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The Southern Baptist Convention announced Wednesday it has voted overwhelmingly to finalize the expulsion of two churches from the nation's largest Protestant denomination for having female pastors. And the vote wasn't even close, according to the SBC's tally. Spurred on by arch-conservatives in the SBC, the 12,000 or so "messengers" who had gathered at their annual meeting in New Orleans voted by a 9-to-1 margin to seal the exit of California's Saddleback Church and a smaller congregation in Kentucky. That vote, which was conducted Tuesday, set the stage for another vote Wednesday to amend the SBC's constitution to specify that...

Saturn's biggest and never-been-seen before ring has been discovered.The 'super-sized' halo was found by Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope. To get a sense of its size it has a vertical height which is about 20 times the diameter of the planet, which is nine times the size of our planet. Furthermore, the entire volume of the ring could hold about one billion Earths. The bulk of the ring starts about 3.7million miles from Saturn itself and extends outward about another 7.4million miles.With it being so huge many will ask how come it was not seen before. This is because the ring...

Washington: A US-European space probe that will start orbiting Saturn this month has already shown "spectacular" images of the planet's crater-pocked Phoebe moon, scientists said on Monday. The Cassini-Huygens probe, which was launched on October 15, 1997, is to start orbiting Saturn on June 30. It passed within 2068 kilometres of Phoebe on Friday, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said. Cassini-Huygens is a $US3 billion ($A4.31 billion) joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). "What spectacular images. So sharp and clear and showing a great many geological features, large and small," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini Imaging...

While asteroids residing in the inner solar system will pass quickly through such small fields, trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) orbit the Sun much more slowly. For example, Pluto, at an approximate distance of 40 A.U. from the Sun, along with the object Eris, presently the largest of the TNOs, has an apparent motion of about 27 arc seconds per day – although for a half year, the Earth’s orbital motion slows and retrogrades Pluto’s apparent motion. The 27 arc seconds is approximately 1/60th the width of a full Moon. So, from one night to the next, TNOs can travel as much...

Take a break from all the depressing news of the day.Watch Phoebe Allen, the adorable little hummingbird, lay her eggs and raise her babies HERE Absolutely cute overload. Phoebe is a Channel Island Allen hummingbird who lives in Orange County, California. She has been hatching 4 to 5 eggs per year and her nest has been on net webcam since 2007. She is currently sitting on two eggs.

NEW YORK -- Phoebe Snow, a singer, guitarist and songwriter whose song ''Poetry Man'' was a defining hit of the 1970s, has died. Rick Miramontez, her longtime friend and public relations representative, says Snow died Tuesday morning. He says she died of complications from a brain hemorrhage she suffered in January 2010.

Following three months of harassment by fellow students at South Hadley High School, student Phoebe Prince committed suicide. Prince’s reported “bullycide” has brought national scrutiny on the quiet suburban town of South Hadley and provoked a lawsuit against the students involved in the bullying. The prosecution announced on Monday that nine South Hadley students were being indicted on felony charges in the case of Prince’s death. The charges against the students are part of an anti-bullying movement in the state that began following the suicide of Springfield student Carl Walker last year. The students who bullied Phoebe Prince should be...

My heart aches for the parents of Phoebe Prince, the 15-year-old Massachusetts high school student who committed suicide in January after being relentlessly bullied at school and online.

Okay. We need a little more silliness to get over the gloom-and-doom that McCain et all heaped upon us. So, I've been mulling this over: Is Phoebe Bufay a hired assassin? Consider: She had a troubled childhood. She has never revealed much about herself. She has lived overseas and surprised her friends with that fact. She wants to go to sniper school. She carries around an illegal knife. She once stole official police identification and was willing to use it illegally until she fell for the police detective whose it was. Her apartment keeps burning down. She makes veiled threats...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2004 July 10 Phoebe Craters in Stereo Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA(Stereo image by Patrick Vantuyne) Explanation: Get out your red/blue glasses and gaze across the spectacular, cratered terrain of Saturn's icy moon Phoebe in stereo. The dramatic 3-D perspective spans roughly 50 kilometers and is based on two raw, uncalibrated images (N00004840.jpg and N00004838.jpg) from the Cassini spacecraft's narrow angle camera taken during the...

Phoebe probably distant traveller Cassini's images of Phoebe Images of Saturn's moon Phoebe from the Cassini spacecraft suggest it may be a relic of objects that formed billions of years ago in the outer Solar System. The pictures seem to show ice in its craters, boosting the theory that it is more similar to comets and very distant Solar System objects than to asteroids. Scientists think Phoebe migrated inwards and was probably captured by Saturn's gravity billions of years ago. Several tiny Saturn moons may have been blasted out of Phoebe by space impacts. "Battered and beat-up as [Phoebe] is,...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2004 June 14 Unusual Layers on Saturn's Moon Phoebe Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA Explanation: What caused the unusual light and dark layers on Saturn's moon Phoebe? The layers were discovered just Friday during the Cassini spacecraft flyby of the small moon. Such layering is particularly evident on the crater just above the image center, where alternating light and dark material makes this crater appear...

NASA's Cassini space probe confirmed Saturday that it had completed a flyby of Saturn's largest moon, Phoebe, coming within 1,285 miles of the small, dark body. The craft's main antenna was pointing away from Earth during the flyby Friday afternoon. Engineers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., did not receive word of the craft's successful pass until 10:52 a.m. EDT Saturday, when the craft re-oriented itself and began transmitting pictures and data back to mission control. Most of the data and pictures will be released today, but the early unprocessed images show that...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The internationally built Cassini spacecraft successfully completed a flyby of Saturn's largest outer moon as it prepares to enter a four-year orbit to study the ringed planet, NASA officials said Saturday. The plutonium-powered spacecraft, which is carrying 12 science instruments and a probe, came within about 1,285 miles of the dark moon Phoebe on Friday, officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said. The $3.3 billion spacecraft pointed its instruments at the moon then turned to point its antenna toward Earth. NASA's Deep Space Network received confirmation of communication at 7:52 a.m. PDT Saturday. Officials said the...

While the Reagan Funeral is obviously important, Cassini-Huygens must keep its designated appointment in the heavens on the National Day of Mourning: Cassini Spacecraft Near First Stop In Historic Saturn TourSaturn by Cassini and team Pasadena (JPL) Jun 10, 2004 The most complex interplanetary mission ever launched is about to meet one of the solar system's enigmatic moons. Cassini will fly by Saturn's largest outer moon, Phoebe, on Friday, June 11. The closest approach is at approximately 1:56 p.m. Pacific Time, just 19 days before Saturn arrival. A final trajectory correction maneuver is scheduled for June 16. On arrival date,...

Cassini CHAT online on IRC (freenode) The Cassini Chat has been activated and is now available without password to the public. Anyone interested in the discussion should log-in to the irc.freenode.net servers and point your chat-client to the #cassini room. There you will find some of the people involved with the project, many very knowledgable people involved in other space projects, as well as those interested in these endeavours ...(like you). We also moderate the Mars Rover chat as well which is located in the #maestro room. Maestro is the free 'public-outreach' software based on the actual program that JPL...