APOD 4.7: Clouds & Birds & Moon & Venus

The ethereal-looking photo, which seems nearly computer animated or photoshopped, was taken in 2010, in Spain. Venus and the crescent Moon appeared quite near each other, and during the sunset they were bright against a profoundly blue sky, almost enveloped by the darkly august storm clouds. Birds happened to be flying across the sky while the photo was taking, adding to the surreal appearance. As in many other scenarios however, the dramatic beauty was quite fleeting, as Venus and the Moon set in the sky. Venus will become visible again this May.

Zooniverse Hours Pt. 1

All in all thus far, I have spent about 3.5 hours on Zooniverse, documenting types/appearances of galaxies, and "exploring" the surface of the moon, which entailed labeling craters, boulders etc.

APOD 4.6: Supercell Thunderstorm

The image of what is called a supercell thunderstorm cloud looks like a giant portal in the sky that opened up to drop an ocean of water on that one spot west of Glasgow, Montana, USA. This was photographed last July and thankfully the storm did not really cause damage. It lasted several hours. Such storms are centered on a mesocyclone, a rotating updraft spanning a few kilometers, delivering torrential rains, high winds and tornadoes. On the edge of the supercell are jagged sculptured clouds while dust and rain come from the center.

APOD 4.5: Lunar Eclipses

The very pretty image depicts different sorts of lunar eclipses. The umbra's appearances are derived from images of both partial and total eclipses through its different parts. The images were collected from 1997 to 2011 in Voronezh, Russia with the same optics. The bottom and top are stages from 2006 and 2008 partial lunar eclipses; in the rightside bottom the Moon was entering the umbra (the inner shadow of planet Earth) for a 1997 total eclipse. The bottom shows the Moon leaving the umbra after 2004 totality, while middle right, center, and left are stages of a 2011 total eclipse (this encompasses the deep red phase in the center).

APOD 4.4: ISS Lookout

The image is credited to Chris Hadfield, Expedition 34 flight engineer, while the annotations are credited to Vincent Berseth. The picture shows the space station lookout of Japan's Kibo Research Module. The photo is interesting, as I have never quite known about the structure of such aspects of the International Space Station. There are long solar panels stretching from the upper left, and the ePressurized Module's cylindrical airlock can be found in the lower right. Toward the left one can find what looks like a washer and dryer- these are NASA and JAXA's HREP (near) and MCE (far) respective research platforms. Gold foil experiment in the rear of HREP is the Remote Atmospheric and Ionospheric Detection System. to monitor atmospheric airglow; the MCE includes the Global Lightning and Sprite Measurements instrument that keeps track of atmospheric electrical discharges.

Currently, Expedition 35 is commanded by Colonel Hadfield. The crew is to stay aboard until May.

Astronomy Podcast 4.1: How the World Will Really End

I wanted to know exactly what sort of chain reaction would trigger/occur during the end of all life on Earth, so I listened to Astronomy Cast episode 285.

There are a lot of silly theories as to how the Earth will really end. There is a constant pattern of people trying to frighten others with such theories. Well, I didn't get a straight answer.

Recently there was one theory about a "rogue planet X" coming out of some strange orbit causing a catastrophic polar alignment switching in our own orbit. This extra planet was in the Mayan stone carvings, while some research discusses an extra star, that is coming. -The speaker was sarcastic the whole time while describing this rogue planet theory-  The other speaker was, meanwhile, debunking this theory as there is no giant object obscuring our vision of the sky. No stars are "winking out" as this "rogue planet" heads towards us. Frequently, when these apocalypses don't occur, the most common excuse is that the calculations for timing were wrong.

Solar flares that shake up the Earth's magnetic field, however, are worrying. Communication satellites even lose their lives in the face of solar flares as well.... (all this was relevant because a solar flare recently occurred that may also produce pretty aurorae as discussed in the podcast as a result of these phenomena)

Every year, the Sun, the Earth, and the center of our galaxy roughly line up since the center of the galaxy is in the constellation of Sagittarius, and the Sun of course passes through Sagittarius in December. Some people think this is a sign that some crazy laser alignment is going to come about and cause catastrophes.

A growing black hole slowly eating away at Earth is a possibility in the future. Or, our universe could spontaneously collapse into another.

According to the speaker, our universe is always experiment with itself- particularly with AGN- an active galactic nucleus.

Getting hit by a comet or asteroid is actually the thing that is likely to happen to Earth.  According to all current data, an asteroid could come close to destroying the Earth but is more likely not to actually destroy it. If an asteroid was going to come incredibly close to the Earth, anybody could find out and it would be common knowledge even among amateur astronomers. Passionate astronomers can't keep secrets anyhow! Scientists aren't exactly involved in conspiracy theories.

As for aliens, if there is an alien force that is actually big enough to invade our planet, we would certainly see them coming.

APOD 4.3: A Recent Solar Flare

On April 11 the Sun emitted its strongest solar flare to date in 2013. It was followed by a coronal mass ejection in the direction of Earth.

The picture, taken from the Solar Dynamics Observatory, does not portray the real colors of course as it is in extreme ultraviolet light. The solar flare was an M6.5 class flare erupting from active region AR 11719, which is near the center of the solar disk. The sunspot areas of visible light are regions with intense magnetic fields and they become more prominent as solar maximum approaches. Other glowing areas designate glowing plasma tracing the magnetic field lines. The coronal mass ejection that occured will have an effect on the Earth's magnetosphere, leading perhaps to auroral displays.