NASA Survey Suggests Earth-Sized Planets Are Common

Nearly one in four stars similar to the sun may host planets as small as Earth, according to a new study funded by NASA and the University of California.

The study is the most extensive and sensitive planetary census of its kind. Astronomers used the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii for five years to search 166 sun-like stars near our solar system for planets of various sizes, ranging from three to 1,000 times the mass of Earth. All of the planets in the study orbit close to their stars. The results show more small planets than large ones, indicating small planets are more prevalent in our Milky Way galaxy.

"We studied planets of many masses -- like counting boulders, rocks and pebbles in a canyon -- and found more rocks than boulders, and more pebbles than rocks. Our ground-based technology can't see the grains of sand, the Earth-size planets, but we can estimate their numbers," said Andrew Howard of the University of California, Berkeley, lead author of the new study. "Earth-size planets in our galaxy are like grains of sand sprinkled on a beach -- they are everywhere."

The study appears in the Oct. 29 issue of the journal Science.

The research provides a tantalizing clue that potentially habitable planets could also be common. These hypothesized Earth-size worlds would orbit farther away from their stars, where conditions could be favorable for life. NASA's Kepler spacecraft is also surveying sun-like stars for planets and is expected to find the first true Earth-like planets in the next few years.

Howard and his planet-hunting team, which includes principal investigator Geoff Marcy, also of the University of California, Berkeley, looked for planets within 80-light-years of Earth, using the radial velocity, or "wobble," technique.

They measured the numbers of planets falling into five groups, ranging from 1,000 times the mass of Earth, or about three times the mass of Jupiter, down to three times the mass of Earth. The search was confined to planets orbiting close to their stars -- within 0.25 astronomical units, or a quarter of the distance between our sun and Earth.

A distinct trend jumped out of the data: smaller planets outnumber larger ones. Only 1.6 percent of stars were found to host giant planets orbiting close in. That includes the three highest-mass planet groups in the study, or planets comparable to Saturn and Jupiter. About 6.5 percent of stars were found to have intermediate-mass planets, with 10 to 30 times the mass of Earth -- planets the size of Neptune and Uranus. And 11.8 percent had the so-called "super-Earths," weighing in at only three to 10 times the mass of Earth.

"During planet formation, small bodies similar to asteroids and comets stick together, eventually growing to Earth-size and beyond. Not all of the planets grow large enough to become giant planets like Saturn and Jupiter," Howard said. "It's natural for lots of these building blocks, the small planets, to be left over in this process."

The astronomers extrapolated from these survey data to estimate that 23 percent of sun-like stars in our galaxy host even smaller planets, the Earth-sized ones, orbiting in the hot zone close to a star. "This is the statistical fruit of years of planet-hunting work," said Marcy. "The data tell us that our galaxy, with its roughly 200 billion stars, has at least 46 billion Earth-size planets, and that's not counting Earth-size planets that orbit farther away from their stars in the habitable zone."

The findings challenge a key prediction of some theories of planet formation. Models predict a planet "desert" in the hot-zone region close to stars, or a drop in the numbers of planets with masses less than 30 times that of Earth. This desert was thought to arise because most planets form in the cool, outer region of solar systems, and only the giant planets were thought to migrate in significant numbers into the hot inner region. The new study finds a surplus of close-in, small planets where theories had predicted a scarcity.

"We are at the cusp of understanding the frequency of Earth-sized planets among planetary systems in the solar neighborhood," said Mario R. Perez, Keck program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This work is part of a key NASA science program and will stimulate new theories to explain the significance and impact of these findings."

NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., manages time allocation on the Keck telescope for NASA. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena, manages NASA's Exoplanet Exploration program office.

For More information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/exoplanet20101028.html

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Halloween

'Halloween' is another classic comedy Buffy episode (and no one ever seems concerned that Willow is technically dead for most of the story - she certainly doesn't have Buffy's level of angst about it). The concept (everyone turns into the people they're dressed as) has loads of potential and Buffy as a helpless eighteenth century noblewoman is very amusing, though it's a shame the dress is such a hideous shade of bright pink - someone really needs to tell costume designers that getting an action-oriented character into a girly dress doesn't mean said dress has to be pinker than candyfloss (see also an episode of Firefly whose title I can't remember and, to a lesser extent, Hermione's dress in Goblet of Fire). This is also the episode that establishes that vampires and nasties supposedly stay home on Halloween and gives us lots of Cordelia flirting with Angel, so we can all enjoy the irony of Willow's attempts to assure Buffy that Angel would never go for Cordelia.

The reason everyone turns into their costumes is that the shop-owner, Ethan, has performed some kind of spell or ritual. Ethan, an old 'friend' of Giles's, apparently worships chaos and wanted to create, well, a chaotic situation. To perform his rituals, the words for which are, of course, in Latin, Ethan kneels in front of a double-faced bust that apparently represents Janus, a Roman god (whose name Ethan correctly pronounces 'Yanus', as the Latin word is 'Ianus').

Giles claims Janus stands for 'the division of self, male and female, light and dark'. Which, er, he doesn't. But it does go very well with the theme of the episode, in which we see the tougher (and more chivalrous) side of Xander, the weaker side of Buffy, the sexy side of Willow and the Dark Side of Giles - an excellent plot development that stopped Giles from being a tweed-wearing, tea drinking walking stereotype and gave us the sublime 'Band Candy' in season three.

Janus, from the Vatican museum

Janus was the god of doors and gateways and, like a door, looked both ways, hence the double head. He was also a god of beginnings, which is why he gives his name to January, the first month of the year. He stands, not so much for division, as for liminal spaces, that is, places or situations that exist on the borders, neither one thing nor the other. He is usually, though not always, depicted with two identical, often bearded faces. Ethan's bust is a bit different, with one plain and serious face and one bearded face which is modelled after 'comedy' masks from ancient theatre, so the whole effect essentially plays on the well known modern juxtaposition of comic and tragic masks. This is an unusal way to depict Janus, but it works very well for the episode's theme and the comic mask is nicely creepy and provides a more interesting look for the prop than a standard Janus bust would. (Greek theatrical masks are seriously creepy, especially the comic ones, how anyone sat through plays looking at them I don't know!)

Ethan's fantastically creepy Janus

Gates and especially doorways seem to have been used in Roman magic spells; certainly, the witches in poetry (who may or may not have anything in common with real magical practices) often refer to liminal places like cross-roads (Theocritus' Idyll 2) or doorways in their spells. So Janus is a fairly logical god to attach to a magic spell. He doesn't, however, have anything to do with Chaos. Chaos, parent of Night among others, was an important part of creation mythology, but not connected with regular worship or cult practices. If you were looking for an ancient deity to worship as the embodiment of chaos, well, there isn't one, but you'd be closer with Bacchus or Cybele.

'Halloween' is a brilliant episode, hilarious and sweet as all the best comedy episodes are (plus it's the introduction of Ripper Giles!). It ends with Ethan's ominous note, 'Be seeing you,' which is presumably a reference to classic British TV series The Prisoner, and suitably creepy. The episode's use of Janus is also very effective. Although the nature of the god has been altered somewhat from Roman mythology, the use of the double-faced god as a symbol of the division of self does work rather well and the use of the theatrical masks for his faces is a stroke of genius. The episode's emphasis on their incarnation of Janus as a symbol of one divided being does rather lose the emphasis on looking both forward and backward that gives the month of January its name, but having been transposed to Halloween, it works rather well, bringing out hidden aspects of the regular characters just as the mythology of Halloween suggests that the night brings hidden things, always present but not usually seen, out of the darkness.

If you're in the mood for more spooky-type classical references, here are some more Halloween-y posts from the archives:

Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book and Stardust
The Mummy (1999)
True Blood season two
Charmed, 'Oh my goddess!'
Satanic sit-com Old Harry's Game
Other Buffy and Angel posts: Giles the Classicist, 'Storyteller', 'Restless', Angel's Oracles, 'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered'
Harry Potter posts: Books 1-3, Books 4-5, Philosopher's Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Half-Blood Prince

One of Chris Riddell's beautiful illustrations from The Graveyard Book

Argonautas (Argo sailors or Argonauts)

Ao atingir a maioridade Jasão, exilado na Tessália onde vivia com o Centauro Quiron, reclamou o trono de Éson, seu pai. Seu tio Pélia, no poder, enviou-o à Cólquida (Geórgia) à procura do 'velo de oiro'. Partiu com vários companheiros no navio Argo e foi bem sucedido. Isaac Newton calculou que a viagem se terá efectuado no ano 939 aC.


Upon reaching adulthood Jason, exiled in Thessaly where he lived with the Centaur Chiron, claimed the throne of Aeson, his father. His uncle Pelias, in power, sent him to Colchis (Georgia) in search of the 'golden fleece'. Jason left with several companions in the ship Argo and was successful. Isaac Newton estimated that the trip must have been accomplished in the year 939 BC.

Underworld painter-'Jason bringing Pelias the golden fleece'-(red-figure)-calix krater-apulian-(340-330 BC) Paris-Musée du Louvre (K 127)

Douris-'Jason being regurgitated by the snake who kips the golden fleece'-(red-figure)-cup-Cerveteri-(480-470 BC) Città del Vaticano-Museo Gregoriano Etrusco

Lorenzo Costa (ca 1460-1535)-'Argo'-tempera on wood-ca 1530 Padova-Museo Civico

Biagio d'Antonio da Firenze (1446-1516)-'scenes from the story of the Argonauts'-ca 1465 New York-Metropolitan Museum of Art

Master of the Argonauts (15th century)-'scenes from the story of the Argonauts'-ca 1465 New York-Metropolitan Museum of Art

Pintura chinesa (Chinese painting)

A pintura dos artistas plásticos da China pertence à cultura milenar deste imenso e importante país do Extremo Oriente. Tem identidade muito própria quer a nível asiático, quer ocidental.


The painting by Chinese plastic artists is part of the millenary culture of this huge and important Far East country. It has a very unique identity when compared to the Western or Asian worlds.

Anonymous (1-3th century)-'two gentlemen engrossed in conversation while two other look on'-painting on a ceramic tile from a tomb

Chou Fang (8th century)-'women in the game'

Chang-Sheng-Wen (12th century)-'teaching of Sakyamuni Budha'-ink on silk-1173-1176

Ma Lin (13th century)-'the wind in the pines, listening'-ink on silk-1246 Taiwan-Palace collection

Li Shan (18th century)-'pine. three stones and wisteria'

Danúbio (Danube) (Donau)

O Danúbio é o segundo maior rio da Europa (ca 3.000 km). Nasceu na Alemanha (Floresta Negra) próximo do lago Constança e desagua por delta no Mar Negro. Passa pelas capitais de vários países europeus: Viena (Áustria), Bratislava (Eslováquia), Budapeste (Hungria), Belgrado (Sérvia). Os romanos conheceram-no por Danubius. O Imperador Marco Aurélio (séc. II) terá morrido nos arredores de Vindobona (Viena) no campo militar de Carnuntum, destinado à defesa das invasões bárbaras. Continua a ser importante via para transporte de pessoas e mercadorias.


The Danube is the second largest river in Europe (ca 3000 km). It starts in Germany (Black Forest) near Lake Constance and flows into the Black Sea, in a delta. It passes through several European capitals: Vienna (Austria), Bratislava (Slovakia), Budapest (Hungary), Belgrade (Serbia). For the Romans it was the Danubius. Emperor Marcus Aurelius (2nd century) is said to have died somewhere in Vindobona (Vienna) in the military field of Carnuntum, intended for the defense against barbarian invasions. It is still a major route for the transport of people and goods.

Albrecht Altdorfer (1480-1538)-'Danube landscape near Regensberg'-oil on wood-ca 1522 München-Alte Pinakothek

Georg Raphael Donner (1693-1749)-'Danube well'-sculpture-(1737-1739) Wien-Österreischiche Galerie Belvedere

Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741-1825)-'Hagen and the nymphs of the Danube'-graphite, pen and brown ink, watercolour and gouache on cream wove paper-1802 Private collection

Jakob Alt (1789-1872)-'the monastery of Melk on the Danube'-oil on canvas-1845 Winterthur-Oskar Reinhart collection

Egon Schiele (1890-1918)-'Stein an der Donau with terraced vineyards'-oil on canvas Private collection

NASA Trapped Mars Rover Finds Evidence of Subsurface Water

The ground where NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit became stuck last year holds evidence that water, perhaps as snow melt, trickled into the subsurface fairly recently and on a continuing basis.

Stratified soil layers with different compositions close to the surface led the rover science team to propose that thin films of water may have entered the ground from frost or snow. The seepage could have happened during cyclical climate changes in periods when Mars tilted farther on its axis. The water may have moved down into the sand, carrying soluble minerals deeper than less soluble ones. Spin-axis tilt varies over timescales of hundreds of thousands of years.

The relatively insoluble minerals near the surface include what is thought to be hematite, silica and gypsum. Ferric sulfates, which are more soluble, appear to have been dissolved and carried down by water. None of these minerals are exposed at the surface, which is covered by wind-blown sand and dust.

"The lack of exposures at the surface indicates the preferential dissolution of ferric sulfates must be a relatively recent and ongoing process since wind has been systematically stripping soil and altering landscapes in the region Spirit has been examining," said Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, deputy principal investigator for the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

Analysis of these findings appears in a report in the Journal of Geophysical Research published by Arvidson and 36 co-authors about Spirit's operations from late 2007 until just before the rover stopped communicating in March.

The twin Mars rovers finished their three-month prime missions in April 2004, then kept exploring in bonus missions. One of Spirit's six wheels quit working in 2006.

In April 2009, Spirit's left wheels broke through a crust at a site called "Troy" and churned into soft sand. A second wheel stopped working seven months later. Spirit could not obtain a position slanting its solar panels toward the sun for the winter, as it had for previous winters. Engineers anticipated it would enter a low-power, silent hibernation mode, and the rover stopped communicating March 22. Spring begins next month at Spirit's site, and NASA is using the Deep Space Network and the Mars Odyssey orbiter to listen if the rover reawakens.

Researchers took advantage of Spirit's months at Troy last year to examine in great detail soil layers the wheels had exposed, and also neighboring surfaces. Spirit made 13 inches of progress in its last 10 backward drives before energy levels fell too low for further driving in February. Those drives exposed a new area of soil for possible examination if Spirit does awaken and its robotic arm is still usable.

"With insufficient solar energy during the winter, Spirit goes into a deep-sleep hibernation mode where all rover systems are turned off, including the radio and survival heaters," said John Callas, project manager for Spirit and Opportunity at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "All available solar array energy goes into charging the batteries and keeping the mission clock running."

The rover is expected to have experienced temperatures colder than it has ever before, and it may not survive. If Spirit does get back to work, the top priority is a multi-month study that can be done without driving the rover. The study would measure the rotation of Mars through the Doppler signature of the stationary rover's radio signal with enough precision to gain new information about the planet's core. The rover Opportunity has been making steady progress toward a large crater, Endeavour, which is now approximately 8 kilometers (5 miles) away.

Spirit, Opportunity, and other NASA Mars missions have found evidence of wet Martian environments billions of years ago that were possibly favorable for life. The Phoenix Mars Lander in 2008 and observations by orbiters since 2002 have identified buried layers of water ice at high and middle latitudes and frozen water in polar ice caps. These newest Spirit findings contribute to an accumulating set of clues that Mars may still have small amounts of liquid water at some periods during ongoing climate cycles.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the rovers for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer20101028.html

Roma vista por Corot (Rome seen by Corot)

O pintor francês Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1872), filho de abastado comerciante estudou em Ruão. Nos anos de 1825-1828 permaneceu em Roma. Nesta cidade pintou o Coliseu, o Castelo de Santo Ângelo e a igreja da Santissima Trinità dei Monti, cuja construção fora iniciada em 1502 pelo rei Luís XII de França para celebrar a invasão de Nápoles.


The French painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1872), son of a wealthy merchant, studied in Rouen. During the years 1825-1828 he stayed in Rome. In this city he painted the Colosseum, the Castel of Sant'Angelo and the church of Santissima Trinità dei Monti, whose construction was initiated in 1502 by King Louis XII of France to celebrate the invasion of Naples.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1872)-'the Colosseum: view from the Farnese gardens'-oil on paper mounted on canvas-1826 Paris-Musée du Louvre

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1872)-'castle of Sant'Angelo'-oil on paper mounted on canvas Lille-Musée des Beaux-Arts

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1872)-'Basilica of Constantine'-oil on canvas

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1872)-'view of the Mount Pincio and the Church of Trinità dei Monti seen from the garden of the French Academy'-oil on canvas-(1826-1828) Paris-Musée du Louvre

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1872)-'view of the Tiber from the Ponte Rotto to the Isola Tiberina with the Monastery of S. Bartlomeo'-oil on paper laid canvas

Kuiper Belt of Many Colors

The sun isn't kind to objects without atmospheres. Bombarded by solar radiation, the surfaces of some comets, for example, tend to be a charred carbon-black. But the 1,000 objects so far directly imaged in the Kuiper Belt – that swath of icy bodies circling around the sun with Pluto – appear to be a wide range of colors: red, blue, and white.

With scant observations to go on – most of the Kuiper belt objects are just a single pixel of light to the Hubble Space Telescope – few hypotheses have been developed to explain the colors. But a new computer model maps out the right combination of materials and space environment that could produce some of those lovely hues. The model suggests that these objects have many layers, and that the red colors of one particularly interesting group of these objects -- the so-called Cold Classical Kuiper Belt -- could come from organic materials in the layer just under the crust.

"This multi-layer model provides a more flexible approach to understanding the diversity of colors," says John Cooper, a Heliospheric physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The model calculates the rate at which energy comes in from radiation and could be causing changes at different depths. So we can define different layers based on that."

The layers may have different colors, and could also be dynamic. For example, a deeper layer of relatively pure water ice could erupt upwards to form a new uppermost layer, perhaps accounting for the bright icy surface of Eris, the largest of the known Kuiper Belt objects.

Just how these bodies are composed has been a mystery ever since the first observed Kuiper Belt member, a red Cold Classical named 1992 QB1, was discovered in1992, says Cooper, who presented his model in October at the Division for Planetary Sciences meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, Calif. Subsequent discoveries of many more objects created instant buzz not only because they helped demote Pluto from a planet to just-another-Kuiper-Belt-object, but because of the Kuiper Belt's mysterious diversity. These bodies sport not just coats of many colors, but also have different sizes and different orbits.

"There's a group called the Cold Classicals that move in relatively circular orbits, and are nearly aligned in the same plane as the orbits of the other planets," says Cooper. "These are all consistently reddish. Other objects, which might range from red to blue to white, tend to move in more elliptical or inclined orbits, which suggest they came from a different location within the solar system early in its history. So, it's possible that the uniformly red Cold Classicals represent a more pristine sample, showing the original composition of the Kuiper Belt with minimal disturbances."

The first thing Cooper had to do was explain why the objects don't have a black crust like, for example, Halley's Comet, since Kuiper Belt bodies are made of hydrocarbons and water ice, and "from lab experiments we know that usually when you take a mixture of ice and carbon and overexpose it to radiation, you get new, dark, tarry materials," says Cooper.

Cooper calculated how the space radiation constantly flowing past the Kuiper Belt should affect different objects depending on where they're located. He believes that the Cold Classicals formed in a sweet spot where plasma ions from the Sun aren't intense enough to overcook the outermost surface to a dark crust.

Instead, the plasma ions have the right amount of energy to simply "sandblast" the topmost layer of the surface -- which is perhaps a millimeter thick -- right off. The sandblasting is partly due to what's known as "ion sputtering" where an incoming plasma ion causes a mini-explosion on the surface, blowing away molecules. Additional erosion could come from impacts of tiny dust grains ejected into the Kuiper Belt region when nearby larger objects collide. Over time, the combined effects of plasma sputtering and meteoritic dust erode away the top layer.

That means that what we see as red must actually be from the exposed second layer. Cooper explains that this second layer is gently cooked by radiation from interstellar space. The radiation can penetrate deeply into the object but also is not overly intense because the sun's magnetic field protects the solar system from its strongest effects. This radiation passes through the crust right into the "shelf" layer where it can induce simple chemical reactions, turning water ice, carbon, methane, nitrogen and ammonia – the basic substances believed to be on these bodies – into organic molecules containing oxygen and carbon like formaldehyde, acetylene and ethane. "Cooking" by radiation can make these molecules appear red to our eyes.

"So if there wasn't any cooking at all, we would just see primordial ice, and the object would appear bright and white," says Cooper. "And if there was too much radiation we would just see black crust, but instead we see a moderately processed shelf layer, which under these circumstances is red."

Cooper's layer model accounts for bright white Kuiper belt objects as well. Further beneath the red shelf would be less-processed water ice in a deep mantle layer that could volcanically erupt through the crust onto the surface, leaving visible global layers or localized patches of bright white ice. "Some of these objects in the Kuiper Belt like Eris are quite bright," he says. "So these may not be dead icy objects, they may be volcanically active over billions of years."

At this point, the layer model is based on limited data from the Voyager mission that has provided information on the energy levels of radiation beyond Neptune. NASA's New Horizons mission will pass through the Kuiper Belt region beyond Neptune's orbit in 2014, getting a good look at Pluto and its largest moon Charon in 2015, and later, if all goes well, one or two other objects. Cooper hopes it will pass close enough to another object to make detailed observations of its surface, which would help confirm what materials are present. New Horizons can provide additional verification simply by confirming that the energy distribution and particles in this region of the solar system jibe with what the model requires.

Not only would such data help explain the many-colored mystery of the Kuiper Belt, but it would support current theories that organic materials might be common in the universe.

"When you take the right mix of materials and radiate them, you can produce the most complex species of molecules," says Cooper. In some cases you may be able to produce the components of life -- not just organic materials, but biological molecules such as amino acids. We're not saying that life is produced in the Kuiper Belt, but the basic chemistry may start there, as could also happen in similar Kuiper Belt environments elsewhere in the universe and that is a natural path which could lead toward the chemical evolution of life."

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/sunearthsystem/main/kuiper-colors.html

True Blood Season Two (Part One)

Halloween seems to be especially big this year - it hasn't always been much of a thing in England (though both Ireland and Scotland have celebrated it for years, I think it may have originated in one or the other). I've always suspected that this is because it's too close to Bonfire Night, and we have our autumnal light-bringing ritual to mark the drawing in of the nights then. Anyway, everyone seems very excited about it this year so in addition to the Halloween-themed Buffy post I have planned for Sunday, I thought I'd get in the mood a little early with some very different vampires.

True Blood is an intriguing show. I started watching it because a couple of friends alerted me to the fact there appeared to be a maenad among the main characters. The show has a largely likeable cast (Sookie, Tara and the rather yummy Sam the bartender) and a great opening credits sequence. I've never been to the American South (though I'd love to go) so I have no idea how accurately the images here portray it, but it certainly conveys a really strong sense of atmosphere, helped by the deliciously catchy and naughty-sounding song 'I Wanna Do Bad Things With You'. (I could live without the gross dead animals though).

The trouble is, the vampires on True Blood are just too nasty for it to really work for me. They're represented as an oppressed minority, chiefly drawing parallels with the gay community (the title sequence features a church with a notice reading 'God hates Fangs' and vampires supposedly 'came out of the coffin' a couple of years ago). I can see the idea behind it - there are good vampires and bad vampires, just as there are good and bad people in any group. But the 'good' vampires here are not vegetarian Cullens, ensouled Angels or well-behaved members of the League of Temperance. Of the two main vampires, who both serve as love interests for the heroine, one locked a man in a cell and tortured him for weeks, throwing the dismembered limbs of his former cellmate around at him, and the other recently turned a teenage girl into a vampire. Apparently this was because he had killed another vampire, so he had to make one to replace the dead one. Just think about the implications of that metaphor for a moment. I really don't think implying that members of minority groups really are inherently violent and sadistic (the main love interest is also shown enjoying sex while covered in the blood of a gasping victim who hasn't died yet - lovely) is doing anyone any good, nor do I feel the slightest bit of sympathy for any of the True Blood vampires, who are all downright creepy and not remotely attractive (no, not even Alexander Skarsgard) (Later edit: I would like to retract that last statement. I get it now. Boy oh boy I get it now...).

Anyway, I started watching at episode 2, season 2 to see what this possible maenad was up to. I didn't post about it immediately because True Blood is one of those very arc-driven US shows where plot developments happen veeery slooowwly over a number of episodes, so single episodes don't necessarily move things along very far. However, we're halfway through season 2 now, so I thought I'd stop and take stock.

A maenad is a female follower of the god Bacchus/Dionysus. In real life, they had a biannual festival in which they went into the mountains and had wild party, complete with drumbeats and getting themselves into a state of ecstasy but probably without vast amounts of sex, since they were all women (I'm not saying that rules out sex, but sex was not the object of the ritual - there are other types of ecstasy). In myth, they were, of course, even wilder, tearing Pentheus to pieces and so on. They crop up every now and again, most bizarrely in Prince Caspian.

Weird shaky-thing, complete with Greek-ish costume, in case we haven't got it yet.

Maryann the maenad's main trick so far is to throw a wild party, do a weird shaky-thing with her body (a quite bizarre CG effect) and make everyone have a lot of sex while their eyes go black and they go into a trance. I'm calling her a maenad because that, according to the internet, is what she will turn out to be, though so far signals have been mixed. According to Billie Doux, the first episode of season 2 (which I missed) featured this line:

Maryann: "The Greeks knew there was the flimsiest veil between us and the divine. They didn't see the gods as inaccessible, the way everyone does today."

There was also a mural of Pan, the goat-legged god of music and shepherds. Her reference to accessing the gods makes sense for someone who is, essentially, a worshipper, not a divine being herself (though she seems to have aquired some supernatural powers). But in addition to apparently worshipping both Pan and Dionysus (nothing wrong with that in a polytheistic religion) she has the ability to force shape-changers to change, which in the ancient world would be connected with witchcraft (Circe turned men into pigs, while the witch in Apuleius' Metamorphoses turns into an owl and her magic turns Lucius into a donkey). Then things get really confused; there is yet another minotaur running around (whether there's more than one or not remains to be seen) and the ritual at her latest party involves some kind of bull's head thing.

In the latest episode, Sam told Daphne (a minion of Maryann) that he didn't want to go near drums because they only lead to hippies and cults. Daphne replied 'not this time' in the sort of knowing, evil tone of a minion about to reveal her evilness to the guy she's been duping - except that is exactly, in the most literal sense, what the drums are leading them to. The cult of Bacchus/Dionysus was one of the most prominent of the ancient religions known today as mystery cults ('cult' from the Latin cultus, worship). These were groups dedicated to a particular god who carried out secret rituals known only to members, and which new members had to undergo sometimes lengthy initiation ceremonies to join. Their secretive nature leads to all sorts of speculation from modern writers on what might have gone on behind closed doors with, of course, no evidence to contradict even the wildest ideas, because it was secret. Daphne has most definitely led Sam into a cult.

(Daphne is also a Greek name, but whether or not she has anything to do with Apollo or laurel trees remains to be seen).

The trouble with the bull's head thing, though, is that it's connected to the wrong cult. Bulls were associated with another mystery cult, that of Mithras, joined chiefly by soldiers. Bulls were also essential to the taurobolium, a rite carried out by followers of the cult of Cybele. I'm not sure, however, what they would have to do with the cult of Dionysus. And the minotaur thing is getting weird now - just what is so attractive about bull-headed men?!

Maryann's ultimate goal has yet to be revealed, but so far her parties seem to bear more resemblence to the pop culture notion of a Roman orgy than a Bacchic festival (though the word orgy does come from orgia, a Greek word for ritual connected with mystery religions). Ecstasy, sometimes including sexual ecstasy, is certainly a feature of the mythology of Bacchus and may have been a big part of Bacchic ritual (hmm, that sentence came out wrong!). But on the television - unsurprisingly - sexual ecstasy seems to be the only type that Maryann the maenad is interested in. Considering the title sequence includes images of Christian religious ecstasy, it seems rather a shame to reduce Bacchic ritual to just sex and nothing more.

Further analysis will have to wait until we know more about Maryann and what she actually wants, which so far is unclear (well, she wants everyone around her to have a lot of sex, but I'm guessing there's more to it than that). Meanwhile, I will continue to watch and hope to see more of cute Sam the bartender, and less of blood, guts or really any vampire at all! (Later edit: I would also like to retract this statement. Except for the part about Sam, I still like him too).

Guerras Greco-Persas (Greco-Persian wars)

Na 1ª Guerra ocorreu a 'batalha de Maratona' (Setembro de 490 aC). Conta Heródoto (séc. V aC) que os Gregos venceram os Persas de Dario I ao impedirem o ataque da cavalaria Persa. Milcíades terá enviado Fidipides a Atenas, o qual depois de percorrer os 42 km, gritou 'vencemos!' e caíu morto de cansaço. Da II Guerra destaca-se a batalha do desfiladeiro das 'Termópilas'. Indica Dionísio de Halicarnasso (séc. I aC) que se realizou no verão de 480 aC. Cerca de 300 Espartanos comandados pelo rei Leónidas lutaram contra milhares de Persa e foram vencidos. O 'combate naval de Salamina' teve lugar a 20 de Setembro de 480 aC. Xerxes derrotado por Temístocles partiu para a Ásia Menor.


The 'Battle of Marathon' took place in War I (September 490 BC). According to Herodotus (5th century BC) the Greeks defeated the Persians of Darius I because they prevented the attack of the Persian cavalry. Miltiades sent Phidipides to Athens, who after covering the 42 km, shouted "we won!" and fell tired to death. War II is famous for the battle of the gorge of 'Thermopylae'. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ist century BC) refers it was held in the summer of 480 BC. About 300 Spartans led by King Leonidas fought against thousands of Persian and were beaten. The 'naval battle of Salamis' took place on 20 September 480 BC. Xerxes defeated by Themistocles left to Asia Minor.

Brian Palmer-'battle of Marathon'-oil on canvas

Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825)-'the battle of Thermopylae'-oil on canvas-1814 Paris-Musée du Louvre

Howard David Johnson (1954- )-'the battle of Thermopylae'-oil on canvas

Fernand-Anne Piestre Cormon (1834-1874)-'the victory of Salamis'-oil on canvas

Wilhelm von Kaulbach (1805-1874)-'the sea battle near Salamis'-oil on canvas-1868 München-Senatsaal

Introducing the A-Train

Mention the "A-Train" and most people probably think of the jazz legend Billy Strayhorn or perhaps New York City subway trains — not climate change. However, it turns out that a convoy of "A-Train" satellites has emerged as one of the most powerful tools scientists have for understanding our planet’s changing climate.

The formation of satellites — which currently includes Aqua, CloudSat, Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) and Aura satellites — barrels across the equator each day at around 1:30 p.m. local time each afternoon, giving the constellation its name; the "A" stands for "afternoon."

Together, these four satellites contain 15 separate scientific instruments that observe the same path of Earth's atmosphere and surface at a broad swath of wavelengths. At the front of the train, Aqua carries instruments that produce measurements of temperature, water vapor, and rainfall. Next in line, CloudSat, a cooperative effort between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and CALIPSO, a joint effort of the French space agency Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and NASA, have high-tech laser and radar instruments that offer three-dimensional views of clouds and airborne particles called aerosols. And the caboose, Aura, has a suite of instruments that produce high-resolution vertical maps of greenhouse gases, among many other atmospheric constituents.

In coming months, the A-Train will expand with the launch of NASA's aerosol-sensing Glory satellite and the carbon-tracking Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2) satellite. In 2010, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to launch the Global Change Observation Mission-Water (GCOM-W1), which will monitor ocean circulation. Meanwhile, a fifth satellite, France’s Polarization and Anistropy of Reflectances for Atmospheric Science coupled with Observations from a Lidar (PARASOL), which studies aerosols, is easing out of an A-Train orbit as its fuel supplies dwindles.

Accidental Origins

This multi-sensor view allows scientists to simultaneously observe changes in key environmental phenomenon – such as clouds or ice sheets – from numerous perspectives. And it helps skirt around engineering obstacles that would have made it impossible to cluster all 15 instruments on one large spacecraft.

But it wasn’t necessarily planned that way. Formation flying is a fairly novel concept, and it came to the fore partly by accident. The concept of an A-Train first emerged when scientists and engineers were hashing out the orbit of Aura, which launched in 2004. At the time, rather than calculating a whole new orbital plan for Aura, flight engineers realized they could simply model its orbit after Aqua, a sister satellite NASA had launched in 2002.

They went forward with that plan, but limitations in data transmissions rates, meant that the two satellites ended up flying much closer to each other than originally planned. In the end, they decided that Aura would fly about 6,300 kilometers – a mere 15 minutes of flight – behind Aqua.

Meanwhile, two additional satellites that study minute airborne particles called aerosols and clouds – the CALIPSO and CloudSat – without realizing it had requested nearly identical orbits near Aura because the scientists involved with these missions wanted to compare their results with the humidity and cloud measurements coming from Aura. In 2006, CloudSat and CALIPSO eased into the train behind Aura just 93 kilometers – about 12.5 seconds – from one another. As a result, CALIPSO’s lidar beam and CloudSat’s radar have coincided at Earth’s surface about ninety percent of the time they have been in orbit.

Reaping the Rewards

The longer the A-Train has existed, the more scientists have begun to appreciate its potential. Indeed, scientists representing all the A-Train satellites are meeting this week in New Orleans to compare notes and to sketch out plans for future cross-satellite collaboration. Leading earth scientists from three national space agencies, including the director of NASA’s Earth Science Division Michael Freilich, Didier Renaut from CNES and Haruhisa Shimoda of JAXA, are giving talks about A-Train science. And scientists from dozens of institutions are presenting research on topics ranging from air quality, to the carbon cycle, to cloud dynamics.

There is a great deal to discuss. Multi-sensor measurements from the A-Train, for example, have proven critical in working out why the summer of 2007 experienced the greatest loss of Arctic sea ice in history. A-Train sensors captured environmental conditions during the loss – which was far greater than climate models had predicted – allowing scientists to go back after the fact to pinpoint its causes. By now, they have proven that some unexpected factors, such as anomalously high winds and an sharp decrease in cloudiness, fueled the rapid loss, in addition to more predictable culprits such as high air temperatures and low humidity.

Likewise, synergistic A-Train measurements have yielded great insight into aerosols – small airborne particles such as dust, sea salt, and soot. Depending on their composition, aerosols can scatter and or absorb the sun’s heat, and can thus both warm and cool the planet. Some types of aerosols also seed clouds, A-Train sensors have helped reveal, and can change cloud behavior. A-Train instruments aboard Aura and Aqua, for example, produced groundbreaking insight about aerosols and ice clouds, making it possible for scientists to prove that polluted ice clouds have smaller particles and are therefore much less likely to produce rain.

Still, pressing questions about our climate remain. What is the overall affect of aerosols and clouds on climate? How much carbon is absorbed by forests? How will the monsoon cycle react to a warming world? To what extent will a changing climate change the size and strength of hurricanes? And what feedback cycles will encourage or discourage climate change? These and many more questions still need answers, and now that the power of formation flying is clear, it is a good bet that A-Train satellites will play a key role in answering them.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/a-train/a-train.html

Fiber One Original ~ Prize Pack ~ GIVEAWAY!!! ~ Ends 11/10

If you’re dieting, chances are you’re hungry! You know skipping breakfast or drinking that diet shake just isn’t going to cut it. When diets leave you hungry, you can find yourself off-course and giving into dreaded and seemingly inevitable cravings.

How many times have you started a diet with a bang, but one indulgent moment and the whole thing caves in. Those indulgent moments happen when we're hungry, unsatisfied. I'm not a big dieter, but I have before and have experienced some of my most indulgent moments while dieting.

If I would have known about how Fiber One Original cereal can help stop hunger from taking diets off-course, maybe I would have had better luck.


Fiber helps satisfy your hunger so it’s easier to eat less and lose weight without feeling as hungry.


*One serving of Fiber One Original cereal provides more than half (57%) of the Daily Value of fiber.

*Fiber One Original cereal is a tasty way to start your morning on the right track with 0 grams of sugar, 14 grams of fiber, 60 calories and 1 gram of fat per serving.

For more information or additional tips, please visit http://www.fiberone.com/.



I have found that if I start my day with a bowl of Fiber One and some fruit or a yogurt, that I can make it until dinner without being hungry. Fiber One does contain gluten, and while I am not strictly gluten free, I am conscious of how much I consume.

WIN IT!!!

One winner will receive a Fiber One Original Prize Pack that includes Fiber One Original cereal, a cereal-on-the-go container, food scale, water bottle and notepad for tracking what you eat.

MAIN ENTRY:

Tell me about one of your biggest diet missteps, or a secret you have to preventing a misstep & become a friend @ Wishing Penny via Google Friends Connect. Both parts mandatory to win - thanks :)




EXTRAS:


*Like/Fan Fiber One at Facebook ( 3 bonus entries )

*Leave a brief description of this giveaway with link to this giveaway on your wall @ Facebook ( 3 bonus entries )

*Follow me @jamaise at Twitter & Tweet this :    RT @jamaise #GIVEAWAY #WIN - A Fiber One Original Prize Pack- Everyone gets a coupon!! #myblogspark http://bit.ly/bfmumA ends11/10 tweet each day for one entry each !

*Blog about this giveaway & leave me the link ( 5 bonus entries)

*Grab my button & tell me where to find it ( 2 bonus entries )

*Follow my blog via Google Friend Connect ( 3 bonus entries )

*Follow me via Networked Blogs ( 2 bonus entries )

*Enter my Quirk Giveaway !!! ~ ( 3 bonus entries )

*Enter to win my Wanchai Ferry / Macaroni Grill GIVEAWAY!!! ~ ( 3 bonus entries)

*Enter any other giveaway here for one entry each


That's 11 entry methods with tons of bonus & a chance for unlimited entries with daily tweets!



Giveaway will end on November 10th at 11 :59 am EST. Winner will be selected using Random .org. I will email the winner & you will have 48 hours to reply back before I draw a new winner . Please remember to leave me your email address if it is not visible on your profile so that I can contact you if you win. Good luck to everyone :)


Disclaimer: Fiber One provided me with all information and product to review through My Blog Spark. I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product. These views are my own.

Moisés salvo das águas (1592-1472 aC) (The finding of Moses) ('Pharaos tochter-Die Auffindung Moses')

O Livro do Êxodo informa que Temutis, filha do Faraó Set, encontrou Moisés ao banhar-se no Nilo. Adoptou-o e educou-o como filho. Aos 40 anos (1552 aC), depois de assassinar um feitor, parte para o exílio. Instala-se próximo do golfo de Acaba e casa com Séfora. Depois de várias provações e privações conduz o seu povo a Canaã, a Terra Prometida. A tradição Judaico-Cristã atribui-lhe os primeiros cinco livros do Antigo Testamento. Os Muçulmanos consideram Musa (Moisés) um grande Profeta.

The Book of Exodus states that Temutis, daughter of the Pharaoh Set, met Moses while bathing on the Nile. She adopted him and raised him as a son. When he was 40 (1552 BC), after murdering a taskmaster, he left for the exile. He settled near the Gulf of Aqaba and marries Zipporah. After many trials and hardships he leads his people to Canaan, the Promised Land. The Judeo-Christian tradition ascribes the first five books of the Old Testament to him. Muslims consider Musa (Moses) a great prophet.

Paolo Caliari or Veronese (1528-1588)-'the finding of Moses'-oil on canvas-(1570-1575) Wien-Kunsthistorisches Museum Gemäldegalerie

Orazio Gentileschi (1563-1639)-'the finding of Moses'-oil on canvas-ca 1630 Madrid-Museo del Prado

Charles de La Fosse (1630-1716)-'the finding of Moses'-oil on canvas-(1675-1680) Paris-Musée du Louvre

Edwin Longsden Long (1829-1891)-'Pharaos tochter-Die Auffindung Moses' 'Pharaoh's daughter-the finding of Moses'-oil on canvas-1886 Bristol-City of Bristol Museums

Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912)-'the finding of Moses'-oil on canvas-1904 Private collection

Five Things About NASA's EPOXI Mission

Here are five quick facts about the EPOXI mission, scheduled to fly by comet Hartley 2 on Nov. 4, 2010.

1. High Fives - This is the fifth time humans will see a comet close-up, and the Deep Impact spacecraft flew by Earth for its fifth time on Sunday, June 27, 2010.

2. Eco-friendly Spacecraft: Recycle, Reuse, Record - The EPOXI mission is recycling the Deep Impact spacecraft, whose probe intentionally collided with comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005, revealing, for the first time, the inner material of a comet. The spacecraft is now approaching a second comet rendezvous, a close encounter with Hartley 2 on Nov. 4. The spacecraft is reusing the same trio of instruments used during Deep Impact: two telescopes with digital imagers to record the encounter, and an infrared spectrometer.

3. Small, Mighty and Square-Dancing in Space - Although comet Hartley 2 is smaller than Tempel 1, the previous comet visited by Deep Impact, it is much more active. In fact, amateur skywatchers may be able to see Hartley 2 in a dark sky with binoculars or a small telescope. Engineers specifically designed the mighty Deep Impact spacecraft to point a camera at Tempel 1 while its antenna was directed at Earth. This flyby of comet Hartley 2 does not provide the same luxury. It cannot both photograph the comet and talk with mission controllers on Earth. Engineers have instead programmed Deep Impact to dance the do-si-do. The spacecraft will spend the week leading up to closest approach swinging back and forth between imaging the comet and beaming images back to Earth.

4. Storytelling Comets - Comets are an important aspect of studying how the solar system formed and Earth evolved. Comets are leftover building blocks of solar system formation, and are believed to have seeded an early Earth with water and organic compounds. The more we know about these celestial bodies, the more we can learn about Earth and the solar system.

5. What's in a Name? - EPOXI is a hybrid acronym binding two science investigations: the Extrasolar Planet Observation and Characterization (EPOCh) and Deep Impact eXtended Investigation (DIXI). The spacecraft keeps its original name of Deep Impact, while the mission is called EPOXI.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/epoxi/epoxi20101025.html

Leda e o cisne (Leda and the swan)

Leda teria sido rainha de Esparta e mulher de Tíndaro. Zeus metamorfoseou-se em cisne e seduziu-a. O resultado do acasalamento foram dois ovos que chocou. Deles nasceram: Clitemnestra, Helena, Castor, Póllux.


Leda is said to have been queen of Sparta and Tyndareus’ wife. Zeus metamorphosed into a swan and seduced her. The result of the mating were two hatched eggs; from them issued Clytemnestra, Helen, Castor and Pollux.

Timotheus-'Leda and the swan'-sculpture (roman copy) Madrid-Museo del Prado

Unknown-'Leda and the swan'-mosaic-3rd century AD Nicosia-Cyprus Museum (from Palea Paphos-santuary of Aphrodite)

Jacopo Carucci or Pontormo (1494-1556)-'Leda and the swan'-tempera on wood-ca 1515 Firenze-Galleria degli Uffizi

Francesco Meltzy (ca 1491-1570) after of the lost Leonardo original -'Leda and the swan' Firenze-Galleria degli Uffizi

Gustave Moreau (1826-1908)-'Leda and the swan'-oil on canvas-(1865-1875) Paris-Musée Gustave Moreau