Factors and mechanisms of chemical composition formation of saline lakes in West Mongolia

正All the lakes are accumulative systems for the various chemical elements.However,the ratios of the elements in different lake types are very different.It is generally accepted that the composition of lake water determined by     

Evolutionary status of T Tauri stars

The problem of determining the masses and ages of T Tauri star(TTS) using their evolutionary status is discussed. We test four pre-main sequence evolutionary models using well determined observational parameters of 12 binary TTSs and two binary red dwarfs. It is shown that the masses derived using the tracks of all models are in good agreement with the masses obtained from the observations of TTSs with masses M 0.7 M_⊙(mean error ε ~ 10%). Low-mass stars with M ≤ 0.7 M_⊙have significantly greater mean error: ε ~ 50% for the tracks of Bressan et al. and Chen et al., and ε ~ 30% for the other tracks. The isochrones of all tested evolutionary models diverge for stars with masses M ≤ 0.7 M_⊙. The difference increases with the mass decrease and can reach 10% of KelvinHelmholtz time for stars with mass M = 0.2 M_⊙. The ages of most of the considered TTSs are smaller than the Kelvin-Helmholtz time. This confirms their evolutionary status of being pre-main sequence stars.     

Martian cratering 12. Utilizing primary crater clusters to study crater populations and meteoroid properties

Images from Mars Global Surveyor and later images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal that roughly half of the meteoroids striking Mars (at meter to few decameter crater diameters) fragment in the Martian atmosphere, producing small clusters of primary impact craters. Statistics of these “primary clusters” yield valuable information about important Martian phenomena and properties of interplanetary bodies, including meteoroid behavior in the Martian atmosphere, bulk strengths of bodies striking Mars, and the fraction of Martian “field secondary” craters, a datum that would improve crater count chronometry. Many Martian impactors fragment at altitudes significantly higher than 18 km above the mean surface of Mars, and we find that most bodies striking Mars and Earth have low bulk strengths, consistent with crumbly or highly fractured objects. Applying statistics of primary clusters at various elevations and independent diameter bins, we describe a technique to estimate the percentage of semirandomly scattered “field secondary” craters. Our provisional estimate of this percentage, in the diameter range ~250 m down to ~22 m, is ~40% to ~80% of the total impacts, with the higher percentages at smaller diameters. Our data argue against earlier suggestions of overwhelming dominance by either primaries or secondaries in this diameter range.     

Searching for the brightest stars in galaxies outside the Local Group

This paper introduces a technique for searching for bright massive stars in galaxies beyond the Local Group.To search for massive stars,we processed the results of stellar photometry from the Hubble Space Telescope(HST) images using the DAOPHOT and DOLPHOT packages.The results of such searches are demonstrated with examples of the galaxies DDO 68,M94 and NGC 1672.In the galaxy DDO 68,the LBV star changes its brightness,and massive stars in M94 can be identified by excess in the Ha band.For the galaxy NGC 1672,we measure the distance for the first time by the TRGB method,which enabled determining the luminosities of the brightest stars,likely hypergiants,in the young star formation region.So far,we have performed stellar photometry on HST images of 320 northern sky galaxies located at a distance less than 12 Mpc.This allowed us to identify 53 galaxies with probable hypergiants.Further photometric and spectral observations of these galaxies are planned to search for massive stars.     

The finest white-light coronal features

An attempt to detect the finest white-light coronal features observed with a large optical telescope was made at the July 11, 1991 Solar Total Eclipse. A few selected results taken from the video-CCD high speed observations obtained at the prime focus of the Canada-France-Hawaï-Telescope (CFHT) with a red coronal interference filter are presented. The smallest (sub-arsec) detected and/or resolved coronal features are shown. The methods that were used to extract them from the noisy and seeing-limited images taken from video frames are described.     

A word about the teacher

This is a memorial report on the biography and scientific heritage of M.A. Svechnikov — an outstanding scientist and teacher, the founder of the Ural school of close binary stars and the author of the classification scheme for eclipsing variable stars.     

Magnetotactic bacteria from the human gut microbiome associated with orientation and navigation regions of the brain

Journal of Oceanology and Limnology - Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB), ubiquitous in soil and fresh and saltwater sources have been identified in the microbiome of humans and many animals. MTB...     

An intercomparison of observed and simulated extreme rainfall and temperature events during the last half of the twentieth century: part 2: historical trends

We analyze historical simulations of variability in temperature and rainfall extremes in the twentieth century, as derived from various global models run informing the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-AR4). On the basis of three indices of climate extremes, we compare observed and modeled trends in time and space, including the direction and significance of the changes at the scale of South America south of 10° S. The climate extremes described warm nights, heavy rainfall amounts and dry spells. The reliability of the GCM simulations is suggested by similarity between observations and simulations in the case of warm nights and extreme rainfall in some regions. For any specific extreme temperature index, minor differences appear in the spatial distribution of the changes across models in some regions, while substantial differences appear in regions in the interior of tropical and subtropical South America. The differences are in the relative magnitude of the trends. Consensus and significance are less strong when regional patterns are considered, with the exception of the La Plata Basin, where observed and simulated trends in warm nights and extreme rainfall are evident.