Explanation:
The Sun set on
Friday
the 13th as a full Honey Moon rose,
captured in this well-planned time-lapse sequence.
Lisbon, Portugal's Christ the King monument
is in the foreground, about 6 kilometers distant from
camera and telephoto lens.
During the days surrounding today's
solstice (June 21, 10:51 UT) the Sun
follows its highest arc through northern hemisphere skies as it travels
along the ecliptic plane.
At night the ecliptic plane is low, and
the Full Moon's path close to the ecliptic was also low,
the rising Moon separating more slowly from the distant horizon.
Northern moon watchers were likely to experience the mysterious
Moon Illusion,
the lunar orb
appearing impossibly large while near the horizon.
But the photo sequence shows the Moon's
apparent size did not
not change at all.
Its light was initially scattered by the long line-of-sight through
the atmosphere though, and a deeper reddened color
gave way to a paler gold as the Full Moon rose
into the night.
Explanation:
June's Full Moon (full phase on June 13, 0411 UT) is
traditionally known
as the Strawberry Moon or Rose Moon.
Of course those names might also describe the
appearance of this Full Moon, rising last month
over the small Swedish village of Marieby.
The Moon looks large in the image because the scene was
captured with a long focal length lens from a place
about 8 kilometers from the foreground houses.
But just by eye a Full Moon rising, even on
Friday
the 13th, will appear to loom impossibly large
near the horizon.
That effect has long been recognized as
the
Moon Illusion.
Unlike the magnification provided by a telescope or telephoto lens,
the cause
of the Moon illusion is still poorly understood and
not explained
by atmospheric
optical effects, such as scattering and refraction.
Those effects do produce
the Moon's blushing color and ragged edge also seen
in the photograph.
Explanation:
What caused this outburst of V838 Mon?
For reasons unknown, star V838 Mon
suddenly became one of the brightest stars in the entire
Milky Way Galaxy.
Then, just a few months later, it faded.
A stellar flash like this has never been seen before --
supernovas
and novas expel a tremendous amount of matter out into space.
Although the V838 Mon flash appeared to expel some material into space, what is seen in the
above eight-frame movie, interpolated for smoothness, is actually an outwardly moving
light echo of the flash.
The actual time-span of the
above movie
is from 2002, when the flash was first recorded, to 2006.
In a light echo, light from the flash is
reflected by successively more distant ellipsoids in the complex array of ambient
interstellar dust
that already surrounded the star.
Currently, the
leading model for
V838's
outburst was the orbital decay and subsequent merging of two relatively normal stars.
V838 Mon lies about 20,000
light years away toward the
constellation of
Monoceros, while the largest
light echo above spans about
six light years in diameter.
Four Lasers over Mauna Kea Image Credit & Copyright: JasonChu
(IfA Manoa)
Explanation:
Are lasers from giant telescopes being used to attack the Galactic center?
No.
Lasers shot
from telescopes are now commonly used to help increase the accuracy of astronomical observations.
In some sky locations, Earth atmosphere-induced
fluctuations in starlight can indicate how the
air mass over a telescope is changing,
but many times no bright star exists in the
direction where atmospheric information is needed.
In these cases, astronomers create an
artificial star where they need it -- with a
laser.
Subsequent observations of the
artificial laser guide star can reveal information
so detailed about the blurring effects of the
Earth's atmosphere that much of this
blurring can be removed by rapidly flexing the mirror.
Such
adaptive optic techniques allow
high-resolution ground-based observations of
real stars,
planets, and
nebulae.
Pictured above, four telescopes on
Mauna Kea,
Hawaii,
USA are being used simultaneously
to study the center of our Galaxy and so all use a laser to create an artificial star nearby.
This
six point star was discovered this week in the UK. Its design is simple
compared to many we have see in the past, however the edges (lines) are
so smooth and even that it looks to be made by aliens. Amazing detail
and incredible footage of this formation.
Date of Sighting - 07-June-2014
Place of Sighting - Cancun, MX
Description of Sighting Report - "I was standing on a west facing balcony of the Hard Rock Hotel in Cancun
taking pictures of the sunset. At the time i did not notice anything.
When I got home and started editing my photos I noticed the obvious
craft in the pictures.
I was shooting a Canon 7D camera with a 24-70 mm lens at the time. I
was shooting HDR images. This process combines three separate images,
all with varying exposures, this particular image consisted of 3 shots.
It craft appears in all three shots, albeit in slightly different
locations in the frame (indicates motion to me).
I was shooting in "camera RAW" mode and have the original images
still stored on the memory card from the camera. I hereby attest these
images are un-doctored, unedited and 100% the real thing.
It is my camera, my gear and I pushed the shutter button when they were taken.
The attached images were screen shots taken with my phone but I will gladly provide the originals for your examination.
the first image is of my computer screen with one of the shots
pulled up full screen. I can be seen ghosted in the image, but the white
"dot" in the upper left corner is the craft.
The second attached image is a close-up of the "white dot" in the
image. It has clear structure with what apear to be 4 domes, or lights
on it.
The third image is the three shots combined in Photomatix software that clearly shows the movement of the craft.
All three of these images were captures less than a second apart.
A team of scientists from Harvard University believe that have found evidence that an ancient Earth exists inside the Earth.
The team believe that a previously unexplained isotopic ratio from deep
within the Earth may be a signal from material from the time before the
Earth collided with another planet-sized body, leading to the creation
of the Moon. This may represent the echoes of the ancient Earth, which
existed prior to the proposed collision 4.5 billion years ago. This work
is being presented at the Goldschmidt conference in Sacramento,
California.
The currently favored theory says that the Moon was formed 4.5 billion
years ago, when the Earth collided with a Mars-sized mass, which has
been given the name "Theia". According to this theory, the heat
generated by the collision would have caused the whole planet to melt,
before some of the debris cooled and spun off to create the Moon.
Now however, a group of scientists from Harvard University believe that
they have identified a sign that only part of the Earth melted, and that
an ancient part still exists within the Earth's mantle.
According to lead researcher Associate Professor Sujoy Mukhopadhyay
(Harvard): "The energy released by the impact between the Earth and
Theia would have been huge, certainly enough to melt the whole planet.
But we believe that the impact energy was not evenly distributed
throughout the ancient Earth. This means that a major part of the
impacted hemisphere would probably have been completely vaporized, but
the opposite hemisphere would have been partly shielded, and would not
have undergone complete melting".
The idea that a very disruptive collision of the Earth with another
planet-sized body, the biggest event in Earth's geological history, did
not completely melt and homogenize the Earth challenges some of our
notions on planet formation and the energetics of giant impacts. If the
theory is proven correct, then we may be seeing echoes of the ancient
Earth, from a time before the collision".
Northwestern University geophysicist Steve Jacobsen and University of New Mexico
seismologist Brandon Schmandt have found deep pockets of magma located
about 400 miles beneath North America, a likely signature of the
presence of a massive reservoir of water three times the size of Earth's
oceans.
Though not in the familiar liquid form — the ingredients for water are
bound up in rock deep in the Earth's mantle — the discovery may
represent the planet's largest water reservoir.
Schmandt and Jacobsen's findings build on a discovery in which
scientists found a piece of the mineral ringwoodite inside a diamond
brought up from a depth of 400 miles by a volcano in Brazil. That tiny
piece of ringwoodite — the only sample in existence from within the
Earth — contained a surprising amount of water bound in solid form in
the mineral.
Fragments of the blue colored mineral ringwoodlite synthesized in the
laboratory. (Credit: Steve Jacobsen - Northwestern University).
"The ringwoodite is like a sponge, soaking up water," Jacobsen said.
"There is something very special about the crystal structure of
ringwoodite that allows it to attract hydrogen and trap water.
The presence of liquid water on the surface is what makes our "blue
planet" habitable, and scientists have long been trying to figure out
just how much water may be cycling between Earth's surface and interior
reservoirs through plate tectonics. The new findings will also help
scientists better understand Earth's water cycle.
Besides, they have found evidence of a vast water reservoir beneath eastern Asia that is at least the volume of the Arctic Ocean.
According to the Hollow Earth Hypothesis, planet Earth is either wholly
hollow or otherwise contains a substantial interior space.via
Explanation:
What if we X-rayed an entire spiral galaxy?
This was done (again) recently by NASA's
Chandra X-ray Observatory
for the nearby interacting galaxies known as the
Whirlpool (M51).
Hundreds of glittering x-ray stars are present in the
above
Chandra image of the spiral and its neighbor.
The image is a conglomerate of
X-ray light
from Chandra and visible light from the
Hubble Space Telescope.
The number of luminous x-ray
sources, likely neutron star and black hole
binary
systems within the confines of
M51, is unusually high
for normal spiral or elliptical galaxies and suggests this cosmic
whirlpool has experienced
intense
bursts of massive star formation.
The bright cores of both galaxies, NGC 5194 and NGC 5195
(right and left respectively), also exhibit high-energy
activity.
In this false-color image where X-rays are depicted in purple,
diffuse X-ray emission typically results from
multi-million degree gas heated by
supernova explosions.
Explanation:
The Cat's Eye Nebula
(NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary
nebulae in the sky.
Its haunting symmetries are seen
in the very central region of
this stunning false-color picture, processed to reveal the
enormous but extremely faint halo of gaseous material, over three
light-years across, which surrounds the brighter,
familiar
planetary nebula.
Made with data from the
Nordic Optical Telescope in the
Canary Islands,
the composite picture shows extended emission from the nebula.
Planetary
nebulae have long been appreciated as a final phase
in the life of a sun-like star.
Only much more recently however, have some planetaries been
found to have halos
like this one, likely formed of material shrugged off during
earlier active episodes in the star's evolution.
While the planetary
nebula phase is thought to last for around 10,000 years,
astronomers estimate the age of the
outer filamentary portions
of this halo to be 50,000 to 90,000 years.
Explanation:
Stars are forming in the gigantic dust pillar called the Cone Nebula.
Cones, pillars, and majestic
flowing shapes abound in
stellar
nurseries where natal clouds of gas and dust are buffeted by
energetic winds from newborn stars.
The Cone Nebula,
a well-known example, lies within the bright
galactic star-forming region
NGC 2264.
The Cone
was captured in unprecedented detail in
this close-up composite
of several observations from the Earth-orbiting
Hubble Space Telescope.
While the Cone Nebula,
about 2,500 light-years away
in Monoceros,
is around 7 light-years long,
the region pictured here
surrounding the cone's blunted head is a mere 2.5 light-years across.
In our neck of the galaxy
that distance is just over half way
from the Sun to its nearest stellar neighbor, the
Alpha Centauri star system.
The massive star
NGC 2264 IRS, seen by Hubble's infrared camera
in 1997, is the likely source of the wind
sculpting the Cone Nebula and lies off the top of the image.
The Cone Nebula's reddish veil is
produced by glowing hydrogen gas.
Explanation:
The space station has caught a dragon.
Specifically, in mid-April, the
International Space Station captured the unmanned
SpaceXDragon capsule
sent to resupply the orbiting outpost.
Pictured above, the station's
Canadarm2 had just grabbed the commercial spaceship.
The Dragon capsule
was filled with over 5000 lbs (2260 kilos) of supplies and experiments
to be used by the current band of six ISS astronauts who compose
Expedition 39, as well as the six astronauts who compose Expedition 40.
After docking with the ISS, the Dragon capsule was unloaded and
eventually released,
splashing down in the
Pacific Ocean on May 18.
The current
Expedition 40 crew, now complete, will apply themselves to many tasks including the deployment of the
Napor-mini RSA experiment which will use
phased array radar
and a small optical telescope to monitor possible
emergency situations on the Earth below.
Explanation:
Many think it is just a myth.
Others think it is true but its cause isn't known.
Adventurers pride themselves on having seen it.
It's a green flash from the
Sun.
The truth is the
green flash
does exist and its cause is well understood.
Just as the setting
Sun disappears completely from view,
a last glimmer appears startlingly
green.
The effect is typically visible only from locations with a low,
distant horizon, and lasts just a few seconds.
A green flash is also visible for a rising
Sun, but takes better timing to spot.
A dramatic
green flash, as well as an even more rare
red flash, was caught in the
above photograph recently
observed
during a sunset visible from the
Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos in the
Canary Islands,
Spain.
The Sun itself does not turn
partly
green or red --
the effect is caused by layers of the
Earth's atmosphere acting like a prism.
Explanation:
A star cluster around 2 million years young,
M16 is surrounded
by natal clouds of dust and glowing gas
also known as The Eagle Nebula.
This beautifully
detailed
image of the region includes
cosmic sculptures
made famous in
Hubble Space Telescope close-ups of the starforming complex.
Described as elephant trunks or
Pillars of Creation, dense,
dusty columns rising near the center are light-years in length but
are gravitationally contracting
to
form stars.
Energetic radiation from the cluster stars erodes material near
the tips, eventually exposing the embedded new stars.
Extending from the left edge of the frame is another dusty
starforming column known as the
Fairy
of Eagle Nebula.
M16 and the Eagle Nebula lie about 7,000 light-years away,
an easy target for binoculars or small telescopes in a
nebula rich part of the sky
toward the split constellation
Serpens Cauda
(the tail of the snake).
Explanation:
What is that light in the sky?
Perhaps one of humanity's more common questions,
an answer may result from a few quick observations.
For example -- is it moving or blinking?
If so, and if you live near a city,
the answer is typically an airplane,
since planes are so numerous and so few stars and
satellites are bright enough to be seen over the din of
artificial city lights.
If not, and if you live far from a city, that bright light is likely a planet such as
Venus or
Mars --
the former of which is constrained to appear near the horizon just before dawn or after dusk.
Sometimes the low apparent motion of a distant
airplane near the horizon makes it hard to tell from a
bright planet,
but even this can usually be discerned by the plane's motion over a few minutes.
Still unsure?
The above chart gives a sometimes-humorous but mostly-accurate assessment.
Dedicated sky enthusiasts will likely note -- and are
encouraged to provide --
polite corrections.
