COMET LULIN

Comet Lulin is approaching Earth and brightening rapidly. Observers say it is now visible to the naked eye as a faint (magnitude +5.6) gassy patch in the constellation Virgo before dawn. Even city dwellers have seen it. Backyard telescopes reveal a vivid green comet in obvious motion. Just yesterday, amateur astronomers watched as a solar wind gust tore away part of the comet's tail, the second time this month such a thing has happened. Lulin's closest approach to Earth (38 million miles) is on Feb. 24th; at that time the comet could be two or three times brighter than it is now.
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PNG donates to Victoria's bush fire appeal

A remote Papua New Guinea village has donated money to the Victorian bushfire appeal almost a decade after Victorians came to their aid when a devastating tsunami killed thousands of locals.The small hospital town of Vanimo, in PNG's northwestern Sandaun province, gave 10,000 kina ($A5,567) to the Red Cross Victorian Bush Fire Appeal in a touching gesture of bonds forged through tragedy.The Aitape Tsunami in July 1998 killed more than 2,200 Sandaun villagers and made 10,000 homeless. But it was a medical team from Victoria's Monash Medical Centre, led by Dr Elizabeth Lewis, who were the first to help Vanimo's overstretched hospital.Vanimo Hospital chairman, Kevin Imba presented the cheque to Australia's High Commissioner to PNG, Chris Moraitis on Thursday in a small ceremony at the hospital."We want to pass on our deep thanks for what the people of Victoria have done for the people of Sandaun," Imba said."When we think of Australia we think fondly of Victoria and Victorians, so we offer our heartfelt condolences to those families affected in the recent bushfires."Moraitis said PNG's support of the Victorian Bushfire appeal was "touching"."This is an extraordinarily generous gesture by the board and staff of Vanimo Hospital," he said"You face significant logistical and operational challenges running this hospital here, yet you have found it in your hearts to help the families affected by the bushfires, so this donation is particularly touching," he said.Last week the PNG government gave $2 million to bushfire and flood relief, while locally PNG residents have been collecting money for the Red Cross appeal.More than 200 people died in what is Australia's worst bushfire disaster in history.The fires destroyed homes, towns and forest in southeastern Victoria.

This gesture by the people of PNG is more than touching because these people have less to give than most of the developed countries of the world . It is a truly spectacular thing for them to do.

Fire photos

The blaze approaches, heaven help that which is its path.The smoke is thick and the fire is a swirling inferno, a fire storm of unimaginable proportions


Burning trees and smoke fills the forrestThe courageous men and women of the volunteer, yes, thats volunteer, bush fire brigade
Firestorm going through the Bunyip state forrest.
The aftermath, burnt out cars at Marysville, an idylic spot in the mountains, no more, completely burnt out with many lives lost.

Victoria's fires

Surviving residents of Marysville, where up to 100 more people are feared killed in Australia's bushfires,(currently 189 and still more are expected to be found) are still being kept out of town to shield them from traumatic scenes there, authorities said on Wednesday.The rising death toll in Australia's deadliest bushfires now stands at 181, but could exceed 200, authorities say. If the Marysville deaths are confirmed, the toll may reach 300.A firefighter who drove through Marysville only 10 minutes before the firestorm hit on Saturday night said people banged on the side of his water tanker, begging his team to help people trapped in burning houses.Victoria state Premier John Brumby said Marysville, which has been off-limits since the weekend fires, would remain so because of the likelihood of ghastly sights in the once idyllic town."There are still many deceased people in homes," he said, adding between 50 and 100 may be dead in Marysville."If people return to those areas ... and there are still deceased persons there ... the impact would be quite devastating."Forensic police sifted through ash and the twisted remains of houses in Marysville, Kinglake and other towns razed by fires trying to identify the hundreds killed."You have to go street by street, house by house. There are many houses that have collapsed," said Victoria state Police Commissioner Christine Nixon, adding it would take weeks to complete the search.Some of those killed were burned so badly by fires that reached four storeys high they may never be identified."In some of these cases, it will be weeks before positive identification can be made and, I'm advised by the coroner, it may be virtually impossible to officially identify the bodies."The fires tore through rural towns north of Melbourne on Saturday night, fanned by strong winds and heatwave temperatures. Melbourne's temperature on Saturday hit 46.4 degrees Celsius (115.5 degrees Fahrenheit), a record for the city.The disaster area, more than twice the size of London and encompassing more than 20 towns north of Melbourne , has been declared a crime zone. The fires have burned 1,033 homes and left 5,000 people homeless.More than 4,000 firefighters are still battling some 33 fires in Victoria state, with 23 of those still out of control.Two major fires east of Melbourne are threatening to join and if so would pose a major risk to water and gas from the Thompson Reservoir and Longford gas plant, which supply Australia's second largest city. Hundreds of kilometers of control lines were being built to keep the fires apart, fire officials said."We continue to be in a fire crisis," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told parliament.Police have launched the nation's biggest arson investigation, "Operation Phoenix," and posted a A$100,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of anyone for deliberately starting a bushfire.The tragedy is the worst natural disaster in Australia in 110 years. The previous worst bushfire was the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 that killed 75 people.The fires have increased pressure on the prime minister to take firm action on climate change as scientists blamed global warming for conditions that fueled the disaster.Australia is the most fire-prone country on earth, scientists say. Most of its bushfires are ignited by lightning. Fire officials monitor lightning strikes and any fire that does not correspond with a strike is assumed to be started by people, either accidentally or deliberately.

Victoria has ordered a Royal Commission of Inquiry to probe all aspects of the bushfires, including safety guidelines.Officials say the golden rule of surviving forest fires is to evacuate early or stay and defend their homes, but experts say that it appears many victims panicked and fled at the worst time. Some were incinerated in cars as they tried to outrun the flames.

Hot koala

What do you do when it's just too hot and you're a little koala bear living in Melbourne on a scorching hot day? Find a verandah and some friendly humans with a tub full of water and go and sit in it. aahhhh.....

Heat, heat and more heat

Much of NSW will fry under scorching 40-plus temperatures at the weekend but a cool snap next week should provide eventual relief, cutting temperatures by 20 degrees.NSW can expect hot weather on Thursday, with Penrith in Sydney's west forecast to hit 40 degrees celsius, while areas in the far west of the state could see the mercury reach the mid-40s.The scorching temperatures will continue through the weekend, climaxing with 44 temperatures in Sydney's west on Sunday, and temperatures as high as 47 in the state's west.A welcome southerly change will sweep across NSW later on Sunday, bringing an end to the heatwave.Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster Jake Phillips said everywhere was going to be hot in NSW."It's just varying degrees of hot," he warned."Quite a lot of places on Saturday and Sunday will be into the 40s, and once you get into the far west, the majority of places will be up around the 40 mark, if not well into the 40s.""On Sunday, that will change for some locations. Parts of the south will start to feel the effect of that cooler change on Sunday, but still the bulk of the state is going to be hotter on Sunday."We'll see a lot of hot temperatures out west, at Ivanhoe or Broken Hill or Tibooburra. They'll be well into the 40s - 45, 46 or even 47."The southerly will blow through Sydney on Sunday night, with temperatures expected to plummet by more than 20 degrees, Mr Phillips said."On Monday, we're still looking at temperatures in the low to mid twenties, and perhaps a couple of showers around," he said."But then there is a second front that comes through late Monday or early Tuesday and that will bring another burst of even cooler air.

"Tuesday and Wednesday look like being well below average, 21 degrees or thereabouts."The cool weather could last until the end of the week, but temperatures will rise again before the end of summer."You can expect that it will warm up again, but whether we'll go to the levels that we've seen is debatable," Mr Phillips said.

LHC

The Large Hadron Collider suffered a catastrophic malfunction soon after being switched on amid a fanfare of publicity last September.A faulty electrical connection led to a leak of super-cold helium causing damage estimated at £20 million.As a result, 53 of the magnets used to accelerate sub-atomic particles around the machine's 17-mile underground tunnel have had to be brought to the surface for repair or cleaning.Engineers have now designed fail-safe protection systems to ensure that a similar accident never happens again.Electronic monitors will provide early warnings of hazards, and the magnet network will also be fitted with pressure-release valves to confine the damage caused by any future leak.The LHC, the biggest atom-smashing machine ever built, straddles the borders of France and Switzerland and is operated by Cern, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva.It is designed to simulate the "Big Bang", which started the universe 15 billion years ago, by smashing sub-atomic particles together at energies never before achieved.Scientists hope this will help them find the answers to big questions, such as what causes mass and whether hidden dimensions exist in space.There is also a possibility of tiny black holes being created in the Collider. Experts insist that if this happens, they will pose no threat.LHC project leader Lyn Evans said: "We have a lot of work to do over the coming months, but we now have the roadmap, the time and the competence necessary to be ready for physics by summer. We are currently in a scheduled annual shutdown until May, so we're hopeful that not too much time will be lost."The total cost of repairing and refitting the machine is likely to exceed £30 million.Scientists hope to have the LHC working again in June, but its first experiments are not likely to get under way until July.Liquid helium is used to cool the machine's magnets to just 1.8C above absolute zero, nature's lowest possible temperature. This allows them to be "superconductors" through which electricity can flow without resistance.When the helium leaked and evaporated it caused a number of the sensitive magnets to warm up and suffer damage.