EUROPEANECO.POL.OLDESTCULTURE: 2016

Saturday, February 13, 2016

U S HAS WORLD'S MOST POWER

Politics 247wallst.com 13 hours ago

Research firm Global Fire Power recently ranked military strength by nation. The United States finished first, followed by Russia, China, India, the United Kingdom, France, South Korean, Germany, Japan and Turkey. A total of 126 nations were ranked as part of its Power Index. 24/7 Wall St. has done two related studies. The first is on the most military spending by nation and is titled Companies Spending the Most on War. The primary findings, based on expenditures by nation in 2014: 1. United States Military expenditure: $609.9 billion Pct. change military expenditure, 2005-2014: -0.4% Expenditure as pct. of GDP: 3.5% Military expenditure per capita: $1,891 While U.S.’ military expenditure ...

Sunday, January 31, 2016

The Earth and Moon Both Contain Equal Parts of an Ancient Planet

The early solar system was, for lack of a better term, a chaotic hellscape. Everything we see today, from Mercury on out to the inner Oort Cloud, was a product of a series of collisions that accumulated into moons, asteroids, and planets. And perhaps one of the most violent blows came when a planet roughly the size of Mars smashed into a fledging planet called Earth. At the end of the cataclysmic event, two bodies were left standing: Earth itself, and a fragmentary, molten piece of the two planets that coalesced into the Moon.

But there's been a debate in the planetary science community: Did that early small planet, Theia, side-swipe the Earth, or did it run into it full-on? For a while, all signs seemed to point to Theia landing a glancing shot at Earth, resulting in the orbits and speeds we see today.

But recent analysis of material taken from the Apollo 12, 15, and 17 missions tells a different tale: that of a violent head-on collision, one that left the Earth forever scarred with the fragments of Theia, and that left the Moon with the same ratios of material. The results of this study were published today in Science.

"The collision was so vigorous, so powerful, so rich in energy that it probably mixed the whole system very thoroughly," said Edward Donald Young, lead author of the paper and a professor of Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences at UCLA.

The proof is in the oxygen isotopes: that is, the Moon share the same oxygen isotopes in the same ratios as Earth, and preliminary results of tungsten isotopes shows about the same thing. In other words, the Earth and the Moon are made of the same materials. In the "glancing blow" model, the Moon would primarily have contained material from Theia with some admixture from Earth.

But analysis of salt-heavy lunar rocks and soil show it to be virtually identical to the floor of the ocean. As you can see from the map below, the Apollo rocks all came from vastly disparate parts of the Moon, but the ratios in each region remain the same.

The only outlier is a sample taken from the Northern Highlands of the moon, but Young says that owes to being an entirely different rock type. The rock, Young says, is likely to have more in common with the Bushveld Igneous Complex, a deposit of subsurface materials jutting through the crust in South Africa. The geochemical processing in each of those regions is likely to have remained the same, Young says.

"I think this will motivate impact modeling in [the head on collision] direction, so people will be forced to abandon the glancing blow model," Young says. "People will keep looking with better and better analytic precision."

To Young, this is a closing of the book on the glancing blow hypothesis. Now it's time to figure out how Theia and the Earth went from a head-on collission and became the Earth-Moon system we see today. There's a lot to account for, like how the Earth and Moon established their present rotations and orbits. But one of the bigger parts of the mystery is, to Young and his colleagues, solved.

"My view is that the issue of Theia content is more or less settled," Young says. "Now it's in the hands of the modelers."

Politics U.S. Warship Enters Waters Claimed by China Without Approval

The Pentagon confirmed it sent a ship into waters claimed by China, calling it a “freedom of navigation” operation meant to challenge attempts by that country and others to restrict navigation in the area.

The USS Curtis Wilbur got to within 12 nautical miles (22 km) of Triton Island in the South China Sea, Defense Department spokesman Mark Wright said by e-mail Saturday.

The island, administered by China, is part of the Paracel islands chain in the South China Sea also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou ignored a rebuke from the U.S. and visited an island in the contested area earlier this week, reiterating claims to the disputed waterway.

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The operation by the U.S. was intended to affirm sea rights and wasn’t meant to take position on competing land sovereignty claims, Wright said.

“The United States will fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows,” Wright said. “That is true in the South China Sea, as in other places around the globe.”

The move on the part of the U.S. is “a deliberate provocation,” Yang Yujun, China’s Ministry of National Defense spokesman, said in a statement, according to the official Xinhua News Agency on Saturday.

Consequences Questioned

Yang said the move was unprofessional and irresponsible, and may cause extremely dangerous consequences, Xinhua reported.

While the U.S. has challenged China’s expansive maritime claims as part of President Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” strategy, the Pentagon emphasized Saturday it was also signaling opposition to actions by other countries vying with China.

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The operation “challenged attempts by the three claimants, China, Taiwan and Vietnam, to restrict navigation rights and freedoms around the features they claim by policies that require prior permission or notification of transit within territorial seas,” Wright said in the e-mail.

Vietnam respects harmless travel complying with international rules, Foreign Minister spokesman Le Hai Binh said in comments on the government website Sunday.

The U.S. has also said that all sides in various territorial disputes should avoid aggressive actions and claims.

As is customary in such operations, no other countries were notified in advance, Wright said. The movements were watched by China and not approved by the nation, Chinese foreign affairs ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement, urging the U.S. to respect and abide by Chinese laws.

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The passage of the USS Curtis Wilbur near Triton Island was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.

(Adds Vietnam’s response in 10th paragraph.)