Eat chapati, give up mutton, save the planet

Rice contributes more to global warming than chapatis and mutton curry is more damaging than chicken curry, according to a study of the impact of Indian food on climate.

Consumed in quantities producing the same amount of energy, wheat is eight times less damaging to the climate than rice and 52 times less than mutton, says the report, which has not been published yet.

The study by the Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI) examines the carbon footprint of 24 food items used in Indian homes such as chapati, rice, vegetables and milk derivatives such as paneer.

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Mercury was alive with volcanoes

While it seems like a geologically dead planet today, early in its history tiny Mercury may have been a caldron of volcanic activity, Nasa scientists said on Wednesday.

Data from the US space agency’s car-sized Messenger probe’s latest close encounter with the planet nearest the sun on Oct. 6 is helping to settle a debate dating back to the 1970s over the role volcanoes played in Mercury’s history. Messenger sent back images showing extensive and deep lava flows on the surface, including hardened lava more than 2 km deep filling a crater 100 km in diameter.

The unmanned spacecraft also detected a so-called “wrinkle ridge,” a long geological feature on Mercury’s surface about 600 metres high apparently caused by contraction of the planet as it cooled, the scientists said.

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U.S. spacecraft lands safely at Mars north pole

A small science probe blazed through the salmon-colored skies of Mars on Sunday, touching down on a frozen desert at the planet's north pole to search for water and assess conditions for sustaining life, NASA officials said.

The spacecraft, known as Phoenix, landed at 4:53 p.m. PDT after a do-or-die plunge through the planet's thin atmosphere and thruster-jet landing to the Mars surface. It marked the first time that a spacecraft had successfully landed at one of the planet's polar regions.

"It was a hell of a lot scarier than the two Mars rovers," NASA's space sciences chief Ed Weiler said, referring to the cushioned landings of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. "I kept thinking, 'I wish I had airbags.'

" Pulled by Mars' gravity, Phoenix was tearing along at 12,700 mph before it entered the atmosphere, which slowed the craft so it could pop out a parachute and fire thruster rockets to gently float to the ground.

"It's down, baby, it's down!," yelled a NASA flight controller, looking at signals from Mars showing that Phoenix had landed.

Flight controllers and scientists battled nerves as Phoenix wrapped up its 10-month, 423 million-mile journey. In 14 minutes, the probe transformed from an interplanetary cruiser to a free-standing science station.

"People got really uncomfortable," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which oversees the mission.

Scientists found in 2002 that Mars' polar regions have vast reservoirs of water frozen beneath a shallow layer of soil. Phoenix was launched August 4, 2007, to sample the water and determine if the right ingredients for life are present.

NASA attempted a landing on Mars' south pole in 1999, but a problem during the final minutes of descent ended the mission.

The U.S. space agency canceled its next Mars lander but successfully dispatched Spirit and Opportunity to the planet's equatorial region to search for signs of past surface water.

Phoenix was created out of spare parts from the failed Polar Lander mission and the mothballed probe. Unlike the rovers, Phoenix did not bounce to the planet's surface in airbags, which are not suitable for larger spacecraft.

Instead, like the 1970s-era Viking probes and the failed Polar Lander mission, it used a jet pack to lower itself to the ground and fold-out legs to land on. "We haven't landed successfully on legs and propulsive rockets in 32 years," Weiler said. "When we send humans there, women and men, they're going to be landing on rockets and legs, so it's important to show that we still know how to do this."

U.S. spacecraft lands safely at Mars north pole

A small science probe blazed through the salmon-colored skies of Mars on Sunday, touching down on a frozen desert at the planet's north pole to search for water and assess conditions for sustaining life, NASA officials said.

The spacecraft, known as Phoenix, landed at 4:53 p.m. PDT after a do-or-die plunge through the planet's thin atmosphere and thruster-jet landing to the Mars surface. It marked the first time that a spacecraft had successfully landed at one of the planet's polar regions.

"It was a hell of a lot scarier than the two Mars rovers," NASA's space sciences chief Ed Weiler said, referring to the cushioned landings of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. "I kept thinking, 'I wish I had airbags.'"

Pulled by Mars' gravity, Phoenix was tearing along at 12,700 mph before it entered the atmosphere, which slowed the craft so it could pop out a parachute and fire thruster rockets to gently float to the ground.

"It's down, baby, it's down!," yelled a NASA flight controller, looking at signals from Mars showing that Phoenix had landed.

Flight controllers and scientists battled nerves as Phoenix wrapped up its 10-month, 423 million-mile journey. In 14 minutes, the probe transformed from an interplanetary cruiser to a free-standing science station.

"People got really uncomfortable," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which oversees the mission.

Scientists found in 2002 that Mars' polar regions have vast reservoirs of water frozen beneath a shallow layer of soil. Phoenix was launched August 4, 2007, to sample the water and determine if the right ingredients for life are present.

NASA attempted a landing on Mars' south pole in 1999, but a problem during the final minutes of descent ended the mission.

The U.S. space agency canceled its next Mars lander but successfully dispatched Spirit and Opportunity to the planet's equatorial region to search for signs of past surface water.

Phoenix was created out of spare parts from the failed Polar Lander mission and the mothballed probe. Unlike the rovers, Phoenix did not bounce to the planet's surface in airbags, which are not suitable for larger spacecraft.

Instead, like the 1970s-era Viking probes and the failed Polar Lander mission, it used a jet pack to lower itself to the ground and fold-out legs to land on.

"We haven't landed successfully on legs and propulsive rockets in 32 years," Weiler said. "When we send humans there, women and men, they're going to be landing on rockets and legs, so it's important to show that we still know how to do this."

Earth was a slushball

An extraordinary episode of global cooling hundreds of millions of years ago that some experts say caused Earth to completely freeze over has been miscalculated, a new study says. Instead of "Snowball Earth," the planet really became "Slushball Earth," its authors suggest. The great chill - the longest and deepest ice age in Earth's known history happened during the late Neoproterozoic era, 850 to 542 million years ago. The evidence for the Snowball thesis comes from deep sediments in the ocean. Scientists look through these layers to measure levels of the isotope carbon 13 (C13), deposited in plants through photosynthesis, as a telltale of Earth's climate.

Above and below the Cryogenian layer is an abundance of C13. But the Cryogenian layer has negligible levels of this isotope. The explanation is that Earth froze over completely and glaciers crept down into the tropics, possibly even reaching the equator. The brilliant white shell reflected back the Sun's rays, and thus its heat, so well that the Snowball persisted for nearly 200 million years. Eventually the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2), welling up from volcanoes, escaped into the air and thankfully set the planet onto a warming trend, and so the icy blanket was melted.

Image and Article source: Deccan Chronicle