Japan’s ALOS ("DAICHI") satellite image: Australia's Lake Gairdner

Lake Gairdner in central South Australia is pictured in this image acquired by Japan’s ALOS ("DAICHI") satellite on 1 December 2009.

This image shows mostly the dry, salt-crusted lakebed, while the islands appear brick-red.

Credits: JAXA/ESA

The Lake Gairdner National Park, which includes the nearby lakes Everard and Harris, was established in 1991 for its significant wildlife habitat and natural features.

Japan’s ALOS ("DAICHI") satellite

While the area is hot and dry in summer, spring brings water and is a popular destination for birdwatchers.

Red and western grey kangaroos, emus and feral camels can also be seen here.

When flooded, Gairdner is one of the largest salt lakes in Australia, more than 160 km long and 48 km wide but when dry, the vast salt pan attracts racers attempting to set land speed records and is the site for the annual Speed Week event.

Speed Week 2014 poster.

Credit: Dry Lakes Racers Australia

NASA TRMM: Tropical Cyclone Ita's Australian encounter

This TRMM satellite rainfall map covers Tropical Cyclone Ita's life from April 1-14. 

Highest isolated rainfall was estimated around 400 mm/15.7 inches west of both Ingham and Townsville, Queensland. 

Ita's locations at 0600 UTC are shown overlaid in white. 

Credit: SSAI/NASA/JAXA, Hal Pierce

After coming ashore on April 11, Tropical Cyclone Ita dropped heavy rainfall over the weekend that caused flooding in many areas of northeastern Australia's state of Queensland.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite (TRMM) satellite gathered data on rainfall that was used to create a rainfall map at NASA.

TRMM satellite

TRMM satellite is managed by both NASA and JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Hal Pierce created a TRMM-based near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA).

The TMPA precipitation data covered the period from April 1 to 14, 2014 which starts when Ita formed in the Coral Sea and moved along northeastern Australia's coast.

This TRMM satellite rainfall map estimated that some of the largest isolated rainfall totals were near 400 mm/15.7 inches west of both Ingham and Townsville, Queensland.

A 3-D image of Ita was made at NASA using data collected by the TRMM satellite on April 14, 2014 at 0416 UTC/12:16 a.m. EDT after the tropical storm moved back into the Coral Sea.

TRMM's Precipitation Radar (PR) instrument found that the weakening tropical cyclone was still dropping rainfall at a maximum rate of over 161 mm/6.3 inches per hour over the Coral Sea.

The 3-D image, created using TRMM PR data, showed that some storms within Ita were still reaching heights of over 13 km/8 miles as it was becoming extra-tropical.

NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite

Another NASA-shared satellite captured a visible look at Ita's remnants on April 15. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured a look at the dying extra-tropical storm.

VIIRS collects visible and infrared imagery and global observations of land, atmosphere, cryosphere and oceans.

This 3-D image shows the structure of Tropical Cyclone Ita on April 14 at 0416 UTC/12:16 a.m. EDT. 

Some storms within Ita were still reaching heights of over 13 km/8 miles. 

Credit: SSAI/NASA/JAXA, Hal Pierce

When Suomi flew over Extra-Tropical Storm Ita on April 15 at 3:53 UTC/April 14 at 11:53 p.m. EDT, VIIRS visible data revealed that Ita's structure had elongated more than the previous day.

The VIIRS image showed that strong northwesterly wind shear continued to hammer the storm because the bulk of the storm's clouds were pushed southeast of the center.

Tropical Cyclone Ita's remnants have taken on more of a frontal appearance today as they continue to weaken at sea.

This visible image of an elongated Tropical Cyclone Ita was taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite on April 15 at 3:53 UTC and shows that wind shear has blown most clouds and thunderstorms south of the center. 

Credit: NRL/NASA/NOAA

Giant jellyfish that washed up on a beach in Tasmania

Scientists in Australia are working to classify a new species of giant jellyfish that washed up on a beach in Tasmania.

The Lim family found the 1.5m (5ft) jellyfish on a beach south of Hobart last month.

Dr Lisa-ann Gershwin, Australia's CSIRO government agency, said that scientists had known about the species for a while but had not yet classified it.

She described the specimen as a "truly magnificent animal".

Experts at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) were alerted to the discovery by Josie Lim and her family, who came across it.

"She and her children found the jellyfish and took this amazing photo that just boggles the mind," jellyfish expert Dr Gershwin said.

This species was reported to be part of the genus Cyanea capillata or Lion's Mane group, she said.

These jellyfish "look like a dinner plate with a mop hanging underneath - they have a really raggedy look to them", she said.

The Tasmanian discovery was found stranded belly-up, Dr Gershwin explained.

It was one of a "species I've known about for a while but it's not yet named and classified", she said. "We're very eager to know more about it."

It is one of three new species of Lion's Mane in Tasmania which the scientist is currently working to classify.

Recent years had seen "huge blooms" of jellyfish in Tasmanian waters, she said, but scientists were not sure why.

"We're very keen to find out why jellyfish are blooming in such super-abundances in these southern waters," she said.

The world's largest jellyfish shares the same genus - Cyanea - as the Lion's Mane. Found in the North Atlantic and Arctic, the Cyanea Arctica can grow up to 3m (10ft) across the body, Dr Gershwin said.

NASA ISS Image: Ambrym volcano eruption, Vanuatu archipelago, Australia

Ambrym volcano erupting in the Vanuatu archipelago east of Australia

Credit: NASA

Australia: Rover the Robotic Cow Herder

A four-wheeled robot known as Rover has been successfully tested as a cattle herder in Australia, easily moving a herd from a field to a dairy, researchers say.

The cows, accepting the presence of the robot, were not disturbed by it and the herding process was calm and effective, a team from Sydney University said.

University engineers adapted Rover from a robot already being used to monitor fruit and trees on farms, modifying it so it could be put in a field with cows.

"The research is in its very early stages but robotic technologies certainly have the potential to transform dairy farming," a member of the Faculty of Veterinary Science at Sydney University, Kendra Kerrisk told reporters

Because the robot moved at a slow and steady speed it allowed cows to move at their own natural speed, which is important in avoiding lameness among cattle, she said.

While the Sydney prototype is operated by a human, it's believed future versions could be fully automated, the researchers said, bringing considerable help to dairy farmers.

"When we have discussed this concept with farmers they have been extremely excited and we have had a flurry of calls and emails asking how they can get hold of one," Kerrisk said.

Gravity variations much bigger than previously thought

This image is an extract of the new high-resolution gravity map over Australia and South-East Asia. 

The map tells us about the anomalies in gravity, with red indicating strongly positive anomalies and blue negative anomalies. 

Credit: Christian Hirt

A joint Australian-German research team led by Curtin University's Dr Christian Hirt has created the highest-resolution maps of Earth's gravity field to date—showing gravitational variations up to 40 percent larger than previously assumed.

Using detailed topographic information obtained from the US Space Shuttle, a specialist team including Associate Professor Michael Kuhn, Dr Sten Claessens and Moritz Rexer from Curtin's Western Australian Centre for Geodesy and Professor Roland Pail and Thomas Fecher from Technical University Munich improved the resolution of previous global gravity field maps by a factor of 40.

"This is a world-first effort to portray the gravity field for all countries of our planet with unseen detail", Dr Hirt said.

"Our research team calculated free-fall gravity at three billion points—that's one every 200 metres—to create these highest-resolution gravity maps. They show the subtle changes in gravity over most land areas of Earth."

The new gravity maps revealed the variations of free-fall gravity over Earth were much bigger than previously thought.

The Earth's gravitational pull is smallest on the top of the Huascaran mountain in the South American Andes, and largest near the North Pole. "Only a few years ago, this research would not have been possible," Dr Hirt said.

"The creation of the maps would have required about 80 years of office PC computation time but advanced supercomputing provided by the Western Australian iVEC facility helped us to complete the maps within a few months."

High-resolution gravity maps are required in civil engineering, for instance, for building of canals, bridges and tunnels. The mining industry could also benefit.

"The maps can be used by surveyors and other spatial science professionals to precisely measure topographic heights with satellite systems such as the Global Positioning System (GPS)," Dr Hirt said.

The findings of the research team from Curtin and Technical University Munich have recently appeared in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

More information: 
Map extracts with continental coverage are available via geodesy.curtin.edu.au/research/models/GGMplus/gallery.cfm

Earth from Space: Great Sandy Desert, Australia

In northwest Australia, the Great Sandy Desert holds great geological interest as a zone of active sand dune movement. 

While a variety of dune forms appear across the region, this astronaut photograph features numerous linear dunes (about 25 meters high) separated in a roughly regular fashion (0.5 to 1.5 kilometers apart). 

The dunes are aligned to the prevailing winds that generated them, which typically blow from east to west. 

Where linear dunes converge, dune confluences point downwind. When you fly over such dune fields—either in an airplane or the International Space Station—the fire scars stand out. 

Where thin vegetation has been burned, the dunes appear red from the underlying sand; dunes appear darker where the vegetation remains.

Image Credit: NASA, Expedition 35 crew. 

TerraSAR-X image: Coastal cliffs of Christmas Island

In the image acquired with the German Aerospace Center TerraSAR-X radar satellite, one thing is clear - even today, tropical rainforest proliferates on the island and the coastal cliffs continue to make life difficult for mariners.

Christmas Island, which belongs to Australia, has principally been of interest in the past for its phosphate deposits - hence, its ownership has shifted from Britain to Japan, then back to Britain and finally to Australia.

The island is surrounded by some 80 kilometres of cliffs. The choppy waters of the surf on the south coast are not easy to image clearly for the radar on TerraSAR-X - the waves reflect the radar signals back to the satellite very irregularly.

It looks different in the bay between the only harbour on the island, Flying Fish Cove in the northeast, and West White Beach in the northwest: "When the image was acquired on 26 November 2012, the water there was apparently calm," explains mission manager Stefan Buckreuss from the DLR Microwaves and Radar Institute.

"The smooth surface reflects the signals away from the satellite, so it appears as a dark surface."

Water Spout - Image

A waterspout appears close to the shoreline near Batemans Bay, about 225 km (140 miles) south of Sydney

Picture: REUTERS/NSWRFS/Phil Caminiti

Bloodhound SSC: Australian crew bid to break the land speed record

Australian crew bid to break the land speed record by unveiling the first parts of their rocket-powered bullet car.

The current land speed record stands at 763 mph, which was set back in 1997 by Brit Andy Green driving the jet-powered ThrustSSC.

However, there’s a new race on to see who can beat that time, and this time challengers are hoping to crack a top speed of 1,000 mph.

So far, most of our coverage has centered on Andy Green’s latest endeavor, the Bloodhound SSC, a rocket-powered car that’s already well into testing and has a targeted top speed of 1,050 mph.

Australia Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP): Fastest Radio Telescope on Earth

Australia is now home to the world's fastest radio telescope with the launch Friday of the $152 million Australia Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), which experts said would allow a more expansive survey of the universe - both known and what remains for scientists to discover s.

The new scientific research site is located in the Shire of Murchison, a sparsely populated area in Western Australia that astronomers have picked out because of the virtual absence of man-made radio signals.

The location is ideal because it is 'radio quiet', or lacks man-made radio signals that would interfere with the antennas picking up astronomical radio signals.

The ASKAP telescope is projected to improve on the previous achievements of similar facilities, giving researchers and scientists more universe space to cover with less time required.

Putting into perspective the speed and efficiency that comes with the ASKAP, scientists said only five minutes will be spent to fully observe Milky Way's neighbouring galaxy, Centaurus A.

Earlier works on the Centaurus A were achieved after two years of careful observations that were aided by thousands of hours of computer analysis and the poring over of hundreds of images, the news agency added.

Now with use of phased array feeds coming from 36 antennas spread over an area of about 50,000 square kilometres, future scientific researchers and observations have become more specific and accurate, scientists said.

Australia will host both the low frequency component of the SKA – which will image the birth of the first stars in the universe - and a world leading survey facility based on CSIRO’s revolutionary Phased Array Feed technology.

Both of these components of the telescope are right at the cutting-edge of radio astronomy technology and data management and will attract some of the best technological brains in the world to Australia.

These well-coordinated radio waves will provide clear snap shots of what man aims to discover out there to better comprehend the universe, National Scientific Research Organisation (NSRO) project director Brian Boyle said in a news briefing held earlier this week.

"Radio waves tell us unique things about the cosmos, about the gas from which stars were formed, and about exotic objects, pulsars and quasars, that really push the boundaries of our knowledge of the physical laws in the universe," Mr Boyle said.

What the new facility has delivered is for astronomers to better understand our own universe and the 'others' on its outer realms, he added.

Over the next few years, the NSRO is gunning to gain more information on the force that led to the creation of Milky Way and its constant expansion, decode the mystery-laden black holes and investigate further on pulsars.

It could be that the new ASKAP telescope would eventually prove that 'man is not alone' after all, Mr Boyle suggested.

Phonesat: On-board mobile phone to power low-cost satellite

A University of Queensland staff member is sending a satellite into space more powerful than the Curiosity Rover which recently landed on Mars.

The satellite, which measures 10cm x 10cm, is controlled by an on-board Android mobile phone five times more powerful than its larger space-faring cousin.

It also has a camera four times more powerful.

Michael Kehoe, a UQ staff member with Information Technology Services (ITS) and a final year student of the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ITEE) recently completed a five-week internship with NASA in California.

He was tasked with designing a satellite that used a mobile phone as its on-board computer, as part of a NASA initiative, PHONESAT.

"This is a proof of concept that will be used for a range of later designs," said Mr Kehoe.

"The satellite uses an attitude determinate control system (ADCS) written by fellow UQ graduate Jasper Wolfe to stop the satellite from spinning and alter its path in orbit," he said.

"Because it uses a common mobile phone as its central processor, I've been able to incorporate some really fun ideas into the satellite.

I'll be able to take temperature, accelerometer and heading readings using the phone's sensors and photos using the phone's camera."

Despite being controlled by a mobile phone, the satellite is not able to phone home.

"Unfortunately there's no reception in space, so we'll be using a high-powered radio link to receive data from the satellite," said Mr Kehoe.

Tracking of the satellite is being set up in America with NASA and in Australia, with the assistance of ITEE.

Tracking equipment on top of the Parnell building will monitor the satellite from launch on November 25 to re-entry 12 days later.

The project provides a proof of concept for low cost, rapid design iteration space craft. Total component costs for the satellite are $7800, opposed to Curiosity's $2.5 billion.

"An example of why this is important can be seen in the Curiosity Rover which landed in August on Mars," said Mr Kehoe.

"Design work started eight years ago and used cutting-edge technology at the time, but by launch date a common mobile phone had more processing power and better camera.

If we can shorten the time it takes to build spacecraft, we can decrease cost and increase the quality of what goes into space."

More information: open.nasa.gov/plan/phonesat/

The Canberra Deep Space Comms Complex spruced up

AUSTRALIAN ingenuity will save NASA about $800,000 and three months of down time when the 70-metre antenna at the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex is shut for refurbishment in November.

Visitors gazing at the sparkling 4000-tonne dish would never know the paint has failed and is cracked and peeling, reducing its reliability.

For a piece of extremely sensitive equipment that detects radio waves sent from Voyager 1 with half as much power as a fridge light, surface consistency to 0.1 millimetre is critical.

It takes radio waves from Voyager 1 about 14 hours to reach Earth and by the time they arrive, they have faded markedly from 12 watts to 20 million times weaker than a watch battery.

Mechanical engineer John Phillips is the deputy antenna site facility manager and will be part of a team overseeing the replacement of the grout beneath the antenna and the painting of the dish.

''It will do the same function but reliability will be improved. If you get deformation in the grout that supports the runner, the antenna itself is not as good,'' Mr Phillips said.

''If you get deformation in the runner because the support isn't that good, it stops the antenna from working.''

The original plan was to jack up the antenna and bolt legs on to replace the grout in one go.

''It would have cost twice that and they were estimating down time of more than 10 months.''

The new plan will replace the grout in 60-degree sections and close it from November 12 to June 6.

The new grout is impervious to oil and should last decades. ''It's an epoxy with a crushed quartz mix. With the new grout, that should improve quality and the reliability of the antenna will have less down time.''

Telecommunications system leader Peter Ilott said shutting down the Australian 70-metre antenna for seven months would not stop or negatively impact on any programs. ''It will be pretty much business as usual. We can use the 34-metre antennas,'' Dr Ilott said.

''The nice thing about the fact that we use orbiters as relay for our data is that orbiters have very large antennas compared to the lander. We can't put a big antenna on the lander and the orbiters can talk to the 34-metre antennas pretty much no problem. It decreases the data rate that we can transfer the data at but in general it won't affect us.''

During the refurbishment, the reflector surface of the dish will also be painted with a special paint from the United States.

In Darwin's footsteps: Jessica Meeuwug at The University of Western Australia

A marine researcher at The University of Western Australia (UWA) has been appointed a Conservation Fellow of the Zoological Society of London - a society that appointed Charles Darwin a Fellow in 1837.

Professor Jessica Meeuwig, of UWA's Centre for Marine Futures, Oceans Institute and School of Animal Biology, joins one of the world's oldest scientific societies.

Established by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1826, the Zoological Society of London is renowned for its breeding programs for endangered species and work in field conservation programs in more than 50 countries.

Professor Meeuwig's main expertise is in marine and fisheries conservation and quantitative modelling.

Her research group works across a range of animals and includes projects such as investigating the displacement of humpback whales as a result of coastal development; researching how large sharks and fish use underwater banks and canyons; and how marine sanctuaries generate ecological and economic benefits.

She has worked around the world in places as diverse as the Baltic to the South China Sea and Western Australia. She is a keen science communicator and believes in the important role scientists can play in public debate.

Only a small number of Conservation Fellows are appointed to the Society each year. They are people who have made exceptional contributions to conservation.

Professor Meeuwig said she was delighted to accept the appointment, given the society's global contributions to conservation, both terrestrially and in marine environment.

"It is somewhat daunting to be part of such a distinguished society with its deep and early roots in the conservation sector and reputation for scientific integrity, but I am delighted to have access to the facilities and be part of the Society's scientific community and strengthen international collaborations," she said.

The Society has had a long involvement in the marine environment with sites such as the Indian Ocean's Chagos Archipelago, about 500 km south of the Maldives. The archipelago is the world's largest, fully protected marine sanctuary and Professor Meeuwig and her team, with researchers from the Society, will join an international expedition there later this year.

Darwin's appointment to the Zoological Society of London was made after his five-year expedition on HMS Beagle, during which, as a 22-year-old, he circumnavigated the globe, collecting samples and observations which would enable him to write On the Origin of Species, published in 1859.

Media references

Professor Jessica Meeuwig (UWA Oceans Institute) (+61 8) 6488 1464 / (+61 4) 00 024 999
Michael Sinclair-Jones (UWA Public Affairs) (+61 8) 6488 3229 / (+61 4) 00 700 783

Square Kilometer Array (SKA): Organisation opts for dual site solution

After a tense few months that has had many in Australia and South Africa anxiously awaiting word on whether their particular site will be chosen to host the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope, the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) Organisation has finally made its decision.

It’s good news for both bids, with the organization opting for a dual-site solution that will see the SKA telescope shared between Australia and South Africa.

The joint Australia/New Zealand bid and a South African- led bid were left competing after sites in Argentina and Chile were ruled out in 2006.

However, hopes in the Australian camp were dealt a blow earlier this year when it was reported that a confidential report from the SKA Site Advisory Committee favored the South African-led bid.

While an official announcement was expected on April 4, 2012, the SKA Organization instead decided to postpone the announcement while a working group was set up to examine the two sites further, along with the option of a dual site solution.

Noting that both sites had their own advantages and disadvantages, and wishing to be inclusive, the SKA Organisation has now revealed it has agreed on a dual-site solution that will allow the project to take advantage of investments already made by the bidding nations.

The decision will see two of the three SKA receiver components built in Africa, with the third to be constructed in Australia.

The MeerKAT radio telescope, which is currently under construction in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa and will consist of 64 dishes measuring 13.5 m (44 ft) in diameter, will be used to supplement the SKA Phase I dish array, providing the majority of the collection area for the SKA telescope.

The majority of SKA dishes in Phase I will be built in Southern Africa, as will all the dishes and mid frequency aperture arrays for Phase II of the SKA.

Meanwhile, in Australia, SKA dishes will be combined with the 36 dishes of the almost completed Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) array in Western Australia. All of the low frequency aperture array antennas for Phase I and II will also be built in Australia and New Zealand.

When completed, the SKA will have a total collecting area of approximately one square kilometer (0.38 square miles), with thousands of receptors extending to distances of up to 3,000 km (1,864 miles) from its center.

It will also generate astronomical amounts of data – with each dish transmitting around 160 Gigabits of data per second to a central processor – posing some pretty intensive computing demands to be addressed by the DOME project.

Boasting 50 times the sensitivity and 10,000 times the survey speed of the best current-day telescopes, the SKA will extend the range of the observable universe, while addressing questions in the fields of astrophysics, fundamental physics, cosmology and particle astrophysics.

Construction of Phase I of the SKA is due to start in 2016, with initial observations set for 2019 and full operation scheduled by 2024.

Source: SKA Organisation

ESO UK Astronomers Discover Sandstorms in Space

Astronomers have discovered sandstorms in space, according to a report published in the Nature journal.

Astronomers from the University of Sydney and the University of Manchester have discovered sandstorms in space while observing three red giant stars.

They have used one of the powerful telescopes in European Southern Observatory in Northern Chile to observe the stars.

The study revealed that super strong sand storms were responsible for removing massive amounts of dust grains around the red stars and the existence of dust grains of nearly a millionth of a metre across, big enough to be pushed out by dying stars' light, according to BBC report.

"The winds that stream from the upper atmosphere of the red giant stars are responsible for removing massive amounts of matter," said Barnaby Norris, researcher at the University of Sydney, in a statement.

According to the astronomers, star grains themselves are transparent like powdered glass, but so incredibly fine so as to appear like smoke.

These grains contain majority of the chemical elements critical to the formation of earth-like planets and life come from the winds driven from dying red giant stars.

They claim that Earth and everybody living on it are probably made of the stardust.

The ultimate fate of the star itself can hinge upon the efficiency of the wind. The mass removed by the wind can bring a somewhat heavier star below the critical threshold required to fuel a cataclysmic supernova explosion, defusing the bomb and allowing it to fade away as a white dwarf star.

Researchers claim that this new discovery will give more information about the red giant stars death and it will give us more information on how these old, dying stars manage to drive such powerful winds.

"The grains that we have discovered here will come as a real shock to the accepted wisdom in the field. They are both much larger and much closer to the stellar surface than anyone expected," said Norris.

"Hopefully our findings will help to illuminate a key step in the grand cycle as matter is expelled from stars into the galaxy only to seed new generations of stellar and planetary birth," he concluded.

Astronomers put forward new theory on size of black holes

Astronomers have put forward a new theory about why black holes become so hugely massive – claiming some of them have no 'table manners', and tip their 'food' directly into their mouths, eating more than one course simultaneously.

Researchers from the UK and Australia investigated how some black holes grow so fast that they are billions of times heavier than the sun.

The team from the University of Leicester (UK) and Monash University in Australia sought to establish how black holes got so big so fast.

Their research is due to published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The research was funded by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council.

Professor Andrew King from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, said: "Almost every galaxy has an enormously massive black hole in its centre. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has one about four million times heavier than the sun. But some galaxies have black holes a thousand times heavier still. We know they grew very quickly after the Big Bang."

"These hugely massive black holes were already full--grown when the universe was very young, less than a tenth of its present age."

Black holes grow by sucking in gas. This forms a disc around the hole and spirals in, but usually so slowly that the holes could not have grown to these huge masses in the entire age of the universe. `We needed a faster mechanism,' says Chris Nixon, also at Leicester, "so we wondered what would happen if gas came in from different directions."

Nixon, King and their colleague Daniel Price in Australia made a computer simulation of two gas discs orbiting a black hole at different angles.

After a short time the discs spread and collide, and large amounts of gas fall into the hole. According to their calculations black holes can grow 1,000 times faster when this happens.

"If two guys ride motorbikes on a Wall of Death and they collide, they lose the centrifugal force holding them to the walls and fall," says King. The same thing happens to the gas in these discs, and it falls in towards the hole.

This may explain how these black holes got so big so fast. "We don't know exactly how gas flows inside galaxies in the early universe," said King, "but I think it is very promising that if the flows are chaotic it is very easy for the black hole to feed."

The two biggest black holes ever discovered are each about ten billion times bigger than the Sun.

Tasmanian Devil Cancer Originated from a Single Female?

Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute have discovered the root cause of Tasmanian devil's cancer.

The Tasmanian devil is the largest carnivorous marsupial, a mammal that has its babies in its pouch like the kangaroo. They are usually found in Australia.

The researchers took genomes from the Tasmanian devils that were suffering from cancer. They discovered that cancer was spreading among animals by bites.

They found the cancer cells had aroused from the cells of a single female Tasmanian devil that had died more than 15 years ago. Her DNA is living on in the contagious cancer cell line that she spawned.

The cancer causes the appearance of tumours on the face of the affected Tasmanian devils which grow rapidly and cause death within months.

According to the researchers, the spread of cancer between individuals is normally prevented by the immune system but the devil cancer may outwit the immune system. However, future studies will be required to explain how cancer escapes the immune destruction.

Read more of this article here

Floodwater inundates cotton crops: NSW Australia

Floodwater inundates cotton crops around the northern New South Wales town of Moree, Australia. 

Moree has been cut off by floodwaters, isolating up to 10,000 people.

NASA MODIS Image Tropical Cyclone Heidi: Natural Hazards

On January 11, 2012, Tropical Cyclone Heidi was located roughly 45 nautical miles (85 kilometers) from Port Hedland, Australia.

The U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) reported that Heidi packed maximum sustained winds of 55 knots (100 kilometers per hour) with gusts up to 70 knots (130 kilometers per hour).

The storm was moving toward the south-southwest.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image on January 11, 2012.

The center of the storm is north-northeast of Port Hedland, and storm clouds extended over much of the northwestern Australia coast.

The JTWC forecast that Heidi would make landfall slightly west of Port Hedland. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that flooding was expected overnight January 11–12, and that residents of low-lying areas should relocate to emergency shelters.

References

1. Joint Typhoon Warning Center. (2012, January 11). Tropical Cyclone 06S (Heidi) Warning. Accessed January 11, 2012.
2. Australian Associated Press. (2012, January 12). Cyclone Heidi upgraded to Category 2. Accessed January 11, 2012.
3. Evans, N. (2012, January 11). Cyclone Heidi shuts down Port Hedland port, mines and cancels flights. PerthNow. Accessed January 11, 2012.

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.