Archive for July, 2009
Shooting Star -Information and Tips
July 28th, 2009
The beauty of a shooting star crossing the night sky is undeniable, but while for some people this is very romantic, for others it just suggests a bad omen. The perception of the shooting star in various cultures is both varied and suggestive; thus, westerners often make a wish when they see a falling star, while in other parts of the globe, shooting stars tell people that someone is dying. Yet, although we give all sorts of explanations to such sky events, they have a very reasonable and easy to understand scientific background. Beautiful and great as a shooting star may be, it is just false star.
A shooting star is a meteoroid, or some other boulder-sized debris form that falls on Earth and gets on fire at the entrance in the atmosphere. The friction of the air masses, the ram pressure and the presence of the oxygen associated with the incredible speed of the meteoroid cause the star-like appearance. Thus, the combustion of the shooting star is complete before reaching the surface of the planet. Larger meteoroids that don’t burn completely because of their size fall on the ground causing crater formations. Such falling stars are known as meteors.
Scientists can identify the chemical structure of a shooting star by observing the light specter during the descent as well as the trajectory through the atmosphere. Though noticeable with the naked eye only at night, meteoroids and meteors have been reported during the day, but this time they are detected only by radio signals, with the sunlight preventing their observation otherwise. Thus, scientists have determined that a shooting star can be light and fragile like a snowball or heavy and dense because of the hard metal core. A very unusual phenomenon is that of a shooting star that passes through just a sector of the atmosphere without burning completely before resuming its journey in outer space.
A very bright shooting star is called a fireball. The measurements are made by comparing the light intensity of the meteor with that of a planet. As beautiful as it may look, a shooting star can often cause great damage on Earth’s surface if it is not totally combusted during the passage through the atmosphere. Past collisions were devastating for ecosystems, with great flora and fauna damage; should such a shooting star fall in a city, the impact would be that of a bomb dropping with the intensity of the explosion varying according to the size of the meteorite.
Mind Power Throughout History
July 27th, 2009
Your mind is like a magnet, which is something you may not have known. Your mind will attract things that it sees and thinks. The law of attraction deals with this power of the mind. The law of attraction is about believing so strongly that something will happen that it does end up happening. This means that you can have the most amazing life if you just put your mind to it. It may take time, but with practice you can have what you want. Your mind is amazing and powerful.
mind power – We only use about 10% of our minds. It is hard to believe that so much of it is being wasted every day of our lives. We do things the easy way, the way that appears right in front of us not realizing how powerful our minds really are. We complain that our lives are hard and unfulfilling because we do not believe that anything good can happen to us. Because we think negatively we attract more of the same into our lives and create what we don’t want. What we think is what our life becomes.
Your life’s reality begins in your mind. The things in life that you have accumulated have come from your mind power. People are often said to have psychic powers or extra sensory powers, but that is really just advanced mind power at work. When you really want something in life, to get it, all you do is think it. If you expect negative things to happen then that is what you get.
There are some things you can begin to do today to use your mind power more fully. One way to do this is through visualization. Visualization is a powerful tool that can have a noticeable impact on your day to day life. In the process it will expand your mind power and enhance your ability to bring the things you want into your life.
Visualization is done by sitting quietly and using your mind to imagine all of the things you would like to have in your world. Let your mind create picture images of those things. Anyone can use the visualization technique to bring these desires into their subconscious mind. The subconscious mind will then bring them into the world. Hold positive images in your mind and you will have positive results; hold negative images and you will have negative results. Plan ahead what you want to do before you begin your visualization practice.
If you have to, write everything down on a piece of paper, kind of like a story. Think about the goals that you have for yourself so that you have something to go with. Create your visions around those goals. When you write things down, it makes it hard for you to forget. Try doing this several times a day until it becomes a reality in the back of your mind.
Another way to increase the amount of mind power that you have is by affirmations. Affirmations are nothing more than positive bits of encouragement that you give yourself throughout the day. It can be a positive amount of encouragement about anything. For example, you can increase your mind power by saying that you will lose those 10 pounds by the end of the month. Keep telling yourself those positive things, and everything will just naturally start to come to you. It doesn’t matter if you are not used to it at first, anything done consecutively for 28 days automatically becomes a habit.
Another option is to use brainwave entrainment to develop your mind power. This is done through the synchronization of brainwaves using different frequencies through audio technology. The brain is an amazing thing in that it can do more than one thing at a time. Using advanced audio technology you can improve your minds power to heal. This process also improves memory and enhances natural psychic powers. This method is advanced but it can do amazing things.
Hypnosis works to enhance mind power by relaxing and getting into your subconscious mind. Take for instance those who use hypnosis to quit smoking. What do they do? They simply go to a session, relax, and listen to someone tell them over and over again that they do not want to smoke anymore, and that they no longer have the desire, they are ready to quit, and then it happens for them. All they did was get the person who did not believe in themselves to become convinced through their subconscious minds that they can quit.
Mind power is something that everyone has. It is all about believing in it. It is not usually an overnight occurrence, but with time you will change your life and you will draw in good luck. You have to send out those positive vibes and draw them back in to manifest in your life. You just have to start with your subconscious mind and harnessing that mind power.
Astronomy News – An Overview
July 25th, 2009
Astronomy is a subject as large as the universe. That’s because it has the entire universe to explore. Astronomy news is interesting, to say the least, and can be found in astronomy news articles, media reports as well as on web sites such as those maintained by astronomy magazines and agencies like NASA. Here are some recent, tantalizing tidbits of space information.
Astronomy magazine is a great source of current astronomy news. One of the stories it covered was NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft. Just as weathermen examine fronts and the interaction of hot air with cold air and dry air with wet air, IBEX is interested in such fronts and their interaction in outer space. Specifically it’s the interaction of the solar winds with the relatively cold space beyond the solar system. IBEX is also set to map the boundaries of our solar system.
More astronomy news covered by Astronomy magazine is the discovery of a new aurora on Saturn that’s unlike any other known aurora in the solar system. An aurora results when charged particles stream along the planet’s ‘magnetic fields. Earth’s aurorae come from charged particles from the solar wind. Jupiter’s auroras are the result of a closed system of charged particles in Jupiter’s own magnetic fields. Saturn’s aurora, which covers a very large area, has been seen in infrared and will teach scientists a lot about this phenomenon.
Universe today is another source of recent astronomy news. On November 13, 2008 it carried the story of contact reestablished with the Mars rover. The rover had lost contact after running through a massive dust storm. But the Rover named Spirit recovered from a near catastrophic low power period. Its solar panels couldn’t get sun in the dust storm, and scientists feared it would go into a low power coma-like mode from which it would not wake. But it did, and now it’s back to work on the distant red planet.
Another piece of astronomy news on Universe today is the stunning expectation that the new Allen Telescope Array, part of the SETI project, will find intelligent life in about two dozen years. The array currently is made up of 42 antennas, but will expand over time to include 350 small radio antennas that search the sky for signals that mean intelligence. When it finally includes 350 antennas, by 2025, scientists involved with the project say it will reach far enough into space to finally pull in signals from intelligent extraterrestrials.
If that intelligent life is contacted, that will be some big astronomy news.
Astronomy Picture Of The Day
July 24th, 2009
Astronomy is a study of outer space. It can be a serious science, but also a fun hobby. That’s why when a web site or magazine offers an astronomy picture of the day archive, it’s likely to garner a great deal of attention. There are plenty of such pictures to choose from, and plenty of interesting objects out there to keep people looking.
NASA of course is a primary source for an astronomy picture of the day. Their web site, nasa.gov, presents a new photo every day. It also has a multimedia center with video and images. These could be great sources for a person to create their own site that offers a new image each day. On November 5, 2008, NASA’s picture of the day was a close view of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. It was taken by the Cassini space craft as it passed about 1,700 kilometers from the surface. The image is so detailed that features about the size of a bus are viewable. One interesting feature of the ice on Enceladus is that it reflects 99% of the light that falls onto it. Talk about snow blind. The moon is so interesting that Cassini will continue to fly by for more images later in its mission.
NASA’s images of the day go all the way back to June 16, 1995. It was a what if image of the Earth posing as a neutron star. The image is a computer generation. One interesting element is that the constellation Orion in his visible twice. That’s because a neutron star is dense enough to bend light from behind it to the front of it. This causes some double vision.
September 8, 1995 brought a very interesting image of the central part of our own Milky Way galaxy from the NASA COBE Satellite. This image would normally not be visible because the dust in the galaxy obscures it in the visible spectrum. But COBE scans in infrared, so produced the amazing image of our very symmetrical galaxy.
The astronomy picture of the day was the same on January 1, 2000 and January 1, 2001. That’s because most people believe the year 2000 was the first year of the new millennium. In reality January 1, 2001 was the beginning of millennium #3. NASA decided to just go with both. The image found at apod.nasa.gov shows the progression of our picture of the universe from orbs that rotate around the Earth all the way to the big bang event creating an ever expanding cosmos.
NASA has a lot more days with their own astronomy picture of the day. Visit the web site, NASA.gov, to see them.
Astronomy Henge Stone -Information and Tips
July 23rd, 2009
Stonehenge, the English circle of stones, is well known to people as many things – an altar, an astronomy tool and in some stories even a gateway to other times and worlds. But although famous, astronomy Stonehenge isn’t unique. There are other such stone circles all over the world, many containing one astronomy henge stone or even an entire grouping of them. In fact the word henge is an old English word that’s part of the Stonehenge name. Oddly, henge doesn’t mean circle or even stone, it means hang. To create Stonehenge special stones were hung on top of vertical pillars. The name eventually came to denote a variety of similar sites, generally populated by some sort of stone formation within an earthen circle. There is one condition. The circle of stones must be placed within a circle of earth, either raised above or dropped below the surrounding area. If there’s no such earthen circle, the henge is just a circle of stones.
All of these stone henges have some astronomical purpose, even though they’re considered burial grounds or sites for sacrifices. It’s sometimes argued whether or not these stone formations were built for astronomy first, but there’s no doubt of building skill and scientific know how that went into erecting them. The elements that have to do with astronomy include the markings of important dates, such as the summer or winter solstice, when the sun would rise at a point marked exactly by a stone placement. This could include an opening, like a lens, coinciding with the sun’s position. There are many exact ratios and aspects built into Stonehenge. It really doesn’t matter if they were the purpose for the site or added later. They’re still amazing.
A lesser known but no less spectacular henge is the Avebury Henge located in Wiltshire. Many small stone circles surround it, and the town of Avebury is inside it. It is believed that this henge had astronomical purposes as many of its stones, now mostly fallen, had positions that corresponded with key phenomenon. In addition there were elements of ancestry and gender concerns in the design, because it had male and female looking stones. Some experts claim stone selection was purely for aesthetic purposes, however.
It may be a compelling idea to grab an authentic astronomy henge stone to set up in your living room. Aside from the fact that many of these weigh many tons, they completely lose their significance when removed from the earthen circle. Instead, set up your own stone henge at home.
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