Earth picture of the day

last SG · 2006-01-31T14:44:01+00:00

February 18, 2006 The photo above showing a panorama of Yosemite National Park in California was taken in September of 2005 from Glacier Point. Seven indi...

sometimes SG

i think the "trees" u saw was just the mast of the ship lah.... coz now the ship is on the ground mah so the mast is not at that position

RaTtY81 SG

yea i think its real Mr. Green

RaTtY81 SG

January 17, 2006

Above southern Ontario on October 17, 2005, I was treated to a superb view of a condensation trail (contrail) and its shadow. It was just before local sunset (within an hour), so the angle of the Sun was nice and low, and the high cirrus clouds made a perfect projection screen for the shadow of the cloud-like contrail of a jet aircraft. What's interesting about this shadow is that you can see that's not a simple break in the clouds because the shape of the contrail matches very closely with that of the shadow. Note the odd bulges and irregularities of their outlines. In this instance, the shadow was about 2 ½ times the length of the contrail. When the angle of the Sun is too low the shadow gets stretched out and it becomes difficult to discern the shape of the matching contrail. This particular shadow lasted for almost 20 minutes.

Provided by:
Rick Stankiewicz,

RaTtY81 SG

January 19, 2006

Just after classes this past November at the Catholic University in Cordoba, Argentina, students asked me to explain the strange sky shown above. The breathtaking rays were coming from the east, while the Sun was setting in the west (see inset). However, the actual form of these rays was determined by clouds in the vicinity of the Sun. Hence, these are anticrepuscular rays. When conditions are just right, twilight rays from the setting Sun stretch across the sky and converge on the eastern horizon. The fact that the rays appear to converge toward the horizon is due to the observers perspective -- they're actually parallel to one another. At left is the Electronics Engineering building, and at right is the Systems Engineering building on the campus of the Catholic University.

Provided and copyright by:
John Coppens, Catholic University at Córdoba

RaTtY81 SG

January 31, 2006

The photo above showing tufa formations which grace the shores of Mono Lake, California was taken in the early evening of December 3, 2005. Tufa are limestone columns formed by underwater springs rich in calcium that mix with the lake water that's rich in carbonates. Tufa towers grow underwater, some to heights reaching over 30 feet (9 m). Beginning in 1941, diversions of stream water high in the Sierra's, for use primarily in Southern California, has caused the lake water level to fall, exposing the tufa. Recent legislation will allow more stream water to flow into the lake, filling it to levels approaching those of the past.

Also shown on the photo is the rising shadow of the Earth, rapidly approaching from the east -- the pinkish layer atop the shadow is known as the Belt of Venus.

Provided by:
Mike O'Leary

laurence82 SG

Why no such scenery in SG? Crying or Very sad

RaTtY81 SG

SG all concrete forest Sad

RaTtY81 SG

February 1, 2006

The photo above showing a splendid wintry scene was taken from Novi, Michigan on December 16, 2005. A fresh snowfall of about 6 inches (15 cm) coated these deciduous and nearly everything else in a mantle of white. Most of this snow has now melted, as January has been thus far been a mild month in the Mid West and Eastern U.S.

Provided by:
Raj Muddana

askxyz SG

Beautiful.

Unidentified SG

Hills are flaten to build HDB flat for you to live ma

askxyz SG

I think the government is trying to build man-made "scenery" in Singapore.

RaTtY81 SG

February 2, 2006

This king sized snowman was made during the winter of 1999 in Bethel, Maine. It's 113 feet tall (34.5 m), weights approximately 9 million pounds and has entire fir trees for arms! Jim Sysko of Newry, Maine was the designing engineer and construction supervisor of this impressive snow structure. There's no way to roll the segments for something this big, so a circular frame 80 feet (24 m) wide and 4 feet (1.2 m) high was required to stabilize the base so this big boy wouldn't topple. About 60 people helped build it by climbing inside the frame to collect and pack the snow. The frame was then made smaller, more snow was added and packed and this process was repeated several more times until the sought after height was achieved -- kind of like making a huge layer cake of snow. In order to work on the upper most layers, volunteers were lowered into the sprouting snowman by a "cherry picker." The end result was a world record, according to the Guinness Book of Records, surpassing a 96 foot (29 m) monster built in Japan. Big "Frosty" finally melted away on June 10!

Provided by:
Jim Sysko

RaTtY81 SG

February 3, 2006

The photo above showing feathery ice crystals etched on glass was taken from Finland, Kirkkonummi on January 22, 2006. These delicate crystals were formed when water vapor from the humid indoor air condensed on the very cold window glass -- the outdoor temperature was about -20°C (about - 4 F). Once the air temperature drops lower than about -10 C (15 F), vapor will condense on solid objects as hoar frost. Though the window glass looks clean and unblemished, it probably has some scratches or tensions, which resulted in these ice crystal trails -- the width of the ice trails is 5 mm maximum.

Provided and copyright by:
Sari Yli-Koivisto

RaTtY81 SG

02-04-2006

The Venus Fly Trap (Dionaea muscipula) is famous for its rapid motion and carnivorous appetite. Here one has caught a fly, which is seen silhouetted against the green jaws in backlit sunlight. The Venus Fly Trap is found in nitrogen-poor bogs in the southeastern United States, mainly within a 100-mile radius of Wilmington, North Carolina. It has no cousins and is the only member of the Dionaea genus. Dionaea comes from the Greek Dione , a name for Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. Oddly enough, the history of muscipula seems to be lost. Some claim it means mousetrap, from the Latin mus for mouse. Others think it is from the Latin musca, for fly. Does anyone know the real etymology of muscipula?

Provided and copyright by:
David Lynch, Thule Scientific

RaTtY81 SG

02-05-2006

It was certainly worthwhile stepping outside on a cold and frosty winters morning to witness the majestic sight of the waning Lunar crescent, rising in the south-east with Jupiter about 6 degrees above it (upper right). The ghostly image of the full Moon is caused by earthshine - when the Earths clouds and snow cover reflect sunlight back onto the night part of the Moon. This phenomenon is best seen before sunrise or after sunset, when the Moon is within a few days of new.

This photo was captured at 07:34 UT on 27 December 2005 with a tripod-mounted Canon EOS 300D digital camera and zoom lens set to 75 mm. Exposure was 4 Sec @ f/4.5, ISO-200.

Provided and copyright by:
Alan Tough, SIGMA - Moray's Astronomy Club

RaTtY81 SG

02-06-2006

Dry Canyon is at the foot of Mount Timpanogos in the Wasatch Range of north central Utah. This photo was taken in May of 2004 -- a late spring snowfall acts to enhance some of the more subtle geological features. The resistant ridge across the center of the picture is made of dark gray, Great Blue limestone of Mississippian age (Lower Carboniferous Period). In this region, the Great Blue formation alone exceeds 2,500 ft (762 m) in thickness and is part of one of the most continuous marine deposits of the Carboniferous Period (354 to 290 million years ago).

Provided and copyright by:
Doug Pusey, Canyon View Jr. High

RaTtY81 SG

02-07-2006

Stromatolites are finely-layered, bulbous deposits of calcium carbonate built by colonies of cyanobacteria. They were an abundant life form two to three billion years ago, but now are quite rare. The ideal present-day condition for stromatolite formation is warm, shallow, high-salinity seawater with restricted circulation, under which they grow less than a millimeter a day. This photo shows a stromatolite-rich layer that formed in a shallow sea in Morocco some 600 million years ago and then was buried by volcanic and volcaniclastic deposits of the Ouarzazate Group. The stromatolites were later exposed through uplift and erosion of the Anti-Atlas Mountains in the late Paleozoic and Cenozoic. Their remarkable preservation is due to the modern-day arid climate, making it appear that the sea just receded (see Shark Bay, Australia link].

Provided by:
Bill Burton, U.S. Geological Survey

RaTtY81 SG

02-08-2006

The dramatic eruption and subsequent collapse of Mt. Mazama 7,000 years ago uncovered a remarkable cross section of the structure of that volcano, which is visible today on the inner walls of Crater Lake caldera in southwestern Oregon. During the final stages of Mt. Mazama's existence, pressures within the mountain caused large, radial cracks to form within it. In some instances those cracks were forced open and filled with hot, molten rock that later cooled and crystallized into huge vertical slabs of resistant rock, forming what geologists call radial dikes. Devil's Backbone is one of those dikes, standing tall and strong on the western shore of Crater Lake as the softer pumice and lava flows that once enclosed it weather away. The left hand image was taken in the late morning from the rim of the crater, leaving the side of the 'Backbone' facing the camera in the shade. The right hand image (a composite of 2 photos) was taken from the lake later in the afternoon. Note that the triangular slab in the foreground of this image stands 130 m tall (427 ft), dwarfing the pine trees that grow on and around it.

Mt. Mazama/Crater Lake is one of the Cascade Volcanoes of the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The Google Earth tour linked below begins and ends with a view of the Cascade Range.

Provided and copyright by:
Steve Kluge, Fox Lane High School

RaTtY81 SG

02-09-2006

The view above of Mt Monadnock (3,165 ft or 965 m), New Hampshire, was captured on October 2, 2004. This popular New England mountain is climbed (not all reach the summit) by nearly 100,000 people per year -- more than any other mountain in the U.S. The photo shows that steep slopes aren't necessary for mountainsides to crumble. Exposure to winter temperatures suffices -- freeze-thaw cycles. You can also see that the gaps between the granite blocks are too wide to be explained by mere cracking. The detached blocks have moved downhill, even though the slope is too slight for them to slide freely. Frost wedging may have contributed to widening the gaps initially, but they're now many centimeters wide. The blocks must have been displaced by frost creep. Water seeps under the blocks during freezing episodes, and they're "lifted" as the water expands when it freezes into ice. This allows the blocks to shift slightly downhill each winter.

Provided and copyright by:
David Albeck,

RaTtY81 SG

02-10-2006

This handsome image of Saturn was taken on the morning of January 24, 2006, (between 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. local time) from my observatory at John Bryan State Park, in Yellow Springs, Ohio. We used an 11 inch (4.5 cm) diameter scope (C-11), employing my Toucam Pro 2 PC webcam, which was attached to the telescope with a 2.8x Barlow lens. This resulted in an effective focal length of 7,823 mm. The shot above, as well as several others taken on this particular morning, were my best photos of Saturn in about 4 years -- patience is paramount for Mid West observers.

Saturn was at opposition (furthest from the Sun) on the 27th of January, some 887 million miles (1,419,200,000 km) away. It takes 29.4 years for the "ringed planet" to orbit the Sun. The rings are tipped very favorable for viewing now, but a small telescope is needed to actually see the rings. Click on image to see a larger view.

Provided and copyright by:
John Chumack, Miami Valley Astronomical Society
John Chumack, Miami Valley Astronomical Society
Ron Whitehead, Miami Valley Astronomical Society

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