لبخند ِ خورشید Solar "Smile"

The sun "smiles" over northern Finland last night during a midnight solar eclipse.
Partial solar eclipses, such as last night's, which is the second of 2011—happen when Earth crosses only through the faint outer part of the moon's shadow, known as the penumbra. (See pictures of January's partial solar eclipse.)
By contrast, during a total eclipse the sun is completely blotted out by the moon as its dark, central shadow, called the umbra, falls in a very narrow strip along Earth's surface.
(See "ring of fire" solar eclipse pictures.)

افق Horizon Event

e partially eclipsed sun swings low over misty mountains in Changchun, China, early this morning.
The first hint of the moon's silhouette taking a bite out of the sun's disk was seen from northern China and northern Japan between 4 and 5 a.m., local time, on Thursday. Shortly thereafter, about 60 percent of the sun went dark over Siberia, Russia.
Moving east to west, the solar eclipse's pathway crossed the date line, so far-northern European observers saw the eclipse around 11:30 p.m., local time, on Wednesday.

Published June 2, 2011

ماه بین گوی زمین و خورشید می آید Hot Show

The moon comes between Earth and the sun—already partly obscured by the horizon—over Changchun, China, Thursday morning.
The next solar eclipse, on July 1, will be even more obscure than tonight's—visible from only a small patch of ocean off Antarctica, said Williams College eclipse expert Jay Pasachoff, whose work has been funded by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. (The Society owns National Geographic News.)
"No airplane flights seem to be passing through that region at the proper time," he said. "So it is probable that no human will see it."

Published June 2, 2011

پاکیزگی کهکشان ها به سبب توفان ها Wind Storms Wipe Galaxies Clean

More active galaxies contain stronger winds, which can blow away the entire gas reservoir in a galaxy, thereby inhibiting both further star formation and the growth of the central black hole.” Quoted from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics press release

تنها در فضا - اختر شناسان سیاره ای تازه یافتند Alone in Space - Astronomers Find New Kind of Planet

This artist's conception illustrates a Jupiter-like planet alone in the dark of space, floating freely without a parent star. Astronomers recently uncovered evidence for 10 such lone worlds, thought to have been "booted," or ejected, from developing solar systems.

The planet survey, called the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA), scanned the central bulge of our Milky Way galaxy from 2006 to 2007. It used a 5.9-foot (1.8-meter) telescope at Mount John University Observatory in New Zealand, and a technique called gravitational microlensing. In this method, a planet-sized body is identified indirectly as it just happens to pass in front of a more distant star, causing the star to brighten. The effect is like a cosmic funhouse mirror, or magnifying lens -- light from the background star is warped and amplified, becoming brighter.

Based on these results, astronomers estimate that free-floating worlds are more common than stars in our Milky Way galaxy, and perhaps other galaxies too.

بستر اقیانوس در زمینلرزه ی ژاپن 65 فوت جا بجا شد Ocean Floor Shifted 65 Feet in Japan Earthqake

Geodetic instruments on the seafloor recorded a horizontal movement of 65 feet during the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that occurred offshore of Japan on March 11, 2011