A powerful 70 gigawatt laser propulsion system that could accelerate an 100 kilogram object over 122 seconds to 2% of light speed (6000 kilometers per second) would also be able to fire kinetic projectiles at nuclear weapon power. The goal of the Breakthrough Starshot program (which has $100 million in funding) is to send wafer …
Venezuela has defaulted on two of its US dollar-denominated sovereign bond issues. S&P says that it expects Venezuela to default on other bond payments. This comes as absolutely no surprise. A further $420m of bond payments are already overdue: unless Venezuela finds some dollars in a hurry, these will also go into default very soon. …
More than 10,000 firefighters are now battling 16 large wildfires that have burned more than 330 square miles (214,000 acres) of California neighborhoods, forests and businesses since Sunday, with 100,000 people evacuated from the fires so far. Predawn winds in Santa Rosa helped the Nuns Fire jump firelines and push into two directions, forcing thousands …
Here is a link to the Calfire incident reports on the various California fires. Overnight fire conditions were very active on several fronts forcing additional evacuations across Northern California. Firefighters are battling 22 large wildfires that have burned nearly 170,000 acres. Firefighters are bracing for the winds to shift this evening and increase in speed. …
California-based property analytics firm CoreLogic chimed in with a rough assessment of how bad the fire damage could get in the Northern California area. Working in Oakland, I can personally say that visibility is down to about 20 blocks. You can work in downtown Oakland not see the Bay Bridge and have trouble seeing the …
Yellowstone National Park is famous in the volcanology community for being the site of three explosive supereruptions, the last of which was 631,000 years ago. During that eruption, approximately 1000 cubic kilometers of rock, dust, and volcanic ash blasted into the sky. Debris rained across the continental United States, spanning a rough triangle that stretches …
Solar flares are capable of causing widespread technological damage. Researchers outline a mitigation strategy to protect our planet by setting up a magnetic shield to deflect charged particles at the Lagrange point L1, and demonstrate that this approach appears to be realizable in terms of its basic physical parameters. They conclude their analysis by arguing …
Brian Wilcox of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology came to the conclusion that the supervolcano threat is substantially greater than the asteroid or comet threat. There are around 20 known supervolcanoes on Earth, with major eruptions occurring on average once every 100,000 years. One of the greatest threats an …
There are many analysis of potential conflict with North Korea. In general the expert opinion is that North Korea would be mostly defeated within 4 to 8 weeks. Assumptions * China does not intervene on the side of North Korea Factors * North Korea will likely try to fully utilize chemical and biological weapons * …
Hours after the North’s sixth nuclear detonation, an announcer on its official Korean Central Television declared: “The hydrogen bomb test was a perfect success.” Earlier monitors measured a 6.3-magnitude tremor near its main testing site, which South Korean experts reportedly said was nearly 10 times more powerful than the 10-kiloton test carried out a year …
The Defense Ministry is drafting a new plan to thwart a full-fledged North Korean military offensive and occupy Pyongyang within weeks without waiting for U.S. troop reinforcements. * preemptive strikes against North Korean nuclear weapons and missile bases and assassination of top North Korean officials * identify 1,000 North Korean targets for missiles and precision-guided …