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However, the government said two thirds of the capital was under about four feet (1.2 meters) of water in some areas. About a third of the country’s 330,000 population live in the highly congested capital island. Maldives is a cluster of 1,192 tiny coral islands scattered some 800 kilometres (500 miles) across the equator and is vulnerable to any rise in sea levels. The fate of tens of thousands of tourists in the Maldives was not immediately known.

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2004 October 1 Earth Nears Asteroid Toutatis Illustration Credit: E. De Jong and S. Suzuki, JPL, NASA Explanation: On Wednesday, September 29, the Earth came within one million miles of the asteroid Toutatis -- the closest predicted aproach of our fair planet to a sizable asteroid or comet in this century. Coming within one million miles or about 4 times the Earth-Moon distance, Earth would appear to be...

"The previous data that we had ... actually said that they (the tektites and the ash) were different in age, that they differed by about 180,000 years and that the extinction happened before the impact, which would totally preclude there being a causal relationship," said Renne, who studies ties between mass extinctions and volcanism. He and colleagues were comparing a new technique to date geologic events when they realized there was a discrepancy in the timing -- the so-called 'K-T boundary' -- the geological span of time between the Cretaceous and Paleocene periods when the dinosaurs and most other life...

Earth's gravity may not have the gravitas of Jupiter, but the planet regularly plucks small asteroids passing by and pins them into orbit. The mini-moons don't stay for long. Within a year or so they resume their looping, twisting paths like crazy straws around the sun. But others arrive to take their place. Simulations show that two asteroids the size of dishwashers and a dozen half-meter (1.6 feet) in diameter are orbiting Earth at any given time. Every 50 years or so something the size of a dump truck arrives. So far, there's been just one confirmed sighting. ... A...

China's official news agency is reporting that the country's Chang'e 2 deep-space probe made an amazing flyby of the asteroid Toutatis this week, snapping a series of pictures as it passed just 2 miles away. The achievement signals China's entry into yet another exclusive space club. Only four of the world's space efforts have managed close encounters with asteroids: NASA (with NEAR Shoemaker and Dawn, for example), the European Space Agency (with Rosetta), Japan (with Hayabusa) — and now China with Toutatis

PART of a Romano/British ring found by a Leighton metal detectorist in fields near Hockliffe has been declared treaure. The ring, which has provided archaeologists with the missing link to a bloodthirsty ancient Celtic warrior god, was unearthed by Greg Dyer of Churchill Road in September 2005. At an inquest last Tuesday, Beds coroner David Morris told the court that the piece of ring, thought to be from the third century AD, contains 2.98 grammes of silver. The piece of jewellery, inscribed with the words 'Deo Tota Felix' is currently in the British Museum waiting to be valued. In a...

At 8.45 on the morning of 15 April 136 BC, Babylon was plunged into darkness when the Moon passed in front of the Sun. An astrologer, who recorded the details in cuneiform characters on a clay tablet, wrote: "At 24 degrees after sunrise-a solar eclipse. When it began on the southwest side, Venus, Mercury and the normal stars were visible. Jupiter and Mars, which were in their period of disappearance, became visible. The Sun threw off the shadow from southwest to northeast." If present-day astronomers use a computer to run the movements of the Earth, Moon and Sun backwards...

Cat-and-mouse asteroid pulls close to Earth January 03 2003 at 07:25PM Washington - An asteroid playing a cat-and-mouse game with Earth will pull to its closest point in almost a century on Monday before swinging away for another 95 years, Nasa said in a statement. Asteroid 2002 AA29 is like a mouse teasing a cat, approaching Earth first on one side and then on another, without ever making contact or actually passing our planet as the two bodies circle the sun, the astronomers said on Thursday. At just 60m, the tiny asteroid will get within 6 000 000km on Monday....

Monday, 21 October, 2002, 16:27 GMT 17:27 UKEarth's little brother found The asteroid was found almost by accident By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor Astronomers have discovered the first object ever that is in a companion orbit to the Earth. Asteroid 2002 AA29 is only about 100 metres wide and never comes closer than 3.6 million miles to our planet. But it shares the Earth's orbit around the Sun, at first on one side of the Earth and then escaping to travel along our planet's path around the Sun until it encounters the Earth from the other...

Newly Discovered Object Could be a Leftover Apollo Rocket Stage An analysis of the orbital motion of the newly discovered object J002E3 indicates that it could be a leftover Saturn V third stage from one of the Apollo missions, most likely the Apollo 12 mission, launched on November 14, 1969. The new object was discovered on September 3 by Bill Yeung, who noted that it was moving quite rapidly. Initial orbit computations by the Minor Planet Center indicated that the object was only about twice as far away as the Moon, and was actually in orbit about our planet....

Long-lost near-Earth asteroid spotted 17:35 16 October 03 NewScientist.com news service A large and potentially hazardous asteroid that went missing for almost 66 years ago was re-discovered by astronomers on Wednesday morning. The good news is that its next fly-by, on 4 November, will miss the Earth by a relatively comfortable seven million kilometres. Asteroid 1937 UB, later dubbed Hermes, set a record for closest recorded approach to the Earth on 30 October 1937. The record lasted for 50 years. Hermes is one to two kilometres in diameter and would cause global devastation if it hit the planet. So, given...

GALACTIC ENCOUNTERS, APOLLO OBJECTS AND ATLANTIS: A CATASTROPHICAL SCENARIO FOR DISCONTINUITIES IN HUMAN HISTORY Emilio SpedicatoUniversity of Bergamo Acknowledgements The author acknowledges stimulating discussions with Thor Heyerdahl (Colle Micheri, Liguria and Guimar, Tenerife), Laurence Dixon (University of Hertfordhshire), Victor Clube (Oxford University), Emmanuel Anati (Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici), Zdenek Kukal (Central Geological Survey, Prague), Donald Patten (Seattle), Flavio Barbiero (Livorno), Antonino Del Popolo (Bergamo), Lia Mangolini (Milano), Graham Hancock (Leat Mill, Lifton) and Andrew Collins (Leigh on Sea). Third revised version. First version published in 1985 as Quaderno 85/3. First revised version published in 1990 as Quaderno 90/22...

Scientists monitoring an asteroid have warned it could collide with Earth in just over a decade. The newly discovered asteroid, known as 2003 QQ47, is around two-thirds of a mile wide and has been classified as "an event meriting careful monitoring" by astronomers. It is around one tenth fo the size of the meteor that is thought to have wiped out dinosaurs on Earth 65 million years ago. In the event of it hitting the Earth, the rock would have the force of 350,000 mega tonnes - around eight million times more powerful than the bomb dropped at Hiroshima at...

SPACE.com -- The largest asteroid ever known to pass near Earth is making a close celestial brush with the planet this week in an event that professional and backyard astronomers are watching closely. The space rock, named Toutatis, will not hit Earth, despite rumors of possible doom that have circulated the Internet for months. Humanity is very fortunate there won't be an impact, as the asteroid is large enough to cause global devastation. Toutatis is about 2.9 miles long and 1.5 miles wide (4.6 by 2.4 kilometers). On September 29, Toutatis will be within a million miles of Earth, or...

Summary (Sep 29, 2004): Today's close passage of the relatively large asteroid, Toutatis, has presented astronomers with a new ruler to measure solar system distances. By using two telescopes separated by hundreds of miles, the classic parallax method validates the asteroid's orbital path. Precise Distance to Doomsdaybased on ESO report The painting titled "K/T Hit" by artist Donald E. Davis. This impact occured 65 million years ago, ending the reign of the dinosaurs.Image Credit: Don Davis Today, September 29, 2004, is undisputedly the Day of Toutatis, the famous "doomsday" asteroid. Not since the year 1353 did this impressive "space rock"...

A minor rumor has hatched on the Internet that a large and deadly asteroid will strike Earth this fall. Bulletin board discussions cite a 63 percent chance of impact, while concerned readers have e-mailed SPACE.com wondering if it is true. Astronomers know of no such impending doom. The rumors are likely rooted in a real event, however. On Sept. 29, 2004 an asteroid the size of a small city will make the closest known pass of such a very large space rock anytime this century. While not dangerous for now, asteroid Toutatis is incredibly strange. And scientists are quite familiar...

HOW - 1. "actually you will not be able to see it ... " Spotting ToutatisToutatis will not be visible to the unaided eye. Experienced telescope users can see it now from the Southern Hemisphere, and in early October it will be visible from the north. Finding Toutatis will be challenging, Harris said, due to a combination of the asteroid's position in the sky and interfering moonlight. Because the asteroid is so close, its location in the sky will vary significantly for skywatchers in different places on Earth at any given moment. And because it moves quickly, the location changes...

News-Alert-Specials from The Survival Center August 26, 2004 Asteroid Toutatis 4179 (official) Sept 29th, 2004 Anyone who spends even 20 minutes researching Toutatis should quickly comprehend the very real danger this monstrosity represents. ==== According to NASA on September 29, 2004 a large and potentially hazardous asteroid called Toutatis 4179 will come very close to planet Earth. Facts from NASA: ·Toutatis is about 3 miles long, 1.5 miles wide ·Discovered in 1989, it nears earth every 3.98 years ·It has a very strange shape, rotation and orbit ·On Sept 29th it will come less than 963,000 miles close ·963,000 miles...

In the days of the Cold War, Soviet commanders and their best scientists were working on a project to build military headquarters on the moon, the Novaya Gazeta weekly reports. The paper writes that the lunar base project was developed 30 years ago and was abolished only because of its enormous cost. The newspaper cited Aleksandr Yegorov, deputy general designer of the General Machine Building Design Bureau (the name of the bureau suggests that it deals with top secret military projects) as saying that he personally took part in the development of the lunar base project. Soviet scientists considered the...