Visitor Locations
- 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
Read More
Category Archives: Marines
F-35B
So it appears that the STOVL variant of the F-35 program is a sticking point. As a result there may be a move to drop the B to focus on the A/C variants. While this would be a logical decision … Continue reading
Posted in Aviation, Marines
Leave a comment
Your Corps
On Veteran’s day, 2010 Marine LtGen John Kelly presented a speech, in St Louis at an event in celebration of the day. Nine years ago two of the four commercial aircraft took off from Boston, Newark, and Washington. Took off … Continue reading
Posted in Marines
Leave a comment
What’s to fix?
I had a gunny who drilled it into my head very early in my Marine Corps career, that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. This whole issue of repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is exactly one of those situations. … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Marines
Leave a comment
The Hard Core Corps
If I have posted this before, my apologies. If not, enjoy.
Posted in Marines
Leave a comment
Birthday Wishes
Wow, it seems like there are a lot of people that are out to help us celebrate our Birthday today. And they actually have relatively nice things to say about us. Check out these posts for fun: The Sniper The … Continue reading
Posted in Marines
Leave a comment
A Couple of Thoughts
We’re headed into three events this week: 10 Nov – Marine Corps Birthday. 235 years old and still kicking… 11 Nov – Veteran’s Day 11 Nov – Close of the ValourIT Fundraiser. Now, many of the Marine Corps Birthday Balls … Continue reading
Posted in Marines, Soldier's Angels, USMC
1 Comment
What Are Our Marines Doing?
Well, as usual a bit of everything. Seriously though with a force of 202,000 Marines on active duty what are they all doing? Let’s go through some of the obvious: Afghanistan (and other) Delployments: Marines are active throughout Afghanistan. You … Continue reading
Posted in Marines, Soldier's Angels
Leave a comment
Remember
27 years ago. Beirut . It was the bloodiest day in the Corps’ history since World War II, when Marines fought to secure Iwo Jima. On October 23 1983, around 6:20 am, a yellow Mercedes-Benz truck drove to Beirut International … Continue reading
Posted in Evil walks the earth, Heroes, History, Marines, Terrorism
Leave a comment
Role Models
A couple of brief role model thoughts for you. The below “motivator” is from an incident in Afghanistan, during the landing of a “dustoff” bird. In similar story we find this: A message from Chaplain Johnson (LtCol, USAF), assigned at … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Marines
Leave a comment