Meteor Shower: Scientists and Treasure Hunters Look in California for Debris

Wednesday night

So where did it come down?  People in the San Francisco Bay area are still puzzling over the fireball that went shooting across the sky Wednesday evening, making an audible boom and, perhaps, spreading debris across the suburbs and vineyards north of the city.

Scientists said the object was a meteor, most likely an errant hunk of rock from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, traveling in an orbit that happened to send it tearing into the atmosphere over California.

Astronomers have been trying to calculate its trajectory from eyewitness reports, and there’s been natural disagreement over where any meteorites — fragments of a meteor that survive entry into the atmosphere and reach Earth’s surface — might have come down.  Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office in Alabama said he thought most debris would have ended up out in the Pacific.  Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute, a meteor hunter by background, suggested debris may have crashed near California suburbs such as Novato or Martinez.

But in a case like this, calculations only do you so much good.  If you’re interested in meteorites, there is only one thing to do — go out and look for them.

So Jenniskens, according to his office, was out in the field today, looking for shards of rock that, to the trained eye, would likely have been survivors of a trip from space.

His office said he would be organizing people who came on their own to look.  One person, asking not to be quoted since meteorites are Jenniskens’ subject, said this is a delicate issue.  Fresh meteorites are rare — so they have a market value.  So, this person said that Jenniskens, searching in the name of science, may find himself in a race against other meteorite hunters who see the potential for profit.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Fujifilm to end production of movie film as digital dominates

As the movie industry further embraces digital technology, Fujifilm has it announced it will soon stop making movie film for shooting and projection.

Perhaps the biggest surprise about Fujifilm’s announcement that from March 2013 it will no longer make film for motion pictures is that it didn’t come earlier. With movie makers and theaters turning increasingly to digital-based products, the Japanese manufacturer said it had no choice but to exit the market.

One of the big players in the business, Fujifilm has been making film for shooting and projection since it was founded in 1934. However, in a statement issued Thursday, the company said a dramatic fall in demand had led to spiraling costs, forcing it to make the decision to end production. It also pointed out that it will continue to make film for still photography.

“Digital cinema camera shooting has been gaining momentum, and digital editing that heavily uses CG composition and VFX processing has now become common in motion picture production,” Fujifilm explained in its statement. It added that the number of movie theaters abandoning film projectors in favor of digital projection has increased significantly in recent years, pushed by the increase in 3D motion pictures.

The company said that instead it intends to focus on other areas of the film industry, providing products and services designed for the digital workflow of movie production and projection.

Digital detractors

While digital-based movie making is undoubtedly gaining ground, there are still a number of high-profile Hollywood directors who don’t want to see celluloid die.

Christopher Nolan, director of blockbusters such as The Dark Knight Rises, which, incidentally, was shot on film, thinks celluloid still produces a better picture, and that the switch to digital production is being made purely to reduce costs.

At the recent Produced By Conference in California, Nolan said going digital risked “devaluing what we do as filmmakers.”

The filmmaker acknowledged that the quality of digital images has improved greatly in recent years, but that it will be some time before it equals that of film.

Nolan added that while he uses digital technology for editing and special effects, he wants to shoot and show his movies on film. He envisages a day when digital will be comparable to film, but insists it’s not there yet.

No doubt Nolan’s eye is better trained than your average movie goer, but I’ve never heard anyone coming out of a theater saying, “The image quality of that movie was terrible. Ah, I see, it was digital.”

Fujifilm is sensibly doing what it believes is best for the future of its company, abandoning a part of its business that no longer makes any money and instead turning to digital products. One wonders how long will it be before the entire movie industry goes digital, pulling the curtain down on celluloid forever.

[Image: K. Jakubowska / Shutterstock]

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com