For the first time ever, scientists have been able to measure the precise spin rate of a 'supermassive black hole'. The findings will provide some clue as to how some of the most mysterious objects in our universe began to form.
The black hole is located in the NGC 1365 galaxy, located 56 million light years away from us, and two million times the mass of the Sun.
By its very nature, a black hole is an object so dense that its gravity is strong enough to absorb the space around it. But in the process, as the incoming objects create friction and heat up, it emits x-rays.
It is these x-rays that astronomers measured, using the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), launched by NASA last year, and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton.
NASA discovers extra radiation ring around Earth by Van Allen Probes.
CREDIT: NASA/Van Allen Probes/Goddard Space Flight Center
Two giant swaths of radiation, known as the Van Allen Belts, surrounding Earth were discovered in 1958. In 2012, observations from the Van Allen Probes showed that a third belt can sometimes appear. The radiation is shown here in yellow, with green representing the spaces between the belts.
A ring of radiation previously unknown to science fleetingly surrounded Earth last year before being virtually annihilated by a powerful interplanetary shock wave, scientists say.
NASA's twin Van Allen space probes, which are studying the Earth's radiation belts, made the cosmic find. The surprising discovery — a new, albeit temporary, radiation belt around Earth — reveals how much remains unknown about outer space, even those regions closest to the planet, researchers added.
After humanity began exploring space, the first major find made there were the Van Allen radiation belts, zones of magnetically trapped, highly energetic charged particles first discovered in 1958.
"They were something we thought we mostly understood by now, the first discovery of the Space Age," said lead study author Daniel Baker, a space scientist at the University of Colorado.
These belts were believed to consist of two rings: an inner zone made up of both high-energy electrons and very energetic positive ions that remains stable in intensity over the course of years to decades; and an outer zone comprised mostly of high-energy electrons whose intensity swings over the course of hours to days depending primarily on the influence from the solar wind, the flood of radiation streaming from the sun. [How NASA's Twin Radiation Probes Work (Infographic)]
The discovery of a temporary new radiation belt now has scientists reviewing the Van Allen radiation belt models to understand how it occurred.
President Obama harbored a childhood dream to follow in the footsteps of Indonesian “Lifetime President” Sukarno, according to an interview Sunday with Obama’s childhood transgender Indonesian nanny. According to France24.com:
A transgender Indonesian man who shot to fame after it emerged he had worked as Barack Obama’s nanny in the late 1960s wants nothing from “little Barry” but to meet him again some day.
The transgendered individual, named Turdi, nannied Obama when the future president and his mother and Indonesian stepfather Lolo Soetoro lived in a suburb of Jakarta in the 1960s. Turdi subsequently spent time as a sex worker and now lives in the slums. Obama did not contact Turdi when he visited Jakarta in 2010 and 2011.
Nevertheless, Turdi has fond memories of Obama: “Once he pointed to a picture of (Indonesian) President Sukarno and said ‘I hope I will grow up to become someone like him.’ I am proud that his wish came true.”
EXPOSÉ:Something is Rotten in a Denmark Unsafe for Jews
It’s just as unsafe in 2013 to be a Jew in Copenhagen as it is to be a Jew in an Arab country. In 2001, a poster in Arabic was pinned up on the notice board at a Copenhagen college. It promised a reward of $35,000 to anybody who would kill a Jew.
The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary. He is at work on a book about the Vatican and Israel.
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet there is a line that has become famous:, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”.
Denmark, the first Scandinavian country to permit Jews to settle in the 17th century and still one of the world’s most attractive nations for immigrants and tourists alike, has become a very dangerous place for the Jews. Denmark, which was considered a positive exception in the history of the Holocaust, today is a bit of an exception once again, in Europe’s post-Holocaust anti-Semitism.
It’s just as unsafe in 2013 to be a Jew in Copenhagen as it is to be a Jew in an Arab country.
The Danish Jewish community documented 40 anti-Semitic incidents in 2012, almost double the number in 2009. An exodus of Danish Jews has already begun. They are moving to countries where Jews can live in comparative safety, such as Israel and the United States.
The orgy of hatred began in 2001, when an anonymous poster in Arabic was pinned up on the notice board at the Niels Brock College in Copenhagen. It promised a reward of $35,000 to anybody who would kill a Jew.
Today there is a network of “no-go zones” in suburbs of Copenhagen and other Danish cities that are now autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic groups. Areas where Danish police fear to tread. It has become acceptable that in one of Europe’s great capitals someone wearing a Star of David cannot walk safely in the streets or in the shopping malls.
For every cloud of smoke that follows a CIA drone strike in Pakistan, dozens of smaller plumes can be traced to a gaunt figure standing in a courtyard near the center of the agency’s Langley campus in Virginia.
The man with the nicotine habit is in his late 50s, with stubble on his face and the dark-suited wardrobe of an undertaker. As chief of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center for the past six years, he has functioned in a funereal capacity for al-Qaeda.
Roger, which is the first name of his cover identity, may be the most consequential but least visible national security official in Washington — the principal architect of the CIA’s drone campaign and the leader of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In many ways, he has also been the driving force of the Obama administration’s embrace of targeted killing as a centerpiece of its counterterrorism efforts.
Colleagues describe Roger as a collection of contradictions. A chain-smoker who spends countless hours on a treadmill. Notoriously surly yet able to win over enough support from subordinates and bosses to hold on to his job. He presides over a campaign that has killed thousands of Islamist militants and angered millions of Muslims, but he is himself a convert to Islam.
His defenders don’t even try to make him sound likable. Instead, they emphasize his operational talents, encyclopedic understanding of the enemy and tireless work ethic.
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