Japan urges N. Korea to exercise restraint from rocket launch

TOKYO (Kyodo) Japan's top government spokesman Osamu Fujimura urged North Korea on Wednesday to refrain from going ahead with its plan to launch a satellite in mid-April using a rocket, a move that has sparked international outcry.

''Together with countries concerned, it is important that we urge North Korea to exercise restraint from engaging in an action that will undermine peace and stability,'' the chief Cabinet secretary said in a news conference, referring to the launch that critics say is a disguised test of a long-range ballistic missile.

Fujimura vowed to take ''all possible measures to ensure that the people and properties (in Japan) are safe.''

North Korea announced on Friday that an ''application satellite'' will be blasted off sometime between April 12 and 16 lifted by a carrier rocket to mark the centennial of the birthday of the country's founder, the late Kim Il Sung, which falls on April 15. Despite widespread criticism, the North has said it will go ahead with the launch.

To brace for an emergency, Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka told reporters that a ''decision'' needs to be made to give an order to Self-Defense Forces to destroy North Korea's rocket.

The defense minister said during a parliament session on Monday that he is considering giving such an order if the rocket poses a danger to Japan. Read More

Tens of thousands of previously unknown galaxies captured on one stunning image

The widest and deepest view of the sky ever made using infrared light has been produced by the European Southern Observatory’s Vista telescope.

The image contains more than 200,000 galaxies, with tens of thousands of them previously unknown to astronomers.

The telescope is stationed at the ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile and is the most powerful infrared survey telescope in existence.

It has been trained on the same patch of sky repeatedly to slowly accumulate the very dim light of the most distant galaxies.

In total more than 6,000 separate exposures with a total effective exposure time of 55 hours, taken through five different coloured filters, have been combined to create this picture.

What’s more, the area of sky that the telescope has been trained on looks unremarkable to the naked eye - but such is the power of the telescope that a treasure trove of objects has been revealed. Read More

Nomad planets: Stepping stones to interstellar space?

Brown dwarfs and so-called "nomad planets" could effectively be "rest stops" in future interstellar travel.

Rutland, United Kingdom - Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is composed of billions of stars and planets, dust and gas. According to school textbooks, everything works like clockwork; stars are born from clouds of gas (known as nebulae) and the disk of gas and dust surrounding newborn stars agglomerate to build the planets.

But, like any scientific field, our understanding of the galaxy gets reshaped and modified whenever we send a new space telescope into orbit or attach new optics to a monster observatory. And last month, the well-established idea that a planet needs a star to exist was turned upside-down. What's more, by removing the necessity for a star, we may have stumbled on an interesting solution to interstellar travel.

In February, a fascinating paper was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society detailing calculations on how many "nomad planets" the Milky Way must contain after estimating our galaxy's mass from how much gravity it exerts on surrounding space. Scientists from the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) had uncovered something surprising - there are likely many more planets in the Milky Way than stars. In fact, this may not sound surprising at all; NASA's Kepler space telescope has uncovered many multi-planetary systems not too dislike our Solar System - logic dictates that if most stars have planets orbiting them, many will have multiple planets orbiting them. But Louis Strigari and his Kavli team calculated that there must be 100,000 planets for every star in the Milky Way. That's a lot of planets! Read More

North Korea Rejects Rocket Launch Criticism as China Cautions

North Korea rejected international criticism of its planned satellite launch next month as China cautioned its ally in the first sign of tension since Kim Jong Un succeeded his father as head of the totalitarian state.

U.S., Japanese and South Korean condemnation is “a base move to deny the DPRK’s right to use space for peaceful purposes and encroach upon its sovereignty,” the official Korean Central News Agency said yesterday, referring to the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. North Korea has no intention of canceling its plans, KCNA said

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun expressed his “worry” over the March 16 announcement to North Korean ambassador Ji Jae Ryong, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The U.S. said the launch, which is to mark the 100th anniversary of state founder Kim Il Sung’s birth, would negate an agreement to provide food aid in exchange for a North Korean moratorium on nuclear and missile tests. Read More

Astronomers find extraordinary rectangular galaxy

A rare rectangular galaxy with a striking resemblance to an emerald cut diamond has been discovered by astronomers.

The star gazers - from Australia, Germany, Switzerland and Finland - discovered the quirky cosmic phenomenon within a group of 250 galaxies some 70 million light years away.

‘In the Universe around us, most galaxies exist in one of three forms - spheroidal, disc-like, or lumpy and irregular in appearance,’ said Associate Professor Alister Graham from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia.

He said the rare rectangular-shaped galaxy was a very unusual object.

He added: ‘It's one of those things that just makes you smile because it shouldn't exist, or rather you don't expect it to exist. Read More

Power outage affects thousands in Saskatoon, Canada...Could it be related to the Recent Solar Storms?

Two consecutive electrical outages made for a chaotic Monday in Saskatoon.

It all started around 11 a.m., when a power pole next to Highway 7 between 11th Street and Highway 60 caught fire, weakening to a point where it could no longer support the 72,000-kilovolt line that supplies power to the west side of the city.

SaskPower crews managed to install a temporary replacement for the pole and restore service by 5 p.m. to the affected area, which reportedly included smaller communities such as Martensville, Hague, Rosthern, Dalmeny, Borden, Radisson, Wakaw and Duck Lake.

SaskPower spokesperson Shawn Silzer said it’s too soon to speculate on the cause of the fire.

“We will do an investigation of that afterwards, but right now the focus has been on getting that pole out of the way and getting a new temporary pole in there so that we can restore the service,” he said.

“But certainly we’ll do an investigation and if there’s anything that indicates vandalism we’ll call in the RCMP and the local fire department. The initial indication when I talked to the guys on site was that there was no initial sign of vandalism.” Read More

South Korean protesters rally against the North

March 20 - South Korean protesters set off fireworks during a rally against the North's plan to launch a satellite in April. Sophia Soo reports.

China holds 'frank' talks with North Korea after satellite announcement

Image: South Koreans shout during a rally denouncing the North's announcement of a planned satellite launch, in Seoul on March 20.

Beijing (CNN) -- China says it has had "a frank, in-depth talk" with North Korea about the situation on the Korean Peninsula after Pyongyang's announcement of a planned satellite launch provoked an international outcry.

Wu Dawei, China's special representative for the Korean Peninsula, met with Ri Yong Ho, a senior North Korean nuclear negotiator, in Beijing on Monday.

Wu told the Chinese broadcaster CCTV that he and Ri had exchanged "opinions on the topic of preserving the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula," as well as on Pyongyang's planned satellite launch.

China appears to be putting pressure on North Korea over the plan to fire off a long-range rocket that the North says will carry the satellite into orbit.

South Korea has called the announcement a "grave provocation" that contravenes U.N. Security Council resolutions. Read More

Nasa boosts funds for telescope team scanning skies for dangerous asteroids orbiting close to Earth

Astronomers who scan the skies for dangerous asteroids – space rocks that might cross the Earth’s path – are in line for a huge funding boost from Nasa.

The U.S space agency is awarding $4.1 million (£2.6m) to the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS), based at the University of Arizona (UA), to upgrade its search capabilities.

Most will consider this money well spent, since some asteroids, were they to crash land on Earth, would be capable of causing global devastation.

The money will be used to upgrade and operate the CSS telescopes through to 2015.

The CSS program, part of the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, has led the search for so-called near-Earth objects, or NEOs, since 2005. Read More

Rare display of Northern Lights captured above remote Scottish island

An amateur photographer on a birthday trip to cheer herself up after losing her job was delighted to capture the aurora borealis in its full glory.

Anita Nicholson took the stunning photographs the day after her 39th birthday while she treated herself to a lone break on a Scottish Island.

The breathtaking splendour of the phenomenon dazzled Ms Nicholson as she caught its full palette of colour, which is not usually on show in Britain. Read More