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Sunday, October 23, 2011

Dead satellite tumbles to Earth — but where?

Up to 30 fragments weighing a total of 1.87 tons could have hit the planet, experts believe


Scientists were trying to establish how and where a defunct research satellite returned to the Earth Sunday, after warning that some parts might survive re-entry and crash at up to 280 mph.
There was no immediate solid evidence to determine above which continent or country the ROSAT scientific research satellite entered the atmosphere, said Andreas Schuetz, spokesman for the German Aerospace Center.

Most parts of the minivan-sized German satellite were expected to burn up, but up to 30 fragments weighing a total of 1.87 tons could have hit the planet.
Citing officials, Space.com reported that ROSAT slammed into Earth's atmosphere sometime between 9:45 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. ET on Saturday.

Scientists were no longer able to communicate with the dead satellite and it must have traveled about 12,500 miles in the final 30 minutes before entering the atmosphere, Schuetz said.


Schuetz said it could take days to determine exactly where pieces of the satellite had fallen, but that the agency had not received any reports that it had hit any populated areas.
"We have no such information," he said Sunday.


Based on ROSAT's orbital path, these fragments could be scattered along a swath of the planet about 50 miles wide, German aerospace officials have said.

Scientists said hours before the re-entry into the atmosphere that the satellite was not expected to hit over Europe, Africa or Australia. According to a precalculated path it could have been above Asia, possibly China, at the time of its re-entry, but Schuetz said he could not confirm that.

The 2.69-ton scientific ROSAT satellite was launched in 1990 to study X-ray radiation from stars, comets, supernovas, nebulas and black holes, among other things. The satellite was originally designed for an 18-month mission, but it far outlived its projected lifespan. [Photos of Doomed ROSAT Satellite]


Heat-resistant mirror 

It retired in 1999 after performing the first all-sky survey of X-ray sources with an imaging telescope.

The largest single fragment of ROSAT that could hit into the earth is the telescope's heat-resistant mirror.

During its mission, the satellite orbited about 370 miles above the Earth's surface, but since its decommissioning it has lost altitude, circling at a distance of only 205 miles above ground in June for example, the agency said.

Even in the last days, the satellite still circled the planet every 90 minutes, making it hard to predict where on Earth it would eventually come down.

Mission controllers initially estimated that ROSAT could fall to Earth in November, but increased solar activity caused the satellite's orbit to decay faster than originally expected. As the sun's activity ramps up, it heats up and expands the atmosphere, which creates more drag on satellites in orbit.


'Catch them' 

ROSAT's fall from space shone a spotlight on the growing problem of debris in space.

"One option is we want to be able to catch uncontrolled satellites in the future," Jan Woerner, head of the executive board of the German Aerospace Center, told Space.com. "We're working on such a mission to catch them, depending on their state, and have a controlled re-entry or send them to a graveyard, in order to prevent this situation in the future."

A dead NASA satellite fell into the southern Pacific Ocean last month, causing no damage, despite fears it would hit a populated area and cause damage or kill people.


Experts believe about two dozen metal pieces from the bus-sized satellite fell over a 500-mile span.
The German space agency puts the odds of somebody somewhere on Earth being hurt by its satellite at one in 2,000 — a slightly higher level of risk than was calculated for the NASA satellite. But any one individual's odds of being struck are one in 14 trillion, given there are 7 billion people on the planet.

Quoted from MSN






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Published by Gusti Putra at: 10:18 PM
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Ghost hunting in HD isn't so easy

Why ghosts get 'spooked' by HD cameras
That grainy, low-budget look is intentional, all the better to scare you


"Paranormal Activity 3," the latest in a series of successful low-budget horror films about amateur ghost hunters, opens on Friday. The first film, released in 2007, was a surprise indie hit around the world.

The films are shot in a "found footage" style, in which the audience is treated to footage supposedly taken in real life from home videos and security cameras. This technique, often involving handheld cameras and actors talking to the camera operator, has been around for years but was widely popularized in the 1999 film "The Blair Witch Project."

The grainy, low-budget look of the films is no accident; it was done partly because the films actually are low-budget, and partly for added "realism." The fact that the low-quality picture skips and jitters adds to the suspense, and Horror Filmmaking 101 teaches that a dark, partly obscured monster is much scarier than one that's seen clearly in bright light.


It's been an effective technique in the first two films, scaring up hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. And it's also true in real-life ghost hunting: Virtually all of the "evidence" for ghosts appears in the form of brief, ambiguous anomalies recorded with low-quality cameras (or good-quality cameras sabotaged by low-light conditions).

People have long reported weird, ghostly and paranormal activity, but perhaps the biggest mystery is why the evidence — especially the photographic evidence — hasn't improved. Are ghosts afraid of high-definition cameras?


Review: 'Paranormal Activity 3' is pretty scary

The idea that amateur ghost hunters wandering in the dark with crummy video cameras are going to uncover genuine evidence of a spirit realm unknown to science seems absurd. Nonetheless, the SyFy show "Ghost Hunters" has been wildly popular for years — it was recently picked up for an eighth season — despite the fact that the team has never found scientific evidence for ghosts.


The show is, of course, entertainment television instead of real investigation, but what about the hundreds of amateur ghost-hunting groups around the world inspired by the show?

If ghosts exist, you would expect the photographic and video evidence for them should improve dramatically as more and more people look for them with better and better equipment.

There are more people actively trying to document paranormal activity than ever. And, thanks to smartphones, at no time in history have so many people had high-quality cameras on hand virtually all the time.
Today there's no excuse for anyone to capture grainy photos or video images of anything, whether it's your aunt in a horrid floral hat, Bigfoot in the woods, or paranormal activity in your hallway. And yet that is so often the quality of the footage that makes the rounds on the internet. [ Mythical Creatures: Beasts That Don't Really Exist (or Do They?) ]

Last weekend, Apple sold 4 million iPhone 4S units, each of them equipped with a built-in high definition 1080p camera featuring state-of-the-art optics, image stabilization, automatic lighting adjustment and other features that rival cameras used by Hollywood videographers only a few years ago. Perhaps one of those iPhone users will finally record some clear evidence of ghosts.

High definition provides more image information, which helps identify things often mistaken for ghosts, such as random shadows, unnoticed reflections and video artifacts. With those ghost impostors more easily dismissed, any real ghostly images should be sharper and clearer than ever before.

The age of amateurs posting questionable video evidence of the paranormal should be coming to an end. Professional ghost hunters, however, might well continue using cameras that produce low-quality images. After all, that's where the ghosts appear.

Quoted from MSN



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Published by Gusti Putra at: 3:26 AM
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Halloween Beauty & Fashion Secrets

Forgot to plan your costume? No problem! A MAC makeup artist shows us how to create cool, cute, and, yes, even spooky looks in no time

"If you have good makeup, it can really take the pressure off of finding a Halloween costume," explains MAC makeup artist, Chantel Miller. "But, every year, we see people come into the store in a panic because they were either too ambitious with their idea or waited until the last minute to try it out."


To avoid this, Miller recommends having a realistic goal about what you can accomplish pre-Halloween fĂȘte ("You won't suddenly become a pro just because it's the last day of October," she points out), doing a practice run at least a few days before the 31st, and, if all else fails, booking an appointment at a MAC makeup counter well in advance to get the experts' help.

As for some ideas about possible faces to try on this All Hallow's Eve? "This year is interesting because there isn't a big movie, like Avatar, that a lot of people will copy," explains Miller. "But TV and the spring 2012 runways were packed with inspiration." Here are a few of her easy-to-recreate styles that will satisfy girlie-girls and die-hard fright night fans, alike.


1. 1960s Vixen

"With shows like Pan Am bringing back the retro trend, a great last-minute costume idea is to go as an old-school sweetheart," explains Miller. "All you need to do is keep your skin clean except for a little blush, wear a pink, opaque lipstick, and apply many coats of lengthening mascara." Pair the look with a shift dress, knee-high boots, and a perky ponytail, and you're good to go.

2. Robert Palmer Lady

He may have been addicted to love, but you're addicted to simplicity. "I love the 1980s glam-rocker look of slicked-back hair, bold brows, and red lips," adds Miller. "After that, all you need is a white button-down, black mini-skirt, and inflatable guitar."

3. Futuristic Femme-Bot

Blame it on Olivia Wilde. "The one movie makeup trend we might see this year is the sci-fi look from Tron," notes Miller. "This space-age aesthetic would work particularly well on women with jet-black or platinum blonde hair. Stick to silver shades for your smoky eye and use black eyeliner pencil to fill in your lips."

4. Hee-Haw Girl

"Jeremy Scott's spring show was a fun reference to old-time cowgirls," she adds. "Part your hair into pigtails, use lots of mascara, and dot your eyebrow pencil on your cheeks to create exaggerated—and super cute—freckles." The only hard part is shimmying into your Daisy Dukes.

5. Vampire or Zombie.

"The biggest mistake people make with these types of looks is that they use white foundation too heavily," warns Miller. "White eye shadow is a more transparent and flattering way to create a paler face." Miller also suggests using darker eye shadow tones to contour beyond-the-grave cheekbones. As for her secret trick to acing ghostly mugs that are still a little sultry? "Keep your look slightly asymmetrical," she continues. "Having subtly mismatching eye makeup will be disarming. Remember: Not-so-perfect execution can be especially sexy on Halloween."

Quoted from MSN Lifestyle
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Published by Gusti Putra at: 2:57 AM
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Saturday, October 22, 2011

Why Obama is ending the war in Iraq

Did President Obama want American military troops to remain in Iraq?

Why did President Barack Obama announce Friday that he has decided to end the American troop presence in Iraq by the end of the year?
The United States had been negotiating with Iraqi leaders for months on a possible continuing military presence in Iraq. But the negotiations stalled over a key hitch: Iraqi leaders refused to comply with Washington's insistence that any American forces serving in Iraq be granted legal immunity in that country.
"The end of war in Iraq reflects a larger transition," Obama said Friday, noting that the number of American troops deployed in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has decreased from 180,000 when he took office to less than half that by the end of this year.  "The tide of war is receding."

On Jan. 1, the United States and Iraq will have a "normal relationship between sovereign nations, an equal partnership based on mutual interests and mutual respect," Obama said.

Over the summer, however, the United States was asking to keep 10,000 troops in Iraq next year. "This was well below the 20-30,000 troops that military experts believed optimum," Ken Pollack, a member of Bill Clinton's National Security Council who wrote an influential book advocating war with Iraq, wrote in an analysis distributed by the Brookings Institution. "Just a few weeks ago, the Administration then unilaterally decided to cut that number down to about 3,000. There was nothing that 3,000 troops were usefully going to do in Iraq. No mission they could adequately perform from among the long list of critical tasks they have been undertaking until the present. At most, they would be a symbolic force, that might give Tehran some pause before trying to push around the Iraqi government." Pollack continued:
However, even playing that role would have been hard for so small a force since they would have had tremendous difficulty defending themselves from the mostly-Shi'ah (these days), Iranian-backed terrorists who continue to attack American troops and bases wherever they can.
At that point, it had become almost unimaginable that any Iraqi political leader would champion the cause of a residual American military presence in the face of popular resentment and ferocious Iranian opposition.  What Iraqi would publicly demand that Iraq accommodate the highly unpopular American demands for immunity for U.S. troops when Washington was going to leave behind a force incapable of doing anything to preserve Iraq's fragile and increasingly strained peace?  Why take the heat for a fig leaf?
Of course, the truth was that the Iraqi government itself had already become deeply ambivalent, if not downright hostile to a residual American military presence.  Although it was useful to the prime minister to have some American troops there as a signal to Iran that it shouldn't act too overbearing lest Baghdad ask Washington to beef up its presence, he and his cohorts probably believe that they can secure the same advantages from American arms sales and training missions.  The flip side to that was that the American military presence had become increasingly burdensome to the government--challenging its interpretation of events, preventing it from acting as it saw fit, hindering their consolidation of power, insisting that Iraqi officials adhered to rule of law, and acting unilaterally against criminals and terrorists the government would have preferred to overlook.  All of this had become deeply inconvenient for the government.
Though there have been reports for weeks that American-Iraqi negotiations were stuck on that and other disagreements, Pentagon officials had always discounted those reports as premature, saying negotiations were still continuing.

And it's worth noting that, in the details of the arrangement Obama announced Friday, the United States will maintain an Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq, which will consist of hundreds, if not thousands of American defense personnel.

There were other signs of wiggle room in Obama's announcement. "As I told Prime Minister Maliki, we will continue discussions on how we might help Iraq train and equip its forces, again, just as we offer training and assistance to countries around the world," Obama said Friday. "After all, there will be some difficult days ahead for Iraq and the United States will continue to have an interest in an Iraq that is stable, secure and self-reliant."

Still, Obama's announcement Friday does not represent only a linguistic sleight of hand, for either country. Almost nine years after the American invasion to topple Saddam Hussein--and in the year since popular uprisings began to topple a succession of the Middle East's long-entrenched dictators and autocrats from Tunisia to Egypt to Libya, not primarily at the hands of the American military but by the power of those countries' own people--the United States and Iraq will finally be able to have a "fresh start" to their post-war relationship, as Obama put it Friday.

"The United States is fulfilling our agreement with an Iraqi government that wants to shape its own future," John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is the chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, said in a statement Friday. "We are creating a new partnership that shifts from a clear military focus to a new relationship that is more expansive, hinging on increased diplomatic, economic and cultural relations."

Quoted from YahooNews


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Published by Gusti Putra at: 11:50 PM
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