I’m too busy nowadays to write, but when I saw this today, I can’t resist not to post it…
All I can say is just WOW!
This image was the first light for the Solar Dynamics Observatory or SDO, launched less than 3 months ago. SDO is the most advanced spacecraft ever designed to study the Sun, and the images it returned so far proved that it is.
WOW! Just look at how the materials blow up and then rain back down onto the Sun’s surface. No wonder they call SDO “Hubble for the Sun”!
Exactly 20 years ago yesterday, the Space Shuttle Discovery released the Hubble Space Telescope into Earth orbit. Initially it suffered from a focusing problem, but once the problem was solved, it has since returned tons of data that revolutionised nearly all areas of astronomy.
Hubble is not just for the scientists. Those out of the world pictures returned by Hubble have taken away a lot of breath of the public and scientists alike, such as this present by Hubble for us in conjunction with its 20th birthday:
Nicknamed the “Mystic Mountain”, this image shows a small portion of the Carina Nebula, capturing the top of a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars.
This is how we describe the spiral galaxy M66 below.
Image credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)
M66 is one of the members of the Leo Triplet, which includes M65 and NGC3628. The distorted shape of the galaxy is most likely the result of the gravitational pull of its neighbours.
Tomorrow, March 27, at 8:30 pm sharp, turn off all your lights and let’s us celebrate Earth Hour together.
Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change. I’ve been supporting this event for the last two years, and this year will be no exception.
“I know someone may ask what can we achieve by just turning off the lights for one hour? Ya, 1 hour only, what can we achieve when the rest of the 8759 hours in the year we just don’t care? That’s exactly the point – we want to raise awareness to all humans on Earth that don’t be “don’t care”. It lets us pause and think what we can do to protect the Earth. We, individually, are just one person, but we can still do our small part to fight global warming – save energy, save electricity, save water, save paper, save earth resources…”
Together let us show our support that we care about our living planet!
And if you are in Kuala Lumpur city area this Saturday, why not head over to Planetarium Negara to join their Light Pollution Campaign in conjunction with Earth Hour starting from 7 pm to 10 pm? They are organising a lot of fun activities and would like to invite all to join them.
My Dark Sky 
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