The next target on the list is the North American Nebula. This nebula is an emission nebula approximately 1600 light years away from Earth, An emission nebula is basically just a big cloud of gas that is being excited by a nearby star and thus glowing. The most prominent gas being ionized in this nebula is Hydrogen. The nebula is huge, approximately four times the size of the moon, but its surface brightness is pretty low meaning you need binoculars or a low powered telescope to see a foggy patch in the sky. That didn't stop William Herschel from discovering the nebula on Oct. 24, 1786.
The nebula is called the North American nebula because if you use your imagination you will see North America. Canada is at the top with Florida jutting out as you follow the East coast. Mexico rounds out the bottom of the nebula. My photo is not the best out there and in the hands of more experience photographers the features of North America are even more prominent.
Its hard not to get frustrated with some of the journalism out in the world. Here is one that I came across this weekend entitled "Genetically modified food: Worries outstrip science." As a scientist this is the kind of article you read and can do nothing but just scratch your head.
This is a an emotional article and I don't want to take away from the worry and hardship these parents have gone through with an autistic son. I have 3 kids and fully understand that you will do anything to protect them them even when it may not seem rationale to those looking on. It is just what we as parents do.
However, I will not be as kind to journalism that uses a parents hardship to pursue an agenda of Anti-GMO sentiment. The parents in this article as just much a victim as the public in that the story is just using them to further plant doubt and fear. If you read this article you may easily link GMOs to causing autism. Just like there are all kinds of articles that will link vaccines to autism even when science says the contrary. How about this quote from the article: "It’s just another change the Gioscias have accepted as they prioritize parental instincts and their children’s future over unclear science." Really? There is study after study showing the safety of GMOs and absolutely no evidence of GMOs as causing autism. Even if you have gone to all organic, do you really think the crops you are eating have not gone through genetic modification? Conventional breeding over years and years is rearranging genomes more than any GMO. Just look at the pictures below. Does corn look like that anymore? The reason it or many other crops you eat on daily basis do no look this way anymore is because of a huge manipulation of the genome through genetic modification. Yet he public is fine with the concept of conventional breeding even though in reality all our food is GMO whether from conventional breeding or using nature's on tools to insert genes into food quicker than conventional breeding can do.
Lat week, NASA had an announcement and most of you probably heard it. So even though this is not breaking news anymore, it is still an exciting discovery. We have been studying Mars for years and it has seen like a desert planet. There is evidence that there was water on Mars in the past and even that water could be hiding on Mars under the surface. So who would have ever thought that a planet only 9 months away with current technology could harbor water.
The new evidence shows dark streaks on the planet's surface that come and go depending on the season. The evidence suggests this is water on the surface. Many of the headline may make you think water is flowing on Mars, but the truth is that there are probably still not any oceans or even ponds on the surface of Mars. The water that is showing in these recent pictures is more of a seeping to surface and only when the temperature reaches a balmy negative 10 degrees Celsius. The water is not flowing like you might imagine a stream, but just getting enough of the surface wet enough to darken it. The water also appears to be a little salty.
Even though we are probably not going to go to Mars and drink water from a spring, I honestly never thought there was any liquid water near the surface of Mars. The pictures we see looks like a barren desert of rocks. Where there is water there could be life even if only microbial life. The discoveries we are now seeing in space keep coming. If we are just starting to uncover mysteries from one of the closest celestial objects to Earth, just imagine what else is out there!
