It's Nessie on Google Earth!!! (or is that a boat?)

People love to find cool stuff. That's part of what drives scientists around the world. However, sometimes this drive can lead us to find nonsense. Similarly, Google Earth is a great computer program, but it too can be used to find nonsense.

If you remember a few months back, someone claimed to have found Atlantis on Google Earth. That turned out to be an artifact of how Google put together the data. Now Fox News is reporting that Nessie has been found using Google Earth.

I have written about how credulous the news can be and this is a perfect example. Fox says "Some experts believe Nessie may be a Plesiosaur, an extinct marine reptile with a shape like the Google image." Who ever these "experts" are, they have a very poor knowledge of Plesiosaurs. To me, this image looks more like a squid than a Plesiosaur.

In actuality, of course, you are seeing a boat. The tentacles or fins are really just wakes. In fact if you look at pretty much any popular lake in the world with Google Earth you can find similar images. The one below is from lake Powell. You can see how every boat has a slightly different wake pattern. The is a great example of pareidolia at work.

To see this for yourself, you can go to Latitude 57°12'52.13"N, Longitude 4°34'14.16"W on Google Earth.

Lightning's Twin

And here I thought normal lightning was cool.

As it turns out, lightning has a twin above the clouds. It's known as a gigantic jet. The name is pretty accurate, too; where normal lightning fits into a 6-inch channel and travels up to around 4.5 miles, gigantic jets have multiple channels and can travel as much as 40 miles, and enter the ionosphere (which is the boundary between the atmosphere and outer space).

Because of their location, and their short duration, there are only 5 photographs of these gigantic jets. One of the most recent of these was caught nearly on accident. Steven Cummer, of Duke University in North Carolina, had equipment set up to photograph sprites, another sort of electrical discharge in the upper atmosphere. Their equipment was in just the right place at the right time, to capture a 1 second image of a gigantic jet.

This new data will be very useful as scientists study these gigantic jets more closely. Right now, very little is known about them. Scientists have no idea what types of storms or conditions are necessary to produce a gigantic jet. Cummer is planning to set up a high-speed, low-light, color camera, to attempt to capture more images of this upward lightning. This will help determine chemical process, temperature, discharge patterns, and much more. For now, we have a couple cool pictures and videos, and hopefully more are on the way.

Credit: Science Daily- Lightning's Mirror Image... Only Much Bigger

Dynamic Earth: Earthquakes

With a whole bunch of solid plates moving about on the Earth's surface, via plate tectonics, it isn't surprising that natural disasters often occur around plate boundaries. Earthquakes, in particular, are related to plate tectonics.

The boundary between two plates is a fault zone, and it is in these zones that earthquakes typically occur. There is a huge amount of friction that builds up on these fault lines, as the plates move against each other. The tension has to be released at some point, causing an earthquake (see image to right). To see what this is like, try this little experiment. Press your hands together tightly. Now, try to slide one forward. It is difficult to move, at first. At some point, though, your hand shoots out, as the pressure created by your arm is greater than the friction between your hands. This is exactly what happens on a fault line.

A prime example of a fault would be the San Andreas Fault, in California. This fault marks the boundary between the North American and Pacific plates. There has been tension building up in a section of this fault, near Los Angeles, for around 300 years. Because of this, it is possible that a newly discovered type of earthquake will hit is area, and soon. Supershear earthquakes are the geological equivalent of a sonic boom. They travel much faster than seismic waves were thought to be able to. They could be devastating, if they hit major cities like LA or San Francisco.

There is a lot more to earthquakes, and I'll try to elaborate further in another post. For now, though, check out TheTech for more about earthquakes in general.

Credit to New Scientist for information of supershear earthquakes, and to the TV show How the Earth Was Made.

A Spacecraft Anomaly and an Amazing Picture

LCROSS (the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) is part of NASA's plan to return to the moon.  LCROSS is a low-cost, high-risk mission.  That risk, however, was not supposed to be until October.

On August 22nd, LCROSS started experiencing an "anomaly."  According to NASA, a fault in one of the instruments used to determine its orientation caused the thrusters to fire excessively.  Mission operations declared a "spacecraft emergency" and are still working to mitigate the problem.  One of the major problems is the large amount of fuel LCROSS consumed durring the anomaly.  The team is still trying to figure out what went wrong to try and prevent it from happening again.

I really hope that NASA can get this figured out soon.  The main objective of LCROSS is to crash into the surface of the moon and send up a plume of material.  As of right now, NASA is saying that they will have enough fuel for everything to continue as planned.  The plan now is to impact the moon in the early morning of Oct. 9th.  Don't be surprised if this date changes and I will keep you updated on opportunities to view this amazing event.

The image at the top is an image taken by LCROSS of the moon and the Earth both as crescents.  The Earth is in the foreground and the blue/red specs are cosmic radiation (not stars).

Image Credit NASA Ames

A New Face to Saturn's Rings

Over the last few months, we have been treated to a series of images of long shadows cast across Saturn's rings.  This unique viewing opportunity happens about every 15 years as Saturn approaches equinox.  The low angle of the Sun's rays across the rings has been great for science and, of course, produced some amazing photos.  August 11th was Saturn's equinox, so now the opposite side of the rings is being lit up by the sun.

In this bottom image you can see Titan and the shadow that it's casting on the planet.  Both of these are raw images from Cassini so they're a little rough but still give a sense for Saturn's grandeur.  Click on the images to a larger version.

In my opinion, Cassini has produced more eye candy than any other spacecraft we have put up there.  I hope that Cassini will continue to function for many more years before it is crashed into Saturn.  Imagine what we would see and learn if we sent a Cassini-like mission to each of the outer planets.  I hope the folks at NASA recognize the public interest these images have produced and will try for more missions that will be able to capture the majesty that space has to offer.

All images are credit NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute