13th Moon of 2012

The 'Moon illusion' as the full moon sets over the VLT telescopes in Chile. Image: G. Gillet / ESO

Before the modern calendar we use today, ancient people keep track of days by observing the phases of the moon. From New Moon to Full Moon, one cycle equals to one Month hence the origin of the word. By logic if there is one moon cycle for each month, and there are 12 months in one year, then why do we now have this 13th moon for 2012?

Answer:  The moon cycle is approx 28 days not 30 days, so there will be times of the year where we will see two full moons in one month. Read more from a previous entry about Blue Moon.

The Brief History of 2012 Notpocalypse

I originally wanted to shrug off and avoid writing an entry about this December 21 or 23 end-of-the-world thing, but due to boredom, and the lack of a better topic, I decided to ride along with the mainstream, social media to write my thoughts about this (social) phenomenon.

Is this idea end-of-the-world new social phenomenon?

Nope, since the ancient times, crackpots and nimrods have been crying doomsday.

I remember one when I was about 10 years old. The Pastor of our local Baptist Church posted a slogan on one side of his truck saying the words – “Korean liars”. I knew he was referring an end of the world prediction made by a Korean Christian sect. 

In fact according to Wikipedia, there are 164 recorded doomsday dates that never happened. This year (2012) alone there are five.

In case you missed the other end of the world predictions for 2012 here are some.

2012 May 27 - Ronald Weinland - Author of “The Prophesied End-Time” & “2008 - God’s Final Witness” claimed Jesus Christ would return and the world would end on this day. 

2012 Jun 30 - José Luis de Jesús, founder and leader of Creciendo en Gracia sect, predicted that the world's governments and economies would fail on this day, and that he and his followers would undergo a transformation that would allow them to fly and walk through walls. 

2012 Dec 21 -The so-called Mayan apocalypse. The Earth would be destroyed by an asteroid, Nibiru, or some other interplanetary object; an alien invasion; or a supernova. 

2012 Dec 23 - Warren Jeffs- The president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints predicted from his prison cell that the world would end by December 23. 

2012 Dec 31 - When the end failed to occur as he had predicted on December 23, Warren Jeffs blamed it on his followers "lack of faith", and moved the prediction to December 31.      

What do I think of it?

It is interesting from a social science standpoint how phenomenon like doomsday predictions spread from person to person, blog to blog, via the Internet and survive until it gets to the mainstream media. It is like asking - How did Gangnam Style song got so famous?  I really don’t get it. Perhaps I’m getting a little old to appreciate mainstream stuffs like I use to.

Despite the epic fail of the others in the past, 2012 doomsday still on the main menu, thanks to the TV, social media, and Hollywood promotions.

But what make this new “notpocalypse” different and from others in the menu of doomsday of the past is, it has least four major tasty ingredients.  

1. The end of Mayan Calendar
2. The return of Planet X / Nibiru
3. Huge Solar Flares
4. Sun and Black hole galactic alignment

But from an empirical science standpoint, 2012 doomsday, like other similar predictions before it, is absolute NONSENSE.  

Let’s try to briefly discuss one by one.

Mayan Calendar. Ancient Mayans predicted the end of the world on Dec. 21, 2012 because that’s the date their calendar ends.  False. Just like our calendar, theirs was based on cycles. At the end on a cycle, it resets to a new start. It’s like when we have New Year’s Eve December 31 and then start again to January 1 after that.

Planet X. This is a repeat ingredient from the doomsday of May 15 2003, when there was supposed to be giant planet named Nibiru that orbits the Sun every 3600 years and would sweep past the Earth and cause all sorts of disasters.  False. As mentioned from my previous entry [read here], Nibiru or Planet X and its expected orbit near Earth was a derivative from some bad data and interpretations from the past.

Solar Flares. Every 11 years, the Sun’s magnetic field goes crazy and will pop stored energy though solar flares which would bring catastrophes to Earth. True and false. True the Sun was expected to be more active with solar flare discharge, and years ago it would look like that this month is that time, 11 years just a guestimate, and now it is apparent this expected peak is talking longer than expected. So scientists say expect a delay until 2014

Galactic alignment. The Sun for the first time in human history will align to the Black Hole in the center of the Milkyway. This alignment will bring disasters to our tiny planet. False. I will admit that given the bad reputation of Blackholes (not to mention this a giant Blackhole), and the idea that our Sun will align with such a thing really sounds a scary thing to happen but the thing is harmless. It’s like an eclipse bodies will align but nothing will happen. And one more thing the real date for this galactic alignment is December 19^th not 21^st or 23^rd.

Do I believe in any doomsday predictions?

Apart from those events I mentioned from a previous post [read here] and if we are lucky enough miss or survive all earth threats in the near future then the nearest real Earth apocalypse suggested by science is near year 500 million AD,  when scientist predicts the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will drop, making Earth uninhabitable. And if we are advance enough to find a new place in the solar system by then, then the next is after year 4 Billion when the Sun will begin to swell and die out. After that is the Big Rip in 22 billion a time when entire universe will eventually be torn apart by its continual expansion.  Or year  10¹⁰⁰  the suggested ultimate fate of the universe, in which the universe has diminished to a state of no thermodynamic free energy and therefore can no longer sustain life.

From Blue to Black Marble

Blue Earth

Prior to NASA space flights we can only imagine what the whole planet would look like in a single picture. So in 1972, a crew of Apollo 17 took a photograph from inside the spacecraft on its way to the moon. Today, that picture is probably the most famous and most distributed picture the Earth – It is called the Blue Marble.

Black Marble

With the boom of the technology in the last decades, we have gone a good distance in space and space photography. And while most can only take photos of outer space from Earth, there are some, like the guy of Apollo 17, who does the other way around – Take pictures of Earth from outer space. Not everybody can do this but thanks to Google it did all that for us. Today, we have detailed photos of the every corner our planet available to everyone. But Google was not contended with just that, so just lately, after a collaboration with NASA, and NOAA, it released the most detailed possible image of Earth at night – Black Marble.

Check the page here.

At first look, I found a few interesting things.

1.    If more lights would mean more progressive areas, than this is also like an economic map. Try to compare North and South Korea.

2.       What are those captured huge collection lights from places that are supposed to be open sea?

AstroSpies - PBS Nova documentary

I just want to share this for today. 

Al-Thor-native Energy

A few months ago, social media like Facebook and twitter were flooded with Thor memes. Pinoy humor and ingenuity would throw in just about anything they can grab and relate to Thor. Here are a few pics in case you don't remember this happening.

But this is not about another Thor meme. But also, it's not exactly about astronomy but since the issue of global warming and climate change are topics now getting hotter everyday. Here in Manila, the monsoons have been bringing more and more rainfall than in the past. Just about recently torrential rains flooded Manila more devastating than it did in the past, proving that climate change is very real. But not only in Manila this climate change is getting more globally apparent, like the US recently had  Frankenstorm Sandy .

Since we are looking for alternative sources of energy to help reduce the levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and since thorium is still not popular in mainstream media, I thought that it might be something that deserves more attention.

Thorium like Thor the superhero got its name from the Norse god of thunder since it was discovered by a Norwegian mineralogist.  It is naturally occurring radioactive chemical element that is much more abundant in nature than uranium which is at the moment a main source of nuclear power that we have today. And like uranium, thorium has the same properties to be used as a nuclear fuel but only safer, cheaper, and cleaner. It is radioactive but only in safe levels, so slight that they say you could carry a lump of it in your pocket without harm. It is cheaper because its very abundant in the earths crust that there is enough to power earth for thousands of years and cleaner because it produces far smaller amounts of radioactive waste elements.

In the Philippines, we have one nuclear plant - Bataan Nuclear Power Plant(BNPP) but because it is one symbol of Marcos' martial law power and corruption during that regime, plus the potential threat to public health, it has been criticized and opposed by many political, environmental, and even religious sectors. Under opposition the government put BNPP to the backseat. So far in the backseat that in fact, next year 2013, no budget has been allotted for its maintenance to keep it intact, and there are proposals to sell it to private sectors.

If thorium is thought to be safer, cheaper, and cleaner, then why is nobody using it?

Nuclear programs around the world are young and still in love with uranium, plus the superpower countries like the US who are supposed to lead have stop their research in 1970s and still leaning towards uranium because it can be turned to nuclear weapon easily.  But after Fukushima disaster we were again reminded that we need to look more into alternative of uranium. And today, US, China, India, and UK, are conducting separate researches. China and India are now one step closer as they are already building reactors. If any of them makes the breakthrough then they will be doing a favor to all mankind and perhaps we can revive and modify the reactors of our own BNPP to use thorium.

Lunar Penumbral Eclipse Last Night

Taken hand held using Olympus EPL2 at 150mm and post processed with Crop and Auto contrast in Photoshop

I took some quick moon photos last night during a penumbral lunar eclipse. It's a bit of a disappointment since there seems to be no discernible difference in appearance. If viewed with a naked eye you would barely notice the difference with a normal full moon. Just a little partial dimming from the earth shadow. But from a camera it could show more. I combined two photos side by side to show the difference, one taken at 2014PST and another taken at 2214PST respectively.

Here's a wiki-link for Lunar Penumbral Eclipse.

Firefox in Space

If you often watch The Big Bang Theory(the tv sitcom), you will notice this is poster hanging on the wall of Raj's office.

It's the V838 Monocerotis or  V838 Mon which is a red variable star(or should i say now the remnant after the outburst) in the constellation Monoceros some 20,000 light years away. The remnant is still expanding and evolving rapidly as you can see the progress in this Hubble poster.

If you look closely you might also notice a resemblance, that some people see, to the logo of Mozilla Firefox like here below. Perhaps its just imagination or projection, but I have to admit the resemblance here is uncanny that even and if it was photoshoped to match, it only requires very little change. In fact, if the photo publish by HST in February 2004 is rotated, it will be easier to see.

Checking on the history of the Firefox logo, there was no mention that it was ever inspired by the V838 Mon. In fact, it the introduction of the Firefox logo that we know today is cutting it close as it was also introduced February 2004 adding a queer coincidence.

This projection gives us clue how early sky gazers looked up at the night sky and imagined to form pictures they have in their minds by connecting the (star as) dots which we now call constellations.

I'm not exactly a Firefox fan as I use Google Chrome more. But even the google chrome logo has resemblance to the December 2002 photo of this very same star. But no, I think I know where chrome logo came from. Let me give you a hint.

Surreal Skies of Mount Pinatubo

Not long ago, the idea of a moon as a habitable place for life was not very popular. Nowadays, the possibility of life in exomoons are now more accepted. In fact, in our own solar system, it is now thought that life is more possible to exist in moons of gas giant planets like Saturn and Jupiter rather than in Mar,Venus, or elsewhere.

Imagine if we find a real exomoon like Pandora int the movie Avatar. What would it look like? Would it be really earth-like? Maybe it would just be like in the movie. I can imagine the sky would be quite a site. A big planet perhaps instead of a small moon. There are already pictures out there depicting what the scene might look like. But you might be surprise how anyone can create own photos like those.

Apart from desktop astronomy, I also enjoy a bit of desktop photo manipulation.

And I already tried to create my own with a scene of a surreal sky viewed from exomoon orbiting a ringed exoplanet.

So, I like to share how to DIY.

1. Find a postcard picture of a landscape of your choice. Mine is a landscape photo of the crater of Mt. Pinatubo after the eruption of '91.

2. Find a picture of a planet of your choice. Mine is a fictional planet with rings similar to our Saturn.

3. Use Photoshop to crop the planet and combine it with your landscape. Position it in a way that it would conform to the landscape's direction of light. I put mine in the horizon. Then, de-saturate the color and tint it according to the color of the sky. Blend the two photos by reducing the opacity of the planet to about 50%.

Like so, you now have your own surreal sky exomoon-exoplanet photo.

How Big are Objects Out There

A couple of years ago, I showed this exact video to my nephew and he liked watching it over and over because of the background music. I was showing him how small earth is compared to the rest out there. I remember him asking "Play it again, tito, please".  At his young age of five back then, and I can already see the wonder in his face to see how big other objects are.

The wonder is the same to me until now. I mean, how insignificant are we? Like if the whole universe is a painting on a big canvas, even if the whole earth would disappear, it wouldn't change the painting a tiny bit. This fact never fails to humble me. 

50 Amazing Astronomy Facts

Here is the script from the video:

1. Saturn would float if you would put it in water.
2. If you would place a pinhead sized piece of the Sun on the Earth you would die from standing within 145 km (90 miles) from it.
3. Space is not a complete vacuum, there are about 3 atoms per cubic meter of space.
4. Only 5% of the universe is made up of normal matter, 25% is dark matter and 70% is dark energy.
5. Neutron stars are so dense that a teaspoon of them would be equal to the weight of the entire Earth’s population.
6. The Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon [in diameter not volume] but is 400 times further away from Earth making them appear the same size.
7. The star Lucy in the constellation Centaurus is a huge cosmic diamond of 10 billion trillion trillion carats.
8. Seasons last 21 years on Uranus while each pole has 42 years of sunlight followed by 42 years of darkness.
9. Venus,on the other hand, does not have any seasons at all.
10. 1 year on Mercury consists of less than 2 days on Mercury.
11. There are as many oxygen atoms in a breath as breaths of air in the atmosphere.
12. Helium is the only substance in the universe that cannot be in solid form.It can’t be cold enough.
13. The coldest place in the universe is on Earth. In Wolfgang Ketterles lab in Massachusetts. 0.000000000001 degrees Kelvin.
14. The pistol star is the most luminous star known 10 million times the brightness of the Sun.
15. Saturn’s moon Titan has liquid oceans of natural gas.
16. All the planets are the same age: 4.544 billion years.
17. Earths moon was most likely formed after an early planet named Theia crashed into Earth.
18. 8000 stars are visible with naked eye from Earth. 4000 in each hemisphere, 2000 at daylight and 2000 at night.
19. 90. 99% of all normal matter in the universe is hydrogen.
20. Only 55% of all Americans knows that the Sun is a star.
21. Because of the speed the Sun moves at, solar eclipses can last at most 7 minutes and 58 seconds.
22. Lunar eclipses, however, can last 1 hour and 40 minutes.
23. All the coal, oil, gas, wood and fuel on Earth would only keep the Sun burning for few days.
24. A full moon is nine times brighter than a half moon.
25. When the Moon is directly above your head or if you stand at the equator, you weight slightly less.
26. A single Quasar produce the same amount of energy as 1 trillion suns.
27. Just after the Big Bang, everything in the universe was in liquid form.
28. A planet nicknamed “The Genesis Planet” has been found to be 12.7 billion years old making it the oldest planet found.
29. The shape of the universe looks a lot like a brain cell.[The structure of the universe looks a lot like a brain neuron cells]
30. Every year, the Moon is moving away from Earth by 3.8 centimeters.
31. The Moon spins around its axis in the same time it goes one lap around the Earth which makes us always see the same side of it.
32. Upsilon Andromeda B also only face one side to its star. One side is hot as lava while the other one is cold below freezing.
33. The average galaxy contains “only” 40 billion stars.
34. While in space astronomers can get taller, but at the same time their hearts can get smaller.
35. Mars surface is cowered with iron oxide (rust).
36. Only half a billionth of the energy released by the Sun reaches Earth.
37. Rogue planets are not bound by any star, brown dwarf or another planet which makes them free. float around the galaxy.
38. Sweeps 10 is the planet with the shortest orbital period found. It orbits its star in only 10 hours.
39. 85% of all stars in our galaxy are part of multiple. star systems.
40. Some brown dwarfs have liquid iron rain falling down on them.
41. The light emitting from the Sun is actually 30,000 years old.
42. Of the over 20 million meteors that are observable every day only one or two reach the surface of Earth.
43. The United States have approximately 3,500 astronomers, but over 15,000 astrologers.
44. The closest black hole to Earth is only 1,600 light. years away.
45. There are at least 10^24 stars in the universe.
46. Certain “star quakes” have been found to tear apart the surface of neutron stars.
47. Any free-moving liquid in outer space will form itself into a sphere due to surface tension.
48. The odds of being killed by falling space debris is 1 in 5 billion.
49. Neutron stars can rotate up to 500 times in 1 second.
50. The largest structure found in the universe is the Sloan Great Wall, a super cluster of galaxies 1.37 billion light. years wide.

There are a few I don't quiet understand/agree with yet and I will have to recheck the facts so I highlighted them in red. My additions and corrections are in [brackets]. While in greens are the new ones to me and amazes me.

Diamond Planet 55 Cancri E

Forget about mining small asteroids, as soon as we are done with warp drives we will be off and mining a diamond planet.

Today, Yale University scientists suggests that a rocky planet twice Earth's size orbiting a nearby star is a diamond planet. It is called planet 55 Cancri E orbiting a sun like star that is visible to the naked eye in the constellation of Cancer and is only 40 light years away.

Its radius is twice that of Earth's but it is more dense with a mass 8 times greater. It is also incredibly hot, with temperatures on its surface more than 1,500 Celsius.

"The surface of this planet is likely covered in graphite and diamond rather than water and granite," said Nikku Madhusudhan, Yale researcher.

If diamonds are really girls best friend than this one would surely be the BFF.

Hmmm.. Can you imagine how much we can pawn that planet to the pawnshops?

So, fix those warp drives soon.

Why is the Sky Dark at Night?

It sounds like a stupid question only a dumb little kid would ask. And almost certainly most would answer - "Duh!? Because the sun is away at night!" While that is a simple answer it is only partly correct. It doesn't really entirely answer the question which by the way is nothing but simple. Like if you look at the picture below you would notice that sky is dark even if the sun is shining (yes, that small shiny spot is the sun).

At this point some would explain- "Well, that is because there was no atmosphere from where it was taken for the sun to illuminate." So, now we say that it is the illuminated atmosphere of the Earth that make the daytime bright but not at night. Again, that is a correct but still it will not explain entirely why the night sky is dark.

How about the stars, if there are enough would it not light the sky at night?

It is estimated that if you hold up a grain of sand, the patch of sky it can cover would contain 10,000 galaxies with billions of stars per galaxy. So if there‘s all those stars, why is it so dark at night?

There is an idea called the "dark night sky paradox" or also known as Olbers' paradox after the astronomer Heinrich Olbers. It argues that the dark night sky would conflict that the universe is infinite in space and time. If there are infinite number of stars in this infinite space and infinitely old universe, wouldn't there be a star in every patch of the sky to shine for the day and night?

Here is the mainstream explanation. What we know is that the universe is not infinitely old. It started with a Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago and and stars have existed only for part of that time. We also know that light from these stars travel at a constant speed and that everything in this universe since the start is moving away from each other. This expansion of the universe causes light of stars to redshift(see redshift, Doppler effect) and some would redshift beyond the visible spectrum of the human eye.

In addition, this means that our light from stars within out observable universe, which is smaller that the total universe and that the light from stars further away from us than 13.7 billion light years away, will not have had enough time to reach the Earth.

If all this rather became even more confusing, then watch the minutephysics video below which explains it all.

Menotrome Peer Pressure

Not much astronomy news lately or at least nothing interesting to me. The new Mars rover found a steambed but nothing really unexpected about that so I just decided to post again about it if it finally finds what it came for in Mars -- a definite sign of life.

And so what is it about that title? Well I had no idea what a menotrome was before I saw this video I'm about to share. Tradition ally it looks like this:

I looked it up and according to wikipedia its a tool for musicians to keep their music tempo. Although I can't remember when and where I know I saw one in the past and that to me it looked like a reverse pendulum that someone could use to hypnotize someone.

Watch this video and I'll discuss more after.



What just happened was -  32 menotromes were set on a table on same tempo but started at different intervals. And while they were at a chaotic tempo at start, they somehow managed to synchronize on their own after just a couple of minutes or so.

So what happened?

Physics. If you noticed, the table is not solid. It is a little flexible and probably also suspended with strings. As the rod of one menotrome sway from side to side it transfers a small force that gives small motions to the flexible table. Which in turn transfers it to the other monotromes that in small increments speeds up or slows downs the other monotromes. This transfer of force will continue and increase until everyone matches the speed and direction of movement of the original menotrome.

Here's a blooper: Observe the second pink one at the rightmost corner, it will take it a while to realize it is the only one left doing the wrong direction. Or maybe it's just me but it looked funny like a soldier marching out of order with the rest before finally realizing it.

Jupiter Impact 2012

In 1994 almost all telescopes were pointed to Jupiter for the whole world to see the Shoemaker-Levi 9 impact. Like so, just this week, last Monday, a similar thing happened only the there was no one looking, no one except one amateur astronomer. Thanks to George Hall from Dallas Texas. And hurrah! to all amateur astronomers. They say it was probably an unnamed comet who will never be discovered.

So what else are we missing? How about that asteroid headed to earth?

Here is the vid.

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The Pencil Nebula

The European Southern Observatory(ESO) in Chile has released new images of a massive glowing cloud of gas called The Pencil Nebula a.k.a NGC 2736, about 800 light years away from us. The clouds of gas we see is the remnants of a star that exploded 11,000 years ago. To be honest, it doesn't look like any pencil but rather more like a witches' broom to me. But so does alot of other nebulas, i couln't figure out how they look like their names. See for yourself.

Planet XXX

If you don't know planet X and google it, it would probably get you little confused because there are different interpretations. you will get Pluto, Nibiru, Senda, Tyche and others.That's because  Planet X is a name for any hypothetical planet beyond the orbit of Neptune.

The conceptions of undiscovered planet X goes back up as early as 1840. Back then, observations in the orbit of Uranus reveiled disturbances in its expected behavior of orbit. This led to a conclusion and later on the discovery of planet Neptune. But even after then, some still speculated that Neptune alone was not enough to explain the discrepancies in the observation. Thus it led to further searching.

And in 1906, the discovery of Pluto temporarily satisfied the search.  Until later observations led to determine that the real size of Pluto and another conclusion that it was not the same mass as the predicted by the expected Planet X. And so the search was revived until Voyager 2  flew by Neptune in 1989. Voyager 2 gave better data that revised it earlier known mass and this new mass led to elimination of the puzzle in the  discrepancy thus disproving the need of existence of  a Planet X. But although that particular concept of Planet X was disproved, the idea was again revived with discoveries of the Kuiper belt objects and the Kuiper cliff.

The observation was that there was a sudden decline in the number of objects(KBOs) in a region, thus suggesting a clearing that may only due to gravitational affect from massive object.

In May this year 2012, National Observatory of Brazil modeled the orbits of  Kuiper belt objects and found that some of those orbits were far more elongated than  predicted. The simplest explanation was the gravitational pull of a distant planetary companion, about as big Neptune to as small as Mars and to far to be spotted by our best telescopes.

Aside from Pluto, there were two more popular candidates taking the name Planet X. One is the hypothetical planet Tyche and another is (and more mythical doomsday) Planet Nibiru. Some people will says these two are same. But not really.

We may have all those breath-taking pictures from Hubble Telescope and others. But the truth is we can not even find a planet our own solar system if there is one due to the vastness of if. While we may all think that we can contain in our heads the idea of its vastness, we most likely, have not really thought of it that much.

RIP Niel Armstrong

The moon is 384,400 kilometers away from Earth. It is the farthest mankind has ever been. And yet to our minds it seemed so near. Thanks to Neil Armstrong who took us there with his first step.

The most famous astronaut died yesterday due to heart complications. And while I can choose to write about his life or about what he has contributed to history in memory of him, I would not. Since that is what you will all get in the news most probably. So I will tell about an urban legend about one of Armstrong's quotable qoutes. It has been going around in e-mails for years.

"That's one small step for man, one giant leep for mankind." Everybody heard that. It is certainly the most famous line from NASA but not that one. Everyone in NASA knew has was going to say that. But what puzzled some is the other quote he said.

According to legend he was going back inside the lander when he said "Good luck Mr. Gorsky".  Many who heard it thought it was a smirk for the Russian cosmonauts. But over time, people who were more puzzled than the others searched more on who Mr. Gorsky was. It turns out that it was not for the Russians because there was no cosmonaut named Mr. Gorsky. People kept asking Armstrong about what was that all about but he only replied with a grin. Until in July 1995 when he was asked again after a speech he made. His answer was not expected by anyone in that room.

He said that Mr. Gorsky has died so felt he can now answer that question. Mr. Gorsky was his neighbor when he was a kid in a small mid town. And one day in 1938, while playing baseball with friends in a backyard, the ball was hit hard enough to land in Mr. & Mrs. Gorsky's yard near the bedroom window. As he leaned down to pick up the ball. The young Niel Armstrong back then heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting to Mr. Gorsky - "Sex?! All you want is oral sex! You will get one when that kid next door walks on the moon."

He remembered that while in the moon and thus he said "Goodluck Mr. Gorsky".

Most likely not true but whether or not, I find it amusing to pass along in memory of Mr Armstrong(and also to Mr. Gorsky). May they rest in peace.

We're NASA and We Know It

Just saw a parody nasa video that was uploaded yesterday. Geeky lyrics, astronaut break-dance with Niel DeGrasse Tyson - not bad really.

Monsoons Over Manila

As the greater part of Luzon, particularly Metro Manila, is being tormented with torrential rainfall for the past days, I worry for those who are displaced due to flooding. Reports on the continuing aftermath is all over TV  news for the last couple days now. At the same time, I also worry for my apartment - just a few more inches to the flood level outside the gate will bring the water inside my room. I cant help tune in to radio stations for updates as well as check the PAGASA's website to check their changes in the forecast.

I found that there are some of interesting new stuffs from PAGASA/DOST website. The Project NOAH is one and it's gives interesting info, like flood maps. This page can be really helpful for information. Someone can use it to check how flooded a particular area can be based from its historical records. I believe that these initiatives came from the hard lessons of Typhoon Ondoy in 2009.

Another thing I noticed is PAGASA has also improved the info they disseminate to the public (or perhaps they improved forecasting models they use). Anyone can remember that before Typhoon Ondoy, the usual weather report we hear from the agency is the usual - manaka-nakang pag-ulan at pagkidlat. But now we  can rely on better info because they now give more details like amount and time of rainfall to expect and they now issue the public color coded warnings of rainfall volume.

I was also wondering about the PAGASA satellite images showing overview of the monsoons. I am under the impression that our government doesn't own a satellite. I searched around where this images are from. We get them from the foreign geostationary satellites, mostly from the Japanese MTSAT-EIR Satellite. 

In fact the only Philippines territory in space was one communications satellite named Agila 2. Although we have lost lost ownership of this satellite since 2008.

Agila 2 was launched into orbit in August 20, 1997 and is expected to have a mission lifetime of 15 years. That is this coming August 20. After this expiration date, we can expect that our Agila 2, will become bits and one of space junk cluttering in out planets inner orbit.

Agiila 2 

As we can say goodbye to our only and former satellite, we should also ask if we need a replacement? I say YES. It will helpful in a lot of ways and not only for weather forecasting but also for:

1. For national security and defense. Given prevailing threat from bullying China, the Philippines should control its own reconnaissance(like in Panatag Shoal) and advanced communications.
2. For reliable automated election results come next year.
3. For the growing cellphone and internet appetite of the Filipinos.
4. For economic advancement. Our neighboring countries like Indonesia has nine satellites; Malaysia has four; Singapore, nine; and Thailand, five. Even Vietnam now controls and profitably operates its own satellite and will launch a second this year.

And while our government alone will have difficulty putting this in the priority list, I think that giant local companies (PLDT, ABSCBN, GMA,Globe and Smart telecoms etc) can help launch a new one  and not only to gain for their own purpose but as well a sense a patriotism for the country.

Red Planet Welcomes our Curiosity

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, also known as "Curiosity," is ready to touchdown this week and expected to land Mars August 6. I wonder if it will still send the same pictures like from the first rover.

I remember an old commercial I saw when i was little about the rover. So I dug around so i can post here.

 

Mars Mission - HP Commercial -

Expect the martians to con us again with printed pictures hence expect same old pictures from curiosity.

Blue Moon

There are many different interpretations of the the term "blue moon". The common use of it is when we refer to events that do not often occur.

Other interpretations are:

- the extra full moon in a season. Regions that have four seasons(winter, spring, summer, autum) normally have 3 full moons. one for each of the three months in every season. But in occasions an extra full moon will occur. In the summer, the first is called the early summer moon, then a midsummer moon and then the late summer moon, an extra full moon between the midsummer and late summer moon is called a blue moon.

- another interpretation is blue moon is the extra full moon in a calendar year. Commonly there are only 12 full moons in one year. One for each of the 12 months. When an extra full moon occurs, it is called a blue moon. The last one was  December 31 2009.

But the most common interpretation of a blue moon is the extra full moon in a month. like ealier mentioned, mostly each month of a calendar year has one full moon but in occasions there will be two.

This next month will have its first full moon in August 2nd and other one which we will call "blue moon" on the 31st.

In any of these cases, an extra full moon is caused due to the difference in earth's rotation and revolution around the sun versus the revolution of the moon around earth. The moon revolves around the earth in approximately 29.5 day. Since our average calender month has 30 days the out of sync time will accumalate the moon time to give us another full moon which can happen in about every 2 to 3 years. So it is not that rare of an event really.

Aside from these disambiguation there are also rare events in the past when the moon was reported to acctually appear blue in color. (BTW this was actually my understanding of the term was I was young). This is possible when there is enough smoke or dust particles in the atmosphere to filter the light seen by an earth observer. There were reports that the moons appears bluish short after the eruption on Mt. Pinatubo in 1991.

You Only Love Your Collider

I was curious enough today to click a youtube clip that appeared to have a contrasting picture from the title. And surely enough I was surprised with  mixed emotions I think I never had before.

What made me even more curious is that they are singing inside the CERN showing the LHC.  I mean who would allow shooting a comedy MTV inside a 9 billion dollar facility.

Here is the vid:




As it turns out, they are real employees of CERN. The title of the video,, also makes more sense since the LHC here  does not stand not for Large Hadron Collider but for the name of the group, Les Horribles Cernettes. And Collider is the title of the song.

Talk about "High Energy" Girl Band in the literal sense. Literal because they are actually working in a high energy lab.

Side trivia: One picture of this group is the first ever picture to be published on the world wide web in 1992.

Oddly enough, they do sound nice to my ear. That is if you don't expect much considering they are not actual singers and are real life CERN scientists.

Now you know how geeks have fun at work.

The God Particle Has Been Found?

When I was in my elementary school, I was taught that the atom is the smallest particle and is indivisible. But even during at that time that my teacher was uttering it, it was well established that there are more smaller particles inside the atom. One fundamental question relating to these smaller particles was - Why do they have different masses?

Anyone who has interest in physics at all at one point or another have encountered the idea of the Higgs boson aka the 'God Particle'.

In 1964, Peter Higgs, theorized a solution on the problem on why particles have mass. He proposed that  particles move through a field (the Higgs field very much like the idea of ether), and as they move through it they interact with Higgs Boson which is the smallest bit of the Higgs field. This interaction depending how smooth it moves though the field would give a particle its mass. But since then  its been very difficult to find it evidence of it and its discovery has been one of the most awaited in the history of physics.

Well today is historic as scientists at CERN announced that they are 99.999% sure  that 'God Particle' has been found.

So why should we care about its discovery?

Not really. To us (non geeks) we don't necessarily need to care. Its just good to know that current Standard Model of physics we have  is on the right track. Its means that  our geeks are correct so far on how we should perceive the physical world.  And most of all,  it's discovery is important because it means that our geeks need not to revise the whole physics as we(or they) know it. That our world  is now more simplier than it was without it. Some people might even say that we are now one step closer to knowing how God created the universe.

The Tunguska Event

June 30 in 1908, something exploded over in Tunguska which is now called Krasnoyarsk Krai, in Russia. It is now estimated to have been nearly 1000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. That explosion called the Tunguska Event has been the subject of intense curiosity and diverse theories and which up to this day make it  unique and mysterious.

It wasn't until in 1921, when a Russian mineralogist, Leonid Kulik became intrigue to travel to the area and interview some witnesses. He returned in 1927, then with people to take him to the impact site. What he saw shocked him.

So what could have caused the Tunguska explosion?

There are lots of  interesting theories - from exploding UFO's, Black Holes, Antimatter, natural H-bomb, Nikola Tesla, and we would find more of it if you keep searching the internet, but the generally agreed upon theory is that a large space rock entered the atmosphere of Siberia and then detonated in the sky.

The Space Elevator

Mankind has been building high structures since the Pyramids in Egypt. Since then taller and higher structures has been built surpassing that height. In 2010, the new record for the tallest building was set by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai(829.84 m). As I can remember, the record for the highest structures has been set and reset many times just in the past few years. This makes me wonder - How far up can we go?

Well, a quick check with Google(and Youtube) surprised my curiousity. As it turns out,  it is posible to build structures that can go up to space!

The only limitation of builiding one today is an abundant material available strong enough to support such weight.

The idea of space elevator was popularized in the late 1970's in the book The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clark. But the main idea of building an elevator to space can go further back to Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky since the start of the Eiffel Tower or perhaps even further back to the tales of Jack climbing the beanstalk or Rapunzel letting down her hair, the building of Tower of Babel, or as early as the first man who dreamed of climbing to the skies.

In the 1960's to the 70's, this was realized when we rocketed astronauts to the moon, but since then conventional space launch using rocket fuel was just too costly to further realize.

The recent discovery of carbon nanotubes makes the dream of building the space elevator  now one step closer to reality and away from the science fiction. As soon as this dream is realized, It will propel space programs back to new heights after being stagnant.

In February 2012, a Japanese construction firm Obayashi Corporation announced that in 38 years it could build a space elevator using carbon nanotube technology. According to Obayashi, a 30-seaters space elevator will be made of carbon nanotube, The whole length of the elevator cable is expected to be 96,000 kilometers. At a speed of 200 kilometers per hour, passenger will be able to reach the terminal satellite which is 36,000 kilometers up high after a 7.5 days trip

As of today, there are many groups both privately funded and government owned project continuing research that would contribute soon in the building of this elevator.

Transit of Venus

This coming Wednesday, Venus will be posting between the Sun and the Earth for astronomers and enthusiasts to watch and photograph a once-in-a-lifetime event. The alignment of venus is an event that will not happen again for another 105 years, that's in 2117.

During this event, Venus will pass directly in front of the sun as we will see it from earth, appearing as a small moving black dot like this:

To the most of us who does not have the luxury of big telescopes, we can use a pair of binoculars, meduim range telescopes, or  telephoto lenses(400mm and above). Again be careful not to stare directly at the sun without a proper solar filter(welders glass or eclipse shades) due to risk of blindness or painful, permanent eye damage. Or a safer option is watching it on a number of websites who will broadcast it live including http://events.slooh.com/.

So, here are the schedules for Manila viewers all hoping for clear skies.

Lunar Eclipse Tomorrow

A partial lunar eclipse will be visible in Manila skies June 4, Monday.

According to PAGASA, the umbral eclipse will start at 4:46 p.m. and will end at 9:19 p.m. with the greatest eclipse occurring at 7:03 p.m.

While this is not as spectacular as last year's event, it will set a stage on a more rare celestial event this same week - the transit of Venus.

Photographing the Solar Eclipse

If you're planning to shoot this weekend's eclipse with a digital camera, particularly a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera, here are a few pointers to increase your chances of success:


1. Use a proper solar filter: Never look at the sun with your naked eyes, or through a telescope, binocular or camera viewfinder without a safe solar filter. Failure to do so can result in serious eye injury or blindness. [How to Safely Photograph the Sun (Photo Guide)]

Use a No. 14 welder's glass filter, or purchase special solar filters from companies such as Thousand Oaks, Kendrick Astro Instruments, or Orion Telescopes & Binoculars, and fit them securely in front of your equipment.

2. Use a telescope or telephoto lens with a focal length of 400 millimeters or more:  This helps to get detailed, close-up shots of the eclipse. This will give you a reasonably large image of the sun's disk in the frame.

3. Use a sturdy tripod or mount: Make sure your tripod and head are strong and stable enough to support your camera gear. Keep your setup as portable, light and easy to assemble as possible in case you need to relocate in a hurry to escape clouds.

4. Set the camera to its highest resolution: To record as much detail and color information as possible, use your camera's highest-quality (least-compressed) JPEG setting or "lossless" (uncompressed) image formats, such as TIFF or RAW.

5. Use a high ISO setting: Set your camera to ISO 400 (or higher) to keep exposures very short and prevent blurring from vibrations.

6. Switch to manual: Set your camera to "manual" (M) so you'll be able to control its focus as well as exposure and white-balance settings.

7. Focus carefully: Don't let poor focus ruin your images. If possible, prefocus your camera the night before the eclipse using a bright star. Otherwise, focus carefully on the sun's edge (or on sunspots, if some are visible). Place a piece of adhesive tape on your telephoto's focus ring (or lock the telescope focuser) to keep it from accidentally being moved during the eclipse. Be sure to recheck your focus as the eclipse progresses and refine it if needed.

8. Minimize vibrations: The mirror slap in DSLRs can cause blurred images. If possible, use the camera's mirror lock-up feature before each shot to keep vibrations to a minimum. You should also operate the shutter with an electronic cable release to eliminate camera shake. Lastly, choose an observing spot that is shielded from the wind.

9. "Bracket" your exposures: It's a challenge to determine the correct exposure beforehand, so shoot the eclipse at various shutter speeds.

10. Use a fresh battery: DSLRs can easily drain their batteries, especially if you use the LCD screen continuously. Make sure you have a fully charged battery right before the eclipse begins, and have a spare one handy, just in case.

11. Test your imaging setup: Be sure to try out your actual setup before the eclipse. This will reveal any potential problems with focusing and vibrations, as well as internal reflections or vignetting in the optics. Take some test shots of the sun to give you an idea of what exposure to use with your solar filter.

12. Try to shoot the sun in hydrogen-alpha: Unlike "white light," the plain, visible light from the sun, H-alpha is the red light given off by hydrogen atoms in the sun's atmosphere. A portable H-alpha telescope offers a wealth of stunning details of the sun at a wavelength of 656.3 nanometers.

13. Process your images: Since the camera's output is already in digital format, it's easy to enhance the images' brightness, contrast, sharpness and color balance using image-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop. You can also "stitch" the frames together to create a movie.


Again, it is best to test your setup before the eclipse. On the day of the event, be sure to use a fully charged battery and bring a spare one as backup. Take two- to three-second clips every two to five minutes to produce a time-lapse sequence that compresses the eclipse's hourlong partial phase into just under a minute.

In a pinch, you also can use your cell phone camera to shoot video (or still images) through a filtered telescope. Low-cost webcams can also be useful.

Good luck and clear skies!

Solar eclipse May 21, 2012

The First Quarter

This is the moon as seen over Makati City, Philippines last night. Taken using handheld Olympus E-PL2
at 150mm.

The moon is probably the most photographed object in the night sky. In 1839 John W. Draper captured the first known photograph of the moon, making him not only the first astrophotographer but launching the age of astrophotography. It is great how imaging technologies have advantage recently - now anyone with simple digital camera can take moon photos with visible details like in the one above.

Saturn at Opposition

Opposition is when a planet is directly opposite the Sun in the sky, making it visible all night as it will illuminated by the Sun.

Last night was Saturn's opposition- Earth was closest with Saturn and directly between the sun and the giant ringed planet. Normally, it is only visible in the early mornings so this is the best time to take photos of it. As if Saturn, arguably the most amazing and wonderful thing to photograph in the solar system,  was intentionally placed there for Earth observers to take pictures. Lucky to those with  telescopes and imaging equipment. For those like me who only have the internet, we always have http://events.slooh.com for these kinds of events.

Here's a picture from slooh.com last night.

My First Moon Shot

This is my first moon picture taken just one hour earlier. I took about 20 test shots before I got the setting to have this. Tripod and 40-150mm lens were used. I applied smart sharpen and crop in PS CS5.


It may not be as crispy as other moon pictures but im quite satisfied for now considering this is taken with a solo Olympus E-PL2. 

Lyrids Meteor Shower

Pinoy sky gazers can enjoy the Lyrids meteor shower this month as it should be visible in the Philippine skies and other throughout the northern hemisphere.

The Lyrids meteor shower last from April 16 to April 26 every year. The radiant of the meteor shower is located in the constellation Lyra, peaking at April 22—hence they are also called the Alpha Lyrids or April Lyrids. The Lyrids have been observed for the past 2600 years.  Usually peaking on around April 22 and the morning of April 23. Counts typically range from 5 to 20 averaging around 10 meteors per hour.

Of course watchers away from the cities will always get better views so why not get your summer vacations/getaway in the province or at the beach during these dates so you can wish upon a falling star. =)

Happy sky gazing!

Global Dimming

In simple terms- it is when clouds reflect the sunlight back to space before it can reach the ground. Man made pollutants such as aerosols particles are the primary suspects. This phenomena is suspected to have been reducing evaporation leading to reduced rainfall and the failure of the monsoon in sub-Saharan Africa during the 1970s and 1980s which has lead to famine and the Sahel drought. Pacific regions like here in the Philippines also depend on the arrival of the monsoon rains for agriculture.

Scientists now are considering that global dimming may have been reducing the effects of global warming and that solving the problem of global dimming will therefore lead to the further increase of temperature higher than forecasted by global warming models. Who may have thougt that some pollutants we put in the air are also helping in a way by delaying the effects of global warming.

 Please watch this BBC documentary
 

On Climate Change

A great standing debate of our age is the reality and nature of climate change. Scientists debating about it, are now being labeled as either deniers or believers. But to me this is not an issue of denying or believing like it's an issue of Faith. So, I prefer to refer to them as either proponents or skeptics. of climate change. The proponents now holds the consensus and the attention of the UN.

Proponents of global warming holds that man made Co2 is the cause of the warming that started in the mid 70's. Skeptics on the other hand while agreeing that the global temperature is rising, are disagreeing on the cause. They say that is something more natural and not man made.

I first heard about the global warming issue while in high school. One of my teachers even explained the behavior of Co2 using an old nursery rhyme which goes - "Pataas! Pababa! Paikot-ikot pa"

But I never really bothered to look deeper until I saw that famous film by Al Gore.
The "An Inconvenient Truth" has been a successful propaganda film for the proponents, or at least to me.

I never really doubted the film, to me it was convincing. Not until another film came up in response for the side of the skeptics. The film "The Great Global Warming Swindle" also brought good points about the issue to my attention.
[Please find and watch both films I embedded below]

As a young kid,  I made myself interested about of incoming typhoons - wind speeds, locations and directions. I read about it in books and I remember always listening to the radio and watching TV weather reports from the weather report icon Ernie Baron, whenever there is one coming.

If you would notice, the most destructive typhoons are almost all happening in the past recent decade. Hotter days and hotter nights have become more frequent even climate in Baguio City which used to be cooler have never been the same. Extreme weather events have also occurred more frequently since the 1980's. These include deadly and damaging typhoons, floods, landslides, severe El Niño(abnomal warming of the Pacific waters) and La Niña(opposite of El Nino) events. A few case in point are Pepeng(2009), Pedring (2011), Sendong (2012) and who could forget Ondoy (2009). All of them has caused billions worth of destruction if not lost of lives. And while 1st world countries are in the  front line on the research, as a local response Deparnment of Energy has a Presidential Task Force on Climate Change, which i think focuses more on the local economic/agricultural effects of the issue.

The Most Astounding Fact

Caught this yesterday from a post of the Bad Astronomer. Its about Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson answering a question from a reader "What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?" This is his answer.

The way this video was put together, made me remember how it felt like when I first learned about the same fact from reading a book years ago.

Credits and thanks to the maker and uploader: Max Schlickenmeyer

Great graphics and perfect music. Please watch in full screen to appreciate.

The Universe Doesn't Care

Did you ever feel like nobody cares about you and like the whole universe hates you?

We all kinda get this once in a while. Today, it is what is prompting me to write. But don't worry I am not writing about my feelings and why so.

Instead, let me just tell you why I think the universe is such cold hearted place.

True, I am now contradicting what I said from a previous post that the universe is a loving place. This universe has no partiality to us or to life in general. Sometimes we could even think that it hates us and it wants to kill us.

Now, how is that?

1. The Earth doesn't really care about us.

The earth is not perfect for life like many would say. In fact it wants to kill us. Earth and nature are conspiring to constantly create natural disasters to kill us. Volcanoes explosions, tsunamis, typhoons, floods,  landslides, and others. Its all over the news everyday.

Fossil records would tell that 99% of all species that has ever lived are now extinct. And while we are now enjoying our time under the sun, that doesn't mean that the Earth will not eventually succeed in trying to kill us .

2. The Sun doesn't care either.

It makes life on earth possible but it doesn't shine for that purpose. It does so, because it is its physics. In fact it radiates solar flares that endangers us  with radiations. Just late last year its has started spewing solar flares from its badest sunspots and  the in  movie 2012 the sun's solar flares can cause earth's core to boil and give us earthquakes and tsunamis. In the movie it killed all life except those who were saved getting in the ships.

In its next 4 billion year the Sun will bloat itself, grow red hot, and kill whatever life Earth will be harboring at that time. That doesn't seem like a very loving Sun, is it?


3. And the universe doesn't care about us or about the Earth.

Earth is just an insignificant speck in the vastness. If it would disappear now, it wouldn't even slightly change the picture of the universe. On the other hand the universe is a life-threatening place. Explosions and collision are everywhere, everytime. If you would look at the Moon's surface, you would see how aften it would get hit by space rocks. Our earth recieves just about the same frequency. Only that it is able to hide and heal the impact craters (like probably how you hide or heal a pimple in your face).

The dinosaurs that has existed for millions of years certainly not expected that this angry universe will throw a rock to earth one day. And of course that is not an exemption. There are billions of other space rocks just floating and waiting to be pushed out of their orbit in the asteriod and kuiper belt. And almost certainly will impact Earth sooner or later. Actualy we have one treathening to hit by 2036. Read about Apophis here.

There are also supernovas. Any nearby supernova that is close enough will wipe out our protective atmoshere with high-energy radiation. Radiation emitted would fry the Earth in instant.

Gamma Ray Burst. Some scientists hypothesized such an event caused the mass planetary extinction on Earth about 444 million years ago. Gamma ray bursts (GRB) are flashes of gamma rays  usually coming from outside our galaxy.

There are lots more, like blackholes, pulsars emitting radiation, galaxy collisions, the Big Rip- the point is the whole universe doesn't care about our existence. We can even think that it wants to kill us. In fact the majority of the universe is full of either vacuum or deadly gasses and other stuffs. If just go little higher or above our atmosphere you will surely die without a spacesuit and air tank.

In a pragmatic view, the universe doesn't care whether it has life on it or not and it will always do its thing whether it will please us or or hurt us. So the next time you feel lonely and the feel the universe around you doesn't give a damn- well, live with it, that is true . Don't ask for any compassion. You are the only one who can only care that you exist.

ISS Watching

If you are up for sky watching this coming Sunday (or maybe Monday) you may want to catch a view of the International Space Station (ISS) with unaided eye as it will pass visible to Manila skies about around 6:42PM from the north direction.

The International Space Station is occasionally bright enough in the night sky to be seen by the naked eye. It looks like a moving star to the unaided eye or sometimes a passing plane(not blinking). It is in one of the lowest orbits possible, about 242 miles overhead. The ideal viewing time is immediately before dawn or after sunset, when the observer is in the dark and the ISS is in sunlight. Circling the globe in slightly different orbits 15 times a day, the ISS passes over most of the Earth in a 24-hour period.

So how can you see it when it flies over your head? First, you need to know where the ISS is and when you can expect it. If you use Google, a number of Web sites will tell you when the ISS will pass over a certain location - www.heavens-above.com is one and is very easy to use.

Here are details I have for this Saturday up to Monday.

Here is a video of ISS passing by:




Aside from the ISS you may possibly see a dozen more artifial satelites orbiting us during the dark hour’s right after sunset or before sunrise. Hubble Space telescope(HST) is one and thousands of other space junks floating around.

Girl's Biggest Best Friend

Diamonds are a girl's best friend' sang Marilyn Monroe once. As hardest natural material known to exist they not only make good engagement rings but durable for hundreds of different other applications. They are very expensive because they are very rare. Well at least here on Earth - there might be places in the universe where it is common as a rock to us.  

Golden Jubilee Diamond

The burned out corpse of a a variable white dwarf star named BPM 37093 (nicknamed "Lucy" after the controversial Beatle song) is a big chunk of crystallized carbon that weighs 5 million trillion trillion pounds located 50 lightyears away from Earth in the region of Centaurus. Estimated to be 4,000 km diameter that would be about the size 2/3rds of our earths size. In a crystallized carbon from that is estimated to weigh at 5 million trillion trillion pounds. That would equal a diamond of 10 billion trillion trillion carats. By comparison, the largest such stone on Earth is the 545-carat Golden Jubilee Diamond.

BPM 37093

The size of BPM 37093 is very tiny compared to regular star sizes but the mass is no less compared to our Sun. In about 5 billion years from now our Sun will also deplete its nuclear fuel and become a white dwarf like other stars of the same size. Then, for about another 2 billion years of cooling and crystalization it may become like BPM 37093.