Science is for Sharing

🌞Eclipses 🌚  are heavenly visual feasts of celestial bodies hide and seek game with light and shadow. Indeed, they are rare events ! We need to be in the right place 🗺 and at right time  ⌚ to watch an eclipse unfurl. 💥How about watching a future eclipse now ? Yes, it is possible !   Curious to know ? 🤔 We can simulate it in our PC 💻 and enjoy. No need to travel far off. It would be truly interesting to watch it in advance and later wait at the right place to witness it. ❓ How to simulate a heavenly event ? Use the free open source Astronomy software  "Stellarium"  - to enjoy the realistic sky.⭐🌟⋆ It can be downloaded at  https://stellarium.org/ Set the location (latitude, longitude), change the time, play and watch !!! This would be really interesting and rewarding activity.  Now, let us see how an  Annular Solar Eclipse of  26 December 2019  📅 look like. An Annular Solar Eclipse...

An Equinox is the astronomical event when both the hemispheres have equal duration and amount of sunshine. Sun would be exactly overhead of the equator. It happens twice in a year Spring (Summer) equinox (20 March) and Vernal (Autumnal) equinox (22 September) . Here is the view of the beautiful event from space for 22 September 2016. I have animated it (time series for the day). Watch the day-night solar terminator move through the earth. Observe the equal area of sunshine and night on either hemisphere. The visible imagery is from MeteoSat VISSR (IODC) stationed at 57deg.E longitude above equator in a geostationary orbit. For a typical comparison of Equinoxes with Solistices, you may go through this link http://akmnscience.blogspot.in/2012/07/equinox-solstice-better-view.html Image Courtesy: Dundee Satellite Receiving Station http://www.sat.dundee.ac.uk/

Solar Eclipse (09 Mar 2016) is hardly visible over Tirupati. Here is an animated version (Figure (a)) of the simulation I have prepared using the free open source "Stellarium" software. The Sun rises over Tirupati by 06:23 IST. Meanwhile eclipse has already begun and being in penumbra region, it's partial eclipse over here. Click here to see the eclipse For reference, the figure (b) of eclipse locations are shown in the figure below (scroll down) which also shows time in Tirupati during the events.  (courtesy: timeanddate.com ) Figure (a): Animation of the solar eclipse (simulated) over Tirupati. 'E' indicates East Figure (b): How eclipse happens world wide (courtesy: timeanddate.com)

Be prepared to watch a heavenly drama on 6 June 2012. The Venus can be seen as a black dot travelling across the Solar Disk. Here is my Simulation: Yes, it is the "Transit of Venus across the Sun" Path-- L to R Credit: Michael Zeiler, eclipse-maps.com India comes under the visibility of the event after Sunrise. See the graphic below: Thiruvananthapuram can view it right from sunrise to 10:22 AM. The graphic was prepared using the tool provided in  http://transitofvenus.nl/wp/where-when/local-transit-times/   You can change the location and see about your visibility to the drama. Also read the following blog for wonderful information and graphics. http://blogs.esa.int/venustransit/        (nice and informative blog by ESA) http://eclipse-maps.com/Eclipse-Maps/Transits.html     (Transit maps) http://sunearthday.nasa.gov/transitofvenus/ You can also find how to watch the event.... Follow safe way.... take care ...

Physicists on the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS)  have announced the first results  from their collaboration, revealing  the most precise measurements  ever made of the large-scale structure of the universe between five to seven billion years ago. They achieved this by observing the primordial sound waves that propagated through the cosmic medium a mere 30,000 years after the Big Bang. Read in detaill:  Most Precise Measurement of Scale of the Universe : Discovery News http://news.discovery.com/space/whos-the-boss-most-accurate-measurement-of-scale-of-the-universe-120406.html

The Hubble Space Telescope has produced the most detailed image so far of Messier 9, a globular star cluster located close to the center of the galaxy. Beautiful glittering jewels....! Click on the Image or the following link to read more. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2204.html Credit: NASA and ESA

COLD PLASMA LAYER DETECTED HIGH ABOVE EARTH The new findings suggest that about two lbs. (1 kilogram) of cold plasma escape from Earth's atmosphere every second. As physicists further map cold plasma around Earth, they could discover more about how it reacts during solar storms and other events, deepening our understanding of space weather. Read more:  http://news.discovery.com/earth/earth-cold-plasma-layer-found-120127.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1

Photographer :  Anthony Ayiomamitis At  apogee , the  Moon  is on average approximately 406,500 km (252,587 mi) away from Earth with an apparent diameter of about 29.5  arc-minutes  (about one half degree); whereas at  perigee , the Moon is approximately 356,500 km (221,500 mi) distant and has an apparent diameter of about 33.6 arc-minutes. This difference of 50,000 km (31,069 mi) between apogee and perigee results in a dramatic change in the apparent diameter as illustrated by the two  full Moons  above, photographed in 2010. These particular full Moons were strategically selected to have the full Moon as near as possible to its minimum perigee and maximum apogee when crossing the local meridian in Athens, Greece. The Moon photo at left was taken on January 30, 2010 (at 00:31:28 local time) and the Moon at right was snapped on August 25, 2010 (01:26:33 local time). Courtesy: http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2011/03/full-moon-...

First images of the Asteroid which came close to earth has been released... You can watch the video Team of astronomers decided to animate an entire sequence of their high-resolution radar images of YU55 to make a short movie clip from the data from  Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California. you can watch it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIwX0Qeid9o&feature=colike Courtesy: Nasa You can download the first images video http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=119737731

An Asteroid named   2005 YU55 will have a flyby near earth and moon on 8-Nov-2011. NASA scientists will track asteroid 2005 YU55 from the agency's Deep Space Network. At the point of closest approach, it will be no closer than 324,600 kilometers or 0.85 the distance from the moon to Earth. Look at this animation. More details and videos: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/overview/yu55.html   http://youtu.be/ucuegbwT8MU 

Three U.S.-born scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for discovering that the universe is expanding at an accelerating pace, a stunning revelation that suggests the cosmos will eventually freeze to ice. Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess of the United States and US-Australian Brian Schmidt won the 2011 Nobel Physics Prize Tuesday for their research on supernovae, the Nobel jury said. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said American Saul Perlmutter would share the 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) award with U.S.-Australian Brian Schmidt and U.S. scientist Adam Riess. Working in two separate research teams during the 1990s - Perlmutter in one and Schmidt and Riess in the other - the scientists raced to map the universe's expansion by analyzing a particular type of supernovas, or exploding stars. They found that the light emitted by more than 50 distant supernovas was weaker than expected, a sign that the universe was expanding at an accelerating rate, the academy ...

                World Space Week  Resource Material prepared by our Team has been uploaded in the official WEBsite. here is it . http://www.vssc.gov.in:8080/ wsw2011/index.jsp http://www.vssc.gov.in:8080/ wsw2011/wswatschools.html Download PDF http://www.vssc.gov.in:8080/ wsw2011/downloads/WSW_2011_ Resourcematerial.pdf http://www.vssc.gov.in:8080/ wsw2011/downloads/WSW_ Handbook.pdf Materials for Media already sent...  ...... will be published/ relayed soon...! Celebrate the 'Golden jubilee of Human Space Flight'

How about taking part in World Space Week Competitions....? Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre VSSC, the lead centre of ISRO coordinates World Space Week activities in Kerala to motivate students  and teachers. Many competitions for School children...... Mars Habitat design competition for College Students...! http://www.vssc.gov.in:8080/wsw2011/index.html http://www.vssc.gov.in:8080/wsw2011/essay.html http://www.vssc.gov.in:8080/wsw2011/mars_habitat_design.html SPACE QUIZ                   As part of the World Space Week celebrations, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram is organising a Space Quiz during first week of October 2011.                  Students of Class 10,11 and 12 can participate. Only one team is allowed to represent a school.                   Schools can send the details of the particip...

Have a look at these Astronomical photography which won the awards recently...! Marvelous indeed...! click on the image to reach the Nature's website (slide show)with all those snaps.! courtesy: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110909/full/news.2011.529/slideshow/1.html?identifier=1