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Monday, January 5, 2015

Huthi chief sets eyes on Yemen wealth in Marib province

2015-01-04

SANAA - The head of Yemen's Shiite Huthi militia threatened Saturday to take control of the oil-rich Marib province, targeted by the group since it seized the capital and central areas three months ago.

"If official authorities do not assume their responsibilities, (we) will act to support the honorable people of Marib," Abdelmalek al-Huthi said in a televised address to supporters in Sanaa.

Yemen has been dogged by instability since an uprising forced longtime strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh from power in 2012, with Huthi rebels and Al-Qaeda seeking to fill the power vacuum.

The Huthis, also known as Ansarullah, overran Sanaa unopposed in September and have since advanced into mainly Sunni parts of the country.

They have been met with fierce resistance by Al-Qaeda and Sunni tribal fighters.

Huthi accused "certain" tribesmen of wanting to hand over Marib to "Al-Qaeda and the takfiris," a reference to the Islamist Al-Islah movement that has fought alongside Al-Qaeda's Yemen franchise against the Shiite group.

On Thursday, Sunni tribesmen ambushed a military convoy travelling between Marib and Sanaa and seized heavy weapons they claimed were destined for the Huthis, tribal sources and witnesses said.

Three soldiers died during ensuing clashes, according to Yemen's High Security Commission, which demanded late Friday that the tribesmen return the seized equipment.

On Thursday, almost 50 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a religious celebration by Huthi supporters in the mainly Sunni city of Ibb.

Twin attacks blamed on Al-Qaeda Saturday killed a soldier and a police sergeant in the eastern province of Hadramawt, security sources said.

The sergeant was killed by gunmen on a motorcycle as he returned to his home in Seyun, the province's second town, police said.

In neighboring Shabwa province, one soldier was killed and another wounded when suspected Al-Qaeda militants ambushed their vehicle, a military source said.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, considered by the United States to be the global jihadist network's most dangerous branch, has recently carried out a spate of attacks against Yemen's security forces.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=69537.

Nobel's Karman 'the mother of Yemen's revolution'

By AHMED AL-HAJ and SARAH EL DEEB
Associated Press
October 7, 2011

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — She is known among Yemenis as "the iron woman" and the "mother of the revolution." A conservative woman fighting for change in a conservative Muslim and tribal society, Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkul Karman has been the face of the mass uprising against the authoritarian regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The 32-year-old Karman has been an activist for human rights in Yemen for years, but when she was arrested in January, it helped detonate protests by hundreds of thousands demanding the ouster of Saleh and the creation of a democratic government.

When the Nobel announcement was made Friday, Karman was where she has been nearly every day for the past eight months: in a protest tent in Change Square, the roundabout in central Sanaa that has been the symbolic epicenter of the revolt.

"This prize is not for Tawakkul, it is for the whole Yemeni people, for the martyrs, for the cause of standing up to (Saleh) and his gangs. Every tyrant and dictator is upset by this prize because it confronts injustice," she told The Associated Press from her tent as she received congratulations from other activists.

Karman — who shares the prize with Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson and Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee — is the first Arab woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. With the award, the Nobel committee gave a nod to the Arab Spring, the wave of uprisings that have swept the Middle East, forcing out the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

In Yemen, millions have been turning out for protests in the capital, Sanaa, and cities around the country since late January. Still, Saleh has determinedly refused to step down.

Karman and the other young activists who have led Yemen's uprising have created a movement that is unique in this impoverished nation on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, where tribal allegiances run deep, much of the public is religiously conservative and weapons are rife, with guns in nearly every home.

Like the majority of Yemeni women, Karman once wore the niqab, the conservative Muslim garb that covers the face with a veil and hides the body in heavy robes, leaving only the eyes visible. But last year, she changed to a more moderate headscarf, covering just her hair — she told AP she wanted to be "face to face with my activist colleagues."

She is also a member of Yemen's opposition Islamic fundamentalist Islah Party, but her participation in the protests brought sharp criticism from conservatives in the party, some of whom denounced her in mosque sermons. Saleh's regime itself tried to discredit her by spreading a photo of her sitting in a protest tent with a male colleague — with others around them cut out from the picture — seeking to taint her as sinful for being alone with a man.

Women have participated heavily in the protests. The organizers have intentionally sought to cut across tribal lines. And they have resolutely remained peaceful, even as Yemen seems to explode around them. Saleh's security forces have repeatedly opened fire on protesters. Sanaa and other cities have turned into war zones as regime forces battle with dissident military units and tribal fighters opposed to Saleh.

Regime snipers shot at protesters in Change Square on Friday, killing one and wounding four others, according to a security official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press. Government forces also bombarded Sanaa's Hassaba district, a center for anti-government tribesmen, and fired on the home of the tribesmen's leader, Sheik Sadeq al-Ahmar, one of Saleh's top rivals.

President Saleh drew the ire of female protesters in April when he scolded them for participating in the rallies and told them that mingling with men was forbidden under Sharia, or Islamic law.

Nevertheless, his party, the General People's Congress, welcomed Karman's Nobel win — and even sought to claim some credit for it by saying that under Saleh's rule, women in Yemen have been able to "confront backwardness and colonialism."

Saleh's crackdown on protesters has killed at least 225 people, according to Human Rights Watch. Still, the demonstrators have largely shunned the use of violence in response.

"Neither Ali nor his gangs will drag Yemen toward war and infighting," Karman told the AP. "We chose peace, we could have resorted to violence in this revolution and we could have settled it in days and not months by resorting to our weapons. ... But we chose peace and only peace."

"Don't worry about Yemen. Yemen started in peace and it will end its revolution in peace, and it will start its new civil state with peace," she said.

Her husband, Mohammed al-Nahmi, sitting with her in the tent as he received congratulations, told AP, "This is a prize she deserves. Before she is my wife, she is a colleague, and a companion in the struggle."

Karman, a mother of three, originally hails from the southern city of Taiz, a city known for its prominent middle class and university intellectuals that has long been a hotbed of opposition to Saleh. Her father, Abdul-Salam Karman, was once the legal affairs minister under Saleh, but resigned to protest government corruption.

Karman had organized protests and sit-ins as early as 2007, referring to her regular gatherings outside government offices in Sanaa as the "Freedom square." She campaigned for greater rights for women and an end to harassment of journalists, heading Women Journalists without Chains, an organization advocating for press freedoms.

In December 2010, the uprising erupted in Tunisia after a local fruit vendor in the North African nation, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire.

In Yemen, Karman led protests in support of the Tunisians, sending out mobile phone texts to urge people to join. The small protests, comprising no more than 200 people, were broken up with water cannons and batons.

On Jan. 23, authorities arrested Karman.

The move was meant as a warning to her, but it backfired, sending a wave of women protesters into the streets of Sanaa and other cities, a rare sight in Yemen. Karman was released early the next day and by the afternoon she was leading another protest.

She and other organizers were further inspired by Egypt, where protesters seized control of Cairo's central Tahrir Square demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

Days after Mubarak stepped down in February, Yemeni protesters, with Karman and other male protest organizers at the helm, seized a major intersection in the heart of Sanaa, which then came to be known as Change Square. Karman has been part of a council grouping the disparate protest groups and an organization representing the youth of revolution.

El Deeb reported from Cairo.

Sudan parliament approves constitutional amendments

04 January 2015 Sunday

Sudan's parliament on Sunday approved new amendments to the constitution to allow the president to appoint and sack the governors of Sudan's 18 states.

Before the amendments were approved, state governors used to be directly elected by the public in their respective states.

The opposition Popular Congress Party boycotted the parliament session on Sunday, which opened the door for the members of the ruling National Congress Party, which controls 90 percent of the 450 seats of parliament, to easily pass the amendments.

Mahdi Ibrahim, a leading member of the ruling party, said the new amendments aimed to solve tribal problems in Sudan's 18 states.

The Sudanese presidency introduced the amendments to parliament for approval in November of last year.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/152217/sudan-parliament-approves-constitutional-amendments.

Huge blast shakes Somalia capital after suicide attack near airport

2015-01-04

MOGADISHU - A huge car bomb blast shook Somalia's capital Mogadishu on Sunday after a suicide bomber struck an area close to the heavily-fortified international airport, killing four people, officials said.

A Somalia police official said the car bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into another car, setting off a huge blast that was heard across the coastal city.

The sprawling airport area is a major base for members of Somalia's armed forces, houses several foreign embassies and African Union troops battling Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shebab militants.

It has been a frequent target of attacks by the Shebab, most recently in late December when the Shebab launched a major assault against an African Union command center.

"We had information about this car laden with explosives and we have been following it... but it detonated and four civilians were killed, and the bomber," interior ministry spokesman Mohamed Yusuf told reporters.

Witnesses said they saw clouds of smoke after the explosion, and that security forces opened fire to disperse approaching onlookers.

Several witnesses also said they saw up to five destroyed vehicles in the vicinity of the explosion.

"There was a terrible explosion. The security forces have cordoned off the area. They opened fire to disperse people nearby," said Ali Suleyman, a witness.

The latest attack came at the end of a week which saw the United States conduct another air strike against the Isl.

The Somali government said the Shebab's intelligence chief, Abdishakur Tahlil, was killed in Monday night's raid.

The Shebab's former leader Ahmed Abdi Godane was also killed by a US air strike in September.

The Shebab emerged from the Islamic Courts Union that controlled Mogadishu in 2006 before being pushed out by Ethiopian forces.

The militants were finally driven from their fixed positions in Mogadishu in 2011, and have lost several strongholds in the south and center of the country in a recent offensive by the AU's AMISOM force.

The group, however, still controls vast rural areas from where militants launch regular attacks against the AU's AMISOM troops and the country's internationally-backed government.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=69536.

Iraq offers 'experience' to Libya as Jibril visits

Baghdad (AFP)
Oct 6, 2011

Iraq offered its experience of rebuilding the country and gearing up for democracy during a visit to Baghdad Thursday by Libya's interim premier Mahmud Jibril, officials said.

Jibril's visit was his first since a mid-February revolt in Libya that eventually led to strongman Moamer Kadhafi's overthrow, and he met with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

"Prime Minister Maliki offered the experience of Iraq in rebuilding the state, writing a constitution and holding elections," Maliki's media advisor Ali Mussawi told AFP.

"The two sides found similarities between the two regimes of Saddam and Kadhafi," he added, referring to now-executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who was ousted by a 2003 US-led invasion.

Mussawi added that Jibril invited Maliki to visit Libya, with the Iraqi premier responding that he would do so as soon as possible.

Eight years after the invasion, Iraq remains a struggling democracy that is still one of the most violent countries in the world, despite a dramatic decline in the level of attacks since a brutal insurgency and sectarian war left tens of thousands dead between 2006 and 2008.

Deputy Foreign Minister Labid Abawi said earlier that Jibril had been received by Zebari before meeting with Maliki.

"It was just a short visit, a preliminary visit, to express his gratitude for Iraqi support," Abawi told AFP.

"We discussed the future relationship between Libya and Iraq, and we discussed the possibility of an exchange of high-level delegations between our two countries."

Last month, Zebari said the uprising in Libya and those in other Arab countries had been inspired by Iraq's example.

"We've been approached by the Libyans, by the Tunisians, by the Egyptians to see how we did it," Zebari said on September 20 while speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iraq_offers_experience_to_Libya_as_Jibril_visits_999.html.

Egypt's April 6 urges 'revolutionary' forces to unite

04 January 2015 Sunday

Egypt's April 6 youth movement has called on all parties that participated in the 2011 uprising which toppled long-serving president Hosni Mubarak to "rise above partisan interests and unite behind the goals of the revolution."

In a statement, the youth movement said it launches an initiative based on five points; a community participation charter, a code of ethics for media, inclusive justice, defining the relation between the state and society and the formation of a salvation government, according to April 6 Coordinator General Amr Ali.

Ali urged all those who "participated in the revolution and believed in its objectives to unite once again in order to achieve the dream [of the revolution], now that everyone realizes that the situation is worse than it was before the [2011] revolution."

"Tens of thousands of detainees from all political affiliations are unjustly imprisoned; they are the ones leading the revolutionary movement, after they were brought together by the injustice, killing, torture and arrests, irrespective of their ideological differences."

Mainly made up of young political activists, April 6 had been one of the groups that spearheaded Egypt's January 2011 revolution, which ended autocratic president Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule.

It had also opposed ousted president Mohamed Morsi, whose rule came to an end last year when the army overthrew him following mass protests.

Movement founder Ahmed Maher is currently serving a three-year jail term for staging an unlicensed protest in November of 2013.

Egypt's Interior Ministry maintains that its prisons are free of political detainees, and that political figures arrested following Morsi's ouster in 2013 are imprisoned on criminal charges.

Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, a leading Islamist group in Egypt and one of Morsi's backers, welcomed the initiative proposed by the April 6 movement.

"We affirm that the counter-revolution is still worried about the revolutionary spirit and harmony," Tarek al-Zomor, who heads the Building and Development Party - al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya's political wing – said on Facebook.

"We highly value April 6 group's initiative…And we call all sides to act responsibly so that we can retrieve the usurped revolution and the rights of our people," al-Zomor added.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/152196/egypts-april-6-urges-revolutionary-forces-to-unite.

Bosnian Muslims in Sarejevo enter 2015 with Quran recitals

01 January 2015 Thursday

The United Islamic Assembly organised a Quran recital at the Cekrekci Muslihudin Mosque and great interest was shown by the Sarajevo Muslim community.

The mosque muezzin Bilal Efendic said that each year a Quran recital night was organised for the last night of the year and that the youth came together at the mosque in celebration of this. Efendic said that during the event 30 youths who are hafiz – those who have committed the entire Quran to memory – read from the Quran until late night. Many hymns were also sung as part of the event.

Organised each year, the program opened with a ceremony at the Bascarsi Mosque. Mevlud programs, where hymns and poetry are recited in honor of the Prophet Muhammad, book launches and Islamic song concerts are also part of the program, which will continue until the 23rd January.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/152050/bosnian-muslims-in-sarejevo-enter-2015-with-quran-recitals.

Turkish NGOs provide winter aid to Syrians in Lebanon

04 January 2015 Sunday

Two Turkish NGOs have provided winter aid to a large number of displaced Syrians living in Lebanon's eastern province of Beqaa, an area that is known for its harsh weather conditions in the winter.

A delegation from the two NGOs – Sadakatası Dernegi and the Association of Lebanese and Turkish Youth – has visited several villages in Beqaa to check on the conditions of displaced Syrians amid extremely low weather temperatures and strong storms.

The delegation distributed "winter aid" to dozens of displaced Syrian and Turkmen families in the village of Durres, including blankets, shoes, clothes and fuel to be used for heating purposes.

"This is the first phase of winter aid for our Syrian brothers who are displaced in Lebanon," Sadakatası Dernegi head Kemal Ozdal told The Anadolu Agency.

"It is part of a major Turkish campaign to provide relief for Syrians, both the internally displaced and the refugees in neighboring countries," Ozdal said.

"Our visit to Beqaa and distribution of aid on Syrian families is part of a campaign that included other Lebanese regions."

Head of Association of Lebanese and Turkish Youth Zeina al-Emari, for her part, told AA that "children are the most needy when it comes to aid, since the biting cold can cause serious damage to their health."

"Our goals are purely humanitarian, away from any political leaning here or there," al-Emari said, urging other NGOs to "provide more aid in this critical time, as living conditions of the refugees in Beqaa are severe and tragic."

The number of displaced Syrians in Lebanon has exceeded 1.2 million, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/152206/turkish-ngos-provide-winter-aid-to-syrians-in-lebanon.

World's one of biggest underground cities found in Turkey's Nevsehir

30 December 2014 Tuesday

An underground city has been discovered during the urban transformation works near Nevsehir Castle in central Turkey, and is reported to be one of the biggest of its kind in the world…

The urban renewal works near Nevsehir Castle in Nevsehir province in central Turkey have revealed one of the biggest underground cities in the world. The historical city was come across at a 110-mt-level, and is reported to be situated on a 785k-mt square land. The underground city is set to be completely brought out to light and opened for visits following a restoration works.

The discovery took place in popular tourist destination of Cappadocia Area, which already draws around 2.5 million tourists per year from around the world.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/151858/worlds-one-of-biggest-underground-cities-found-in-turkeys-nevsehir.

Turkey buys back and restores its mosques

10 December 2014 Wednesday

Turkey's National Foundations General Manager Adnan Ertem said that some mosques and prayer centers that were sold in 1935 will be restored and re-opened for congregational prayer.

Ertem said that the amount of restorations that have occurred in the country in the past 12 years cannot be compared to any other time in recent history. Restoring buildings that were on the verge of extinction, Ertem said, “Three mosques in Izmir have been closed for years. Kumrulu mosque, Seyh Bedri Efendi Tomb and Mosque, and the Baladur mosque. These have been closed for years for various reasons, with many of them in ruins through neglect, and have been languished. One of them was closed because it was in a landslide or disaster area, yet this wasn't the case.

Ertem pointed out that some mosques in Istanbul were restored. He pointed out the example of “Kazasker Abdurrahman Mosque, which had a cafeteria built over it, that cafeteria has been now closed and the mosque has now been restored”.

Ertem also highlighted a law that was brought about in 1935 that stated that mosques within 500 metres of another mosque being closed down. “A law stated that if a mosque that was active had another mosque that was close to it, it would be shut down. I'm not saying that was the clear law. However the Sehzadebasi Mosque in Fatih had another mosque 500 metres within its vicinty and it was closed down”.

In regard to sales of mosques, he stated that both in Kilis and Ardahan that mosques had been sold are now under government control as well as the Tavukcu Prayer Hall and Zafran Mosque in Bursa. These in fact were used as private residences. The government has bought them back and have now restored them”.

With the aim of acting in accordance with the foundation, Ertem said, “The property has been entrusted to us by the foundation, and it is our duty to keep these alive as much as our opportunities to us allow. There are many examples of mosques that are not owned by the government and we are in the process of doing that”.

Since 2002 almost 4,000 different buildings have been restored including public baths, tombs, hostels, mosques, Ertem said that, “Almost 100 mosques have been reopened due to the reconstruction work”.

Ertem said that the opening of the Hagia Sophia Mosque in 2011 in Iznik after restoration efforts were damaged in a fire in the 1920's. It is now opened for prayer services after being a museum for many years. The Hagia Sophia mosque in Trabzon has also been opened for prayer services after being closed for 50 years and it is still undergoing renovations.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/haber/150359/turkey-buys-back-and-restores-its-mosques.

Army of Islam seizes Damascus suburb from rivals - monitor

04 January 2015 Sunday

Rebel fighters seized a suburb east of Damascus on Sunday after driving out a smaller rival insurgent group in deadly clashes, a monitoring group said, the latest example of rebel infighting in Syria's nearly four-year conflict.

Fighters from the Army of Islam clashed with members of the Army of the Nation group in Douma, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Both groups include Sunni Muslim fighters opposed to President Bashar al-Assad's government, and the fighting is seen as more of a turf war than a conflict over ideology.

The Observatory, which gathers information from a network of sources in Syria, said several fighters were killed, without giving details. It added that the Army of Islam had detained many of its rival combatants.

The groups, part of a myriad of opposition factions in the war, have both fought the Syrian army as well as battling each other for control of Douma, a strategic suburb on one of the main roads linking the capital with Homs city further north.

The Army of Islam is powerful in the area and it clashed with armed residents in Douma in November after locals attacked the storehouses of an organisation close to the group, according to the Observatory.

Infighting has weakened groups battling pro-government forces. The majority of the rivalry has been in the north of the country and such confrontations in the south, were Damascus is situated, have been relatively rare.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/152203/army-of-islam-seizes-damascus-suburb-from-rivals-monitor.

Tajiks urge govt to remove ban on children attending mosques

01 July 2014 Tuesday

On June 30th that the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan appealed to the authorities of the country to allow minors to attend mosques during the month of Ramadan, Interfax reported.

“If visiting mosques may harm school performance, we suggest the schoolchildren to attend them outside regular school hours,” the statement said.

Tajikistan adopted a new version of the law on religious associations in 2009 which prohibits anyone under the age of 18 to attend a mosque, in exception to funerals. In 2011 the law was changed slightly to - on responsibility of parents.

Human rights activists said that they violate the rights of religious persons, criticizing both laws. However, the authorities explained the necessity for prohibitions with the desire to protect children from the radical religious movements.

The party members believe, the ban on mosque attendance in spare time tramples the rights of the children.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/haber/139806/tajiks-urge-govt-to-remove-ban-on-children-attending-mosques.

Saudi Arabia prepares to reopen Iraq embassy after nearly 25 years

2015-01-03

RIYADH - Saudi Arabia announced on Saturday it was sending a delegation to Iraq ahead of opening an embassy in Baghdad where its last mission closed nearly 25 years ago.

A foreign ministry statement said the delegation would "take the necessary decisions to choose and equip buildings" for an embassy in Baghdad and a consulate in Arbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region in the north.

Diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iraq were severed in 1990 but restored in 2004 after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.

However, Riyadh had not yet reopened its embassy in Baghdad.

This mission to do so was decided after contacts between the neighboring states, the official SPA news agency cited a Saudi foreign ministry spokesman as saying.

Last November, Iraqi President Fuad Masum visited Saudi Arabia for the first such high-level trip in years in a sign of warming relations after years of strain between the two countries.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=69524.

FBI keeping eye on China, Russia, Iran cyberspying

Washington (AFP)
Oct 6, 2011

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has made a campaign against cyberthreats one of its "highest priorities," with China, Russia and Iran in the crosshairs, the bureau's chief said Thursday.

FBI Director Robert Mueller told the House intelligence committee that cyber-espionage constituted "one of the most significant and complex threats facing the nation."

When asked to name the worst offenders around the globe that pose a threat to the United States, Mueller said: "You have countries such as Russia and China, others, Iran perhaps, who have capabilities that we're alert to."

He singled out China for its capabilities in economic cyber-spying -- or targeting commercial data.

"Since 2006, we've had several dozen cases, investigations, prosecutions of individuals related to China who have undertaken economic espionage, ex-filtration of information and the like," the FBI director said.

Beijing has repeatedly denied any state involvement in cyber-attacks against government agencies and firms, including one against US Internet giant Google in early 2010 that sparked a row between the United States and China.

Mueller said cyberattacks had "impacted our military, other government agencies, the financial and telecommunications sectors, and other critical infrastructure."

"Addressing this cyberthreat will be among the FBI's highest priorities now and in the years to come," he told lawmakers.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/FBI_keeping_eye_on_China_Russia_Iran_cyberspying_999.html.

UNHCR opens camp in western Ethiopia for Blue Nile state refugees

UNHCR
Fri, 7 Oct 2011

ASSOSA, Ethiopia, October 7 (UNHCR) - The UN refugee agency has opened a camp in western Ethiopia to accommodate some of the thousands of refugees who have been crossing the border to escape conflict in Sudan's Blue Nile state in recent weeks. A convoy of buses on Wednesday brought a first group of 395 Sudanese refugees from the border crossings at Kurmuk, Bamza and Almahal to Tongo Refugee Camp, which has been under construction for almost two weeks and has a capacity for 3,000 people.

"We have had to work really hard to get the basics of shelter, water and sanitation in place in a very short time," Richard Ewila, head of UNHCR's field office in the town of Assosa, said. "We are happy to open this new camp and receive the refugees," he added. The refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration hope to eventually move around 400 Sudanese daily from the border to Tongo, where UNHCR, Ethiopia's Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA) and its implementing partners are providing protection and assistance.

The first arrivals at Tongo were among some 27,000 civilians who have fled the fighting between Sudan government forces and rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army-North since early September. The new camp, in Ethiopia's Benishangul Gumuz state, is located more than 200 kilometers from Kurmuk - the busiest border crossing - and about 400 kms from Bamza.

For security reasons, UNHCR and Ethiopia's Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA) are keen to avoid the establishment of spontaneous settlement at the border locations. UNHCR has stepped up efforts to persuade refugees to relocate away from the border areas, where many stay among the local community in the hope of returning to their homes and checking on their property soon.

"We left our village without taking most of our belongings," explained Suraya Abdurahman, a 35-year-old mother of seven who was on the convoy to Tongo. To date, about 5,000 people have agreed to be registered as refugees by UNHCR at the Sherkole Refugee Camp, about 50 kilometers from the border. But the continuing insecurity, including frequent air strikes on the Sudan side of the border at Kurmuk, has prompted many to start considering relocation.

Before the current Sudanese emergency began, Sherkole was home to some 4,000 Sudanese refugees who elected to stay in Ethiopia after the end of Sudan's civil war in 2005 and South Sudan's declaration of independence this year. But with the latest influx, Sherkole earlier this week reached its 8,000-person capacity.

"Obviously Sherkole won't be sufficient to accommodate more than 8,000, but the increased aerial and ground attacks in Kurmuk and other areas in Blue Nile state were warning enough to move quickly on preparing Tongo for occupation," Ewila explained. At the beginning of the influx, the new arrivals were mainly women, children and the elderly - generally in good health. Men were staying behind to look after properties.

Recently, however, UNHCR staff at the border have seen larger numbers of men arriving, and more conflict injuries. Refugees are also bringing their livestock and carrying belongings, such as grain mills or furniture, to help them make a living in Ethiopia. As development of the site continues, 80 of the 380 available family sized tents have been pitched. Up to 40,000 liters of water per day is ready for use while additional water sources are being sought. UNHCR is also purchasing a month's supply of firewood to be distributed by ARRA for cooking and heating.

Meanwhile immunization in Kurmuk for 438 children, including 28 Ethiopian locals, was completed at the end of last week. Immunizing of children will continue at Tongo. "We still have other structures to put up and we will ensure the health and well-being of the refugees, but I am now relieved that, since Sherkole refugee camp has reached its capacity, we now have Tongo ready to accommodate refugees," UNHCR's Ewila said.

By Pumla Rulashe in Assosa, Ethiopia

Source: Trust.org (Alertnet).
Link: http://www.trust.org/item/?map=unhcr-opens-camp-in-western-ethiopia-for-blue-nile-state-refugees.

Russia studies construction of its own orbital station

Moscow (XNA)
Nov 20, 2014

Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos is studying several options of creating a brand-new Russian orbital station, which could replace the International Space Station (ISS), deputy chief of Roscosmos Denis Lyskov said Monday.

"We are looking into various options, while building an orbital station as a substitute for ISS is one of them," Lyskov said without giving any further details.

Earlier in the day, Moscow's Kommersant business daily reported that Russia has been designing a multi-function orbital station using part of the modules constructed for the ISS.

According to the Kommersant, the station to be placed on a near- polar orbit would serve as a transit base for the Russian Moon program, as well as to monitor 90 percent of the Russian territory, which is more than the vision field of the ISS.

However, according to an unnamed source in Roscosmos, there might be a lack of financial support to build Russia's own orbital station, Interfax news agency reported.

"Media reports on Russia's plan to build and put on orbit a new space station in 2017-19 are false," the source said, adding that the new orbital modules currently under construction are intended to be docked with the ISS by 2017, not to comprise Russia's own orbital station.

Russia plans to stay in the ISS program until at least 2020, according to the source.

In May, Roscosmos said Russia has been developing a national program of manned space explorations which will replace the ISS program after 2020.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Russia_studies_construction_of_its_own_orbital_station_999.html.

The Long, Strange Trip To Asteroid Bennu

Greenbelt MD (SPX)
Nov 19, 2014

Born from the rubble of a violent collision, hurled through space for millions of years and dismembered by the gravity of planets, asteroid Bennu had a tough life in a rough neighborhood: the early solar system. "Bennu's Journey," a new animation created at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, shows what's known and what remains mysterious about the life of Bennu and the origin of the solar system.

"We are going to Bennu because we want to know what it has witnessed over the course of its evolution," said Edward Beshore of the University of Arizona, Deputy Principal Investigator for NASA's asteroid-sample-return mission OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security - Regolith Explorer). The mission will be launched toward Bennu in late 2016, arrive at the asteroid in 2018, and return a sample of Bennu's surface to Earth in 2023.

"Bennu's experiences will tell us more about where our solar system came from and how it evolved. Like the detectives in a crime show episode, we'll examine bits of evidence from Bennu to understand more completely the story of the solar system, which is ultimately the story of our origin."

The video opens with an establishing shot of the galaxy and moves in to a nebula - a vast cloud of gas and dust ejected from the explosions of dying stars. From observations of other star-forming regions in our galaxy, scientists have a good idea of the basic outlines of how our solar system came to be, according to Beshore.

As shown in the animation, a nearby exploding star disrupts material in the nebula, causing part of it to collapse under its own gravity and form a disk of material surrounding the infant Sun.

Within this disk, bits of dust are flash heated to molten rock and solidify to become chondrules -- some of the building blocks of the solar system. Chondrules are shown in the animation as they clump together via electrostatic and gravitational forces to become asteroids and planets.

Chondrules may make up a large part of the material in Bennu. "On planets like Earth, the original materials have been profoundly altered by geologic activity and chemical reactions with our atmosphere and water. We think Bennu may be relatively unchanged, so this asteroid is like a time capsule for us to examine," said Beshore.

By analyzing the sample collected from Bennu, the OSIRIS-REx team will be able to examine some of the most pristine material to be found anywhere in the solar system.

Bennu may also harbor organic material from the young solar system. Organic matter is made of molecules containing primarily carbon and hydrogen atoms and is fundamental to terrestrial life. The analysis of any organic material found on Bennu will give scientists an inventory of the materials present at the beginning of the solar system that may have had a role in the origin of life.

"By bringing this material back to Earth, we can do a far more thorough analysis than we can with instruments on a spacecraft, because of practical limits on the size, mass, and energy consumption of what can be flown," said Beshore.

"We will also set aside returned materials for future generations to study with instruments and capabilities we can't even imagine now."

The mission also will contribute to NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which will identify, capture and redirect a near-Earth asteroid to a stable orbit around the moon, where astronauts will explore it in the 2020s, returning with samples.

ARM is part of NASA's plan to advance new capabilities needed for future human missions to Mars. OSIRIS-REx also will support the agency's efforts to understand the population of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects and characterize those suitable for future asteroid exploration missions.

The early solar system was quite chaotic. Giant impact craters throughout the inner solar system indicate there may have been a "late heavy bombardment" by asteroids approximately 4.1 billion to 3.8 billion years ago, right around the origin of life on Earth. The video illustrates one theory for this.

The massive "gas giant" planet Jupiter began to migrate inward closer to the Sun due to gravitational interactions with the outer gas giant planets. Jupiter's gravity disrupted the asteroid belt, tossing many asteroids closer to the Sun, where some collided with the terrestrial planets, including Earth. This asteroid bombardment may have been a significant source of organic matter and water for the early Earth.

After this bombardment, things calmed down a little, but massive collisions still happened occasionally, like the one the video shows happening between an asteroid and a planetesimal about one billion years ago. Scientists think a collision like this may have resulted in the birth of Bennu, and the video illustrates the asteroid forming as some of the rubble from the collision slowly coalesces under its own weak gravity.

Measurements reveal that Bennu's density is less than that of rock, so scientists think the asteroid may have voids in its interior, according to Beshore. An asteroid like this is called a "rubble pile" -- a loosely bound collection of boulders, rock, and dust.

Bennu is also quite dark. Like an asphalt road on a hot day, it absorbs most of the sunlight that hits it and later radiates this energy away as heat. This radiation gives Bennu a tiny push, called the Yarkovsky effect, which gradually changes its orbit over time. The animation shows how the Yarkovsky effect causes Bennu to migrate until it encounters a so-called gravitational resonance with the planet Saturn.

Regular tugs by this resonance eventually push Bennu into the inner solar system, where it has repeated close encounters with Venus and Earth. These encounters pull apart the rubble pile that is Bennu, turning it inside out and reshaping the asteroid.

Because Bennu comes close to Earth, there is a tiny chance - about 1 in 2,500 - that it could hit Earth late in the 22nd century, according to Beshore. "We'll get accurate measurements of the Yarkovsky effect on Bennu by precisely tracking OSIRIS-REx as it orbits the asteroid," said Beshore.

"In addition, the instrument suite the spacecraft is carrying is perfectly suited to measure all the things that contribute to the Yarkovsky effect, such as composition, energy transport through the surface, temperature, and Bennu's topography. If astronomers someday identify an asteroid that presents a significant impact hazard to Earth, the first step will be to gather more information about that asteroid. Fortunately, the OSIRIS-REx mission will have given us the experience and tools needed to do the job."

The animation ends with the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft entering orbit around Bennu to tell the tale of the asteroid's long, strange trip, a journey that promises to reveal the secrets of the solar system and perhaps our own origins.

The animation is among the most highly detailed productions created by Goddard's Conceptual Image Laboratory (CI Lab), and as such presented significant challenges to realize. Rendered in an 8 by 3 Cinemascope aspect ratio at 5,670 by 2,180 pixels, it has even higher resolution than the 4K "Ultra High Definition" (4K UHD) resolution now being introduced as the next-generation high-definition television format.

"This was done for two reasons; first, with the cinemascope aspect ratio we could take advantage of the extra screen room for a more cinematic design and it would also play well on larger-format screens like IMAX and NASA's hyperwall," said CI Lab Senior Animator Walt Feimer, who was also a producer on the project.

"The second advantage was by mastering at the higher resolution we only had to render one time. By keeping the action in the animation in the 16 by 9 aspect ratio, we could cut the animation down to 4K UHD and from there it could be scaled to any of our usual animation products."

One of the major challenges in the movie was with the texture maps; since the format was so large the textures had to dramatically increase in size to hold up at resolution without breaking down visually, according to Feimer. The team also spent a lot of time creating the look and feel of the gases used in the nebula and early solar system scenes.

The enormous size of the animation required significant computer time to render, so it was important to minimize changes through close coordination among the science team, the production team, and the script writers.

"Ed Beshore and Dante Lauretta, the OSIRIS-REx Principal Investigator, held a series of early meetings with me and the animation team - Walt Feimer and Michael Lentz - to discuss the history of Bennu and sketch out the video's narrative arc," said Daniel Gallagher of Goddard Media Studios, a writer and a producer on the project.

"Then Walt and Michael began creating storyboards and I began writing narration, based on our meetings and on various science articles. The earliest scripts were densely packed with information but didn't quite capture the epic feel that we were aiming for, so we brought in fellow writer/producer Michael Starobin to rethink the tone of the narration. After some back and forth, the team arrived at a script that retained the most important points scientifically, but also delivered them in a more epic, evocative voice."

"Through a lot of collaborative back-and-forth effort with Dante and Ed we defined the story we wanted to tell and created our shot list," adds Feimer. "We ended up with 31 different shots. Spending the extra time upfront on the storyboards really paid off. It kept changes to a minimum and in the end we only added two shots and dropped one."

The team's efforts have resulted in a signature animation that explains how exploring an asteroid can shed light on how we came to be.

The animation was funded by the OSIRIS-REx project. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will provide overall mission management, systems engineering, safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx.

Dante Lauretta is the mission's principal investigator at the University of Arizona. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver will build the spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages New Frontiers for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_Long_Strange_Trip_To_Asteroid_Bennu_999.html.

Primordial galaxy bursts with starry births

Ithaca NY (SPX)
Nov 13, 2014

Peering deep into time with one of the world's newest, most sophisticated telescopes, astronomers have found a galaxy - AzTEC-3 - that gives birth annually to 500 times the number of suns as the Milky Way galaxy, according to a new Cornell University-led study published Nov. 10 in the Astrophysical Journal.

Lead author Dominik Riechers, Cornell assistant professor of astronomy, and an international team of researchers gazed back - with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile - over 12.5 billion years to find bustling galaxies creating stars at a breakneck rate.

Today, Earth's Milky Way galaxy produces the equivalent of perhaps two to three new suns a year. The AzTEC-3 galaxy, observed to be emerging from the Big Bang's primordial soup, creates about 1,100 suns a year, corresponding to about three suns each day.

ALMA's remarkable sensitivity and spatial resolution was key to observe this galaxy and others with unprecedented detail in far-infrared/submillimeter wavelength light. It also found, for the first time, star-forming gas in three additional, extremely distant members of an emerging galactic protocluster, which is associated with AzTEC-3.

"The ALMA data reveal that AzTEC-3 is a very compact, highly disturbed galaxy that is bursting with new stars at close to its theoretically predicted maximum limit and is surrounded by a population of more normal, but also actively star-forming galaxies," said Riechers.

"This particular grouping of galaxies represents an important milestone in the evolution of our universe - the formation of a galaxy cluster and the early assemblage of large, mature galaxies."

Riechers says that galaxies with this quick rate of star production have been known to exist in the middle-aged universe, say 3 billion to 6 billion years old, but this production is surprising for galaxies in their cosmic infancy. "We expect this out of later galaxies in a more mature universe, but not from one of the earliest," he said.

In the early universe, starburst galaxies like AzTEC-3 formed stars at a frenetic pace, fueled by the copious quantities of material they devoured and by merging with other adolescent galaxies. Over billions of years, according to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, these galactic mergers continued, eventually producing the large galaxies and clusters of galaxies seen in the cosmos today.

"One of the primary science goals of ALMA is the detection and detailed study of galaxies throughout cosmic time," said Chris Carilli, an astronomer with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Socorro, New Mexico. "These new observations help us put the pieces together by showing the first steps of a galaxy merger in the early universe."

The astronomers believe that AzTEC-3 and the other nearby galaxies appear to be part of the same system, but are not yet gravitationally bound into a clearly defined cluster. This is why the astronomers refer to them collectively as a protocluster.

"AzTEC-3 is currently undergoing an extreme, but short-lived event," said Riechers. "This is perhaps the most violent phase in its evolution, leading to a star formation activity level that is very rare at its cosmic epoch."

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Primordial_galaxy_bursts_with_starry_births_999.html.

Astronomers watching extreme storms on Uranus

Berkeley CA (SPX)
Nov 13, 2014

The normally bland face of Uranus has become increasingly stormy, with enormous cloud systems so bright that for the first time ever, amateur astronomers are able to see details in the planet's hazy blue-green atmosphere.

"The weather on Uranus is incredibly active," said Imke de Pater, professor and chair of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, and leader of the team that first noticed the activity when observing the planet with adaptive optics on the W. M. Keck II Telescope in Hawaii.

"This type of activity would have been expected in 2007, when Uranus's once every 42-year equinox occurred and the sun shined directly on the equator," noted co-investigator Heidi Hammel of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy.

"But we predicted that such activity would have died down by now. Why we see these incredible storms now is beyond anybody's guess."

In all, de Pater, Hammel and their team detected eight large storms on Uranus's northern hemisphere when observing the planet with the Keck Telescope on August 5 and 6. One was the brightest storm ever seen on Uranus at 2.2 microns, a wavelength that senses clouds just below the tropopause, where the pressure ranges from about 300 to 500 mbar, or half the pressure at Earth's surface.

The storm accounted for 30 percent of all light reflected by the rest of the planet at this wavelength.

When amateur astronomers heard about the activity, they turned their telescopes on the planet and were amazed to see a bright blotch on the surface of a normally boring blue dot.

'I got it!'

French amateur astronomer Marc Delcroix processed the amateur images and confirmed the discovery of a bright spot on an image by French amateur Regis De-Benedictis, then in others taken by fellow amateurs in September and October. He had his own chance on Oct. 3 and 4 to photograph it with the Pic du Midi one-meter telescope, where on the second night, "I caught the feature when it was transiting, and I thought, 'Yes, I got it!'" said Delcroix.

"I was thrilled to see such activity on Uranus. Getting details on Mars, Jupiter or Saturn is now routine, but seeing details on Uranus and Neptune are the new frontiers for us amateurs and I did not want to miss that," said Delcroix, who works for an auto parts supplier in Toulouse and has been observing the skies - Jupiter in particular - with his backyard telescope since 2006 and, since 2012, occasionally with the Pic du Midi telescope.

"I was so happy to confirm myself these first amateur images on this bright storm on Uranus, feeling I was living a very special moment for planetary amateur astronomy."

Interestingly, the extremely bright storm seen by Keck in the near infrared is not the one seen by the amateurs, which is much deeper in the atmosphere than the one that initially caused all the excitement.

De Pater's colleague Larry Sromovsky, a planetary scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, identified the amateur spot as one of the few features on the Keck images from August 5 that was only seen at 1.6 microns, and not at 2.2 microns. The 1.6 micron light is emitted from deeper in the atmosphere, which means that this feature is below the uppermost cloud layer of methane-ice in Uranus's atmosphere.

"The colors and morphology of this cloud complex suggests that the storm may be tied to a vortex in the deeper atmosphere similar to two large cloud complexes seen during the equinox," Sromovsky said.

Such vortices could be anchored much deeper in the atmosphere and extend over large vertical distances, as inferred from similar vortices on Jupiter, including its Great Red Spot.

An expanded team of astronomers led by Kunio M. Sayanagi, an Assistant Professor at Hampton University in Virginia, leveraged the amateur observations to activate a "Target of Opportunity" proposal on the Hubble Space Telescope, which imaged the entire planet on Oct. 14.

Observing at a variety of wavelengths, HST revealed multiple storm components extending over a distance of more than 9,000 kilometers (5,760 miles) and clouds at a variety of altitudes.

De Pater, Sromovsky, Hammel and Pat Fry of the University of Wisconsin will report the details of their observations on Nov. 12 at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences in Tucson, Ariz.

Ice giant

Uranus is an ice giant, about four times the diameter of Earth, with an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium, with just a bit of methane to give it a blue tint. Because it is so distant - 30 times farther from the sun than Earth - astronomers were able to see little detail on its surface until adaptive optics on the Keck telescopes revealed features much like those on Jupiter.

De Pater and her colleagues have been following Uranus for more than a decade, charting the weather on the planet, including bands of circulating clouds, massive swirling storms and convective features at its north pole. Bright clouds are probably caused by gases such as methane rising in the atmosphere and condensing into highly reflective clouds of methane ice.

Because Uranus has no internal source of heat, its atmospheric activity was thought to be driven solely by sunlight, which is now weak in the northern hemisphere. Hence astronomers were surprised when these observations showed such intense activity.

Observations taken with the Keck telescope by Christoph Baranec, an Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaii on Manoa, revealed that the storm was still active, but had a different morphology and possibly reduced intensity.

"If indeed these features are high-altitude clouds generated by flow perturbations associated with a deeper vortex system, such drastic fluctuations in intensity would indeed be possible," Sromovsky added.

"These unexpected observations remind us keenly of how little we understand about atmospheric dynamics in outer planet atmospheres," the authors wrote in their paper.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Amateur_professional_astronomers_alike_thrilled_by_extreme_storms_on_Uranus_999.html.

China Exclusive: China developing Mars rover

Zhuhai, China (XNA)
Nov 12, 2014

After successfully putting the "Jade Rabbit" lunar rover on the moon, Chinese space experts say the country's planned Mars vehicle will be larger, tougher and a better climber.

On Tuesday, a real-sized model of the Mars rover is on display at the Airshow China 2014 in south China's Zhuhai City, offering a rare glimpse of the spacecraft still being designed.

"Our current concept is that it will have six wheels, like Yutu (Jade Rabbit), but will be larger in size and better at crossing obstacles," says Jia Yang, who led the team that developed Yutu.

"Yutu can climb over obstacles no higher than 20-centimeters, but has to bypass larger rocks. This will not work on Mars, where places are full of large rocks like in the Gobi Desert. So we must improve its adaptability to complex territory," he said.

The 2-meter-long model on display is the prototype. Its final look and functions are yet to be decided.

China has not announced an official plan for a Mars probe, but Ouyang Ziyuan, a lead scientist in China's moon probe mission, has said China plans to land a Mars rover around 2020, collect samples and bring them back around 2030.

Jia expects the Mars buggy to be solar-powered, its weight close to NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers at about 180 kg. NASA's latest Curiosity rover weighs 900 kg and is powered by nuclear battery, but Jia says the capability of China's carrier rockets limits the size of its Mars rover.

Yutu reported a mechanical malfunction during the second lunar day after its successful landing in December last year, prompting Chinese experts to stress the fault response on the Mars rover.

"The Mars environment is more complicated and adverse than that of the moon. We're working to overcome the worst scenario - dust storms that will significantly lower the energy output of the solar battery," Jia says.

Displayed with the rover is a model of a capsule designed to carry the vehicle into the planet's atmosphere. Jia says they are still working on the capsule's parachute and heat-proof structure that will enable it to land in the extremely thin air, one of the hardest parts of the Mars mission.

Forty-three probes have been sent to Mars since 1960, of which 19 succeeded.

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/China_Exclusive_China_developing_Mars_rover_999.html.

Follow the Dust to Find Planets

Pasadena CA (JPL)
Nov 12, 2014

Researchers studying what appears to be a beefed-up version of our solar system have discovered that it is encased in a halo of fine dust. The findings are based on infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory, in which NASA is a partner.

The dusty star system, called HD 95086, is located 295 light-years from Earth in the constellation Carina. It is thought to include two belts of dust, which lie within the newfound outer dust halo. One of these belts is warm and closer to its star, as is the case with our solar system's asteroid belt, while the second belt is cooler and farther out, similar to our own Kuiper belt of icy comets.

"By looking at other star systems like these, we can piece together how our own solar system came to be," said Kate Su, an associate astronomer at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and lead author of the paper.

Within our solar system, the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are sandwiched between the two dust belts. Scientists think something similar is happening in the star system HD 95086, only on larger scales. One planet, about five times the mass of Jupiter, is already known to sit right inside HD 95086's cooler belt. Other massive planets may be lurking between the two dust belts, waiting to be discovered.

Studies like this from Spitzer and Herschel point the way for ground-based telescopes to snap pictures of such planets in hiding, a technique referred to as direct imaging. The one planet known to exist in HD 95086 was, in fact, discovered and imaged using this technique in 2013. The images aren't sharp because the planets are so faint and far away, but they reveal new information about the global architecture of a planetary system.

"By knowing where the debris is, plus the properties of the known planet in the system, we can get an idea of what other kinds of planets can be there," said Sarah Morrison, a co-author of the paper and a PhD student at the University of Arizona. She ran computer models to constrain the possibilities of how many planets are likely to inhabit the system. "We know that we should be looking for multiple planets instead of a single giant planet."

To learn what HD 95086 looks like, the astronomers turned to a similar star system called HR 8799. It too has an inner and outer belt of debris surrounded by a large halo of fine dust, and four known planets between the belts -- among the first exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system, to be directly imaged.

Comparing data from the two star systems hints that HD95086, like its cousin HR 8799, is a possible home to multiple planets that have yet to be seen. Ground-based telescopes might be able to take pictures of the family of planets.

Both HD 95086 and HR 8799 are much younger and dustier than our solar system. When planetary systems are young and still forming, collisions between growing planetary bodies, asteroids and comets kick up dust. Some of the dust coagulates into planets, some winds up in the belts, and the rest is either blown out into a halo, or funneled onto the star.

Herschel and Spitzer are ideally suited to study the dust structures in these systems, which glow at the infrared wavelengths the telescopes detect.

The researchers will present the findings at the Division for Planetary Science Meeting of the American Astronomical Society held in Tucson, Arizona from Nov. 8 to 15.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Follow_the_Dust_to_Find_Planets_999.html.

Tail discovered on long-known asteroid

Washington DC (SPX)
Nov 12, 2014

A two-person team of Carnegie's Scott Sheppard and Chadwick Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory has discovered a new active asteroid, called 62412, in the Solar System's main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is the first comet-like object seen in the Hygiea family of asteroids.

Sheppard will present his team's findings at the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences meeting.

Active asteroids are a newly recognized phenomenon. 62412 is only the 13th known active asteroid in the main asteroid belt. Sheppard and Trujillo estimate that there are likely about 100 of them in the main asteroid belt, based on their discovery.

Active asteroids have stable orbits between Mars and Jupiter like other asteroids. However, unlike other asteroids, they sometimes have the appearance of comets, when dust or gas is ejected from their surfaces to create a sporadic tail effect. Sheppard and Trujillo discovered an unexpected tail on 62412, an object which had been known as a typical asteroid for over a decade.

Their findings reclassify it as an active asteroid. The reasons for this loss of material and subsequent tail in active asteroids are unknown, although there are several theories such as recent impacts or sublimation from solid to gas of exposed ices.

"Until about ten years ago, it was pretty obvious what a comet was and what a comet wasn't, but that is all changing as we realize that not all of these objects show activity all of the time," Sheppard said.

In the past, asteroids were thought to be mostly unchanging objects, but an improved ability to observe them has allowed scientists to discover tails and comas, which are the thin envelope of an atmosphere that surrounds a comet's nucleus.

"We're actually looking anew through our deep survey at a population of objects that other people cannot easily observe, because we're going much deeper," Sheppard said, explaining why they were able to see that 62412 was active when it had been considered a typical main belt asteroid for 15 years.

Discoveries such as this one can help researchers determine the processes that cause some asteroids to become active. Sheppard will discuss his and Trujillo's theories about the genesis of 62412's activity.

They found that 62412 has a very fast rotation that likely shifts material around its surface, some of which may be emitted to form the comet-like appearance.

The tail may be created directly from ejected material off the fast rotating nucleus, or from ice within the asteroid subliming into water vapor after being freshly exposed on the surface. They also find a density for 62412 typical of primitive asteroids and not consistent with the much lower-density comets. Further monitoring of this unusual object will help confirm the activity's source.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Tail_discovered_on_long_known_asteroid_999.html.

Cassini Sails into New Ocean Adventures on Titan

Pasadena CA (JPL)
Nov 12, 2014

NASA's Cassini mission continues its adventures in extraterrestrial oceanography with new findings about the hydrocarbon seas on Saturn's moon Titan. During a flyby in August, the spacecraft sounded the depths near the mouth of a flooded river valley and observed new, bright features in the seas that might be related to the mysterious feature that researchers dubbed the "magic island."

The findings are being presented this week at the Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting of the American Astronomical Society held in Tucson, Arizona.

To the delight of Cassini scientists, two new bright features appeared in Titan's largest sea, Kraken Mare, during the August 21 flyby. In contrast to a previously reported bright, mystery feature in another of Titan's large seas, Ligeia Mare, the new features in Kraken Mare were observed in both radar data and images from Cassini's Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS). Having observations at two different wavelengths provides researchers with important clues to the nature of these enigmatic objects.

The VIMS data suggest the new features might have similarities to places in and around the seas that the Cassini team has interpreted as waves or wet ground. The observations support two of the possible explanations the team thinks are most likely -- that the features might be waves or floating debris.

Unfortunately for mystery lovers, the August Titan flyby marked the final opportunity for Cassini's radar to observe Kraken Mare. However, the spacecraft is scheduled to observe the original "magic island" feature in Ligeia Mare once more, in January 2015.

The August Titan flyby also included a segment designed to collect altimetry (or height) data, using the spacecraft's radar instrument along a 120-mile (200-kilometer) shore-to-shore track of Kraken Mare. For a 25-mile (40-kilometer) segment of this data along the sea's eastern shoreline, Cassini's radar beam bounced off the sea bottom and back to the spacecraft, revealing the sea's depth in that area.

This region, which is near the mouth of a large, flooded river valley, showed depths of 66 to 115 feet (20 to 35 meters). Cassini will perform this experiment one last time in January 2015, to try to measure the depth of Punga Mare. Punga Mare is the smallest of three large seas in Titan's far north, and the only sea whose depth has not been observed by Cassini.

Scientists think that, for the areas in which Cassini did not observe a radar echo from the seafloor, Kraken Mare might be too deep for the radar beam to penetrate. Alternatively, the signal over this region might simply have been absorbed by the liquid, which is mostly methane and ethane. The altimetry data for the area in and around Kraken Mare also showed relatively steep slopes leading down to the sea, which also suggests the Kraken Mare might indeed be quite deep.

Source: Saturn Daily.
Link: http://www.saturndaily.com/reports/Cassini_Sails_into_New_Ocean_Adventures_on_Titan_999.html.

After Mars, India space chief aims for the moon

New Delhi (AFP)
Nov 11, 2014

India now has its sights set on low-budget missions to the moon and the sun after becoming the first country in Asia to reach Mars, the head of its space agency said Tuesday.

India has been swelling with pride since winning the continent's race to Mars in September when its unnamed Mangalyaan spacecraft slipped into the Red Planet's orbit after a 10-month journey on a shoestring budget.

The mission, designed to search for evidence of life on Mars, sparked mass celebrations which were especially sweet as India also became the only country to reach the planet on its first attempt.

Buoyed by the success, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K.S Radhakrishnan said the agency was forging ahead with plans to land an unnamed craft on the moon, along with a satellite to study the sun.

"The aim is three years from now, an Indian lander and Indian rover will land on the moon," he told AFP.

"We have a program to study the sun that is by putting a satellite into the sun-Earth Lagrangian point," he said, referring to the position where the satellite, held by the pair's gravitational pull, can orbit with them.

China completed its first return mission to the moon last month with the successful re-entry and landing of an unmanned probe, but Radhakrishnan played down talk of a space-age rivalry between the world's two most populous countries.

"We don't race with any country. We have our own priorities," he added.

But Radhakrishnan did acknowledge India was "certainly" eyeing a greater slice of the $300-billion global space market, by making and launching communication, weather, navigational and other satellites for foreign countries.

The Mars mission highlighted India's launch vehicle, called the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), which has long been in "high demand" from countries needing their satellites blasted into orbit.

"We have launched 40 satellites for other countries, 19 countries have used the PSLV," Radhakrishnan said.

ISRO this year successfully tested a second vehicle, called the Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), capable of launching heavier satellites that countries are clamoring to have fired into space.

"At the moment there are no contracts (for the GSLV) but discussions are going on," he said in an interview in New Delhi.

India ranks among the top six space-faring nations in technological capabilities -- after the US, Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and China, the chairman said.

- Shoestring budget -

But ISRO manages to compete with the big boys on a tiny budget, with the Mars mission costing just $74 million.

"If you look at the expenditure, we use 7.5 percent of what (the US space agency) NASA spends on space research," the chairman said.

ISRO has helped keep costs down in part by using a myriad of Indian companies to help build its space program, with nearly 122 local firms assisting on the Mars mission.

India has come a long way since it began its space program half a century ago when it set up the first rocket launch pad in a field in the southern state of Kerala. A church in a fishing village was the agency's main office.

The chairman said the agency was reaping the benefits of years of hard work, after sticking to its "mantra of self reliance" rather than relying on other countries for assistance.

Western sanctions were slapped on India after it staged a nuclear weapons test in 1974.

ISRO also remained committed to its national mandate of benefiting the "common man" - for example by launching Indian satellites that help with weather projections and disaster management - in a country with tens of millions of poor.

"Twenty-two years we worked on it (a launch vehicle for satellites and other craft) and we got it. We adapted and we improved," he told a group of defense experts on Tuesday.

"It was not a soft route, it was the hard route."

Source: Moon Daily.
Link: http://www.moondaily.com/reports/After_Mars_India_space_chief_aims_for_the_moon_999.html.

Siberia: A Mosque in the land of snow

01 January 2015 Thursday

The Tulip Mosque (Lala Tulpan) in Siberia has opened for worship in Ufa, the capital of Baskurtistan and is attracting attention with its unique architecture,  which is under snow for most of the year.

The Tulip mosque in Russia’s Siberia is attracting attention  and adding vitality to the city that is near the North Pole.

The mosque which had begun construction during in 1989 during the Soviet era overcame many obstacles to be built and construction finished in 1998. The mosque has been names the Tulip mosque because of its uniquely tulip shaped minarets.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/152037/siberia-a-mosque-in-the-land-of-snow.