I'm An Awesome Guy Blogger

Rose included me as one of her 5 nominations for awesome guy/rockin' girl awards, thanks Rose! It's now my turn to nominate 5 other blogs I feel are worthy of this coveted award. There are just too many to choose from, but off the top of my head.

Anna's; photography is simply stunning, there is one picture she took of a bird that you could see her reflection in the bird's eyeball. Her pictures of the moon are excellent, she is a rockin' girl blogger.

Vienne; has an excellent blog based on eavesdropping on unsuspecting people, you have to give it a try, very unique concept, another worthy rockin' girl blogger.

Aura; Has a spooky interesting blog about the unexplained, but the best reason is her picture, scares me just thinking about it, in a cool sort of way. rockin' girl blogger all the way.

Barbara; Is getting the word out about Jericho, what a great show it is, and that the Nielsen Ratings suck, well the suck is my word. Good choice for all her hard work.

Ross; Has a cool blog with cute animal pics, Quotes and other neat things, but mostly because he plays bass, good choice for awesome guy blogger.

Just to prove I am worthy, I posted a pic of my blue guitar (custom painted by a friend of mine) which matches the blue guitar in the award, it was meant to be, the cat is Spot, named in honor of Data's cat from Star Trek the Next Generation. Spot wasn't going to be in the picture but she kept butting in and ruined a lot of pics, so I finally told her to stay still and look into the camera, and she agreed.

Dark Energy

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 1 scene 5.

Back in 1998 Saul Perlmutter and Brian P.Schmidt discovered through the observations of type 1a Supernovae that the universe was expanding faster then it should be . This was a mind boggling discovery. What was the dark repulsive force that was able to increase the expansion rate of the universe? Michael Turner called it Dark Energy and scientists were able to determine that it accounts for around 73% of the total mass of the universe, 23% consists of something else we have no idea of called Dark matter, in fact everything we see , stars , planets, galaxies and people only account for 4% of the total mass of the universe, thats mind boggling. We don't know a whole lot about the make up of either dark energy or dark matter, we know that it isn't made up of the Baryonic matter, we and everything else we see is, and is only detected through the observations and effects it has on the Baryonic matter around it. If you think about it, your probably being bombarded right now with all kinds of non-baryonic matter
as your walking to the store, driving to work, non-baryonic matter is all around you.

As it stands right now there are 3 possibilities of a dark energy universe. as my above diagram shows.

1."The big crunch", the universe implodes or colapses.

2."Indefinite expansion"

3. "Big rip", dark energy becomes unstabilized and rips everything apart and we all become unglued.

I vote for number 2.

Apollo In Hi-Res

Oh happy day, A Press Release dated August 1st./2007, announces the complete Apollo photo set will soon be available in digital high resolution first generation scans. Right now you can view the complete Apollo photo set at "Johnson Space Center" , but these are copies of copies. I downloaded the picture above of the Apollo 16 Lunar Module and Rover from the Johnson Space Center, which is decent enough, but on the first generation high resolution scans you'll be able to see the photographic grain, wow! It says in the public press release "These photos have great scientific value, despite being taken decades ago". The project is expected to take 3 years, but you should be able to view the first Hi-Res scans in a few months.

A gentile reminder about the Perseid's Meteor Shower this coming Sunday at dusk, with Mars in the NE sky as well as a new moon, it's leading up to be a great show. Also don't forget about the August 28 total lunar eclipse, starting at 4:20am EDT, if you miss this one the next will be February 21/2008 visible to the Americas and parts of Europe.

Moon Passes Gas, Apollo 16 Witnesses

Boy slow day at the office, scientist must have decided to dig up some cold case astro files. I would have gone right by this puppy but Apollo 15's name was mentioned and me being the Apollo nut I am did a little digging, made a few calls, called in a few favors and found out some interesting stuff.

Lunar Transient Phenomenas or "LTP"for short, are short lived phenomena, usually of bright white or red lights coming from the moons surface, apparently they are rarely photographed, the picture above is from 1953. I belong to the "LTP Research Program" and have spent many hours looking at Aristarchus and Plato,(50% and 15% of the LTPS happen in these craters) just hoping for some kind of flash to happen, to date notta, nothing, but there is always hope.

Scientists have discovered a strong relationship between "LTP'S" or "TLP'S" and escaping gases from beneath the moon's surface. "Radon" is a non colored gas but when it is cooled below-96 degrees Fahrenheit it becomes a yellow gas, if the temperature dips below -180 C it actually turns a red color. the Moon's temperature varies between 111C nearside temps to -193C at the darkside.

Apollo 15, detected traces of Radon in the Aristarchus, Kepler and Grimaldi. craters. Below is a conversation between capcom (capsule communication on earth)
and Orion, Apollo 16 lunar module.

Capcom: You talked about something mysterious?

Orion: Ok, Gordy when we pitched around I'd like to tell you about something we saw around the LM (Lunar module). When we were coming about 30 or 40 feet out, there were a lot of objects-white things flying by. It looked as if they were being propelled or ejected, but I'm not convinced of that.

Capcom: We copy that Charlie.

Could the Orion have been witnessing a LTP? I am going to leave you with a cool YouTube video of the descent, ascent and the famous hammer, feather experiment of. "Apollo 15" , a mission summary of Apollo 16, notice the "UFO?" behind Charles Duke and a "."Apollo 16" strange flashes video.

Mars Hoax

It's that time of year again. "The Red Planet Is About To Be Spectacular" is the title of the email that roams the Internet usually in August. The email shows a picture with Mars and the Moon being the same size, top picture above , when in reality the bottom of the two pictures above is how they actually compare in size. For Mars to appear the same size as the Moon it would have to be 90 times closer then it is. It all started when back in August of 2003, Mars was actually the closest to Earth it had ever been, 35 million miles. Every 2.25 years the elliptical orbit of Mars is at its closest point to Earth, in December of this year Mars will come within 55 million miles of Earth, by the way Mars furthest point from Earth is 154 million miles.

Every year since 2004 I have been forwarded this email from someone I know asking if I will be taking pictures or at the very least looking at it with my telescope, and I always end up bursting their bubble by boring them with the truth, which always ends up with them sending out another email stating never mind about the first email it is a hoax. The first year it happened a friend of mine mentioned his sister had sent him an email about Mars being as big as the Moon. Rushing to his computer to view the email; well you know how your brain and experience tell you one thing but you still hang on to something ridiculous? that's how I felt the first time I viewed the "Mars Spectacular" email, I finally came back to reality and explained why it was just totally wrong, his sister sent out another email stating the first was a hoax and all was well. The only mention so far this year has been a friend's friend in Ontario has gotten the email, so beware its out there.