Ministry Blog

The Universe is home to a lot of stars. That is, by the way, one of those enormous understatements. Research over the past decade has shown that, perhaps at least (!) 50 percent of those stars harbor planets. Estimates say that there are 1 trillion* planets in the Milky Way, our local galaxy, alone… What says the probability about that Earth would be the only populated planet in the galaxy? Or the Universe? Think about it…

*) A trillion means 12 zeros: 1.000.000.000.000 or in other words, one million millions… (That is one gigantic heap of planets. A million millions…). And still, bear in mind that researchers have found even more galaxies so far, looking out in the wast space of the Universe, than they have found stars in our own galaxy.

(Earth Day flag, by John McConnell: The Blue Marble on a blue field.)
Did you know it is Earth Day today? You probably hear more about Earth Day… (or sadly, more about what color the latest Hollywood-star had on her bikini she was wearing to her beach-party this week-end and what she was doing).

However, Earth Day is an annual day on which events are held worldwide to increase awareness and appreciation of the Earth’s natural environment. Earth Day is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network, and is celebrated in more than 175 countries every year. In 2009, the United Nations designated April 22 International Mother Earth Day. Earth Day is planned for April 22 in all years at least through 2015.

The name and concept of Earth Day was allegedly pioneered by John McConnell in 1969 (!) at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco. He proposed March 21, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. This day of nature’s equipoise was later sanctioned in a Proclamation signed by Secretary General U Thant at the United Nations. About the same time a separate Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970. While this April 22 Earth Day was focused on the United States, an organization launched by Denis Hayes, who was the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations. Numerous communities celebrate Earth Week, an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues.

The 1970 Earth Day, April 22

The genesis of Earth Day is credited to Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, he called for an environmental teach-in, or Earth Day, to be held on April 22, 1970. Over 20 million people participated that year, and this Earth Day is now observed on April 22 each year by more than 500 million people and several national governments in 175 countries. Numerous communities celebrate Earth Week, an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues.

Nelson, an environmental and conservationist activist, took a leading role in organizing the celebration, hoping to demonstrate popular political support for an environmental agenda. He modeled it on the highly effective Vietnam War teach-ins of the time. Earth Day was first proposed in a prospectus to JFK written by Fred Dutton. However, Nelson decided against much of Dutton’s top-down approach, favoring a decentralized, grassroots effort in which each community shaped its action around local concerns.

Nelson had conceived the idea for his environmental teach-in following a trip he took to Santa Barbara right after the horrific oil spill off the coast in 1969. Outraged by the devastation and Washington political inertia, Nelson proposed a national teach-in on the environment to be observed by every university campus in the U.S.

How about your neighborhood? I haven’t heard much about this on Swedish TV the last week. Maybe they tell us tonight, what day it was today… Perhaps it doesn’t regard Sweden? Comparing the English and Swedish pages on Wikipedia on the matter might lead to that notion. The Swedish wiki-page on the subject “Eart Day” (Jordens Dag) is about 4 lines long. The English wiki-page consists of at least 4 sides of text…

Eart Day official site >>>

Eventually it has dawned on the Ministry that we supposedly are facing (yet) a winter in Negative North-Atlantic Oscillation… How’s that for a treat? What does this mean to you? Look right here and find out… Check out their introduction to find out more about what’s bothering you, or not bothering you, this winter.

I år är det Internationella rymdåret och i förrgår svepte en stor nyupptäckt asteroid förbi jorden. Den upptäcktes för mindre än en vecka sedan och kom väldigt nära jorden, med rymdmått mätt. Asteroiden, kallad 2009 DD45, rusade förbi 7.480 mil från jorden, vilket är ungefär dubbelt så högt som de geostationära satelliterna och betydligt närmare än månen. Avståndet är mindre än en femtedel av avståndet till månen. Forskarna tror att asteroiden var mellan 20 och 50 meter bred, alltså i storlek med den förmodade Tunguska-asteroiden som är den största kända kollisionen mellan jorden och en annan himlakropp under de senaste 100.000 åren.

När en så stor asteroid slår ner orsakar det en enorm förödelse. År 1908 slog något ner i Tunguska i Sibirien, och även om det ännu inte har kunnat fastställas vilken typ av himlakropp det var, så lutar man i forskarkretsar åt att det var en c:a 30 m bred asteroid. Vad det än var så utraderades ett skogsområde på drygt 2.000 kvadratkilometer (vilket är betydligt större än hela stor-London - med alla dess 32 stadsdelar).

Nedslagsplatsen i Tunguska undersöktes första gången 1927 av Leonid A Kuliks expedition. Nedslaget beräknas ha motsvarat 40 megaton trotyl, vilket kan jämföras med atombomben i Hiroshima som motsvarade 0,0125 megatons sprängverkan… (en fis i rymden alltså).  Asteroidnedslaget i Arizona för c:a 50.000 år sedan har uppskattats till ca 3,5 megaton. Tunguska-nedslaget var enkelt uttryckt en attans stor smäll… Inget man önskar sig över tättbebyggda områden med andra ord… Hade Tunguska-nedslaget slagit ned några timmar senare hade det mesta av norra Europa förmodligen upphört existera då den slagit ner i höjd med Helsingfors och Oslo. Ett nedslag i Östersjön kunde fått katastrofala verkningar… Förmodligen hade all civilisation i Skandinavien upphört att existera som vi känner den och frågan är om norra Tyskland, Polen och andra Östersjöstater hade klarat sig. Vi får vara glada att asteroiden missade oss i förrgår…

Även om DD45 är det närmaste som väntas i mars så är den dock inte ensam, under mars månad finns det över 10 olika asteroider i jordens närhet. Man räknar med att det finns 1035 potentiella farliga himlakroppar nära jorden och det upptäcks hela tiden nya.

Den 50.000 år gamla kratern i Arizona, 1,2 km i diameter, 200 m djup - c:a 3,5 megatons sprängverkan mot de 40 megaton i Tunguska. Dock finns ingen krater i Tunguska…

Duck and cover - won’t help. The worlds biggest experiment has now kicked in and we’ll see if we are here to talk about it tomorrow. The worlds biggest particel accelerator was fired up at 9.30 local time in Geneva, Switzerland. The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) stand behind the experiment that has been called “the Doomsday experiment”. Fully operational it will give the beams of particles the same energy as a car driving in 1.600 km/h… (this is a LOT of energy).

Some fear that they might open up a black hole - and that is of course bad news for us all… But the scientists say it won’t be a problem. The black holes created are so small and will vanish in no time at all “almost before they are created”. Sounds like a time-machine…

Without sounding like a Dooms-day prophet, I’d just like to point out that the scintists that flicked the switch to the first atom bomb, did so without knowing the true effects. They didn’t know for sure that the chain-reaction wouldn’t create a chain-reaction that would blow up the hole planet, maybe the galaxy. Still they pushed the button. (OK, here goes. Let’s see what happens now - flick, click, KAAAAAA-BOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM).

A 27 kilometers long ring, 90 meters under ground. Today it will only test-drive. But very soon paricles are made to collide and a black hole might be the result.

The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Ministry of Art & Jump, might think that Earth is shrinking! In Bonn, Germany, researchers revealed last summer that the planet is smaller than we thought. The last measurement was five years ago, and when the two measurements was compared – the difference is half a centimeter.

German scientists from the University of Bonn took part in an international project to measure the diameter of the world and came up with the 5 mm decrease. The scientists rounded the diameter of the Earth up to 12,756.274 kilometers (7,926.3812 miles) for the general public.

Though it may appear a trifling difference, Axel Nothnagel, who led the researchers, said the difference is crucial in the study of climate change. “It may seem a very small difference, but it is essential for the positioning of the satellites that can measure rises in sea level,” he said. “They must be accurate to the millimeter. If the ground stations tracking the satellites are not accurate to the millimeter, then the satellites cannot be accurate either.”

The system of measurement used by the Bonn geodesists (geoscientists who study the size of the Earth) in the two-year project consisted of radio waves that were transmitted into space. “A network of more than 70 radio telescopes worldwide receives these waves. Because the gauging stations are so far apart from each other, the radio signals are received with a slight time lag,” Nothnagel said. “From this difference we can measure the distance between the radio telescopes to the preciseness of two millimeters per 1,000 km.” The procedure is called Very Long Baseline Interferometry or VLBI. The technique can be used, for example, to demonstrate that Europe and North America are moving apart at a rate of about 18 mm a year. The findings were reported in the Journal of Geodesy.

The other night swedish television broadcasted the film “Who Killed the Electric Car?” And everyone that (like the Minister) was upset about the nasty story about the GM EV1 can smile again. Luckily there are other companies than GM that builds and manufacture electrical cars. In fact building electric cars that will give most regular cars (diesel or gasoline) a hell of a match and at the same time change the whole concept of human travel.

The Tesla Motors are working on a whole range of electric cars that will make you travel without pollutions in the future. Right now they are promoting their top-of-the-line model but they are also planning on making more and less expensive models in a near future. Read all about it at their own website.

The Ministry proving ground was struck by disaster the other day. Due to an abnorm raining this summer the pond at the proving ground is flooded over it’s general limits. The pond is being used for several testing and training. It’s the perfect spot for HopArt-training for example.

Never before has the water level been so high, which has resulted in a disaster for the floating island located at the Ministry pond. One morning it was discovered floating upside down after an obvious capsize. The high level must have changed the location of the support in some way so the island keeled over. Further investigations has to be made before we can comment on the cause.

The high water level has also been combined with an unusual heat. Last night the Ministry experienced a very warm night with the lowest temperature of 19 degrees Celsius (66.2 Fahrenheit). Can this mean that that thing everybody is talking about (Global Warming) is really true and that it hit the Ministry?

The capsized floating island at the Ministry proving ground. All that’s visible is a little glimpse in the middle of the pond of the turned over island and it’s pontoons.

We have talked about GW before here (Global Warming) and all of a sudden we stumbled on this magnificent idea that a distinguished member in the Ladoninan Cabinet came up with. If this works it’s outstanding news! We recommend that the inventor get a patent on this - yesterday… The Whitehouse will eat this up! We should set this up on a greater scale. Everyone should try to follow the instructions. The Ministry thinks that connecting the operating refrigerators to wind and solar powered batteries might add to the idea. That way we’ll let mother nature take care of it herself. (The Bush Administration likes that rhetoric).

So, what’s all this we hear about a Global Warming, and the “not-a-global-warming”? There seems to be a vast amount of weird opinions on the matter. Sometimes one hear data about warmer climate here in Sweden for about 5000 years ago. If it was warmer then, could this talk about global warming be just rubbish? Just a natural fluctuation? Seems weird. On the other hand news has it that US President G.W. Bush and his Administration (sorry for cursing) has intimidated scientist for years now and even changing reports about global warming… The Ministry will dive right into this matter - so stay tuned. By the way, is it just a freak chance that Mr Bush has the initials “G.W.” (Global Warming)?

G.W. Bush