Every ten to 12 thousand years, there's a volcano in the heart of Europe that goes boom. And not any boom, but a let's-kill-everyone-with-billions-of-tonnes-of-magma boom that would cover everything in ash from England and Denmark to the north of Italy.
Now, the supervolcano that can destroy bad teeth, rude waiters, overpriced wine, olive oil, smelly camping sites, disco music, nudist beaches, pasta, David Hasselhoff and Oktoberfest is awakening
It's been 12,900 years since the last eruption. The supervolcano is located under the Laacher See, a caldera lake in the Eifel mountain range, 15 miles from Koblenz and 30 miles from Bonn, the old capital of West Germany.
Some scientists are saying that the volcano can go now at any time, although there are no official alerts. They are just watching for now. Seismological activity started in 2010, with the latest movements happening last February, when a series of seven earthquakes ranging from 2.0 to 4.5 magnitude were registered in the area.
The lake has been bubbling since with with carbon dioxide gas that comes from the magma under the lake's bed. Maybe this is what Europe needs to get out of the Euro crisis.
I wonder what would happen to the world's weather if this, the deadly Mount Tambora and the Yellowstone hypermegasupervolcano explode at the same time. I can already imagine the 2012 doomsday idiots screaming "I told y*" before getting engulfed in flames.
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| Affected area of volcano |
A new island is forming in the Red Sea in the Zubair archipelago resulting from a volcanic activity as lava is cooled by the surrounding seawater and solidifies. The underwater volcano responsible is located on the Red Sea Rift, where the African and Arabian tectonic plates are slowly pulling apart.
Fishermen witnessed lava fountains reaching up to 90 feet (30 meters) tall on Dec. 19, which is probably the day the eruption began,Ash plumes were detected by NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging
According to the Latest tweet it is confirmed that beyonce had got a baby girl.Tiana-May Carter is the name Twitter has decided to come up with for Beyonce and Jay-Z’s soon to be most famous and talented child in the world!We still have to wait it out to see if Bey and Jay will be having a boy or girl and when they will arrive. Until then we can only speculate in anticipation for Baby Carter.
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| Fastest moving train |
According to daily mail.co.uk a mysterious ball that looks like a prop from a science fiction film - and nobody can explain where it came from.
Police have been left baffled after a strange metal sphere fell to the ground in a remote area of northern Namibia, Africa.
It weighs around 13lbs, has a diameter of 14 inches and its rough surface looks like ‘two halves welded together’, said police forensics director Paul Ludik.
When the ball came down it caused a crater 12 inches deep and 13ft wide, although it was found some 60ft away.
Locals claimed to have heard several explosions in the days before it was discovered by a farmer on his land.
The find sparked speculation on the internet that it could finally be proof of extra terrestrial life, even though it bore a passing resemblance to the head of a character from the children’s series Teletubbies.
Some claimed that it could be an escaped particle from the Large Hadron Collider, reindeer droppings or a Quaffle from the Harry Potter films.
Others - arguably with more accuracy - guessed it was a hydrazine tank, which are used on space satellites to store the flammable chemical.
Mr Ludik however was quick to point out that more tests need to be done and that NASA and the European Space Agency had been notified.
He said that the ball was discovered a month ago but it has only now been made public. Whilst it was made of a ‘sophisticated material’, it was something that was known to mankind.
He explained that the explosion heard by locals could have been the sonic boom when it broke the sound barrier coming down to Earth, or by the impact on the ground.
The compound appeared to be a ‘metallic compound normally used in space vehicles,’ although he would not be surprised if it was actually from a normal aircraft.
Police deputy inspector general Vilho Hifindaka added that the sphere, which landed 480 miles from the
Namibian capital Windhoek, did not pose any danger.
He said: ‘It is not an explosive device, but rather hollow, but we had to investigate all this first’.
Earlier this year Britain and the rest of the world was put on alert when one of NASA’s satellites broke up and crashed to Earth.
Huge chunks of titanium up to 350lbs from car-sized Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite tore through the atmosphere at 1,800mph but the best NASA could guess was that they landed somewhere south of Inverness on the equator.
To try and reassure the public it also revealed that the odds of being hit were one in 3,200 - more likely than getting a hole-in-one in golf.
Weeks later Germany’s Roentgen satellite crashed to Earth and split up into 30 huge chunks including one which weighed 880lbs.
Police have been left baffled after a strange metal sphere fell to the ground in a remote area of northern Namibia, Africa.
It weighs around 13lbs, has a diameter of 14 inches and its rough surface looks like ‘two halves welded together’, said police forensics director Paul Ludik.
Locals claimed to have heard several explosions in the days before it was discovered by a farmer on his land.
The find sparked speculation on the internet that it could finally be proof of extra terrestrial life, even though it bore a passing resemblance to the head of a character from the children’s series Teletubbies.
Some claimed that it could be an escaped particle from the Large Hadron Collider, reindeer droppings or a Quaffle from the Harry Potter films.
Mr Ludik however was quick to point out that more tests need to be done and that NASA and the European Space Agency had been notified.
He said that the ball was discovered a month ago but it has only now been made public. Whilst it was made of a ‘sophisticated material’, it was something that was known to mankind.
He explained that the explosion heard by locals could have been the sonic boom when it broke the sound barrier coming down to Earth, or by the impact on the ground.
The compound appeared to be a ‘metallic compound normally used in space vehicles,’ although he would not be surprised if it was actually from a normal aircraft.
Police deputy inspector general Vilho Hifindaka added that the sphere, which landed 480 miles from the
Namibian capital Windhoek, did not pose any danger.
He said: ‘It is not an explosive device, but rather hollow, but we had to investigate all this first’.
Earlier this year Britain and the rest of the world was put on alert when one of NASA’s satellites broke up and crashed to Earth.
Huge chunks of titanium up to 350lbs from car-sized Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite tore through the atmosphere at 1,800mph but the best NASA could guess was that they landed somewhere south of Inverness on the equator.
To try and reassure the public it also revealed that the odds of being hit were one in 3,200 - more likely than getting a hole-in-one in golf.
Weeks later Germany’s Roentgen satellite crashed to Earth and split up into 30 huge chunks including one which weighed 880lbs.
A rocky planet the same size as the Earth has been discovered orbiting a star like our sun.
It is the first time a planet of this size has been detected in another solar system. Scientists have hailed the technical achievement of detecting Earth sized ‘exoplanets’ - the technical term for planets outside the solar system - as it increases the chances of finding life-bearing worlds.
Although the planet, Kepler-20f could have a thick water-vapour atmosphere, its surface is believed to be too hot for life.A second planet in the same system, Kepler-20e, is only slightly smaller than Earth and even hotter.Both worlds circle their parent star closely with 'years' that last just nine and sixteen days respectively.
Dr Francois Fressin, one of the astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in Cambridge, US, said: ‘It is the first time humanity has been able to discover an object similar to the Earth around a star, so maybe we will be able to find others.
‘This could be an important milestone. I think 10 years or maybe even 100 years from now people will look back and ask when was the first Earth-sized planet found. It is very exciting.’
The parent star, Kepler-20, is not exactly a close neighbour, being 945 light years away.
Neither lie within the ‘habitable zone’ where temperatures are just warm enough to allow liquid surface water, increasing the prospects for life.Earlier this month the telescope discovered Kepler-22b, a planet 2.4 times the size of the Earth situated in the middle of its habitable zone. But scientists say that Kepler 22-b may not be suitable for life.
‘You could fit 13 Earths inside Kepler-22b,’ said Dr Fressin. ‘The most likely thing is that it's simply a mini-Neptune, not suitable for life. Just because a planet lies within the habitable zone that doesn't mean it is habitable.’
Like Kepler-22b, the two new planets were found by the American space agency Nasa's Kepler space telescope - which scans distant stars for the signs of 'transits', planets passing in front of them.
The findings are reported today in an early online edition of the journal Nature.
Both planets are part of a solar system family already known to contain three larger worlds.
Kepler-20f has a radius just 1.03 times larger than Earth's, while Kepler-20e is 0.87 the size of the Earth.The astronomers spent years making sure the signals they detected really were from planets.We simulated all possible alternative configurations and tried to quantify the probability that a false signal could occur,’ said Dr Fressin. ‘We confirmed that the signals were coming from an Earth-size planet. It couldn't be due to anything else.’
Both planets are believed to be rocky, with a composition of iron and silicate, and very hot.
Kepler-20f is a baking 426C and Kepler-20e a scorching 726c.
The solar system is not hugely like our own, though. In our solar system small, rocky worlds orbit close to the Sun and large, gas giant worlds orbit farther out. In contrast, the planets of Kepler-20 are organized in alternating size: big, little, big, little, big.
'We were surprised to find this system of flip-flopping planets,' said co-author David Charbonneau of the CfA.
The planets of Kepler-20 could not have formed in their current locations. Instead, they must have formed farther from their star and then migrated inward, probably through interactions with the disk of material from which all the planets orbiting the star formed from. Kepler identifies 'objects of interest' by looking for stars that dim slightly, which can occur when a planet crosses the star's face. To confirm a transiting planet, astronomers look for the star to wobble as it is gravitationally tugged by its orbiting companion.
Kepler has found 28 confirmed planets so far.
It is the first time a planet of this size has been detected in another solar system. Scientists have hailed the technical achievement of detecting Earth sized ‘exoplanets’ - the technical term for planets outside the solar system - as it increases the chances of finding life-bearing worlds.
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| it's the first earth-sized planet found orbiting a star like our own Sun |
Although the planet, Kepler-20f could have a thick water-vapour atmosphere, its surface is believed to be too hot for life.A second planet in the same system, Kepler-20e, is only slightly smaller than Earth and even hotter.Both worlds circle their parent star closely with 'years' that last just nine and sixteen days respectively.
Dr Francois Fressin, one of the astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in Cambridge, US, said: ‘It is the first time humanity has been able to discover an object similar to the Earth around a star, so maybe we will be able to find others.
‘This could be an important milestone. I think 10 years or maybe even 100 years from now people will look back and ask when was the first Earth-sized planet found. It is very exciting.’
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| Nasa's Kepler space telescope |
The parent star, Kepler-20, is not exactly a close neighbour, being 945 light years away.
Neither lie within the ‘habitable zone’ where temperatures are just warm enough to allow liquid surface water, increasing the prospects for life.Earlier this month the telescope discovered Kepler-22b, a planet 2.4 times the size of the Earth situated in the middle of its habitable zone. But scientists say that Kepler 22-b may not be suitable for life.
‘You could fit 13 Earths inside Kepler-22b,’ said Dr Fressin. ‘The most likely thing is that it's simply a mini-Neptune, not suitable for life. Just because a planet lies within the habitable zone that doesn't mean it is habitable.’
Like Kepler-22b, the two new planets were found by the American space agency Nasa's Kepler space telescope - which scans distant stars for the signs of 'transits', planets passing in front of them.
The findings are reported today in an early online edition of the journal Nature.
Both planets are part of a solar system family already known to contain three larger worlds.
 |
| Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f compared with Venus and the Earth. |
Both planets are believed to be rocky, with a composition of iron and silicate, and very hot.
Kepler-20f is a baking 426C and Kepler-20e a scorching 726c.
The solar system is not hugely like our own, though. In our solar system small, rocky worlds orbit close to the Sun and large, gas giant worlds orbit farther out. In contrast, the planets of Kepler-20 are organized in alternating size: big, little, big, little, big.
'We were surprised to find this system of flip-flopping planets,' said co-author David Charbonneau of the CfA.
The planets of Kepler-20 could not have formed in their current locations. Instead, they must have formed farther from their star and then migrated inward, probably through interactions with the disk of material from which all the planets orbiting the star formed from. Kepler identifies 'objects of interest' by looking for stars that dim slightly, which can occur when a planet crosses the star's face. To confirm a transiting planet, astronomers look for the star to wobble as it is gravitationally tugged by its orbiting companion.
Kepler has found 28 confirmed planets so far.