8 May 2019 - El Caracol - The Observatory of Chichen Itza, Mexico

El Caracol 

The Observatory 

of Chichen Itza, Mexico

G'day folks,

No telescopes, no power, no gift shop—one of the world's oldest observatories in Mexico takes astronomy back to basics. 

 

 Slowly eroding in the world-famous Mayan city of Chichen Itza, the El Caracol “observatory” stands as a monument not only to the architectural skill of the ancient Mayans but also to their surprisingly advanced understanding of the heavens.

 

  

El Caracol, which translates to “spiral-shaped” or more literally “snail” is named after the winding staircase that rounds the interior of the central tower. The stacked levels of the building resemble a pocked stone wedding cake with staggered staircases leading to the central tower whose collapsed dome impressively compares to the design of modern observatories.

 

El Caracol’s crumbling viewing tower rises above the lush Yucatan jungle so that ancient astronomers could view the stars in 360 degrees, and track solstices, equinoxes and eclipses. Most delighting is the alignment of the remaining viewing windows, which seem to be designed specifically to track the appearance and disappearance of Venus in the night sky. In addition to assigning the second planet some religious significance, the Mayans were able to track the movements of Venus and thus measure longer intervals of the Earth’s orbit.  

 

 Within eyeshot of the pyramid El Castillo (one of the NEW seven wonders of the world), El Caracol is easy to visit and is considered a major Mexican tourist attraction.

 

 Clancy's comment: Extraordinary building, eh? Wow, these people were so smart.

 

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16 March 2019 - MONTEREY'S MOON TREE

MONTEREY'S 

MOON TREE

G'day folks,

Here is something different.This Moon tree is one grown from astronaut seeds which were exposed to cosmic rays. This unremarkable-looking tree has a remarkable story.

On the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, Command Module pilot Stuart Roosa carried hundreds of seeds to the moon in his personal kit. Roosa had been a U.S. Forest Service smoke jumper before he joined NASA and the seeds were part of an experiment to see if exposure to radiation in space would affect their subsequent germination and growth. Seeds were chosen from five different types of trees: Loblolly Pine, Sycamore, Sweetgum, Redwood, and Douglas Fir. Corresponding control seeds were kept on Earth for later comparison.

While Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell were exploring the lunar surface (during which time Shepard became the first man to play golf on the moon), Roosa spent 33 hours orbiting overhead taking photos of the lunar surface and doing radar and gravitational experiments. In all, he and the seeds orbited 34 times.

 Upon Apollo 14’s return to Earth the seeds were germinated and after a few years the Forest Service had over 400 seedlings. Some of these were planted with their earthbound counterparts as controls but most were given away in 1975 and 1976 to many state forestry organizations to be planted as part of the nation’s bicentennial celebration. These trees were southern and western species, so not all states received trees. Monterey’s Moon Tree is a Redwood. 

A Loblolly Pine was planted at the White House, and trees were planted in Brazil and Switzerland among other places. However, no comprehensive list was ever kept of the disposition of all of the trees so the locations of many of them are unknown.

Incidentally, no significant difference was ever observed between the trees whose seeds were carried into space and those which remained here on Earth.

Sadly, Stuart Roosa passed away at the age of 61 on December 12, 1994, but today the Moon Trees are a fitting memorial to him and a tribute to the human spirit.

 Clancy's comment: Wow. Nice looking tree, eh?

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16 January 2019 - SCOTT KELLY - ASTRONAUT

SCOTT KELLY

 - ASTRONAUT -

G'day folks,

Scott Kelly is a retired American astronaut who's served on four space flights in his career. His identical twin brother, Mark Kelly, is also a retired American astronaut, and together, they are the only siblings in history who've traveled to space.

Who Is Scott Kelly?

Born in 1964, Scott Kelly is a retired American astronaut, former military pilot, engineer and retired U.S. Navy Captain who's served on four space flights. For his first spaceflight, Kelly served as a pilot on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1999, followed by Expedition 26, 45, and 46, serving as commander for the last three. In his final expedition, Kelly achieved his biggest feat in his NASA career by spending a year aboard the International Space Station (ISS) from March 2015 to March 2016. Shortly after returning to Earth, he announced his retirement on April 1, 2016. Kelly has an identical twin brother, Mark, who is also a retired astronaut and is married to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. 

 Early Life and Education

 

Scott Kelly was born Scott Joseph Kelly on February 21, 1964 in Orange, New Jersey to Irish parents Richard and Patricia Kelly.  

Although he was a self-admitted troublemaker in school who often fought with his twin brother, Scott finished high school in 1982. He then matriculated to the State University of New York (SUNY) Maritime College, receiving his four-year degree in electrical engineering in 1987 before finishing up his master's degree in aviation systems almost a decade later at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

 Scott and Mark Kelly's DNA

 

One of the goals of Kelly's year-long spaceflight (the mission was actually 11 months) was to test how space's extreme environment affects the human body and how to better prepare future astronauts on future missions. 

When Kelly returned to Earth in March 2016, his genes were compared to that of his brother Mark. The initial findings showed that Kelly had a seven percent change in gene expression from Mark and that even six months later, those changes remained.

While Kelly's DNA did not change, "his body quieted some of his genes while amplifying others, so that his body produced more or less of certain key proteins in an attempt to adjust to the weird conditions of space and microgravity," explained Live Science. 

But that's not the entire story. According to Kelly, being in space for such a long time takes an immense physical toll on the body. Upon his return to Earth, Kelly told The Guardian he had to deal with "... stiffness, swelling of my legs, rashes where my skin hasn’t touched anything, nausea. In space you lose a significant amount of blood volume. You regain it when you get back very quickly, but what you don’t regain is the red blood cells you lost with it and that takes months to recover. That makes you feel fatigued. It’s a six- to eight-month recovery."

So is there any physical consolation to traveling to space? Perhaps. Technically, it shaved 13 milliseconds off Kelly's age. Considering he was already six minutes younger than his brother Mark, now he can say he's "six minutes and 13 milliseconds younger." 

  Naval Career

 

In 1989 Kelly became a Naval Aviator and completed his training at the Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia, before being deployed overseas. He later became a test pilot, eventually logging in over 8,000 flight hours and working up to the rank of U.S. Navy Captain before retiring from active duty in 2012.

Clancy's comment: A high achiever, eh? However, he can have the space travel. Not for me.

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2 January 2017 - What Are Northern and Southern Lights?

What Are Northern

 and Southern Lights?

G'day folks,

Now, I know you have all wanted to know about this.

An aurora is a natural electric phenomenon that creates bright and colorful light displays in the sky. They are common at higher latitudes, mostly within the Arctic and the Antarctic Circles.

 In the Arctic Circle, they are known as aurora borealis or the northern lights, while in the Antarctic Circle they are called aurora australis or the southern lights.

These dramatic and colorful lights are created when electrically charged particles from solar winds enter the Earth’s atmosphere and interact with gases in the atmosphere.

Stream of High Energy Particles

The Sun continuously emits electromagnetic radiation and highly energized particles into space, which produce space weather. Solar wind is part of space weather. It is a continuous stream of highly energized particles – mostly electrons and protons – that flow out from the Sun through space at very high speeds and high temperature. Solar winds can reach speeds of one million miles per hour.

 Earth: A Giant Magnet

 

The Earth is a giant magnet, with its magnetic field extending from the Earth’s core to the area in space where it meets solar winds. The region of this field where the Earth’s magnetic influence dominates over solar winds is known as the magnetosphere. Its shape and size continuously change as it gets bombarded by solar winds.

The Earth’s magnetosphere shields the Earth from solar winds and other harmful cosmic rays. It deflects most of the highly charged particles from solar winds and stops them from entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

High Energy Collisions

While the Earth’s magnetosphere is responsible for protecting it from the highly charged particles in the solar wind, sometimes, when the conditions are right, these particles enter the Earth’s atmosphere at the two poles, where they collide and interact with gas molecules and atoms.

When such collisions occur, the energy from the electrons in the solar winds is transferred to electrons in the atoms of different atmospheric gases. Any excess energy is then released by these excited atoms in the form of light.

Auroral light displays tend to occur at between 50 miles (80.46 kilometers) and 200 miles (321.87 kilometers) above the surface of the Earth.

 Many Different Colors

 

The color of the light released depends on the kind of gas molecules, their electrical state at the time of collision, and the type of the solar wind particles they collide with. Oxygen atoms emit yellow-green or red colored light, while nitrogen atoms generate blue or purplish-red colored light. A mix of gases in the Earth’s atmosphere creates multicolored auroras.

Because particles from solar winds continually enter the Earth’s atmosphere and interact with gas atoms, aurora displays can be static as well as dynamic – they can change shape and colors, and pulsate in the skies.

And Many Different Shapes

Auroral shapes tend to fall in six categories – curtains, bands, veils, coronas, patches, and rays.

 Best Places to See Northern Lights

 

 If one were to look from space, they would see a ring-shaped aurora spanning around 2500 miles (4000 kms) around both poles. This auroral zone covers Central and northern Alaska and Canada, Greenland, northern Scandinavia and Russia in the Northern Hemisphere, and Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere. In the south, auroras can sometimes be seen from southern Australia, New Zealand, and Chile.

Sometimes a high level of solar activity can lead to strong and violent gusts of solar winds interacting with the Earth’s magnetosphere, causing a geomagnetic storm. This can expand the region around the poles where auroral activity can be observed from, increasing the chances of seeing auroras at lower latitudes.

On very rare occasions, auroral displays can be observed from locations close to the Equator. For instance, in 1909, because of a very strong geomagnetic storm, people in Singapore were able to observe auroral displays.

When's the Best Time to See Auroral Lights?

While auroral activity and auroras can occur throughout the year, day and night, the best time to view them is at night during the winter months. This is because, during the winter, areas around the North and the South Poles have longer periods of darkness.

Auroras are best observed around midnight – when it is darkest – on a clear night, and at a location that is away from the city. Light sources – artificial or natural, like from a full Moon – can make it very hard to view the aurora.

11 Year Cycle

Auroras are directly connected to solar activity, which is measured by the number sunspots – dark spots on the surface of the sun caused by high magnetic activity on the Sun. A larger number of sunspots means that a larger number of highly charged particles are being pushed out by the Sun. This in turn can lead to more northern lights activity on Earth.

Solar astronomers have found that the Sun goes through cycles of solar activity. This cycle, also called the solar cycle, comes around every 11 years.

Scientists have observed 24 solar cycles since 1755 when solar activity started being recorded by humans. The 24th solar cycle is said to have reached its peak sometime in mid-2013.

Did You Know?

Auroras have been observed on some other planets as well. Any planet that has a magnetic field and an atmosphere will have auroral activity.

  

Clancy's comment: Amazing, eh?

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