Author: Ibrahim El Merehbi

Radio interference around & Salinity in the Mediterranean

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When ESA’s SMOS satellite was placed in orbit in 2009, it transpired that its signal was being interrupted by numerous illegal transmitters around the world. However, by working with national frequency protection authorities, 75% of these transmitters have now been shut down. Nevertheless, this is a laborious process and some regions, such as the Libyan coast and the eastern Mediterranean Sea, remain contaminated where mitigation strategies have not yet been successful. Source: ESA

Thanks to new processing techniques, information from ESA’s SMOS mission can be used to map salinity in the surface waters of the Mediterranean Sea. For example, daily maps can be created using DINEOF, which reduces noise and other sources of contamination. The image, which captures salinity on 3 March 2013, shows the fresher water from the Atlantic Ocean flowing through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea. Source: ESA

Cassini – An exhilarating story of planetary exploration

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For more information: Cassini at Saturn

More on the Grand Finale (2nd dive: May 2, 2017; End of mission: Sept 15, 2017)

Animation of the Heat Diffusion in an L-shaped domain

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\partial_t T = K \partial^2_x T

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Animation of the Italy Earthquake’s Seismic Velocity

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A “real-time” animation of the seismic (vertical) velocity of Italy’s 5.5 Mw earthquake that hit between the Aquila and Rieti provinces. The second half of the animation shows the whole country and surrounding area.

Real-time indicates that the video reflects how the waves propagated in real-time. It’s neither slowed down not sped up.

Red color indicates relatively higher vertical velocities indicating the ground is moving upwards while the blue color indicates the lower (negative) velocities indicated a downward movement of the ground. Color intensity refers to the magnitude.

Check if you’ve had a security breach

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Many of the popular websites and services have been or at some point or will be targetted and exploited. As a result, it is most likely that at least one of your online accounts has been pwned at some point. This doesn’t mean your account has been cracked but it could mean that some of your private information has been leaked (e.g. email, password, personal info like date of birth, etc…). Recently Gmail has been exploited by attachement phishing.

There’s no guaranteed way to check if your account has been hacked but one way is to check if you’ve been pwned. Just enter your username or email to check if you’ve been pwned.