Has your computer slowed down since the time you first used it? If you have been using your computer regularly, installing new programs and surfing the internet, chances are your computer's registry has filled up quite a bit, and you need a registry scan to fix the problem.
It is easy to see if your registry is having problems when your computer starts to freeze, is slow to boot, loads any program in a manner that leaves you feeling impatient, and even blanks out with a blue screen.
The usual problems associated with the registry are duplicate or obsolete files that are clogging your registry. Many times, after uninstalling, a trail of files are left behind that end up using space without you knowing it.
A sluggish computer can be because the registry has to process a lot of unnecessary files before it gets to the actual software you are trying to open.
If you can clean up your registry, it will open up space and require less effort to operate. To find those errors, you will need to do a complete scan of your registry.
It is possible to do this manually, but not only will it take quite a bit of your time, you might delete something that sounds like a software you downloaded a year ago, but is actually not. If this happens, and you delete an important operating system file, your computer will crash. You will need to reinstall everything.
The best you can do is none of the above. Instead find a software program that can do a registry scan. This registry repair program should also be able to keep a regular maintenance check on your system so that you will never get that dreaded blue screen again
Monday, June 22, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Surface and Interior of Earth
Earth, the largest and densest rocky planet, was formed about 4.5 billion years ago. The Earth's interior is divided into four layers, which is typical of rocky planets. Each layer has different characteristics and is made of different elements and minerals.
There are many different types of features on Earth’s surface due to the complexity of our planet. The surface is unique from the other planets because it is the only one which has liquid water in such large quantities. Water forms some features of Earth's surface such as rivers, oceans, beaches and lakes. Other surface features, such as mountains, earthquakes and volcanoes, are formed when large pieces of the Earth’s outer layer move slowly by plate tectonics.
There are many different types of features on Earth’s surface due to the complexity of our planet. The surface is unique from the other planets because it is the only one which has liquid water in such large quantities. Water forms some features of Earth's surface such as rivers, oceans, beaches and lakes. Other surface features, such as mountains, earthquakes and volcanoes, are formed when large pieces of the Earth’s outer layer move slowly by plate tectonics.
NASA Satellite Captures First View of 'Night-Shining Clouds'
A NASA satellite has captured the first occurrence this summer of mysterious shiny polar clouds that form 50 miles above Earth’s surface.
Click image to enlarge.Image above: This image shows one of the first ground sightings of noctilucent clouds in the 2007 season. Credit: Veres Viktor of Budapest, Hungary taken on June 15, 2007. The first observations of these "night-shining" clouds by a satellite named "AIM" which means Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere, occurred above 70 degrees north latitude on May 25. People on the ground began seeing the clouds on June 6 over Northern Europe. AIM is the first satellite mission dedicated to the study of these unusual clouds. These mystifying clouds are called Polar Mesospheric Clouds, or PMCs, when they are viewed from space and referred to as "night-shining" clouds or Noctilucent Clouds, when viewed by observers on Earth. The clouds form in an upper layer of the Earth’s atmosphere called the mesosphere during the Northern Hemisphere’s summer season which began in mid-May and extends through the end of August and are being seen by AIM’s instruments more frequently as the season progresses. They are also seen in the high latitudes during the summer months in the Southern Hemisphere. Image right: On June 11, 2007 the cameras on the AIM satellite returned some of the first data documenting noctilucent clouds over the Arctic regions of Europe and North America. This new data reveals the global extent and structure of these mysterious clouds, to a degree that was previously unattainable. White and light blue represent noctilucent cloud structures. Black indicates areas where no data is available. Credit: Cloud Imaging and Particle Size Experiment data processing team at the University of Colorado Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics Very little is known about how these clouds form over the poles, why they are being seen more frequently and at lower latitudes than ever before, or why they have been growing brighter. AIM will observe two complete cloud seasons over both poles, documenting an entire life cycle of the shiny clouds for the first time. "It is clear that these clouds are changing, a sign that a part of our atmosphere is changing and we do not understand how, why or what it means," stated AIM principal investigator James Russell III of Hampton University, Hampton, Va. "These observations suggest a connection with global change in the lower atmosphere and could represent an early warning that our Earth environment is being changed." AIM is providing scientists with information about how many of these clouds there are around the world and how different they are including the sizes and shapes of the tiny particles that make them up. Scientists believe that the shining clouds form at high latitudes early in the season and then move to lower latitudes as time progresses. The AIM science team is studying this new data to understand why these clouds form and vary, and if they may be related to global change. Once the summer season ends in the Northern Hemisphere around mid- to late August, the Southern Hemisphere spring season starts about three months later in the period around mid- to late November. AIM will then be watching for shining clouds in the Southern Hemisphere from November through mid-March when that season ends. AIM and is managed at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md and the AIM Project Data Center is located at Hampton University.
Click image to enlarge.Image above: This image shows one of the first ground sightings of noctilucent clouds in the 2007 season. Credit: Veres Viktor of Budapest, Hungary taken on June 15, 2007. The first observations of these "night-shining" clouds by a satellite named "AIM" which means Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere, occurred above 70 degrees north latitude on May 25. People on the ground began seeing the clouds on June 6 over Northern Europe. AIM is the first satellite mission dedicated to the study of these unusual clouds. These mystifying clouds are called Polar Mesospheric Clouds, or PMCs, when they are viewed from space and referred to as "night-shining" clouds or Noctilucent Clouds, when viewed by observers on Earth. The clouds form in an upper layer of the Earth’s atmosphere called the mesosphere during the Northern Hemisphere’s summer season which began in mid-May and extends through the end of August and are being seen by AIM’s instruments more frequently as the season progresses. They are also seen in the high latitudes during the summer months in the Southern Hemisphere. Image right: On June 11, 2007 the cameras on the AIM satellite returned some of the first data documenting noctilucent clouds over the Arctic regions of Europe and North America. This new data reveals the global extent and structure of these mysterious clouds, to a degree that was previously unattainable. White and light blue represent noctilucent cloud structures. Black indicates areas where no data is available. Credit: Cloud Imaging and Particle Size Experiment data processing team at the University of Colorado Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics Very little is known about how these clouds form over the poles, why they are being seen more frequently and at lower latitudes than ever before, or why they have been growing brighter. AIM will observe two complete cloud seasons over both poles, documenting an entire life cycle of the shiny clouds for the first time. "It is clear that these clouds are changing, a sign that a part of our atmosphere is changing and we do not understand how, why or what it means," stated AIM principal investigator James Russell III of Hampton University, Hampton, Va. "These observations suggest a connection with global change in the lower atmosphere and could represent an early warning that our Earth environment is being changed." AIM is providing scientists with information about how many of these clouds there are around the world and how different they are including the sizes and shapes of the tiny particles that make them up. Scientists believe that the shining clouds form at high latitudes early in the season and then move to lower latitudes as time progresses. The AIM science team is studying this new data to understand why these clouds form and vary, and if they may be related to global change. Once the summer season ends in the Northern Hemisphere around mid- to late August, the Southern Hemisphere spring season starts about three months later in the period around mid- to late November. AIM will then be watching for shining clouds in the Southern Hemisphere from November through mid-March when that season ends. AIM and is managed at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md and the AIM Project Data Center is located at Hampton University.
Baby Stars Finally Found in Jumbled Galactic Center06.10.09
PASADENA, Calif. -- Astronomers have at last uncovered newborn stars at the frenzied center of our Milky Way galaxy. The discovery was made using the infrared vision of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The heart of our spiral galaxy is cluttered with stars, dust and gas, and at its very center, a supermassive black hole. Conditions there are harsh, with fierce stellar winds, powerful shock waves and other factors that make it difficult for stars to form. Astronomers have known that stars can form in this chaotic place, but they're baffled as to how this occurs. Confounding the problem is all the dust standing between us and the center of our galaxy. Until now, nobody had been able to definitively locate any baby stars. "These stars are like needles in a haystack," said Solange Ramirez, the principal investigator of the research program at NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "There's no way to find them using optical light, because dust gets in the way. We needed Spitzer's infrared instruments to cut through the dust and narrow in on the objects." The team plans to look for additional baby stars in the future, and ultimately to piece together what types of conditions allow stars to form in such an inhospitable environment as our galaxy's core. "By studying individual stars in the galactic center, we can better understand how stars are formed in different interstellar environments," said Deokkeun An of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech, lead author of a paper submitted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. "The Milky Way galaxy is just one of more than hundreds of billions of galaxies in the visible universe. However, our galaxy is so special because we can take a closer look at its individual stellar components." An started working on this program while a graduate student at Ohio State University, Columbus, under the leadership of Ohio State astronomer Kris Sellgren, the co-investigator on the project. The core of the Milky Way is a mysterious place about 600 light-years across (light would take 600 years to travel from one end to the other). While this is just a fraction of the size of the entire Milky Way, which is about 100,000 light-years across, the core is stuffed with 10 percent of all the gas in the galaxy -- and loads and loads of stars. Before now, there were only a few clues that stars can form in the galaxy's core. Astronomers had found clusters of massive adolescent stars, in addition to clouds of charged gas -- a sign that new stars are beginning to ignite and ionize surrounding gas. Past attempts had been unsuccessful in finding newborn stars, or as astronomers call them, young stellar objects. Ramirez and colleagues began their search by scanning large Spitzer mosaics of our galactic center. They narrowed in on more than 100 candidates, but needed more detailed data to confirm the stars' identities. Young stellar objects, when viewed from far away, can look a lot like much older stars. Both types of stars are very dusty, and the dust lying between us and them obscures the view even further. To sort through the confusion, the astronomers looked at their candidate stars with Spitzer's spectrograph – an instrument that breaks light apart to reveal its rainbow-like array of infrared colors. Molecules around stars leave imprints in their light, which the spectrograph can detect. The results revealed three stars with clear signs of youth, for example, certain warm, dense gases. These youthful features are found in other places in the galaxy where stars are being formed. "It is amazing to me that we have found these stars," said Ramirez. "The galactic center is a very interesting place. It has young stars, old stars, black holes, everything. We started mining a catalog of about 1 million sources and managed to find three young stars -- stars that will help reveal the secrets at the core of the Milky Way."
Return of the Mars Hoax
Just when you thought it was safe to check your email...
For the sixth year in a row, a message about the Red Planet is popping up in email boxes around the world. It instructs readers to go outside after dark on August 27th and behold the sky. "Mars will look as large as the full moon," it says. "No one alive today will ever see this again."
Don't believe it.
Here's what will really happen if you go outside after dark on August 27th. Nothing. Mars won't be there. On that date, the red planet will be nearly 250 million km away from Earth and completely absent from the evening sky.
Right: Only in Photoshop does Mars appear as large as a full Moon.
The Mars Hoax got its start in 2003 when Earth and Mars really did have a close encounter. On Aug. 27th of that year, Mars was only 56 million km away, a 60,000-year record for martian close approaches to Earth. Someone sent an email alerting friends to the event. The message contained some misunderstandings and omissions—but what email doesn't? A piece of advanced technology called the "forward button" did the rest.
Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery Tolerant readers may say that the Mars Hoax is not really a hoax, because it is not an intentional trick. The composer probably believed everything he or she wrote in the message. If that's true, a better name might be the "Mars Misunderstanding" or maybe the "Confusing-Email-About-Mars-You-Should-Delete-and-Not-Forward-to-Anyone-Except-Your-In-Laws."
Another aspect of the Mars Hoax: It says Mars will look as large as the full Moon if you magnify it 75x using a backyard telescope. The italicized text is usually omitted from verbal and written summaries of the Hoax. (For example, see the beginning of this story.) Does this fine print make the Mars Hoax true? After all, if you magnify the tiny disk of Mars 75x, it does subtend an angle about the same as the Moon.
No. Even with magnification, Mars does not look the same as a full Moon.
This has more to do with the mysterious inner workings of the human brain than cold, hard physics. Looking at Mars magnified 75x through a slender black tube (the eyepiece of a telescope) and looking at the full Moon shining unfettered in the open sky are two very different experiences.
Above: Mars in August 2003 during a 60,000-year record close approach. Even then, the planet resembled a bright star, not a full Moon. Photo credit: John Nemy & Carol Legate of Whistler, B.C.
A good reference is the Moon Illusion. Moons on the horizon look huge; Moons directly overhead look smaller. In both cases, it is the same Moon, but the human mind perceives the size of the Moon differently depending on its surroundings.
Likewise, your perception of Mars is affected by the planet's surroundings. Locate the planet at the end of a little dark tunnel, and it is going to look tiny regardless of magnification.
Bummer!
To see Mars as big as a full Moon, you'll need , and that may take some time. Meanwhile, beware the Mars Hoax.
For the sixth year in a row, a message about the Red Planet is popping up in email boxes around the world. It instructs readers to go outside after dark on August 27th and behold the sky. "Mars will look as large as the full moon," it says. "No one alive today will ever see this again."
Don't believe it.
Here's what will really happen if you go outside after dark on August 27th. Nothing. Mars won't be there. On that date, the red planet will be nearly 250 million km away from Earth and completely absent from the evening sky.
Right: Only in Photoshop does Mars appear as large as a full Moon.
The Mars Hoax got its start in 2003 when Earth and Mars really did have a close encounter. On Aug. 27th of that year, Mars was only 56 million km away, a 60,000-year record for martian close approaches to Earth. Someone sent an email alerting friends to the event. The message contained some misunderstandings and omissions—but what email doesn't? A piece of advanced technology called the "forward button" did the rest.
Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery Tolerant readers may say that the Mars Hoax is not really a hoax, because it is not an intentional trick. The composer probably believed everything he or she wrote in the message. If that's true, a better name might be the "Mars Misunderstanding" or maybe the "Confusing-Email-About-Mars-You-Should-Delete-and-Not-Forward-to-Anyone-Except-Your-In-Laws."
Another aspect of the Mars Hoax: It says Mars will look as large as the full Moon if you magnify it 75x using a backyard telescope. The italicized text is usually omitted from verbal and written summaries of the Hoax. (For example, see the beginning of this story.) Does this fine print make the Mars Hoax true? After all, if you magnify the tiny disk of Mars 75x, it does subtend an angle about the same as the Moon.
No. Even with magnification, Mars does not look the same as a full Moon.
This has more to do with the mysterious inner workings of the human brain than cold, hard physics. Looking at Mars magnified 75x through a slender black tube (the eyepiece of a telescope) and looking at the full Moon shining unfettered in the open sky are two very different experiences.
Above: Mars in August 2003 during a 60,000-year record close approach. Even then, the planet resembled a bright star, not a full Moon. Photo credit: John Nemy & Carol Legate of Whistler, B.C.
A good reference is the Moon Illusion. Moons on the horizon look huge; Moons directly overhead look smaller. In both cases, it is the same Moon, but the human mind perceives the size of the Moon differently depending on its surroundings.
Likewise, your perception of Mars is affected by the planet's surroundings. Locate the planet at the end of a little dark tunnel, and it is going to look tiny regardless of magnification.
Bummer!
To see Mars as big as a full Moon, you'll need , and that may take some time. Meanwhile, beware the Mars Hoax.
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