ON – The Information Warfare Monitor (Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and the SecDev Group, Ottawa) and the Shadowserver Foundation announce the release of Shadows in the Cloud: An investigation into cyber espionage 2.0. The report documents a complex ecosystem of cyber espionage that systematically targeted and compromised computer systems in India, the Offices of the Dalai Lama, the United Nations, and several other countries. Members of the research team are holding a news conference at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, April 6, to discuss their latest findings and to answer questions from the media....

US national security leaders and top cyber warriors from around the world are gathering here to plot defenses against criminals and spies that increasingly plague the Internet. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and White House Cyber Security Coordinator Howard Schmidt will take part in this week's RSA conference along with computer defense companies and technology icons such as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Craigslist creator Craig Newmark. "We have before us more data moving into the cloud and more sophisticated cyber criminals," said Qualys chief executive Philippe Courtot, who is among the keynote speakers at the premier event that kicks...

THIS mysterious cloud halo has been spotted over Mexico — sparking fears of an Independence Day style alien attack. The astonishing ring was spotted over the central American state and video of it was posted on the internet — prompting speculation its cause was extra-terrestrial. It is the SECOND time such an amazing sighting has been seen — after The Sun revealed one was recorded in skies over Moscow last October.

These very strange cloud formations suddenly appeared in the sky around 8:30 p.m. when the sun was setting in Union Square Park in NYC today. Moments before their appearance, people were casually sitting on the steps of the park entrance and carrying on as most New Yorkers do. Suddenly, there were sounds of gasps and one by one people held their cell phones up to the sky to photograph this strange occurrence. These weren't the famed chemtrails, neither the Lenticular clouds that are mistaken for UFO's or the wispy metaphysical Sylphs often spoken about in spiritual circles. These clouds weren't...

These choppy clouds over Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in an undated picture could be examples of the first new type of cloud to be recognized since 1951. Or so hopes Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society. The British cloud enthusiast said he began getting photos of "dramatic" and "weird" clouds (including the above) in 2005 that he didn't know how to define. A few months ago he began preparing to propose the odd formations as a new cloud variety to the UN's World Meteorological Organization, which classifies cloud types. Pretor-Pinney jokingly calls it the "Jacques Cousteau cloud," after its...

HOUMA — Some people saw Jesus. Others blamed UFOs. Harkening to the popular Journey song, a wheel in the sky appeared over Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes early Saturday morning, a seemingly perfect hole punched though the sheet of clouds blanketing the sky. Locals who phoned and e-mailed the Daily Comet and The Courier this weekend about the strange cloud formation did agree on one thing: “It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Raceland resident Sandra Ledet, who shared some spectacular photos with the Daily Comet. Shawn O’Neil, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Slidell, identified the...

Well I'm sick to the teeth of the news on the screen of the Hezbollah scum and Jihad the obscene whose men plant the bombs and then live feeling free to watch women and children be killed on TV. Which Satan delivers a child a death curse in the name of a worn out collection of verse? I've not read the book so I cannot recite but I'd bet Salman Rushdie is just about right underneath the black cloud of Islam Watch and save a copy on your computer as it is very likely the political correct liberal crowd and...

New observations made by radio telescopes have finally revealed the nature of the bizarre object known as "Hanny's voorwerp" (SDSS J094103.80+344334.2). The Voorwerp was discovered by Hanny van Arkel, a Dutch school teacher and an enthusiastic volunteer of the Galaxy Zoo project. While surfing through hundred's of images, Hanny noticed a huge green irregular cloud of gas of galactic scale, located about 60,000 light years from a nearby galaxy, IC2497. The object has had astronomers scratching their heads for over a year now - the extent of the cloud is enormous and the gas is extremely hot (> 15000 Celsius)...

These two word-clouds give us a view of the contrasts between the acceptance speeches of Obama and Palin. Created using Wordle, I tried to match them, in terms of layout, as closely as I could. It is interesting to note that there are many personal words in Palin's speech. I look forward to the comments.

[...snip...] But on to antimatter, a cloud of which has been known to exist around the galactic center since the 1970s, when balloon-based gamma-ray detectors first located it. Gamma rays are significant in terms of antimatter because electrons encountering positrons (their antimatter equivalent) annihilate each other, with their mass converted into high energy gamma rays. So the cloud’s presence is well established. The question since its detection is what could have caused it. Now a new paper in Nature may offer an answer, noting the asymmetric distribution of the antimatter cloud, which extends further on one side of galactic center...

A strange blue cloud seen floating and darting around customers, freezing for 30 minutes and then speeding from an Ohio gas station, remains unexplained even though it was caught on security cams. The ghostly image was seen moving near and over cars at a Marathon gas station located near the corner of State Road and Pleasant Valley in Parma on Sunday. Surveillance video of the image showed it flipping and then sitting in the same location for 30 minutes. It then flies off the screen at a high rate of speed. "It gives me the chills," a witness said. Security...

SIERRA VISTA — A funnel cloud Friday afternoon raised eyebrows of police, residents and weather spotters. Another smaller funnel was reported by Sierra Vista police personnel about 10 minutes after the first one retracted into the thunderhead. The funnel clouds were seen by enough people to have an advisory put out on it by the National Weather Service’s Tucson office. Marshall Bryan was mowing his yard on Shawnee Drive in Hereford when he stopped about 1:55 p.m. to look up and see how much time he had before the rain. Instead he saw a funnel cloud to the east of...

Kuelap – the Machu Picchu of Northern Peru.The mysterious super fortress of the Chachapoyan Cloud PeopleKuelap is the largest building structure of the Americas. It is estimated to contain 3 times more material than Egypt’s largest pyramid. Peru considers Kuelap to be as good as Machu Picchu and is trying to make this its equal 2nd major destination. It is twice as old as the Incas and in remarkably better condition before restoration. Kuelap is an unknown giant just waking up. Peru is a huge country the size of the 5 west coast states, California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Montana....

HOBART, Australia - Some of the coldest temperatures on Earth brought a rare cloud formation to the skies over Antarctica, scientists said Tuesday. Meteorological officer Renae Baker captured spectacular images of the nacreous clouds, also known as polar stratospheric clouds, last week at Australia's Mawson station in Antarctica. The clouds only occur at high polar latitudes in winter, requiring temperatures less than minus 176 degrees Fahrenheit. A weather balloon measured temperatures at minus 189 degrees Fahrenheit on the day the photos were taken. Resembling airborne mother-of-pearl shells, the clouds are produced when fading light at sunset passes through water-ice crystals...

New Trojan asteroid hints at huge Neptunian cloud 19:00 15 June 2006 NewScientist.com news service Kelly YoungThe four known Neptune Trojans are shown in their position 60 degrees ahead of Neptune. The known clusters of Trojan asteroids on either side of Jupiter are also shown (Illustration: Scott Sheppard) A newly discovered asteroid in Neptune's orbit indicates the existence of a much larger, but as-yet-unseen, cloud of rocks in that region. The asteroids in Neptune's orbit might even outnumber those in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the new research suggests." The asteroid was discovered by Scott Sheppard of...