April 15, 2016 - AUSTRALIA - Lynton Brown caught this 22-degree lunar halo this week and posted it to
EarthSky Facebook.
We see many, many photos of this type of halo -
both around the sun and moon - which happen all over the world due to
the presence of ice crystals in high cirrus clouds.
January 31, 2016 - SPACE - New clues suggest the moon resulted from a head-on collision
between Earth and another forming planet, according to scientists.
Researchers from a team lead by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) analyzed lunar and volcanic rocks before concluding the moon was formed during a violent head-on collision between an early Earth and another forming planet called Theia.
Scientists knew Earth had been involved in a high-speed crash almost 4.5 billion years ago, but they thought the crash with Theia had been a 45-degree angle sideswipe.
After studying seven lunar rocks brought back by the Apollo 12, 15 and 17 missions, as well as six volcanic rocks from the Earth’s mantle, they found that Theia and Earth had had a head-on collision, rather than just a fender-bender.
The scientists said the clue lay in the chemical signature of the rocks’ oxygen atoms. Oxygen makes up 90 percent of rocks’ volume and 50 percent of their weight.
More than 99.9 percent of Earth’s oxygen is 0-16, meaning each atom contains eight protons and eight neutrons. There are small quantities of heavier oxygen isotopes, such as 0-17, which has an extra neutron, and 0-18, which has two extra neutrons.
All of the planetary bodies in our solar system have a distinct “fingerprint” of 0-17 to 0-16 isotopes.
WATCH: The formation of the Moon.
A team of German scientists ventured in a 2014 issue of Science that the moon had its own unique ratio of oxygen isotopes, which is different from Earth’s, but UCLA scientists found “that is not the case.”
“We don’t see any difference between the Earth’s and the moon’s oxygen isotopes; they’re indistinguishable,” said Edward Young, lead author of the new study and a UCLA professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry, in a statement.
Using UCLA’s new mass spectrometer, the team performed ultra-high precision oxygen isotope analyses of the lunar samples and were able to deduce that if Theia had sideswiped Earth, the moon would have been made mainly of Theia, and would have different isotypes than Earth.
The fact that the Earth and the moon share the same chemical signatures contradicted the theory.
“Theia was thoroughly mixed into both the Earth and the moon, and evenly dispersed between them,” Young said. “This explains why we don’t see a different signature of Theia in the moon versus the Earth.”
The crash with Theia happened approximately 100 million years after the Earth formed, almost 4.5 billion years ago. The merging of the two planets also suggests why the moon is less dense than the Earth.
Young and other scientists think Theia was approximately the same size as the Earth, while others believe it was more similar in size to Mars.
This is not the first time the theory of a head-on collision has been proposed. In 2012, the theory was proposed by Matija Cuk, now a researcher with SETI Institute; Sarah Stewart, now a professor at UC Davis; and Robin Canup of the Southwest Research Institute.
The paper, called Oxygen isotopic evidence for vigorous mixing during the Moon-forming giant impact, by Edward Young, Issaku Kohl, and Paul Warren, was published in Friday’s edition of Science.
January 22, 2016 - ITALY - A multicolor light phenomenon known as a "fire rainbow," or
circumhorizontal arc, was caught on camera in the sky over southern
Italy.
The video was filmed Jan. 9 over the city of Lecce.
The phenomenon is caused by light from the sun or moon refracting off
plate-shaped ice crystals suspended among the clouds in the atmosphere.
It is nicknamed a "fire rainbow" despite being neither a rainbow nor fire-related because the halo sometimes manifests in a way that resembles flames. - UPI.
December 20, 2015 - RUSSIA - If you have ever been privy to the phenomenon of light pillars, then you
know it is truly an amazing sight.
They appear when the weather is
extremely cold and form vertical columns of light beaming directly
towards the sky.
They sometimes look like multiple fireballs heading to the sky.
They are created when light from the sun, moon, streetlamps, or any
terrestrial source, reflects on the surface of a flat piece of ice
crystal as shown in the diagram below:
When the light source is close to the ground, the light pillar appears above the floating crystals.
When
the light comes from the sun or moon, the light pillar can appear
beneath them, too, as the light refracts through the crystals.It is truly amazing!
Light pillars typically scrape the night sky in polar regions.
But sometimes the vertical columns of light appear along with frigid temperatures at lower latitudes.
December 17, 2015 - SPACE - The world sucks right now. Terrorism. Wars. Climate change. Political acrimony.
It’s nice to know Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have a plan. They will help the richest people in the world go to Mars and start over, leaving the other 99 percent to suffer on a dying, warring planet. The only solace for those of us left here will be that the Biebs should be prosperous enough to go with them.
This is the unspoken flip side of Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’s Blue Origin. The space travel companies say they are creating a way for the human species to endure by populating other planets. But the bottom line is that only the wealthy will have the means to move to Mars. Musk’s target ticket price is $500,000 a person in 2015 dollars, and that’s just to get there. Imagine the new outfits you’ll have to buy to go with that space helmet.So you can picture a scenario that’s something like the 1970s white flight from inner cities, when the wealthier classes moved to freshly built suburbs, leaving the declining neighborhoods to the lower classes. In fact, the fleeing upper classes sped up the decrepitude of that era’s older cities by relocating their money and clout with them. Today, we’re seeing a similar situation in Syria, as the wealthiest and most educated people escape to the West, which will make the country even harder to stabilize and rebuild.Such a dynamic could apply to the whole world in about 40 years. Maybe historians and scientists, charting Earth’s degeneration will trace a direct link back to this month’s climate talks in Paris. Couldn’t make a deal stick, they’ll say. Environment spun out of control. Drought. Upheaval. Anarchy. And then Wall Street bankers, tech titans, CEOs and Jay Z’s entourage decided to get the hell out and build McMansions in Martian space bubbles.
All this might sound crazy—except it’s not. Last month, Blue Origin advanced the technology of space flight by another important notch. The secretive company launched a rocket 62 miles into space and then landed it upright, like you might see in a sci-fi movie, just a few feet from the rocket’s launchpad. It’s a step toward making reusable rockets, and reusable rockets are absolutely essential to getting the cost of a Mars flight low enough to expand the target market beyond the Forbes 400.
For comparison’s sake, NASA space shuttle missions cost about $200 million per astronaut, and those flights went only into orbit. Compared with going to Mars, orbit is like putting a toe in the Atlantic versus sailing from Europe to the New World. And the shuttle, by the way, was not a reusable rocket—it was a reusable passenger compartment. No one had previously made a reusable rocket, which is a big reason space cost so much. The economics were as bad as if you had to buy a new engine for every car trip.
Blue Origin is now ginning up a real space race with SpaceX, which will help drive innovation and lower costs. Musk got a head start and has guided SpaceX into the business of launching satellites as a way to practice for human space travel. Bezos opened Blue Origin—a little side project when he’s not running Amazon.com—specifically to carry people to other planets, and it got its first rocket off the ground in April.
Also in the mix are Richard Branson with his Virgin Galactic and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who funded the nerdily named Stratolaunch Systems. Space is turning into a billionaire-athon. If Donald Trump doesn’t become president, you just know there has to be a Trump Spaceship in his future.
Of course, launching a few rockets and saying you’re going to Mars is like writing a haiku and saying you’re going to become the next John Updike. But these guys are serious. “Our ultimate vision is millions of people living and working in space,” Bezos told reporters after the Blue Origin landing. Musk makes even grander statements. “We need to be laser-focused on becoming a multi-planet civilization,” he’s said. “That’s the next step.”
At least in some circles, building colonies on Mars has entered the realm of the possible. Some writers and scientists think the first brave souls will make the six-month journey to Mars within 10 years, and that’s Musk’s prediction. Not long after the technology is proven, regular flights of supplies and people will begin. The pioneers will have to build habitable indoor spaces and, later, domed communities. As this year’s hit movie The Martian showed us, once on Mars it’s possible to grow food, make breathable air and harvest energy from solar panels. Musk calls Mars “a fixer-upper of a planet,” but by 2040, he says, there should be a thriving colonial Martiantown.
That time frame is sobering—just 25 years from now. Think how fast 25 years can whip by. If you go back to 1990, Bill Clinton was eyeing his first run for the presidency, and Tim Berners-Lee was proposing the World Wide Web.
The real migration will start post-2040. Volume will drive down flight prices from tens of millions of dollars a person to $500,000. People will start companies on Mars. They’ll take their families. “It’s not going to be a vacation jaunt,” Musk said in interviews. “It’s going to be saving up all your money and
selling all your stuff, like when people moved to the early American colonies.” His goal, which he believes is achievable, is to get Mars up to a population of 1 million, which Musk says “is the critical threshold for us as a civilization to not join the potentially large number of one-planet dead civilizations out there.”
And that comment gets to the point about who goes and why. Some will go to seek opportunity, but the quiet assumption is that many will go out of self-preservation. The sad calculus is that the Mars business looks better the worse things get on Earth. And if that’s the case, it’s actually not like moving from Europe to the American colonies in 1700, when things were OK in Europe. It sounds more like escaping a ravaged land to go somewhere safe and start over.
Who will do that? The cost of the flight and setting up on another planet will hover well past the means of almost anyone but the superrich. Where will these wealthy people come from? Most of the space travel companies so far are American. What if those companies take mostly Americans? Will we start a human colony on Mars or an American colony?
Maybe later Mars will rebel and sign its Declaration of Independence from Earth. Maybe it will shut its borders and refuse any more refugees from that hot, horrible, hungry origin planet. We’re the exceptional people, the Martians might say, and all of you Earthlings just keep screwing up your home, so we don’t want you.
NASA Starts Looking For Astronauts To ‘Blaze Trail’ To Mars
Want to explore new, out of this world job opportunities? NASA, the US space agency, has begun a rare recruitment drive for future astronauts. However, those dreaming of boosting humanity to its next step towards Mars should first check the requirements.
Starting December 14, NASA is accepting applications for its next class of astronauts. This is less than a three-month opportunity for wannabe space explorers, who last had the chance to apply more than two years ago.
Chosen finalists will have the opportunity to fly on “any of four different US vessels during their careers: the International Space Station, two commercial crew spacecraft currently in development by US companies, and NASA’s Orion deep-space exploration vehicle,” according to the space agency.
WATCH: NASA's Astronaut Recruitment For Mars
NASA currently has 47 astronauts. By comparison, in 2000 – the peak of the space shuttle era – there were 149. Sadly for space-wonks, there hasn’t been much hiring since the US spaceflight program was grounded in 2011.
This year the competition is looking stiff. In 2013, NASA received applications from over 6,000 candidates and only eight were selected.
US spacecraft are scheduled to return to flight only in 2017. According to the application process, interviews will be held at the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017, with the finalists announced in June 2017.
The job qualifications are steep.
Candidates must have US citizenship, a bachelor’s degree in science, math, or engineering, as well as at least three years of professional experience or a minimum of 1,000 hours of pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft. Astronaut-wannabes are also required to pass NASA’s spaceflight physical.
Public applications will be accepted until February 28.
“Some people would be surprised to learn they might have what it takes,” Brian Kelly, director of flight operations at Johnson Space Center, said.
New astronauts will be paid between $66,000 and $145,000 per year and will need to move to Houston, Texas.
NASA has hired over 300 people since 1959 when its first crew was selected for the Mercury Project, which sent men into orbit around the Earth.
Charles Bolden, the agency’s Administrator, who is a former astronaut himself, said the new recruits will help “blaze the trail” to Mars. “This next group of American space explorers will inspire the Mars generation to reach for new heights, and help us realize the goal of putting boot prints on the red planet,” Bolden said.
Finalists will be trained and then tested for “International Space Station systems training, Extravehicular Activity skills training, Robotics skills training, Russian language training, and aircraft flight readiness training.”
FAA Advisory Group Endorses "Moon Village" Concept
ESA Director-General Johann-Dietrich Woerner discussed his concept of an international "Moon Village" at the International Astronautical Congress in Jerusalem in October.
Credit: ESA/C. Diener
A Federal Aviation Administration advisory committee has recommended that the FAA start discussions with the European Space Agency about commercial participation in an international lunar base concept promoted by the agency’s leader.
The FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) unanimously approved a recommendation that the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation begin discussions with ESA on ways American companies could participate in what’s known as “Moon Village.” The vote was conducted by email after COMSTAC held a meeting via teleconference on the topic Dec. 10, committee chairman Mike Gold said Dec. 15.
The recommendation states that the FAA, “after consulting with the appropriate U.S. agencies, engage directly with ESA in support of the ‘Moon Village’ concept, with the goal of fostering the participation of U.S.-based commercial entities in the planning and creation of the ‘Moon Village.’”
The Moon Village concept is a proposal by ESA Director-General Johann-Dietrich Woerner, and is something he has discussed prior to become the head of the agency in July. It would involve the development of an international lunar base, with countries providing different elements or services to support it.
- See more at: http://spacenews.com/faa-advisory-group-endorses-moon-village-concept/#sthash.SZaQpAti.dpuf
Woerner, who participated in the COMSTAC teleconference, said he was open to participation by companies as well as countries. “We are putting together different users, different competencies, be it private or public,” he said. Companies in both the U.S. and Europe have already contacted him about ways they can take part, including using the base for tourism and mining.
FAA officials have already expressed an interest in supporting a commercial role in the concept. “Private industry has the potential to play an important role, and it need not be exclusively as a government contractor,” said George Nield, FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation at an October COMSTAC meeting here.
COMSTAC members expressed support for a private-sector role in such a concept, even if some were skeptical that it could be commercially viable. “It might be hard in the near term to think of a profit-making venture that can work on the moon such that it would be in the time horizon of a rational investor,” said Mike Griffin, the chairman and chief executive of Schafer Corporation and a former NASA administrator. However, he said, commercial ventures could support a government-led facility there by transporting cargo.
The Moon Village concept is, for now, just that: a concept without a specific technical design, budget or schedule. “It’s an open situation,” Woerner said at a Space Transportation Association luncheon here Dec. 10. “It depends totally on what the different entities would like to provide and at what time.”
Woerner reiterated that at the later COMSTAC teleconference. “There are people trying to convince me already about the architecture” of the facility, he said. “For me, the more important thing is that we together decide on a global, international scheme.”
The moon was thought to absorb the solar wind on the dayside, which is always exposed to the constant stream of particles thrown out by the sun, but new research suggests
some of the solar wind is reflected back into space by the surface. This is also believed to be causing weathering on the night side too. (Illustration)
December 2, 2015 - MOON - The moon has long been considered an inert place where the lunar dust is only disturbed by the occasional impact from a meteor.
But researchers have discovered that, despite not having its own atmosphere, the moon may experience 'weather' of its own.
They have found the stream of particles thrown out by the sun in solar wind appears to interact with the moon in an unexpected and surprising way.
On Earth these particles interact with the gases in the atmosphere to create colourful aurora while the planet's magnetic field concentrates it around the poles.
The moon, however, lacks both an atmosphere and a global magnetic field, and so was thought to passively absorb the solar wind without any noticeable effects.
Measurements made by India's Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter have now revealed this is not the case, and in fact 10 per cent of the solar wind is reflected back into space.
This creates turbulence in the solar wind streaming past the moon causing vortexes that billow onto the dark side of the moon, which should be sheltered from weathering by the solar wind.
The researchers have been able to map the areas of the lunar surface where the solar wind is reflected with areas marked in red being where the solar wind is reflected most
(pictured)
On Earth the solar wind is bent towards the poles where it interacts with the gas in the upper atmosphere to create the spectacular aurora, or Northern Lights (pictured).
The moon has no atmosphere or global magnetic field and so this does not happen there
The researchers said this could have important implications for how much water may exist on the surface.
Charles Lue, a researchers at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics at the Umea University, who conducted the work as part of his PhD, said: 'This knowledge is of great importance to the lunar space environment which is affected both on the lunar dayside and nightside surfaces.
'The effects can even be seen in the form of visible light - like bright swirls imprinted on the surface of the moon.
Charles Lue has found certain regions of the lunar crust reflect the solar wind differently depending on their magnetic field. He holds a model of the moon
(pictured) with the areas of strongest reflection marked in red
'The observations help us map and understand the variations in the lunar space environment.
'They also give us clues about the physical processes involved and the long-term effects they have on the lunar surface.'
Mr Lue, whose work is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found that the reflection of the solar wind interacts with areas of localised magnetic fields on the lunar surface.
In areas with strong magnetism, caused by iron in the crust, the solar wind flow is restricted, while adjacent areas receive increased flow
This results in unusual spirals of ions streaming off the dayside of the moon, where the solar wind strikes first, to the nightside.
Mr Lue said it appears the weathering of the moon's surface by the solar wind may be less than previously predicted and this could mean there may also be less water hidden beneath the crust.
He said: 'The reduced solar wind weathering allows us to separate micro-meteorite and solar wind-induced weathering, including the effects of different solar wind species, differently well shielded.' - Daily Mail.
April 9, 2015 - SWEDEN - Ice crystals in high clouds have a beautiful effect on sunlight. Sunbeams that strike the crystals are bent into luminous rings called ice halos.
Moonbeams are affected the same way. Exactly the same way. Göran Strand proved it with this composite image above of the sun and Moon over Östersund, Sweden, on April 1st.
"During the day I took a photo
of the 22° solar halo," says Strand. "And later that night, 10 hours
later, when the Moon was in the same position in the sky, I took another shot from the same location, showing a 22° Moon halo.
Merging the two photos shows the halos are a perfect match."
22º radius halos
are visible all over the world and throughout the year.
The ice crystals that create them float 5 km to 10 km above the ground.
Those altitudes are always freezing even during the warmest months of
summer.
Look for halos, night and day, whenever the sky is wisped with
cold cirrus clouds. - Space Weather.
April 3, 2015 - UNITED STATES - The moon will pass through the Earth’s shadow and turn blood-red in
the early hours of the morning on Saturday, in a brief total eclipse
best visible from the western part of the US.
It will be the third in a series of four total lunar eclipses, or
a “tetrad,” that began in mid-April last year. The second
occurred in October 2014, and the last will be on September 28
this year. Tetrads are very rare: only seven more are expected by
the year 2100.
Saturday’s eclipse will also be the shortest in a century, with
the moon spending just four minutes and 43 seconds completely in
Earth’s shadow. However, the time it will take for the moon to
become completely occluded will be abnormally long, a whole 102
minutes, writes Space.com. This is because the moon will have
just reached apogee, its farthest point from the Earth.
As the moon skims the edge of the planet’s shadow, it will turn a
shade of red.
“This is happening because the sunlight that’s reaching the
moon is just the sunlight bending through the Earth’s
atmosphere,” NASA scientist Michelle Thaller explained last
year. “The same reason that a sunset is red: the Earth’s
atmosphere scatters away blue light, but lets red light
through.”
The eclipse will be visible from all parts of the US, though
those in the east will only see the beginning stages before the
06:16 ET sunrise. People in the west will have a full view of the
total eclipse, at 04:58 PT.
While the lunar eclipse is a fascinating astronomical phenomenon,
some see deeper religious significance in it. Saturday will be
the first night of Passover for the Jews, and Easter Vigil for
Christians that follow the Gregorian calendar.
The current tetrad is only the fourth time in 500 years that all
four ‘blood moons’ fall on Jewish holidays, one Israeli website
reported. It quoted a mystic rabbi from the south of the country,
who said the eclipse was a sign Israel faced “great judgment
and potential danger.”
Some Evangelical Christian preachers in the US have pointed at
the Biblical prophecy that says: “The sun shall be turned
into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the
terrible day of the LORD come.” (Joel, 2:31, KJV).
A full solar eclipse occurred on March 20, in the middle of the
current lunar tetrad. - RT.
March 31, 2015 - SPACE
- Only the speediest of skywatchers will have a chance to see the total
lunar eclipse rising Saturday: NASA predicts that the total phase of
the lunar eclipse will only last about 5 minutes, making it the shortest
lunar eclipse of the century.
Early-rising observers all over the
United States should be able to see at least the partial phases of the
April 4 lunar eclipse just before the sun rises, if weather permits.
People on the West Coast will have the chance to see the moon turn an
eerie shade of red during totality, which should begin at about 7:58
a.m. EDT (1158 GMT, 4:58 a.m. PDT). NASA this week unveiled a video detailing the total lunar eclipse, and dubbed the event the shortest lunar eclipse of the century in an announcement on Monday (March 30) in detail.
This sky map shows around the world will see the total lunar eclipse on April 4, 2015.
Credit: Sky & Telescope illustration
Observers
in other parts of the world will have an even better chance to see the
lunar eclipse. Stargazers in Australia, Japan, China, and Southeast Asia
will get the chance to see the eclipse on the night of April 4, according to Sky & Telescope.
(Sky & Telescope predicts that the total phase of the eclipse will
actually last about 9 to 12 minutes starting at 7:54 a.m. EDT.)
WATCH: Total Eclipse of the Moon.
"Total
lunar eclipses, like the one we're looking forward to on 4 April, are a
slow, ethereal affair and, as usual, we'll have cameras around the
world bringing us live views," Will Gater, an astronomer at the online
Slooh Community Observatory said in a statement. "What better way to
start the day than tuning in to watch this wonderful event."
Slooh will host a live webcast of the total lunar eclipse on the Slooh.com website on Saturday starting at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT) on April 4. The webcast will be available on Space.com, courtesy of Slooh.
This
lunar eclipse will be the third of four eclipses in a lunar eclipse
tetrad. The first occurred in April 2014, with the second rising in
September 2014. The final lunar eclipse in the tetrad will happen on
Sept. 28, according to NASA.
Lunar eclipses occur when the moon
dips into Earth's shadow, casting an occasionally spooky glow on the
natural satellite. A partial phase of an eclipse happens when the moon
passes through the outer part of Earth's shadow, but total lunar
eclipses happen only when the darkest part of the planet's shadow falls
across the lunar surface.
"During the eclipse, the moon often
looks reddish because sunlight has passed through Earth's atmosphere,
which filters out most of its blue light," NASA officials said in a statement. "This eerie, harmless effect has earned the tongue-in-cheek nickname 'blood moon.'"
Eclipse times in Central Daylight Time from Larry Koehn at shadowandsubstance.com. Used with permission.
Unlike
total solar eclipses, lunar eclipses can be seen by anyone on Earth
that can see the moon at the time of the eclipse, Sky & Telescope
added. Total Solar eclipses
— like the one that happened only a couple weeks ago, on March 20 — can
usually only be seen by a small swath of the planet because of the way
the moon, sun and Earth align.
If you have any questions about the
eclipse, you can ask a NASA astronomer via Twitter on Saturday using
the hashtag #eclipse2015 starting at 6 a.m. EDT and lasting through the
end of the eclipse at about 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT). - SPACE.
March 24, 2015 - EARTH
- The Inuit Tribe are indigenous people who live in the Canadian
Arctic, Greenland, Siberia and Alaska. Their elders have written to the
National Space and Aeronautics Administration (NASA) to tell them that
the earth's axis has shifted. The elders do not believe that carbon
emissions from humans are causing the current climate changes.
The sky has changed, claim Inuit elders
The
Inuit elders note climate change in the melting glaciers, deterioration
of sealskin, and burns on seals, and disappearing sea ice. The
attribute these changes in climate to changes in the sky.The tribal
elders claim that the sun no longer rises where it used to rise. The
days heat up more quickly and last longer. The stars and moon are also
in different places in the sky and this affects the temperatures. This
is a population that relies on the placement of the moon and stars for
their survival as they live in total darkness during part of the year.
The
elders say they can no longer predict the weather, as they have been
able to in the past. They observe that warmer winds are changing the
snow banks, making their ability to navigate overland more difficult.
Polar bear populations are increasing, which causes the bears to wander
into the Inuit neighborhoods.
What scientists report
On
April 20, 2011, CNN News reported that an earthquake moved the main
island of Japan by 8 feet and shifted the Earth on its axis. They quoted
Kenneth Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, as
saying, "At this point, we know that one GPS station moved (8 feet), and
we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan
showing the pattern of shift over a large area is consistent with about
that much shift of the land mass."
They quoted the National
Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy, that estimated that
"the 8.9-magnitude quake shifted the planet on its axis by nearly 4
inches (10 centimeters)." Astronomers concur that there has not been a
shift in the earth's rotational axis, but that there have been subtle
polar shifts over the last ten years. This is a change in what is called
the figure axis.
These changes are caused by continental drift,
which has been shifting the location of the North Pole towards the south
about 10 cms per year for the last 100 years. Teams at the University
of Texas using NASA's GRACE satellite found that the North Pole's normal
drifting to the south changed in 2005 and since then, the drift has
been eastward. They detected a 1.2 meter change from 2005 to 2013. They
conclude that the shift is caused by climate change caused by global
warming.
About the Inuit or Eskimo people
The
Inuit people inhabit the far northern reaches of the Canadian Arctic
and have done so for centuries. The area they inhabit is almost
continually frozen under a layer of permafrost. For months at a time,
their days begin and end in darkness. A nomadic people, they built tents
or teepees of caribou skin in warmer months, and lived in igloos in the
winter. Previously, they were known as Eskimo. The word Eskimo is from a
word in their language that means "eater of raw meat." This group of
Arctic dwellers has now been renamed Inuit, a word that means "the
people." Inuk is the word to describe one member of the tribe, or "one
person." The Inuit speak many different dialects that all stem from the
Eskimaleut or Inuit-Aleut language. They are primarily hunters, relying
on Arctic wildlife for their survival. They fish, hunt sea mammals, such
as seals and walrus, and land mammals, like Arctic hare and caribou and
use seal skin and blubber for clothing, tents, and fuel. Most of their
diet is made up of raw meat as there is very little plant life in their
environment. - Natural News.
March 20, 2015 - SPACE
- People across Europe and other parts of the world gazed with awe skywards on Friday to see a rare type of solar eclipse, which has coincided with other celestial events such as the spring equinox and a supermoon.
Only those in parts of the Artic and the north of Europe were lucky enough to witness the eclipse in its totality. But millions were able to see a partial eclipse in other parts of Europe, North Africa and West Asia.
The rare coincidence of the solar eclipse and the vernal equinox is not expected to occur until the year 2034. The supermoon is a phenomenon, which sees the moon’s position closer to Earth than usual.
However, some viewers of the rare celestial show were disappointed as clouds obscured the sky over Torshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands.
"It was overcast, there was rain and wind. You could see nothing. It was a disappointment for everybody," Gabor Lantos, a Hungarian tourist, told Reuters. "Some tourists were so irritated, they argued with tour operators, demanding their money back."
Others were more thrilled despite the cloudy weather.
"It was worth coming here from Australia, probably not as good as the 2012 eclipse we saw in Cairns, but still worth coming," said Australian visitor Michael Tonks. Street lights came on automatically as the sky blackened.
Astronomers and onlookers also gathered on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago to watch the eclipse: the sun became almost completely obscured there. "We couldn't ask for more. It was stunning," Ronny Brunvoll, head of the Visit Svalbard organization told Reuters.
WATCH: Supermoon solar eclipse thrills sky gazers.
The event gave scientists a rare opportunity to carry out tests of the solar atmosphere, the corona, the temperature of which is about twice as hot as the sun.
People started booking hotel accommodation at the archipelago in 2008 to see the supermoon eclipse, forcing some tourists to stay in tents despite running the risk of a surprise rendezvous with polar bears.
In places like London and Paris, observers didn’t get much of a sense of darkness, and Patrick Rocher of the IMCCE astronomy institute in France explained that it’s because the sun “still brightens up (the sky) a lot even at 20 percent,” as cited by AFP.
What’s more, clouds covered a big part of Northern Europe, so only a few spots experienced the event in full, one being Berlin.
In Moscow, where the weather was clear, people took to the streets to watch the partial eclipse and could later see the footage of the full eclipse on a big screen in the city center, as well as in the metro by connecting to the system’s WiFi. - RT.
The moment of totality during the solar eclipse (Reuters / Howard Burditt)
March 9, 2015 - EUROPE
- This spring should reward plenty of star-gazers, especially in
Britain, which will experience its deepest solar eclipse in 15 years, as
well as a Supermoon, all at the same time – an event that will sink the
island into twilight for two whole hours.
The Supermoon eclipse,
as the phenomenon is known, is an astronomical alignment where the Moon
is sent on a trajectory between the Sun and the Earth, depriving us of
light. The event will occur on March 20 at around 8:40GMT.
Scotland
will have it best though, with a whopping 98 percent of the sky
darkened, compared to about 85 percent for the south of England. For
best results the Scottish need to look up starting 9:36 am.
Other areas in Britain will only get around 30 percent.
Similar
events took place in 2006, 2008 and 2011, but neither of them can touch
the upcoming Supermoon eclipse, except an event that occurred in 1999.
We’ll
have to wait three years for the next one in 2018. However, only 2026
will present us with a deep solar eclipse once again. As for the
magnitude, it won’t be until 2090 that we get to see anything like the
1999 and upcoming March 20 events.
Whenever particularly striking
displays take place, it is because the Moon is close to the Earth.
According to Dr Edward Bloomer of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich,
the March eclipse will see the Moon closer to us than it has been in
more than 18 years. “The Earth is orbiting around the Sun and
sometimes is slightly closer and sometimes further away, and the Earth
is also wobbling around on its axis,” the Telegraph cites him as saying. “Likewise
the orbit of the Moon around the Earth is elliptical and slightly
tilted so it’s rare for the Sun, Earth and Moon to actually line up,” he also said. And when the Moon’s orbit is as close as possible to the Earth’s, we have a total eclipse, Bloomer explains.
That’s
when the Supermoon appears, and that is what will take place in Britain
in a few days, as our satellite appears to us as an enormous black,
glowing orb, shortly before March 20.
Reuters / Michaela Rehle
The only thing the Brits
have to worry about is weather. It can potentially ruin their viewing
experience, with the possibility of clouds and rain.
But if skies
are clear, another treat for everyone will be the moon itself. With such
proximity and lighting conditions, a pair of binoculars will give the
viewer surface details that could never be seen with the naked eye.
However,
it’s not just the fun factor of such events that is attracting
attention. The Brits are afraid it might cause power grid failures as
well. The National Grid says around 50 percent of power will be lost
throughout the morning hours later in March.
But Britain will
remain relatively unscathed, compared to its European neighbors, where
up to 10 percent of energy is generated sustainably, meaning they depend
more on the sun. According to the UK’s energy body, only 1.5 percent of
power there is generated by solar panels. And since people will be
going out in droves to watch the spectacle, energy consumption should
drop almost at the same time the shortages will strike, it says.
The European Network Transmission System Operators for Electricity says, according to the Independent, “with
the increase of installed photovoltaic energy generation, the risk of
an incident could be serious without appropriate countermeasures.” "Within
30 minutes the solar power production would decrease from 17.5
gigawatts to 6.2GW and then increase again up to 24.6GW. This means that
within 30 minutes the system will have to adapt to a load change of
-10GW to +15GW," said Patrick Graichen, executive director of the
Berlin-based think-tank on renewable energy Agora Energiewende, as cited
by the Financial Times.
While the world is only hearing about the
Supermoon eclipse now, energy companies have been preparing for the
event for months in advance, some in Europe setting up contingency
measures for extracting energy from other power stations.
Experts
predict that precautionary methods will only increase with time, as more
solar energy becomes increasingly commonplace. - RT.
Nearly 90 per cent of the sun's rays will be blocked out in parts of Europe on March 20.
In London and the South East, 85 per cent of the sun will be obscured by the moon whilst in northern Scotland, more than 95 per cent will be covered.
The National Grid has warned that solar power output in Britain will halve during the event.
It
is unlikely to cause problems as so little electricity comes from solar
power im the UK but other parts of Europe come be plunged into
darkness.
Eclipse map courtesy of Fred Espenak - NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
The European Network Transmission System Operators for Electricity said: "The risk of incident cannot be completely ruled out. Solar eclipses have happened before but with the increase of installed photovoltaic energy generation, the risk of an incident could be serious without appropriate countermeasures."
The organisation said it had been planning for months so that suppliers across Europe provide more energy from other power stations during the hours that solar energy supplies are hit. Patrick Graichen, executive director of Agora Energiewende, a renewable energy think-tank in Berlin, said such events might become problematic in the future as more solar farms are built.
He told the Financial Times: "In a way March 20 is a glimpse into the future of our power systems."
The eclipse will last around two hours from 8.40am. The next one will not be until 2026.
NASA hopes to collect radar images of the asteroid, which may look similar to this artist's impression. (ESA)
January 26, 2015 - SPACE
- An asteroid the size of the world's most massive cruise ships
flew past the Earth today, and is expected to be visible from Canada
with strong binoculars or a small telescope tonight.
Based on its brightness, asteroid 2004 BL86 was estimated to be about
500 metres across. But NASA scientists later revised their estimate to
about 300 metres, based on radar measurements. They also revealed Monday
morning that the space rock has a very short "day" — it rotates once
every 2.6 hours — and is orbited by its own tiny moon.
Here is a pic of the movie shown by Dr. Lance Benner of Goldstone images of Ast BL86 on close approach! #SloohBL86
The asteroid's moon, along with features that may be boulders on the rotating asteroid, could be seen in a video of the radar images shown by NASA research scientist Lance Benner on a live webcast during the space rock's close approach Monday morning. The event was broadcast by Slooh, a group that streams celestial events online from telescopes around the world.
At its closest approach at 11:19 a.m., the huge space rock was about about 1.2-million kilometres from the Earth, or about three times further away than the Earth's moon.
That's a safe distance, but closer than any other asteroid this big will come until 2027 — the year when we can expect a visit from another chunky rock called 1999 AN10.
WATCH: NASA Goldstone Footage of Never Before Seen Close Up Views of Asteroid 2004 BL86.
Viewing tips
You may be able to see the asteroid this evening using strong binoculars or a small telescope, NASA says.
It
will probably be easiest to find around 11 p.m. ET when it will be to
the right of the planet Jupiter, between the constellations Leo and
Gemini, high in the eastern sky.
"Jupiter is the brightest
star-like object in the sky these days. You can't miss it," said J.
Randy Attwood, executive director of the Royal Astronomical Society of
Canada. "And the asteroid will be really close to Jupiter."
He recommends that you:
Find a dark back yard or park where you can block out as much light as possible.
Point your
telescope toward the east with Jupiter within view, taking care that
the field of view is wide enough for you to see both Jupiter and the
asteroid.
Make a diagram of what you see and check back later to see if anything moved.
Attwood said this is a rare opportunity because it's not often that celestial objects are moving fast enough for us to notice their motion — planets plod along so slowly that their motion against the stars is only visible on the scale of days or weeks.
In this case, the asteroid will move the width of four full moons in an hour, not that quickly.
"You may not see it moving," Attwood said.
You may not recognize the asteroid the first time you look, but it should be obvious the second time, when it will be in a different place.
He says there's great satisfaction that comes with spotting an object like this yourself.
"To think this is something half a kilometre in size, 1.2 million
kilometres away and you're seeing it from your backyard — that's
exciting."
The track of asteroid 2004 BL86 as viewed from the Earth, plotted on a star chart with an equatorial coordinate grid. The asteroid location is shown at four-hour
intervals from January 26 to 28. The indicated times are Universal Time; subtract 5 hours for Eastern Standard Time (EST), 6 hours for CST, and 8 hours for PST.
(NASA/C2A)
NASA will also be watching the asteroid, capturing radar images and data using its Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif. NASA Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico will also be following it over the next few days.
Benner said this will be the best asteroid of the year to observe by radar.
"The big night is tonight," he added.
The asteroid was detected in 2004 and will not come this close to Earth for at least 200 years, NASA says.
WATCH: Large asteroid 2004 BL86 makes its close approach - watch it again.
January 24, 2015 - SPACE
- An asteroid the size five football fields is approaching Earth and is
expected to pass by on Monday. It will be visible through strong
binoculars – definitely worth getting; the next time such an asteroid
could be this close again will be in 2027.
At the closest point to
the Earth, asteroid 2004 BL86 will be at a distance of 1.2 million
kilometers which – approximately three times the distance from the Earth
to the moon. Estimated to be 0.5 km in diameter, it is classified by
scientists as potentially dangerous.
A space object is considered “potentially dangerous”
if it crosses the Earth's orbit at a distance of less than 0.05 AU
(approximately 19.5 distances from the Earth to the Moon), and if its
diameter exceeds 100-150 meters. Objects of this size are large enough
to cause unprecedented destruction, or generate a tsunami in case they
fall into the ocean.
This graphic depicts the passage of asteroid 2004 BL86. (Image credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech)
However, according to astronomers, there is no threat of the object colliding with our planet this time. “While
it poses no threat to Earth for the foreseeable future, it’s a
relatively close approach by a relatively large asteroid, so it provides
us a unique opportunity to observe and learn more,” Don Yeomans from NASA's Near Earth Object Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement.
It
is very rare that such a huge space body comes this close to Earth. The
next time an asteroid might be passing by will be in 2027, when 1999
AN10 flies past Earth. As for 2004 BL86 itself, it can be monitored from
Earth for another 200 years.
Astronomers strongly recommend
trying to catch this unique opportunity to spot an asteroid in the sky.
It will be possible on January 26 between 11:07 pm and 11:52 pm ET
(04:07 and 04:52 GMT).
It will be best seen in the Americas,
Europe, and Africa. Amateur astronomers will be able to observe it with
small telescopes and even strong binoculars. “I may grab my favorite binoculars and give it a shot myself,” Yeomans said in the statement. “Asteroids
are something special. Not only did asteroids provide Earth with the
building blocks of life and much of its water, but in the future, they
will become valuable resources for mineral ores and other vital natural
resources.”
Numerous observatories all over the world will
use this opportunity to learn something new about 2004 BL86. NASA's Deep
Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, and the Arecibo
Observatory in Puerto Rico will try to procure scientific data and
radar-generated images of the asteroid while it is in its closest
position to the Earth.
“When we get our radar data back the day after the flyby, we will have the first detailed images,” radar astronomer Lance Benne said. “At present, we know almost nothing about the asteroid, so there are bound to be surprises.”
2004 BL86 was discovered on January 30, 2004, by the Lincoln Near-Earth
Asteroid Research (LINEAR), responsible for the majority of asteroid
discoveries from 1998 until 2005, when it was overtaken by the Catalina
Sky Survey (CSS). The asteroid orbits the Sun every 1.84 years. - RT.
