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- Portrait of a Doomed Asteroid
A new study provides a possible explanation of mysterious X-ray flares detected by the Chandra K-ray Observatory for several years in the region of Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A*. The study suggests a cloud around Sgr A*, a supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, which contains hundreds of trillions of asteroids and comets that have been stripped from their parent stars. The flares occur when asteroids of six miles or larger in radius are consumed by the black hole. An asteroid that undergoes a close encounter with another object, such as a star or planet, can be thrown into an orbit headed towards Sgr A*. If the asteroid passes within about 100 million miles of the black hole, roughly the distance between the Earth and the sun, it is torn into pieces by the tidal forces from the black hole. These fragments would then be vaporized by friction as they pass through the hot, thin gas flowing onto Sgr A*, similar to a meteor heating up and glowing as it falls through Earth's atmosphere. A flare is produced and eventually the remains of the asteroid are swallowed by the black hole. Image Credit: Illustrations: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss
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Category Archives: Politics
A Way With Words
I wish that I had 1/10th the gift that this man has in both charisma, and in making his point very eloquently. The clip is of Allen West, a congressman from Florida. A former Army Lieutenant Colonel. He is known … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
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CAS
CAS or Close Air Support is a staple of the Marine Corps combined arms approach to battle. For the grunt on the ground that is in contact the roar of a big radial engine, or a Cobra, or an A-10 … Continue reading
Kit Development
An interesting piece up at Army.mil about the Ironman prototype, and it’s development. It is a good story, and really is a bright spot in the equipment development story. Go here to read it all. The quick summary is that … Continue reading
Posted in GWOT, Military, Politics
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Media Woes
There are always things that are popping up on my radar that send little bells spinning away in my brain. Today I want to point out two examples of things that have popped multiple times in the past couple of … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Events, Politics
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Spending, Taxation or Both
First a quick tip of the tam o’ shanter to Joe for pointing out this article. An interesting opinion piece by Mike Jensen pointing out some of the problems with our tax system, and a potential solution. There is a … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Politics, Venting
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Nailed It
Tam hits a home run on this one. Well, we have high gas prices, gold is up, the economy’s stagnant, and now the president’s relatives are getting likkered up in public. The second paragraph is the kicker though… go read … Continue reading
Posted in Presidential Politics
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Execution
Over at The Sniper he has the following post up: Just take your sweet A$$ time « The Sniper. Now you need to go read the whole article. It reminds us that words are words, and you need to go … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Marines, Presidential Politics
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Economic Observations and Course of Action
Original content time, it’s been awhile. I am not one for doom and gloom, generally. A couple of decades ago, maybe longer, we got to the point where the global economy took precedence over regional economies. If something happened in … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Politics
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Watch What You Say
If you parse through enough public speeches you can extract all kinds of contradictory tidbits. However, I found this on amusing so I will share. Sean Linnane: OBAMA’S OWN WORDS TRAP HIM.
Posted in Humor, Presidential Politics
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Another Rant
The man who has rapidly taken his place in my top 5 author list has done it again. He went off on a tangent and has created a wonderful rant for us all to howl over. You may find it … Continue reading
Posted in observations, Politics
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