The Super Moon 2013!

Everyone, today on Sunday 23rd of june 2013, its the super moon. The moon today would be the biggest and the brightest moon of this year. Stargazers and astronomers will get a rare chance to observe the year's largest fullmoon. 

The moon will be at its closest distance(the Perigee) to Earth in its orbit, a distance of 356,991 km(221,823 miles). Astronomers believe that the supermoon can cause natural disasters. This Sunday's full moon will have an effect on high and low ocean tides.    

 In India, people can watch the supermoon all night after 6.40 pm on Sunday. But the best time to view the full moon is between 4.30 am to 5.30 am (7 am EDT) on Monday when it is very close to the horizon.

One can follow their website on Slooh.com or also watch the live stream that will start on 23 June at 6 pm EDT and 9 pm EDT. Viewers can also download Slooh iPad app from the iTunes store to watch the phenomenon live on their PC, MAC and mobile devices.

The Great Attractor!!!

The Great Attractor is far bigger than a galaxy. In the terminology of astronomers, these are clusters of galaxies containing maybe hundreds of galaxies, and superclusters containing many clusters.
The Norma Cluster is the closest massive galaxy cluster to the Milky Way, and lies about 220 million light-years away. The enormous mass concentrated here, and the consequent gravitational attraction, mean that this region of space is known to astronomers as the Great Attractor, and it dominates our region of the Universe.

Our galaxy, along with other galaxies in our local group, is currently rushing at a speed of nearly 1,000km per second towards the Great Attractor which is about 220 million light years away from us.

This Great Attractor has a mass of nearly 100 quadrillion times greater than our sun and span of 500 million light-years, and is made of both the visible matter and dark matter.
So in a way its a massive black hole which is pulling us.
This motion can only be accounted for by gravitational attraction, even though the mass that we can observe is not nearly great enough to exert that kind of pull. The only thing that could explain the movement of Andromeda is the gravitational pull of a lot of unseen mass--perhaps the equivalent of 10 Milky Way-size galaxies--lying between the two galaxies.

Meanwhile, our entire Local Group is hurtling toward the center of the Virgo cluster at one million miles per hour.
If you want to know more about The Great Attractor and the theories behind it click here:
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/03/mystery-of-the.html

Mr. Einstein in space!!

On 5 June 2013 a specially adapted Ariane 5 rocket placed the 20.2 tonnes of the ATV-4 ‘Albert Einstein’ into orbit. The ATV-4 is the heaviest payload that Ariane has ever carried into orbit. The cargo resupply ship named Albert Einstein—officially called the Automated Transfer Vehicle-4—is on its way to the International Space Station loaded down with supplies. 

The ATV ‘Albert Einstein’, designed and built by Astrium, is the fourth unmanned European transport spacecraft for the International Space Station (ISS). This is the 55th consecutive successful launch of Ariane 5, with a new payload record of 20.2 tonnes.  It is carrying over 2500 kilograms of supplies to the station. It’s a total of 1400 separate items, including food, water, clothing, equipment, even air. Once the port is cleared, ATV-4 can approach and dock. That’s scheduled for June 15, 2013.

A Movie made from ATOMS!!!!

If someone tells you or asks you about a movie made from atoms!! The first thing that comes to you would probably be , is that person crazy???? THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!!!

But now IBM has made this possible and has already made a very short movie with atoms!!!! YES, you read right it is true now.

IBM researchers have successfully made a movie called "A Boy And His Atom-The World's Smallest Movie". The researchers have made this movie using a Scanning Tunneling Microscope for moving the atoms  for each frame. Now sit back and enjoy the movie: 

The ability to move single atoms, one of the smallest particles of any element in the universe, is crucial to IBM's research in the field of atomic-scale memory. In 2012, IBM scientists announced the creation of the world's smallest magnetic memory bit, made of just 12 atoms. This breakthrough could transform computing by providing the world with devices that have access to unpredictable data storage. This movie has been verified by Guinness World Records™ as The World’s Smallest Stop-Motion Film.

Lets have a look at its making:

DANCE OF THE PLANETS!!!!!

Be sure to catch a trio of planets – Mercury, Venus and Jupiter – in the deepening western twilight during the final week of May, 2013. The sky chart above is for tonight (May 23). And notice that the planets are low in the west: they’ll follow the sun beneath the horizon around nightfall. So go outside early to look for them. Find an unobstructed horizon in the direction of sunset. All three planets will appear near the sunset point on the horizon at dusk. Is this a triple conjunction or a planet conjunction.

 If your sky is clear, you should be able to see the sky’s brightest and second-brightest planets – Venus and Jupiter, respectively – popping out some 45 minutes (or sooner) after sunset. About one hour after sunset, there’s a good chance that you’ll see Mercury pairing up with Venus. We are now hearing from people around the world that Mercury is visible to the eye. At mid-northern latitudes, Mercury and Venus set around one and one-quarter hours after the sun. So look for them in bright twilight! From May 24 to 29, all these planets will be less than 5o apart from one another. In the parlance of stargazers, this is called a planetary trio. Typical binoculars cover about 5o of sky, so look for these three planets to fit within a single binocular field in late May 2013!