By – Dr. Tony Phillips NASA – On Sunday, May 20th, the sun is going to turn into a ring of fire. It’s an annular solar eclipse–the first one in the USA in almost 18 years.
An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly in front of the sun, but the lunar disk is not quite wide enough to cover the entire star. At maximum, the Moon forms a “black hole” in the center of the sun.
Continue reading
"I'm with stupid" says the look on Charlotte Comrie photo: Guardian
Rotarians are treated to a weekly dose of inane speakers. Real smart people do not apply. It might wake up the sleepers two tables from the podium.
Chemist Ian McQueen arguing that pollution and global warming is good for us must be up there for all time record of dumb presentations to the Fossil Club of Charlottetown.
Mr. Deer-in-the-Headlights has spent the enormous sum of 4,000 hours studying global warming and Al Gore’s nose hairs. “I’ve counted them all,” McQueen proclaims with the air of an h’expert. “I’ve counted them all. Al Gore has 39 nose hairs and facial flaws,” he says in a hide-bound defense of chemicals in our atmosphere. Continue reading
For an up to date list of recipients, click here
Antarctic Total Solar Eclipse photo Fred Bruenjes (moonglow.net)
NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, July 20, 2009 with story from Science@NASA
If you live in somewhere new the Asian or Indian continents starting tomorrow morning you will see the sun rise over the water as large black hold with sun beams streaming in all directions. The picture above was taken of a similar solar eclipse in a Antarctic sunrise.
Continue reading
“Mount Redoubt is giving Alaskans a taste of life on the Moon!”, Author: Dauna Coulter NASA News
![Lightning flashes in a roiling cloud of ash over Mt. Redoubt on March 27th. Particles of ash rubbing together in the cloud (like socks rubbing against carpet) are partly responsible for the buildup of electrostatic charge. Photo credit and copyright: Bretwood Higman, Ground Truth Trekking. [click for more]](http://www.njnnetwork.com/njn/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/lightning-over-redoubt-240x183.jpg "lightning-over-redoubt")
Lightning flashes in a roiling cloud of ash over Mt. Redoubt on March 27th. Particles of ash rubbing together in the cloud (like socks rubbing against carpet) are partly responsible for the buildup of electrostatic charge. Photo credit and copyright: Bretwood Higman, Ground Truth Trekking. [click for more
Back in Alaska, Miller relates what happened when Mt. Redoubt erupted just last week: “We lost three seismic stations. The one nearest the volcano was fried – probably due to lightning. When you have a tremendous and powerful explosion of ash, the violent movement of all the ash particles generates static electricity and therefore lightning.” Continue reading
![Mt. Redoubt has erupted at least 19 times since March 22, 2009. Alaska photographer Thomas Kerns took this picture of the volcano in action on March 31st. [Larger image]](http://www.njnnetwork.com/njn/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/mt-redoubt-240x212.jpg "mt-redoubt")
Mt. Redoubt has erupted at least 19 times since March 22, 2009. Thomas Kerns took this picture of the volcano in action on March 31st. [click for larger image
“It’s very fine but angular – the sharp edges make it feel gritty and abrasive.” Continue reading
Asimo reads your thoughts
Honda Motors has developed and demoed a new version of Asimo that will respond to your thoughts – scary eh? Called a BMI or Brain Machine Interface robot, it apparently can accurately respond to 90% of your thoughts. Considering the foolishness that goes on in my brain and everyone’s, that might be dangerous. Lots of checks and balances would be good.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcWNE36NNk8
Honda began developing humanoid robots in 1986 and demonstrated Asimo in 2005. While intriguing, stories filtered out that the first demonstrations were highly structured and took immense computing power to execute. According to Honda, Asimo is a demonstration product and not for sale. Just think, part of every Honda auto, lawn mower and motor boat engine sale is going to research this long term project. Continue reading
From Spaceweather
Alaska’s Mt. Redoubt volcano has erupted at least 19 times since March 22nd, and several of the larger blasts have hurled plumes of ash and gas into the lower stratosphere. The GOME-2 (Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment) sensor onboard Europe’s MetOp-A satellite is tracking Mt. Redoubt’s sulfur dioxide clouds, colored red in this 5-day animation: Continue reading