Images captured of 4 planets outside solar system

Seth Borenstein , The Associated Press , Washington | Mon, 11/17/2008 9:48 AM | Sci-Tech

Earth seems to have its first fuzzy photos of alien planets outside our solar system, images captured by two teams of astronomers. The pictures show four likely planets that appear as specks of white, nearly indecipherable except to the most eagle-eyed experts. All are trillions of miles away - three of them orbiting the same star, and the fourth circling a different star.

None of the four giant gaseous planets are remotely habitable or remotely like Earth. But they raise the possibility of others more hospitable.

It's only a matter of time before "we get a dot that's blue and Earthlike," said astronomer Bruce Macintosh of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. He led one of the two teams of photographers.

"It is a step on that road to understand if there are other planets like Earth and potentially life out there," he said.

Macintosh's team used two ground-based telescopes, while the second team relied on photos from the 18-year-old Hubble Space Telescope to gather images of the exoplanets - planets that don't circle our sun. The research from both teams was published in Thursday's online edition of the journal Science.

This image provided by NASA Nov. 12, 2008 shows the northern polar region of Saturn showing both the aurora and underlying atmosphere, seen at two different wavelengths of infrared light as captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. According to NASA scientists Saturn has its own unique brand of aurora that lights up the polar cap, unlike any other planetary aurora known in our solar system. This odd aurora revealed itself to one of the infrared instruments on NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Auroras are caused by charged particles streaming along the magnetic field lines of a planet into its atmosphere. Particles from the sun cause Earth's auroras. Many, but not all, of the auroras at Jupiter and Saturn are caused by particles trapped within the magnetic environments of those planets. (AP/NASA)

In the past 13 years, scientists have discovered more than 300 planets outside our solar system, but they have done so indirectly, by measuring changes in gravity, speed or light around stars.

NASA's space sciences chief Ed Weiler said the actual photos are important. He compared it to a hunt for elusive elephants: "For years we've been hearing the elephants, finding the tracks, seeing the trees knocked down by them, but we've never been able to snap a picture. Now we have a picture."

In a news conference Thursday, Weiler said this fulfills the last of the major goals that NASA had for the Hubble telescope before it launched in 1990: "This is an 18 1/2-year dream come true."

There are disputes about whether these are the first exoplanet photos. Others have made earlier claims, but those pictures haven't been confirmed as planets or universally accepted yet. The photos released Thursday are being published in a scientifically prominent journal, but that still hasn't convinced all the experts. Alan Boss, an exoplanet expert at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and Harvard exoplanet hunter Lisa Kaltenegger both said more study is needed to confirm these photos are proven planets and not just brown dwarf stars.

MIT planetary scientist Sara Seager, at the NASA press conference, said earlier planetary claims "are in a gray area." But these discoveries, "everybody would agree is a planet," said Seager, who was not part of either planet-finding team.

The Hubble team this spring compared a 2006 photo to one of the same body taken by Hubble in 2004. The scientists used that to show that the object orbited a star and was part of a massive red dust ring which is usually associated with planets - making it less likely to be a dwarf star.

Macintosh's team used ground-based telescopes to spot three other planets orbiting a different star. That makes it less likely they are a pack of brown dwarf stars.

The planet discovered by Hubble is one of the smallest exoplanets found yet. It's somewhere between the size of Neptune and three times bigger than Jupiter. And it may have a Saturn-like ring.

It circles the star Fomalhaut, pronounced FUM-al-HUT, which is Arabic for "mouth of the fish." It's in the constellation Piscis Austrinus and is relatively close by - a mere 148 trillion miles away, practically a next-door neighbor by galactic standards. The planet's temperature is around 260 degrees, but that's cool by comparison to other exoplanets.

The planet is only about 200 million years old, a baby compared to the more than 4 billion-year-old planets in our solar system. That's important to astronomers because they can study what Earth and planets in our solar system may have been like in their infancy, said Paul Kalas at the University of California, Berkeley. Kalas led the team using Hubble to discover Fomalhaut's planet.

One big reason the picture looks fuzzy is that the star Fomalhaut is 100 million times brighter than its planet.

The team led by Macintosh at Lawrence Livermore found its planets a little earlier, spotting the first one in 2007, but taking extra time to confirm the trio of planets circling a star in the Pegasus constellation. The star is about 767 trillion miles away, but visible with binoculars. It's called HR 8799, and the three planets orbiting it are seven to 10 times larger than Jupiter, Macintosh said.

"I've been doing this for eight years and after eight years we get three at once," he said.

Source : www.thejakartapost.com

Read more...

Prada, LG's latest fashion phone icon

Zatni Arbi, Contributor, Jakarta

Do you believe that the cell phone you are using speaks a lot about you? I don't. But I guess I don't belong to the greater majority. Undoubtedly, a lot of people believe that their cell phones are the message. That's likely to be the reason cell phone makers have worked feverishly to come out with attractive designer models.

Some phone manufacturers rely on the creativity of their internal design teams, while others collaborate with famous design houses and launch co-branded products. Nokia, Apple and Sony Ericsson knead most of their snazzy gadgets using in-house talent. Others choose to work with a partner. Take Motorola, for example. It collaborates with Dolce & Gabbana, and then the denim king Levi's also came up with their own cell phones.

It's common for two major brands to collaborate in creating fashion consumer electronics. Alcatel-Lucent teams up with the French fashion magazine Elle. In the computer world, Acer works together with Ferrari to design their high-end notebook.

In fact, design has become a crucial factor in product development. That's why we have been hearing the word ""experience design"" coming into the lingo of cell phone production. Designers do not just design the next products, they are supposed to create a unique experience that customers are expected to be willing to pay a premium for.

LG, the South Korean electronics company, is also known for its stylish mobile handsets. Still fresh in our minds are the black Chocolate and the shiny Shine. LG seems to have decided to continue going down the path of elegance. Early this year, it joined forces with Italian Prada and the outcome is the handsome, black LG KE850. It is, certainly, much more than a combination of pizza and pulkogi.

Prada Phone

Hardware-wise, the Prada phone by LG may not be a top charter, although, like most other LG phones that I've played around with, the precision craft is very obvious. It is just a little bit wider than the sliding Shine (KE970), which is another gorgeous looking cell phone from this Korean giant.

On the Prada cell phone, the first hardware buttons you will see is the three that form a thin bar along the bottom. The buttons let you start and end a call or step back to the previous menu. The other physical buttons -- the camera shutter release, the screen and key unlocker, the volume control and the profile selector -- are all perfectly flushed with the chrome-look band that wraps all the four sides.

So, how do we make a call or send a message? Here is where the software brightly shines. Prada played a major role in determining how the user interface should look, and they did a stellar job.

The capacitive, touch-sensitive LCD panel has a resolution of 240 by 400 and it can display 256 thousand color shades. The home screen fills the large LCD all the way to the edges. At the bottom of the screen there are four icons for general menu, call-making, messaging and contacts management. Tap on the general menu with the tip of your finger, and you'll have the second tier menu. LG has done an excellent job in programming the software. There is hardly any delay in the phone's response to our finger tapping.

On the home screen we can place an analog or a digital clock. This clock literally floats on the screen. We just use our fingertip to drag it around the screen. When we tap on it, an icon for alarm setting will appear. If you choose the Fish theme, you'll have a koi that will swim to the spot where your finger touches the screen. Choose the Butterfly theme, and you'll see a butterfly that will flutter its way to the contact spot.

In the second level menu, we'll have all the icons for making calls, for handling multimedia (including the 2MP camera), for accessing the accessories (calculator, converter, memo pad) and for changing some settings. There is not much we can do in terms of personalization, though. We cannot change the icon view into a list, for example, or replace the look of the icons. We only have four themes for the home screens and we cannot modify them in any way except by replacing the wallpaper. Customization is not a strong point of this cell phone.

However, entering text using the screen keypad is surprisingly easy, although you won't be able to do it as fast as you can with a Nokia E70 or a BlackBerry. Still, the user interface is excellent. Even for someone with large fingers like mine, pressing the right date on the calendar can be done without excessive effort.

The LG Prada phone is a tri-band GSM with GPRS and EDGE capabilities. It supports mobile browsing and e-mail. The digital camera, which uses a Schneider-Kreuznach lens, can also function as a camcorder with the LCD screen as a large viewfinder. There is a LED flash at the back. The cell phone only comes with 8 MB of memory. If you want more storage capacity for your photos and music, just insert a Micro SD card.

While Bluetooth 2.0 is supported, Wi-fi is not. On the up side, it is an MP3 player with good audio quality. It is even an FM radio. The good thing about it is that it has a decent battery life given its slim form factor.

The box in which the unit comes was also designed by Prada. Unfortunately, the use of cardboard does not really produce the expensive image that this product is meant to project. But, we don't lug this box around, do we? On the other hand, the leather pouch is impressive. I was told that it was made in Italy with its superior Italian leather craftsmanship. The pouch fits the cell phone like a glove. Even when you hang the cell phone on your neck with a strap, the leather pouch will never slide down and fall.

Prada has very stringent requirements on how the cell phone is marketed and sold. You will not find it in any Prada store -- definitely not in Jakarta.

The Prada phone, or the LG KE850, is a great mid-range phone if you're not too techie and you have a lot of extra cash to spend. There are just enough setting options to keep you busy or pretending to be busy while sitting at Starbucks waiting for your date to show up.

The software, I must reiterate out of admiration, is very responsive. It really makes using this cell phone a joy. The icons on the screen are pretty precise, which is no small feat either. After some practice, I had no problem navigating the menus and entering numbers and characters. Its price, at around Rp 7 million, is quite steep. But, hey, it's a Prada! And it is a head turner, for sure.

Source : www.thejakartapost.com

Read more...

Sense of crisis deepening in beleaguered Indonesia

SINGAPORE: Rising oil prices and fears of a bird flu epidemic are deepening a sense of crisis enveloping Indonesia and prompting predictions of a cabinet shake-up next month as President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono attempts to defuse mounting public tension.

The darkening mood stands in stark contrast to the optimism that surrounded Yudhoyono's victory a year ago in Indonesia's first direct presidential elections. Despite enduring faith in his own competence as an administrator, Indonesians are voicing growing doubts about whether his unwieldy coalition government can steer the country through its mounting list of troubles.

Analysts warn that the risk of unrest is growing as Yudhoyono prepares to raise fuel prices in October just as the country celebrates the traditional Muslim fasting month.

"The situation is not understood by most people here. They oppose it," said Kurtubi, an analyst at the Center for Petroleum and Energy Economics Studies in Jakarta. "But the government has no choice."

Although Indonesia is a considerable producer of oil, economic growth in recent years and inadequate spending on new wells have made the country a net importer of petroleum. The government is also saddled with extensive fuel subsidies that are particularly important to Indonesia's many poor people.

Yudhoyono is a former general with experience fighting both rebels and terrorists, and his promises to uproot corruption and revive investment still inspire confidence among business leaders at home and abroad. So does his willingness to acknowledge and tackle longstanding problems like bureaucratic inertia and legal uncertainty.

But because his party lacks a majority in Parliament, Yudhoyono rules through a coalition that has since stumbled over a string of calamities. These include the devastating South Asian tsunami, illegal burning of jungles that covered parts of neighboring countries in choking haze, the re-emergence of polio, spiraling commodity prices and increasing cases of avian influenza that the government has labeled an emergency.

With a second hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico threatening still higher oil prices, anxiety in Jakarta is high. The benchmark stock index dropped 2.6 percent Thursday.

Opposition party leaders have been calling for Yudhoyono to replace his economics team, saying it had lost the confidence of the people and of investors, although political analysts have long been predicting that the president was eager himself to form a more cohesive cabinet.

Yudhoyono alluded to the possibility of a reshuffle last month, saying that he would review his cabinet's performance.

Coordinating Economy Minister Aburizal Bakrie is a member of the party of the ousted former President Suharto. He was among a group of politically connected tycoons who after the Asian financial crisis fought government efforts to wrest control of their bankrupt companies to help pay for a huge bailout of the banking system.

He may enjoy the support, however, of fellow party member Jusuf Kalla, Yudhoyono's vice president.

More speculation surrounds the possible replacement of Finance Minister Jusuf Anwar, a technocrat formerly at the Asian Development Bank, and of Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh over what critics complain has been meager progress in tackling corruption among high-level officials.

But even SBY, as Yudhoyono is widely referred to in Indonesia, has not escaped criticism, particularly over what many see as his own indecisiveness. A national magazine recently had a cover story playing on a popular re-translation of the president's ubiquitous acronym: "Selalu Bimbang, Ya," or "Forever undecided, right?" The president's spokesman could not be reached for comment.

The anxiety created by rising living costs has been exacerbated by the government's admission that it could face an epidemic of the bird flu virus. Bird flu has killed four people in Jakarta alone, while eleven other patients remain hospitalized with symptoms of the virus.

On Monday, the government invoked powers to hospitalize and quarantine those suspected of being infected by the virus. It has since announced plans to conduct mass slaughters of poultry.

Chicken is perhaps the most widely consumed meat in Indonesia's diet, and the country has vast numbers of free-range poultry, so the impact on public consumption is likely to be significant, analysts said.

Already, fears of the virus have sparked travel warnings and sent members of the foreign investment community in Indonesia rushing to clinics for vaccines and remedies.

Yet paramount among the fears facing Yudhoyono is the effect of rising oil prices on his country's 218 million people. Early this month, Yudhoyono announced plans to cut fuel subsidies in October.

Indonesia subsidizes the price of fuel in the amount of 73 trillion rupiah, or $7 billion, a year, a figure that it estimates will balloon to 140 trillion rupiah this year as world oil prices rise.

The swelling cost to the government of the subsidies sent the rupiah plunging in August to its lowest level in four years and precipitated a similar decline in stock prices.

The subsidies are a legacy of Indonesia's days as a big oil exporter. Few analysts or economists dispute that the subsidies need to be eliminated. Not only do the subsidies eat up government revenue that could be used for public works or alleviating poverty; they also offer relatively little benefit for the poor.

Subsidies on gasoline prices benefit primarily wealthier Indonesians who drive fuel-inefficient cars. And the artificially low prices the subsidies create has given rise to a brisk trade in smuggling Indonesian crude and refined product out of the country.

Source : www.iht.com

Read more...

Orang-utans under threat as palm oil plantations spread

David Adam, environment correspondent

Demand for a common vegetable oil found in one in 10 products on UK supermarket shelves is driving orang-utan populations towards extinction, environmental campaigners warn today.

Groups working to save the remaining orang-utans in south-east Asia predict the uncontrolled trade in palm oil could cause the extinction of the continent's only great ape in little over a decade. They want to raise awareness of the threat among shoppers and are calling on the big supermarkets and the government to act.

Ian Redmond, the chairman of the conservation group Ape Alliance, said: "To the average shopper in Britain, the problem seems a world away. However, anyone who buys chocolate, crisps, bread, cakes, detergents, toothpaste, shampoo, lipstick or a host of other products may be an unwitting partner in causing the extinction of the orang-utan."

Orang-utan numbers in the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia - the only place they are found in the world - have crashed in the last 15 years and are now below 60,000. Experts say an estimated 5,000 die each year as the remaining forest is chopped down to establish profitable palm oil plantations.

Palm oil is a major ingredient in many processed foods, although it is often labelled as vegetable oil. Imports doubled between 1995 and 2004 to 914,000 tonnes, making Britain the second biggest European importer after the Netherlands.

Sir David Attenborough, who visited Borneo earlier this year, said: "I was in areas where five years ago there was a wonderful rainforest and there's now a palm oil plantation. It's being chopped down all the time."

Ed Matthew, a campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said most palm oil entering the UK came from destructive plantations. This year the group asked 96 UK companies about their palm oil suppliers. Of 18 that responded, the majority did not know where their palm oil came from.

Mr Matthew said: "We've focused on the supermarkets because of the power they hold in the food market. We know from past experience that when a supermarket says they want a prawn that is one-and-a-half inches long with 80% water content and a curve of 30 degrees, it will be supplied. If the major retailers said they wanted palm oil from sustainable sources they would get it."

A spokesperson for Tesco said: "We are engaging on the issue of palm oil. We have arranged a meeting with other retailers through the British Retail Consortium to consider the evidence."

Source : www.guardian.co.uk

Read more...

SBY’s Democratic Party can win poll: Survey

Abdul Khalik , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Mon, 11/17/2008 6:53 AM | Headlines

OF SWING VOTERS: University of Indonesia communications expert Effendi Ghazali (second right) speaks during the release of a survey by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) on the position of swing voters ahead of the 2009 elections, in Jakarta on Sunday. Other speakers included Paramadina University rector Anies Baswedan (right), LSI executive director Saiful Mujani (left) and LSI researcher Miftah N. Sabri. (JP/P.J. Leo)

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party would win the legislative election if it was held today, a survey published Sunday said.

The survey, carried out by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) on 2,197 respondents in 33 provinces between Oct. 26 and Nov. 5, showed the Democratic Party was popular with 16.8 percent of respondents. The vastly bigger Golkar Party and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) received only 16 percent and 14 percent approval respectively.

LSI executive director Saiful Mudjani said the surge in the Democratic Party’s popularity was due mostly to the party’s image as a graft-free and capable one, with Yudho-yono symbolizing its anti-corruption drive and leadership capabilities.

The survey revealed that Yudhoyono’s resurgent popularity (62 percent in Nov-ember, compared with 45 percent in June) also played a crucial role in drawing people to the party.

Compared with the LSI’s survey last June, the Democratic Party has risen in popularity by 8 percent, while Golkar and the PDI-P have dropped by 4 percent and 10 percent respectively.

Saiful said the high number of swing voters — 45 percent — had caused the drop in votes for major parties, with the exception of the Demo-cratic Party.

“All parties are experiencing negative growth in supporter numbers, with more members leaving than joining. But with the Democratic Party, more members are joining than leaving,” he said.

The survey suggests the high number of swing voters stems from low voter loyalty to the parties because of the latter’s perceived poor performance in conducting their job.

The Democratic Party has improved its showing over its 2004 figures by 10 percent, with Golkar and the PDI-P falling by 6 percent and 4.5 percent respectively.

All other parties, including the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the United Development Party (PPP), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the National Mandate Party (PAN) also saw a significant loss of popularity.

The survey ranked the PKS in fourth place with 4.9 percent, followed by the PKB with 4.6 percent, newcomer the Greater Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) with 3.7 percent, and the PAN with 3.2 percent.

However, the large number of swing voters has also allowed for new parties to attract voters, with Prabowo Subianto’s Gerindra and Wiranto’s People’s Conscience Party (Hanura) gaining at the expense of more established parties.

The survey gave Hanura 2 percent of votes.

“All possibilities are now open because of the swing-voter factor,” the LSI’s Saiful said.

“Golkar and the PDI-P can no longer be seen as the only parties able to win the election, because now we must take into account the Democratic Party.”

Source : www.thejakartapost.com

Read more...