3 In A Row!!!!!

(from celticfc.net)



CELTIC made history tonight by clinching a third successive SPL title after a dramatic final day of the season.

Gordon Strachan’s champions beat Dundee United 1-0 at Tannadice with a Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink goal to finish top on 89 points. Second-placed Rangers finished on 86 points after losing 2-0 to Aberdeen at Pittodrie.

There were incredible scenes inside Tannadice at the end of the match, as Celtic players, management and supporters began the celebrations.

During the 90 minutes, the Hoops fans had constantly paid tribute to Tommy Burns on an emotional occasion for Celtic Football Club.

After winning the title in his first two seasons, Gordon Strachan becomes the first Celtic manager since the late Jock Stein to lead the club to three consecutive championships.

In early April, Celtic trailed Rangers by seven points but stormed back into contention with seven successive wins to clinch one of the sweetest title triumphs in the club’s history.

Over half of Tannadice was awash with green and white as thousands of Celtic fans converged on the City of Discovery with hope in their hearts. They weren’t to be disappointed.

The early exchanges were understandably tense and it was United who created the first chance in six minutes when Noel Hunt ran on to Mark De Vries’ flick and forced Artur Boruc into a save.

Celtic started to settle and Aiden McGeady almost grabbed the opener. Scott McDonald fed Shunsuke Nakamura who crossed for the Irish winger. His first-time shot was parried over by Lukas Zaluska.

Moments later, United’s Polish goalkeeper pulled off another incredible save – diving to his right to tip over Barry Robson’s looping header. Paul Hartley then had a low drive blocked on the line.

Danny Swanson fired over the bar for United on a breakaway, but it was Celtic who had the bulk of the pressure, with McGeady and Nakamura seeing a lot of the ball. United, however, were standing firm.

Hartley fired a drive over the bar as Celtic kept piling on the pressure. Yet, United were always a threat and De Vries fired wide from eight yards as the first half ended with no scoring.

Only 30 seconds of the second period had elapsed when Vennegoor of Hesselink was sent through by McGeady. The Dutchman kept his shot low but Zaluska blocked with his legs.

Celtic looked bright and McDonald threatened, before Nakamura had a shot blocked. The Japanese midfielder was then booked for a dive in the box.

The Hoops were committing bodies forward and were almost caught out when De Vries broke free on the right and fired a shot wide in 59 minutes. Boruc then pulled off a superb save to deny Swanson.

Vennegoor of Hesselink almost fired Celtic ahead after beating Zaluska to a bouncing ball. Celtic then introduced Scott Brown for Nakamura in 62 minutes.

News of Aberdeen’s first goal sent shockwaves round Tannadice, yet Celtic still had some work to do of their own and Vennegoor of Hesselink delivered in 71 minutes.

McDonald won a corner and Hartley’s corner was powered home by the Dutch striker from six yards as the stadium erupted.

As news of a second Aberdeen goal spread, the title celebrations started in earnest for the champions.

The sight of the helicopter carrying the SPL trophy flying overhead put the seal on a magical night as captain Stephen McManus held aloft the gleaming silverware and the entire first-team squad paid homage to Tommy Burns with special t-shirts.

The passing of Tommy Burns, CFC Legend

From TalkCeltic Forums:

Husband, father, friend & brother,
a man the likes of not another.
His life being steeped in green & white,
the Celtic way, the way that's right.

With courage, passion, determination,
a leader from a strong, proud nation.
With love for us, his fellow man,
giving it the best he can.

True to all who he touched in life,
and brave through troubles and through strife.
A caring bhoy and so much more,
who faced what his life had in store.

We loved him for the man he was,
and some still thought of him as 'Boss.'
True to the end as Celtic mourns
a true man's passing, Tommy Burns.

Henke67

Mercury

Iron 'Snow' Helps Maintain Mercury's Magnetic Field, Scientists Say



Mosaic of Mercury. (Credit: NASA)

ScienceDaily (May 8, 2008) — New scientific evidence suggests that deep inside the planet Mercury, iron "snow" forms and falls toward the center of the planet, much like snowflakes form in Earth's atmosphere and fall to the ground.

The movement of this iron snow could be responsible for Mercury's mysterious magnetic field, say researchers from the University of Illinois and Case Western Reserve University. In a paper published in the April issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the scientists describe laboratory measurements and models that mimic conditions believed to exist within Mercury's core.

"Mercury's snowing core opens up new scenarios where convection may originate and generate global magnetic fields," said U. of I. geology professor Jie (Jackie) Li. "Our findings have direct implications for understanding the nature and evolution of Mercury's core, and those of other planets and moons."

Mercury is the innermost planet in our solar system and, other than Earth, the only terrestrial planet that possesses a global magnetic field. Discovered in the 1970s by NASA's Mariner 10 spacecraft, Mercury's magnetic field is about 100 times weaker than Earth's. Most models cannot account for such a weak magnetic field.

Made mostly of iron, Mercury's core is also thought to contain sulfur, which lowers the melting point of iron and plays an important role in producing the planet's magnetic field.

"Recent Earth-based radar measurements of Mercury's rotation revealed a slight rocking motion that implied the planet's core is at least partially molten," said Illinois graduate student Bin Chen, the paper's lead author. "But, in the absence of seismological data from the planet, we know very little about its core."

To better understand the physical state of Mercury's core, the researchers used a multi-anvil apparatus to study the melting behavior of an iron-sulfur mixture at high pressures and high temperatures.

In each experiment, an iron-sulfur sample was compressed to a specific pressure and heated to a specific temperature. The sample was then quenched, cut in two, and analyzed with a scanning electron microscope and an electron probe microanalyzer.

"Rapid quenching preserves the sample's texture, which reveals the separation of the solid and liquid phases, and the sulfur content in each phase," Chen said. "Based on our experimental results, we can infer what is going on in Mercury's core."

As the molten, iron-sulfur mixture in the outer core slowly cools, iron atoms condense into cubic "flakes" that fall toward the planet's center, Chen said. As the iron snow sinks and the lighter, sulfur-rich liquid rises, convection currents are created that power the dynamo and produce the planet's weak magnetic field.

Mercury's core is most likely precipitating iron snow in two distinct zones, the researchers report. This double-snow state may be unique among the terrestrial planets and terrestrial-like moons in our solar system.

"Our findings provide a new context into which forthcoming observational data from NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft can be placed," Li said. "We can now connect the physical state of our innermost planet with the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets in general."

With Li and Chen, Case Western Reserve University planetary geodynamics professor Steven A. Hauck II was a co-author of the paper.

The work was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Journal reference: Chen, B., J. Li, and S. A. Hauck II (2008), Non-ideal liquidus curve in the Fe-S system and Mercury's snowing core, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L07201, doi: 10.1029/2008GL033311.

Celtic vs Rangers

7 May		Motherwell, home
11/10 May	Hibs, home	Dundee U, home
14 May		Zenit, Manchester
17 May		Motherwell, away
19 May		St Mirren, away
22 May	Dundee U, away	Aberdeen, away

Solar Images Show Green And Blue Flashes

Green flash at top of solar image. (Credit: Copyright Stéphane Guisard (ESO))

ScienceDaily (May 5, 2008) — Cerro Paranal, home of ESO's Very Large Telescope, is certainly one of the best astronomical sites on the planet. Stunning images, obtained by ESO staff at Paranal, of the green and blue flashes, as well as of the so-called 'Gegenschein', are real cases in point.

The Earth's atmosphere is a gigantic prism that disperses sunlight. In the most ideal atmospheric conditions, such as those found regularly above Cerro Paranal, this will lead to the appearance of so-called green and blue flashes at sunset. The phenomenon is so popular on the site that it is now the tradition for the Paranal staff to gather daily on the telescope platform to observe the sunset and its possible green flash before starting their long night of observations.

The green and blue flashes are fleeting events that require an unobstructed view of the setting Sun, and a very stable atmosphere. These conditions are very often met at Paranal, a 2635m high mountain in the Chilean Atacama Desert, where the sky is cloudless more than 300 days a year. Paranal is home of ESO's Very Large Telescope, an ensemble of four 8.2-m telescopes and four 1.8-m Auxiliary Telescopes that together form the world's most advanced optical telescope.

ESO staff Stéphane Guisard has been chasing green flashes for many years and has been able to capture them on many occasions. "The most challenging is to capture the green flash while still seeing the rest of the Sun with all its colours," says Guisard.

His colleague Guillaume Blanchard was even luckier. On Christmas Eve, as he was one of the few to follow the tradition of looking at the sunset, he had the chance to immortalise a blue flash using his hobby telescope.

ESO astronomer Yuri Beletsky also likes to take photographs from Paranal, but he prefers the night views. This allows him to make use of the unique conditions above the site to make stunning images. On some of these, he has captured other extremely interesting effects related to the Sun: the so-called Zodiacal light and the 'Gegenschein'.

Both the Zodiacal light and the Gegenschein (which is German for "counter shine") are due to reflected sunlight by interplanetary dust. These are so faint that they are only visible in places free from light pollution.

Most of the interplanetary dust in the Solar System lies in the ecliptic, the plane close to which the planets are moving around the Sun, and the Zodiacal light and Gegenschein are thus seen in the region centred around the ecliptic. While the Zodiacal light is seen in the vicinity of the Sun, the Gegenschein is seen in the direction opposite to the Sun.

Each of the small particles of dust, left over from comets and asteroids, acts as a small Moon reflecting the light coming from our host star. "If you could see the individual dust particles then you would see the ones in the middle of the Gegenschein looking like very tiny full moons, while the ones hidden in the faint part of the dust band would look like tiny crescent moons," explains ESO astronomer Colin Snodgrass. "But even the VLT cannot see such tiny individual dust particles out in space. Instead we see the combined effect, in photos like these, of millions of tiny dust particles reflecting light back to us from the Sun."