Asteroid passing Earth: 2014 DX110 will come closer than Moon

Asteroid passing Earth on Wednesday will be closer than the Moon. Known as 2014 DX110, the approach will be much closer than usual. 

According to Phys.org on Mar. 4, it will pass within 217,000 miles of the planet.

That's approximately nine-tenths of the distance between the moon and Earth.

The asteroid passing Earth is known as a New Earth Object or NEO for good reason. It is not uncommon for object to pass this close to Earth, but this time it will be extremely close. It has not been deemed as threat. The NEO is between 45 and 130 feet across.

A telescope should be able to pick up the asteroid passing Earth easily. It will approach from the south and pass by Earth to the north. According to Universe Today, you will be able to watch the event live with commentary via the Virtual Telescope Project.

The discovery of NEO 2014 DX110 was only announced recently on Mar. 2. A big "Thanks for the heads up," goes out to the Minor Planet Center. And in case you are keeping track going forward, "the asteroid is currently listed on NASA’s risk page for a 1 in 10,000,000 chance of impact with Earth on March 4th, 2046."

Source:  Examiner

Feds blow $100 billion a year on incorrect payments

Between 2002 and 2012, federal agencies spent more than half a trillion dollars ($688 billion) on payments that should never have been made. 

Every year, according to their own record-keeping, the agencies that administer major federal programs are now paying out more than $100 billion improperly, and even though they're aware of the problem, they recover only a tiny fraction for taxpayers. This adds up to huge losses for the U.S. Treasury.

In 2012 alone, the Office of Management and Budget gathered data on just 13 high-error programs in the federal government, and determined that they made a combined $101.3 billion in improper payments. To put that in perspective, that's almost $16 billion more than the highly controversial budget sequester wound up cutting from government spending in 2013.

The government doesn't get a whole lot of that money back. In July, then-Controller of the Office of Management and Budget Daniel Werfel testified in a Senate hearing that over the preceding two years, the government had recaptured only $2 billion in improper payments.

• Your taxes wasted on a $120 million parking center

To be clear, the term "improper payment" covers many problems and is not limited to out-and-out fraud. It can include payments made in error, either through the fault of the agency itself or the person claiming the payment. But what the vast majority of the instances of improper payment have in common is that they represent money that shouldn't be paid out at all leaving the Federal Treasury and not coming back.

As part of their annual financial reports, federal agencies are required to estimate the payment error rate of the programs they administer, and for some of the biggest benefits programs, the percentage of payments deemed improper reaches double digits, and tens of billions of dollars.

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Hubble Space Telescope Finds Clouds On Super-Earth, Neptune-Sized Planets

Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, two research teams have discovered thick layers of high-altitude clouds covering the atmospheres of two relatively nearby exoplanets: a super-Earth and a "warm Neptune."

Scientists are beginning to get a handle on how to study the atmospheres on alien planets, and have even found green clouds on the super-Jupiter planet, Kepler-7b. But the findings, published in the journal Nature this week, show that clouds can cover smaller planets too — including two of the most common types of planets found in the Milky Way.

Neither of the planets, GJ 436b and GJ 1214b, are quite like anything found in our solar system. GJ 436b is a warm Neptune that’s slightly larger than Neptune and much closer to its host star. Thus unlike our own distant, gassy ice giant, GJ 436b’s surface temperature sits about a blistering 980 degrees Fahrenheit. It is 36 light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo. GJ 1214b, a super-Earth whose radius is 2.7 times that of our home planet, sits about 40 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus.

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NASA Stumbles Across 10 Undiscovered Black Holes

NASA recently stumbled across 10 previously undiscovered supermassive black holes, using its Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). NASA is hoping this is simply the beginning of their good fortune, as the team anticipates hundreds of potential discoveries to emerge from the depths of space.

Super Massive Black Holes

Super massive black holes are the largest black hole type, possessing hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses. Astronomers postulate that there are super massive black holes dotted throughout distant galaxies, often situated within their centers. Sagittarius A* is the name coined for the super massive black within the Milky Way.

The trigger of these space monsters has been the source of much debate amongst leading astronomers. One theory posits, super massive black holes materialize upon a star’s demise, as matter is squeezed into a very small volume. The extreme density of this matter instigates powerful gravitational forces, from which even light cannot escape.

Many of these black holes have been identified indirectly, by detecting X-rays emitted from the accretion disks, surrounding their cores. The accretion disk arises from the influence of the supermassive black hole’s gravitational forces, slowly drawing streams of matter ever-closer, which slowly revolve around its center. As the matter proceeds towards its fate, it experiences frictional forces that cause it to release detectable, high-energy radiation. This radiation can then be measured by X-ray telescopes, such as NuSTAR.

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