Six Chinese bloggers have been arrested and police shut 16 websites after rumors were spread that military vehicles were on the streets of Beijing, officials say.
The web posts were picked up by media outlets around the world, and some critics of Beijing suggested a coup might be taking place.
The State Internet Information Office (SIIO) said the rumors had a “very bad influence on the public”.
Two popular microblogs have temporarily stopped users from posting comments.
The two sites, Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, are still letting people post to their own sites. But they said commenting on other people’s posts would be disabled between 31 March and 3 April, so they “could act to stop the spread of rumors”.
Six Chinese bloggers have been arrested and police shut 16 websites after rumors were spread that military vehicles were on the streets of Beijing
A spokesman for the SIIO told state news agency Xinhua earlier that the two websites had been “criticized and punished accordingly”.
He added that that a number of other people had been “admonished or educated”.
China’s top leaders are grappling with the biggest political crisis they have faced for years.
China will begin a once-in-a-decade leadership change later this year. But one of the main contenders for promotion – Bo Xilai – has just been sacked, suggesting a fierce fight behind the scenes for control of the ruling Communist Party.
Bo Xilai was removed from his post amid allegations that his police chief and former ally had tried to seek asylum at a US consulate.
Chinese censors had previously blocked searches on various sites for terms linked to Bo Xilai.
The People’s Daily, the party’s main newspaper, said in a commentary: “Internet rumors and lies packaged as <<facts>> will turn conjecture into <<reality>>, stir up trouble online and disturb people’s minds.
“If allowed to run amok, they will seriously disrupt social order, affect social stability and harm social integrity.”
While there is no evidence to substantiate the rumors of a coup, the party is clearly upset.
British fraternal black and white twins Remee and Kian Hodgson, who were born one minute apart, turn seven next month.
Kian, who has the genes from the Jamaican-Caribbean side of the family with dark skin, hair and eyes, looks black. Remee has light skin, blond hair and blue eyes, and looks white.
It was a genetic fluke because the twins’ parents are biracial – Kylee Hodgson and Remi Horder both have white mothers and black fathers. Experts estimated at the time they were born that there is a one in a million chance of one black and one white twin being born to biracial parents.
“It’s not truly a pure black parent with a pure white parent. You had both parents who are already mixed racially so that when they go back together you can get both extremes,” had said Dr. Steven Goldstein, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at New York University Medical Center.
Kian is black and has big brown eyes. Remee is a blue-eyed blonde with the palest of skin.
They might share the same cheeky smile, but side by side, they could hardly look less alike.
Yet remarkably, Kian and Remee Hodgson are twins, born a minute apart.
The girls owe their appearance to a one in a million combination of their parents’ genes.
Mother Kylee Hodgson, 26, and father Remi Horder, 24, both have white mothers and black fathers.
The startling result is a two-tone set of delightful little girls.
British fraternal black and white twins Kian and Remee Hodgson, who were born one minute apart, turn seven next month
Now, approaching their seventh birthday, they have never asked why they don’t look the same, nor have they ever experienced any racial prejudice.
“They are such a perfect example of how it should be,” said their mother.
“They are not bothered about their skin color. It’s not the big issue everyone else seems to see it as. It isn’t important to them at all – it’s about what they’re like underneath.”
Kian and her 60-second older sister were delivered in April 2005 by caesarean section.
Kylee Hodgson recalls the moment she saw them for the first time: “I noticed that both of them had beautiful blue eyes.
“But while Remee’s hair was blonde, Kian’s was black and she had darker skin. To me, they were my kids and they were just normal. I thought they would start to look the same as time went on.”
Time, however, only accentuated their differences. Kian’s eyes changed color and her skin got darker. Remee’s complexion got lighter and her curly hair stayed blonde. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kylee Hodgson found herself fielding questions about whose children they were, or who Kian’s fair-haired friend was, when she pushed them in their side-by-side buggy.
“People would ask me why I dressed the children the same,” the mother said. “I’d just say: <<because they’re twins>>, and leave people to work it out. It kind of irritated me at first, but everyone in my area got to know they were twins and accepted it. It was only strangers or outsiders who didn’t know.”
Although they share a common bond, the twins are already doing things their own way.
Their appearance may be ebony and ivory, but in character they are chalk and cheese. They learned to walk and talk at different times, even though their first word – “Juice!” – was identical.
Kian, according to her mother, “is a bit bossier, a bit louder”.
Kylee Hodgson added: “Remee is a bit more laid back. She’ll think a bit longer before she does something.”
Today Kian and Remee are in different classes at school and have different sets of friends.
They both love dancing and sing along to the same records – mostly New York rapper Nicki Minaj and pop star Rihanna.
But their interests are different, Kian has a love of animals and her sister enjoys cookery.
Like many twins though, they have an unspoken, almost intuitive affinity.
“They get on so well,” said Kylee Hodgson, now separated from Remi Horder and living in Dudley, West Midlands.
“They’re really close,” the mother said.
“They’re best friends – they absolutely love each other. They play together all the time, go swimming together, read their books together, help each other out.
“If one can’t do their shoes, the other will help.
“Sometimes they do the same things at the same time. Once, they even sneezed together. That really made me laugh.
“As they’ve got older, they’ve taught each other everything. They’ve helped each other to grow.
“And they don’t notice the color thing, not at all. They’ve grown up with light-skinned people around them, and they’ve grown up with black people. But they’re just themselves. They don’t see what everyone else sees.”
New reports claim that Beverly Hills detectives did recover cocaine from Whitney Houston’s hotel room after her death.
Official documents reveal “white powdery remnants” were found in Whitney Houston’s suite at the Beverly Hilton hotel and tested positive for the illegal drug, according to TMZ.
Initially it was claimed no illegal substances were discovered, however the celebrity website says sources were initially unaware cocaine was present.
TMZ further claims that Beverly Hills detectives are not investigating claims cocaine was removed from the room.
The website reports: “Cops are not focusing on anyone who possibly removed cocaine, because authorities are in possession of the goods.”
Beverly Hills detectives did recover cocaine from Whitney Houston's hotel room after her death
Cocaine was listed as a contributory factor in Whitney Houston’s February 11th death. The official cause of death was accidental drowning after she was found dead in the bathtub.
On Thursday, RadarOnline reported that police wanted to talk to Whitney Houston’s associate Raffles Van Exel after he made claims he cleared the singer’s hotel room before police arrived to the death scene.
A source told the website: “The [Houston] family has been extremely cooperative and they have been told that investigators want to speak to Raffles Van Exel about allegedly removing evidence from Whitney’s hotel room.
“The cops want to know who provided Whitney with the cocaine, but if someone tampered with the death scene, well, that could be against the law in California.”
Raffles Van Exel made the revelations about clearing Whitney Houston’s room to the Dutch Telegraph newspaper, saying: “Someone had to do it.”
However, Raffles Van Exel stopped short of saying exactly what he removed from the suite, an important omission following claims cocaine had been removed from the scene.
Celebuzz also revealed Raffles Van Exel made the confession in an interview with the respected Netherlands newspaper just four days following her death, where he also said: “The room had to be emptied.”
Cissy Houston, Whitney Houston’s mother, has spoken out for the first time since the star’s death to reveal she does not hold herself responsible.
Cissy Houston, 78, opened her heart to local television station My9 following almost two months of silent mourning.
While she is devastated by Whitney’s sudden passing, Cissy Houston also said there is nothing more she could have done to save her substance abusing child.
In the interview, which airs on Monday, the elderly gospel singer said: “I know I did the best I could.
“I don’t blame myself. I know I did the best I could for everything.”
Cissy Houston, Whitney Houston's mother, has spoken out for the first time since the star's death to reveal she does not hold herself responsible
Speaking at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, Cissy Houston also said Whitney tried to help her family as much as she could.
Whitney Houston’s mother said: “My children are my whole life. She was very special to me… she was my only daughter, and a good one. [She] looked out for her family.
“I’m very proud of my daughter, she accomplished a whole lot in the short time that she had here.
“She was a very wonderful person.”
Cissy Houston spoke to the news station at the church where her 48-year-old daughter was laid to rest following her death in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on February 11.
And she said she is still not recovered from the shock of discovering Whitney had died.
Cissy Houston, who famously appeared in the video for Whitney’s hit Greatest Love of All, said: “I have my moments.
“I’m not there yet. I don’t think I’m any more courageous than anyone else.”
“I am a true believer in God, if I could bring her back I would, but that’s not possible.”
Cissy Houston is under even more family stress at the moment, as her granddaughter Bobbi Kristina Brown, 19, plans to marry Nick Gordon, a longtime friend who’s known as her “adopted” brother.
According to the Star magazine, Cissy Houston vehemently disapproves of the engagement.
The draw for the biggest lottery jackpot in world history took place Friday night place, as Americans bought 1.5 billion Mega Millions tickets in the hope of landing the $640 million prize.
The numbers drawn on Friday night were 2, 4, 23, 38, 46, Mega Ball 23.
Forty-two states took part in the draw.
It emerged two hours after the draw that at least one person will lay his hands on the jackpot, as an official from the Maryland lottery announced that a winning ticket had been bought in Baltimore County.
Earlier, queues snaked out of shops from coast to coast with some punters snapping up tickets by the bushel.
The prize money has been swelling since 24 January, with no winner matching all five numbers in the last 18 draws.
The prize had stood at $ 540 million before Friday’s announcement. Lottery officials earlier estimated that customers would have spent some $1.5 billion on tickets by the time of the draw.
An official from the Maryland lottery announced that a winning Mega Millions ticket had been bought in Baltimore County
A jackpot winner could choose between receiving the full amount of $640 million in 26 annual payments (more than $24 million a year) or an instant cash option of more than $460 million.
The largest jackpot to be paid out until now was a $390 million Mega Millions prize that was split between two winners in 2007.
One hopeful ticket-buyer, Allsaints Macauley, a 64-year-old taxi driver in Washington DC, said if he won he would drive his vehicle to one of the capital’s busiest intersections and leave it behind to be towed away.
“I’d skip town with my children to a place where the temperature will not go below 86 [F] and just hang out.
“The guys on Wall Street invest my trust, so my kids will never have to drive a cab or wash dishes like I did.”
Also in the queue was Mike Notarangelo, 52, unemployed, who said: “I’d set up my daughter, take care of my parents, and choose some charities to get some of the money.
“After that, I would travel the world. See all those places I’ve never been to.”
In California, some shops have been experiencing a ticket-buying frenzy, after lottery officials in the Golden State revealed which outlets have previously sold the most winning tickets.
Ryan King, a 33-year-old construction worker, told the Los Angeles Times: “I’ve already spent the money in my head, 300 times.”
The Las Vegas Sun reports that people have been driving to a shop on Nevada’s border with California to buy tickets.
Some $2,600 of tickets were sold to one buyer at a cafe in the state of Arizona, reports the Associated Press.
Even the relatively wealthy have apparently not been immune to the lottery bug.
NBA basketball player Chris Singleton, who earns a reported $1.5m playing for the Washington Wizards, said on Twitter that he planned to splurge $10,000 on tickets.
The Kansas City Star that the winnings could buy a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, a private island near Phuket, Thailand, or a fleet of 200 Bugatti sports cars.
But the odds are stacked overwhelmingly against any one person matching the six-ball jackpot.
Lottery officials say the chance of winning is just one-in-176 million. Tickets cost $1.
Mathematics professor Mike Catalano of Dakota Wesleyan University told the Associated Press news agency: “You are about 50 times as likely to get struck by lightning as to win the lottery, based on the 90 people a year getting struck by lightning.”
Based on other US averages, a person is 8,000 times more likely to be murdered, or 20,000 times more likely to die in a car accident than to win the lottery, he added.
The states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Alaska, Hawaii, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada are not participating in the draw.
Kim Kardashian threw down the gauntlet with her new “My Divorce Hell” Us Weekly magazine cover story and now Kris Humphries insiders are firing back at a “smear” job.
“Kim Kardashian is seeking sympathy. She’s playing the victim card,” a source close to the Humphries family told Hollywoodlife.com.
”It’s her last chance,” the insider says referring to the interview Kim Kardashian gave to US Weekly in its new April 9 cover story.
Kim Kardashian told the magazine that she is “so ready emotionally for this chapter [her marriage to Kris Humphries] to be over,” and Kim sources accused Kris Humphries of “doing anything he can to get her [Kim’s] attention, she would grant a divorce in a second. But he won’t sign the papers. He won’t let go.”
Us Weekly sources go on to slam Kris Humphries for “doing this to humiliate” and “hurt” Kim Kardashian. The piece gets so vicious that it includes accusations that he’s leaking “nasty items” about Kim Kardashian to the press, he “wants money and he wants fame,” he gave expensive wedding gifts to his family, that his father is writing a tell-all book about the marriage, and even in an exceptionally barbed blow that his sister, Kaela, used Kim to boost her modeling career – “she wanted fame by osmosis!”
It’s a six page diss-a-thon from start to finish, and it certainly indicates that Kim Kardashian is not in the settling-her-divorce mood. She may have thought when she filed divorce papers on October 31, 2011, that the split would be an easy slam dunk with her iron-clad prenup. Kim Kardashian never anticipated that Kris Humphries would feel so upset and used that he would file for an annulment based on fraud, instead. Kris Humphries sources have maintained to Hollywoodlife.com that he believes he was induced into a marriage that was never meant to be “real” and that was used by Kim Kardashian, for financial gain, to boost the ratings of Kourtney & Kim Take New York, in which he co-starred.
Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries have been married for just 72 days
It’s “incredibly clear” that it’s Kim Kardashian who’s trying to smear Kris Humphries, a source close to the Humphries family told the website.
The Us Weekly “My Divorce Hell” feature claiming that “Kim Kardashian begs Kris Humphries to set her free” and insisting that Kris is “plotting to get her money and ruin her name,” says one big thing about Kim – she’s furious that the divorce has not been easy and that Kris Humphries has not gone away quietly.
Team Humphries believes Kim Kardashian did the magazine interview at this time because Kris’s lawyer, Lee A. Hutton 111, released a statement on March 19 saying that his legal team wouldn’t be making any more comment on the divorce/annulment case.
“Much effort and energy to mis-direct the public’s perception of what transpired between Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries has taken place over the past several months, some even going so far as to attempt to create settlement ‘demands’ where none have been made,” the statement reads.
“Neither Kris Humphries nor his legal team have spread these rumors nor will they. While we are encouraged to see an apparent willingness by the other side to put big numbers out in an attempt to settle Mr. Humphries’ claims, we respect and will continue to observe the integrity of the legal process. This case will be resolved not in the court of public opinion amidst ridiculous and defamatory allegations and personal attacks directed against Kris Humphries. Rather, this case will be appropriately investigated and litigated professionally and with integrity. General Counsel Lee A. Hutton III of Lommen Abdo, with the assistance of Kris’ new Los Angeles legal team of family law experts Marshall Waller and Sandra Salinas of Feinberg & Waller, have been retained to protect Mr. Humphires’ legal position as well as his reputation throughout these proceedings. One thing is certain: Kris Humphries intends to set the record straight and while settlement discussions are a normal part of every litigated case, there will always be public speculation and conjecture in matters such as this, in fact, these legal proceedings and the parties involved are deserving of professionalism and integrity by all.”
“Kim chose perfect timing after the statement was released saying that his legal team wouldn’t be talking. She felt safe I guess, knowing they wouldn’t respond,” says the insider.
As for Team Humphries feelings about the Us Weekly article attacking both Kris Humphries father, William Humphries, and his sister Kaela: “It’s very false that Kris’s father is trying to sell a tell-all book”. If he were trying to sell it, it would be sold in seconds. Everyone wants to know the “truth about how scummy they are.”
It’s clear that Kim Kardashian may have launched the latest grenade in the Kardashian/Humphries Divorce War – but Kris Humphries is not going to surrender.
Anne Hathaway is on a drastic 500-calorie diet in order to lose weight in a short time for her latest role in Les Miserables.
Anne Hathaway, 29, has been ordered to lose 16 lbs in less than three weeks to play dying prostitute Fantine in the movie adaptation of Les Miserables.
As fans of the musical classic will know, the single mother ends up with consumption and later appears as a ghost.
Although currently a healthy size 10, Anne Hathaway will have to lose 16 lbs for her realistic portrayal of a hungry, dying prostitute.
Instead of eating the recommended daily allowance of 2,000 calories a day, Anne Hathaway is now down to under 500 to achieve the rapid result.
A film source told the Daily Mirror: “Anne is playing a destitute factory worker-come-lady of the night.
“Unfortunately, she only has 15 to 20 days to lose as much weight as possible – up to a stone-and-a-half – because she’s been filming the scenes showing her fit and healthy, almost slightly chubby.
“It’s not ideal but, as with any high-budget movie, there are strict time constraints.
“Producers have assigned her a personal trainer and she is literally eating nothing more than a couple of apples a day, and some protein – mainly in the form of a shake.”
Anne Hathaway slimmed down to fit into an unforgiving catsuit to play Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises
However, producers are making sure doctors keep a close eye on the actress during the short-term diet.
Anne Hathaway is no stranger to having to lose weight for roles.
In 2011, the actress slimmed down to fit into an unforgiving catsuit to play Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises.
Anne Hathaway started doing Bikram yoga and push-ups and eating vegetables, fish and fruit to shape down.
She also lost weight to play Andrea Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada.
The Les Miserables movie, which also stars Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Eddie Redmayne and Amanda Seyfried, is due to release in December.
Whitney Houston’s home in Atlanta, that Bobbi Kristina Brown lives in, was actually not hers and her daughter has to pay rent, say new reports.
Bobbi Kristina Brown, 19, is working hard for the money, reported HollywoodLife.com.
Insiders told the celebrities’ website that Bobbi Kristina Brown isn’t rolling in dough since inheriting her mother’s estate.
“Whitney didn’t own her town home in Atlanta,” a source said.
“She rents it and now Bobbi is having to pay rent.”
Whitney Houston’s home in Atlanta, that Bobbi Kristina Brown lives in, was actually not hers and her daughter has to pay rent
And now Bobbi Kristina Brown just landed her first acting gig on Tyler Perry‘s new sitcom For Better or Worse.
Whitney Houston’s daughter had told Oprah Winfrey that she wanted to pursue acting and singing like her late mother.
Despite reports that Cissy Houston, Bobbi Kristina Brown’s grandmother, is trying to get her boyfriend Nick Gordon evicted from the town home is false.
“Cissy can’t get Nicholas out of the house because they don’t own the house,” the source said.
Health guru Jennifer Nicole Lee, who has built a career around her incredibly toned body which has inspired people around the world to get fit and shed weight, has revealed her personal weight loss journey was anything but easy.
Jennifer Nicole Lee, 36, a mother-of-two, had tipped 200 lbs on the scales after the birth of her second child. Shown here in the midst of her hard work, she dropped more than 70 lbs to become the image of health she is today.
The weight loss champion told Foxnews.com that she had to “let go of wanting my weight loss success to happen overnight”.
The fitness author and former Miss Bikini America said her biggest challenge was letting go of excuses.
Jennifer Nicole Lee said: “I banished all the myths and got real with myself… all the excuses such as <<I don’t have enough time>> or <<it’s expensive to live healthy>>.
“I also had a hard time giving myself the gift of time as I wanted to see the results instantly.”
Fitness guru Jennifer Nicole Lee had tipped 200 lbs on the scales after the birth of her second child
Jennifer Nicole Lee, who has appeared on the cover of more than 40 magazines, had been fed up with being out of shape especially once she had two children to care for.
She said: “Being a new mom really hit me hard… I was sick and tired of being fat with little to no energy.
“I made a commitment to learn everything possible about how super fitness models and serious athletes ate and trained.”
Now known as a fitness guru after publishing several books, releasing a swimwear line as well as workout DVDs, Jennifer Nicole Lee learned to focus on persistence rather than looking perfect.
It landed her a spot on Oprah where she encouraged other mothers to take her lead.
Jennifer Nicole Lee said: “We, as moms, suffer from wanting the best for everyone but we must aim to put ourselves back on our to-do list.”
During the early stages of her weight loss, Jennifer Nicole Lee put a large emphasis on building strength as opposed to shedding fat, telling Fox: “Women, especially moms, must rate their health level on how strong they are mentally, emotionally and physically.
“Being fit does not equal a size or being thin. But being strong means you are healthy and fit.”
Jennifer Nicole Lee said it is common for women to set themselves weight loss goals without actually following through. Her training method, which has been titled JNL Fusion, focuses on “doable” workout techniques.
She trains her clients to do “six circuits of three sets of 30-second strength moves followed directly by 30-seconds of a body weighted cardio blast”.
It forces the metabolism to race up and down intensely, which helps to burn fat.
Jennifer Nicole Lee said: “I urge women to do more strength training than cardio as lean muscle tone is the fountain of youth.”
Dolly Parton explained how Whitney Houston, despite having a spiritual upbringing like hers, didn’t “make sure she was surrounded by the right people, and the right things”.
“I’ve always had good and close friends, and a spiritual faith. God will take the wrong people and things out, and teach me to have the right people and the right things,” the singing legend said.
“Some people don’t have that, and that’s where it can go wrong,” Dolly Parton said during an interview about the British premiere of her musical 9 to 5.
The show is based on the 1980 film Nine To Five, about an abusive male boss (played by Dabney Coleman), and Dolly Parton starred in it with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.
Dolly Parton is always grateful to Whitney Houston for making her song popular worldwide
Dolly Parton got to know Whitney Houston, who died last month, when the late singer covered Dolly’s composition I Will Always Love You for the soundtrack of Whitney’s movie The Bodyguard.
”I thank God every day for that song – and Whitney made it popular worldwide,” Dolly Parton said.
“It’s a very simple song, really, as simple as anything I’ve ever written.”
Dolly Parton takes her songwriting seriously and is pleased that “a few good numbers” she has written have stood the test of time.
“Like 9 to 5,” she said.
The musical ran on Broadway a couple of years ago and Dolly Parton’s score was the thing that stood out.
It was revamped on its U.S. tour by director Jeff Calhoun, who is hot at the moment thanks to the success of his new show, Newsies. It opened on Broadway last night, and already some folks are calling it the best musical of the season.
Jeff Calhoun will direct the UK version of 9 to 5, which will run at the Manchester Opera House from October 12 and then go on an extensive tour.
Prof. Antonio Ereditato, the head of an experiment that appeared to show subatomic particles travelling faster than the speed of light, has resigned from his post.
Prof. Antonio Ereditato oversaw results that appeared to challenge Einstein’s theory that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.
Reports said some members of his group, called OPERA, had wanted Prof. Antonio Ereditato to resign.
Earlier in March, a repeat experiment found that the particles, known as neutrinos, did not exceed light speed.
When the results from the OPERA group at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy were first published last year, they shocked the world, threatening to upend a century of physics as well as relativity theory – which holds the speed of light to be the Universe’s absolute speed limit.
The experiment involved measuring the time it took for neutrinos to travel the 730 km (450 miles) from CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland to the lab in Italy.
Prof. Antonio Ereditato oversaw results that appeared to challenge Einstein's theory that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light
Speaking at the time, Prof. Antonio Ereditato added “words of caution” because of the “potentially great impact on physics” of the result.
“We tried to find all possible explanations for this,” he said.
“We wanted to find a mistake – trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects – and we didn’t.
“When you don’t find anything, then you say <<well, now I’m forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinize this>>.”
Despite the call for caution, the results caused controversy within the world of physics.
If the findings had been confirmed, they would have disproved Albert Einstein’s 1905 Special Theory of Relativity.
Earlier this month, a test run by a different group at the same Italian laboratory recorded neutrinos travelling at precisely light speed.
Sandro Centro, co-spokesman for the ICARUS collaboration, said that he was not surprised by the result.
“In fact I was a little skeptical since the beginning,” he said at the time.
“Now we are 100% sure that the speed of light is the speed of neutrinos.”
So far, Prof. Antonio Ereditato has not commented on his decision to step down from his post.
Scientists have detected thousands of comets plunging into our solar system’s star since the 1980s.
With the introduction of technology such as NASA’s sun-watching Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite in 2010 that these close encounters – like Comet Lovejoy’s graze with the Sun last year – have been turned into one of the most exciting sights in astronomy.
Now a team of scientists led by Professor John Brown, Astronomer Royal for Scotland, have worked out to predict which comets will make it through this fiery journey – and which are likely to explode just above the surface.
Comets are giant dusty snowballs believed to date from the epoch of the formation of the Sun and planets, so carry important information about the early history and composition of the Solar system.
The comets we see spend most of their time very far from the Sun, orbiting in the so-called Oort Cloud, before being disrupted into orbits that carry them towards our nearest star over tens of thousands of years.
When comets reach the inner Solar System, their dusty ices melt and vaporize to form huge tails blown back by the solar wind and by sunlight.
The largest, like the famous Comet Hale Bopp seen in the late 1990s, have nuclei tens of kilometres across and masses of 10 million million tons.
Objects this large only lose a tiny fraction of their material on each passage around the Sun, so are able to survive thousands of journeys through the Solar System.
In contrast, the smallest objects may only be 10 metres across with a mass of 1,000 tons.
If these small comets make a close approach to the Sun, they are vaporized by sunlight and by the friction of the atmospheric gas.
Comet Lovejoy emerging from the clutches of the Sun spotted by NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory
In the culmination of work carried out over the last few years, Prof. John Brown and his colleagues are now able to predict how comets lose their mass and are destroyed in the solar atmosphere, their behavior depending on whether or not their orbital path reaches into the “lower atmosphere” 4350 miles (roughly 1% of the solar radius) from the top of the brightest visible solar layer, the photosphere.
The team worked out the different ways comets give up their mass, momentum and energy to the Sun’s atmosphere according to their height. Above 4,350 miles the cometary nuclei are slowly vaporized by sunlight and the gases streaming off into the coma and tail lose energy and momentum by atmospheric drag.
In the low solar atmosphere material is stripped away not by sunlight but by the drag of the solar gas surrounding the comet and by exploding under the ‘ram pressure’ force of the atmosphere as the comet runs into denser layers.
The group found that sunskimmer comets (those with their closest approach more than 4350 miles from the Sun) are destroyed in a slow “fizzle” lasting hundreds to thousands of seconds, depending on their mass.
During their demise they should emit weak but detectable extreme ultraviolet (XUV) radiation.
In contrast, the “sunplungers” that approach the Sun more closely will be destroyed in a few seconds as they crash into the dense layers of the lower solar atmosphere.
The resulting explosions produce effects similar to those of solar flares, such as sunquakes on the Sun’s surface.
Finally, if the most massive comets were to collide with the Sun they would produce dramatic explosions just above the photosphere itself.
In July and December last year the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite made the first direct observations of comets making close approaches to the Sun.
The first comet, C/2011 N3 (SOHO) was completely destroyed after passing 62,000 miles above the photosphere whilst the second and larger comet, C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) survived a close approach to a similar distance (87 000 miles) although it lost a significant fraction of its mass in the process.
Both events were in line with the predictions of Professor Brown and his collaborators. They emphasize that, contrary to some news releases, the death or attrition of such comets has nothing to do with the high temperature (two million degrees Celsius) of the outer solar atmosphere since, though hot, it is so tenuous that it contains little heat.
Prof. John Brown comments: “In modeling how icy comets behave in this extreme environment, we really are starting to understand what happens to these <<supersonic snowballs in hell>> when they make a close approach to the Sun.
“The two sun skimmers seen last year have already given us a new insight into the Sun’s atmosphere and it’s only a matter of time before we see the flare from a sun plunger – with a low enough orbit to reach the lower atmosphere of the Sun. When that happens we will be able to analyze the light from the resulting cometary flare and find out even more about the composition of the interiors of comets.”
Prof. John Brown will present this new work in a paper at the National Astronomy Meeting in Manchester on Friday 30 March.
Research in Motion Ltd, the maker of BlackBerry, seemed to admit defeat in the smartphone wars after suggesting it will abandon most consumer markets.
RIM will instead concentrate on reaching business customers, who are said to value the security of the company’s handsets.
RIM has been struggling as Americans are abandoning their BlackBerrys for flashier touch-screen phones such as Apple’s iPhone and models that run Google’s Android software.
Despite the phones’ continuing popularity among business users, RIM has had limited success trying to enter consumer markets in recent years.
“We plan to refocus on the enterprise business and capitalise on our leading position in this segment,” RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said.
“We believe that BlackBerry cannot succeed if we tried to be everybody’s darling and all things to all people. Therefore, we plan to build on our strength.”
Research in Motion Ltd, the maker of BlackBerry, seemed to admit defeat in the smartphone wars after suggesting it will abandon most consumer markets
Yesterday RIM also announced that former co-CEO Jim Balsillie has resigned from its board.
David Yach, chief technology officer for software, and Jim Rowan, chief operating officer for global operations, are also leaving in a management shakeup.
Thorsten Heins made his remarks during a conference call after RIM announced quarterly results that fell short of Wall Street expectations.
RIM said it had a net loss in the latest quarter because of writedowns for the declining value of its brand and its PlayBook tablet inventory.
The net loss was $125 million, or 24 cents a share, in the quarter that ended on March 3. This compares with $934 million, or $1.78 per share, a year ago.
Adjusted income was 80 cents per share, a penny short of expectations from analysts polled by FactSet.
Revenue fell 25 per cent to $4.2 billion from $5.6billion. Analysts were expecting $4.54 billion.
The US Fair Labor Association investigation has found “significant issues” among working practices at Chinese plants making Apple iPhones and iPads.
FLA was asked by Apple to investigate working conditions at Foxconn after reports of long hours and poor safety.
The association says it has now secured agreements to reduce hours, protect pay, and improve staff representation.
Apple said it “fully accepted” the report’s recommendations.
“We share the FLA’s goal of improving lives and raising the bar for manufacturing companies everywhere,” the giant tech company said in a statement.
The findings emerged as Apple CEO Tim Cook visited Foxconn facilities.
Tim Cook toured Zhengzhou Technology Park, where 120,000 employees work, on Wednesday.
A string of suicides at Foxconn last year put the spotlight on working conditions at its factories. Last month, the company announced it was to send independent inspectors from the FLA to audit the facilities.
The investigation – one of the largest ever conducted of a US company’s operations abroad – found employees often worked more than 60 hours a week and sometimes for seven days running without the required day off.
FLA investigation found that Foxconn employees often worked more than 60 hours a week and sometimes for seven days running without the required day off
Other violations included unpaid overtime and health and safety risks.
Average monthly salaries at the three factories ranged from $360 to $455. Foxconn raised salaries by up to 25% recently.
The FLA said Foxconn had agreed to comply with the association’s standards on working hours by July 2013, bringing them in line with a legal limit in China of 49 hours per week.
Apple will hire thousands more workers in order to compensate for the move, Reuters reports.
The report has been much anticipated as embodying a new and transparent approach to an old problem: that of cheap but popular consumer goods manufactured in poor conditions in developing countries.
However a telling line in the report is the one which notes that the Foxconn workers did not have true trade union representation.
The authorities in China are very wary of unions and are likely to remain so.
Before the report was released, labor unions expressed doubts that Apple was committed to improving standards.
“The report will include new promises by Apple that stand to be just as empty as the ones made over the past 5 years,” SumOfUS.org, a coalition of trade unions and consumer groups, said.
Foxconn employs 1.2 million workers in China to produce products for Apple as well as Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and other companies.
As earlier reports claimed that Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom’s marriage is holding on by a thread, Khloe took to Twitter to blast multiple media reports that her union to Lamar is in trouble.
Two days ago it was claimed that Lamar Odom’s partying with strippers and Khloe Kardashian’s infertility have driven a wedge between the former lovebirds.
Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom have a lot more trouble in their lives than just losing basketball games. The reality couple is reportedly at a “point of no return” in their marriage and friends told Star magazine that they fear this is the end of their blissful union.
“Khloe viewed his actions as cheating,” a source says in reference to his strip club outing at Stadium Club in Washington, DC on January 8.
“She felt violated.”
Lamar Odom was spotted at the strip club with his teammates Shawn Marion and Delonte West and he reportedly had about $500 in one hand and he was giving it away to the dancers all night. To make matters worse, Lamar Odom reportedly went into a back room with a Khloe Kardashian look-alike stripper.
Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom are reportedly at a “point of no return” in their marriage
The source goes on to claim that Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom never have sex unless it’s when they’re trying for a baby.
“Lamar is getting tired of her obsessing over [having a baby],” the source reveals. “They’re only intimate now when they schedule sex.”
Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian had to uproot their lives in Los Angeles after he was traded to the Dallas Mavericks, and now he is reportedly depressed over the trade.
“Khloe put on a brave face and prayed that a new beginning in Dallas would be good for their marriage,” the source adds.
“Sadly things have only gotten worse. Lamar is super depressed and Khloe is really having trouble handling his emotional issues.”
HollywoodLife.com also reported that insiders are concerned that Lamar Odom is focusing too much on reality TV and it turn it’s hurting his basketball career. Plus, a source told us that they were spending too much time together in Dallas, which was also adding stress.
Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom have had a tough marriage as of late, but Khloe defended the union on Twitter, making us hopeful that they’re trying to work things out.
When a fan told Khloe Kardashian, 27, on Twitter how upset they were with the rumors, she wrote: “it shows you how sick people are. They would rather have pain then love… Sad world.”
However, multiple sources claimed that there are tensions in the marriage, primarily because Lamar Odom feels that taping Khloe & Lamar is distracting him from playing his best for the Dallas Mavericks. Sources have revealed that he would like to quit the show, plus there are stresses over leaving Los Angeles and moving to Dallas, where they don’t have the support of close family and friends.
Then, there are the couple’s infertility issues, Khloe Kardashian admitted in a new interview that “sex became a job instead of it being fun and easy” because they were trying so hard to make babies.
Khloe Kardashian even said couple actually had decided they would back off trying to conceive because of the pressure.
Kris Humphries has filed legal documents asking Kim Kardashian to disclose how much cash they made during their 72 days of marriage, say new reports.
Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries’ fairytale wedding was reported to have made them a whopping $18 million dollars, although this has been since denied.
Celebrities website TMZ wrote: “Kris is challenging Kim’s right to give away money that represents what they made in wedding gifts.”
Kris Humphries’ lawyer is also asking the court to reinforce that Kim Kardashian has a duty to reveal to him a “full accounting of the assets and liabilities accumulated during the marriage”, reports TMZ.
The website adds that Kris Humphries’ lawyer wrote in the documents: “A spouse may not make a gift of community personal property, or dispose of community personal property for less than fair and reasonable value, without the written consent of the other spouse.”
Kris Humphries, a 26-year-old basketball player, is reported to be seeking an annulment to the short-lived marriage rather than a divorce.
Kris Humphries has filed legal documents asking Kim Kardashian to disclose how much cash they made during their 72 days of marriage
Kim Kardashian, 31, meanwhile, is eager to move on with her life: “I’m so ready for this to be over,” she told Us Weekly recently, revealing she has been throwing herself into her workout regime.
“I’m on a mission, I figure, I’m single. Now is the best time to get in shape,” Kim Kardashian said.
She recently defended the decision to end her marriage to talk show host Jay Leno, on a recent appearance on his show.
Kim Kardashian said: “I’m a girl who really believes in love, I’m in love with love and I thought this was it for me. But when I realized it wasn’t I thought… I’ve always tried to really respectful of everyone involved.
“I wanted to be fair to me, but I also wanted to be fair to someone else. So when I knew it wasn’t right…
“I’ve heard stories of people who were married for 10 years and they knew it wasn’t right, but they wanted to stick it out and had kids.
“I want that forever, I believed in love, I still do. But to be fair to everyone, I knew I had to end it and I’m okay with that decision.”
Kim Kardashian also told Us Weekly that she works out twice a day and does strength training or Pilates at night with her brother Rob.
The reality star will need her strength too, as apparently Kris Humphries has told his lawyer not to talk about settlements with Kim Kardashian’s legal team.
A source told Radar Online: “Kris is furious about reports that he is making Kim’s life hell. It’s absolutely ridiculous, and he is telling his friends that he won’t be bullied by her anymore.”
Kris Humphries has told his lawyer to no longer attempt to reach a settlement with Kim Kardashian. “It’s a waste of time and he is ready to take this to trial, and he will.”
Kim Kardashian also managed to make the headlines last week when she was flour bombed by a PETA supporter.
Bobbi Kristina Brown’s friends said she feels “lost” following Whitney Houston’s death.
Bobbi Kristina Brown, 19, was admitted to hospital with stress twice in the days after Whitney Houston accidentally drowned in a hotel bath whilst under the influence of cocaine on February 11.
And with her father Bobby Brown having just been arrested for DUI, friends and family of Bobbi Kristina are said to be growing increasingly concerned about her well-being.
A source told Us Weekly: “Everyone is worried about Bobbi. Bobbi just doesn’t want anyone’s help. She’s lost.”
However, a role in Tyler Perry’s sitcom For Better Or Worse could be just the thing to help give her direction.
Bobbi Kristina Brown’s friends said she feels “lost” following Whitney Houston's death
According to RadarOnline.com, Bobbi Kristina Brown has been offered a recurring part in the show as the daughter of one of the stylists who works Angela Williams’ salon.
Bobbi Kristina Brown is also said to be drawing comfort from “adopted” brother Nick Gordon – whom Whitney Houston took in and raised as her own 10 years ago after his father was sent to jail.
Appearing to confirm their romance earlier this month, Nick Gordon tweeted: “Yeah we got a little closer and what!!!”
Bobbi Kristina Brown then fuelled speculation Nick Gordon had popped the question by wearing a ring on her wedding finger, although a spokesman for the Houston family has since denied any engagement.
Bobbi Kristina Brown has landed a role in Tyler Perry‘s sitcom, For Better or Worse, say new reports.
According to RadarOnline.com, Bobbi Kristina Brown, 19, has been offered a recurring part in the show as the daughter of one of the stylists who works Angela Williams’ salon.
Bobbi Kristina Brown told Oprah Winfrey earlier this month she’s always wanted to sing and act.
Bobbi Kristina Brown has landed a role in Tyler Perry‘s sitcom, For Better or Worse
Tyler Perry was one of Whitney Houston’s closest friends and even spoke at her funeral. The singer’s body was also flown back to Georgia on his plane. It’s so good of him to support his pal’s legacy.
French police have arrested 19 suspected Islamists and seized weapons in a series of dawn raids, President Nicolas Sarkozy told Europe 1 radio.
The raids were in Toulouse, the home of gunman Mohamed Merah, and other cities.
Mohamed Merah, who killed seven people in three separate attacks, was buried in Toulouse on Thursday after being killed in a shoot-out with police on 22 March.
Police have been hunting possible accomplices but sources said there was no direct link with the raids.
Mohamed Merah’s brother, Abdelkader, has been charged with aiding him and police are hunting a third man said to be involved in the theft of a scooter that Merah used in all the killings.
Nicolas Sarkozy told Europe 1 radio after Friday’s raids: “It’s our duty to guarantee the security of the French people. We have no choice. It’s absolutely indispensable.”
The raids were carried out by the domestic intelligence agency, the DCRI, with the help of the elite Raid police commando group, Agence France-Presse news agency reports.
French police have arrested 19 suspected Islamists and seized weapons in a series of dawn raids
Several of the raids were in Toulouse, particularly the Mirail quarter, sources told AFP.
But there were also raids in Nantes, which is believed to be a centre for the Forsane Alizza (Knights of Pride) group, to which Merah had been linked by some French media.
It is a Salafist group that was dissolved by the interior ministry in an earlier investigation.
Other arrests took place in Lyon, Marseille, Paris, Nice and Le Mans.
Police sources told AFP that some weapons had been seized, including at least one Kalashnikov rifle.
After Mohamed Merah’s killings, President Sarkozy ordered police to evaluate the level of danger posed by those known to sympathize with radical Islamists.
Nicolas Sarkozy told Europe 1 that arrests of suspected radical Islamists “would continue and that will allow us to expel from our national territory a certain number of people who have no reason to be here”.
He added: “What must be understood is that the trauma of Montauban and Toulouse is profound for our country, a little – I don’t want to compare the horrors – a little like the trauma that followed in the United States and in New York after the September 11, 2001 attacks.”
Nicolas Sarkozy is in the midst of a presidential election campaign, seeking a second term in office in the polls on 22 April.
An opinion poll late on Wednesday suggested Nicolas Sarkozy was now ahead of main challenger Francois Hollande in first-round voting intentions – by 30% to 26% – and had narrowed Hollande’s lead in the largely expected run-off vote on 6 May.
Mohamed Merah, 23, was buried at the Cornebarrieu cemetery in Toulouse on Thursday. His body was accompanied by around 15 men, although it was not clear who they were.
Toulouse’s mayor had said it was “inappropriate” for Mohamed Merah to be buried there, but Algeria, where his family is originally from, had refused to accept his body.
Mohamed Merah died in a police assault on his flat in Toulouse on 22 March after a 32-hour siege. He had killed three soldiers in two separate attacks before shooting dead three children and a teacher at a Jewish school.
Mohamed Merah is said to have told police he wanted to avenge Palestinian children and to attack the French army because of its foreign interventions.
Japan announces that will shoot down a North Korean rocket if necessary, as new satellite images appeared to show preparations for the April launch.
Japanese Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka issued the order to intercept the rocket if it threatened Japan’s territory.
Pyongyang says it will launch a satellite on a rocket between 12 and 16 April.
Satellite images taken on Wednesday indicate that work at the launch site is under way, says a US university.
Naoki Tanaka had issued an earlier order on Tuesday to the country’s defense forces to prepare ”destruction measures against ballistic missiles”.
On Friday, he told reporters in Tokyo that he had received cabinet approval to shoot down the rocket if necessary.
Japan began preparing missile defense systems last week.
Pyongyang said it plans to fire a rocket to put a satellite into orbit next month to mark the centennial of the birth of founding leader Kim Il-Sung.
The move has sparked international criticism. North Korea claims the launch is for scientific research and ”peaceful purposes”.
But the United States and North Korea’s neighbors insist it will be a disguised long-range missile test, contravening UN resolutions.
The resolutions were imposed after a similar launch in April 2009. Japan is particularly concerned as the last North Korean rocket was launched over the north of the country.
Japan announces that will shoot down a North Korean rocket if necessary, as new satellite images appeared to show preparations for the April launch
It is thought that the North Korean rocket will follow a new southern trajectory instead of a route to the east over Japan. It will now pass close to south-western Japan instead.
South Korea also warned earlier this week that it might shoot down any North Korean rocket that strayed into its territory.
US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell over the weekend said that the rocket may affect an area between Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
President Benigno Aquino III has expressed concern that rocket debris may fall on Philippine territory, and called on Pyongyang to abandon the launch.
US media reports say that the US is sending its sea-based X-band radar – a radar system that sits atop a floating platform – out into the Pacific to monitor the launch. Officials have confirmed the craft left Hawaii on 23 March.
The controversial launch also comes only weeks after North Korea agreed to return to talks on its nuclear programme in return for food aid from the US – a deal which is now on hold.
At the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul earlier this week, President Barack Obama warned Pyongyang that its planned launch would only increase its isolation and lead to further sanctions.
The new satellite images, taken by a private US firm, DigitalGlobe, show that preparations are proceeding at the Tongchang-dong launch site in North Korea.
An analysis published on the 38 North website by the US-Korea Institute at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) said that ”activity has been ongoing” at the site since last week.
”Unless some major setback occurs, the North Koreans will be able to launch during the declared launch window starting 12 April 2012,” said the article by the institute at the Johns Hopkins University.
Meanwhile, South Korean media is reporting that the North fired two short-range missiles, believed to be surface-to-ship missiles, on Thursday.
The test firing of the KN-01 missiles took place off the west coast in North Pyongan Province, the newspapers reported on Friday, citing military sources in South Korea.
The incident did not appear to be related to the upcoming rocket launch, the sources said.
Military officers believed that the move was a warning by Pyongyang to South Korean and US military, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported.
Spanish riot police have clashed with protesters in Barcelona on the day of a general strike called in protest at the government’s labor market reforms.
Some of the marchers in Barcelona smashed windows and set rubbish bins alight. Police responded with tear gas and baton charges.
There were also protests in the capital, Madrid, and other cities.
Land and air travel were all affected, and domestic and European flights cut to a fraction of normal levels.
The centre-right government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will unveil measures on Friday aimed at saving tens of billions of Euros and making it easier for businesses to sack employees.
It hopes the changes will cut unemployment which is currently the highest in the EU at 23%.
Nearly half of Spain’s under 25’s are out of work.
Unions said 800,000 people joined the protest in Barcelona. Police put the number at 80,000.
Most of the protests were peaceful, but some protesters hurled rocks at bank offices and shop fronts. A branch of the coffee chain Starbucks was set on fire.
“They burned a two-storey Starbucks cafe and another shop,” a spokesman for the regional interior ministry told the AFP news agency.
“It is out now. In the shop there is broken glass and they took out whatever they could burn.”
Spanish riot police have clashed with protesters in Barcelona on the day of a general strike called in protest at the government's labor market reforms
Police fired tear gas and shot rubber bullets at the ground, TV pictures showed.
In Madrid, 900,000 people took part in protest marches, according to unions. The government did not provide any figures.
Scuffles with police broke out early on Thursday as workers from Spain’s biggest unions picketed Madrid’s bus depot.
Unions claimed strong support at car factories and other industrial sites but the government played down the impact.
Noisy picket lines formed outside transport hubs and some businesses.
Unions said more than 80% of workers took part, but the government said many services were kept running.
The strike is the government’s first big challenge since taking office after elections last November.
By agreement between the government and the unions, bus and rail services were kept to a minimum service while only one in 10 domestic and one in five European flights were able to operate.
Outside Atocha – one of Madrid’s main rail stations – picketers waved red union flags and blew whistles as police looked on.
One protester in Madrid, 31-year-old Angel Andrino, said he had been sacked a day after the labor reforms were approved in a decree last month.
Accompanied on the march by his parents and brother, he told the Associated Press news agency: “We are going through a really hard time, suffering.
“The rights that our parents and grandparents fought for are being wiped away without the public being consulted.”
The UGT union said that participation in the strike was “massive” and that virtually all workers at Renault, Seat, Volkswagen and Ford car factories around Spain had honored it during the shift.
Regional TV stations in Andalusia in the south, Catalonia in the north-east and Madrid were also off the air because of the strike.
With the EU’s highest rate of unemployment, Spain is under pressure to reduce its budget deficit and bring its public finances under control.
“The question here is not whether the strike is honored by many or few, but rather whether we get out of the crisis,” the country’s Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro said.
“That is what is at stake, and the government is not going to yield.”
On 10 February, the government approved legislation cutting severance pay to a maximum of 33 days’ salary for each year worked, compared with the current 45 days.
The government insists the reforms will create a more flexible system for businesses and workers, in a country with a stagnant economy that needs to start creating jobs.
Mariano Rajoy, who took office in December, defended his measures on the grounds that they would eventually generate more jobs.
“No government has passed as many reforms in its first 100 days in office as this one,” he said on Tuesday, speaking on a visit to South Korea.
“The biggest mistake would be to do nothing,” the Spanish prime minister added.
NASA’s Cassini probe has captured striking images from flying by three moons of Saturn, including new pictures of Enceladus’s gushing geysers.
Cassini made its lowest pass yet over the south pole of Enceladus, at at an altitude of 74 km (46 miles).
This allowed it to “taste” the jets of water vapor and ice that the moon spews forth into space.
Cassini probe also made relatively close flypasts of two other Saturnian satellites: Dione and Janus.
The observations were made over 27 and 28 March.
The encounter was primarily designed for Cassini’s ion and neutral mass spectrometer instrument, which sampled the composition of Enceladus’s south polar plume.
Other instruments, including the Cassini plasma spectrometer and composite infrared spectrometer, also took measurements.
Cassini probe has captured striking images of Enceladus's gushing geysers
Before the closest approach to Enceladus, Cassini’s onboard cameras captured images of the geysers, which contain organic compounds along with the ice and vapor.
The jets erupt from cracks, or hot fissures, at the south pole known as “tiger stripes”.
Several lines of evidence suggest the jets are fed by a liquid water ocean beneath Enceladus’ outer icy shell.
Scientists have previously detected salts in these jets, which suggests the ocean is probably in contact with the moon’s rocky core.
“Cassini has flown several times now through this spray and has tasted it. And we have found that aside from water and organic material, there is salt in the icy particles. The salinity is the same as that of Earth’s oceans,” said Dr. Carolyn Porco, head of the imaging team on Cassini.
As the spacecraft passed Enceladus, the cameras made a nine-frame mosaic of the surface of Enceladus’s leading hemisphere.
Cassini then flew by the small moon Janus with a closest approach distance of 44,000 km. The planet was in the background in some of these views.
On 28 March, the spacecraft passed Dione at roughly the same distance and captured, among other observations, a nine-frame mosaic depicting the side of the moon that faces away from Saturn.
Scientists recently presented evidence that Dione has features resembling tiger stripes and a cryovolcano, which erupts water-ammonia or methane instead of molten rock.
It is unclear whether there is current geological activity at Dione, but, if so, it is almost certainly at a lower level than on Enceladus.
The discovery that Enceladus probably harbors an ocean in contact with the rocky core makes this moon an even more important target in the search for life elsewhere in the Solar System. The rocks could furnish the ocean with the chemical ingredients thought essential for life.
“The kind of ecologies Enceladus might harbor could be like those deep within our own planet,” Dr. Carolyn Porco said in an interview with NASA’s science website.
The habitable zone on Enceladus might be comparatively easy to access by future robotic space missions. Dr. Carolyn Porco added: “It’s erupting out into space where we can sample it. It sounds crazy but it could be snowing microbes on the surface of this little world.
“In the end, it’s the most promising place I know of for an astrobiology search. We don’t even need to go scratching around on the surface. We can fly through the plume and sample it. Or we can land on the surface, look up and stick our tongues out.”
The source of Enceladus’s heat appears to be Saturn itself. The moon moves around Saturn in a distorted, oval-shaped orbit rather than a circular one.
This causes it to be pulled and squeezed by Saturn’s gravity, inducing the heat that enables geological activity on the icy moon.
Bobbi Kristina Brown is pushing her family away after her father Bobby Brown’s shocking DUI and now they fear the worst.
Bobbi Kristina Brown, 19, has been through so much since her mother Whitney Houston‘s death, including news that her father Bobby Brown was charged with DUI. And now her family are worried that she’s shutting down as a result of these difficult circumstances.
Bobbi Kristina Brown is pushing her family away after her father Bobby Brown’s shocking DUI
Whitney Houston’s daughter has been taking solace in the arms of Nick Gordon, Us Weekly reports. But those closest to her are concerned that is not enough to keep her safe, especially after the shocking autopsy results of her mother’s death were released.
“Everyone is worried about Bobbi,” a source close to Bobbi Kristina says.
“Bobbi just doesn’t want anyone’s help. She’s lost.”
Raffles Van Exel, Whitney Houston’s associate, will be questioned by Beverly Hills Police Department, according to new reports.
After Whitney Houston was found lifeless in the bathtub of her Beverly Hills hotel room on February 11, the Los Angeles County Coroner ruled her official cause of death was accidental drowning due to the effects of heart disease and cocaine use.
However, police are now keen to speak with Raffles Van Exel – a member of the star’s entourage – after he admitted to cleaning out the hotel room immediately after she passed away, allegedly removing vital evidence about Whitney Houston’s drug use from the premises.
A law enforcement source told RadarOnline.com: “Whitney’s family, including her sister-in-law Pat Houston had absolutely no idea that Whitney was using drugs again. The family has been extremely cooperative and they have been told that investigators want to speak to Raffles Van Exel about allegedly removing evidence from Whitney’s hotel room.
“The cops want to know who provided Whitney with the cocaine, but if someone tampered with the death scene, well, that could be against the law in California. Investigators have tried to make contact with Van Exel, but have been unable to do so.
“Since Van Exel is from Denmark, investigators assume that he may no longer be in the United States, and they very much want to talk to him.”
Police is keen to speak with Raffles Van Exel, a member of Whitney Houston's entourage, after he admitted to cleaning out the hotel room immediately after she passed away
Raffles Van Exel reportedly told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf he cleaned out Whitney Houston’s hotel room after she died, removing clothes and belongings and sweeping the floor.
Rffles Van Exel said: “Someone had to do it. The room was empty.”
Whitney Houston’s family recently admitted they were “saddened” to learn cocaine had played a part in her sudden death.
Patricia Houston, Whitney’s sister-in-law and manager, said: “We are saddened to learn of the toxicology results, although we are glad to now have closure.”
Troubled actress Lindsay Lohan has been finally released from formal probation for the first time in four years.
Lindsay Lohan, 25, was ruled to be in the clear at her final hearing today, but not without some blunt advice from Judge Stephanie Sautner.
Judge Stephanie Sautner told Lindsay Lohan: “You need to live your life in a more mature way, stop clubbing and focus on work.”
Lindsay Lohan couldn’t hide her delight and even Judge Stephanie Sautner exclaimed excitedly: “She did it!”
The actress seems to have listened to the authority figure – who she now genuinely seems to see as a mentor – as she told TMZ that she was planning to celebrate her freedom at a quiet dinner with her sister, Ali.
Lindsay Lohan told the judge: “What you’ve done has really opened a lot of doors for me,” before adding: “I hope I see you again soon.”
Stephanie Sautner explained that Lindsay Lohan had complied with all her requirements, and would now be free of official checks – if she stays out of trouble for two-and-a-half years.
Earlier this week it was reported that Lindsay Lohan ran into Hookah Lounge manager Thaer Kamal outside a Hollywood before driving off two weeks ago would not go against her.
It’s recorded that the alleged incident is under investigation by police, but Lindsay Lohan’s probation officer discounts the claim and gives it no weight, noting that no charges have been filed and that Lindsay has not been arrested.
Lindsay Lohan has been finally released from formal probation for the first time in four years
As such, the District Attorney did not object to Judge Stephanie Sautner terminating Lindsay Lohan’s probation, stemming from her 2007 Beverly Hills DUI case.
In relation to Lindsay Lohan’s necklace theft case from last year, the LA City Attorney changed her formal probation – which requires her to regularly report to her probation officer and a judge – to informal probation.
The informal probation period will end after two-and-a-half years, so long as the actress does not break the law.
A smiling Lindsay Lohan was pictured leaving her final probation meeting in Santa Monica last week – apparently after learning she was going to be in the clear.
According to TMZ, her probation report reads in part: “The probationer [Lindsay Lohan] is in compliance with the terms and conditions of probation.
“The report recommends that probation continue the way it’s been going, but that is standard for these reports.”
In relation to the hit and run allegations, Thaer Kamal has claimed Lindsay Lohan grazed him with her black Porsche as she tried to leave the Sayers Club in Hollywood almost two week ago, which Lindsay strongly denies.
She insists that she was trying to attend a friend’s party but didn’t even make it into the venue thanks to throngs of photographers.
Yet Radar claim to have watched surveillance tapes from the night in question which seem to demolish Lindsay Lohan’s claims that she was “freaked out by all the paparazzi”.
They wrote: “Kamal and Lohan clearly engage in conversation. There were absolutely no other paparazzi or photographers in the alley as Lohan claimed.”
And a source told the website: “When Lindsay got out of the car, he smelled alcohol on her breath.
“He didn’t think she should be driving, and told her so, and she replied <<f*ck you>>.
“Lindsay hit Thaer with her car as she was attempting to get out of the alley and also bumped his car.”
However, the definitive proof remains elusive as Thaer Kamal was standing out of range in the surveillance video when Lindsay Lohan allegedly struck him with her car.
“Thaer just wants the truth to come out, that is all. He was injured and unable to work, since the incident. Thaer wants Lindsay to be held accountable for her actions,” their source said.
Lindsay Lohan was confident that Stephanie Sautner will see the alleged incident as nothing more than someone trying to make easy cash from her, and it wasn’t even mentioned.
Earlier this week it was reported that Lindsay Lohan would be taking legal action against Thaer Kamal, should he file a civil lawsuit against her.
According to Radar Online, Lindsay Lohan “will counter-sue and hold him responsible for the allegations he has made”.
The website also claims today that Thaer Kamal has never been investigated for insurance fraud and has no criminal record, contrary to earlier reports.
