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Astronomers Solve Asteroid Mystery
Near-Earth asteroids generally die a lingering death in the depths of space rather than plunging into the sun as previously thought, a new study suggests.
Researchers studied the properties of nearly 9,000 near-Earth objects (NEOs) — asteroids and other bodies that come within 1.3 Earth-sun distances of our planet — to build a model of the overall NEO population.
This model seemed to have a problem, however: It predicted that astronomers should be seeing 10 times more NEOs that closely approach the sun — come within 9 million miles (15 million kilometers) or so of the star — than they actually observe.
The research team spent a year puzzling over this outcome before coming to a surprising conclusion: The missing NEOs are actually being destroyed as they get close to the sun, but long before they actually dive into the star.
"The discovery that asteroids must be breaking up when they approach too close to the sun was surprising, and that's why we spent so much time verifying our calculations," study co-author Robert Jedicke, of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, said in a statement.
The team's work should help scientists better understand the NEO population in a variety of ways. For example, many meteors that light up Earth's night skies are pieces of debris shed by parent NEOs on their laps around the sun. Such debris clouds travel on the same orbits as their parent bodies, but astronomers generally have trouble finding these NEOs. The new study suggests that this is because the parent objects have already been destroyed, the researchers said.
In addition, study team members determined that darker NEOs die farther from the sun than brighter ones do, which helps explain something astronomers already knew: Asteroids that approach the sun closely tend to be quite bright.
This finding implies that dark and bright asteroids may differ significantly in structure and composition, the researchers said.
"Perhaps the most intriguing outcome of this study is that it is now possible to test models of asteroid interiors simply by keeping track of their orbits and sizes," lead author Mikael Granvik, of the University of Helsinki in Finland, said in the same statement. "This is truly remarkable and was completely unexpected when we first started constructing the new NEO model."
Granvik and his colleagues built their model by studying nearly 100,000 images of NEOs acquired by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona over an eight-year period.
To date, scientists have identified and tracked almost 14,000 NEOs, but the overall population is thought to number in the millions. Astronomers think that most of these bodies begin their lives in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and then veer inward after experiencing gravitational nudges by Jupiter and/or Saturn. The new study was published online today (Feb. 17) in the journal Nature.
Did Mars' Atmosphere Get Lost In Space?
October 12, 2015 by Michael
Filed under Around The Net
The mystery of Mars' missing atmosphere is one big step closer to being solved.
A previous hypothesis had suggested that a significant part of the carbon from Mars' atmosphere, which is dominated by carbon dioxide, could have been trapped within rocks via chemical processes. However, new research suggests that there's not enough carbon in deposits on the Red Planet's surface to account for the huge amounts lost from the air over time.
"The biggest carbonate deposit on Mars has, at most, twice as much carbon in it as the current Mars atmosphere," study co-author Bethany Ehlmann, of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement
"Even if you combine all known carbon reservoirs together, it is still nowhere near enough to sequester the thick atmosphere that has been proposed for the time when there were rivers flowing on the Martian surface," added Ehlmann, who worked with lead author Christopher Edwards, a former Caltech researcher currently with the U.S. Geological Survey.
Although Mars is dry today, scientists think the planet's surface harbored large amounts of liquid water billions of years ago. Mars must have had a much thicker atmosphere back then, to keep the water from freezing or immediately evaporating, scientists say.
Carbon dioxide can be pulled from the atmosphere via chemical reactions with rocks, forming carbonate minerals. Previous research had suggested that the Red Planet might be covered with significant carbonate deposits, which could have locked up much of Mars' lost atmosphere.
But Mars orbiters and rovers have found just a few concentrated carbonate deposits. The largest known carbonate-rich deposit on Mars is the Nili Fossae region, an area at least the size of Delaware and potentially as large as Arizona.
Edwards and Ehlmann used data captured by numerous Mars missions — including NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Mars Odyssey orbiter — to estimate how much carbon is locked into Nili Fossae. Then, they compared that amount to what would be needed to form a dense, carbon-rich atmosphere that could sustain running water on the surface at the time that flowing rivers are thought to have carved extensive valley networks into the planet's surface.
The Martian surface has been probed extensively by orbiters and landers, revealing only limited and scattered deposits of carbonate. Therefore, Edwards and Ehlmann deem it unlikely that so many large deposits have been overlooked by past examinations. Although very early deposits could be hidden beneath the Martian crust, their existence wouldn't solve the mystery behind the atmosphere that existed when the river-carved valleys formed.
So, if the thick atmosphere didn't become locked in carbonate deposits, what happened to it? One possibility is that it might have been lost to space from the top of the atmosphere — a phenomenon that NASA's Curiosity rover has found evidence of in the past. Still, scientists aren't certain how much of that loss occurred before the valleys formed. NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) orbiter may help narrow down the mystery as it studies the Martian atmosphere.
"Maybe the atmosphere wasn't so thick by the time of valley network formation," Edwards said. "Instead of Mars that was wet and warm, maybe it was cold and wet with an atmosphere that had already thinned. How warm would it need to have been for the valleys to form? Not ver
"In most locations, you could have had snow and ice instead of rain," Edwards said. "You just have to nudge above the freezing point to get water to thaw and flow occasionally, and that doesn't require very much atmosphere."
The research was published online Aug. 21 in the journal Geology.
Will NASA Be Able To Mine Asteroids By 2025?
August 14, 2015 by Michael
Filed under Around The Net
Asteroid mining could shift from sci-fi dream to world-changing reality a lot faster than you think.
Planetary Resources deployed its first spacecraft from the International Space Station last month, and the Washington-based asteroid-mining company aims to launch a series of increasingly ambitious and capable probes over the next few years.
The goal is to begin transforming asteroid water into rocket fuel within a decade, and eventually to harvest valuable and useful platinum-group metals from space rocks.
"We have every expectation that delivering water from asteroids and creating an in-space refueling economy is something that we'll see in the next 10 years — even in the first half of the 2020s," said Chris Lewicki, Planetary Resources president and chief engineer Chris Lewicki.
"After that, I think it's going to be how the market develops," Lewicki told Space.com, referring to the timeline for going after asteroid metals.
"If there's one thing that we've seen repeat throughout history, it's, you tend to overpredict what'll happen in the next year, but you tend to vastly underpredict what will happen in the next 10 years," he added. "We're moving very fast, and the world is changing very quickly around us, so I think those things will come to us sooner than we might think."
Planetary Resources and another company, Deep Space Industries, aim to help humanity extend its footprint out into the solar system by tapping asteroid resources. (Both outfits also hope to make a tidy profit along the way, of course.)
This ambitious plan begins with water, which is plentiful in a type of space rock known as carbonaceous chondrites. Asteroid-derived water could do far more than simply slake astronauts' thirst, mining advocates say; it could also help shield them from dangerous radiation and, when split into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen, allow voyaging spaceships to fill up their fuel tanks on the go.
The technology to detect and extract asteroid water is not particularly challenging or expensive to implement, Lewicki said. Scientific spacecraft routinely identify the substance on celestial bodies, and getting water out of an asteroid could simply involve bagging up the space rock and letting the sun heat it up.
Carbonaceous chondrites also commonly contain metals such as iron, nickel and cobalt, so targeting these asteroids could allow miners to start building things off Earth as well. That's the logical next step beyond exploiting water, Lewicki said.
The "gold at the end of the rainbow," he added, is the extraction and exploitation of platinum-group metals, which are rare here on Earth but are extremely important in the manufacture of electronics and other high-tech goods.
"Ultimately, what we want to do is create a space-based business that is an economic engine that really opens up space to the rest of the economy," Lewicki said.
Developing off-Earth resources should have the effect of opening up the final frontier, he added.
"Every frontier that we've opened up on planet Earth has either been in the pursuit of resources, or we've been able to stay in that frontier because of the local resources that were available to us," Lewicki said. "There's no reason to think that space will be any different."
Planetary Resources isn't mining asteroids yet, but it does have some hardware in space. The company's Arkyd-3R cubesat deployed into Earth orbit from the International Space Station last month, embarking on a 90-day mission to test avionics, software and other key technology.
Incidentally, the "R" in "Arkyd-3R" stands for "reflight." The first version of the probe was destroyed when Orbital ATK's Antares rocket exploded in October 2014; the 3R made it to the space station aboard SpaceX's robotic Dragon cargo capsule in April. [Antares Rocket Explosion in Pictures]
Planetary Resources is now working on its next spacecraft, which is a 6U cubesat called Arkyd-6. (One "U," or "unit," is the basic cubesat building block — a cube measuring 4 inches, or 10 centimeters, on a side. The Arkyd-3R is a 3U cubesat.)
The Arkyd-6, which is scheduled to launch to orbit in December aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, features advanced avionics and electronics, as well as a "selfie cam" that was funded by a wildly successful Kickstarter project several years ago. The cubesat will also carry an instrument designed to detect water and water-bearing minerals, Lewicki said.
The next step is the Arkyd 100, which is twice as big as the Arkyd-6 and will hunt for potential mining targets from low-Earth orbit. Planetary Resources aims to launch the Arkyd-100 in late 2016, Lewicki said.
After the Arkyd 100 will come the Arkyd 200 and Arkyd 300 probes. These latter two spacecraft, also known as "interceptors" and "rendezvous prospectors," respectively, will be capable of performing up-close inspections of promising near-Earth asteroids in deep space.
If all goes according to plan, the first Arkyd 200 will launch to Earth orbit for testing in 2017 or 2018, and an Arkyd 300 will launch toward a target asteroid — which has yet to be selected — by late 2018 or early 2019, Lewicki said.
"It is an ambitious schedule," he said. But such rapid progress is feasible, he added, because each new entrant in the Arkyd series builds off technology that has already been demonstrated — and because Planetary Resources is building almost everything in-house.
"When something doesn't work so well, we don't have a vendor to blame — we have ourselves," Lewicki said. "But we also don't have to work across a contractural interface and NDAs [non-disclosure agreements] and those sorts of things, so that we can really find a problem with a design within a week or two and fix it and move forward."
For its part, Deep Space Industries is also designing and building spacecraft and aims to launch its first resource-harvesting mission before 2020, company representatives have said.
Extracting and selling asteroid resources is in full compliance with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, Lewicki said.
But there's still some confusion in the wider world about the nascent industry and the rights of its players, so he's happy that the U.S. Congress is taking up the asteroid-mining issue. (The House of Representatives recently passed a bill recognizing asteroid miners' property rights, and the Senate is currently considering the legislation as well.)
"I think it's more of a protection issue than it is an actual legal issue," Lewicki said. "From a lawyer's interpretation, I think the landscape is clear enough. But from an international aspect, and some investors — I think they would like to see more certainty."
Did Mars Have Continents?
July 20, 2015 by Michael
Filed under Uncategorized
Now researchers have found that silica-rich rock much like the continental crust on Earth may be widespread at the site where Curiosity landed on Mars in August 2012.
"Mars is supposed to be a basalt-covered world," study lead author Violaine Sautter, a planetary scientist at France's Museum of Natural History in Paris, told Space.com. The findings are "quite a surprise," she added.
Sautter and her colleagues analyzed data from 22 rocks probed by Curiosity as the six-wheeled robot wandered ancient terrain near Gale Crater. This 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) pit formed about 3.6 billion years ago when a meteor slammed into Mars, and the age of the rocks from this area suggests they could help shed light on the earliest period of the Red Planets, scientists said.
The 22 rocks the researchers investigated were light-colored, contrasting with the darker basaltic rock found in younger regions on Mars. They probed these rocks using the rock-zapping laser called ChemCamon Curiosity, which analyzes the light emitted by zapped materials to determine the chemistry of Martian rocks.
The scientists found these light-colored rocks were rich in silica. A number of these were similar in composition to some of Earth's oldest preserved continental crust.
Sautter noted that recent orbiter and rover missions had also spotted isolated occurrences of silica-rich rock. The researchers suggest these silica-rich rocks might be widespread remnants of an ancient crust on Mars that was analogous to Earth's early continental crust and is now mostly buried under basalt.
The researchers added that the early geological history of Mars might be much more similar to that of Earth than previously thought. Future research could investigate whether the marked differences between Mars' smooth northern hemisphere and rough, heavily cratered southern hemisphere might be due to plate tectonics, Sautter said.
The scientists detailed their findings online Monday (July 13) in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Astronomers Discover Very Light Mars Size Alien Planet
June 22, 2015 by Michael
Filed under Around The Net
A Mars-size planet about 200 light-years from our solar system has turned out to be the lightest known alien world orbiting a normal star, researchers say.
Astronomers made the discovery after measuring the size and mass of the baking-hot planet, named Kepler-138 b, which orbits a red dwarf star called Kepler-138. Mars is only 53 percent the size of the Earth (or just about half the size), so Kepler-138 b is smaller than the Earth.
In the past couple of decades, astronomers have confirmed the existence ofmore than 1,800 exoplanets, or planets orbiting a star other than our sun. However, it's more difficult for scientists to calculate the masses of small, rocky planets like Mars or Mercury than for large, gaseous worlds such as Jupiter or Saturn. Scientists measure the masses of exoplanets by looking at how strongly their gravitational fields tug on their stars; small planets have small masses, and their weak tugs on their stars are more difficult for astronomers to detect. As such, few Earth-size exoplanets have had their masses measured. [The Smallest Known Alien Planets in Pictures]
In this new study, astronomers investigated Kepler-138, a cold, dim red dwarf star with a mass about half that of the sun. Kepler-138 is located about 200 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Lyra.
Kepler-138 "is more than 10 million times further away from us than our sun," study lead author Daniel Jontof-Hutter, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, told Space.com.
The star Kepler-138 is home to three exoplanets, prior research has confirmed by detecting the slight dimming of the star's light that occurs whenever one of these worlds crosses in front of it. Each of these two planets — Kepler-138 c and Kepler-138 d — is about 1.2 times as wide as Earth. The third, Kepler-138 b, is a little more than half as wide as Earth, making it about the size of Mars.
"Kepler-138 b has the same apparent size to us as a golf ball 10 million kilometers [6.2 million miles] away," Jontof-Hutter said.
These three exoplanets orbit very close to their star. Kepler-138 b takes a little more than 10 days to complete its orbit, Kepler-138 c requires nearly 14 days and Kepler-138 d needs about 23 days.
Using NASA's Kepler spacecraft, the researchers looked at how the gravitational tug-of-war among these exoplanets influenced the lengths of their orbits. Because the strength of a planet's gravitational pull is directly related to its mass, the scientists were able to weigh all three of these planets.
The astronomers found that the mass of the Mars-size inner planet, Kepler-138 b, is about one-fifteenth, or 6.7 percent, of Earth's, making it about two-thirds the mass of Mars.
"Kepler-138 b is the first exoplanet smaller than Earth to have both its size and its mass measured," Jontof-Hutter said.
The least massive known alien world may be the exoplanet PSR B1257+12 b, which has an estimated mass only about one-fiftieth, or 2 percent, that of Earth. However, that world does not orbit a normal star, but instead circles a pulsar — a dense, rapidly spinning remnant of a supernova explosion.
Knowing the mass and width of Kepler-138 b helped the researchers calculate its density, which they found is about two-thirds that of Mars, suggesting it has a purely rocky composition.
Although Kepler-138 b may be similar in mass and width to Mars, it is so much closer to its star, and thus hotter, meaning it is likely very different from Mars, Jontof-Hutter said. "In fact, all three planets orbiting Kepler-138 are likely too hot to retain liquid water," Jontof-Hutter said. On the outermost planet, surface temperatures are about 250 degrees Fahrenheit (120 degrees Celsius), while those on the innermost planet are about 610 degrees F (320 degrees C).
Kepler-138 c and Kepler-138 d have masses 197 percent and 64 percent of Earth's, respectively.
This finding opens up the study of rocky alien planets smaller than Earth, Jontof-Hutter said.
"The enormous variety of exoplanets that have been discovered by Kepler show us that systems like our own solar system are probably not the norm, and we don't know why," Jontof-Hutter said. Analyzing more exoplanets "will give us clues about how planets form and enable us to learn how common systems like are own really are."
The scientists detailed their findings in the June 18 issue of the journal Nature.
Does Methane In Martian Meteorites Suggest Life?
June 18, 2015 by Michael
Filed under Around The Net
Methane, a potential sign of primitive life, has been found in meteorites from Mars, adding weight to the idea that life could live off methane on the Red Planet, researchers say.
This discovery is not evidence that life exists, or has ever existed, on Mars, the researchers cautioned. Still, methane "is an ingredient that could potentially support microbial activity in the Red Planet," study lead author Nigel Blamey, a geochemist at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, told Space.com.
Methane is the simplest organic molecule. This colorless, odorless, flammable gas was first discovered in the Martian atmosphere by the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft in 2003, and NASA's Curiosity rover discovered a fleeting spike of methane at its landing site last year.
Much of the methane in Earth's atmosphere is produced by life, such as cattle digesting food. However, there are ways to produce methane without life, such as volcanic activity.
To shed light on the nature of the methane on Mars, Blamey and his colleagues analyzed rocks blasted off Mars by cosmic impacts that subsequently crash-landed on Earth as meteorites. About 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of Martian meteorites have been found on Earth.
The scientists focused on six meteorites from Mars that serve as examples of volcanic rocks there, collecting samples about one-quarter of a gram from each — a little bigger than a 1-carat diamond. All the samples were taken from the interiors of the meteorites, to avoid terrestrial contamination.
The researchers found that all six released methane and other gases when crushed, probably from small pockets inside.
"The biggest surprise was how large the methane signals were," Blamey said.
Chemical reactions between volcanic rocks on Mars and the Martian environment could release methane. Although the dry thin air of Mars makes its surface hostile to life, the researchers suggest the Red Planet is probably more habitable under its surface. They noted that if methane is available underground on Mars, microbes could live off it, just as some bacteria do in extreme environments on Earth.
"We have not found life, but we have found methane that could potentially support microbes in the subsurface," Blamey said.
Blamey now hopes to analyze more Martian meteorites. He and his colleagues detailed their findings online today (June 16) in the journal Nature Communications.
Is Green Rust A Clue For Alien Life On Mars?
June 3, 2015 by Michael
Filed under Around The Net
Mars is a large enough planet that astrobiologists looking for life need to narrow the parameters of the search to those environments most conducive to habitability.
NASA's Mars Curiosity mission is exploring such a spot right now at its landing site around Gale Crater, where the rover has found extensive evidence of past water and is gathering information on methane in the atmosphere, a possible signature of microbial activity.
But where would life most likely gain energy from its surroundings? One possibility is in an environment that includes "green rust," a partially oxidized iron mineral. A fully oxidized iron "rust" — one exposed to oxidation for long enough — turns orangey-red, similar to the color of Mars' regolith. When oxidization is incomplete, however, the iron rust is greenish.
This means that there are two different "redox states," or types of iron with different numbers of electrons in the same mineral. This difference between the two iron redox states could allow the mineral to take in or give up electrons and thus act as a catalyst, said Laurie Barge, a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She studies hydrothermal vents, an area where chemical contrasts also fuel life.
"From an environmental science perspective, green rust can absorb and concentrate nutrients, and can also accept and donate electrons for life," said Barge.
She is the lead author of related work that was presented at the American Geophysical Union's Joint Assembly meeting in May 2015. Funding for this work comes from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Icy Worlds team as part of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) element of the Astrobiology Program at NASA.
Digging deep
One major challenge in the search for life on Mars is that its surface is highly oxidized. On Earth, green rust generated in Barge's lab oxidizes quickly when exposed to air, and its composition is changed in only an hour. However, the lack of oxygen on Mars makes this a slower process. It is likely that green rust occurs beneath the oxidized surface, perhaps only a centimeter or half-inch deep as revealed by Curiosity.
There are more probes on the way to Mars that will include drills. One of those will be NASA's InSight lander, which is set to go to the Red Planet in 2016. Another is the European Space Agency's ExoMars rover, expected to launch in 2018.
A major focus of current NASA missions on Mars is finding out where water has flowed in the past. NASA's Curiosity, Opportunity and Spirit rovers have all found rocks that form in the presence of water, such as the red iron oxide mineral hematite, as well as select sulfates and clays. Further, several orbiting spacecraft have seen signs, such as the presence of gullies, in which water is thought to have once flowed on the surface.
Barge knows from her experiments that green rust forms when two contrasting solutions – one containing iron and one containing hydroxide – are mixed. On Earth, green rust has been found in such environments as non-oxygenated wet sediments and steel pipes that corrode in sea water.
Probing by laser
To detect green rust, Barge suggests using laser Raman spectroscopy, a technique which will be included on ESA's ExoMars and NASA's Mars 2020 missions. The technique involves directing a laser beam at a sample and then collecting and analyzing the light that is scattered from the spot to identify its molecular composition and structure. The scattered light contains fingerprint spectral features that allow us to determine the molecular makeup and mineralogy of the sample. Barge has teamed up with Pablo Sobron, a research scientist at the SETI Institute, an expert in laser-based spectroscopy applied to Mars exploration, to adapt the Raman technique for the detection and analysis of green rust.
But first, there needs to be a better understanding of where green rust will occur and how it can support habitability. The JPL Icy Worlds team (led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Isik Kanik) recently received a second five-year NASA Astrobiology Institute grant to study the habitability of icy worlds, including an investigation into how green rust might drive prebiotic chemistry, or chemistry that is a precursor to life.
"There's a theory proposed by Michael Russell at JPL that green rust could have acted as a proto-enzyme to convert energy currencies on early Earth," Barge said, referring to how lifeforms convert proton and electron gradients into chemical energy to drive metabolism and, thereby, life.
Green rust is especially interesting in this regard because it is a double layered hydroxide that can sandwich all sorts of interesting components relevant to life in between these layers, Barge added. These include phosphates, DNA, amino acids and proteins.
NASA Discovers Mysterious Spot On Ceres
January 28, 2015 by Michael
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A strange, flickering white blotch found on the dwarf planet Ceres by a NASA spacecraft has scientists scratching their heads.
The white spot on Ceres in a series of new photos taken on Jan. 13 by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, which is rapidly approaching the round dwarf planet in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. But when the initial photo release on Monday (Jan. 19), the Dawn scientists gave no indication of what the white dot might be.
"Yes, we can confirm that it is something on Ceres that reflects more sunlight, but what that is remains a mystery," Marc Rayman, mission director and chief engineer for the Dawn mission, told Space.com in an email.
The new images show areas of light and dark on the face of Ceres, which indicate surface features like craters. But at the moment, none of the specific features can be resolved, including the white spot.
"We do not know what the white spot is, but it's certainly intriguing," Rayman said. "In fact, it makes you want to send a spacecraft there to find out, and of course that is exactly what we are doing! So as Dawn brings Ceres into sharper focus, we will be able to see with exquisite detail what [the white spot] is."
Ceres is a unique object in our solar system. It is the largest object in the asteroid belt and is classified as an asteroid. It is simultaneously classified as a dwarf planet, and at 590 miles across (950 kilometers, or about the size of Texas), Ceres is the smallest known dwarf planet in the solar system.
The $466 million Dawn spacecraft is set to enter into orbit around Ceres on March 6. Dawn left Earth in 2007 and in the summer of 2011, it made a year-long pit stop at the asteroid Vesta, the second largest object in the asteroid belt.
While Vesta shared many properties with our solar system's inner planets, scientists with the Dawn mission suspect that Ceres has more in common with the outer most planets. 25 percent of Ceres' mass is thought to be composed of water, which would mean the space rock contains even more fresh water than Earth. Scientists have observed water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Ceres, which may erupt from volcano-like ice geysers.
The mysterious white spot captured by the Dawn probe is one more curious feature of this already intriguing object.
Asteroids As Building Blocks Being Questioned
January 20, 2015 by Michael
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Asteroids have long been regarded as planetary building blocks. But they may actually be byproducts of planet formation, born when violent collisions smashed an earlier generation of objects apart, a new study suggests.
Asteroid fragments that fall to Earth as meteorites often contain tiny, round pellets called chondrules that formed when molten droplets quickly cooled in space in the solar system's early years. Chondrules are found in 92 percent of all meteorites, and are often thought to be the building blocks of planets.
Chondrules were part of the protoplanetary disc of gas and dust surrounding the newborn sun that gave birth to Earth and the other planets. A recent study found that chondrules formed about 1 million years after planetesimals — the building blocks of protoplanets — came together.
Prior research had suggested that chondrules in some meteorites were probably born when rocks in space collided at speeds of more than 22,370 mph (36,000 km/h). However, it was uncertain how the majority of chondrules formed.
Now, scientists have found that cosmic impacts could have generated enough chondrules during the first 5 million years or so of planet formation to explain the large quantity of these pellets.
"The most surprising implication of our work is that the meteorites we find on Earth are not actually the building blocks of planets, as has been thought for a long time," lead study author Brandon Johnson, a planetary scientist at MIT, told Space.com. "Instead, they may be a byproduct of planetary formation."
Chondrule-bearing meteorites — known as chondrites — may thus not be representative of the objects that built the solar system's planets, study team members said.
The researchers simulated impacts of varying speeds between protoplanetary objects about 60 to 650 miles (100 to 1,000 kilometers) wide. They found that when collision speeds exceeded 5,590 mph (9,000 km/h), plumes of molten rock that blasted out from these impacts could form millimeter-size droplets that could have cooled into chondrules.
The scientists calculated that cosmic impacts within a typical protoplanetary disc could have generated more than 44 billion trillion lbs. (20 billion trillion kilograms) of chondrules. For comparison, the present asteroid belt currently has a mass of about 6.6 billion trillion lbs. (3 billion trillion kg).
This finding suggests that cosmic impacts could have generated many of the chondrules in the asteroid belt from which nearly all meteorites originate.
"We've put together a coherent model for chondrule formation," Johnson said. "Once we have a proper context for how chondrules formed, we can really understand what was happening in the nascent solar system."
Johnson noted that the team's work only investigated vertical impacts. "More realistic impacts may be at an angle," Johnson said. Still, such oblique impacts "produce more jetted materials, more chondrules," he added.
Could Ceres Be The Home To E.T.?
December 24, 2014 by Michael
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A NASA probe is about to get the first up-close look at a potentially habitable alien world.
In March 2015, NASA's Dawn spacecraft will arrive in orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres is a relatively warm and wet body that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the Jovian moon Europa and the Saturn satellite Enceladus, both of which may be capable of supporting life as we know it, some researchers say.
"I don't think Ceres is less interesting in terms of astrobiology than other potentially habitable worlds," Jian-Yang Li, of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said Thursday (Dec. 18) during a talk here at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Life as we know it requires three main ingredients, Li said: liquid water, an energy source and certain chemical building blocks (namely, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur).
The dwarf planet Ceres — which is about 590 miles (950 kilometers) wide — is thought to have a lot of water, based on its low overall density (2.09 grams per cubic centimeter; compared to 5.5 g/cubic cm for Earth). Ceres is likely a differentiated body with a rocky core and a mantle comprised of water ice, researchers say, and water-bearing minerals have been detected on its surface.
Indeed, water appears to make up about 40 percent of Ceres' volume, Li said.
"Ceres is actually the largest water reservoir in the inner solar system other than the Earth," he said. However, it's unclear at the moment how much, if any, of this water is liquid, he added.
As far as energy goes, Ceres has access to a decent amount via solar heating, since the dwarf planet lies just 2.8 astronomical units (AU) from the sun, Li said. (One AU is the distance between Earth and the sun — about 93 million miles, or 150 million km). Europa and Enceladus are much farther away from our star — 5.2 and 9 AU, respectively.
Both Europa and Enceladus possess stores of internal heat, which is generated by tidal forces. This heat keeps the ice-covered moons' subsurface oceans of liquid water from freezing up, and also drives the eruption of water-vapor plumes on Enceladus (and probably Europa as well; researchers announced last year that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope spotted water vapor erupting from the Jupiter moon in December 2012).
Intriguingly, scientists announced the discovery of water-vapor emission from Ceres — which may also possess a subsurface ocean — earlier this year.
Ceres' plumes may or may not be evidence of internal heat, Li said. For example, they may result when water ice near Ceres' surface is heated by sunlight and warms enough to sublimate into space.
"Right now, we just don't know much about the outgassing on Ceres," Li said.
Dawn should help bring Ceres into much clearer focus when it reaches the dwarf planet this spring. The spacecraft, which orbited the huge asteroid Vesta from July 2011 through September 2012, will map Ceres' surface in detail and beam home a great deal of information about the body's geology and thermal conditions before the scheduled end of its prime mission in July 2015.
Ground-based instruments should also play a role in unveiling Ceres. For example, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA — a huge system of radio dishes in Chile — has the ability to probe deeper than Dawn, going into Ceres' subsurface and shedding more light on the dwarf planet's composition and thermal properties, Li said.
"This is highly complementary to the Dawn mission," he said.
Ceres' relative proximity to Earth also makes it an attractive target for future space missions, Li added.
Astronomers Find New Molecule In Space Dust
September 29, 2014 by Michael
Filed under Around The Net
The discovery of a strangely branched organic molecule in the depths of interstellar space has capped a decades-long search for the carbon-bearing stuff.
The molecule in question — iso-propyl cyanide (i-C3H7CN) — was spotted in Sagittarius B2, a huge star-making cloud of gas and dust near the center of the Milky Way, about 27,000 light-years from the sun. The discovery suggests that some of the key ingredients for life on Earth could have originated in interstellar space.
A specific molecule emits light at a particular wavelength and in a telltale pattern, or spectrum, which scientists can detect using radio telescopes. For this study, astronomers used the enormous Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in the Chilean desert, which went online last year and combines the power of 66 radio antennas. [5 Bold Claims of Alien Life]
Iso-propyl cyanide joins a long list of molecules detected in interstellar space. But what makes this discovery significant is the structure of iso-propyl cyanide. All other organic molecules that have been detected in space so far (including normal-propyl cyanide, the sister of i-C3H7CN) are made of a straight chain with a carbon backbone. Iso-propyl cyanide, however, has a "branched" structure. This same type of branched structure is a key characteristic of amino acids.
"Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, which are important ingredients of life on Earth," the study's lead author, Arnaud Belloche, of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, told Space.com in an email. "We are interested in the origin of amino acids in general and their distribution in our galaxy."
Scientists have previously found amino acids in meteorites that fell to Earth, and the composition of these chemicals suggested they had an interstellar origin. The researchers in this new study did not find amino acids, but their discovery adds an "additional piece of evidence that the amino acids found in meteorites could have been formed in the interstellar medium," Belloche wrote.
"The detection of a molecule with a branched carbon backbone in interstellar space, in a region where stars are being formed, is interesting because it shows that interstellar chemistry is indeed capable of producing molecules with such a complex, branched structure," Belloche added.
It was first suggested in the 1980s that branched molecules could form on the surface of dust grains in interstellar space. But this is the first time such compounds have been detected. What's more, iso-propyl cyanide seemed to be plentiful — it was almost half as abundant of its more common sister variant in Sagittarius B2, the study found. This means that branched molecules could actually be quite ordinary in interstellar space, the researchers said.
Does Microbial Life Here Bold Well For Alien Life Discovery?
August 27, 2014 by Michael
Filed under Around The Net
The discovery of a complex microbial ecosystem far beneath the Antarctic ice may be exciting, but it doesn't necessarily mean that life teems on frigid worlds throughout the solar system, researcher's caution.
Scientists announced today (Aug. 20) in the journal Nature that many different types of microbes live in subglacial Lake Whillans, a body of fresh water entombed beneath 2,600 feet (800 meters) of Antarctic ice. Many of the micro-organisms in these dark depths apparently get their energy from rocks, the researchers report.
The results could have implications for the search for life beyond Earth, notes Martyn Tranter of the University of Bristol in England, who did not participate in the study. [6 Most Likely Places for Alien Life in the Solar System]
"The team has opened a tantalizing window on microbial communities in the bed of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and on how they are maintained and self-organize," Tranter wrote in an accompanying "News and Views" piece in the same issue of Nature. "The authors' findings even beg the question of whether microbes could eat rock beneath ice sheets on extraterrestrial bodies such as Mars. This idea has more traction now."
But just how much traction is a matter of debate. For example, astrobiologist Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center in California doesn't see much application to Mars or any other alien world.
"First, it is clear that the water sampled is from a system that is flowing through ice and out to the ocean," said McKay, who also was not part of the study team.
"Second, and related to this, the results are not indicative of an ecosystem that is growing in a dark, nutrient-limited system," McKay told Space.com via email. "They are consistent with debris from the overlying ice — known to contain micro-organisms — flowing through and out to the ocean. Interesting in its own right, but not a model for an isolated ice-covered ecosystem."
Isolated, ice-covered oceans exist on some moons of the outer solar system, such as Jupiter's moon Europa and the Saturn satellite Enceladus — perhaps the two best bets to host life beyond Earth. McKay and other astrobiologists would love to know if these oceans do indeed host life.
It may be possible to find out without even touching down on Europa or Enceladus. Plumes of water vapor spurt into space from the south polar regions of both moons, suggesting that flyby probes could sample their subsurface seas from afar.
And Europa is on the minds of the higher-ups at both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). NASA is drawing up plans for a potential Europa mission that could blast off in the mid-2020s, while ESA aims to launch its JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission —which would study the Jovian satellites Callisto and Ganymede in addition to Europa — in 2022.
Could CFC's Help With The Search For Alien Life?
August 19, 2014 by Michael
Filed under Around The Net
Chemicals once found in hairspray may serve as signs of alien life on faraway worlds, researchers say.
These compounds may reveal that extraterrestrials have disastrously altered their planets, scientists added.
To detect biomarkers, or signs of life, on distant worlds, scientists have often focused on molecules such as oxygen, which theoretically disappears quickly from atmospheres unless life is present to provide a constant supply of the gas. By looking at light passing through atmospheres of alien worlds, past studies have suggested future instruments such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope could detect telltale traces of oxygen.
But the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has mostly concentrated on "technosignatures," such as radio and other electromagnetic signals that alien civilizations might give off. Now researchers suggest that searches for atmospheric biomarkers could also look for industrial pollutants as potential signs of intelligent aliens.
Astronomers at Harvard University focused on tiny, superdense stars known as white dwarfs. More than 90 percent of all stars in the Milky Way, including our own sun, will one day end up as white dwarfs, which are made up of the dim, fading cores of stars.
Though white dwarfs are quite cold for stars, they would still be warm enough to possess so-called habitable zones — orbits where liquid water can exist on the surfaces of circling planets. These zones are considered potential habitats for life, as there is life virtually everywhere there is liquid water on Earth.
The scientists examined how Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of white dwarfs might look if they possessed industrial pollutants in their atmosphere. They focused on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which are entirely artificial compounds, with no known natural process capable of creating them in atmospheres.
CFCs are nontoxic chemicals that were once used in hairspray and air conditioners, among many other products, before researchers discovered they were causing a hole in Earth's ozone layer, which protects the planet from dangerous ultraviolet radiation.
"Very hairy extraterrestrials may be a little easier to detect," joked lead study author Henry Lin, a physicist at Harvard.
CFCs are strong greenhouse gases, meaning they are very effective at absorbing heat. This means that if CFCs are in the atmosphere of a distant Earth-size planet, they could alter a white dwarf's light when that world passes in front of that star — enough for the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is due to launch in 2018, to detect them.
In addition, the researchers noted that CFCs are long-lived molecules, capable of lasting up to about 100,000 years in atmospheres. This means they could even serve as markers of long-dead alien civilizationsThe investigators simulated the amount of time it would take JWST to detect the fluorocarbon CF4 and the chlorofluorocarbon CCl3F in the atmosphere of an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a white dwarf. They modeled concentrations of these gases 100 times greater than the highs currently seen on Earth.
The scientists found it would take JWST three days of looking at such a white dwarf to detect signs of CF4, and only a day and a half for CCl3F.
"The most exciting aspect of the results is that within the next decade we might be able to search for excessive industrial pollution in the atmospheres of Earth-like planets," study co-author Abraham Loeb, a theoretical astrophysicist and chair of Harvard's astronomy department, told Space.com.
Ironically, "aliens are often referred to as green little creatures, but 'green' also means 'environmentally friendly,'" Loeb said. "Detectable CFC-rich civilizations would not be 'green.'"
The scientists did caution that it would take much longer to detect these industrial pollutants than it would biomarkers such as oxygen, which JWST could find after about three hours of looking at such a planet. Astronomers should only attempt to discover technosignatures such as CFCs if initial searches for fundamental biomarkers like oxygen were successful, the research team suggested.
The astronomers cautioned it would be 100 times more difficult to detect industrial pollutants on planets orbiting yellow dwarf stars like the sun, making such searches beyond the capabilities of JWST. It would also take an unrealistically long time to detect CFC levels on alien planets that match those currently found on Earth, Loeb said.
One potentially sobering future discovery might be of alien worlds that possess long-lived industrial pollutants such as CFCs but no longer have any short-lived biomarkers such as oxygen.
"If we find graveyards of other civilizations, most rational people would likely get engaged in protecting the Earth from a similar catastrophe," Loeb said.
"We call industrial pollution a biomarker for intelligent life, but perhaps a civilization much more advanced than us with their own exoplanet program will classify industrial pollution as a biomarker for unintelligent life," Lin said.
However, if astronomers discover a world heavy with CFCs that exists outside the habitable zone of its star, that could mean an extraterrestrial civilization may have intentionally "terraformed" that planet, making it livably warmer "by polluting it with greenhouse gases," Loeb said. Scientists have previously suggested terraforming Mars by warming and thickening the Red Planet's atmosphere so that humans can roam its surface without having to wear spacesuits.
Is Saturn's Moon Enceladus Hiding Life?
April 8, 2014 by Michael
Filed under Around The Net
Astronomers are hoping that the existence of a subsurface ocean on Saturn's icy moon Enceladus will build momentum for life-hunting missions to the outer solar system.
Researchers announced their discovery of the deep watery ocean on Enceladus on Thursday (April 3) in the journal Science, confirming suspicions held by many scientists since 2005, when NASA's Cassini spacecraft spied geysers of ice and water vapor erupting from Enceladus' south pole.
The discovery vaults Enceladus into the top tier of life-hosting candidates along with Europa, an ice-sheathed moon of Jupiter that also hosts a subterranean ocean. Both frigid satellites bear much closer investigation, researchers say.
"I don't know which of the two is going to be more likely to have life. It might be both; it could be neither," study co-author Jonathan Lunine of Cornell University told reporters yesterday (April 2). "I think what this discovery tells us is that we just need to be more aggressive in getting the next generation of spacecraft both to Europa and to the Saturn system once the Cassini mission is over."
Cassini arrived in orbit around Saturn in 2004 and is currently scheduled to go out in a blaze of glory in September 2017, when it will dive headlong into the giant planet's thick atmosphere.
Enceladus' geysers blast material hundreds of miles into space, offering a way to sample the moon's subsurface ocean from afar. (Researchers think the ocean is feeding the geysers, though they can't be sure of this at the moment.)
Cassini has already done some of this work with its mass spectrometer, detecting salts and organic compounds — the carbon-based building blocks of life as we know it — in Enceladus' plumes during flybys of the moon.
But Cassini's mass spectrometer can detect only relatively light organics. A follow-up mission to Enceladus should sport a more advanced and more sensitive version of this instrument that could spot a wider range of organics, Lunine said.
"You could actually do this by making flybys of Enceladus, the way that Cassini does now," he said. "I think you could learn quite a bit about the organic inventory in the plume by flying this device."
Interestingly, astronomers announced in December that they had discovered plumes of water vapor erupting from Europa's south polar region as well. So that moon's ocean could be sampled during flybys, too — perhaps by a mission called the Europa Clipper.
NASA is developing the Europa Clipper as a concept mission at the moment. Recent estimates have pegged the mission's cost at around $2 billion. That's pretty steep in these tough economic times, so a scaled-down version might have the best chance of getting it off the ground, NASA officials have said.
Enceladus and Europa aren't the only icy moons that harbor subsurface oceans; Jupiter's enormous moon Ganymede also has one, for example. But Ganymede's appears to be sandwiched between layers of ice, while the seas of Enceladus and Europa are in contact with rocky seafloors, making possible all sorts of interesting chemical reactions, researchers say.
Did The Dinosaur Killing Asteroid Create Acid Rain?
March 13, 2014 by Michael
Filed under Uncategorized
The oceans soured into a deadly sulfuric-acid stew after the huge asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs, a new study suggests.
Eighty percent of the planet's species died off at the end of the Cretaceous Period 65.5 million years ago, including most marine life in the upper ocean, as well as swimmers and drifters in lakes and rivers. Scientists blame this mass extinction on the asteroid or comet impact that created the Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico.
A new model of the disaster finds that the impact would have inundated Earth's atmosphere with sulfur trioxide, from sulfate-rich marine rocks called anhydrite vaporized by the blast. Once in the air, the sulfur would have rapidly transformed into sulfuric acid, generating massive amounts of acid rain within a few days of the impact, according to the study, published today (March 9) in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The model helps explain why most deep-sea marine life survived the mass extinction while surface dwellers disappeared from the fossil record, the researchers said. The intense acid rainfall only spiked the upper surface of the ocean with sulfuric acid, leaving the deeper waters as a refuge. The model could also account for another extinction mystery: the so-called fern spike, revealed by a massive increase in fossil fern pollen just after the impact. Ferns are one of the few plants that tolerate ground saturated in acidic water, the researchers said.
The Chicxulub impact devastated the Earth with more than just acid rain. Other killer effects included tsunamis, a global firestorm and soot from burning plants. [The 10 Best Ways to Destroy Earth]
The ocean-acidification theory has been put forth before, but some scientists questioned whether the impact would have produced enough global acid rain to account for the worldwide extinction of marine life. For example, the ejected sulfur could have been sulfur dioxide, which tends to hang out in the atmosphere instead of forming aerosols that become acid rain.
Lead author Sohsuke Ohno, of the Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan, and his co-authors simulated the Chicxulub impact conditions in a lab, zapping sulfur-rich anhydrite rocks with a laser to mimic the forces of an asteroid colliding with Earth. The resulting vapor was mostly sulfur trioxide, rather than sulfur dioxide, the researchers found. In Earth's atmosphere, the sulfur trioxide would have quickly combined with water to form sulfuric acid aerosols. These aerosols played a key role in quickly getting sulfur out of the sky and into the ocean, the researchers said. The tiny droplets likely stuck to pulverized silicate rock debris raining down on the planet, thus removing sulfuric acid from the atmosphere in just a matter of days.
"Our experimental results indicate that sulfur trioxide is expected to be the major sulfide component in the sulfur oxide gas released during the impact," Ohno told Live Science in an email interview. "In addition to that, by the scavenging or sweeping out of acid aerosols by coexisting silicate particles, sulfuric acid would have settled to the ground surface within a very short time," Ohno said.


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You know what I think of when I think of Assassin's Creed? Tower defense.
posted: 10/28/2011 4:36:00 PM
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Assassin's Creed Revelations
Everybody loves tower defense games right? Well, Ubisoft seems to think, at the very least, enough people like them to warrant a tower defense mini-game in
Assassin's Creed Revelations
. The video below gives you a taste of what you can expect. I wanted to roll my eyes at this for about a second, then I remembered how
Assassin's Creed
games keep delivering. They've introduced major new gameplay features for every new
game after the first one, and despite the fact that they've come out in consecutive years, they've remained fun and fully-realized. Whether it's multiplayer, Borgia towers, guns, vehicle levels, or the Assassin's Guild, they've never felt unnecessary or under-cooked. Many new games can't manage that even once, let alone across three annual titles.
Assassin's Creed Revelations
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The party is far from over. The early-year rally that on Friday took the Dow Jones Industrial Average to within 1% of its record high, set in 2007, could have a lot further to run. For starters, stocks aren't expensive. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is valued at about 14 times estimated 2013 profits and the Dow fetches less than 13 times projected 2013 earnings. At the market peak in 2007, the Dow traded for 16 times forward earnings. Given ultralow interest rates, the market multiple has room to expand even if earnings growth remains modest.
There's a huge amount of money that could shift into stocks because individuals until recently have favored bonds over equities, based on mutual-fund flow data. "If there is a great rotation going on from bonds to stocks, we may be only in the top of the first inning," says Jason Trennert, chief investment strategist at Strategas Research Partners in New York. Trennert cites the TINA -- or "there is no alternative" -- factor, as yield-starved investors move into stocks.
Further impetus to stocks could come from endowments and pension funds that for the past decade have been shifting assets away from stocks and into alternatives, including hedge funds, private equity, real estate, and commodity-oriented investments.
That trend could reverse, because it will be tough for hedge funds and other alternatives to keep pace with a steadily rising stock market. Last year, the S&P 500 returned more than 16%, 10 percentage points better than the average hedge fund tracked by Hedge Fund Research. If big endowments and pension funds see relative returns suffer, there will be pressure for them to boost their allocation to stocks.
"Assuming we breach the old high on the S&P 500, the national conversation and media coverage could shift from a constant discussion of a 'lost decade' for stocks, to 'Are you being too conservative and missing out on the new bull market?' " says Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis. A new record for the S&P, he adds, "could start to challenge the portfolio-allocation decisions" among institutional investors.
BARRON'S HAS BEEN BULLISH ON STOCKS, including a cover story a year ago ("Enter the Bull," Feb. 13, 2012) in which we wrote that the Dow could hit 15,000 by the end of this year -- a target that looks increasingly achievable. Barron's was similarly upbeat in a cover story in the fall ("Almost There," Oct. 15, 2012).
The Dow industrials finished the week at 14,009, up 6.9% so far this year. The index is 156 points away from its high of 14,165, set in October 2007. The S&P 500 index has risen 6.1% this year, to 1513, and stands 3% from its 2007 peak of 1565.
Smaller-stock indexes moved deeper into record territory last week, hitting new highs, having already bested their 2007 peaks back in 2011. The S&P MidCap 400 index is up 8% this year, while the Russell 2000 Index has gained 7.3% so far in 2013. As the table shows, mid- and small-cap stocks have outperformed their larger brethren by a wide margin during the past decade.
Federated Investors Chief Investment Officer Stephen Auth had the most bullish 2013 prediction among the 10 strategists in our outlook article for this year, with an S&P 500 target of 1660 ("An Optimistic Outlook for 2013," Dec. 17, 2012). His target -- 10% above current levels -- doesn't look so outlandish now. "You don't need a lot of earnings growth to get there, just a willingness of investors to put a multiple on equities that's remotely reasonable," he says.
Auth argues that as the risk of another financial crisis recedes, investors will put a higher price/earnings ratio on stocks. He recently cited 10 bullish factors, including easy monetary policy around the world, a housing recovery, a U.S. manufacturing revival, a domestic energy boom, and a stronger growth outlook in Brazil and China.
BEARS CITE A HOST OF FACTORS, including minimal progress in addressing structural problems in the federal budget, economic drag from tax increases at the start of 2013, near recessionary conditions in Europe, and a weakening earnings outlook.
Current-year profit estimates for the S&P 500 have been coming down, and profit growth last year in the index probably was only 5%. This year, S&P earnings are expected to rise about 6%, to $108, based on strategist estimates. The profit expectation based on "bottom-up" analyst estimates for individual companies is a more robust $112.
Paulsen argues that the stocks and profits often don't move together, noting that earnings have doubled since 2000 but the S&P 500 is unchanged. During some periods, stocks outpace profit growth, and this could be one of those periods.
Trennert, too, cites a host of market-valuation measures that support higher multiples for the S&P 500, including a proprietary model based on interest rates and inflation, the so-called Rule of 20, and the Fed Model. The Rule of 20 suggests a market P/E of 18, based on 20 less the current inflation rate, while the Fed Model, popular in the 1990s, points toward a very high P/E of 50, based on the idea that the market-earnings yield (the inverse of the P/E) should be in line with the 10-year Treasury yield, now 2%.
As the nearby table shows, the current bull market, dating back to March 2009, is one of the strongest in the past 50 years. The S&P is up 124% from its low of 676. The bull run is well shy of the extended upturn in the 1990s, which resulted in a quadrupling of the S&P 500.
IT HAS BEEN DURING THE PAST "lost decade" for stocks that the best-performing institutional investors have focused on alternative investments like hedge funds, private equity, real estate, and commodities.
Influential big investors are light on stocks, notably the Harvard, Yale, and Princeton endowments and the Ford and General Motors pension funds. Yale represents an extreme example, with just 6% of its portfolio in U.S. stocks and a 14% equity exposure over all, including foreign shares. Following Yale and Harvard, big university endowments with $1 billion or more of assets had just 27% of their assets in stocks last year, down from 45% a decade ago, while holding 61% in alternatives, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers. That's a far cry from the old 60/40 mix of stocks and bonds favored by big institutional holders.
Yale endowment director David Swensen is one of the most successful and influential institutional investors in the country -- thanks to alternatives, which now account for more than 70% of the $19 billion endowment.
However, the alternatives-heavy investment mix of the past 10 years may not be such a great idea in the current decade if stocks continue to do well. The alternatives space is crowded, as private-equity firms sit on hundreds of billions of dollars of "dry powder," or client investment commitments, while the ultracompetitive hedge-fund industry is having a harder time generating excess returns, or "alpha," as thousands of funds scour the stock market. The high fees on both private equity and hedge funds act as another drag.
A hedge fund charging a 1.5% base fee while taking 20% of investment profits might have a net exposure to stocks of just 50%, reflecting a mixture of long and short positions. Only the best managers can overcome that impediment to beat stocks in a rising market. Warren Buffett made a bet with a fund manager a few years ago that the S&P 500 would beat a group of hedge funds, and so far he's proving correct.
Top stock pickers should find ways to beat the market. Just look at the huge disparity in returns of the 30 stocks in the Dow industrials since 2007. Home Depot hd 0.2739523174885236% Home Depot Inc. U.S.: NYSE USD135.43 0.37 0.2739523174885236% /Date(1472158811390-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 3137405 AFTER HOURS USD135.5 0.0699999999999932 0.05168721848925644% Volume (Delayed 15m) : 31504 P/E Ratio 23.80140597539543 Market Cap 166876617994.204 Dividend Yield 2.0379531861478255% Rev. per Employee 239047 More quote details and news » (ticker: HD) is up 98%, while Alcoa aa 0.398406374501992% Alcoa Inc. U.S.: NYSE USD10.08 0.04 0.398406374501992% /Date(1472158818724-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 12486052 AFTER HOURS USD10.11 0.0299999999999994 0.2976190476190476% Volume (Delayed 15m) : 46415 P/E Ratio N/A Market Cap 13206415198.8457 Dividend Yield 1.1904761904761905% Rev. per Employee 351067 More quote details and news » (AA) and Bank of America bac 0.8441558441558441% Bank of America Corp. U.S.: NYSE USD15.53 0.13 0.8441558441558441% /Date(1472158844860-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 65687671 AFTER HOURS USD15.58 0.0500000000000007 0.32195750160978753% Volume (Delayed 15m) : 2026749 P/E Ratio 13.39370418283743 Market Cap 157153913099.365 Dividend Yield 1.931745009658725% Rev. per Employee 431596 More quote details and news » (BAC) are down more than 75%.
It's telling that in recent years there have been few start-ups of traditional long-only equity-investment managers and not many new mutual funds outside of the biggest shops. Why start a traditional fund when operating a hedge fund can be so much more lucrative?
BONDS, WHICH HAVE OFFERED a good alternative to stocks in recent years, aren't keeping pace in 2013, as investors fear stronger economic growth, potentially higher inflation, and a curtailment of the Federal Reserve's massive bond-buying program. If weak bond returns continue, it may spur individual investors to shift more money to stocks.
The problem with bonds is that it's mathematically tough for them to produce good returns starting at current rates. And the setback in the Treasury market this year shows the impact of a relatively small rate increase. Long-term Treasuries are down 2% to 3% so far this year, erasing a year's worth of income, while broader bond indexes that include high-grade corporates are about flat.
Even famed managers are finding it difficult to maneuver now. The giant Pimco Total Return fund (PTTAX), headed by Barron's Roundtable member Bill Gross, managed to generate a 10% return last year despite super-low rates, but it's finding fewer ways to score this year and was down slightly in January.
Junk bonds, which kept pace with the S&P 500's 16% gain last year, are up just 1% this year, and sizable returns are unlikely, with the average junk issue yielding only 5.8%. The earnings yield on the S&P 500 is above the junk yield, marking a rare such occurrence. That suggests that stocks look appealing relative to junk.
Within the stock market, large-cap stocks may offer the best value. As the table shows, the P/E ratios on the S&P 400 MidCap and Russell 2000 indexes exceed those of the Dow industrials, with the MidCap index trading for 16 times projected 2013 earnings and the Russell 2000 carrying a 2013 P/E of 18.
The offset is that mid- and small-cap companies are expected to show stronger profit growth than larger ones. And betting against the MidCap index in particular has been a losing strategy, because it has consistently beaten the S&P 500, and it's now 20% above its 2007 peak. The MidCap index seems to catch companies when they are on fast-growth trajectories -- before they graduate to the S&P 500. The S&P MidCap index has no dominant member; its largest company is the little-known Regeneron Pharmaceuticals regn -1.2338062924120914% Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. U.S.: Nasdaq USD400.25 -5 -1.2338062924120914% /Date(1472158800379-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 826060 AFTER HOURS USD400.15 -0.100000000000023 -0.024984384759525295% Volume (Delayed 15m) : 4404 P/E Ratio 63.53174603174603 Market Cap 42670579604.9283 Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee 1081160 More quote details and news » (REGN), at only a 1.1% weighting. ExxonMobil xom -0.6362190411270165% Exxon Mobil Corp. U.S.: NYSE USD87.46 -0.56 -0.6362190411270165% /Date(1472159013965-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 6780097 AFTER HOURS USD87.47 0.0100000000000051 0.01143379830779785% Volume (Delayed 15m) : 155164 P/E Ratio 34.70634920634921 Market Cap 364988110484.268 Dividend Yield 3.430139492339355% Rev. per Employee 2716960 More quote details and news » (XOM) and Apple aapl -0.42580764602425253% Apple Inc. U.S.: Nasdaq USD107.57 -0.46 -0.42580764602425253% /Date(1472158800192-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 25051814 AFTER HOURS USD107.59 0.0200000000000102 0.01859254438969973% Volume (Delayed 15m) : 34434 P/E Ratio 12.56658878504673 Market Cap 582113476786.569 Dividend Yield 2.119550060425769% Rev. per Employee 1990500 More quote details and news » (AAPL), the two leading stocks in the S&P 500, each weigh in at about 3% of the index. Other big stocks in the MidCap index are Equinix eqix -0.2165748279737917% Equinix Inc. U.S.: Nasdaq USD363.98 -0.79 -0.2165748279737917% /Date(1472158800438-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 340337 AFTER HOURS USD363.98 % Volume (Delayed 15m) : 1964 P/E Ratio 340.1682242990654 Market Cap 25926025855.9571 Dividend Yield 1.9231825924501347% Rev. per Employee 627088 More quote details and news » (EQIX), HollyFrontier hfc -2.394526795895097% HollyFrontier Corp. U.S.: NYSE USD25.68 -0.63 -2.394526795895097% /Date(1472158883086-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 3443401 AFTER HOURS USD25.68 % Volume (Delayed 15m) : 91823 P/E Ratio N/A Market Cap 4644241218.13659 Dividend Yield 5.140186915887851% Rev. per Employee 4151580 More quote details and news » (HFC), and Kansas City Southern ksu -0.07039420756234915% Kansas City Southern U.S.: NYSE USD99.37 -0.07 -0.07039420756234915% /Date(1472158921389-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 763958 AFTER HOURS USD99.37 % Volume (Delayed 15m) : 19031 P/E Ratio 21.69650655021834 Market Cap 10737829953.5718 Dividend Yield 1.3283687229546142% Rev. per Employee 353988 More quote details and news » (KSU).
WHAT LOOKS BEST among big-cap stocks? During 2012, energy was a big industry laggard in the S&P 500. The two Super-Majors, ExxonMobil and Chevron cvx -0.30332681017612523% Chevron Corp. U.S.: NYSE USD101.89 -0.31 -0.30332681017612523% /Date(1472159054564-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 4435668 AFTER HOURS USD102 0.109999999999999 0.10795956423594072% Volume (Delayed 15m) : 54383 P/E Ratio N/A Market Cap 192802340238.892 Dividend Yield 4.200608499362057% Rev. per Employee 1815530 More quote details and news » (CVX), offer exposure to higher oil and gas prices plus secure dividend yields, with Exxon yielding 2.5% and Chevron, 3%. Exxon trades at about $90, or 11 times projected 2013 profits, while Chevron, at $116, fetches 10 times estimated 2013 net.
Activist investor Paul Singer's move to shake up Hess hes 0.8163265306122449% Hess Corp. U.S.: NYSE USD56.81 0.46 0.8163265306122449% /Date(1472158875482-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 3455067 AFTER HOURS USD56.81 % Volume (Delayed 15m) : 9270 P/E Ratio N/A Market Cap 17844580049.6307 Dividend Yield 1.7602534765006161% Rev. per Employee 1937550 More quote details and news » (HES) is a sign of investor frustration with exploration-and-production companies, whose stocks have badly trailed the market in recent years. There's frustration with high exploration spending and little-or-no cash returns to shareholders. Other depressed E&P companies include Apache apa -0.4361016306408798% Apache Corp. U.S.: NYSE USD52.51 -0.23 -0.4361016306408798% /Date(1472158836897-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 1647074 AFTER HOURS USD52.51 % Volume (Delayed 15m) : 57573 P/E Ratio N/A Market Cap 20010769875.7405 Dividend Yield 1.9043991620643688% Rev. per Employee 1357250 More quote details and news » (APA) and Devon Energy dvn -0.29206919793304875% Devon Energy Corp. U.S.: NYSE USD44.38 -0.13 -0.29206919793304875% /Date(1472158903183-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 4111745 AFTER HOURS USD44.38 % Volume (Delayed 15m) : 10971 P/E Ratio N/A Market Cap 23305434034.4849 Dividend Yield 0.540784136998648% Rev. per Employee 1623940 More quote details and news » (DVN).
The financial sector has rallied in recent months, but valuations aren't excessive, with many major companies trading for 10 times projected 2011 earnings or less, including JPMorgan Chase jpm 0.1819560272934041% JPMorgan Chase & Co. U.S.: NYSE USD66.07 0.12 0.1819560272934041% /Date(1472158807602-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 9013503 AFTER HOURS USD66.19 0.120000000000005 0.1816255486605116% Volume (Delayed 15m) : 965148 P/E Ratio 11.198305084745762 Market Cap 238210197497.614 Dividend Yield 2.9060087785681854% Rev. per Employee 408196 More quote details and news » (JPM), Citigroup c 0.12858979854264896% Citigroup Inc. U.S.: NYSE USD46.72 0.06 0.12858979854264896% /Date(1472158841217-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 16369909 AFTER HOURS USD46.8 0.0799999999999983 0.17123287671232876% Volume (Delayed 15m) : 150327 P/E Ratio 9.91027299917273 Market Cap 135564751490.269 Dividend Yield 1.36986301369863% Rev. per Employee 368502 More quote details and news » (C), MetLife met 1.0024449877750612% MetLife Inc. U.S.: NYSE USD41.31 0.41 1.0024449877750612% /Date(1472159029423-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 5525939 AFTER HOURS USD41.36 0.0499999999999972 0.12103606874848705% Volume (Delayed 15m) : 39112 P/E Ratio 10.871052631578948 Market Cap 44943864359.851 Dividend Yield 3.8731541999515855% Rev. per Employee 965000 More quote details and news » (MET), and Wells Fargo wfc -0.5140859551717047% Wells Fargo & Co. U.S.: NYSE USD48.38 -0.25 -0.5140859551717047% /Date(1472158818217-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 13383960 AFTER HOURS USD48.44 0.0599999999999952 0.12401818933443572% Volume (Delayed 15m) : 259208 P/E Ratio 11.857843137254902 Market Cap 245364949920.475 Dividend Yield 3.141794129805705% Rev. per Employee 352599 More quote details and news » (WFC). Dividends typically aren't generous at about 2%, but they probably will rise as the Federal Reserve loosens restrictions on capital returns to holders.
Smaller Is Beautiful
The S&P MidCap 400 index and Russell 2000 Index have bested the Dow industrials and S&P 500 index by a wide margin in the past decade. Larger stocks look appealing now, given lower price/earnings ratios.
| Friday
|52-Wk Change
|10-Yr Change
|Div Yld
|Dow Jones Industrials
|S&P MidCap 400
|Russell 2000
|E=Estimate. Sources: Thomson Reuters; Bloomberg
The technology sector trades at a market multiple based on 2013 profits, and the industry has a better-than-average earnings outlook. Some of the cheapest tech issues are some of the biggest, including Microsoft msft 0.3796376186367558% Microsoft Corp. U.S.: Nasdaq USD58.17 0.22 0.3796376186367558% /Date(1472158800363-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 16367533 AFTER HOURS USD58.17 % Volume (Delayed 15m) : 2185046 P/E Ratio 28.37560975609756 Market Cap 451576314709.866 Dividend Yield 2.475502836513667% Rev. per Employee 742939 More quote details and news » (MSFT), Cisco Systems csco 0.7405022537025112% Cisco Systems Inc. U.S.: Nasdaq USD31.29 0.23 0.7405022537025112% /Date(1472158800447-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 22498730 AFTER HOURS USD31.3 0.0100000000000016 0.03195909236177692% Volume (Delayed 15m) : 418394 P/E Ratio 14.75943396226415 Market Cap 156222849364.625 Dividend Yield 3.3237456056248003% Rev. per Employee 685576 More quote details and news » (CSCO), Intel intc -0.17069701280227595% Intel Corp. U.S.: Nasdaq USD35.09 -0.06 -0.17069701280227595% /Date(1472158800312-0500)/ Volume (Delayed 15m) : 12209884 AFTER HOURS USD35.1 0.00999999999999801 0.028498147620404674% Volume (Delayed 15m) : 218096 P/E Ratio 16.95169082125604 Market Cap 166294657218.933 Dividend Yield 2.9638073525220863% Rev. per Employee 527624 More quote details and news » (INTC), and Apple. All four trade for about 10 times projected current-year profits, yield 2% or more, and have strong balance sheets. Their effective P/Es are lower after stripping away cash. Apple's cash and marketable securities of $145 a share are equal to almost a third of its share price of $455. Microsoft has $6 a share in net cash, or 23% of its $27 stock price, and Cisco has about $5 in net cash, or almost 25% of its share price at $20. Pressure is likely to build on these companies to return more cash to holders through dividends.
Even after the long run-up in stocks since the 2009 low, the S&P 500 is still below its 2000 high. With both individual and institutional investors light in stocks, there's plenty of money to fuel further gains at a time when P/E multiples look appealing. Alternative investments starred in this century's first decade. The current decade may belong to stocks.
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


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You can now easily put an SW award in your signature/posts like a smilie. Just look for the SW award tab after you tap on the smilie face.Dismiss Notice
Massive weight gain in a day? Temporary?
Discussion in 'Slimming World' started by morshield, 23 March 2014 Social URL.
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This is a little complicated and difficult to explain: I currently have three WordPress installations across two GoDaddy shared Linux accounts. One installation is in the top directory of account alpha and everything works great.
One of the other installations is in the top directory of the account bravo and that one works great too. Now, the problem comes with the installation that's in a subdirectory of account bravo. I'm not sure how many people are familiar with the way you setup domain names in GoDaddy's hosting management system, but you 'point' the domain to the subdirectory.
I've done that and it works, but a problem arises with W3 Total Cache. The pages cache and that's good but when I try to add the theme's .css file in the minify settings, it doesn't work. I hit 'new', paste the URI from the source code, and hit verify URI, and it's all good. I hit save and try to the load the page...and no CSS. I click on the link for the where the CSS is supposed to be coming from (wp-content/w3tc/min/default.include.css) but that's a WordPress not found page instead of the CSS. I checked the folder in FileZilla and the folder is blank besides a .htaccess and a PHP file.
Is there some reason that the W3TC isn't creating the files? Is there a problem because this folder is in a subdirectory and is it possible that's causing a problem (either through mod_rewrite problems or something)?


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Friends List -Part 3-Journal Entry: Sat Oct 6, 2007, 5:53 PM
Tusami's friends list:
So amazing, it's too much to handle all at once!
Did I forget you!? You know who you are if you're not on here right? So just tell me and poof, there you are! Also if you're categorized wrong, please tell me so I can put you into the right category. I can't get all of them right.
Main Menu
Journal 1: Real life Friends and Other Artists
Journal 2: Dragon, Anthro and Furry Artists
Journal 3: Clubs and Lost Accounts
Tusami's StatusTrades: Open
Requests: Closed
Commissions: Closed
Friends List -Part 3- by TusamiWatch
©2007-2016 Tusami
thanks for putting me "lost accounts" just waiting for somebody to banned me
You're welcome. Alright, if you really wish for me to ban your account, I will make that request to DA.
On all of your friends lists, I'm not on any...
Unless... you don't count me as a friend... I don't mind if you don't though!
Unless... you don't count me as a friend... I don't mind if you don't though!


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Aston Villa Message Board
A Yahoo! User Aug 28, 2007 22:37 Flag
Zak Knight!
I see we are in 4 Zak Night!
I don't want to sound ungratefull but,although i consider him to be a reasonable player......i want better than him.
I think Curtis Davies is better than Knight but 8 million.........West Brom can keep him.
I also read that we are linked with a Werder Bremen (i think) player called Per Mertesacker.Don't know much about him but he is a German international and younger than old Zak.Sounds a better player to me.
I am just being left a bit cold by the plyers we are linked with.
Maybe i'm expecting a little too much.
Off to see B City V's Man City soon. Hopefully all M City's new overseas players will under estimate the passion of an English cup tie!!!!!!Sort: Newest | Oldest | Most Replied Expand all replies
You'll be known as WORCESTER SHILTON when news of this gets around then Andy.
As I said, nothing is proven or not proven at this time and KNIGHT is bailed until all enquiries are completed. I shall reserve judgement until a final decision is made on whether he is involved. Nothing more can be said at this time until confirmation of his account is made.
If he is innocent, then this will all disappear quite quickly, but if he is guilty, I still stand by what I said, that is he and his kind should recieve lengthy jail sentences and no return to the game after release.
absolutevillan absolutevillan Aug 31, 2007 23:10 Flag
Is it only me that is worried about the fact that we dont look like having an actual right back til at least Xmas?
Can someone tell me what the hell is going on ffs???
well done Lulu you made me smile at least this morning I wish you well with your new found fame.
This post was very good and much better than your usual snipes.
WARNDON ZULU WARNDON ZULU Aug 31, 2007 14:28 Flag
caught with his trousers down in the back of a car with certain females.....sorry i'm guilty of that one.....that's it am i going to be all over the papers now..WOW FAME AT LAST
He's done nothing..he was asleep in bed when armed police busted into the house on misuse of drugs and weapons suspicion. Zat was taken in with his brother and later released without charge...his brother was charged and appeared before magistrates yesterday morning......just a formality in Zats case....HE IS IN NO WAY INVOLVED WITH DRUGS
WARNDON ZULU WARNDON ZULU Aug 31, 2007 03:29 Flag
he is also good on the LINES
Knight Arrested In Drug Raid
Thu 30 Aug, 11:10 AM
Oh Dear....
Someones out to grab the headlines already!!!
- 1 Reply to dillon
A Yahoo! User Aug 31, 2007 00:55 Flag
R U being serious or am i being gullable?
Who were the drugs for....Christine Ohuruogu?????
I agree Roy, I have to be cynical here and suggest that this guy Knight is a panic buy as MoN has left the squad so thin that with any more departures, retirements, injuries, loss of form etc and Villa won't have any cover at all. To be honest, I had never heard of him before last Villa home game and he almost scored an own goal for Fulham....... There's an omen if you like!!!
The German Metesacker is contracted until 2010 so don't expect anything to develop there. Defoe is apossibility still, but my grapevine isn't that good so anyone else will be a surprise. Countdown to Sunday and the window slams closed. If no-one comes in soon I predict a difficult winter.
Ok Lee tell me I'm wrong and expect the unexpected.
I'll be the devils advocate now. You are not going to get anyone to replace the ones that have gone.
By the way, thanks for Liam Ridgewell. Very pleased with him.
- 1 Reply to dillon
Surprises me you haven't heard of Zat Knight Nige ??.........he is actually a very good player, no Nesta, but not bad to be fair. He got into the England set up a couple of years ago but playing for Fullham he didn't stand much chance of getting a run. He is a very loyal player, and has served Fullham well, but hinted at wanting to move to Villa in May, as he is a huge Villa fan, since he was a kid. Far far better than Ridgewell and much more experienced than Davis. I can only assume that MON can see something in Davis that I can't, because he seems to switch off during a game, maybe just inexperience. And when the honeymoon period is over Nige, Ridgewell will settle back down to being his very average self mate, if you find yourself in a bad run and under pressure he loses it, Championship quality at best. So we are happy to oblige.


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As surveillance camera technology improves, so does police's ability to solve crimes.
Police say photos and videos captured on a surveillance cameras are helpful in an investigation, especially when they are of good quality.
"They're kind of what we would call a silent witness because they provide us with identification features of an individual that would be involved in a crime. They can provide us with the make, model and sometimes even the license plate of a vehicle," said Lt. Catherine Buckley, with the Colorado Springs Police Department.
And now, the quality of those details is better than ever, according to Vic Sauget. He is the general manager of BigSecurity.com Security & Surveillance Superstores, located at 123 N. Union blvd.
"The technology today is there to where you can actually get facial recognition with the quality of the cameras today, as compared to say maybe 10 years ago," Sauget said.
Sauget also said people are making the switch from analog cameras to digital cameras. The latter offer clearer images that can better detect facial features and other details.
"We can actually provide you the same exact quality that you would see from a blue-ray quality movie through a security camera nowadays," he said.
An analog camera starts at $50, and a digital camera with high definition quality starts at $150. Sauget recommends systems that allow access to the video from any location through a computer or smartphone.
Better surveillance camera technology helps police
As surveillance camera technology improves, so does police's ability to solve crimes.


text:
For the poor, hardworking citizens of the Confederacy's fringe worlds, the Guild Wars have exacted a huge toll. Swayed by the promise of financial rewards, a new batch of recruits joins the fight alongside a slew of mysteriously docile criminals -- and a few dubious military leaders. Eighteen-year-old Jim Raynor, full of testosterone and eager to make things right at home, ships off to boot camp and finds his footing on the battlefield, but he soon discovers that the official mission is not what he's really fighting for.
For the first time ever, StarCraft enthusiasts will learn the origins of the enduring friendship between the young upstart Jim Raynor and the streetwise soldier Tychus Findlay. Watch as they battle on the front lines of a fierce interplanetary war and bear witness to the Confederacy's rank corruption - corruption so reprehensible that it rains immeasurable death and destruction upon the government's own people.
©2010 William C Dietz (P)2010 Simon & Schuster
"Starcraft lovers rejoice"
I have read many of the current Starcraft books out there today, but none of them compare to this. It has action, love, Marnies, and able to follow the beginnings of Jim Raynor. Whats better is that the store talks about the Trade Guild wars that has been talked about and how some of the beginnings of the units that we love in the game. The voice acting is pretty good I was able to tell how was talking and even the actor Neil Kaplan plays the voice of Tychus Findlay in Starcraft 2 so that it me makes the book even better is hearing the real voice of the main character speaking. As a last note if you want a good solid backstory to the game you love the get this book asap. Do you scan me.
P.S.(you'll get that later)
"Competent, but Pedestrian"
The title of this review kind of says it all. The narrative moves at a decent pace and the story itself is a decent story. And like any good product based on existing product, there are plenty of references to the source material that are inserted tastefully.
The problem is that it's all kind of your standard stuff. The various initial stories eventually cross with one another. There are main plots and subplots and it all wraps up nicely in the end. And it even explains a lot when you return to the original game that it's based off of.
Basically, it begins, it chugs along, and 12 hours later it ends.
I would say the best part of the entire package was the voice actor, who was great.
"Good origins of SCII characters"
Narrator was spot on, voice in brings life to the story itself. The best for last, I'm still sobbing. Overall satisfying.
If you love Starcraft You will love this book. Its well written and fun to read. I love that the voice artist is actually from Starcraft 2. About half way done with the book now and cant wait till I finish the other one. I just wish this web sigh could get more Starcraft books.
"No "Pre-Gaming" Required"
For those of you looking for another great sci-fi war story but haven't played the game, you may be wondering if you need knowledge of the mythos to understand and enjoy this book. The answer is no, the book makes no assumptions about you're fore-knowledge and in fact the story may be better if you have not read the books as this prequel does not spoil anything. This is a story unto-itself not a gimmick or a ride along to the games. The narrator is excellent and the story is exciting, well plotted, and well placed. Their are very few sci-fi books I could recommend more.
"Starts slow, but picks up"
I have been a huge fan of StarCraft since 1998, and this book is definitely a fantastic explanation as to Jim Raynor's origin, as well as his relationship with Tychus from Starcraft II. The narrator is none other than Mr. Tychus Findley himself, and though at the beginning of the story his characters are messy incarnations, by the middle you are already forgetting it's one man reading the story, and by the end you will be wishing there were more StarCraft novels available on Audible!
"surprisingly good"
surprisingly good. voice actor is great, cept for his women. lol. if you like sc2 terrans and their lote then this a must
"Taken back to middle school"
The story has a cool idea of where Tycus and Rainer come from. The delivery is not interesting. It doesn't get better throughout the book either.
"Great story!"
Excellent military content
The way that the author shows the military of the confederacy.
Vivid storytelling.
Yes, I laughed often.
Tychus is hilarious!
Computer geek
"awesome story"
couldn't put it down until it was done, and was very sad when it did. action packed story totally recommended.
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text: MOMD language courses available by programme year In 'Modules Outside the Main Discipline (MOMD)' Modules outside the Main Discipline (MOMD)Languages and Levels available as MOMDMOMD language courses available by programme yearCourse descriptionsHow to enrolTandem modulesFrequently asked questionsContinuing students Back to 'Language courses' We offer MOMD language modules at all levels. To find out which level you should start at refer to the table below. MOMD entry levels Your year of stury: Year 1 (Level C) Year 2 (Level I) Year 3(Level H) Beginners (no previous study) Level 1 Please consult LfA staff Not available Near Beginners (with 50 hours of previous study of the language) Level 2 Level 2 Not available Previous GCSE (grade C or under) Level 3 Level 3 Level 3 Previous GCSE (grade A-C or equivalent) Level 4 Level 4 Level 4 Previous AS level (grade A-C or equivalent) Level 5 Level 5 Level 5 A2 level (grade A-C or equivalent) Level 6 Level 6 Level 6 Post-A2 level Level 7 Level 7 Please consult LfA staff Proficiency level Level 8 Level 8 Level 8 Native or near native level Not available Please consult LfA staff Please consult LfA staff In addition, Tandem Modules and Language Project courses might also be available for some students studying the language at higher levels. Please see Tandem and Project modules Please note: Russian, Ukrainian and Arabic are currently available at Level 1 only A 3-year programme from Level 1 is offered in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese (subject to a minimum number of enrolments). The above table is a guide only: you may be advised by LfA staff to move to a different module, if we feel this is more appropriate to your level Students with qualifications other than those given above, including Erasmus students, should consult staff in the LfA to determine which course is most appropriate for them


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Ryan Seacrest Says Every American Idol Judge Will Return, Yep Even Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey
What's good, Mariah?By Ira Madison III
What's good, Mariah?By Ira Madison III
Yo, dawg, it's been real.By Nate Jones
Kara DioGuardi in a bikini. The bizarre sponsored engagement. Randy Jackson.By Dave Holmes
Dawg, you just got served.By Lindsey Weber
Why, dawg? Why?By Margaret Lyons
It seems to lend credit to the rumor that none of the judges will return next season.By Zach Dionne
And Nigel Lythgoe, too.By Margaret Lyons
That is some S-T-A-R P-O-W-E-R!By Andre Tartar
Can we just settle this, guys?By Zach Dionne
And a fourth judge may happen, too.By Kyle Buchanan
Maybe!By Margaret Lyons
Until they don't mean anything anymore.By Caroline Shin
Certain compliments actually mean, "You're terrible."By Kyle Buchanan
Plus: Chelsea Handler left Andy Richter a little nervous with her dirty come-ons, and more, on our daily late-night roundup.By Caroline Shin
... years ago. And he's still got the scar to prove it.By Andre Tartar
Dawg, for you, for me, I don't know.By Margaret Lyons
Plus, Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert broke up their "best friends for six months" relationship on our regular late-night roundup.By Nim Barshad
"I thought it would be fun, and it's more fun than I thought it would be," says J.Lo.By Josef Adalian
It's J.Lo, Steven Tyler, and Randy Jackson.By Willa Paskin
According to James Hibberd's "two sources near the talks," Steven Tyler is all signed up.By Lane Brown


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Considered to be one of the most beautiful United States Gold coins, this 100+ year old coin has survived without ever having been circulated.
Coin Highlights:
- Contains .9675 oz of Gold.
- NGC encapsulation authenticates and protects the condition of the coin.
- Obverse: Shows Lady Liberty striding in front of the sun's rays with a fiery torch in her right hand and an olive branch in her left.
- Reverse: Features a majestic bald eagle in flight with "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" and "TWENTY DOLLARS" above.
- Popular first year of issue coin.
Protect your Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle in style by adding an attractive display box to your order.
NGC, one of the top two coin grading services, has guaranteed the Mint State-62 condition of this coin, adding collectibility to the beloved design. Enhance your collection by adding this $20 Saint-Gaudens Gold Double Eagle to your cart today!
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