| Close your eyes for a moment and take a deep, slow breath. Then open them only to enjoy the beauty of these quietly moving scenes made by French Photographer and Design Artist Julien Douvier, creating a hybrid where only some elements in the picture are animated. I find that by the time I get to the end of this series, great serenity has taken hold.
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source……ba-bamail.com
Natarajan
| Pictured above is the Acidalia Planitia, captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Source……..www.ba-bamail.com natarajan |
Temples are invitations and signboards directing people to their Divine home. Temples are intended to instruct people in the art of removing the veil of attachment that lies over their heart. That is why Tyagaraja cried in the temple at Tirupathi, “Remove the veil within me, the veil of pride and hate.” The fog of illusion (maya) melted away with the touch of the rays of grace. Then he sang out describing the image of divine charm in the song, “Sivudavo Madhavudavo”; he drank deep the sweetness of that form. The churning of his heart by the divine formula produced the spark of wisdom(jnana), and it grew into the flame of realisation. On one occasion, Lord Sri Ramachandra spoke thus: “Dawn breaks and dusk falls. With dawn, greed awakes in people; with dusk, lust gets hold of them. Is this to be your goal and way of life? With every passing day, you are nearing one step closer towards the cave of death, missing precious opportunities. Do you ever worry over a wasted day?”
Selected specially for a year-long mission, American astronaut Scott Kelly has been on the International Space Station (ISS) since March 2015. Early this morning, as the ISS was passing above the Indian coast, he posted some mind-bendingly beautiful photos of South India.
A rare glimpse of beautiful South #India! #GoodMorning from @Space_Station #YearInSpace
Sandy and green on the South #Indian coast. #YearInSpace
The Southern tip of #India and its blue waters. #YearInSpace
SPECTACULAR.
Source……..www.the betterindia.com
Natarajan
A new earthrise photo, as seen from the moon by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Spectacular new image of earthrise seen from the moon, from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter using cameras operated by Arizona State University. Africa, the south Atlantic Ocean and the eastern edge of South America can be seen. The large tan area on the upper right is the Sahara Desert. In the foreground on the moon, you are seeing the Compton crater. Read more about this image.
As seen from any one spot on the moon’s surface, Earth never rises or sets. Because one side of the moon always faces Earth, the Earth hangs relatively motionless in the lunar sky. But orbiting spacecraft can see earthrises and earthsets. This week, Arizona State University emailed us this amazing new image of an earthrise seen from the moon, along with Q-and-A with Mark Robinson, who is the principal investigator for the cameras aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnissance Orbiter. In it, Robinson talked about this image, which was acquired by the orbiter’s camera (the LROC) in October.
Q: How did you know this image would be possible?
A: [The LROC has] taken pictures of the Earth more than 10 times in the past. We wanted to get a limb shot (showing the edge of the moon). What makes it really hard is getting the moon in the foreground … That was not by accident. We have software tools that allow us to visualize observations. We know where the spacecraft is going to be in the future … We determined from which orbits the Earth will be visible near the limb. Once we know the ground track where the Earth will be visible, we then find a view with a dramatic foreground.
Question: What are some of the pieces that had to come together to make this photo?
Answer: Just a few of the steps: You have to roll the spacecraft, in this case about 70 degrees, but the spacecraft is traveling at over 1,600 meters per second. We’re restricted in the length of one exposure time to something close to 0.4 milliseconds. You also move the spacecraft in the direction of flight so that you can get a wide enough field of view. When a spacecraft is in an elliptical orbit, the timing changes from image-to-image in an orbit. We have to compute all of that beforehand to get it exactly right … That timing has to be precisely carried out … We have to predict the temperature of the CCD (electronic equivalent of film). The Wide Angle Camera (WAC) is imaging an area multiple times while the Narrow Angle Cameras (NAC) takes just one picture. We blow up the WAC images and combine them to produce higher resolution, and then overlay this sharper image on the NAC image. We wanted the Earth to be on the horizon, and that only happens from certain areas of the moon. It’s only when the spacecraft is above the boundary between the nearside and farside that you can see the Earth behind the limb (edge of the moon).
Q: LRO has been in orbit for more than six years. If you picked the best shots to show your friends, what are they?
A: We’ve taken more than a million images. My answer changes every three days. The Apollo landing sites are fantastic. You can see the tracks the astronauts left on the surface of the moon. To me, as a scientist, it’s really great because it helps me visualize the photographs they took on the surface. The significance of the geologic context. ‘All right, now I know they got that soil sample there, and I can see what it looks like.’
Bottom line: NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this new image of Earthrise from the moon in October, 2015, using the orbiter’s camera (the LROC) operated by Arizona State University.
Source…..www.earthsky.org
Natarajan
“…And when all the wars are over, a butterfly will still be beautiful,” wrote Ruskin Bond.
As we approach the end of 2015, it is quite natural to look back and search for the kind of beauty he was talking about – the beauty amidst chaos that helped us throughout the year and also gave hope for the next one. No matter the dark times and the harsh memories, everybody seeks that hope to wake up with each day. And on several occasions this year, India helped us believe in that hope, and in happiness, humanity and pride.
Many times this year, different people and incidents made Indians proud of being a part of this country. Here are the 22 best ones:
Mr. Dhananjay Chakraborty, a taxi driver in Kolkata, has a garden on the roof of his cab, and many potted plants in the trunk. He calls his car the green chariot, and it is a great way of promoting the message of green living while driving around the city.
T Sriramanujam, a visually impaired student of Class 5, fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming a TV news anchor. He read his first live news bulletin for 22 minutes with the help of Braille.
On a WhatsApp group named ‘Baliraja’, over 400 farmers from various villages in Maharashtra are seeking and sharing agriculture advice, connecting with experts in various fields and learning new practices. The group simply rocks!
Suman More, a 50-year-old waste picker from Pune, runs a 9,000 member organization named Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat, and has been giving a new identity to ragpickers. This year, she spoke before more than 2,000 experts from across the world at a conference organized by the International Labour Organisation in Geneva.
Waseem Memon and his group of over 25,000 people are fighting for our right to use our cars all across the country, challenging the existing laws regarding registration. He started the Drive Without Borders campaign to protest against the injustice meted out by road transport officials of various states while checking non-state vehicles.
Parents across India proudly took pictures with their daughters and sent them to Sunil Jaglan, the sarpanch of Bibipur village in Haryana, who started a WhatsApp contest named ‘Selfie with Daughter’. He received more than 500 entries in just a few days.
Maryam Siddiqui won a Bhagwad Gita competition and was felicitated by many political figures across the country. She politely returned all the money received in the form of rewards, with a note that the money should be utilised for a scheme or something related to providing better education for girls.
The Muslim man who performed the last rights of his Hindu friend, the Hindus who opened up a Ganesha pandalfor Muslims to celebrate Eid, and the Hindu man who wrote Prophet Muhammad’s biography in Marwari – all helped break the shackles of narrow religious confines.
Gangadhara Tilak Katnam, a 67-year-old retired Railway employee, quit his job to single-handedly fill up potholes in Hyderabad. He used his pension money to fill over 1,125 potholes in two and half years.
Nikhiya Shamsher started a project named Bags, Books and Blessings. She collected around 2,500 books, about 150 bags, water bottles, a lot of stationery, and more from the students in her school, and donated all of it to an orphanage in Bangalore. She stood out as an inspiration for many students of her age.
Gaurang Damani, an electrical engineer, adopted the King’s Circle railway station in Mumbai and transformed it into a very beautiful and clean place in just four months. Find more about his work here.
When Eshan Balbale saw that students in Sathe Nagar had to walk through a 1.5 km long, filthy, sewage-filled stretch to reach school every day, he made a 4-feet-wide and 100-feet-long bamboo bridge for them in just eight days.
65-year-old Kishan Kumar lost his typewriter when a police official kicked it in his attempt to evict footpath dwellers and vendors. When Indians on Twitter came to know about this incident, they simply made sure that he got his typewriter back.
A 24-year-old policeman, Manoj Barahate, did not think of his own life before diving off a 20-feet high bridge to save the life of a man who had jumped into the water during Kumbh Mela. Had it not been for this quick-thinking brave cop, the man would have lost his life.
Of the 60 people who were honoured with the prestigious Karnataka Rajyotsava Award this year, one is a transgender – Akkai Padmashali – who has been fighting for the rights and acceptance of her community for years. This was the first time that a transgender won this award.
“It looks like this is the beginning of a beautiful new tradition in our family, which I hope we will only enhance as time goes on. It touched and opened my heart in many ways,” wrote her daughter.
All of these tweets were answered, and help reached the passengers in almost no time.
We are all Indians at the end of the day. And we stand by each other.
Source…….www.the betterindia.com
Natarajan
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Look at the blossoms in the garden! When the gardener plucks the flowers, the buds exult that tomorrow is their turn to be gathered into the gardener’s hands, and their faces are full of joy when they unfold in that hope. Do they feel any sadness? Do their faces droop? Are they any the less bright? No. The moment they know that the next day is their turn, they make themselves ready with great gusto and excitement. In the same way, you must be ready on the path of spiritual practice! Enthusiastically remember the name of the Lord every minute, without worrying and feeling sad that your turn is tomorrow or because someone died today. For people who transformed themselves into spiritual aspirants, their mind (manas)is Mathura, the birthplace of Lord Krishna), their heart is Dwaraka (Lord Krishna’s playground), and their body is Kashi (holiest land of Lord Shiva). |
Because Julius Caesar said so.
Early Roman Calendar
Since long before Caesar’s time, date keeping was dicey. In fact, the 355-day Roman calendar that immediately preceded Caesar’s Julian, worked on a four year cycle where every other year, an additional month was inserted between February (Februarius), the last month of that calendar year, and March (Martius), the first month of the year; this was done in order to catch the calendar up with the Earth’s orbit of the Sun. That additional month, called the Mensis intercalaris, brought in the missing 22 or 23 days, and to even things up, took another five days from February in the years it was present.
Since the calendar had been designed to ensure the proper observance of religious dates, priests, calledpontifices, were responsible for declaring when theinterclaris month should begin and end. Since these priests were also involved with politics, they sometimes:
Misused their power by intercalating days or not intercalating them, merely in order to lengthen or shorten some magistrate’s year of office, or to increase the gains of some government contractor, or to inflict loss upon him.
By the time Caesar came around, the Roman calendar was in shambles, and in 46 BC, Julius Caesar commanded that it be changed.
Julian Calendar
The Julian calendar’s beginnings were as crazy as the old Roman calendar at its worst:
In order to wipe out the consequences of past neglect, it was necessary that the year 46 BC (called by Macrobius the annus confusionis) should extend to 445 days. The normal number of 355 days had already been increased by the addition of the ordinary 23 days, inserted after Feb. 23. As many as 67 days, divided into two menses intercalares . . . were now interposed between November and December. . . . This year thus consisted of 15 months.
After this “year of confusion,” the new calendar really started. Intercalation was abolished, and each year was increased to 365 days, with a leap year added every fourth year (quarto quoque anno) to February. The months of the calendar after Caesar’s shake-up followed the old Roman calendar closely and most are familiar to us even today: Ianuarius, Februarius, Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Iunius, Guintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November and December.
Along with these changes, Caesar set the New Year to January 1. Why? Since 153 BC, January 1 was the day new consuls in Rome took office and Romans had commonly used the name of the two consuls to identify a specific year in question. Thus, by officially making January 1 start the New Year, it simply lined up with the consular year.
As to why the consular year started on January 1 instead of the original Roman Calendar New Year’s day of March 1, this isn’t known. That said, there are references that seem to imply that January 1 may have begun marking the New Year as early as 189 BC, which precedes when the consular year started beginning on that day.
One proposed reason for this switch is that January is thought by most to have been named after the god of transitions and beginnings, Janus, during the reign of the second King of Rome, Numa Pompilius, who lived from 753-673 BC. Thus, it was naturally enough for the Romans to eventually decide to make the switch. However, whether this is the reason or not is very much up for debate.
Gregorian Calendar
Although the Julian Calendar was relatively accurate, its use of 365.25 days in a calendar year, as opposed to the precise 365.2425 days, over centuries, created a discrepancy in the calendar. In fact, by the time Pope Gregory XIII (1572-1585) became the Bishop of Rome, the Julian calendar had lost 10 days.
It was this discrepancy that brought about the reformed calendar. Actually beginning 20 years before the calendar took effect with the Council of Trent in 1563, church leaders wanted to restore the spring equinox to the date it was when the First Council of Nicaea was convened in 325 (by 1563, the equinox was falling on March 11, rather than March 21).
As simple as making a Papal decree, Gregory issued the Inter gravissimas on February 24, 1582, and nearly eight months later, the last day of the Julian calendar, October 4, 1582, was followed by the first day of the Gregorian calendar, October 15, 1582. Voila!
Today, the Gregorian calendar is the unofficial calendar of the United States and the United Nations, as well as most countries in the world.
New Year’s Day
Since before even Caesar’s time, people celebrated the New Year. In ancient Babylon, this began after the spring equinox in March, and part of the celebration including subjecting the king to ritual humiliation. In fact, “if royal tears were shed, it was seen as a sign that Marduk [a god] was satisfied and had symbolically extended the king’s rule.”
After he was murdered by a small group of his “friends” (“Et tu, Brute?”), the Roman Senate made Caesar a god on January 1, 42 BC, a date which coincided with the time-honored practice of making offerings to Janus in the hope of having good fortune throughout the year.
Throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, January 1st’s New Year’s celebrations were discouraged, as they were seen by church leaders as a pagan practice. Instead, other days were often used as a substitute varying from nation to nation. This changed when the Gregorian calendar was instituted and, at least in the Catholic nations, January 1 once again became the official New Year, and it slowly spread from there with the Gregorian calendar.
Bonus Facts:
Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100, but these centurial years are leap years if they are exactly divisible by 400. For example, the years 1700, 1800 and 1900 are not leap years, but the year 2000 is.
source….www.today i foundout.com
Natarajan
The atmosphere at the sparkling new Axiom Research Labs facility is informal and collegial.
This is not surprising, since most of Axiom’s 80-strong workforce is just out of college.
It’s also geeky. Equations, diagrams and Star Wars references are scribbled across the many whiteboards scattered around the open-plan office, a stone’s throw from the Bengaluru-Hyderabad highway.
That’s to be expected since almost everyone on campus has a science/engineering background. It’s driven: people walk quickly, conversations are brief and pointed.
But there’s also a sense of collective excitement and plain old-fashioned fun.
People seem to enjoy themselves. The young men and women here all opted out of safe jobs and decided to shoot for the moon instead — literally.
This makes Axiom a rarity in the aerospace business. Its flagship is Team Indus.
Some time before December 31, 2017, Team Indus aims to land a vehicle on the moon.
A rover will roll out from the lander and travel at least 500 metres “along an interesting path in a deliberate manner” across the moon’s surface. That rover will then establish a data link with Earth and transmit two HDTV video broadcasts of at least eight minutes each, covering the moon landing and movement.
The mission must also receive and retransmit other data to Earth and perform a few other tasks.
That lander and rover must be designed by Team Indus. No more than 10 per cent of the necessary financing for the moon mission can come from government sources. If Team Indus pulls this off, it will fulfil the terms of the Google Lunar XPrize, or GLX, and it would be eligible to win a share of $30 million.
Team Indus is the only Indian outfit out of 20-odd competitors. It has already won a milestone award of $1 million for its lunar lander design. If Team Indus does become the first team to fulfil all mission requirements, it could win $20 million. If it’s the second team, it could win $5 million.
Nobody has ever put together a privately funded lunar lander and rover and sent it to the moon.
The prize has been hanging fire now since 2007 with the deadline being extended multiple times.
But nobody on the Axiom campus — not even the guards from the security agency — seems to have the slightest doubt that Team Indus can do this.
That certainty filters down right from the top. The company has the chutzpah to declare that its “selenographic address” (“which will be functional sometime after 2015”) is Lunar Zone: Sinus Medii (0.50N Selenographic latitude, 1.50W Selenographic longitude).
For non-geeks, it means that the landing site has already been chosen.
Indeed, the facility includes a mockup of the landing spot where the local terrain has been recreated, complete with “lunar dust”, to test the rover’s performance.
It started as a madcap project back in 2010. Rahul Narayan, a 40-something entrepreneur and Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi graduate wondered if the terms of GLX could be met. He talked to many of his pals who had similar backgrounds. Every one of them was captivated by the dream of going to the moon.
They persuaded GLX to accept a late entry and put together a company.
In 2011, Narayan says, they crossed an inflection point and realised the dream could become reality.
Team Indus made a presentation to K Kasturirangan, the retired chief of the Indian Space Research Organisation, or ISRO. He approved of some of the concepts in that presentation, and disagreed with others. But he thought it was possible and he promised to put in a word where it counted.
In fact, Kasturirangan was pretty enthusiastic and said that Team Indus embodied “the spirit of modern India and a flavour of its future”. A little later, Team Indus met APJ Abdul Kalam who was also extremely encouraging. Various doors started opening at that point.
The first tranches of cash were raised by the founders coming up with some money from their personal accounts.
The first employees recruited themselves. Some college students landed up, asking to be allowed to intern with the company that was then situated in Noida. They told their friends and juniors, and a pipeline was created.
Dhruv Batra is one of the old-buddy network Narayan tapped. He manages project delivery. He made alternative arrangements to run his Delhi-centric business and moved to Bengaluru when Team Indus shifted out of Noida.
Ramnath Babu, who now heads the structures team for Team Indus, was based in Mumbai from where he was running his business. He moved, first to Noida and then to Bengaluru, cajoling his brother to take over his business so that he could get involved in the mission.
Babu and Batra say that absolutely everybody has stretched selflessly to help Team Indus. Equipment that they thought would take six months to fabricate was delivered in 100 days. Teams at the Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad, and at the National Aerospace Lab, Bengaluru, worked overtime to test equipment for Team Indus.
Sheelika Ravishankar, who handles HR and other soft functions, says she originally pitched in part-time just to help set things up.
Part-time turned into full-time and she jokes that despite being the only person in Team Indus without a science/tech background, she has ended up interviewing people for the most arcane engineering functions. Ravishankar says there’s been a steady stream of boys (and a few girls) wanting to first intern and then work when they graduate.
Most of the younger members of Team Indus went to topnotch engineering colleges. They could have gone on to do much safer (and boring) things.
Instead, these 24-year-olds spend weekends working because they really like what they’re doing.
Vishesh Vatsal practically dances with delight as he draws a squiggly flight path to explain how the landing will take place. Suranjan Mallick turns into a muffled voice under the mock-up of the lander as he explains how the paired rockets will be vectored to ensure changes in flight directions. Guruditya Sinha waves his arms in three directions as he shows how the telemetry and telecommand system will work.
There is pride alongside the passion. Everybody is well aware that Team Indus represents India. They know that winning the GLX would be seen as another big achievement for India in space.
That passion and pride may be infectious but it also needs direction. This is where the third management layer comes in. In demographic terms, Team Indus is unusual. There are the 25-year-olds who form the bulk of the project team. There are a few people in their 40s — the founders.
Up above everyone, in terms of age and experience, there is the panel of technical advisers. All of them are retired ISRO personnel. PS Nair and NC Bhat worked on the Aryabhatta Project, which launched India’s first satellite way back in 1975. RV Perumal, P Natarajan and RK Sharma are the other veterans with wide ranging expertise.
Incidentally, the internal designations draw on the Star Wars universe. The founders are Jedi Masters. The tech advisers are Jedi Commanders. There are also Troopers and Skywalkers and presumably, padawans.
The unusual dynamic works brilliantly. The ISRO veterans quickly rule out approaches that are unlikely to work. They understand processes and they know how to test equipment, for instance. They are completely familiar with the Indian space ecosystem.
At the same time, the veterans seem to enjoy the fresh approach of the youngsters they interact with. For their part, the youngsters (and the founders) are all praise for the “sirs” and their ability to find rapid solutions as well as do the meticulous work of testing everything.
ISRO encouraged the creation of a space-industrial complex because it tendered out to private vendors.
Although Team Indus cannot take government financing, it is relying heavily on that ecosystem to fabricate its designs and to test.
Team Indus has hired testing facilities at the Space Applications Centre and National Aerospace Laboratories.
The lander will launch on ISRO’s trusty PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle). Again, this is where the technical advisors have come in handy — they know everybody and have ensured complete compatibility.
Everything will be designed by Team Indus and components sourced from everywhere will finally be put together at the Axiom facility.
There are three formal partners: L&T’s heavy engineering division is helping put the lander and rover together, while Sasken Communications and Tata Communications are aiding with the communications and control systems.
There are multiple vendors: at least 120 from all over the world. The lander’s engines and rockets, for instance, may come from Japan. The solar panels may be sourced from America and the battery could be British.
The lander, which will have the rover stored inside it, will be fitted on top of a PSLV rocket that will launch the lander into earth-orbit.
The lander will then use its own engine to match orbits with the moon. It could take nine swings or even more to rendezvous. Once that is done, it will use its eight auxiliary rockets to make course corrections and land at the designated spot.
After the lander is securely down, a panel will open and the rover will roll out. The rover will then start moving around (very slowly) and recording video.
The lander will relay that video to Earth. Everything will be monitored from the earth stations.
The engineering problems are formidable. The entire landing sequence has to be pre-programmed and autonomous.
There is a lag of almost four seconds when relaying signals to the moon and back. Unlike Chandrayaan, the lander must remain in working condition because it has to relay signals. Redundancy must be built in because component failure could otherwise jeopardise the whole mission.
The equipment within the lander must be protected, not only from the physical shocks of takeoff and landing but also from the heat generated by its rockets. On the moon, internal temperatures must be controlled, though the external temperature will vary a lot.
Before getting to the moon, the lander will pass through the Van Allen radiation belt.
All the delicate electronic equipment must be radiation-hardened to keep it from getting fried. There will be periods of eclipse, when solar panels will be ineffective. The solar panels must open correctly and be properly oriented.
Narayan guesses it could take over $30 million for the mission. Axiom has raised money several times. It started with the founders pitching in.
There was a funding round in March 2015 with investors like Nandan Nilekani and Ajai Chowdhry coming in. Another round of funding is currently in progress. There is talk of a possible round of crowd-sourced corporate funding.
There are two other concurrent projects, which should eventually pay their way.
One is satellite bus development, which involves figuring out spacecraft designs that can effectively launch multiple satellites. The other is the development of high altitude long endurance drones.
Eventually, Axiom might become a profitable aerospace company that earns its bread and butter from drones and satellite buses. But GLX will be a hard act to beat — in the public imagination at least.
Source….www.rediff.com
natarajan
Scott Kelly 
Take off with Natarajan 