Meteor
Above featured composition:
My canvas painting of the Earth (see my Designs Set) and the metallic base of retro ashtray with some shutter speed play and movement for that swish effect.
if you look closely, you can see my reflection with my camera on the right ; )
* * * * * * * *
A meteor sometimes called a "shooting star," can be the brightest object in the night sky, yet meteoroids are the smallest bodies in the solar system that can be observed by eye. Wandering through space, perhaps as debris left behind by a comet, meteoroids enter the earth's atmosphere, are heated by friction, and for a few seconds streak across the sky as a meteor with a glowing trail.
A brilliant meteor, called a fireball, may weigh many kilograms, but even a meteor weighing less than a gram can produce a beautiful trail. Some of these visitors from space are large enough to survive (at least partially) their trip through the atmosphere and impact the ground as meteorites. Fireballs are sometimes followed by trails of light that persist for up to 30 minutes; some, called bolides, explode with a loud thunderous sound.
How can a particle the size of a grain of sand produce such a spectacular sight? The answer is the speed at which the meteoroid enters the earth's atmosphere. Many meteoroids travel at 60-70 kilometers per second. As a comparison, the shuttle moves around the earth at about 8 kilometers per second.
During its trip through the atmosphere, meteoroids collide with air molecules, knocking away materials and stripping electrons from the meteor. When the stripped atoms recapture electrons, light is emitted. The color of the light depends on the temperature and the material being "excited."
On almost any night a few meteors an hour will be seen from any one place. However, periodically there are meteor showers, with hundreds of meteors emanating from the same apparent spot in the sky. These showers typically last from a few hours to several days. These showers are usually associated with comet paths, and are caused by debris expelled by the comet.
Each day as many as 4 billion meteors, most miniscule in size, fall to earth. Their masses total several tons, seemingly a large amount, but negligible compared to the earth's total mass of 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
"On space walk day, you start off with an exercise period on a stationary bicycle while breathing 100% oxygen through a facemask. After that, the task of suiting up begins. You rely on help from an extra crew member who tugs on sleeves, straightens out wrinkles, locks connectors…. It reminds me of a squire in the Middle Ages helping his knight suit up for battle."
"It takes about six hours from the time you start in the morning until you are ready to open the hatch. After all of this preparation, you will not take lightly to a hatch that does not want to open. That’s what happened to us before our spacewalk earlier this year. The hatch dogs were partly released and allowed the hatch to crack open only 3/8th of an inch. A shaft of brilliant sunlight came through the crack, as if teasing us to come out and play."
"Fortunately, experience gained by owning an old pickup truck with cantankerous doors came in handy. With a little jockeying on the handle and some soft-spoken words, the hatch came open and we started our day."
"If we were chasing bad guys, I am afraid they would be well into hyperspace by now."
"In the sci-fi movies, astronauts can quickly don their spacesuits and in short order, be out the door into the vacuum of space. They’re always in a hurry to chase bad guys, alien monsters, or look for holes in the hull spewing out precious atmosphere," ISS science officer Don Pettit.
NASA and other organizations have developed a sophisticated weather monitoring device.
This NASA Global Climate Model (GCM) is used to see how Earth's climate is changing.
A GCM calculates many things, such as how much sunlight is reflected and absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, the temperature of the air and oceans, the distribution of clouds, rainfall, and snow, and what may happen to the polar ice caps in the future.
.
Meteor
Above featured composition:
My canvas painting of the Earth (see my Designs Set) and the metallic base of retro ashtray with some shutter speed play and movement for that swish effect.
if you look closely, you can see my reflection with my camera on the right ; )
* * * * * * * *
A meteor sometimes called a "shooting star," can be the brightest object in the night sky, yet meteoroids are the smallest bodies in the solar system that can be observed by eye. Wandering through space, perhaps as debris left behind by a comet, meteoroids enter the earth's atmosphere, are heated by friction, and for a few seconds streak across the sky as a meteor with a glowing trail.
A brilliant meteor, called a fireball, may weigh many kilograms, but even a meteor weighing less than a gram can produce a beautiful trail. Some of these visitors from space are large enough to survive (at least partially) their trip through the atmosphere and impact the ground as meteorites. Fireballs are sometimes followed by trails of light that persist for up to 30 minutes; some, called bolides, explode with a loud thunderous sound.
How can a particle the size of a grain of sand produce such a spectacular sight? The answer is the speed at which the meteoroid enters the earth's atmosphere. Many meteoroids travel at 60-70 kilometers per second. As a comparison, the shuttle moves around the earth at about 8 kilometers per second.
During its trip through the atmosphere, meteoroids collide with air molecules, knocking away materials and stripping electrons from the meteor. When the stripped atoms recapture electrons, light is emitted. The color of the light depends on the temperature and the material being "excited."
On almost any night a few meteors an hour will be seen from any one place. However, periodically there are meteor showers, with hundreds of meteors emanating from the same apparent spot in the sky. These showers typically last from a few hours to several days. These showers are usually associated with comet paths, and are caused by debris expelled by the comet.
Each day as many as 4 billion meteors, most miniscule in size, fall to earth. Their masses total several tons, seemingly a large amount, but negligible compared to the earth's total mass of 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
"On space walk day, you start off with an exercise period on a stationary bicycle while breathing 100% oxygen through a facemask. After that, the task of suiting up begins. You rely on help from an extra crew member who tugs on sleeves, straightens out wrinkles, locks connectors…. It reminds me of a squire in the Middle Ages helping his knight suit up for battle."
"It takes about six hours from the time you start in the morning until you are ready to open the hatch. After all of this preparation, you will not take lightly to a hatch that does not want to open. That’s what happened to us before our spacewalk earlier this year. The hatch dogs were partly released and allowed the hatch to crack open only 3/8th of an inch. A shaft of brilliant sunlight came through the crack, as if teasing us to come out and play."
"Fortunately, experience gained by owning an old pickup truck with cantankerous doors came in handy. With a little jockeying on the handle and some soft-spoken words, the hatch came open and we started our day."
"If we were chasing bad guys, I am afraid they would be well into hyperspace by now."
"In the sci-fi movies, astronauts can quickly don their spacesuits and in short order, be out the door into the vacuum of space. They’re always in a hurry to chase bad guys, alien monsters, or look for holes in the hull spewing out precious atmosphere," ISS science officer Don Pettit.
NASA and other organizations have developed a sophisticated weather monitoring device.
This NASA Global Climate Model (GCM) is used to see how Earth's climate is changing.
A GCM calculates many things, such as how much sunlight is reflected and absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, the temperature of the air and oceans, the distribution of clouds, rainfall, and snow, and what may happen to the polar ice caps in the future.
.