Senin, 27 Juni 2011

Sebuah Asteroid Dekati Bumi Malam Ini

Sebuah Asteroid Dekati Bumi Malam Ini
Yunanto Wiji Utomo | Tri Wahono | Senin, 27 Juni 2011 | 17:28 WIB
NASAAsteroid Mathilde 253 berukuran 59 x 47 km yang direkam pada 27 Juni 1997.

KOMPAS.com - Asteroid 2011 MD yang baru ditemukan 22 Juni 2011 lalu akan datang mendekati Bumi, Senin (27/6/2011) malam ini. Asteroid tersebut akan mencapai jarak terdekatnya dengan Bumi kurang lebih pukul 00.00 WIB.

Asteroid akan melayang di atas wilayah lepas pantai laut Antartika, sekitar 3218 km di selatan Afrika Selatan. Saat mencapai jarak terdekat, ketinggian asteroid adalah 12.000 km di atas permukaan Bumi.

Dalam posting di Twitter, Asteroid Watch Program NASA menyatakan, "Tak ada kemungkinan Asteroid 2011 MD menghantam Bumi. Tapi, astronom akan menggunakan kesempatan ini untuk mengobservasi dengan radar."

2011 MD berukuran kurang lebih 10 meter. Berdasarkan teori, asteroid yang ukurannya kurang dari 25 meter akan hancur ketika memasuki atmosfer Bumi sehingga kecil potensinya menghantam atau menimbulkan kerusakan.

Nah, apakah mungkin melihat asteroid ini malam nanti? Astronom amatir dari Kebumen, Ma'rufin Sudibyo ketika dihubungi sore ini mengatakan, "Sulit kalau dengan mata telanjang. Harus memakai teleskop." Lebih lanjut, Ma'rufin mengatakan, "Pada dasarnya memang asteroid ini hanya terlihat di wilayah Antartika."

Karenanya, masyarakat mungkin harus menanti citra asteroid ini di internet jika ada yang mengabadikan. Jarak terdekat yang dicapai asteroid 2011 MD memang cukup dekat. Tapi, jarak tersebut belum memecahkan rekor. Februari lalu, asteroid 2011 CQ1 melayang mendekati Bumi mencapai jarak hanya 5471 km.

Asteroid 2011 MD ditemukan 22 Juni 2011 lalu dengan teleskop LINEAR di New Mexico. Teleskop itu dipakai untuk mengobservasi near Earth Object, objek di dekat Bumi yang beberapa diantaranya berpotensi menghantam Bumi.

http://sains.kompas.com/read/2011/06/27/17282377/sebuah-asteroid-dekati-bumi-malam-ini

Kosmologi, 1 Triliun Tahun Mendatang

Kosmologi, 1 Triliun Tahun Mendatang
Ilmuwan akan dapat mengetahui berapa usia galaksi dan kapan fenomena Big Bang terjadi.
SENIN, 27 JUNI 2011, 11:10 WIB
Muhammad Firman
Menggunakan penghitungan dan teknologi masa depan, ilmuwan akan dapat mengetahui berapa usia galaksi dan kapan fenomena Big Bang terjadi. (enorth.com.cn)

VIVAnews - Sebagian besar yang kita ketahui saat ini seputar kelahiran kosmos datang dari pengamatan astronomi. Namun, berhubung pesatnya pertumbuhan alam semesta, astronom di masa depan tidak akan bisa menggunakan metode pengamatan yang sama seperti saat ini.

Dalam satu triliun tahun ke depan, galaksi Bima Sakti kita sudah akan bergabung dengan galaksi Andromeda. Merger antara kedua galaksi ini akan menghasilkan sebuah galaksi raksasa yang mungkin disebut sebagai ‘Milkomeda’.

Galaksi-galaksi tetangga yang lain kemungkinan akan telah lama lenyap dari pandangan kosmologi. Bahkan cosmic microwave background(CMB) yang dapat digunakan untuk mengidentifikasi benda angkasa kemungkinan sudah tidak lagi terlihat. Lalu, bagaimana para astronom dari galaksi Milkomeda mempelajari kosmologi? Bagaimana mereka mengetahui asal muasal jagat raya?

Menurut sebuah laporan yang dipublikasikan oleh Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, para astronom itu nantinya akan dapat membuka rahasia kosmos dengan mempelajari bintang-bintang pelarian dari galaksi mereka sendiri, atau yang disebut dengan Hypervelocity Stars (HVSs).

Dikutip dari Universe Today, 27 Juni 2011, HVSs berasal dari sistem bintang ganda atau tiga bintang yang berada sedikit terlalu dekat ke lubang hitam super raksasa yang ada di tengah galaksi mereka. Astronom yakin bahwa salah satu bintang dari sistem ini ditangkap oleh black hole, sementara bintang lain diluncurkan ke luar dari galaksi dengan kecepatan yang amat sangat tinggi.

Pelontaran HVSs sendiri sangat jarang terjadi, kemungkinan hanya satu kali setiap 10 ribu hingga 100 ribu tahun dan akan terus terjadi selama beberapa triliun tahun ke depan jika mengingat kepadatan bintang di pusat galaksi.

Jadi, bagaimana HVS membantu astronom masa depan mempelajari asal muasal alam semesta?

Pertama, para ilmuwan perlu menemukan sebuah bintang yang dilontarkan di luar batas gravitasional dari galaksi Milkomeda. Setelah melewati batas tersebut (setelah sekitar 2 miliar tahun perjalanan), akselerasi dari sebuah HVSs akan mengikuti Hubble flow atau 71 kilometer per detik per megaparsec (1 megaParsec = 3.08568025 × 10^22 meter)

Dengan teknologi maju, astronom masa depan bisa memanfaatkan perubahan Doppler dari garis spektral dan menggunakan konstanta kosmologi Einstein serta akselerasi jagat raya secara luas.

Selain itu, ilmuwan juga bisa menggunakan model matematik dari pembentukan dan kehancuran galaksi untuk menentukan kepadatan massa dan usia alam semesta saat Milkomeda terbentuk. Dari pengetahuan yang didapat soal usia galaksi, ilmuwan akan dapat mengetahui kapan Big Bang, atau fenomena yang diyakini sebagai awal mula terbentuknya seluruh alam semesta terjadi. (eh)

• VIVAnews

Minggu, 26 Juni 2011

Mysterious Lake Baikal devours vessels

Mysterious Lake Baikal devours vessels

23.06.2011

Mysterious Lake Baikal devours vessels. 44720.jpegAnother vessel with people on board disappeared in Lake Baikal. Now a search and rescue team is looking for a pleasure boat "Yamaha" that went into the lake with four men on board on 16 June and still has not returned. Everyone says that the men were experienced sailors. However, some do not believe that the crew will return as it disappeared in the most mysterious area of ​​Lake Baikal.

The boat left a village in Kabansk area of ​​Buryatia with four men on board. They were supposed to return soon, as they went to try a new motor for a small boat, but all contact with them was lost almost immediately after their departure. As reported to "Pravda.ru" by the Main Emergency Center in Buryatia, on Monday the search was conducted by seven rescuers with seven pieces of equipment, on Tuesday the search was continued by a different party near Cape Saint Nose and in the bays of Barguzin Chivyrkuy; searches are conducted by Mi-8 helicopter.

The age of the missing men is from 35 to 63, they are experienced people, and a short way out into the lake should have been easy for them. Why are they gone, and without a trace? Their phones are out of the network (although the reception within the area of ​​the lake is perfect for all mobile operators). The local press has already voiced a theory that they were lost in the fog that came in after their departure.


Finally, recently a theory of the missing boat emerged that actually fits the circumstances. The ship might have sunk in the anomalous zone of Lake Baikal, as have many other small vessels. The locals lost count trying to figure out how many people were lost in the mysterious depths of Lake Baikal. This is not including those who perished drifting away on the ice, or fell through the ice on cars or snowmobiles.In any event, the fog has already burnt down, and there were no storms on Lake Baikal since their departure. They could have crashed against the shore because of the thick fog, but it is also unlikely as there is no wreckage on the banks for dozens of kilometers. The boat sank as if in the Bermuda Triangle.

Also read: Mysterious dark circles discovered on Lake Bailak ice

Fishermen from Lake Baikal often tell stories about seeing trains and ancient castles, historic ships and boats over the transparent surface of the lake - something scientists call a mirage.

Often, when mirages appear in different parts of the lake, they are accompanied by disturbances in the magnetic fields that lead to failures in the ships' equipment, especially the navigation.

Igor Janushev, PhD., a participant of the annual expeditions to Lake Baikal organized by the sport-tourism group "Slavs" commented on the situation for "Pravda.ru."

"Every year I hear plenty of mysterious stories about the Lake. I usually serve as a doctor in our expeditions, but often have to serve as a psychologist and a psychiatrist: the secrets of the lake can bring a person into a very peculiar state.

For example, Lake Baikal has ideal conditions for mirages created by warm air over the chilled water in summer, and clear atmosphere and extreme cold in winter. In the layers of air of different density, the light rays are refracted, distorted, and produce fantastic forms. This could bring the missing men from "Yamaha" God knows where - Baikal mirages are very realistic.

For years there have been rumors and legends about the incredible mirages on Lake Baikal. They are often observed by local fishermen and researchers in such famous places as near the island of Great Ushkan'i, near Cape Sun and the famous island of Olkhon.

In recent years, many famous scientists got engaged with the study of Lake Baikal. They are still in disbelief: how can these numerous unexplained phenomena occur in one place? Near the place where the boat has disappeared, a few dozen kilometers southeast of Olkhon, in the deepest part of Lake Baikal, there is a place called the Devil's crater.

Normally unremarkable, no more than once or twice a year this area of ​​the lake covering two square kilometers becomes unruly. This is when small vessels with crews disappear there.

Lake Baikal "swallows" ships along with people. In good weather and a dead calm, incredible rotation of the water begins here, and soon in the midst of it a large crater emerges, engulfing everything around. Locals claim that this is the opening of a chasm through which the souls of dead sinners go to hell.

The most interesting thing is that this phenomenon has been documented - there are movies, videos, numerous photographs, and eyewitness accounts. Several years ago, some skippers offered to completely close the area of the lake to the boats, but for some reason it has never been done."

It is hard to predict what would be the end of "Yamaha's" story with the four crew members. There were times when the fishermen would disappear for a week, but then suddenly return as if nothing had happened, convinced that it has only been a few hours.

Andrey Mikhailov
Pravda.Ru

Read the original in Russian

What Makes a Password Stronger

What Makes a Password Stronger

Computer password page. (ThinkStock)
by Stu Woo
Friday, June 24, 2011

provided by
wsjlogo.gif

With concern about hackers, tools for remembering so many codes; no more pet names or 123456.

For all its benefits, the Internet can be a hassle when it comes to remembering passwords for email, banking, social networking and shopping.

Many people use just a single password across the Web. That's a bad idea, say online-security experts.

"Having the same password for everything is like having the same key for your house, your car, your gym locker, your office," says Michael Barrett, chief information-security officer for online-payments service PayPal, a unit of eBay Inc.

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Mr. Barrett has different passwords for his email and Facebook accounts -- and that's just for starters. He has a third password for financial websites he uses, such as for banks and credit cards, and a fourth for major shopping sites such as Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN - News). He created a fifth password for websites he visits infrequently or doesn't trust, such as blogs and an online store that sells gardening tools.

A spate of recent attacks underscores how hackers are spending more time trying to crack into big databases to obtain passwords, security officials say. In April, for instance, hackers obtained passwords and other information of 77 million users in Sony Corp.'s (NYSE: SNE -News) PlayStation Network, while Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG - News) said this month that hackers broke into its email system and gained passwords of U.S. government officials.

So-called brute force attacks, by which hackers try to guess individual passwords, also appear to be on the rise, Mr. Barrett says.

PayPal says two out of three people use just one or two passwords across all sites, with Web users averaging 25 online accounts. A 2009 survey in the U.K. by security-software company PC Tools found men to be particularly bad offenders, with 47% using just one password, compared with 26% of women.

[More from WSJ.com: Sleevecandy.com Sells Vintage T-Shirts, Hipster Cred]

Another PC Tools survey last year showed that 28% of young Australians from 18 to 38 years old had passwords that were easily guessed, such as a name of a loved one or pet, which criminals can easily find on Facebook or other public sites. Other passwords can be easily guessed, too. Hackers last year posted a list of the most popular passwords of Gawker Media users, including "password," "123456," "qwerty," "letmein" and "baseball."

"If your password is on that list, please change it," says Brandon Sterne, security manager at Mozilla Corp., which makes the Firefox browser and other software. Hackers "will take the first 100 passwords on the list and go through the entire user base" of a website to crack a few accounts, he says.

People typically start changing online passwords after they've been hacked, says Dave Cole, general manager of PC Tools. However, "after a relatively short time, all but the most paranoid users regress to previous behaviors prior to the security breach," he says. He and other security experts recommend people change or rotate passwords a few times a year.

To come up with a strong password, some security officials recommend taking a memorable phrase and using the first letter of each word. For example, "to be or not to be, that is the question," becomes "tbontbtitq." Others mash an unlikely pair of words together. The longer the password -- at least eight characters, experts say -- the safer it is.

Once people figure out a phrase for their password, they can make it more complex by replacing letters with special characters or numbers. They can also capitalize, say, the second character of every password for added security. Hence "tbontbtitq" becomes "tB0ntbtitq."

[More from WSJ.com: Would Pilot 'Panic Button' Save the Day?]

No matter how good a password is, it is unsafe to use just one. Mr. Barrett recommends following his lead and having strong ones for four different kinds of sites -- email, social networks, financial institutions and e-commerce sites -- and a fifth for infrequently visited or untrustworthy sites.

Even the strongest passwords, however, are useless if criminals install so-called malware on computers that allow them to track a person's keystrokes. Security experts say people can avoid this by keeping their antivirus and antispyware software updated and by avoiding downloading files from unknown websites and email senders.

Some security experts recommend slightly modifying passwords within each category of site. Companies such as Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT - News) offer free password-strength checkers, but users shouldn't rely on them wholly because such strength tests don't gauge whether a password contains easily found personal information, such as a birthday or a pet's name.

It's especially important to have a separate password for an email account, says Mozilla's Mr. Sterne. Many sites have "Forgot my password" buttons that, when clicked, initiate a password-recovery process by email. Hackers who break into an email account can then intercept those emails and take control of each account registered using that address.

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Some websites, such as Google and Facebook, now let people register a phone number along with their account. If a person forgets his passwords, the sites reset the passwords by calling or sending a text message to that person.

Mr. Barrett says people should be able to remember four or five good passwords. If not, they can write them down on a piece of paper and stick it in their wallet, and then throw the cheat sheet away once all the passwords are memorized.

People who still struggle to remember them all can use a password manager. Several, such as LastPass, are free. LastPass prompts users to create a master password and then generates and stores random passwords for different sites. Some security experts warn against using managers that store passwords remotely, but LastPass Chief Executive Joe Siegrist says hackers can't access the passwords because all data is encrypted.

The worst thing that people can do after creating their different passwords: Put it on a sticky note by their monitor. "That defeats the entire purpose," says Mr. Sterne.

Heather O'Neill, a 27-year-old tech-company employee in San Francisco, had her Google email account broken into earlier this year. She says she used the same password for several sites, and that it was a weak one.

"I can't have one password for everything," she says. "Everything is going to be different."

Write to Stu Woo at Stu.Woo@wsj.com

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/113007/strong-online-passwords-wsj

Angels in space nothing but top secret hallucinations

Angels in space nothing but top secret hallucinations

14.06.2011

Angels in space nothing but top secret hallucinations. 44617.jpegUFOs, angels and other supernatural phenomena, which people may encounter in their lives, can only be a result of hallucinations, NASA specialists said. However, stories about such encounters, told by pilots, cosmonauts and astronauts, become classified immediately.

In 1985, there were six crewmembers on board the Soviet Salyut-7 space station. They were cosmonauts Leonid Kizim, Oleg Atkov, Vladimir Solovyov, Svetlana Savitskaya, Igor Volk and Vladimir Jannibekov. That day, the cosmonauts were doing their routine work connected with laboratory experiments. All of a sudden, a cloud of strange orange gas enveloped the station. A flash of bright light blinded all the cosmonauts on board for a while. As soon as they could see again, the cosmonauts saw silhouettes of seven figures outside the station. The aliens looked like humans, but were of higher stature. They also had large wings behind their backs and luminous halos above their heads. The creatures looked like angels.

The crew reported the bizarre sight to the Earth. The document was classified as top secret immediately. All members of the crew were subsequently subjected to psychological and medical tests, which found no abnormalities at all.

It was not the only encounter with angels which took place in space. Not so long ago, the Western media published sensational photos made by Hubble telescope. The photos depicted strange images including human-like winged silhouettes.


It was also said that US astronauts on board NASA's space shuttles also encountered angel-like creatures.Researchers were especially interested in a series of photos made on Earth's orbit. One could see seven luminous objects on them. John Pratchett, an engineer of Hubble project, said that he had seen those creatures himself. According to him, they were live objects up to 20 meters tall, and their wing spread could be comparable to the length of a modern jetliner.

On December 26, 1994, Hubble telescope transmitted hundreds of photos depicting a large white city floating in space. US authorities did not expose the photos to the general public, of course, although it was rumored that US officials treated NASA's report very seriously.

A Russian cosmonaut who spent six months living and working on board the Mir space station, said that he and his partner had had fantastic visions from time to time. It seemed to the men that they were turning into other creatures - other people, or animals, or even humanoids of extraterrestrial origin.

Similar stories may often be told by aircraft pilots. In this case, it may frequently go about the so-called phenomenon of giant hand. As a rule, the phenomenon occurs during long-lasting flights. When it happens, a pilot feels that the control wheel is being grasped by someone's invisible hand. Researchers from the US Air Force concluded that nearly 15 percent of pilots have experienced the effect during their work. It is not ruled out that the giant hand phenomenon is behind many air crashes.

NASA psychologists say that the majority of the above-mentioned phenomena are of psychic nature. They may occur as a result of such factors as pressure and temperature fluctuations, shortage of oxygen, etc.

Margarita Troitsyna
Yoki

Read the original in Russian

http://english.pravda.ru/society/anomal/14-06-2011/118195-angels-0/

Sun wakes volcanoes up, Jupiter makes them sleep

Sun wakes volcanoes up, Jupiter makes them sleep

15.06.2011

Sun wakes volcanoes up, Jupiter makes them sleep. 44636.jpegMass awakening of volcanoes in the recent years has made scientists wreck their brains over the possible causes of such increased activity. Many geophysicists believe that such activity may increase because of the interaction of the Earth with other celestial bodies, such as the Sun or the giant planets Saturn and Jupiter.

Even the skeptics do not doubt that our planet is going through a peak of volcanic activity. Indeed, for the second consecutive year, these fire-breathing monsters are being felt in different regions of the planet. Even seemingly forever dormant volcanoes are coming to life. In addition, scientists expect the emergence of new volcanoes in places where they did not exist before.

The peak of volcanic activity also coincided with the activation of other processes in Earth's crust that resulted in the succession of powerful earthquakes. Although they happened in places with the increased seismic activity, this is not very comforting. Since volcanoes and earthquakes are usually associated with one another, it becomes clear that something is happening to the planet.

First we need to figure out what hidden mechanism causes a volcanic eruption. Scientists have known for a long time that mantle convection causes volcano eruptions. However, this knowledge does not answer the question why at one time volcanoes are active, and in other times dormant.


Contemporary scholars are not happy with such an explanation. However, it is interesting that the theories attempting to explain the sudden awakening of the volcanic activity have certain references to the king of gods.The ancient Greeks answered this question without any hesitation - the volcano wakes up when the god Hephaestus, the blacksmith, gets rush defense orders from Zeus (or some other deity). Then he descends into his underground forge under a mountain, kindles the hearth, and gets to work. As a result, people have to "admire" the smoke rising from the underground oven, splashing hot metal and sparks flying from under the hammer of Cyclops. Hellenes were convinced that the volcano wakes up just when Zeus needs something from Hephaestus.

Now, scientists often say that the volcanism is a process that can be activated not only by Earth, but also space reasons, and, more precisely, the interaction of the planet with different objects from space. In the late 19thcentury geologist E. Kluge and his colleagues noticed a rhythmic nature of the eruptions. According to their observations, volcanoes do not wake up "suddenly" and there is certain regularity to this process. That is, it makes sense to talk about certain cycles of volcanic activity.

In the early twentieth century, Professor Bogolepov drew attention to another interesting fact - a wave of volcanic activity is particularly pronounced in the equatorial zone. This interested the scientist, and he gathered a curious collection of evidence showing that volcanic activity in most cases was linked to the general geophysical perturbations on the planet associated with the impact of any large celestial body. In the 1970's and 1980's, scientists calculated that the peaks of activity often coincide with the periods of the excited state of the sun (often called "flares").

In our time, researcher Fedorov showed that the distribution of volcanoes is subject to strict latitudinal zonation (i.e., fire-breathing mountains are located strictly at certain latitudes), and their behavior is determined by the influence of gravitational fields of the Sun and the Moon. In addition, the work of Vladimir Shirokov allowed establishing the dependence between major volcanic eruptions and bursts of solar activity. Khain and Khalilov noticed that the reaction of the volcanoes in rift zones (areas where the mantle material is released to the surface, located on the ocean floor) and on continental margins is the opposite - if one falls asleep, another one wakes up. Most interestingly, it is also tied to the cycles of solar activity.

All this suggests that volcanoes are often highly sensitive to any external disturbances which arise as a result of solar activity, as well as the activity of other stars and even planets. Statistics, taking into account the terms of the beginning of eruptions in the period from 1960 to 2009 suggests that, apparently, the very rotation of the sun around its axis (and, judging by the observations of sunspots, this period is approximately 27 days) generates a short-period fluctuations in volcanic activity. It is interesting that most of this activity occurs in one or two days before the passage of the central meridian of the Sun.

However, volcanic activity can be extinguished in the interaction of the planet with the gas giants Saturn and Jupiter. It was observed that these planets at the time of passage of perihelion (the closest to the center of the solar point of the orbit of a celestial body), they flew past the Earth, slowing the movement of magma in its depths. This, in turn, leads to a decrease in the number of eruptions. For example, it was found that Saturn, being at perihelion, reduces their number from 25-26 to 22 per year. Jupiter slows volcanic activity more effectively (which is not surprising, as it is closer to Earth).

The Sun activates volcanoes, and giant planets inhibit their activity. Interestingly, the Greeks, apparently, were mistaken - the real Zeus (i.e., Jupiter) is not really rushing Hephaestus, but ordering him to slow down.

For the volcanic and other natural processes, the dynamics of the barycenter (i.e., center of the mass) of the solar system is very important. It is known to be normally located approximately a million miles from the center of the Sun, but due to the reversal of the giant planets it has to move constantly from its normal position to its outer layers, and then come back. Calculations showed that such rhythms of the barycenter are cyclical and each cycle lasts for 179 years.

The maximum volcanic activity is observed just when the centroid passes through perihelion and aphelion. The perihelion here means the point when the barycenter is as close to the center of the Sun as possible, and the aphelion is the point of the maximum distance from the Sun. According to the data on the eruptions which occurred during the period from 1800 through 2009, in such critical moments for the barycenter the volcanic activity is always much stronger. Indeed, without exception, all the largest eruptions (like the explosion of the volcano Krakatoa in 1883) occurred at the time when the barycenter either moves away from the center of the Sun or approaches it.

The shifts of the barycenter are caused either by the approximation of a giant planet to the Sun or it moving away from it. It turns out that Jupiter and Saturn in this case, on the contrary, contribute to the increased volcanic activity. So, as you can see, the interaction of Zeus and Hephaestus is twofold - the king of the gods can give the latter orders either to slow down or hurry up. Also, apparently, the displacement of the barycenter may also be affected by the movement of the other two gas giants, Uranus and Neptune. However, scientists do not know much about this.

The volcanic activity is dependent on many factors. At the same time, scientists cannot exactly tell whether all of these interactions affect it, because to this day they are unable to observe the processes in the mantle and core. It turns out that the mechanism is revealed from one side only, and the other side is still hidden from scholars.

However, in the absence of a clarification of the specific dependence of mantle and nuclear processes on external influences, it cannot be argued that they affect volcanic activity. After all, this may be a mere coincidence (as both in science and in life it is, unfortunately, often the case). Therefore, scientists should always check all the facts in isolation and not be limited to observation of their correlation as this correlation may only be a wishful thinking.

However, now one thing is clear - the god Hephaestus gets plenty of orders not only from Zeus, but from his other colleagues as well, and they are all urgent. It seems that he is doing his best to fulfill them.

Anton Yevseev
Pravda.Ru

Read the original in Russian

http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/15-06-2011/118207-volcanoes-0/

Tornadoes may appear anywhere in the world

Tornadoes may appear anywhere in the world

09.06.2011

Tornadoes may appear anywhere in the world. 44580.jpegTwenty-seven years ago, on June 9, 1984, three fierce twisters struck several regions in the center of Russia. Such natural disasters have never occurred in Russia before. Can this nightmare reoccur in the country?

Three twisters were moving in the north and in the north-west from the Moscow region destroying everything on their way. One of the twisters, which appeared at about 1:00 p.m. destroyed a large forest near Sheremetyevo airport. Two hours later, the twister was 200 kilometers far from Moscow. Afterwards, the storm traveled for more than 100 kilometers and eventually disappeared near the town of Danilov. The twister did not cause much damage, because there were neither settlements, neither highways on its way.

Another twister that appeared in the Tver region did not cause much damage either. The way of the second storm was the shortest - approximately 100 kilometers. The third storm in the Ivanovo region was the strongest and the most destructive one. The wind speed of the Ivanovo twister was 100 meters per second.


The twister did not destroy large concrete and brick buildings in Ivanovo, but tore its roofs off and smashed window panes."A large dark cloud with a trunk hanging down from it appeared near the city at 3:45 p.m. As soon as the funnel touched the ground, it started growing and getting thicker. The lower part of it was going up and down. It could be clearly seen that the funnel was swirling very fast, sucking things in from the ground and spewing them out higher. The noise was very strong - as if a fighter jet was roaring. The cloud, from which the twister appeared, was moving fast to the north. It destroyed houses, power lines, downed countless trees and threw railway cars off the tracks. The storm was tossing cars, buses and trolleybuses like toys," eyewitnesses said.

The unusual natural disaster, which ravaged Russia in 1984, killed 69 people. Fifty-seven of them died in Ivanovo. As many as 804 people were injured. However, one should not trust the Soviet statistics if it goes about catastrophes. The Soviet authorities preferred not to say anything about them at all.

Other eyewitnesses said that the twister entirely destroyed two villages and left only piles of garbage and debris. Most likely, the number of victims was three or four times as much, although the exact number of victims remains unknown still.

It seems unbelievable indeed that twisters like that appeared in Central Russia. This natural disaster is most common for the south of the United States. However, twisters and tornadoes can appear anywhere in the world. The most important condition for them to appear is the presence of the so-called active convection zone in the atmosphere. Most frequently, twisters appear during warm seasons, in the afternoon from 3 to 6 o'clock amid thunder clouds of cold fronts and ahead of them. If a cold front arrives to a warm location, a twister is very likely to appear.

It is worthy of note, that they are mostly referred to as twisters in Russia and tornadoes in the States. A twister can appear anywhere indeed, if there is a cold cyclone coming across ascending currents of warm near-surface air. Scientists do not know, though, why tornadoes may and may not appear in such situations. A solution to this problem would give people an opportunity to predict tornadoes and save hundreds of lives.

Strong twisters appeared in Russia before too. The phenomenon was first described in 1406 near Nizhni Novgorod. The most destructive twister occurred in Central Russia in 1904. The twister appeared near Moscow, destroyed two villages and then ravaged the city itself. Over 100 people were killed and over 200 were wounded.

Anton Yevseyev

Pravda.Ru

Read the original in Russian

http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/09-06-2011/118159-tornado-0/