Did anyone manage to get a look at asteroid 2012 DA14 on its fly-by? I have been down with the flu so I did not manage the early viewing window here in Brisbane. You can check out coverage of the asteroid here.
In the mean time, here is something to keep you amused.
The heaviest element yet known to science has been discovered!
The new element is Governmentium (Gv). It has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.
These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lefton-like particles called peons.
Since Governmentium has no electrons or protons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction normally taking less than a second to take from four days to four years to complete.
Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years. It does not decay but instead undergoes a reorganisation in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.
In fact, Governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganisation will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.
This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.
When catalysed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons. All of the money is consumed in the exchange, and no other byproducts are produced.
Cross-posted at chrismcmahons blog.
Mad Genius Club 
8 responses to “Governmentium”
Apparently some folks in Russia got a better look at part of the asteroid (or it had a smaller meteor following behind) than expected, followed by breaking glass and (I suspect) car wrecks from the shock wave after it broke up.
http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/
Perhaps a small cloud of debris surrounding the main body? I don’t know about the timing. No doubt it’ll get analyzed to death over the next few years.
What I heard was that it came from a different direction and isn’t related to the big rock they’re watching (which explains why no one was watching the direction it came from, I suppose.)
http://www.nasa.gov/news/media/newsaudio/index.html
NASA news conference is supposed to stream in about half an hour. (4pm Eastern time.)
I’ve had a couple classes now with the fellow who heads the Institute of Meteoritics at UNM, they weren’t *meteorite* classes, exactly, but meteorites are one of the most direct ways we have of knowing what is out in space and how the solar system formed. In any case, I’m real excited to find out what *sort* of meteorite it was. I suppose they can’t know exactly which very soon because no matter what it is made of it will need to be analyzed and isotope dated.
Retreiving the pieces quickly will allow uncontaminated analysis.
Weird coincidence, the timeing, but 2012DA14 was coming from the south, and the trajectory on these was apparently NE to SW.
They’re saying that it came from the “daylight” side, so toward the sun? Which is why it wasn’t detected.
That asteroid hitting Russia was certainly a weird coincidence, especially considering I was talking about Tunguska in the post last week & how that asteroid exploded in mid air. Freaky.
Clearly a cosmic conspiracy. The Space Marines will be investigating!