Picture: Freak Beijing storm turns day into night

This photo is unbelievable. It was taken at 11:30 in the morning....

... practice?

Tonight - Look Up!

Of the many celestial sights, this is a beautiful and easy one to appreciate (as long as you have clear skies):

Every once in a while, something will appear in the night sky that will attract the attention of even those who normally don't bother looking up. It's likely to be that way on Monday evening, Dec. 1.

A slender crescent moon, just 15-percent illuminated, will appear in very close proximity to the two brightest planets in our sky, Venus and Jupiter. (SPACE.com)

Video: Man transports 20 bricks on his head!

If this is real, it's incredible:

Video: Amazing Meteor in Canada

I thought this was too cool not to post:



Quote from the story:

"She said there was a flash of light, the house shook twice and it sounded like dinosaurs were walking," Evans said.

Now that's an ironic choice of metaphor.

Photo: Beautiful "flaming rainbow"

I only recently saw one of these in person for the first time:

Technically, it's called a "Circumhorizontal Arc", but don't let that ruin your appreciation of it.

Picture: Large Hadron Collider a Modern Marvel

I'm in a science/picture mood today. If you don't know about the Large Hadron Collider, it's amazing.

Better picture here. NYTimes story here. Gizmodo article here.

Picture: Massive Thunderstorm in Kansas

Scary-cool!

The rest of the images are here.

"Electron Filmed for First Time"

Pretty darn cool:

Scientists have filmed an electron in motion for the first time, using a new technique that will allow researchers to study the tiny particle's movements directly.

Previously it was impossible to photograph electrons because of their extreme speediness, so scientists had to rely on more indirect methods. These methods could only measure the effect of an electron's movement, whereas the new technique can capture the entire event.

Extremely short flashes of light are necessary to capture an electron in motion. A technology developed within the last few years can generate short pulses of intense laser light, called attosecond pulses, to get the job done.

"It takes about 150 attoseconds for an electron to circle the nucleus of an atom. An attosecond is 10-18 seconds long, or, expressed in another way: an attosecond is related to a second as a second is related to the age of the universe," said Johan Mauritsson of Lund University in Sweden.

Using another laser, scientists can guide the motion of the electron to capture a collision between an electron and an atom on film.

Tonight: Total Eclipse of the Moon (last chance until 2010!)

I'd be astronomically remiss if I didn't point this out!

The last total lunar eclipse until 2010 occurs Wednesday night, with cameo appearances by Saturn and the bright star Regulus on either side of the veiled full moon.

Weather permitting, the total eclipse can be seen from North and South America. People in Europe and Africa will be able to see it high in the sky before dawn on Thursday.

Wednesday's total eclipse phase will last nearly an hour. It will begin around 7 p.m. on the West Coast and 10 p.m. on the East Coast. West Coast skygazers will miss the start of the eclipse because it occurs before the moon rises. - Associated Press

During a total eclipse, the moon does not dissapear, rather, it turns a ruddy brown color (a "red moon"), which is actually sunlight being refracted through the earth's atmosphere. Cool, huh? Like this:

Here is the breakdown of when to go outside and look for the moon, from the facebook event page:

In North America (Canada & the US), the Total Eclipse takes place during:

Newfoundland ~ 11:30 p.m. - 12:21 a.m. // Atlantic ~ 11:00 - 11:51 p.m. // Eastern ~ 10:00 - 10:51 p.m. // Central ~ 9:00 - 9:51 p.m. // Mountain ~ 8:00 - 8:51 p.m. // Pacific ~ 7:00 - 7:51 p.m.

As the stargazer Jack Horkheimer (official website) used to say, "Remember: keep looking up!"

"Scientists Get Rare Look at Dinosaur Soft Tissue"

Off my usual news beat, but just too cool to not share:

A high school student hunting fossils in the badlands of his native North Dakota discovered an extremely rare mummified dinosaur that includes not just bones but also seldom seen fossilized soft tissue such as skin and muscles, scientists will announce today.

The 25-foot-long hadrosaur found by Tyler Lyson in an ancient river flood plain in the dinosaur-rich Hell Creek Formation is apparently the most complete and best preserved of the half-dozen mummified dinosaurs unearthed since early in the last century, they said.

...

"He looks like a blow-up dinosaur in some parts," said Phillip Manning, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester in England who is leading the inquiry. "When you actually look at the detail of the skin, the scales themselves are three dimensional. . . . The arm is breathtaking. It's a three-dimensional arm, you can shake the dinosaur by the hand. It just defies logic that such a remarkable specimen could preserve." [More.]