US Secretary of State to take questions on Google Plus Hangout Today

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will be having a Google Plus Hangout today at 2pm to discuss Syria and take questions from the public on Google Plus. I'll try to be in the office to observe and will post the video (if it is recorded) here after it is over. (If I can, I'll embed it here live).

**update 2:45 pm** The Hangout is over and here is the video:




The President will also be addressing the nation regarding Syria tonight at 9pm Eastern time. I'll have video of that tomorrow. You can read more about the speech on this Yahoo! News article.

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Carrier Strike Group Eleven Update: September 7, 2013


White House Releases Statement on Syria's Use of Chemical Weapons

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JPL Live Coverage of Asteroid 2012 DA-214

Live coverage of the passage of Asteroid 2012 DA-214 via the Jet Propulsion Lab. The coverage will be silent and the asteroid will not appear as anything greater than a point of light because, after all it is only 150 feet across and more than 17,000 miles away. Background information on the asteroid is below.

Also, here is a statement from NASA regarding the asteroid that exploded over Russia this morning: "According to NASA scientists, the trajectory of the Russian meteorite was significantly different than the trajectory of the asteroid 2012 DA14, making it a completely unrelated object. Information is still being collected about the Russian meteorite and analysis is preliminary at this point. In videos of the meteor, it is seen to pass from left to right in front of the rising sun, which means it was traveling from north to south. Asteroid DA14's trajectory is in the opposite direction, from south to north."

2012 DA₁₄ is a near-Earth asteroid with an estimated diameter of 50 meters (160 ft) and an estimated mass of 190,000 metric tons It was discovered on February 23, 2012, by the Observatorio Astronómico de La Sagra, Granada in Spain (J75) seven days after passing 0.0174 AU (1,620,000 mi) from Earth. Calculations show that on February 15, 2013, the distance between the asteroid and the center-point of Earth will be 0.0002276 AU (21,160 mi). The asteroid will pass 17,200 miles from the surface of Earth. This is a record close approach for a known object of this size

Source: Wikipedia


A video briefing by NASA on the asteroid passage.

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