Pendiri Facebook Kagumi Amazon, Apple, dan Google

Siapa yang tak kenal Facebook dan siapa yang tak kenal dengan Mark Zuckerberg sang pendiri sekaligus CEO Facebook. Di tengah kesuksesan dan popularitasnya, ternyata Zuckerberg menyimpan kekaguman pada perusahaan teknologi besar.

Saat diwawancarai The Wall Street Journal, beberapa waktu lalu, Zuckerberg mengaku kagum dengan tiga perusahaan teknologi yang telah sukses mengembangkan produk mereka masing-masing. Adalah Amazon, Apple dan Google yang dikagumi oleh pendiri Facebook tersebut.

'Bekas Luka' Pada Bulan Ungkap Sejarah Kelam Di Masa Lalu

BROWN - Bekas luka di permukaan bulan mengungkapkan tindak kekerasan yang dialaminya. Bahkan, ini menyingung sejarah Bumi.
Pernyataan ini diungkapkan oleh ahli geologi planet di Brown University James Head. “Dampak besar di awal pembentukan sistem tata surya menjadi faktor dalam pembentukan kehidupan sekaligus pesatnya perkembangan periode pertama.”

Bekerja dengan peta permukaan bulan beresolusi tinggi, Head dan koleganya meneliti 5.185 kawah berdiameter sekitar 20 kilometer.

Tim mengidentifikasi sebagian besar kawah yang menjadi bagian tertua di bulan. Mereka menemukan bahwa sebuah objek berukuran lebih besar telah menghancurkan sebagian wilayah satelit Bumi ini.

Transisi tampaknya terjadi sekitar 3,8 juta tahun lalu. “Hal ini menegaskan bahwa ada perbedaan populasi saat ini dengan masa lalu,” ujar Head. Bahkan, fenomena tabrakan tersebut bisa mempengaruhi kehidupan planet secara tidak langsung.”

75.000 Virus Serang Ekstensen exe.

WASHINGTON - SurfRight melaporkan data statistik terbaru. Menyatakan tidak semua antivirus memiliki kemampuan sama, bahkan komputer tetap terinfeksi.

SurfRight mengumpulkan data dari 7 jenis antivirus. Dari 100.000 user yang menjalankan antivirus selama 55 hari. Ternyata Antivirus tidak memproteksi komputer secara keseluruhan.

Dari 107.435 komputer, jumlah yang terinfeksi sejumlah 37.989 komputer (35%), 69.537 komputer (64%) berhasil dibersihkan.

Nanti Malam, PLN Matikan Lampu Jalan Kota Solo

SOLO - Mulai Jumat (23/12/2011) malam ini Kota Solo, Jawa Tengah terancam gelap. Penerangan Jalan Umum (PJU) yang bertebaran di pelosok bakal tidak menyala karena PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) Area Pelayanan Jaringan (APJ) Surakarta akan memutus aliran listriknya.

"Kami terpaksa memutus aliran sampai Pemerintah kota Solo membayar tunggakan ke PLN sebesar Rp8,9 miliar, mulai malam (Jumat 23 Desember) ini,” tandas Kepala PT PLN APJ Surakarta Puguh Dwi Atmanto kepada wartawan di Kantor PLN Surakarta, Jawa Tengah, Jumat (23/12/2011).

Inikah Bulan Kedua Bumi?

NEW YORK, KOMPAS.com — Astronom pernah menjumpai obyek misterius berwarna putih titanium mengorbit Bumi pada tahun 2006. Pada awalnya, mereka menyangka bahwa benda tersebut adalah sampah roket. Namun, penelitian lebih lanjut menunjukkan bahwa obyek itu adalah asteroid.

Herannya, asteroid ini secara teratur mengitari Bumi. Pertanyaan muncul, apakah asteroid itu "Bulan" kedua Bumi?

Weather Played Role in Pearl Harbor Attack

By John Marsh, AccuWeather.com Staff Writer
Dec 7, 2011; 8:00 AM ET

 

Photo #NH 86118 by the U.S. Navy from www.history.navy.mil. In this image the USS Shaw explodes during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1942.

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which would later lead to America's involvement in World War II.

Weather played a key role in the Japanese bombing of the U.S. naval base. Clear to partly cloudy skies allowed the Japanese to execute their plan with few problems.

On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii.

AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said the weather played a major role. "Unfortunately, conditions were pretty conducive for the Japanese to attack that day. With good visibility and only scattered to broken cloud cover, they had a relatively clear window for the attack."

Snowstorm from North Carolina to Maine

By Alex Sosnowski, Expert Senior Meteorologist
Dec 6, 2011; 11:59 AM ET

Sooner or later during Thursday, folks living in part of New England and the mid-Atlantic will need to do this. (Craig Veltri/Phot

Tens of millions of people from western North Carolina to Maine and New Brunswick will have snow falling on their neighborhood sometime from Wednesday evening into Thursday.

The same storm that brought New Mexico snow Monday will deliver accumulating snow to millions of people within this swath from the southern Appalachians to part of the Maritimes.

As we mentioned earlier this week, this will be a scenario of rain changing to snow for a large part of the Northeast.

The fast-moving storm will spare the I-95 corridor of the mid-Atlantic the worst of the snow, but a heavy band of snow will fall in part of the I-81 corridor in Virginia, I-84 in Pennsylvania, New York and southern New England and part of I-95 in New England.

Is There Life Out There?

Dec 6, 2011; 9:36 AM ET

NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets.

The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets.

Previous research hinted at the existence of near-Earth-size planets in habitable zones, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Two other small planets orbiting stars smaller and cooler than our sun recently were confirmed on the very edges of the habitable zone, with orbits more closely resembling those of Venus and Mars.

Here Comes the Snow, Buffalo!

By Heather Buchman, Meteorologist
Dec 6, 2011; 2:01 PM ET

 

By this time last season, Buffalo, N.Y., already had more than a foot and a half of snow. This was the snowy scene in the suburbs of Buffalo on Dec. 1, 2010, a little more than a year ago. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

Snow-starved Buffalo, N.Y., will get another shot at accumulating snow late this week with lake-effect bands potentially bringing the heaviest snow of the season thus far.

The city is way behind the curve with snowfall this year with the first measurable snow (0.1 of an inch or more) of the season finally arriving late last week, almost a month late.

This first snowfall on Dec. 2, 2011, was so late, in fact, that it almost tied Buffalo's long-standing record for the latest measurable snow ever, which was on Dec. 3, 1899, more than 100 years ago.

Population of China's 12 Biggest Cities -- 1997

 Above Picture is of Chengdu's crowded streets. Note: Chongqing's population is 30,000,000. The central city has a population of 15,300,000. Over 1/11 of China lives in these 12 cities. There are over 200 cities in China with a population over one million. In one neighborhood in Shanghai 51,000 people live in one square kilometer (0.4 square miles) making it 2.5 times more denser than New York City


1         Chongqing        15,300,000
2         Shanghai           13,100,000
3         Beijing              12,200,000
4         Chengdu             9,900,000
5         Harbin                9,200,000
6         Tianjin                9,000,000
7         Shijiazhuang       8,600,000
8         Wuhan               7,200,000
9         Qingdao             7,000,000
10       Changchun         6,800,000
11       Guangzhou         6,700,000
12       Hong Kong        6,700,000
            Total              111,700,000

How the 8th-largest cell carrier beat T-Mobile to the iPhone

iPhone

The three largest U.S. cellular carriers by subscribers sell the latest iPhone, and next week, eighth-place C Spire Wireless will join the group.

Some people were taken aback this week when C Spire, which only has stores in Mississippi, Southwest Alabama and Southwest Tennessee, announced that it will begin carrying the iPhone 4 and 4S on November 11.

Among those grumbling over the news were some of T-Mobile USA's 33.6 million subscribers. How, they asked, could a regional carrier get the coveted product before one of the big four?

C Spire's infrastructure is based on a cell standard used by Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, which now both have the iPhone, but it is not common in other countries. C Spire, formerly Cellular South, has a deal with Verizon so that customers who travel outside of its Mississippi home base can still make calls.

Since C Spire's network uses the same underpinnings and antenna bands as Verizon, Apple did not have to make modifications to its phones beyond what it already did for Verizon when it launched there in February. An Apple spokeswoman confirmed that C Spire would begin selling the phone next week, but she did not respond to a question about whether the company needed to modify the hardware.

The iPhone 4S, Apple's newest gadget, uses a special antenna receiver from Qualcomm that works on typically incompatible networks. "IPhone 4S is now a world phone, so both GSM and CDMA customers can roam worldwide on GSM networks," Bob Mansfield, Apple's head of hardware engineering, says in a promotional video.

T-Mobile's network runs on the global standard called GSM. AT&T Mobility also uses GSM. That's what makes T-Mobile an attractive takeover target for AT&T, which plans to bolster its own network using T-Mobile cell towers, as long as the merger is approved. (C Spire, along with Sprint, are suing to block the acquisition, saying it will reduce competition.)

While AT&T and T-Mobile use the same basic network infrastructure, their cell signals operate on different antenna bands. That prevents T-Mobile from easily making iPhones run on its network.

When asked why C Spire got the iPhone before T-Mobile, Brad Duea, a T-Mobile senior vice-president, smiled, having likely fielded the question before.

"The iPhone already works with their bands," he said in an interview on Wednesday. "They didn't have to change anything."

Since the original iPhone came out in 2007, owners have been able to take the devices to T-Mobile, swap out a SIM card and use them on the network. But as Apple has added 3G and faster data speeds for AT&T, the unofficial T-Mobile iPhones -- more than a million in all, T-Mobile has said -- have not been able to exceed 2G speeds. AT&T's and T-Mobile's 3G and so-called 4G networks operate on different bands.

Another T-Mobile executive, Cole Brodman, recently addressed the issue publicly at a conference and in a letter to customers, though not in great deal. Executives say that, while they'd like to have the iPhone, Android is a fine alternative to the iPhone.

source: http://edition.cnn.com

Jeremy Mayfield arrested for meth possession

The long fall of Jeremy Mayfield continues with the news that he was arrested Tuesday night in Catawba, North Carolina on charges of meth possession.

The Catawba County Sheriff's Office had visited Mayfield's home to investigate charges of stolen property, and during a search turned up 1.5 grams of methamphetamine. The search also found items that may or may not have been stolen. Mayfield is out of prison on a $3,000 bond.

Mayfield's story is one of the most unfortunate in recent racing history. A Chase-level driver as recently as 2005, his final race was the Richmond spring event in 2009. Soon afterward, he was suspended for failing a random drug test at Richmond. Mayfield fought the results of the test, saying they were skewed by his use of allergy and attention-deficit medicine.

From there, the story devolved into grim farce, with Mayfield, his relations and NASCAR throwing charges back and forth regarding possible meth cooking, suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Mayfield's father, and an alleged conspiracy by Brian France and others to keep Mayfield out of NASCAR. (Here's a complete rundown of the Mayfield saga in 2009. Ignore the musical element.)

The police report, according to the AP, listed Mayfield as "unemployed."

source: http://sports.yahoo.com

WiMax in Greater Jakarta Reaches 7 thousand customers

wimax

Since its launch in June and made free trial to the public in September 2010 and officially launched their service in the first quarter 2011, Sitra Wimax, brand subsidiary of PT First Media Tbk said the number of customers continued to increase.

Until now, operators of telecommunications service providers fourth generation (4G) states, they have served 7000 users in the Greater Jakarta area, especially in West Jakarta, Karawaci, Bintaro, and analytical ability.

Q&A: Who can inherit the British throne

 

Newly-weds Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and her husband Prince William on a royal tour of Canada in July

Prince William's glittering wedding to Catherine Middleton captivated a global audience earlier this year.

But up until now, any daughter born to the Duke and Duchess Cambridge would not have enjoyed an equal right to inherit the British throne. Rules dating back centuries decree that the crown passes to the eldest son and is only bestowed on a daughter when there are no sons.

All this changed at a meeting of the leaders of 16 Commonwealth countries in Perth, Australia, where they unanimously agreed to amend the succession rules.

CNN examines the background to a controversial and long-running debate.

Why has this change come about now?

The issue has been discussed in the UK for many years -- and changes have been proposed before -- but it requires an act of parliament and the agreement of the 15 other realms where British royalty is the head of state to alter the rules of succession.

Successive UK governments have failed to find parliamentary time to debate proposals to change the law. A spokesman at UK Prime Minister David Cameron's office said it had often been thought of as "too thorny and complicated to deal with quickly."

The marriage of William and Catherine in April has brought the issue back into focus. David Cameron referred directly to the couple in his speech to Commonwealth leaders Friday, saying the succession rules were "outdated."

"The idea that a younger son should become monarch instead of an elder daughter simply because he's a man... this way of thinking is at odds with the modern countries that we've all become," he said.

So what has been agreed?

The leaders of the 16 Commonwealth countries that have Queen Elizabeth II as head of state unanimously agreed that sons and daughters of British monarchs will have an equal right to the throne. They also agreed that a future British monarch can marry a Roman Catholic -- something that is currently banned.

What was the historical basis for the old rules?

The tradition of favoring the male heir -- called male primogeniture -- goes back many centuries and can be seen in the extensive family tree of the British monarchy.

But a key law which governs the way British monarchs are chosen is the 1701 Act of Settlement which has its roots in the religious strife of the age. The official British Monarchy website explains that the act was designed to secure the protestant succession to the throne.

Royal commentator and former editor of the International Who's Who, Richard Fitzwilliams, explained that this has been a divisive issue ever since the English Tudor King Henry VIII split with the Catholic Church in Rome in the 16th Century, leading to decades of religious persecution.

The Act of Settlement decreed that no Roman Catholic or anyone married to a Catholic could hold the English crown. This is now to be amended so that an heir to the throne can still be monarch even if they marry a Catholic.

The British Monarchy website gives two examples of the current royal family who were removed from the line of succession because they married Roman Catholics -- George Windsor, Earl of St Andrews, and Prince Michael of Kent.

How are William and Catherine affected?

The changes mean that if the couple start a family and the first born is a girl, she will eventually become queen. Previously, a younger son would have taken precedence. However, this could be many years in the future. Prince Charles is first in line to the throne when Queen Elizabeth II dies, and his son William would ascend after his reign.

David Cameron's speech makes it clear that the new rules are not retroactive , so Prince Charles's eldest sibling, Anne, will not be in line to the throne in front of her younger brothers Andrew and Edward.

It also means that any heir born to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge can marry a Catholic and retain the crown.

What isn't changing?

The British sovereign is also head of the Church of England -- part of the Anglican church - and retains the title Defender of the Faith. David Cameron said at Friday's Commonwealth meeting that "the monarch must be in communion with the Church of England because he or she is the head of that church." This would currently bar a Catholic holding the crown.

Prince Charles caused controversy in 1994 when he said in a TV interview that he would rather be seen as "defender of faiths" to include Catholic subjects of the sovereign which he described as "equally as important as the Anglican ones or the protestant ones." He went on to list other faiths as also being equally important.

What happens next?

David Cameron explained in his speech to Commonwealth leaders that "for historic reasons" the UK legislation needs to be published first but the necessary measures would be implemented at the same time across the Commonwealth.

A spokesman for his office said the changes will be presented to UK MPs in the next session of parliament but added that they enjoy cross-party support.

However, the process is a complex one. The Downing Street spokesman said that in addition to the Act of Settlement, many other archaic laws will have to be amended -- these include the Bill of Rights 1689, the Coronation Oath Act 1688, the Acts of Union and the Royal Marriage Act 1772.

Each of the 15 other Commonwealth members will then have to amend their own legislation.

So which countries are affected?

The Commonwealth consists of 54 independent states, most of which have ties to the United Kingdom, but Queen Elizabeth II is head of state to only 16 of them including the UK. Those nations are Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu.

source : http://edition.cnn.com

U.N. agency approves full Palestinian membership

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas made a bid for the U.N. to recognize a Palestinian state last month

UNESCO voted Monday to accept a Palestinian bid for full membership, in the first vote on the matter by U.N. agency.

The vote, which required two-thirds approval, passed with 107 votes in favor, 14 against, and 52 abstentions.

The vote is separate from the Palestinian bid for full membership in the United Nations. Representatives of several countries pointed out that currently that bid is being discussed by members of the U.N. Security Council.

Huge applause broke out at UNESCO's meeting in Paris when the results of the vote were announced.

The vote risks the agency -- the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization -- losing its U.S. funding, which accounts for more than a fifth of its budget.

Some U.S. lawmakers have threatened to cut off the funding, which a spokeswoman for the U.S. Mission to UNESCO said totals $80 million a year .

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, speaking after the vote, said she is concerned for the financial stability of the organization.

"I believe it is the responsibility of all of us to make sure that UNESCO does not suffer unduly," she said, specifically citing concerns about losing funding from "our largest contributor, the United States."

Bokova said the "admission of a new member state is a mark of respect and confidence."

"This is a significant victory and sends a clear message to those who are trying to hold history and deny the rights of Palestinians that there are a majority of nations with conscience who refuse to be intimidated and blackmailed," said Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee, speaking by phone from Ramallah, in the West Bank.

"The ones who voted negatively are isolating themselves along with Israel on the wrong side of justice and the law. And if the U.S. continues to threaten to boycott or withdrawal from organizations that recognizes Palestine it might find itself outside most global institutions with diminishing influence and standing," she said.

The Israeli representative, addressing the meeting after the vote, called the decision "a tragedy for UNESCO" and "a great disservice to international law."

UNESCO has now "adopted the science fiction version of reality by admitting a non-existent state to the science organization," he said.

The U.S. representative said the United States, which voted against the measure, "cannot accept the premature admission" of Palestine into the organization.

"Despite the challenges ahead we pledge to continue our efforts to find ways to support and strengthen the vital work of this organization," he said. He did not say what could happen to U.S. funding for UNESCO.

The Pakistani representative called the decision "momentous."

"For over six decades, Palestinians have proven to be superb human beings but have regrettably remained without their rights," she said, adding that "today this wrong has been righted."

She referred to the longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as an "inimitable hero."

The representative from Sri Lanka said that with its vote, UNESCO "acted precisely as the conscience of the world community."

"I think that by showing Palestine's independence is an idea whose time has come and that this has brought recognition in the world community, we have in fact bolstered all the efforts which with respect towards a negotiated peace and towards the recognition that is sought in the Security Council," he said.

Earlier, as the vote was under way, applause broke out after some countries voted in favor of the bid.

There was laughter in the room after Israel voted no.

In September, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas launched the bid for the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state. UNESCO is the first agency the Palestinians have sought to join.

Since Palestinian leaders made the request for membership in UNESCO earlier this month, U.S. lawmakers have urged the agency to reject it.

UNESCO promotes peace through educational, scientific and cultural collaboration among states, and 22% of its funding in its regular budget comes from the United States, said Sue Williams of UNESCO's press office.

"Any recognition of Palestine as a Member State would not only jeopardize the hope for a resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but (it) would endanger the United States' contribution to UNESCO," said an October 13 letter signed by members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, which appropriates UNESCO's U.S. funding.

Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, who chairs the subcommittee, said she will "advocate for all funding to be cut off."

"This is consistent with current law, and I will consider additional actions as needed," she said this month. "There are consequences for short-cutting the process, not only for the Palestinians, but for our longstanding relationship with the United Nations."

She was referring to a provision of U.S. code which states: "No funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act or any other Act shall be available for the United Nations or any specialized agency thereof which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states."

Abbas' bid for statehood to the United Nations is also opposed by Israel, which says it is premature without direct talks that address its longstanding security concerns.

source: http://edition.cnn.com

Don't call our satellite 'space junk'

Artist rendition of the ROSAT satellite, which tumbled to earth last weekend

Last weekend, another large piece of "space junk" tumbled to Earth, perhaps in Southeast Asia. Many people -- if they noted the event at all -- probably worried about being hit on the head, even though the odds are overwhelmingly against such a catastrophe (trillions to one).

But for thousands of astrophysicists around the world, the German Roentgen satellite ("ROSAT") was no mere rubbish; it was an old and important friend. Launched in 1990, a few months after the better known Hubble Space Telescope, ROSAT provided images of the sky in X-rays (very short wavelength light), as opposed to the red-green-blue light visible with Hubble, meaning it could see the most energetic phenomena in the Universe. Plus ROSAT had better image quality than any X-ray satellite had before, an improvement comparable to the superiority of Hubble imaging compared to ground-based telescopes.

A few thousand astronomers worldwide used ROSAT to study the universe, discovering where black holes are growing, when massive clusters of galaxies formed, and how neutron stars and black holes in our Milky Way Galaxy behave.

I used ROSAT to study the wildly varying emission from "jets" of energetic particles emanating from the central black holes in distant galaxies. These particles are far more energetic than those produced in man-made terrestrial accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider.

Others made exquisite images of the remnants of stellar explosions ("supernova remnants" like IC443) or mapped the hot gases held by gravity in the space between dense clusters of galaxies or indeed to image the entire sky.

One totally unexpected discovery was that comets -- cold balls of ice heated by the Sun as they whiz past -- are strong X-ray emitters, thanks to the interaction of energetic particles from the Sun with the gaseous material around the comet. The same physics explains X-ray light seen from the dark side of the moon, which otherwise shadows the bright all sky X-ray glow from growing black holes.

Dr. Guenther Hasinger, the recently appointed Director of the Institute for Astronomy in Hawaii, began his career working on the ROSAT project. His planning kept the satellite working long after two gyros failed early in the mission, and he developed as a scientist using ROSAT to make very deep pictures of the X-ray sky, so he found the satellite's demise an especially poignant moment. "We recently moved to Hawaii from Germany," he said, "and while unpacking the family's shipping container" he found his miniature ROSAT model. It now sits on his desk at the Institute, next to a piece of the spare detector housing. "I definitely felt an emotional attachment to this project," he admitted.

Astrophysicists in the U.S. and beyond made excellent use of ROSAT's capabilities, finding some 110,000 new X-ray sources (galaxies, stars, comets, etc.) and making X-ray observations an integral part of every astronomer's toolkit.

The project had spinoff value as well: techniques used to manufacture ROSAT's mirror surfaces were later applied to making ordinary optical lenses. Your bifocals might have been made using ROSAT technology. It may be "space junk" to some, but its benefits are riding on a lot of noses.

Twenty years ago, experts in Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom collaborated to build and launch the ROSAT satellite. These days, international collaboration in X-ray astronomy has become the norm, with the Japanese and European space agencies as major partners with NASA. Transcending political boundaries, decisions about what a satellite observes are based on scientific merit, not national origin.

NASA scientist Dr. Rob Petre (no relation to the Dick van Dyke character) helped decide the annual program of ROSAT observations. Each year, scientists would submit hundreds of proposals outlining their plans for the telescope, which were then ranked competitively. Only a small fraction were approved. For every scientist granted precious ROSAT observing time, the re-entry last weekend had to sting.

Dr. Petre was definitely chagrined to hear ROSAT referred to as "space junk" in news stories. "That was really depressing," he said, "when it was such a huge scientific success."

But he wasn't worried about falling debris landing on inhabited places, even though, like the UARS satellite a few weeks earlier, big pieces of ROSAT (the glass mirrors) were expected to hit the ground before burning up completely. Most of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans and most of Earth's land masses are unoccupied, so the odds of falling space debris causing damage are miniscule -- which is why space agencies do not go to the expense of planning controlled re-entries. Dr. Hasinger estimates that space debris as large as ROSAT falls to Earth every few weeks, almost all of it unreported and unnoticed.

Last weekend, somewhere on Earth, the ROSAT re-entry must have made beautiful "shooting stars" streaking across the sky. But the fact that there are no eyewitness reports underscores the fact that most of the planet -- especially our oceans -- is uninhabited.

So the ROSAT fall from the heavens may not have been witnessed, but the satellite certainly is remembered.

source: http://edition.cnn.com