PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — NASA’s Dawn spacecraft was captured into orbit around the massive asteroid Vesta after a 1.7 billion-mile journey and is preparing to begin a study of a surface that may date to the earliest era of the solar system, the space agency said Monday.
The entry into orbit occurred while the spacecraft’s antenna was pointed away from Earth, so mission controllers had to wait for Dawn to re-establish contact to confirm its success.
The capture was estimated to have occurred at 10 p.m. PDT Friday, when Dawn was 9,900 miles from Vesta and 117 million miles from Earth in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, according to a statement from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“We are beginning the study of arguably the oldest extant primordial surface in the solar system,” the mission’s principal investigator, Christopher Russell from the University of California, Los Angeles, said in the statement.
NASA said that after the orbital capture, Dawn sent an initial close-up image taken for navigation purposes. Before the Dawn mission, images of Vesta were obtained by ground- and space-based telescopes but did not show much surface detail.
Vesta, 330 miles in diameter, is the second-most massive object in the asteroid belt and is believed to be the source of many meteorites that fall to Earth.
Dawn will continue to approach Vesta over the next three weeks, search for possible moons and make more navigation images. It begins gathering science data in August. Vesta’s gravitational pull on Dawn will be measured to more accurately determine the asteroid’s mass.
The spacecraft will eventually get as close as 110 miles from the surface.
Dawn was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in 2007 and used an ion propulsion system to reach Vesta. Ion engines provide gentle yet constant acceleration to achieve high speeds.
The spacecraft will study Vesta for a year and then continue on to the most massive object in the main asteroid belt, the “dwarf planet” Ceres. That encounter is scheduled to occur in February 2015.
JPL is managing the $466 million mission for NASA. UCLA is responsible for the mission’s science. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute also have roles in the mission.

Earlier today, some Somali pirates got a little too greedy and attacked the Spanish warship serving as the flagship for the European Union’s fleet of ships carrying out a counter-piracy mission off of Somalia.

Somali pirates

Needless to say, it wasn’t a fair fight.

At first light Thursday, the Spanish warship ESPS Patino had just completed escorting a ship carrying food aid into the Somali capital of Mogadishu. In addition to a counter-piracy effort, the EU’s main mission is to escort freighters carrying food from the World Food Programme.

That’s when a skiff carrying six pirates sped towards the warship and the pirates began to fire their light-caliber weapons at the ship in an attemp to board it.

The Patino’s crew immediately began to fire back in self-defense and launched the ship’s helicopter.

The pirates realized they were outgunned and broke away from the attack, but eventually surrendered to the helicopter. But only after first throwing their weapons, ladder and fuel barrels overboard.

Somali pirates often dump their weapons into the ocean in an attempt to avoid detention.

Five of the pirates were injured and two required medical treatment on board the Patino. The crew of the Spanish warship is also looking into the pirates’ claim that another pirate was lost overboard during the attack.

Somali Pirates

Taking on a warship might sound like a unique event but, amazingly, this isn’t the first time that Somali pirates have taken on a warship.

In October 2009, a group of pirates attempted to take on the French warship BCR Somme about 250 miles off the coast of Somalia.

They met a similar fate to the pirates involved in today’s incident and were detained after their unsuccessful attack.

I never used to watch this sport on the telly, now all I can do is watch Chinese women play volleyball!

Michelle Obama

I refer, of course, to the nationwide epidemic of child obesity, which affects vast numbers of children, particularly in African-American and Latino communities, where the number now stands at a stark 40 percent. Afflicting the most vulnerable, child obesity disproportionately affects the economically disadvantaged. What’s more, it sets the stage for a future health care crisis of epidemic proportions.

Under the Affordable Health Care Act of 2010, the government will spend as much as $16 million toward the first lady’s “Let’s Move!” initiative, and more millions on general preventive health care measures — some of which will be relevant to obesity. But money alone is not enough. We need to engage health professionals, parents and community members to make fighting obesity a priority. In this context, there is a role for community-based managed care, which is uniquely positioned to interact with patients, health care providers, and community organizations on a daily basis.

Hudson Health Plan, a not-for-profit managed care organization based in Tarrytown, recently concluded a two-year project to increase community awareness of childhood obesity called “It’s A Family Affair.” The project’s name reflects the reality that children’s weight management is an ongoing process that requires the participation of the entire family — indeed the entire community. Our goal was to use our deep roots in the community to make it easier for health care professionals to address the problem, and to educate community members about nutrition.

Read the rest of the article here

Politico
Judge blocks parts of South Carolina immigration law
Reuters – ‎2 hours ago‎

By Harriet McLeod | CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) – South Carolina is barred from enforcing several key parts of its new law aimed at curbing illegal immigration, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, making the state the latest to see such efforts …

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/22/us-southcarolina-immigration-idUSTRE7BL1E920111222

PHOENIX – Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Wednesday made a show of his detention officers turning in badges that came with their authorization to conduct federal immigration screenings in county jails.

The show will make its Spanish-language U.S. debut Jan. 28 on Univision, with 12 one-hour weekly episodes airing every Saturday at 7 p.m. ET/PT. Jennifer, Marc and Jamie have been traveling throughout the Americas since October to discover singers, musicians, dancers and other artists.

Emma Sullivan, the tweeting high school senior

“Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot,” she wrote to her 60 followers who tuned in to her sporadic updates about the Twilight films and Justin Bieber. In fact, Sullivan hadn’t said a word to the governor during his brief speech, and she now says the Twitter comment was just an “inside joke” among her high schol friends who were also on the Youth in Government field trip and disagreed with Brownback’s politics.

But the humor was lost on members of Brownback’s staff, who found the tweet while scouring social media sites for his name and alerted Sullivan’s high school principal. The principal reprimanded Sullivan and demanded she write an apology to the governor.

Sullivan says he better not hold his breath. After originally acquiescing to her principal’s request, the 18-year-old took her story to Kansas papers and news stations–and now to national outlets–and has changed her mind.

“He was very angry, right off the bat,” Sullivan said of her principal, Karl Krawitz. “He was extremely scared about it. He made it very clear that he wasn’t happy.”

Sullivan agreed to write the apology letter “to get it out of the way,” she says. “I didn’t want to deal with it because I’m in the process of applying to school and am trying to keep my reputation good.”

But she soon thought the better of it, after calling her older sister, Olivia, who is a political science major at Wichita State University and is now managing her flood of interview requests. “I wasn’t sorry for what I said because I meant it,” Sullivan says. She disagrees with Brownback, a Republican, on rights for gay couples and abortion rights, among other things.

And while Sullivan’s tweet is still rude, Brownback’s staff response makes him look thin-skinned and unable to take a joke. “I can’t believe they would prioritize that over other issues they have going on now,” Sullivan says. “I can’t believe they take time out of their day to look at social media and Twitter for his name.”

Hundreds of people have left negative comments on Brownback’s Facebook Thanksgiving message. “The imperial Gov needs to go to the school, apologize to the assembled students and then apologize in person to the young lady,” one person wrote.

In a comment to the Kansas City Star last week, Brownback’s communications director stood behind the decision to notify Sullivan’s principal. “That wasn’t respectful,” Sherriene Jones-Sontag told the paper. “In order to really have a constructive dialogue, there has to be mutual respect.”

But Brownback submitted a statement Monday afternoon to Yahoo! News

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback

apologizing to the teen. “My staff over-reacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize. Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms,” he said. Jones-Sontag told Yahoo! that the governor has no plans to personally reach out to Sullivan.

Sullivan, who now has more than 9,000 Twitter followers and has begun quoting Gandhi, says she hopes the principal will accept her decision not write an apology letter. She says the incident has been a “reality check” to her and her friends that their comments on social media sites are not anonymous nor consequence-free.

“It would be nice to kind of talk to the governor and let him know where I’m at and say things, let my opinion be heard and tell him that he needs to listen to more people in Kansas,” Sullivan says. “There needs to be an open door for more people to speak their opinion and be heard by him.”

Update: Gov. Brownback’s statement apologizing to Sullivan has been added to this story. His full statement is below:

“My staff over-reacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize. Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms. I enjoyed speaking to the more than 100 students who participated in the Youth in Government Program at the Kansas Capitol. They are our future. I also want to thank the thousands of Kansas educators who remind us daily of our liberties, as well as the values of civility and decorum. Again, I apologize for our over-reaction”

Isn´t it amazing how fast people try to resind the right of free speech when what you´re saying is uncomfortable or contrary to their beliefs or opinions. She was right to not apologize for her opinion.

As one of the first professional symphony orchestras ever Copenhagen Phil (Sjællands Symfoniorkester) did a flash mob at Copenhagen Central Station on May 2nd 2011 playing Ravel’s Bolero. Conductor is Jesper Nordin.

Members of the world-famous Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra gathered at the largest train station in Denmark to surprise travelers with a flash rendition of Ravel’s Bolero.

It begins with a lone snare drummer and a flutist. A violinist and cellist join in, followed by a bassoon and an oboe and, before you know it, the train station is filled with a full symphony orchestra playing an amazing free concert. How amazing would it be to have been there? Wow.