Speedwell News

CUMBERLAND GAP, Tenn. a 'A An investigation into a recent barn break-in was solved by the Claiborne County Sheriffa TMs Office.

Spc. Jennifer Stanley's 2-year-old granddaughter runs outside every time a plane flies over.

A free medical clinic set for May 30-31 in Harrogate will go on as scheduled, according to Ron Brewer, Tennessee state director for Remote Area Medical Program .

A bowl of chili and a broom deterred two criminals from robbing a Claiborne County woman after they invaded her home on Tuesday.

Two of the three men arrested and charged for a home invasion robbery Tuesday in Claiborne County's Arthur community also turned out to be suspects in a convenience store robbery.

The weather cleared Monday afternoon at Cumberland Gap High School and the Panthers were able to host the Middlesboro boys and girls in a tennis.

Jason Wilt of Harrogate and Danny Ramsey of New Tazewell, Tennessee traveled to Lafollette on Saturday March 28th and competed in Tracy Headley’s, “Taking Lafollette by Storm” promotion at the Jacksboro National Guard Armory. Jason Wilt competed as a lightweight at 155 pounds against Ryan Hord. Wilt used his experience to quickly place his standing submission move on once again to end the fight early in round one. He commented after his fight, “I didn’t think he would come out and kick me like that but then he made a mistake and put his head down and I was able to capitalize on it and end the fight quickly. I am a defensive fighter and when someone makes a mistake I try to end it then.” With the win he moves to 5-1 and is looking forward to a title fight in the future.

Danny Ramsey competed in the Light Heavyweight division at 205 pounds and went up against a fighter with an extensive wrestling background and a more advanced MMA resume in the cage. Ramsey was competing in his third fight and likes to compete against the better fighters with the hopes of gaining essential experience and to continue improving his skill set. Unfortunately, Kelly Anundson was able to slip out of a potential match ending guillotine by Ramsey to gain the advantage and get the win. After the match Danny said, “He was pretty darn good and I had him once but he was able to slip away. I intentionally fight people with more experience, a stronger, better opponent but that’s better for me because I can learn more from a strong opponent than a weaker one.”

The two will continue training for upcoming events in 2009.

Watching stars on a moonless night can be an quite an interesting experience. As clusters of stars take familiar forms - of a bear, a man in armor wielding a sword, millions of other stars simply twinkle. As if they were playing hide and seek with one's eyes.

Why do stars twinkle?

We all know that each star is actually like the sun. And the huge collection of stars on the night sky is like a collection of many, many suns. But, the sun does not twinkle, one would point out.

Right.

The sun does not twinkle. It blazes down on us. If any of the stars were close to us, they would have also blazed down on us, or even burnt us down.

The stars look different because they are far away. And the light from the stars travels a very long distance to reach us. Actually very little of the light finally manages to reach us. Besides, it passes through the earth's atmosphere before reaching us. As the light enters the atmosphere, impurities like dust interfere its path. So, sometimes it is visible, and sometimes it is not. This effect is called twinkling.

There are certain stars in the night sky that don't twinkle. Well that's because they are not stars at all. They are planets. Planets do not twinkle because unlike stars they do not have their own light. They are like the moon. They reflect light from the Sun.

So what is a star? A star is born when a cloud of lots of different gases, mainly hydrogen, get together. The gas particles attract each other and slowly get compressed to form a huge mass of gases. And, as this mass grows, the temperature inside grows too. Until such time when it bursts like a bomb. This explosion creates a gas called helium, which is inflammable in nature. The helium becomes its fuel and it continues burning. Thus is a star born.

No wonder the heavier stars burn more furiously. They have bigger explosions, where more helium is released, providing more fuel. At the same time, these bigger and brighter stars have a shorter life. Why? Because they use up their fuel more quickly. The life of a smaller and lighter star can be as much as 100 times longer.