By Associated Press

SAN JOSE, Calif.—A jet owned by the founders of Google is taking flight today on a scientific mission to view a meteor shower. The Quadrantid meteor shower is expected to produce more than 100 visible meteors per hour during its peak. The Gulfstream V jet is scheduled to take off from Mineta San Jose International Airport around 4:30 p.m. Thursday.
The aircraft full of NASA scientists and their instruments is scheduled to fly for 10 hours over the Arctic and back to San Jose. In September, NASA revealed a 2.6 million dollar agreement with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google, to let the billionaires house their aircraft at Moffett Field. In exchange, NASA gets to do some occasional science work using the craft.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_7873023?nclick_check=1

Environment groups are protesting against plans by the US government to open up a vast area of Arctic sea off Alaska for oil exploration, saying it would pose an unacceptable new threat to polar bears and walruses.
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