The Enlightening Science Thread

[Britton30]

Morpheus free flight test. 2-12-2014

 

[Golden]

The Sliding Rocks of Racetrack Playa Mystery - GEOLOGY.COM

 

[Anak]

The Sliding Rocks of Racetrack Playa Mystery - GEOLOGY.COM

Ever since I seen this in NatGeo a few years ago ('07) I've been a proponent of the ice collar / wind theory.

Mystery of Death Valley's 'Sailing Stones' Solved | Moving Rocks | LiveScience

NASA Studies the Sliding Rocks of Racetrack Playa

This is an interesting read:

The photo above is from Death Valley’s Racetrack Playa and was posted on the Death Valley Facebook page. It’s a popular photo spot in Death Valley and thousands of photographers flock there each year to photograph the mysterious “Sailing Stones”. Well, a Facebook friend, Jeff Simmons, turned me on to this post the other day. I read it and immediately thought just about everyone else who commented on it must be a photographer. Why? Because they were totally slamming the people that walked on the playa.

But who’s really wrong here?.......

Source: Death Valley's Racetrack Playa Trampled! | MATT KLOSKOWSKI

 

[Anak]

The Opposition of Mars

March 28, 2014:
By the time you finish reading this story, you'll be about 1,000 km closer to the planet Mars.

Earth and Mars are converging for a close encounter. As March gives way to April, the distance between the two planets is shrinking by about 300 km every minute. When the convergence ends in mid-April, the gulf between Earth and Mars will have narrowed to only 92 million km--a small number on the vast scale of the solar system.

Astronomers call this event an "opposition of Mars" because Mars and the Sun are on opposite sides of the sky. Mars rises in the east at sunset, and soars almost overhead at midnight, shining burnt-orange almost 10 times brighter than a 1st magnitude star.

Source: The Opposition of Mars - NASA Science

Just before Mars rise at my location as I post this at 7:59pm edt:

 

[Anak]

Coming Soon to a Theater near you!

First it was Them!, Arachnophobia, Stink Bugs, Cane Toads, and now Rasberry (Tawny) Crazy Ants (Nylanderia fulva)

A new exotic invasive pest ant species to Texas was found around Houston (Harris County), in 2002, and has begun to spread largely through human assistance. The ant has recently been identified as Nylanderia fulva (formerly Nylanderia sp. nr. pubens) and the new proposed common name is the tawny crazy ant (formerly Rasberry crazy ant) (Gotzek, et al 2012).

Source: TAMU - Tawny Crazy Ant (Nylanderia spp. near pubens)

 

[Anak]

How did your body become the complicated, quirky, amazing machine it is today? Anatomist Neil Shubin uncovers the answers in this new look at human evolution.

Using fossils, embryos and genes, he reveals how our bodies are the legacy of ancient fish, reptiles and primates — the ancestors you never knew were in your family tree.

Source: Your Inner Fish | PBS

I just caught this, this evening. A three part series.

 

[Britton30]

Mars is shining brightly tonight, hopefully the sky will be clear next Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning to see the Moon total eclipse.

 

[Anak]

Gary, you're going to have to bump that time line up by one to Monday evening/Tuesday morning.

I seem to recall back when I first joined SevenForums, you mentioned you lived in the mid-west, Indiana? If so, then you need to adjust the times accordingly to Central Daylight time. 12:55am edt would become 11:55pm cdt Monday evening April 14th for you.

That is of course you live in an area that doesn't observe Daylight Savings then the time would remain at 11:55pm cst. No matter the time you still need to bump up the day by one.

To compare if you do live in the Central time zone here is the page for Chicago: Eclipse Calculator ? Solar Eclipses in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. Notice the Penumbral eclipse begins Apr 14 at 11:55 PM.

Since my Longitude here in Central Pa. compares to Washington D.C. this is what I'm going with: Eclipse Calculator ? Solar Eclipses in Washington DC, District of Columbia, U.S.A.

The start of the eclipse for me is 12:55am edt the morning of April 15th, with totality at 3:46am edt.


Confused yet?

 

[Britton30]

I'm still fortunate enough to be in the ET zone Steve. Indiana is all cut up with time zones. The north wants to be with Chicago, South with Louisville.

Yeah I was wrong on the days though.

Cool, looks like we can see another one in Sep.
http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2015-september-28

 

[Anak]

September will be easier to take being its at 8:13 PM (Saturday the 27th)

Clear Skies!

 

[Britton30]

My forecast isn't looking good for Monday night.

 

[Anak]

Mine's not looking too good either, we can only hope for the best possible.



This cloud cover forecast from Clear Skies shows there may still be some hope for you depending on your location. The eclipse may be in and out of the clouds for you (yellow arrow). For me (the cross cursor) it looks like high cirrus may be on the menu.



The legend is here: Clear Sky Chart: map of weather conditions for astronomical observing
If you scroll down a bit to the This Forecast Time block and click on Transparency yours is below average to poor, and Seeing is bad, a 1 out of 5

In cases like this I go to a combo map of radar and satellite to determine if it would be worthy for me to stay up and continue to observe. Like this for your area: Indiana Radar & Satellite Combo Map - AccuWeather.com It will give you an idea on how thick the clouds are and if rain is in the area.

Keep the faith, forecasts aren't cast in stone and are always subject to change. It could get worse or, it could get better.


Clear Skies!

 

[Anak]

NASA to Conduct Unprecedented Twin Experiment

Another test of one of Einstein's theories:

April 10, 2014:
Consider a pair of brothers, identical twins. One gets a job as an astronaut and rockets into space. The other gets a job as an astronaut, too, but on this occasion he decides to stay home. After a year in space, the traveling twin returns home and they reunite. Are the identical twins still … identical?
NASA is about to find out.......
........The experiment harkens back to Einstein's "Twin Paradox," a thought experiment in which one twin rockets to the stars at high speed while the other stays home. According to Einstein's theory of relativity, the traveling twin should return younger than his brother—strange but true.

Source: NASA to Conduct Unprecedented Twin Experiment - NASA Science

There is a Russian Cosmonaut that is younger:

Is time travel a fact or is it just science fiction? Thanks to time dilation and Einstein’s theory of relativity, we know that time travel can and actually does happen, albeit only in extremely tiny increments at the speeds and distances we can travel in space. If you add up the accumulated speed cosmonaut Sergei Krivalev has traveled in space – the most of any human with a total time spent in orbit of 803 days 9 hours and 39 minutes – he has actually time-traveled into his own future by 0.02 seconds.

Source: Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, the World's Most Prolific Time Traveler

 

[Britton30]

WATCH LIVE TONIGHT: Total Lunar Eclipse

WATCH LIVE TONIGHT: Total Lunar Eclipse & Mars Close Approach Webcasts Begin @ 10 pm ET April 14 2014

NASA, the online Slooh community telescope and the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy will provide live views of close Earth approach of Mars late Monday (April 14), then follow it up early Tuesday with live views of the total lunar eclipse of April 15. (Scroll down for lunar eclipse webcast details). LATEST STORY: First Total Lunar Eclipse of 2014: The Complete Skywatcher's Guide , Weather Forecast

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/watchtheskies/lunar-eclipse-2014.html

http://www.space.com/25485-total-lunar-eclipse-weather-forecast.html

Understanding Lunar Eclipses

 

[Anak]

That's the only way I got to see it, we were socked in all night. You get any snow Gary?

 

[Britton30]

Yeah, we got about an inch but is gone today. I got to eyeball the eclipse at about 80% totality as it was emerging from the shadow, for about 10 seconds, then it clouded up again.

I got some snip from the Arizona website though, I may try to make a small animation of them, here's a couple, beginning and ending.
For some reason they flipped the camera as it got total.

 

[z3r010]

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[ThrashZone]

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Pretty cool
Too bad the image was only a partial shot

 

[A Guy]

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Pretty cool
Too bad the image was only a partial shot

I could see a Starbucks...

A Guy

 

[Britton30]