We are All Aliens

OMG! According to this DNA test, humans are our ancient cousins..

Back in the days when MTV was more popular than Youtube, Moby was singing “We are Made of Stars”. And although I was not completely unaware of the meaning at that time, I found it interesting that mainstream science ideas was catching up with mainstream music of that time. This just came in a flashback because today I just read something that reminds me of the phrase, “We are all Aliens”. I first heard it back during the buzz about Martian asteroids fallen to Earth with traces of what seemed like primitive carbon life forms, which, if I recollect correctly, was later recanted by NASA. (what seemed like biggest conspiracy cover up. Haha) This would have supported theories that life on Earth did not originate from Earth, but elsewhere in the Universe.

Panspermia is a hypothesis that life on Earth has been seeded by falling bodies from outer space (meteors, asteroids, comets et al). Although it has fascinated public imagination over the years now it has not gained popular support for the scientific community. It owes its unpopularity maybe due to lack of evidence or maybe due to racism over its proponent- Chandra Wickramasinghe. Nope just kiddin’. Haha

Well unpopularity-due-to-lack-of-evidence may end now for Panspermia, as Chandra himself (now Director of the 'Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology) discovered that a two-inch wide meteorite that crash landed in a fireball in central Sri Lanka last December has tiny fossils of algae, similar to the kind found in our seaweeds. And while skeptics say the rock had probably become contaminated with algae fossils from Earth, Chandra maintains it saying that “The algae organisms are similar to ones found in Earth fossils, but the rock also has other organisms we have not identified.”

Not only that these would prove Panspermia, it would add proof that we are not alone the universe, and not that there are probably aliens out there but we may share the same cosmic ancestry (see wiki).

So, we are all aliens! Now, let’s wait for someone to make a song about that too.

The Largest Known Structure in the Universe

Map showing Huge LQG in dots

This month, a team of astronomers in England published the discovery of a clump of active galactic cores that stretches 4 billion light-years from end to end. Dubbed as The Huge LQG (large quasar group), it is composed of 73 luminous quasars

To help us to put this into perspective, we can us start with taking the distance between Manila and New York in mind, by plane if in a Boeing 707 and maintained an average cruise speed its takes 19.4 hours, but with the speed of light that same distance would only take a fraction of a second - approximately 0.046 seconds, the Sun and Earth in light speed is 8 minutes apart, then the distance across the milky way 100,000 light years. But with this new super structure, light will take 4 billion years to travel across it. Truly astronomical in the most literal meaning of the word. This new discovery goes against the existing Cosmological Principle that predict a homogeneous universe and that this type structure is not supposed to exist

Prior to this discovery, The Sloan Great Wall, a wall of galaxies that stretches 1.38 billion light years forming giant wall of galaxies, was considered the largest structure in the universe, so let us see what is next for us out there.

First Juan dela Cruz in Space

We have this Filipino pride that keeps us tracking the “First Filipino” to achieve something worthy of international attention. Like we all take pride to know who is the first Filipino Ms. Universe, first Filipino Olympic silver medalist, first Filipino world champion boxer to win eight divisions, and so on and so forth.

But we are all still waiting for the first Filipino to get an Olympic gold medal and of course the first Filipino Astronaut, every little kids dream – to become an astronaut.

Will we see them in our lifetime?

As for the Olympic gold medal, I can’t tell. But for the first Filipino astronaut, that could come very soon. AXE Apollo Program will be launching a search for the First Pinoy Astronaut. Yes, that is AXE – the brand of a male grooming of product that when you use can hypnotize lots of women to come dashing after you (or so the commercial puts it). Now not only they can drive these women crazy for you, they can now also send you to space to get away from all these women running after you.( hmm.. that would have been a good TV commercial idea) 

AXE Apollo Program have prepared a slot for one Filipino astronaut who will go with the group of 22 ordinary men from around the globe to travel to space. This program will be launched with Buzz Aldrin in (what seemed to me a not so very brassy) promotional video.

According to AXE website, interested applicants will have to sign up here. 100 initial contestant will be chosen from online voting. The 100 candidates will be sent to a 3-day space camp where they will have to pass fitness test. And those who will pass these tests will join the real astronaut training for the second half of 2014 when the lucky Pinoy will join 22 other people to go to space and eventually join a group 529 men and women astronaut in this elite group.

These is probably the biggest shot to have one Filipino to go space. Because the only other alternative is have one to get one in to space programs of other countries, since we can’t afford to put up our own. But even that latter idea seems to be even far fetch (even if we are good in sending Pinoy workers around the planet), since Filipinos are not much into this science and even if there are a handlful few, there will always be some Indian, Chinese, or Japanese guy that is more qualified to become part of these space programs.

I will register myself. But not to expect much, every Filipino out there who can catch this news will probably be applying for the heck of it. And not to expect much about the space travel itself, it’s not going to be like a moon mission or least even a space-walk, it will be like boarding an aircraft and getting it off really high up there. After all you just  need to go as high as 100 kilometers up there to be called an astronaut.

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.