Lyrid meteor shower to light night sky this weekend – KING5.com

Stargazers may get a good glimpse of the Lyrid meteor shower this weekend. The annual meteor shower peaks Saturday and Sunday, but there’s a slight chance for an early preview Friday night – if the weather permits.

“Perhaps,” said KING 5 Meterologist Jeff Renner. “Clouds are clearing in many areas, and that bodes well for the Lyrid meteor shower.”

Lyrid meteors are dust particles from the Comet Thatcher. Every year in late April, the Earth passes through a stream of debris from the comet. Dust particles collide with the Earth’s atmosphere at speeds of 110,000 mph, producing a light show.

“Typically, about 10 to 15 meteors or meteorites are visible per hour,” said Renner. “However, this year, we have a ‘new’ moon, which means dark skies and conditions favorable for seeing more meteors. Incidentally, the peak of the Lyrid shower is actually Saturday evening/early Sunday morning. That’s when I plan to look for some.”

A network of NASA scientists, amateur astronomers and an astronaut on board the International Space Station will attempt to capture the first-ever 3-D photography of the meteors from Earth and space.

“We’re going to try to photograph some of these ‘shooting stars’ simultaneously from ground stations, from a research balloon in the stratosphere, and from the space station,” said Bill Cooke, the head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. 

Catching a meteor moving as fast as 17,000 mph, however, will take some luck.

“Actually, we think the odds are fairly good,” said Cooke, who estimates a 1 in 6 chance of a simultaneous catch between the ISS and one of the wide-field ground cameras.

Amateur astronomers who wish to help monitor the 2012 Lyrids are encouraged to download the Meteor Counter for iPhones.  The app records meteor counts and reports the data to NASA for possible analysis.

For more information, visit NASA.gov.

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“Speed of light” experiment professor resigns

Freak chance was mostly to blame for the record warm March weather that gripped two-thirds of the country, with man-made global warming providing only a tiny assist, a quick federal analysis shows.

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“Speed of light” experiment professor resigns

ROME | Fri Mar 30, 2012 7:22am EDT

ROME (Reuters) – The Italian professor who led an experiment which initially appeared to challenge one of the fundaments of modern physics by showing particles moving faster than the speed of light, has resigned after the finding was overturned earlier this month.

Italy’s national institute of nuclear physics INFN said on Friday that Antonio Ereditato had stepped down as coordinator of the so-called OPERA experiment but had no comment beyond saying it “took note” of his decision.

It was not immediately possible to reach Ereditato for a comment.

The experiment measuring the speed at which sub-atomic particles called neutrinos travelled from the CERN research centre in Geneva to Gran Sasso in central Italy at first appeared to show they had flown the 730 km stretch 60 billionths of a second faster than light.

Had it been confirmed, the finding would have disproved Albert Einstein’s 1905 Special Theory of Relativity, one of the foundations of modern physics and cosmology, which holds that nothing in the universe can travel faster than light.

The result of the experiment was later called into question by separate experiments and CERN said the OPERA result appeared to be the result of a measurement error or malfunction.

(Reporting by Ilaria Polleschi, writing by James Mackenzie Editing by Maria Golovnina)

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Where darkness throws light on a global issue – The Hindu

THE HINDU Top) Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi with full lights and (below) after the lights were switched off to mark Earth Hour on Saturday. Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

Many opt to put out lights for an hour at 8.30 p.m.

Many Delhiites opted to switch off their lights for an hour at 8-30 p.m. on Saturday as part of Earth Hour-2012 and became part of the world’s largest voluntary action for contributing towards a sustainable environment.

Various businesses establishments and communities joined in this voluntary act to spread the message of hope and action to protect the one thing that unites us all — the planet.

Rashtrapati Bhavan too switched off all lights in the building’s exterior. Other popular landmarks, including India Gate, Qutub Minar and the Red Fort, national defence establishments, universities, several hotels, cinema complexes and few shopping malls across the city also participated in the event.

Social networking sites burst into action minutes before the ‘switch-off’ time, with environment action groups urging the people to contribute towards joining in this voluntary initiative.

WWF initiative

The Earth Hour is an initiative of WWF and is listed amongst the largest mass movement for awareness on reducing carbon footprints. “Last year, a total of 5,251 cities were part of Earth Hour and 1.8 billion people participated in the campaign. This hour-long campaign is organised annually on the last Saturday of March. This year, we hope to reach out and include more people in our movement,” said an official of WWF-Delhi.

Said Rashmi Pal, an employee at the Capital Le Meridien: “We had switched off all major lights in the hotel and in areas where this wasn’t possible we dimmed the lights by 40 to 60 per cent. The guests were informed earlier about the hotel’s participation in Earth Hour celebrations and we got a very good response from them. The central lawn of the hotel was lit up with candles and the guests were invited to participate in the celebrations here.”

Celestial view

The Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) set up telescopes at India Gate between 7.30 p.m. and 9.30 p.m. for the public to view celestial objects.

“Very often too much light pollution in metropolitan cities allows those living in the urban areas to see only the Moon and few other celestial objects even in clear skies, and the Earth Hour, we thought, would be a good opportunity to help members of the general public take a look at the views of the night sky through telescopes to become more aware of how much more you can see when ambient lights are lower,” said an official with SPACE.

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