Adventure Ausrama Blog

Chromium like mercury has a bad name. We have all heard of mercury poisoning. It is a nasty and potentially fatal condition. Many miners today suffer from it particularly in developing countries where workplace health and safety is non-existent. Chromium comes in a variety of forms. It is used in compound with other metals. Its main use is for chrome plating, an industry which is fading as people turn to plastic based alternatives.  Chromium poisoning can occur through breathing in dust, eating, drinking, skin absorption and smoking.  Symptoms include dermatitis, asthma, ulcers, general infection, mucus membrane inflammation, burns on skin, respiratory tract inflammation, conjunctivitis with ulcers and lung cancer. It is disconcerting to hear that chromium supplements are being offered to lose weight. Like smoking, general body inflammation can keep one skinny, but it is an irrational thing to do. The US Academy of Science claims that 200 micrograms a day is safe. The latest re

It has been found that asteroids can have magnetic fields. This was quite a surprise. Planets have magnetic fields due to a moving molten metal core. Mercury has a very strong field. The reason for this is not yet known. Vesta is a large asteroid with a diameter of 525 kilometer. It was first identified in 1807 by Heinrich Wilheim Olbers. It is the most easily seen asteroid from Earth. Smaller asteroids hit Vesta and some of the debris falls to Earth. The fallen "rocks" can be linked to Vesta because they have the same spectral color match. Vesta is unusual for an asteroid as it once had a crust, mantle and molten metal core. The orbiting dawn spacecraft/satellite confirms this. It is now frozen and no longer active. A meteor named Alan Hills A81001 composed of Vestan crust fell to Earth in the Arctic. When it was analysed it was found to have a weak magnetic field.  The original crust gained  a magnetic field when it cooled 3.7 billion years ago. An impact a

A NASA space vehicle, New Messenger, has reached Mercury and is beaming back information to CSIRO's Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex. It has taken nearly seven years to get to the hot inner planet. A Mercury day is six Earth months long while its year is only 88 days. There is no possibility of humans landing on this little planet as the temperature reaches 430 degrees. Its minimum is extreme as well, minus 180 degrees. The sun would look three times bigger than on Earth if you could stand on it surface and look at it that is. An earlier exploratory vehicle, Marina 10, only gave a cursory look at the innermost planet. The whole planet is to be mapped this time. It will show whether there is ice at the poles. The sun never shines into pole craters. A mystery to be solved is why Mercury is composed mainly of metals. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia http://www.technorati.com/