Supernova hunt

Polish internet users have actively joined a global hunt for supernovae, the spectacular explosions that end the life of big stars. This is another phase of the international social scientific programme “Galaxy Zoo”, in which Poland is participating. So far 20 000 Poles have declared, that they will help explore the universe.

["A great hunt for supernovae"]

Just as in the first two phases of “Galaxy Zoo” (which served to classify galaxies), in “The Hunt for Supernovae” astronomers ask web users to help them analyse photographs taken during automatic survey of the skies.

The photos come from the programme "Palomar Transient Factory", whose aim is to discover all the changes in the sky - beginning with planetoid movements, through variable stars flashing and active galactic centers and ending on supernovae.

The hunt is open to all web users at http://supernova.galaxyzoo.org.

The tasks that the scientists have given to the web users are very responsible - the users of this global network have to find on photographs objects, that could be supernovae. Later on the astronomers will verify the most interesting propositions (in order to check them, scientists will use the biggest observatories in the world, including the William Herschel Telescope on the La Palma island, or the huge twin telescopes Keck in Hawai).

The results of this research will be used to mark out the distances to galaxies far away, and also this may help to understand the evolution of stars. (PAIIZ)

Polish Market

ECONOMIC MONITOR

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• ● In December 2009 and January 2010, as in previous months in the second half of 2009, the Polish economy stood out against other countries in terms of GDP growth. Poland’s economic growth was higher than projected and higher than in other European countries.
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• In 2009 construction output increased by 3.7%.
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• Retail sales increase in most product groups.
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• On the Warsaw Stock Exchange, stock prices were very volatile in January 2010.
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• At the end of December 2009 the registered unemployment rate (claimant count rate) amounted to 11.9% versus 11.4% in November.
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• At the end of January the president signed the 2010 budget bill into law. The bill was adopted by the parliament on December 18.
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• In the fourth quarter of 2009 the Polish economy turned out to be more resistant to the global crisis than had been projected and than the economies of Polish neighbours, something which boosts optimism in forecasts for 2010 and the next years.
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WEEKLY MARKET ANALYSIS

The last portion of macroeconomic data for January will be released on Friday when the National Bank of Poland (NBP) is expected to publish balance of payments figures. We estimate that the current account deficit reached EUR580 million while the consensus of the “Parkiet” daily is EUR614 million. We expect that growth in exports slowed slightly in January to 10.9% y/y. We also predict that imports had already made up for last year’s losses and rose by 7.7% y/y in January.

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