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.