Survey Vehicle Reaches Mercury

A NASA space vehicle, New Messenger, has reached Mercury and is beaming back information to CSIRO's Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex. It has taken nearly seven years to get to the hot inner planet. A Mercury day is six Earth months long while its year is only 88 days.

There is no possibility of humans landing on this little planet as the temperature reaches 430 degrees. Its minimum is extreme as well, minus 180 degrees. The sun would look three times bigger than on Earth if you could stand on it surface and look at it that is.

An earlier exploratory vehicle, Marina 10, only gave a cursory look at the innermost planet. The whole planet is to be mapped this time. It will show whether there is ice at the poles. The sun never shines into pole craters. A mystery to be solved is why Mercury is composed mainly of metals.

http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/
http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/
http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia
http://www.technorati.com/blogs/
http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Science

The Danger of Nuclear Power Stations

Countries are going ahead with investment in nuclear power despite very real dangers. Similar crises to Chernobyl and Three Mile Island will definitely occur in the future with catastrophic results for resident of neighboring nations of the country experiencing the problem.

Where are they going to put the contaminated material after use? Putting it deep under landfill and into natural cavities in the earth have failed in the past. The only answer is to launch it into space on a trajectory to the sun. But what if the rocket explodes in the earth's atmosphere or crashes to earth?

Nuclear power is also very expensive. It is too high a price to pay to reduce green house gas pollution. Electricity charges are already going through the roof in Australia and the green tax hasn't even been instituted yet.

There is no way the use of uranium purchased from countries such as Australia can be policed. Once another country owns the uranium it can use it for military purposes, though all nuclear weaponry so far produced in the world have come from military dedicate nuclear facilities.

http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/
http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/
http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia
http://www.technorati.com/blogs/http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

New Fuel Will Be Cheaper but It Still Pollutes

There is hope for a new fuel that will reduce the price of oil, but carbon pollution of the earth will still be a problem. In Mackay, north Australia, a farmer is planting "diesel trees".

Oil from the trees will be tapped and used in diesel engines without refining. A tree can produce 40 liters a year. This means that a farmer can grow a hectare of the trees, and this will be sufficient for all his farm needs.

This is good for the cost of fuel. However, it will do little to reduce carbon pollution.

http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/
http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/
http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia
http://www.technorati.com/blogs/http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .