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World’s First UFO Landing Pad, and the First Landing….!!!

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St. Paul, Alberta, a small town in east-central Alberta, Canada has the world’s first official UFO Landing Pad which was built in 1967 to celebrate Canada’s centennial. The 130 ton concrete structure consists of a raised platform with a map of Canada embossed on the back stop, consisting of stones provided by each province of Canada. The pad also contains a time capsule to be opened on the 100-year anniversary of the pad’s opening in 2067. A sign beside the pad reads:

The area under the World’s First UFO Landing Pad was designated international by the Town of St. Paul as a symbol of our faith that mankind will maintain the outer universe free from national wars and strife. That future travel in space will be safe for all intergalactic beings, all visitors from earth or otherwise are welcome to this territory and to the Town of St. Paul.

Source….www.amusimgplanet.com….Natarajan

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Image of the Day…” Where Red Mars looks Blue …” !!!

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Where red Mars looks blue

Most images of Mars show colors homogenized by red dust and regolith. This infrared-red-blue color image shows Mars’ bedrock … and many colors.

 

Mars is the red planet, but it turns out that many images we see of it show Mars’ colors ashomogenized by the this world’s reddish dust and regolith. This new image from the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter – taken on February 5, 2016 – shows fantastic colors on Mars.

HiRISE stands for High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, and the camera team explained:

Here the bedrock is very well exposed, except where there are sand dunes.

The rocks also have diverse compositions, which produce different colors in HiRISE infrared-red-blue color images.

View larger. | The Nili Fossae region on Mars – one of Mars’ most colorful places – located on the northwest rim of Isidis impact basin. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona.

 

mars-blue-Nili-Fossae-region-2016-Mars-Reconnaissance-Orbiter-1-e1462717138291 Source…www.earthsky.org

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Image of the Day….”Airplane crossing Sun’s face …” !!!

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While preparing on Sunday to watch today’s transit – an event Mercury crosses the face of our sun – Helio C. Vital caught an airplane doing the same.

Photo taken May 8, 2016 by Helio C. Vital.

Helio C. Vital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, wrote late Sunday night:

Brazil will be in the front row to watch the whole transit of Mercury on Monday.

This photo shows the sun less than 16 hours before Mercury starts to pass in front of our vital star. To make things even more exciting, as I was filming the sun in preparation for Monday’s rare event, a plane just happened to transit it, like Mercury will be doing. How nice!

Source……..www.earthsky.org

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Image of the day….” Late April Sun Pillar…”

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Jesse Jackson saw this sun pillar near Tucson, Arizona. “Talk about a ray of sunshine,” he said .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jesse Jackson shared his photo with us. Jesse wrote:

Talk about a ray of sunshine. I was near Sentinel Peak [southwest of Tucson, Arizona] when the sun was about to set, and decided to take a brief detour before the end of my day. It was a cloudy evening but the horizon was clear, so I knew it had to be promising. I took the chance, and I was fortunate to have a rare sighting of a sun pillar!

Sun pillars, or light pillars, are shafts of light extending from the sun or other bright light source. They’re caused by ice crystals drifting in Earth’s air. More info (and pics!) here.

Here’s another April 2016 sun pillar. This one was taken in southwest England by Jacquie Russell.

Photo credit…Jacquie Russell

sun-pillar-Jacquie-Russell

 

Source….www.earthsky.org

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Image of the Day….Smallest full Moon Of 2016….April 22 …

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Curtis Beaird in south Georgia captured this shot.

EarthSky Facebook friend Curtis Beaird in south Georgia captured the shot above.

Tonight – April 22, 2016 – it’s the farthest full moon, and smallest full moon, of the year. We’ve heard it called the micro-moon or mini-moon. This full moon comes less than one day after reaching lunar apogee, the moon’s farthest point in its monthly orbit. It lies some 30 thousand miles (50 thousand km) farther from Earth than 2016’s closest full moon – a supermoon – due on November 14.

Every year has a closest full moon, and a farthest full moon. The mini-moon often returns about one month and 18 days later with each passing year, meaning that, in 2017, the year’s smallest full moon will come on June 9.

In 2018, the year’s smallest full moon will fall on July 27; and in 2019, the smallest full moon will occur on September 14. The micro-moon or mini-moon frequently recurs in periods of 14 lunar months (14 returns to full moon).

The crest of the moon’s full phase comes on April 22, 2016 at precisely 5:24 Universal Time.

Although the full moon occurs at the same instant all around the world, our clocks read differently in various time zones. In the United States, the moon turns exactly full on April 22, at 1:24 a.m. EDT, 12:24 a.m. CDT, and on April 21 at 11:24 p.m. MDT and 10:24 p.m. PST.

So in the Americas, the full moon happens on the night of April 21-22, and may have already passed by the time you are reading this post.

Meanwhile, your calendar probably says that April 22 is the full moon.

No matter where you live worldwide, look for the moon to look plenty full on the night of April 22. As with any moon near the vicinity of full moon, it’ll light up the nighttime from early evening until dawn.

In North America, we often call the April full moon by the names of Pink Moon, Grass Moon, Egg Moon or Fish Moon.

But in recent years, we’ve also heard the term micro-moon to describe the year’s smallest full moon. It’s not a name (like Pink Moon) tied to skylore. It’s not bound to a particular month or season.

It’s just a modern term to describe the year’s smallest moon.

Day and night sides of Earth at the instant of the April 2016 full moon (2016 April 22 at 5:24 Universal Time. Image via Earth and Moon Viewer

Day and night sides of Earth at the instant of the April 22, 2016 full moon (at 5:24 Universal Time). Image via Earth and Moon Viewer

Like most astronomers, we at EarthSky used to call the year’s smallest full moon an apogee full moon.

The terms mini-moon and micro-moon stem from popular culture. They roll off the tongue more easily than apogee full moon. As some indication of the appellation’s growing popularity, we’ve found that theNASA Astronomy Photo of the Day and timeanddate.org sites both like to call the year’s smallest full moon a micro-moon.

In many respects, the micro-moon is the antithesis of a supermoon. The micro-moon, or the full moon aligning with apogee, is the polar opposite of a full moon supermoon, the full moon coinciding with perigee.

Every month for the next seven months, the full moon will come closer and closer to Earth until the November 14 supermoon, closest full moon of the year.

That November full moon will be the year’s biggest and brightest moon, only 221,524 miles (356,509 km) away. That’s in contrast to the moon’s mean distance from Earth of about 384,400 kilometers (238,855 miles).

In fact, the November 14, 2016, supermoon will be closer to Earth than the moon has been thus far in the 21st century (2001-2100). The moon won’t come so close again until the full moon of November 25, 2034.

But it’s the December, 2052, full moon that’ll outdo them all. It’ll stage the closest and largestsupermoon of the 21st century (2001 to 2100).

The moon looks full for several days around full moon. William Vann caught this rising almost-full moon on March 4, 2015.

The moon looks full for several days around full moon. William Vann submitted this shot in 2015.

Bottom line: The micro-moon or mini-moon – smallest full moon of 2016 – comes on April 22. It lies about 30,000 miles (50,000 km) farther away from Earth than the full moon supermoon of November 14, 2016.

Source….www.earthsky.org

Natarajan

Image of the Day…” Liftoff at NASA’s 16th Annual Student Launch Challenge…”

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Liftoff of one of dozens of high-powered rockets during the 16th annual Student Launch challenge, April 16, near NASA Marshall

One of dozens of high-powered rockets lifts off on April 16, 2016, during NASA’s 16th annual Student Launch challenge, held near Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama from April 13-16.

Nearly 50 middle and high school, college and university teams from 22 states competed in the challenge, demonstrating advanced aerospace and engineering skills related to real-world activities and programs on NASA’s Journey to Mars. Teams spent the past eight months building and testing rockets designed to fly to an altitude of one mile, deploy an automated parachute system, and land safe enough for reuse, while other teams also designed scientific payloads for data collection during flight.

Preliminary winners for Student Launch were announced during an awards ceremony April 16, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, and hosted by Orbital ATK. The overall winners of Student Launch will be announced in early May, as the final calculations are still under review for accuracy.

Image Credit: NASA/MSFC/Charles Beason

 Source……..www.nasa.gov
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Image of the Day…Mars Rover Opportunity up high ….!!!

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Mars rover up high, spies a dust devil

After making the steep-ever climb of any rover on Mars, Opportunity looked back along its own tracks toward a swirling Martian dust devil in the valley below.

From its perch high on a ridge, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity recorded this image of a Martian dust devil twisting through the valley below. The view looks back at the rover's tracks leading up the north-facing slope of

View larger. | From high on a ridge, NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity recorded this image of a swirling Martian dust devil on March 31. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech.

During its recent uphill drive to the top of Knudsen Ridge on Mars, the tilt of the Mars Opportunity rover reached 32 degrees, the steepest-ever for any rover on Mars. In this image – taken on March 31, 2016, the 4,332nd Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s work on Mars – you’re looking backwards along the rover’s tracks, with its camera aimed toward a dust devil twisting through the valley below.

In the image, the rover – which was launched from Earth in 2003 – has just climbed the north-facing slope of Knudsen Ridge on Mars. The ridge forms part of the southern edge of Marathon Valley.

Why is NASA’s image in black and white, by the way? It’s because it was taken with the Navcam on Opportunity, a camera that’s essential for enabling the rover to make its way across the surface of this alien world … but which doesn’t have a color camera.

Look below to see how artist Don Davis remedied the lack of color with some processing here on Earth:

Color-processed view of Opportunity's great dust devil shot, by artist Don Davis. Read more about this image on Davis' Facebook page.

Color view of Opportunity’s great dust devil shot, by artist Don Davis. Read more on Davis’ Facebook page.

NASA commented:

Dust devils were a common sight for Opportunity’s twin rover, Spirit, in its outpost at Gusev Crater, but Opportunity has seen them only rarely.

Just as on Earth, a dust devil is created by a rising, rotating column of hot air. When the column whirls fast enough, it picks up tiny grains of dust from the ground, making the vortex visible.

Artist's concept of the rover Opportunity on Mars. This rover - and its twin rover Spirit - were launched from Earth in 2003. Image via NASA

Artist’s concept of the rover Opportunity on Mars. This rover – and its twin rover Spirit – were launched from Earth in 2003. Image via NASA

Bottom line: Mars Opportunity rover image of a dust devil, from a perch on Knudsen Ridge on Mars, part of the southern edge of Marathon Valley, acquired on March 31, 2016, the 4,332nd Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s work on Mars.

Source….www.earthsky.org

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Image of the Day…” Busy Traffic at International Space Station …” !!!

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Docked Soyuz spacecraft in center of frame with Cygnus cargo craft at left and Progress craft at right with Earth below

Expedition 47 Flight Engineer Tim Peake of the European Space Agency took this photograph on April 6, 2016, as the International Space Station flew over Madagascar, showing three of the five spacecraft currently docked to the station. The station crew awaits the scheduled launch today, April 8, of the third resupply vehicle in three weeks: a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft, which will be the sixth spacecraft docked following its arrival and installation to the Harmony module on Sunday, April 10. Dragon is carrying 6,900 pounds (3,130 kilograms) of science, crew supplies and hardware; the largest payload is theBigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM). The BEAM will be attached to the Tranquility module a week after its arrival for a series of habitability tests over two years.

Orbital ATK’s Cygnus cargo craft, visible at the left of this image, was bolted into place on the Earth-facing port of the station’s Unity module on March 26, 2016. Although the SpaceX and Orbital ATK spacecraft have made 12 launches between them, this will be the first time that the two vehicles, contracted by NASA and developed by private industry to resupply the station, are connected to the space station at the same time.

Image Credit: ESA/NASA

Source…….www.nasa.gov
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Image of the Day…” Snow Goose Moon” …!!!

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Migrating geese in front o the moon, caught on March 26 in Fairfield, Montana, by John Ashley. Visit John Ashely Fine Art.

Migrating geese in front of the moon, caught in Fairfield, Montana by John Ashley. Visit John Ashely Fine Art.

John Ashley of Montana caught this image on the morning of March 26, 2016. He wrote:

Migrating snow geese lift off at dawn on Saturday, leaving Freezeout Lake and flying past the 92% gibbous moon on their way to nearby agricultural fields for a morning feed.

Source…..www.earthsky.org

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