Mars Hoax Day On August 27, 2012

Mars Hoax Day

August 27, 2012 is said to be a "Mars Hoax Day."

During this day, many people will reportedly receive an email claiming that on August 27th Mars will approach Earth, swell to the size of a full Moon and "will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye."

The Mars Hoax email was first sent in 2003 and it contains the following: 

The Red Planet is about to be spectacular! This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the Last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again.

The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles (55,763,108 km) of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest 75-power magnification

Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. Mars will be easy to spot. At the beginning of August it will rise in the east at 10 p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m.

By the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30 a.m. That's pretty convenient to see something that no human being has seen in recorded history. So, mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grow progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month. Share this with your children and grandchildren. NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN

Mars really did swell to unusual proportions in 2003. On August 27th of that year, Mars came
within 56 million km of Earth—the nearest it has been in 60,000 years. However, the hoax stemmed from a misinterpretation of the sentence "At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye". The message was often quoted with a line break in the middle of this sentence, leading some readers to mistakenly believe that "Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye" when, in reality, this sentence means that Mars enlarged 75 times will look as big as the moon unenlarged.

It is quite obviously scientifically incorrect that Mars, normally never more than a dot in the night sky, could suddenly become visibly large due to normal variations in orbit. If Mars did appear as large as the moon it would be so close that it would cause catastrophic gravitational effects—Mars has about twice the diameter of the moon, and hence would be about 2 times as far away for the same apparent size; it has 9 times the mass of the moon, and would have over twice the gravitational effect (9 times larger mass divided by relative distance (2) squared). Source: Wikipedia

Perseid Meteor Shower August 2012: Upto '100 Meteors An Hour' To Dazzle Skywatchers

Perseid Meteor Shower August 2012

The annual Perseid meteor shower will fill pre-dawn skies with hundreds of shooting stars from August 11-13, 2012, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said.

"We expect to see meteor rates as high as a hundred per hour," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office.  "The Perseids always put on a good show."

NASA said that the Peseid meteor shower can be seen any time after 11 p.m. but the best time to look is during the dark hours immediately before dawn. It further said that the brightest planets in the solar system are also lining up right in the middle of the display.

"Jupiter, Venus, and the crescent Moon are gathering together just as the Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak." NASA wrote. "The alignment occurs in the eastern sky before sunrise on the three mornings of highest meteor activity."

Cooke also said NASA has developed "Meteor Counter," a free app for Android and iPhones to help amateur sky watchers count meteors in a scientific way and report the results to it.

Check out this NASA video describing the August 2012 Perseid Meteor Shower:

Mummy Had Lung Infection At Time Of Death, Novel Method Reveals

Mummy Lung Infection

Scientists discovered that an ancient Incan mummy suffered from a bacterial lung infection at the time of its death, as revealed by a novel proteomics method that shows evidence of an active pathogenic infection in an ancient sample for the first time.

The lung infection was identified after swabbing the lips of a 500-year-old frozen mummy of a 15-year old girl, called "The Maiden."

The scientists then used proteomics, which focuses on protein rather than DNA remains, to profile immune system response from degraded samples. They found that the protein profile from the mummy was similar to that of chronic respiratory infection patients.

DNA analysis also revealed the presence of probably pathogenic bacteria in the genus Mycobacterium, responsible for upper respiratory tract infections and tuberculosis.

"Pathogen detection in ancient tissues isn't new, but until now it's been impossible to say whether the infectious agent was latent or active," said lead researcher Angelique Corthals of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. "Our technique opens a new door to solving some of history's biggest mysteries, such as the reasons why the flu of 1918 was so devastating. It will also enhance our understanding of our future's greatest threats, such as the emergence of new infectious agents or re-emergence of known infectious diseases."

The study was recently published in the open access journal PLoS ONE.

"Our study is the first of its kind since rather than looking for the pathogen, which is notoriously difficult to do in historical samples, we are looking at the immune system protein profile of the "patient", which more accurately tells us that there was indeed an infection at the time of death." or "Our study opens the door to solving many historical and current biomedical and forensic mysteries, from understanding why the plague of 1918 was so lethal, to finding out which pathogen is responsible for death in cases of multiple infections," Corthals said.

Perseid Meteor Shower 2012: Upto '100 Meteors Per Hour' To Fill Pre-Dawn Skies

Perseid Meteor Shower 2012

The Perseid meteor shower, said to be the largest meteor display of the year, will fill pre-dawn skies with hundreds of shooting stars from August 11-13, 2012, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said.

"We expect to see meteor rates as high as a hundred per hour," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office.  "The Perseids always put on a good show."

According to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), the famous meteor shower will be observed with its peak in the late evening and early morning hours on August 12-13, 2012 in the Philippines.

PAGASA added that the meteors are easiest to see if there is no moonlight, light pollution at all and if the weather permits.

NASA said that the Peseid meteor shower can be seen any time after 11 p.m. but the best time to look is during the dark hours immediately before dawn. It further said that the brightest planets in the solar system are also lining up right in the middle of the display.

"Jupiter, Venus, and the crescent Moon are gathering together just as the Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak." NASA wrote. "The alignment occurs in the eastern sky before sunrise on the three mornings of highest meteor activity."

Mars Rover Curiosity's Mission To Connect Past And Future, NASA Says

Mars Rover Curiosity

The mission of Mars rover Curiosity, which lands on the Red Planet in the two days, will draw on support from missions sent to Mars years ago and will contribute to missions envisioned for future decades, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said Thursday.

"Curiosity is a bold step forward in learning about our neighboring planet, but this mission does not stand alone. It is part of a sustained, coordinated program of Mars exploration," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This mission transitions the program's science emphasis from the planet's water history to its potential for past or present life."
 
As the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft places the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars next week, NASA will be using the Mars Odyssey orbiter, in service since 2001, as a relay for rapidly confirming the landing to Curiosity's flight team and the rest of the world. Earth will be below the Mars horizon from Curiosity's perspective, so the new rover will not be in direct radio contact with Earth. Two newer orbiters also will be recording Curiosity's transmissions, but that data will not be available on Earth until hours later.
When Curiosity lands beside a mountain inside a crater at about 10:31 p.m. PDT, Aug. 5 (1:31 a.m. PDT Aug. 6), the 1-ton rover's two-year prime mission on the surface of Mars will begin. However, one of the rover's 10 science instruments, the Radiation Assessment Detector, or RAD, already has logged 221 days collecting data since the spacecraft was launched on its trip to Mars on Nov. 26, 2011.

"Our observations already are being used in planning for human missions," said Don Hassler of Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., principal investigator for Curiosity's RAD.

The instrument recorded radiation spikes from five solar flare events spewing energetic particles from the sun into interplanetary space. Radiation from galactic cosmic rays, originating from supernova explosions and other extremely distant events, accounted for more of the total radiation experienced on the trip than the amount from solar particle events. Inside the spacecraft, despite shielding roughly equivalent to what surrounds astronauts on the International Space Station, RAD recorded radiation amounting to a significant contribution to a NASA astronaut's career-limit radiation dose.

Curiosity's main assignment is to investigate whether its study area ever has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. To do that, it packs a science payload weighing 15 times as much as the science instruments on previous Mars rovers. The landing target, an area about 12 miles by 4 miles (20 kilometers by 7 kilometers), sits in a safely flat area between less-safe slopes of the rim of Gale Crater and the crater's central peak, informally called Mount Sharp. The target was plotted to be within driving distance of layers on Mount Sharp, where minerals that formed in water have been seen from orbit.

"Some deposits right inside the landing area look as though they were deposited by water, too," said John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, project scientist for Curiosity. "We have a great landing site that was a strong science contender for earlier missions, but was not permitted for engineering constraints because no earlier landing could be targeted precisely enough to hit a safe area inside Gale Crater. The science team feels very optimistic about exploration of Mount Sharp and the surrounding region that includes the landing ellipse."

Mission engineers designed a sky crane maneuver, lowering Curiosity on nylon cords from a rocket backpack because the rover is too heavy to use the airbag system developed for earlier rovers.

"We know it looks crazy," said Adam Steltzner of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, leader of the team that developed the system. "It really is the result of careful choices." By designing the aeroshell enclosing Curiosity to create lift and be steerable, engineers were able to build a system that lands much more precisely instead of dropping like a rock.

JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the Mars Science Laboratory for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Source: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Map Of World's Earthquakes Since 1898 Created

Map Of World's Earthquakes (John Nelson)

World's earthquakes since over a hundred years ago have been mapped by John Nelson of IDV Solutions.

Nelson plotted earthquakes that were 4.0 magnitude or greater that had hit Earth since 1898 on a world map. He marked each temblor in a lightning-bug hue that glows brighter with increasing magnitude.

"Here, data from NCEDC.org and the USGS and UC Berkeley have been sliced out into veneers based on magnitude, then glued onto and image that began it's life at NASA's Visual Earth and wrung into the Times projection (centered at the interesting bits)," Nelson writes.

He adds: "The result looks an awful lot like a fleet of Nickelodeon tankers spilled the world's supply of floam."

In total, Nelson was able to mark 203,186 earthquakes on the map, revealing the story of plate tectonics itself.

Nelson's previous work was a map of 56 years worth of tornadoes. He plotted each tornado's path and used brightness for its F-scale (level of intensity). He also added secondary charts for deaths and injuries and frequency by F-scale.

IDV Solutions is a business intelligence software company committed to helping organizations gain more insight from data.

Drinking During Pregnancy Not Exceeding Moderate Levels Is Okay, Researchers Say

Drinking During Pregnancy

Moderate drinking during pregnancy appears to have no negative effect on children, a new study has found.

A group of researchers from Denmark conducted a series of studies which analyzed data from more than 1,600 women in the Danish National Birth Cohort. They classified the amount of alcohol consumed by the women during their pregnancy either none, low, moderate, or high. In addition, binge drinking was defined as having 5 or more drinks on a single occasion.

When the child reached the age of 5, the children underwent various development tests. Researchers found no significant association between prenatal alcohol consumption at low and moderate levels and general intelligence, attention, executive function or IQ.

"We are not encouraging women to drink but we hope to reassure those who have been drinking in the early stages of pregnancy - maybe before they knew they were having a baby - that they don't need to worry about it," said Aarhus University professor Ulrik Schioler Kesmodel.

He added that he and fellow researchers were "really surprised" not to find any evidence of harmful effects in children among pregnant women who had been involved in binge drinking.

However, experts at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine disagree
with the Danish researchers.

In a statement released on Friday, Kenneth Lyons Jones, MD, professor in the UCSD Department of Pediatrics and a renowned expert in birth defects, and Christina Chambers, MPH, PhD, director of the California Teratogen Information Service (CTIS) Pregnancy Health Information Line said the studies are misleading to pregnant women, citing more than 30 years of research to the contrary. 

"This series of studies collected data on alcohol exposure during an interview conducted sometime between 7 and 39 weeks of pregnancy. The quantity and frequency of alcohol consumed was based on mother's recall which may not be accurate," Jones said.

Chambers, meanwhile, pointed out the overwhelming evidence of more than 30 years of research supporting the conclusion that alcohol, especially alcohol consumed in a binge pattern, can be harmful to the developing baby.

"Individual women metabolize alcohol differently, and vary in terms of how susceptible they may be to having an affected child," Chambers said. "Although we do not want to alarm women who find out they are pregnant and realize that they have consumed low levels of alcohol before they knew they were pregnant, we emphasize that a 'safe' amount of alcohol that any individual woman can drink while pregnant is impossible to establish. The best advice continues to be that women should avoid alcohol entirely during the nine months that she is carrying the baby."

Photo courtesy of CDC.gov

Mars Snowflakes Are Smaller Than Earth Counterparts

Mars Snowflakes (Photo: NASA)

Mars snowflakes have smaller sizes than what we have here on Earth, a new study has found.

After collecting data from two Mars-orbiting spacecraft to calculate the size of snowflakes on Mars, a team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists found that Mars snowflakes, which are composed of carbon dioxide rather than water, are as small as the human red blood cells.

"These are very fine particles, not big flakes," said Kerri Cahoy, the Boeing Career Development Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT.

The results of the study suggest that, instead of resembling a blizzard, Mars snow would probably look like fog as it fell.

The researchers also discovered that there are 50 per cent more Martian snow buildup in the south arctic regions than the snowfall over north arctic regions. There are also seasonal variations -- during the winter, the CO2 snow clouds spread to very low latitudes, about half-way to the Martian equatorial regions (much like on Earth).

"For the first time, using only spacecraft data, we really revealed this phenomenon on Mars," Renyu Hu, study coauthor and a grad student at MIT told Space.com.

The study was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, which details the group's results.

Breast Cancer Risk Higher In Women Working Night Shifts

Breast Cancer Risk And Night Work

Breast cancer risk is higher among women who have worked at night, a new study has found.

French researchers recently examined the effect of night work on the health of 3,000 women and found out that the risk of developing breast cancer was 30% higher in those who had worked nights (compared to those who had never worked nights).

This increased risk was particularly marked in women who had worked nights for over four years, or in women whose working rhythm was less than 3 nights per week, because this led to more frequent disturbances between night and day rhythms, the researchers said.

The results of a study were recently published in the International Journal of Cancer.

"Our work has corroborated the results of previous studies and poses the problem of taking night work into consideration in public health management, especially since the number of women working atypical hours is on the increase," said Pascal Guénel, the main author of the study.

Breast cancer remains the number one cause of death in women. It affects 100 out of 100,000 women per year in developed countries. Each year, there more than 1.3 million new cases of breast cancer that are diagnosed.

Early Onset Puberty Linked To Obesity, Broken Families

Early Onset Puberty (Photo: Time)

Early onset puberty is believed to be caused by hormonal imbalance which can be brought about by rising levels of obesity or the stress of family breakdown.

A recent UK study has found that the average age of puberty onset is now age 10, dropping by five years in the last century.

Scientists are unsure about the possible causes but hormonal imbalance caused by obesity is being suspected to be the biggest factor.

"Obesity is the biggest factor that we know of. [But] there's clearly something else. Is it environmental chemicals, is it societal stress? I would say on the evidence, environmental factors are not a major player," said Edinburgh University professor Professor Richard Sharpe, an expert in early puberty at the UK Medical Research Council.

He added that broken families and absent fathers could be triggering the hormone imbalance. He said long-term stress could also be caused by the higher expectations put on girls to achieve at school.

In 2010, a study by US researchers found girls of all backgrounds whose fathers had left home were 2.4 times as likely to develop breasts at a younger age. Many began at nine and some as young as seven, according to a study of 440 girls by the University of California Berkeley.

Asteroid 2012 LZ1 Cruises Safely Past Earth

Asteroid 2012 LZ1 (NASA)

Asteroid 2012 LZ1 passed safely past Earth on Thursday night.

Asteroid 2012 LZ1, a gigantic asteroid classified as "potentially hazardous," is "about the same size" as lasts year's Asteroid 2005 YU55 that came within 202,000 miles from Earth whereupon no asteroid as big had come so close to Earth since 1976.

However, the newly-discovered 1,650-foot-wide Asteroid 2012 LZ1 passed farther from Earth than Asteroid 2005 YU55 and was never close enough to threaten Earth, or to be seen by most backyard skywatchers. During its closest approach at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday, the near-Earth asteroid came within 3.3 million miles, about 14 times the distance between Earth and the moon.

The Slooh Space Camera, an online observatory website, streamed live views of LZ1's flyby that were captured by a telescope in the Canary Islands, off the west coast of Africa.

Although Asteroid 2012 LZ1 never posed much of an impact threat, Slooh Space Camera president Patrick Paolucci said it should still be considered a close brush in astronomical terms.

"It's relatively big and it's pretty close. We talk about distances — 14 moon distances might [seem] pretty far away, but actually it's pretty close," he said in Thursday night's webcast.

Bob Berman, an analyst from Astronomy Magazine, added that the event was "scary" and somehow a wake-up call for astronomers, who only discovered the LZ1 this week.

"The word space certainly means there's room up there, but now it's almost like we're dodging bullets here and there," he said during the webcast. "We thought things like this size, we'd easily detect more than just a few days before they zoom past us. This one is a little bit worse that we could see something the size of a city block and not detect it until just three days beforehand."

X-37B 120614: Secret Mini Space Shuttle May Land Today

X-37B 120614

X-37B, a clandestine mini-space shuttle of the US Air Force, is likely to land this week. Some reports say the much anticipated return of X-37B is happening today, June 14, 2012 (June 15 Manila Time).

Air Force officials, however, said the landing day for the unmanned space plane depends on weather conditions at its intended landing site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, as well as other factors.

The X-37B spacecraft has been in orbit since March 5, 2011 but the Air Force has not issued any information of what the craft is doing or where it is orbiting as they are considered as classified.

X-37B is about 29 feet long (8.8 meters) 15 feet wide (4.5 m), and has a payload bay about the size of a pickup truck bed. It is powered by a solar panel that allows it to stay in orbit for months at a time.

NASA New Discovery Likened To 'Finding Rainforest In The Middle Of A Desert'

NASA New Discovery

NASA describes its new discovery as "dramatic and unexpected as finding a rainforest in the middle of a desert."

A NASA-sponsored expedition has found a massive phytoplankton bloom growing beneath the sea ice in the Arctic.The discovery stunned scientists as under-ice bloom of such size has never been seen anywhere on the planet. The bloom was spotted last summer by a team of scientists collecting field measurements for NASA's ICESCAPE mission, which explores the effects of climate change in the Arctic.

Sampling took place at the multiple sites along two tracks of ice-covered water in the Chukchi Sea, just north of Alaska. According to observations, the bloom extended for more than 60 miles from the ice edge into the sea ice pack and concentrated in the top layers of water near the ocean surface.

Video footage taken below the sea ice at two different study sites contrasts the Arctic's typical barren and dark blue water with the emeral shades of green produced when teeming with phytoplanktons.

The blooms consisted mainly of diatoms -- microscopic plants that make up the base of the marine food chain aand require large amounts of sunlight to grow.

Scientists previously thought blooms were limited to ice-free expanses of open water, where sunlight isn't reflected by sea ice and prevented from entering the ocean. But thinning ice and an increase in melt ponds have allowed more sunlight to reach the water below the sea ice in recent years, which may account for the presence of these massive blooms.

If such blooms are widespread, scientists will have to evaluate the impact of these carbon-consumers on the amount of carbon dioxide entering the ocean, and what that means for our changing climate.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Family dinners help teens? Not so much, says new study

The perceived benefits of family dinners on teens may not be either as strong or as lasting after controlling for other factors, according to a new study.

"There seems to be something unique about the family dinner, but it’s just less of an effect than prior studies have found," Ann Meier, one of the new study’s co-authors and an associate professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, told the MinnPost Wednesday.

"No one had really tested this very rigorously before," she added.

Despite the findings of this study, Meier said that families should still try to have sit-down meals together. But, she added, parents who can’t pull off the family meal on a regular basis shouldn’t feel guilty.

Family meals "may be a nice kind of ritual context for good parenting to happen," she said, but such parenting "can happen in other ways, in other venues."

'Family meals do matter," she added, "but just a lot less than previously reported."

The large new study, published this week in the Journal of Marriage and Family, used data from a sample of 18,000 children from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, a national school-based survey of adolescent behavior that was launched in 1994.

Read more details about the study here: http://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2012/05/family-dinner-not-important-once-thought

Venus Transit 2012 Live Stream From NASA

Venus Transit 2012 Live Streaming

A Venus transit, which occurs when Planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and the Earth, is happening, today. The rare spectacle will not happen again in 105 years.

The transits of Venus occur in pairs with more than a century separating each pair. Since the invention of the telescope, there have been only eight of such events that have occurred - 1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882, 2004 and the upcoming one this June 2012. The 2004 and 2012 transits form a contemporary pair separated by 8 years. The next two transits of Venus will occur on 2117 and 2125.

Today's Venus Transit will be visible in Greenland, North and Central America, Pacific Is., Australasia, Asia (including the Philippines), E. Africa and most of Europe. It will start at 22:09 UTC on June 5th until 04:49 UTC on June 6th. 

NASA is giving us an opportunity to see the historic astronomical event in the comfort of our own homes through their webcast. Hosting the live stream are NASA scientists who will be giving valuable information about the Transit of Venus.

Check out NASA's Venus Transit 2012 live stream below:


If you plan to watch the Transit outside, you must bear the following in mind:

One should take precautions in watching the Sun during these hours as staring at it without precaution can damage one's retina. The safest manner is to project the image of the Sun through pinholes, telescopes or binoculars onto a screen or by using a filter to shield the naked eye.

NASA New Discovery 'Dramatic And Unexpected'

NASA New Discovery

NASA compares its new discovery to "finding a rainforest in the middle of a desert," it's "dramatic and unexpected."

A NASA-sponsored expedition has found a massive phytoplankton bloom growing beneath the sea ice in the Arctic.The discovery stunned scientists as under-ice bloom of such size has never been seen anywhere on the planet. The bloom was spotted last summer by a team of scientists collecting field measurements for NASA's ICESCAPE mission, which explores the effects of climate change in the Arctic.

Sampling took place at the multiple sites along two tracks of ice-covered water in the Chukchi Sea, just north of Alaska. According to observations, the bloom extended for more than 60 miles from the ice edge into the sea ice pack and concentrated in the top layers of water near the ocean surface.

Video footage taken below the sea ice at two different study sites contrasts the Arctic's typical barren and dark blue water with the emeral shades of green produced when teeming with phytoplanktons.

The blooms consisted mainly of diatoms -- microscopic plants that make up the base of the marine food chain aand require large amounts of sunlight to grow.

Scientists previously thought blooms were limited to ice-free expanses of open water, where sunlight isn't reflected by sea ice and prevented from entering the ocean. But thinning ice and an increase in melt ponds have allowed more sunlight to reach the water below the sea ice in recent years, which may account for the presence of these massive blooms.

If such blooms are widespread, scientists will have to evaluate the impact of these carbon-consumers on the amount of carbon dioxide entering the ocean, and what that means for our changing climate.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Transit of Venus 2012: What Time Will It Start?

Transit Of Venus 2012 Path (NASA)

A transit of Venus is set occur on June 5-6, 2012. It will be visible in Greenland, North and Central America, Pacific Is., Australasia, Asia (including the Philippines), E. Africa and most of Europe.

The rare spectacle will last for nearly 7 hours, from 22:09 UTC on June 5th until 04:49 UTC on June 6th.

Here's a sampling of local viewing times: 12:10 p.m. Honolulu; 3:06 p.m. Los Angeles; 5:06 p.m. Mexico City; 6:04 p.m. New York — all on Tuesday — and 5:37 a.m. London; 6:09 Manila; 6:10 a.m. Beijing; 6:12 a.m. Hong Kong; 6:38 a.m. Cairo; 7:10 a.m. Tokyo; 8:16 a.m. Sydney; 10:15 a.m. Auckland on Wednesday.

A Venus Transit takes place when Planet Venus passes directly between the Earth and the Sun. But considering the small size of the planet, the Transit is only seen as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun.

The transits of Venus occur in pairs with more than a century separating each pair. Since the invention of the telescope, there have been only eight of such events that have occurred - 1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882, 2004 and the upcoming one this June 2012. The 2004 and 2012 transits form a contemporary pair separated by 8 years. The next two transits of Venus will occur on 2117 and 2125.

One should take precautions in watching the Sun during these hours as staring at it without precaution can damage one's retina. The safest manner is to project the image of the Sun through pinholes, telescopes or binoculars onto a screen or by using a filter to shield the naked eye.

Venus Transit To Be Visible On June 5-6, 2012

Transit Of Venus 2012 Path (NASA)

A Venus Transit, which takes place when Planet Venus passes directly between the Earth and the Sun, will be visible on June 5-6, 2012. But considering the small size of the planet, the Transit is only seen as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun.

The transits of Venus occur in pairs with more than a century separating each pair. Since the invention of the telescope, there have been only eight of such events that have occurred - 1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882, 2004 and the upcoming one this June 2012. The 2004 and 2012 transits form a contemporary pair separated by 8 years. The next two transits of Venus will occur on 2117 and 2125.

The principal events occurring during a transit are characterized by contacts, similar to the contacts of an annular solar eclipse. They are as follows:

• First contact (external ingress): Venus is entirely outside the disk of the Sun, moving inward
• Second contact (internal ingress): Venus is entirely inside the disk of the Sun, moving further inward
• Third contact (internal egress): Venus is entirely inside the disk of the Sun, moving outward
• Fourth contact (external egress): Venus is entirely outside the disk of the Sun, moving outward.
• A fifth named point is that of greatest transit, when Venus is at the middle of its path across the solar disk and which marks the halfway point in the timing of the transit. 

Wednesday's Venus Transit, with all its four contacts, will be visible in Greenland, North and Central America, Pacific Is., Australasia, Asia (including the Philippines), E. Africa and most of Europe.

In the Philippines, it can be observed from 6:09 in the morning until 12:49 in the afternoon on Wednesday, June 6.

One should take precautions in watching the Sun during these hours as staring at it without precaution can damage one's retina. The safest manner is to project the image of the Sun through pinholes, telescopes or binoculars onto a screen or by using a filter to shield the naked eye.

SpaceX Launches Private Capsule On Historic Mission

SpaceX Rocket Launch (Photo: SpaceX)

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) successfully launched on Tuesday its private space capsule called Dragon, kicking off a mission that will make SpaceX the first commercial company in history to attempt to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station.

Dragon, which was carried by a Falcon 9 rocket, was launched at 3:44 a.m. ET at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and now heading toward the International Space Station. 

“I would like to start off by saying what a tremendous honor it has been to work with NASA. And to acknowledge the fact that we could not have started SpaceX, nor could we have reached this point without the help of NASA… It’s really been an honor to work with such great people," said SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk at a press conference held after the launch. “We obviously have to go through a number of steps to berth with the Space Station, but everything is looking really good and I think I would count today as a success no matter what happens with the rest of the mission.”

Explaining the significance of the day, Musk stated, “This mission heralds the dawn of a new era of space exploration, one in which there is a significant commercial space element. It is like the advent of the Internet in the mid-1990s when commercial companies entered what was originally a government endeavor. That move dramatically accelerated the pace of advancement and made the Internet accessible to the mass market. I think we’re at a similar inflection point for space. I hope and I believe that this mission will be historic in marking that turning point towards a rapid advancement in space transportation technology.”

This is SpaceX’s second demonstration flight under a 2006 Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) agreement with NASA to develop the capability to carry cargo to and from the International Space Station. Demonstration launches are conducted to determine potential issues so that they might be addressed; by their very nature, they carry a significant risk. If any aspect of the mission is not successful, SpaceX will learn from the experience and try again.

Annular Solar Eclipse 2012: What Time Will It Start On May 20?

Annular Solar Eclipse 2012 Time

An annular solar eclipse, also known as a "Ring of Fire" eclipse, is set to occur on May 20, 2012.

If you're wondering what time the rare eclipse will start, reports say it will be at 20:56 UTC and will end at 02:49 UTC on May 21.

However, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), it will be visible only within a 240-300 kilometer-wide track that traverses eastern Asia, the northern Pacific Ocean and the western United States. It will start in eastern Asia -  in southern China, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan- and will then move eastward across the Pacific before entering the California-Oregon area. The Moon's shadow passes in the late afternoon over Nevada, Utah, Arizona, a corner of Colorado, New Mexico, and the annular eclipse ends at sunset in Texas.

A partial eclipse will also be visible in the following areas: most of eastern China, the Philippines, Korea, Japan, Siberia, Alaska, Canada, Hawaii, Mexico and much of the United States except for the eastern seaboard, NASA says.

Experts are reminding everyone not to look directly at the eclipsed sun or they can get a serious eye injury. One should wear specially made protective glasses that is available for purchase online or create his own contraption by punching a small pinhole in a cardboard box.

A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partially obscuring the image of the Sun as viewed from the Earth. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are exactly in line, but the apparent size of the Moon is smaller than that of the Sun, resulting to the so-called "ring of fire."

The phenomenon is said to occur rarely. The last recorded annular eclipse in the United States was on May 10, 1994 and the next one is projected to occur in October 2023.