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Pradipta
As astronomers worldwide are reporting the comet 17/P Holmes to be no longer visible to the naked eye, those who live in darker sites are finding themselves lucky to see the comet more beautiful than ever. It is looking fairly beautiful with its tail, when you observe from any darker sites far from city lights. It could be the outskirts of Kathmandu city, or any village around the country. The comet is now a little higher than Mirphak, best seen with binoculars or backyard telescopes from any city in the northern hemisphere. As the size of the comet has increased so drastically, it has been the largest object in the Solar System for a while.
Spaceweather.com is still reporting on this comet. Find its pictures there.
Comet 17/P Holmes was reported by many last night that it wasn’t simply there! But in fact, it is still there moving across the sky in the constellation Perseus.
It is passing infront of the star Mirphak, so maybe the brightness of this star led your eyes to believe that the comet holmes has disappeared. A closer look with binoculars or telescopes will let you know that it is still there, though it is true it is losing its brightness as days go by.
Hubble has been taking close look at this comet. Take a look at this news article at Kosmandu.com homepage: Click here.
Check Spaceweather.com picture gallery on Comet Holmes: Click here.
Quoted from European Science Foundation.
Space exploration is about to enter a third age where nations will cooperate to explore the solar system.Nicolas Peter, a research fellow at the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), told the meeting in Vienna that the era of launching space missions to bolster national prestige was long past and that new opportunities for cooperation had emerged since the end of the Cold War. He predicted that an imminent third phase of space exploration could inspire nations to work together in a spirit of discovery.
The Vienna conference Humans in Outer Space – Interdisciplinary Odysseys on October 11-12, was billed as “the first comprehensive trans-disciplinary dialogue on humans in outer space.” It brought space scientists face to face with historians, lawyers, political analysts, philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, writers and others. It was organised jointly by the European Science Foundation (ESF), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Vienna-based ESPI.
This year we are celebrating 50 years of Space Age as the International Heliophysical Year.
History changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world’s first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm.or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space race.
The story begins in 1952, when the International Council of Scientific Unions decided to establish July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958, as the International Geophysical Year (IGY) because the scientists knew that the cycles of solar activity would be at a high point then. In October 1954, the council adopted a resolution calling for artificial satellites to be launched during the IGY to map the Earth’s surface.
In July 1955, the White House announced plans to launch an Earth-orbiting satellite for the IGY and solicited proposals from various Government research agencies to undertake development. In September 1955, the Naval Research Laboratory’s Vanguard proposal was chosen to represent the U.S. during the IGY.
The Sputnik launch changed everything. As a technical achievement, Sputnik caught the world’s attention and the American public off-guard. Its size was more impressive than Vanguard’s intended 3.5-pound payload. In addition, the public feared that the Soviets’ ability to launch satellites also translated into the capability to launch ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear weapons from Europe to the U.S. Then the Soviets struck again; on November 3, Sputnik II was launched, carrying a much heavier payload, including a dog named Laika.
Immediately after the Sputnik I launch in October, the U.S. Defense Department responded to the political furor by approving funding for another U.S. satellite project. As a simultaneous alternative to Vanguard, Wernher von Braun and his Army Redstone Arsenal team began work on the Explorer project.
On January 31, 1958, the tide changed, when the United States successfully launched Explorer I. This satellite carried a small scientific payload that eventually discovered the magnetic radiation belts around the Earth, named after principal investigator James Van Allen. The Explorer program continued as a successful ongoing series of lightweight, scientifically useful spacecraft.
The Sputnik launch also led directly to the creation of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In July 1958, Congress passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act (commonly called the “Space Act”), which created NASA as of October 1, 1958 from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and other government agencies.
http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/index.html
Look at this picture from SpaceWeather.com. It’s a composite image of Comet Holmes taken by Sebastian Voltmer of Germany and it shows faint blue tail.
In November 16 last year, a big sunspot was seen on the surface of the sun through the fog in early morning and I made a quick look into it through the telescope. Although you should not be doing this without proper filtering, I prompted at doing it as the fog had made the sun almost invisible. It was a really beautiful thing when I saw it. I had posted a drawing of it in another blog. Nearly one year later the sun seems to be so calm, no any sunspot is seen.
November 16 last year:
Here’s the link to the post http://theastraljournal.blogspot.com/2006/11/new-sunspots.html
Kirk has just started a team for (all the) SEDS (members around the world) at the Cosmology@Home website. Just go to http://www.cosmologyathome.org and download the BOINC software. When prompted enter http://www.cosmologyathome.org. Don’t forget to join the SEDS team on the website (of course after signing up first).
Here’s the SEDS Cosmology@Home page: http://wiki.seds.org/index.php/CosmologyAtHome
Cosmology@Home is a computer application that runs in background when the computer is not in use. The goal is to search for cosmological models that describe our universe and agree with available astronomical and particle physics data.
The application working on its own, calculates the observable predictions of millions of theoretical models with different parameters. These predictions are then compared with actual data:
1) the fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (observed from space by the WMAP and soon the Planck spacecraft, as well as from ground based and balloon based experiments),
2) the large scale distribution of galaxies and clusters of galaxies,
3) measurements of the current expansion speed of the Universe by the Hubble space telescope,
4) the acceleration of the Universe as measured by observations of supernova explosions,
5) observations of primordial element abundances in distant gas clumps, and
6) gravitational lensing data, when it becomes available.
This news article from The Kathmandu Post reports recent effort by some astrologers to reform the prevalent Bikram Era calendar to fix the dates of festivals that have altered in the past two thousand years due to precession of equinoxes. The news article is not, however, totally right. Don’t believe a word said in the first paragraph.
Calendars behind by 23 days
BY PRABHAKAR GHIMIRE
KATHMANDU, June 22 - Are your getting married? Are you observing your father’s or mother’s death anniversary? Be careful, the astrologers’ advice on auspicious dates for conducting such rituals are all wrong, if a report presented by the Festival Reforms National Taskforce (FRNT) to the government Friday means anything.According to the report, the earth’s rotation around its axis at an inclination of 23.5 degrees has resulted in a gain of one day every 72 years. There has been no adjustment for this in calendars since the past 1,656 years. This means that the calendars are behind by 23 days.
Conducting rituals on auspicious dates and at auspicious hours is a widespread tradition in Nepal. Since the calendar our astrologers use to suggest such days and hours is flawed, we have been celebrating even our important festivals on the wrong days, claimed astrologers in the report presented to Minister of Culture,Tourism and Civil Aviation Prithvi Subba Gurung.
FRNT, a 19-member committee, was formed by the ministry on December 12 last year following a controversy over the accuracy of calendars in use. The taskforce, headed by Jal Krishna Shrestha, joint secretary at the ministry, comprises astrologers and religious figures, among others.
Blue Moon doesn’t actually mean a blue colored moon. The second full moon in Solar calendar is called Blue Moon, like it happened May 31st this year. The saying ‘Once in a blue moon’ comes from this very phenomenon.