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Image of the Day…..” Saturday Night’s Mysterious Light…” !!!

November 9, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Saturday night’s mystery light not a UFO

People in Los Angeles and various states in the U.S. West saw the mysterious light. It was confirmed as a Naval missile test off the California coast.

Mysterious light sailing across the sky on Saturday night, widely seen across the U.S. West. This image is a still from a video (profanity alert).

Witnesses from Southern California to Reno, Nevada reportedly “went into a tizzy” when they spotted a bright, blue-green, mysterious, long-lasting light in the sky on Saturday evening (November 7, 2015).

The light reportedly movied from south to north over a period of five minutes or more. Many saw it, as it sailed across the sky around 6 p.m. PST (8 p.m. CST). Translate to your time zone.

Later, the light was found to be an unarmed Trident missile test-fired by the U.S. Navy, from a submarine off the coast of Southern California.

Here’s your mystery light source: It was a test of a Trident SLBM from a U.S. Navy submarine off Point Magu, California, near Vandenberg AFB. Pictured is a Trident II (D-5) missile underwater launch.
Image via DailyMail

Bottom line: The mysterious light was seen over Los Angeles and in various western states on Saturday night – November 7, 2015 – was confirmed to be an unarmed Naval test fire off the California coast.

Source…..www.earthsky.org

Natarajan

Image of the Day…. ” Children of the Sun ” …

November 8, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

They say we’re all made of stardust…….

Posted to EarthSky Facebook by Fotograf Göran Strand. Visit Göran on Facebook

Swedish astrophotographer Göran Strand calls this photo Children of the Sun.

You can buy Göran’s photos as prints in his webshop.

https://instagram.com/Astrofotografen

https://twitter.com/Astrofotografen

Source….www.earthsky.org

Natarajan

Message for the Day…”Instead of rotating round the earth in the higher realms of space and planning to land on the moon or Mars, if only one plans and prepares to travel into one’s own inner realm, what sublime joy and peace can be attained!”

November 8, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

The human being is a composite of man, beast and God, and in the inevitable struggle among the three for ascendency, you must ensure that God wins, suppressing the merely human and the lowly beast. Man must know the Universe as basicallyBrahman or Divine. You and the Universe are one; all are subsumed in the same unique entity. The cosmic vision can be acquired either by watching the Universe or one’s own inner Cosmos. One has only to discover oneself. In the citadel of the body, there is the lotus temple of the heart, with subtle akasha(space) within. In it are contained heaven and earth, fire and air, sun and moon, stars and planets – all that is in the visible world and all that sustains it, and all into which it submerges. Instead of rotating round the earth in the higher realms of space and planning to land on the moon or Mars, if only one plans and prepares to travel into one’s own inner realm, what sublime joy and peace can be attained!

Image of the Day….” Desert in Bloom ” !!!

November 7, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Blossoming Atacama desert in Chile

Hundreds of millions of flowers bloomed in the Atacama Desert in Chile this year, linked to 2015’s ongoing strong El Niño.

View larger. | Flowers in the Atacama, November 1, 2015. Photo by Yuri Beletsky.

Earlier this week, we began hearing about the amazing desierto florido (desert in bloom) taking place in the Atacama, in Chile. It corresponds to the ongoing strong El Niño, which is a periodic warming of Pacific Ocean waters off the northern Chile’s coast. The El Niño caused more rainfall than usual over the Atacama, which caused hundreds of millions of flowers to germinate and bloom. Yuri Beletsky – who has contributed other beautiful photos of the Atacama to EarthSky – captured this image. He wrote:

Pretty amazing we still see flowers in the desert! I was driving down from the mountain and was astonished by the amount of flowers we still can see – it’s been almost a month (!) after the their normal season. Here is an image taken just with my cell phone. This year is truly exceptional here in Chile due to El Niño phenomenon.

We’ve got lots of clouds, high humidity, and no wonder the desert is full of life now.

I hope you’ll enjoy it!

Thank you, Yuri!

Just as El Niño is cyclical, so the unusual flower blooms in the Atacama are known to come and go about every five to seven years. That’s according to Pedro León Lobos, a botanist with Chile’s Institute of Agriculture and Livestock Research (IRA), in an interview with National Geographic published earlier this week.

By the way, Chile is prone to frequent earthquakes, and the Acacama Desert is north of Coquimbo, Chile, where a strong 6.8-magnitude quake struck earlier today (November 7, 2015).

Bottom line: 2015 featured an unusually prolific bloom of flowers in the Atacama Desert in Chile, tied to this year’s El Niño.

Source….www.earthsky.org

Natarajan

All Hope Was Lost At This Crash Site…Until They Made A Shocking Discovery…

November 7, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Just yesterday, on November 4, 2015, a devastating accident rocked South Sudan as a cargo plane full of passengers crashed shortly after takeoff. When investigators and rescue workers arrived on the scene, they knew that there was little hope of finding survivors in the charred, twisted wreckage.

But just as they were about to give up all hope, they made a miraculous discovery.

Prospects were grim as rescue workers stepped onto the site of the horrific crash.

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The plane was only designed to hold cargo and about 12 crew members, so it’s believed that overcrowding caused it to go down.

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Approximately 36 passengers are confirmed dead, but numbers will likely rise as the wreckage is moved.

But just as they were about to give up hope, rescuers made a heartbreaking — but completely amazing — discovery.

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They found a one-year-old girl crying underneath the wreckage. She’s one of two reported survivors, and volunteers were completely floored by the tiny child’s will to live. The other survivor ultimately succumbed to injuries sustained in the crash, but somehow, this brave little one made it.

The girl, named Nyalou Thong, was immediately rushed to the hospital. She’s reportedly doing well after receiving treatment for a broken leg and other minor injuries.

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Sadly, Nyalou’s mother and brother died in the crash. As of now, rescuers are attempting to contact other family members.

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She is expected to make a full recovery.

(via Mashable)

This child truly is a tiny miracle. Officials and volunteers who responded to the crash signed on for the recovery mission with heavy hearts, but this discovery proved to be a glimmer of hope. We’re sending our thoughts to the people of South Sudan as they recover from this tragedy, and to little Nyalou as she heals.

Source..Madeline Distasio……www.viralnova.com

Natarajan

Image of the Day…. “Elephant Foot Glacier” ….

November 7, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

The Elephant Foot Glacier in northeastern Greenland, looks like a bowl of batter that has been poured over a pan. The sheer pressure of the zillion-ton ice has broken through the mountain and spilled into the sea in a near symmetric, fan-shaped lobe. Such glaciers are known as piedmont glaciers, and the Elephant Foot Glacier is a perfect example of it. Its shape is so distinct that it stands out dramatically from its surroundings when viewed from high above.

Glaciers are one of the most extraordinary of the earth’s natural phenomena. These rivers of frozen snow accumulated over centuries of precipitation are so densely packed that it exceeds its overall ablation. They are in a constant state of flux, flowing down in the direction of the slope towards a valley or a water body. You can’t really tell if it’s moving but come back in a few decades and you will be able to see thedramatic change in the landscape.

elephant-foot-glacier-4

Photo credit: unknown

The Elephant Foot Glacier is located on the Kronprins Christian Land peninsula. It is not connected to Greenland’s main ice sheet. Rather, it’s part of a network of glaciers and ice caps that hangs around the periphery of the island. Research has shown that as a whole, these outlying glaciers and ice caps account for 5 to 7 percent of Greenland’s total ice coverage, but they are responsible for 20 percent of its contribution to sea level rise.

Another example of piedmont glaciers is the Malaspina Glacier in southeastern Alaska. 65-km long and 45-km wide, it is the largest piedmont glacier in the world. The glacier arises where several valley glaciers, primarily the Seward Glacier and Agassiz Glacier, spill out from the Saint Elias Mountains onto the coastal plain facing the Gulf of Alaska.

elephant-foot-glacier-1

Photo credit: Thobu/Panoramio

elephant-foot-glacier-2

Photo credit: eggertsae/Panoramio

Photo credit: phys.org

malaspina-glacier-1

Malaspina Glacier. Photo credit: Bob Mattson/Panoramio

Sources: NASA / Wikipedia

Source….www.amusingplanet.com

Natarajan

Two guys wearing jetpacks fly alongside an Airbus A380….!!!

November 6, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

We’ve already seen ex-fighter pilot Yves Rossy — a.k.a. Jetman — fly his jet-propelled wing in formation with another pilot, and we’ve seen him whizz around Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

His latest stunt, however, again performed with parachuter Vince Reffet, is perhaps the most impressive so far. The two pilots fly their jetpacks in formation with an Emirates-owned Airbus A380.

In the stunt, once again available in 4K resolution, the pilots whir incredibly close to the airplane as it flies above the Dubai skyline. The airplane’s size — the A380 is the world’s largest passenger airliner, some 238 feet long — gives a great sense of scale, showing how incredibly small the pilots’ jetpacks really are.

Filming the video was no easy feat either; every little detail had to be carefully planned, with a team of videographers recording the stunt from another, smaller plane. Check out the “making of” video below.

Source…… STAN SCHROEDER…..www.mashable.com

Natarajan

Runway Over The Highway at Leipzig/Halle Airport…

November 5, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

The Leipzig/Halle Airport, sometimes called Schkeuditz Airport, is located in Schkeuditz, Germany and serves both Leipzig and Halle – two of the largest cities in the country. Lack of space required the modern airport terminal structure to spill over the adjacent motorway and railway that intersects the runway at right angles. To make room for the runway without affecting vehicular traffic on motorway A14 and rail traffic, three bridges were constructed over the motorway and the tracks, that allowed the parallel runways to extend to their full length of 3.6 km. These bridges are called Taxiways. Aircrafts would taxi on these taxiways at the time of takeoff and landing, while vehicles ply on the motorway below.

Taxiway E7 and E8 on the east are used as one way taxis and connect the terminal with the northern runway, while the third taxiway W1 in the west is used in both direction.

Photo credit

Source…..www.amusingplanet.com

Natarajan

Looking Back: International Space Station at the Start of Expedition 1….

November 4, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

On Nov. 2, 2000, the Expedition 1 crew — Commander William M. (Bill) Shepherd of NASA and Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev and Soyuz Commander Yuri Gidzenko of Roscosmos — arrived at the International Space Station, marking the start of an uninterrupted human presence on the orbiting laboratory. Their Soyuz capsule made contact with the aft docking port of the station’s Zvezda Service Module at 3:21 a.m. CST while the two spacecraft were flying over the central portion of Kazakhstan. A little over one hour later at 4:23 a.m., the hatch leading into the Zvezda’s living quarters was opened, signifying the start of human occupancy of the international complex. Gidzenko and Krikalev floated into Zvezda first, at the request of the commander. Once inside the station, the crew members continued the work begun by space shuttle crews and ground controllers to bring the station to life.

Fifteen years later, 45 crewed expeditions (so far) — more than 220 people from 17 countries — have visited the station, constructed over more than 115 space flights conducted on five different types of launch vehicles. The station now measures 357 feet end-to-end and provides more livable room than a conventional six bedroom house. 22 scientific investigations were conducted during Expedition 1, while a total of 191 scientific investigations will be conducted during Expeditions 45 and 46. To date, more than 1,200 scientific results publications have been produced based on over 1,760 research investigations on the orbiting laboratory.

This Dec. 2, 2000, photograph shows the configuration of the space station at the start of Expedition 1 including the Zarya Control Module, Unity Node, Zvezda Service Module and Z1-Truss. It was taken by STS-97 crewmembers aboard shuttle Endeavour during approach to dock with the station on a mission to deliver and connect the first set of U.S.-provided solar arrays, prepare a docking port for arrival of the U.S. Laboratory Destiny and perform additional station assembly tasks. The Expedition 1 crew spent four months living and working on the station and returned to Earth aboard shuttle Discoveryon March 21, 2001.

Image Credit: NASA

Source…www.nasa.gov