Posts Tagged ‘wp’
Friday, May 1st, 2009
[Editor’s note: Food is one of the perfect intersections of physical and cultural geography. This article from The Washington Post last month highlights how Peru’s location and cultural heritage intertwine to bring us a special cuisine enjoyable when traveling afar or at your local cheap eat.]
Republished from The Washington Post.
LIMA, Peru — It’s usually the sneakers that give Americans away when they travel abroad. But here, it’s what you eat — and when you eat it. Only tourists would think of ordering ceviche after 2 p.m. If the fish, which is “cooked” in a marinade of lime juice, onion and chili peppers, has been out of the water for more than 12 hours, most Peruvians turn up their noses. It simply isn’t fresh enough.
It’s easy for Peruvians to be particular about their seafood. Fed by the icy, nutrient-rich Humboldt Current, the waters off the Peruvian coast are the most bountiful fishing grounds in the world. Which is why, seven days a week, starting at 4 a.m., fishermen at the Villa Maria market in Lima hawk Dover sole for ceviche, plus red snapper, tuna, scallops, squid and octopus just hours out of the sea.
Eating ceviche, the South American country’s best-known dish, is a must in Lima. But there’s so much more: tiraditos, a Peruvian take on sashimi; Chinese stir-fries spiked with Peruvian chili peppers; and sushi rolls filled with scallop and Parmesan cheese, a favorite combination in Lima.
“Right now, people want to discover new flavors,” says Peru’s most famous chef, Gaston Acurio, who owns 29 restaurants around the world. If the Japanese could persuade the world to embrace raw fish and seaweed, he reasons, “why can’t we dream of doing the same with Peruvian food?”
Peru’s campaign is well underway. In 2006, Acurio, 41, reportedly wowed the crowd at the prestigious Madrid Fusion culinary conference, which anointed Lima “the gastronomic capital of Latin America.” More recently, chefs such as Todd English and food magazines have declared it the next big thing, praising the diverse ingredients and creative combinations of flavors. (Indeed, Peruvian cuisine might finally be the thing to redeem “fusion,” which has been a dirty word in culinary circles ever since the 1990s brought us sesame-crusted everything.)
Hundreds of years of immigration have created a natural fusion of Spanish, Italian, Chinese and Japanese influences. A wave of Chinese arrived in the 1850s to help build the railroads, bringing with them ingredients such as soy sauce and wok-cooking techniques. The Japanese came in the early 20th century to work on sugar and cotton plantations, and, according to the indispensable food guide “Eat Smart in Peru” (Ginkgo Press, 2006), they were instrumental in transforming ceviche from home cooking to restaurant fare. Asian influences are especially pronounced in Lima.
On the southern coast, where the Spanish brought African slaves, popular dishes include carapulcra, a stew of pork, dried potatoes and peanuts. In the Andes, the pre-colonial cuisine showcases such meats as alpaca and guinea pig, as well as potatoes, which originated in the area more than 7,000 years ago.
At the heart of all Peruvian cooking are its chili peppers, or ajis (ah-HEES). There are dozens, if not hundreds, of ajis from the western slopes of the Andes and the jungle. The three most popular are aji amarillo, a delicate but piquant pepper that is a must in ceviche; aji panca, an earthy dried chili; and aji rocoto, a fiery chili that is commonly stuffed with meat and cheese for a dish called rocoto relleno, or added to spice up soups and sauces.
Continue readin at The Washington Post . . .
Tags: ceviche, food, humboldt, jane black, lima, peru, post, twp, wash post, wp
Posted in General, Geography, Promote | Comments Off on Marinated in the Morning, Grilled at Night: The Charms of Peru’s Fusion Cuisine (Wash Post)
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
[Editor’s note: Find the trends, group them together, and use that hierarchy (topology) as an access metaphor. And remember geography doesn’t always need to mean map.]
Republished from The Washington Post.
Original publication date: March 29th, 2009.
By Karen Yourish And Todd Lindeman — The Washington Post.
The total amount of the stimulus packages approved by the G-20 countries amounts to $1.6 trillion. More than half of that comes from the United States.
Other maps and graphics that use grouping:
Tags: cartogram, categories, class, classify, economy, g20, global, group, grouping, karen, obama, organizing, post, stimulus, subclass, subgroup, thematic, todd, top-level, topology, twp, us, visualization, wash post, washington post, wp
Posted in Best practices, Charting, Design, General, Geography, Mapping, Print, Promote | Comments Off on Jump Starting the Global Economy (Wash Post)
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
[Editor’s note: Somewhat depressing article from The Nation examines how many major cities across the US face the prospect of loosing their daily newspapers and what that could mean for journalism and democracy in America. Thanks Todd!]
Republished from The Nation.
by JOHN NICHOLS & ROBERT W. MCCHESNEY
March 18, 2009 (April 6, 2009 print edition)
RELATED: Former Washington Post executive editor Len Downie discusses the future of newspapers on CSPAN.
Communities across America are suffering through a crisis that could leave a dramatically diminished version of democracy in its wake. It is not the economic meltdown, although the crisis is related to the broader day of reckoning that appears to have arrived. The crisis of which we speak involves more than mere economics. Journalism is collapsing, and with it comes the most serious threat in our lifetimes to self-government and the rule of law as it has been understood here in the United States.
After years of neglecting signs of trouble, elite opinion-makers have begun in recent months to recognize that things have gone horribly awry. Journals ranging from Time, The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The New Republic to the New York Times and theLos Angeles Times concur on the diagnosis: newspapers, as we have known them, are disintegrating and are possibly on the verge of extinction. Time‘s Walter Isaacson describes the situation as having “reached meltdown proportions” and concludes, “It is now possible to contemplate a time in the near future when major towns will no longer have a newspaper and when magazines and network news operations will employ no more than a handful of reporters.” A newspaper industry that still employs roughly 50,000 journalists–the vast majority of the remaining practitioners of the craft–is teetering on the brink.
Blame has been laid first and foremost on the Internet, for luring away advertisers and readers, and on the economic meltdown, which has demolished revenues and hammered debt-laden media firms. But for all the ink spilled addressing the dire circumstance of the ink-stained wretch, the understanding of what we can do about the crisis has been woefully inadequate. Unless we rethink alternatives and reforms, the media will continue to flail until journalism is all but extinguished.
Let’s begin with the crisis. In a nutshell, media corporations, after running journalism into the ground, have determined that news gathering and reporting are not profit-making propositions. So they’re jumping ship. The country’s great regional dailies–the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, theMinneapolis Star Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer–are in bankruptcy. Denver’s Rocky Mountain Newsrecently closed down, ending daily newspaper competition in that city. The owners of the San Francisco Chronicle, reportedly losing $1 million a week, are threatening to shutter the paper, leaving a major city without a major daily newspaper. Big dailies in Seattle (the Times), Chicago (the Sun-Times) and Newark (the Star-Ledger) are reportedly near the point of folding, and smaller dailies like the Baltimore Examiner have already closed. The 101-year-old Christian Science Monitor, in recent years an essential source of international news and analysis, is folding its daily print edition. The Seattle Post-Intelligenceris scuttling its print edition and downsizing from a news staff of 165 to about twenty for its online-only incarnation. Whole newspaper chains–such as Lee Enterprises, the owner of large and medium-size publications that for decades have defined debates in Montana, Iowa and Wisconsin–are struggling as the value of stock shares falls below the price of a single daily paper. And the New York Times needed an emergency injection of hundreds of millions of dollars by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim in order to stay afloat.
Continue reading at The Nation . . .
Tags: chicago, cspan, downie, john nichols, len downie, los angeles, media, nation, newspaper, nyt, post, robert w. mcchesney, san francisco, the nation, times, twp, washington, wp
Posted in General, Print, Promote | 1 Comment »
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
[Editor’s note: “Habitat loss has sent many bird species into decline across the United States.” This chart  shows the percent change in bird population since 1968, by habitat. I like three things about this chart: (1) it uses direct labeling on the green and red lines thus making it easy to understand for all and allowing color blind viewers access to the encoded information (see post) and (2) the chart segments out important thematic subtrends in the dataset. Also (3) I worked on a bird migration supplement (wall) map for National Geographic in 2004 and Cornell Lab of Ornithology has some of the coolest time-based mapping techniques around. See original artwork from the North America side of the supplement now thru May at NG Explorers Hall in DC.]
Republished from The Washington Post.
Graphic by Patterson Clark. Â March 20, 2009.
SOURCE:Â www.stateofthebirds.org.
Related story by Juliet Eilperin.
Major Decline Found In Some Bird Groups
But Conservation Has Helped Others
Several major bird populations have plummeted over the past four decades across the United States as development transformed the nation’s landscape, according to a comprehensive survey released yesterday by the Interior Department and outside experts, but conservation efforts have staved off potential extinctions of others.
“The State of the Birds” report, a broad analysis of data compiled from scientific and citizen surveys over 40 years, shows that some species have made significant gains even as others have suffered. Hunted waterfowl and iconic species such as the bald eagle have expanded in number, the report said, while populations of birds along the nation’s coasts and in its arid areas and grasslands have declined sharply.
From the report: “Reveals troubling declines of bird populations during the past 40 years—a warning signal of the failing health of our ecosystems. At the same time, we see heartening evidence that strategic land management and conservation action can reverse declines of birds. This report calls attention to the collective efforts needed to protect nature’s resources for the benefit of people and wildlife.”
Continue reading at The Washington Post . . .
Tags: arid lands, bernie, birds, color, color blindness, color oracle, color vision impairment, conservation, cornell, department of the interior, ecosystems, forest, grasslands, habitat, juliet, juliet eilperin, land management, nature, ornithology, patterson, patterson clark, state of the birds, subclass, subgroup, thematic, wash post, washington post, water bird, waterfowl, wetland, wildlife, wp
Posted in Best practices, Charting, General, Geography, Mapping, Print, science | Comments Off on Disappearing Birds (Wash Post)
Thursday, March 19th, 2009
[Editor’s note: Chrys Wu takes care of Web 2.0 type aggregation and promotion at The Washington Post. She has a blog and recent posts have focused on Infographics. I highlight several below. Nutgraph: Don’t think about one platform first. Think about all platforms available simultaneously. Also: “Infographics is not art, it is a conveyance of information.”]
Understanding Infographics, First Pass
As promised in a previous post on learning information graphics (sometimes shortened to “infographicsâ€), I’m posting my raw notes from Day 1 of an information graphics workshop taught last month by Alberto Cairo and Xaquin G.V., two leading practitioners.
Above, Alberto Cairo teaches a data visualization seminar at Medialab-Prado in Madrid in 2007.
Read full notes from class . . .
Some of Chrys’ favorite information graphics and visualization blogs:
Alberto Cairo Has a Monster Reading List
Day One of the Beyond Bootcamp information graphics workshop taught by Alberto Cairo and Xaquin G.V. has been much less scary than I’d first thought.
Cairo’s lecture has been a model of organized thought and progressive structure, which should come as no surprise to anyone, given the nature of his work.
What’s also obvious is that the man reads a heck of a lot. For every concept and example, he’s tossed off a different book title.
Here’s what he’s recommended to us so far, in no particular order:
Tags: 3d, alberto cairo, beyond bootcamp, bootcamp, cairo, chrys, chrys wu, colin ware, flowing data, infographics, information graphics, nigel holmes, otto neurath, post, steven pinker, visualization, wp, wu, XaquÃn G.V.
Posted in Best practices, Charting, General, Interactive, Promote | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
[Editor’s note: I did the Flash ActionScript 3 programming behind Head Count: Tracking Obama’s Appointments. This ambitious, collaborative database-driven project tracks the Obama administration’s senior political appointments and will be kept up-to-date with the latest happenings. A look at some of the interactive features you can find at washingtonpost.com/headcount.]
Interactive graphic and database by Sarah Cohen, Karen Yourish, Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso, Ryan O’Neil, Paul Volpe, Sarah Sampsel and Laura Stanton.
This project draws on concepts from these two blog posts in particular: It Ain’t Easy To Get A Newspaper To Provide Useful Data (TechDirt) and The New Journalism: Goosing the Gray Lady (NY Times).
Republished from The Washington Post
Heads Pop Up and Heads Roll: Let’s Keep Track.
By Al Kamen; Wednesday, March 18, 2009; Page A11
Today we launch Head Count, The Washington Post’s interactive database to help you keep a sharp eye on the people President Obama is appointing to the nearly 500 top positions in the federal government that require Senate confirmation. The new feature will not only tell you who they are but also help you count all the demographic beans — age, sex, ethnicity, education (elite schools or not), home states and so on.
At http://www.washingtonpost.com/headcount, you can search agency by agency to determine which jobs are still open, should your private-sector job be looking a little shaky these days. You can also search by individual to determine how many officials in this “change” administration are merely retreads from the Clinton days.
And Head Count will give some clues to help answer everyone’s perennial question: How did that fool get that great job? It will also tell you who paid good, hard money or bundled huge sums for Obama/Biden, who worked on the campaign, who had the coveted Harvard Law connection, hailed from Chicago or was a pal of Michelle Obama, Tom Daschle or Ted Kennedy.
The appointments that are tracked by Head Count do not include judges, ambassadors, U.S. attorneys or U.S. marshals. We’ll monitor those separately. Nor does the database include the many important officials who are not confirmed by the Senate. We’ll be tweaking the database as we go, adding new categories, such as veterans, and making other additions.
Loop Fans can help! If you’ve got information we could use or suggestions about how to improve the site, please submit comments and updates at the link provided on the Head Count Web site.
NOMINATING PARTY
The White House personnel logjam — also known as the Great Daschle Debacle — appears to have been broken. Team Obama’s nominations operation began at a record pace. But IRS problems sparked Health and Human Services nominee Tom Daschle‘s withdrawal on Feb. 3, leading to a general revetting of nominees that stalled everything.
The numbers are startling. Obama, by the end of his first week in office, had announced 47 nominees for senior-most jobs. He’d officially nominated 37 of them, according to data compiled by New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service Presidential Transition Project. (That number includes some holdovers.)
But in the month after Daschle’s withdrawal, the White House announced only 10 candidates for Senate-confirmed positions and formally nominated only six people.
In the next three weeks, however, the pace ramped up sharply, with 42 nominees named. Official nominations have been slower — only 27 during that time. But there were 15 last week, and we’re told there are plenty in the pipeline. As of yesterday, there were 39 Senate-confirmed individuals on the job. (That includes seven holdovers.)
The push now is to get as many nominees up to the Senate — and get confirmation for the three dozen or so already up there — before the Senate slithers out of town on April 3.
View the interactive at The Washington Post . . .
Tags: administration, al kamen, api, appointments, as3, biden, clinton, daschle, data, database, drillable, Flash, gatekeeper, head count, innovation, Interactive, karen yourish, kelso, kennedy, laura stanton, Matthew Ericson, media, news, newspaper, obama, openness, relevance, rich, sarah cohen, sarah sampsel, stories, useful data, washington, wp
Posted in Best practices, Charting, Data source, Design, Election, Flash, General, Interactive, Print, Self promo | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
[Editor’s note: Maps are most useful when held in the hand and referenced while in a landscape. But sometimes it is hard to match the abstract map topology with what is literally just in front of us. Or maybe the map was left at home. Maps are best when combined with confirmatory signage (direct annotation) in the landscape itself. These signs should have prominent, frequent placement and be easy to read. Signage that is small and/or discrete is pointless.
This article from the Washington Post explores the National Park Service’s proposal for better signage along the National Mall in the District, swarmed all year long with tourists who have no clue where they are or what they’re looking at.]
Republished from The Washington Post.
Monday, March 16, 2009; Page B01
Also see John Kelly’s blog post on signage in the Metro rail subways.
Park Service Wants Tourist-Friendly Signs for Mall Monuments
The two Belgian tourists paused on the pathway near the Washington Monument to answer a question.
Could they identify the towering white obelisk before them?
They examined their map. “We think, the Ellipse,” said Dien Haemhouts, 24, of Antwerp. Told their mistake, they laughed. “Ah, the Washington Monument,” Haemhouts said. “Okay.”
It was understandable. They had never been to Washington before. There was no sign nearby identifying the monument. And so the two tourists found themselves in the midst of a fresh debate: Do icons like the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial need signs announcing what they are?
The National Park Service, which is about to install an extensive new system of signs on the Mall, says yes. Many foreign and American tourists have no clue what they’re looking at or what to expect when they arrive, the Park Service says. Officials say, for example, that they often get calls from the public asking if there is a Nordstrom on the Mall.
But some members of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which must approve the new sign system, as well as American tourists interviewed on a cold day last week, say no to such signs. “Just looking at it,” Minnie Glenn, 50, of Park Hall, Md., said of the monument. “It’s self-defining.”
The debate arises as the Mall is about to get a new $2.2 million sign system, funded by the federal government and the private Trust for the National Mall. Design research is underway, with a view to replacing the mishmash of signs on the Mall with a more uniform and user-friendly system that will probably use a series of color-coded pylons.
“There are hundreds of mismatched signs on the Mall,” Wayne Hunt, whose firm is researching the new system, told the arts commission last month at a meeting where proposed signs were reviewed. “The Lincoln Memorial has 44 mismatched signs.”
Across the Mall, there are signs with directions, signs with warnings, signs with rules. “Please Stay on the Sidewalks,” reads one at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. “Quiet” is called for at the Lincoln Memorial. “No Guns or Ammunition,” says one near the Washington Monument.
When the question of formal signs came up, several commission members said signs seemed unnecessary and would be a blot on the landscape. “What does it say in front of the pyramids?” Pamela Nelson, vice chairman, wondered of Egypt’s famous tombs. “Is there a sign in front of the pyramids?”
Commission member Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk asked: “Do you need a sign in front of the Washington Monument? I don’t think so.”
In a letter to the Park Service, commission Secretary Thomas E. Luebke wrote that the commission “strongly discouraged the use of the monument-type sign to identify buildings and memorials on the National Mall.”
Continue reading at Washington Post . . .
Tags: dc, foreign, john kelly, landmark, mall, map, michael ruane, monument, national park service, nps, post, sign, tourist, washington, washington monument, wayfinding, wp
Posted in Best practices, General, Geography, Mapping, Print, Promote | 1 Comment »
Friday, March 6th, 2009
[Editor’s note: This graphic mixes a free-form Dorling cartogram with a bar chart. Both examine the same nominal geographic data but the bar chart shows “underwater” mortgages as a percent of all mortgages while the cartogram shows the same by total per state. Since most US state choropleth maps are simply visual lists, this graphic dispenses with the map entirely and examines the thematic data through two lenses to show two different results.]
Republished from The Washington Post.
March 5, 2009.
Graphic by Todd Lindeman and Laura Stanton.
Related story >>
At least one in five U.S. mortgage holders – or about 8.3 million households – owed more on their mortgages by the end of 2008 than their homes were worth, sometimes called “underwater.”
SOURCE: First American CoreLogic | The Washington Post – March 5, 2009
U.S. Launches Wide-Ranging Plan to Steady Housing Market
$75 Billion Plan Would Help Borrowers Avoid Foreclosure
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 5, 2009; Page A01
The Obama administration yesterday sketched in the details of its most ambitious attempt to reduce foreclosures and stabilize the beleaguered housing market at the root of the economic meltdown.
The program has two key elements: a refinancing program for borrowers with little equity in their homes but current on their loans, and a $75 billion program to help reduce mortgage payments for struggling borrowers.
Several large lenders praised the program, including Bank of America and Wells Fargo. There were also converts among those outside the industry. “I was skeptical at first, but I think these guidelines are helpful in a lot of ways,” said John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a nonprofit group that has been critical of industry efforts to modify mortgages.
Homeowners with loans as large as $729,750 could see their interest rates temporarily cut to as low as 2 percent under the program. The administration also said it will add new incentives to persuade lenders that hold second mortgages to give up their claims, further lowering homeowners’ debt obligations. While the Obama administration initially said it would focus on owner-occupied properties, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said they would refinance loans for some second homes and investment properties, too.
That the programs would apply to mortgages worth up to $729,750 throughout the country and not just in high-priced regions surprised some industry officials who praised the move. “It will allow us to help more borrowers, especially those who have been hit hardest by the current crisis,” said John A. Courson, chief executive of the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Continue reading at The Washington Post . . .
Tags: dina el boghdady, foreclosures, housing, laura, laura staton, mortgage, network, network topology, post, refinance, renae merle, stanton, todd, todd lindeman, topology, underwater, wash post, washington, wp
Posted in Best practices, Charting, Critique, General, Geography, Print, Promote | 3 Comments »
Friday, February 20th, 2009
[Editor’s note: This full page graphic by Gene Thorp delves into the mire that Afghanistan may become for President Obama. Great mapping and visual story telling with photo and charting elements.]
Republished from The Washington Post.
Originally published Sunday 15 February 2009 in the Outlook section.
Graphic by Gene Thorp and Patterson Clark.
Iraq was George W. Bush’s war, but the conflict that now embroils both Afghanistan and Pakistan is likely to become Barack Obama’s — a war to which he may commit 30,000 more U.S. troops. Will the incoming soldiers be sucked into the “graveyard of empires,†as the British and Soviets were before them? Or could Obama’s war eventually bring peace and stability to the region? Here are some of the most important trends that will help determine the answer.
Graphic content by Peter Bergen, author of “The Osama bin Laden I Know†and senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and Katherine Tiedemann, New America Foundation program associate
View hi-res PDF of the graphic. Screenshot below.
Click screenshot for higher resolution image.
RELATED ARTICLE
Going the Distance: The war in Afghanistan isn’t doomed. We just need to rethink the insurgency.
By Seth G. Jones Sunday, February 15, 2009; Page B01
On the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, lies the Kabre Ghora graveyard. It is believed to contain the graves of 158 British soldiers, diplomats and their families who died in the city during the Anglo-Afghan wars of 1839-1842 and 1879-1880. The name comes from the term Afghans use to describe British soldiers: “Ghora.”
The original British gravestones have disappeared except for the remnants of 10, which have been preserved and relocated to a spot against the cemetery’s southern wall. I have been to Kabre Ghora several times, but on my most recent visit, I noticed something new — a memorial honoring soldiers from the United States, Canada and Europe who have died in Afghanistan since 2001.
Afghanistan has a reputation as a graveyard of empires, based as much on lore as on reality. This reputation has contributed to a growing pessimism that U.S. and NATO forces will fare no better there than did the Soviet and British armies, or even their predecessors reaching back to Alexander the Great. The gloom was only stoked by last week’s brazen suicide attacks in Kabul on the eve of a visit by Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
But it would be irresponsible to concede defeat. Yes, the situation is serious, but it’s far from doomed. We can still turn things around if we strive for a better understanding of the Afghan insurgency and work to exploit its many weaknesses.
(more…)
Tags: a bitter harvest, achille's heel, Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, attack of the drones, british, bush, gene thorp, Ghora, Hamid Karzai, hearts and minds, helping hands, insurgency, Iraq, Katherine Tiedemann, New America Foundation, obama, Osama bin Laden, pakistan, patterson clark, Seth G. Jones, soviet, Taliban, the pashtun factor, twp, wash post, wp
Posted in Best practices, Design, General, Geography, Mapping, Mountain Carto, Print, Promote | Comments Off on Obama’s War (Wash Post)
Thursday, February 19th, 2009
[Editor’s note: Last week’s collision of two satellites added to a growing list of “junk” polluting the envelope around our planet with the flotsam and jetsam of our satellite-dependent civilization. The rubbish is increasingly a hazard for human spaceflight and has put important equipment such as the Hubble Space Telescope and communications satellites at risk of being struck by an object moving at hypervelocity. This graphic from Patterson Clark shows where the collision occurred in relation to important platforms.]
Republished from The Washington Post.
Originally published: 13 February 2009.
Graphic by Patterson Clark.
Two satellites smashed together Tuesday, creating a spreading cloud of space junk that slightly increases the chance that other spacecraft could be damaged by the debris.
Related article from Wired: Lost in Space: 8 Weird Pieces of Space Junk
SOURCES: NASA; Union of Concerned Scientists; staff reports
Related article: Satellite Collision Adds to ‘Space Junk’ Problem
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 14, 2009; Page A03
Satellite 33442 orbits Earth every 91 minutes, circling at an inclination of 56.1 degrees to the equator and gradually slowing down, destined to fall into the atmosphere in late spring or summer and burn up. Aficionados of satellites know that 33442 is a tool bag. A spacewalking astronaut let it slip last year, adding one more tiny, artificial moon to the junk in low Earth orbit.
The military has a running catalog of more than 19,000 pieces of orbital debris. This week, the census of space schmutz suddenly jumped by 600 — the initial estimate of the number of fragments from Tuesday’s stunning collision of two satellites high above Siberia.
Space is now polluted with the flotsam and jetsam of a satellite-dependent civilization. The rubbish is increasingly a hazard for human spaceflight and has put important equipment such as the Hubble Space Telescope and communications satellites at risk of being struck by an object moving at hypervelocity.
(more…)
Tags: carbon, collision, earth, joel achenbach, nasa, patterson clark, satellite, siberia, space debree, space station, twp, u.s. space tracking system, union of concerned scientists, wash post, wp
Posted in art, Charting, Design, General, Print, Promote, science | Comments Off on Collision Aftermath (Wash Post)
