Engineer, Norah Patten, has always been fascinated with space and has even made a career out of it. Now she wants to be Ireland’s first female astronaut. Here she tells us why.
With just eight days left in office Felipe Calderon wants to introduce legislation to change the country’s name to Mexico. It’s currently known official as the United Mexican States.
Scientists believe they have found evidence of liquid water beneath the surface of Jupiter’s ice-covered moon – indicating a potential habitat for life outside Earth.
Reports that scientists had established a link between the activities of the sun and moon with the today’s Pacific tsunami have been dismissed by Irish astronomers.
US SCIENTISTS HAVE announced that the moon is shrinking, after spotting wrinkles on the surface of the satellite.
Meanwhile, scientists say the universe is going to continue expanding until it becomes a cold, dead wasteland.
Contraction marks were spotted by scientists examining photographs of the lunar surface taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
The moon was formed “in a chaotic environment of intense bombardment by asteroids and meteors”, according t0NASA.
The moon then cooled down as it aged, but scientists believe it has shrank during this process, especially during its early years. But, it could still be shrinking today.
[A] fault cut across and deformed several small diameter (~40-m diameter) impact craters (arrows) on the flanks of Mandel’shtam crater (6.5°N, 161°E). The fault carried near-surface crustal materials up and over the craters, burying parts of their floors and rims.
About half of the rim and floor of a 20 m-in-diameter crater shown in the box has been lost. Since small craters only have a limited lifetime before they are destroyed by newer impacts, their deformation by the fault shows the fault to be relatively young.
Separately, NASA scientists are saying that the fate of the universe has been revealed by light travelling from distant stars. And it doesn’t look good.
The team calculated that the distribution of dark energy (a force that speeds up the universe’s expansion) in the universe will cause it to continually expand until it becomes a cold, dead wasteland.
How cold? Temperatures will approach ‘absolute zero’ – the temperature at which all atomic motion stops.
INDEPENDENT TD MICK Wallace is to file a complaint about the Minister for Justice’s use of information on RTÉ’s Prime Time last week.
Alan Shatter said on live television that the Wexford deputy benefited from garda discretion when he was cautioned for using a mobile phone – but not given penalty points. Wallace insists he is not aware of such an incident.
Shatter has stood by his remarks and he has also been backed by the Taoiseach who said that “people can’t have it both ways”. “You cannot be saying no discretion and at the same time availing of discretion.”
Labour Deputy Kevin Humphreys told Newstalk Breakfast this morning that he thought making the remarks was “poor judgement” on the minister’s part. He called on Shatter to explain how he received the information. Others have claimed the information could have been made public in a different manner, and not on live television without giving Wallace prior warning.
In today’s poll, we ask: Should Alan Shatter have made his comments about Mick Wallace on Prime Time?
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