Space – | Beyond Exclamation

The Next Blue Moon in 2021

Beyond Exclamation — Tue, 28 Jan 2020 11:33:30 +0000

Well, we often hear the famous phrase, ‘Once in a Blue Moon’ which is used to define the rarity of an incident. The appearance of an additional moon during a given period can be termed as a blue moon. It is a rare but fascinating phenomenon. The next Blue Moon in 2021 will appear on August 22, 2021. The Blue Moons in the same year will be in the year 2037. The last Blue took place on October 31, 2020.

Generally, blue moons are witnessed only about every two or three years however, in a rare condition in 2018, we saw two blue in one year which were only two months apart – one of them being a lunar eclipse. Different cultures have named these moons according to their occurrence in every month. For example, the full moon appearing in January is the “wolf moon. In the recent times, the term Blue has been applied to the second full moon within a single calendar month. Normally, there are approximately 29.5 days between full moons, hence it is quite unusual for two full moons to fit into a 30- or 31-day-long month.

The Appearance of Blood Moon 2021

The name of every moon was set by a rule followed by the almanac. For example, the Lenten Moon would fall during Lent; during the last days of winter, hence it was called the Lenten Moon. The first full moon of spring was called the Egg Moon — or Easter Moon, or Paschal Moon. This moon would fall before the first week of Easter. The Moon Before Yule and the Moon After Yule. Hence, whenever there appeared four season moons in one season the fourth one was termed as Blue Moon, allowing the other full moons to occur at the proper times in sync to the solstices and equinoxes.

What is a seasonal blue moon? There are 12 months in a year and the length of each month varies depending on the single orbit of the moon around the Earth. The months are further divided into seasons – winter, spring, summer, fall, each lasting for three months and hence we have three full moons.

If any season witnesses four full moons, then the third full moon may be called a Blue Moon. A Blue appeared on November 21, 2010, another was seen on August 20-21, 2013, followed by one on May 21, 2016, and another on May 18, 2019. In the year 2067, a monthly blue moon will appear on March 30, and a seasonal Blue moon on November 20. In this instance, there are 13 full moons between successive December solstices – but only 12 full moons in one calendar year and no February 2067 full moon.

Seasonal Blue Moon is the basically the original astronomical definition of a Blue. Between each astronomical season, that is the time between each solstice and equinox, generally there are three Full Moons. But some years, there are four Full Moons in a season again regarding the fourth one as a blue moon. In 2019, the full moon in May was a seasonal Blue Moon. The equinox on March 20 marked the beginning of, and less than four hours later the first Full Moon alignment was witnessed, on March 21. The second Full Moon was on April 19, and the third, the Blue Moon, on May 18. The fourth and last Full Moon before the June solstice was on June 17.

Hence, we use the term once in a blue, considering its appearance. Since it appears only in two to three years. Someday a blue moon might just appear out of the blue, ironically. The moon that appeared in October 31, 2020, was not look typically blue like you might see in an image online, and blue-colored moons that we draw in pictures but will be a blue one for sure. Photoshop may give you a full blue moon but an original one that appears as a miracle of the universe is a sight to see.

Blue moons are another wonderous phenomenon of nature that makes us appreciate the beaty of the universe we live in. It is an enigma that has taken scholars and experts billion of years to study and understand the functionality and yet we are just half way there.

Blood Moon: The Appearance of 2021

Beyond Exclamation — Tue, 28 Jan 2020 11:24:32 +0000

The moon goes into the earth’s lightest shadow making the eclipse barely visible. This amazing stage or situation is called penumbral. It was predicted that North and South America will see a penumbral eclipse on July 5, 2020 and so will Europe and Africa. Following this, on Nov. 30, 2020, North and South America saw the last penumbral eclipse of the year, including Asia, Australia and the Pacific region. The next Blood Moon will appear on May 26, 2021 which will be visible from the Pacific Ocea, Asia and Australia and large parts of the Americas. A Blood Moon spears only twice in three years. But the number of total lunar eclipses witnessed in a year can vary. This picture sees the Moon completely covered by the Earth’s umbra for over 60 minutes. The entire eclipse, including the penumbral and partial phases, will take 5 hours and 12 minutes.

A total lunar eclipse is the basically what they refer to as blood moon because a fully eclipsed Moon often takes on a reddish color, which was seen during the total lunar eclipse in September 2015. Blood moon is not a scientific word or term. The only other lunar eclipse of 2019 was witnessed on July 16. Coincidentally, Apollo 11 was launched on the same day that is July 16 about 50 years ago, marking its 50th anniversary. It was the first crewed mission to land on the moon. Now, researchers say that 2020 will see four penumbral eclipses, where once again blood moon will be witnessed.

The Appearance of Blood Moon

We need to understand in what situation can a blood moon appear. Firstly, a total lunar eclipse takes place when the Moon travels through the Earth’s umbra and obstructs all direct sunlight from illuminating the Moon’s surface. Despite this, some sunlight still reaches the lunar surface indirectly, through the Earth’s atmosphere, radiating the Moon in a reddish, yellow, or orange glow. Fascinatingly, a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering filters the a few colors in the light spectrum that are leaning more towards the violet spectrum. This happens when the sun rays pass through the atmosphere. The same mechanism is the cause of colorful sunrises and sunsets. The Red wavelengths are barely affected by this effect, so the light reaching the Moon’s surface has a reddish hue, which allows the fully eclipsed Moon to acquire a beautiful red color. The Moon can also look yellow, orange, or brown during a total lunar eclipse which depends on the composition of the atmosphere where the varied parts of the light spectrum are filtered.

The term Blood Moon is also sometimes used to refer to four total lunar eclipses that happen in the span of two years, a phenomenon astronomer calls a lunar tetrad. With at least five uneclipsed Full Moons between them, the eclipses in tetrad take place approximately six months apart.

The Occurrence of Blood Moon

Usually, only about one in three lunar eclipses are total, and about four to five total eclipses can be seen from any single location on Earth in a decade. Due to such mysterious happenings, lunar tetrads are rare occurrences, and can lead to some special beliefs. It can also be foundation of religious customs and superstitious beliefs, or simply fascinating imaginations of the human brain.

In 2014–2015 that saw the lunar tetrad, grabbed a lot of attention because some religious organizations spread the word that this rare appearance can be a sign of the end times. While, some also called the eclipses Blood Moons in reference to a statement in the Book of Joel in the Hebrew Bible, that stated the Sun turning dark and the Moon turning red before the second coming of Jesus.

When the moon does not completely cover the entire sun, it leaves a ring around the edges which is referred to as “ring of fire”. This ring of fire, annular eclipse is predicted to take place on June 10 this year.

2020 witnessed the occurrence of a pair of solar eclipses. An annular took place in central Africa, South Asia, China and the Pacific, on June 21, 2020. Following this, a total solar eclipse happened in the South Pacific, Chile, Argentina, and the south Atlantic on Dec 14, 2020. Well, 2020 was an amazing year for the world to witness some fascinating happenings in the atmospheric realm. 2021 too, has some amazing occurrences that will leave us in awe of the universe. We know that we live in a beautiful world that is full of wonderful happenings. But sometimes we just need to really open our eyes and see the these amazing events to truly appreciate its magnanimous effects.

Here’s a list of all the “blood moons” coming up in the next 10 years and the locations where they will be visible:

All the "blood moons" coming up in the next 10 years

May 26, 2021: North America, South America, Asia, Australia and the Pacific
May 16, 2022: North America, South America, Europe and Africa
Nov. 8, 2022: North America, South America, Asia, Australia and the Pacific
March 14, 2025: North America, South America, Europe, Africa and the Pacific
Sept. 7, 2025: Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia
March 3, 2026: North America, South America, Asia, Australia and the Pacific
Dec. 31, 2028: Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific
June 26, 2029: North America, South America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East
Dec. 20, 2030: North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia

How old is the universe

Beyond Exclamation — Thu, 02 Jan 2020 14:44:59 +0000

Our mind is an intriguing one. We love to imagine, paint interesting stories and even more learn about learn about fascinating facts from history. Where did man come from? Who created us? Who created the universe? These are some of the amazing questions we would love to know facts about. However, one of the most interesting and trending topic today is, how old is the universe? Can we every know the actual age of the universe? It is difficult to understand a few fundamental facts about the universe, its origin, its history, and what it is today and one of them is surely, the Big Bang Theory. Firstly, the universe is 13.8 billion years old. Well, let us look at some facts and details that will answer this question.

Can we ever know the actual how old is the universe?

We know age is just a number, but this number when we are talking about the universe is an important one. How have scientists concluded that the universe is 13.8 billion years old and how are they so sure about it? In simple words, the universe, should be as old as the oldest things we find in it. A hunt for stars is the easiest and best way of an age test of the universe. Now, the universe logically is not younger than the oldest thing found in it. By determining the ages of the oldest stars, scientists can put a limit on the age.

The first moment we can describe the Universe as we know it to be today which is full of matter and radiation, and the ingredients that would eventually grow into stars, galaxies, planets and human beings was 13.8 billion years ago. By looking for what is called the “main sequence turn off” for the cluster, stars in clusters, or agglomerations of stars, all born at the same time, can be most accurately age-dated. Known as Population III stars, the first stars were massive and short-lived. Hydrogen and helium were the core contents of these, but through fusion began to create the elements that would help to build the next generation of stars. Scientists have been hunting for traces of the first stars for decades.

Early stars are not the only way to determine the age of the universe. Global clusters which are dense collections of stars have similar characteristics. The global clusters that are the oldest comprise of stars ages that appear to be between 11 and 14 billion years old. The wide range comes from problems in pinpointing the distances to the clusters, which affects estimates of brightness and thus mass. If the cluster is farther away than scientists have measured, the stars would be brighter, as a result of which it would be more massive, thus younger than calculated.

At first the many independent ways of measuring the age of the universe gave a wide variety of estimates, ranging up to twenty billion years or more, and astronomers argued over whose results were best. But around the end of the twentieth century, the answers began to converge — agreeing on an age in the range of twelve to fifteen billion years. That still left room for vigorous debate. As old tools were refined and yet more new ones were devised, the answer was narrowed down to 13.7 billion years, give or take a few hundred million. It is amazing to learn that the universe is so old and still has so much to offer. Some resources are replenishable. The universe is an awe-inspiring creation and all we can do is just wonder in awe about the great wisdom of the creator.

Space Technology: An Important Innovation

Beyond Exclamation — Tue, 23 Jul 2019 18:22:31 +0000

Man is a finite being with infinite thoughts. One of the most creative thought was to go in search of things that were unseen or maybe seen but out of reach. Yes, it was the space world. With the evolution of technology over the years and a curious mind, human started working on developing technologies that will go far and beyond the galaxy to discover more unknown treasures that have been hidden. Is there life on another planet, what is the moon made up of, are the stars real, what is the temperature on the sun are some of the intriguing questions that led to the introduction astronomy. Space technology, is responsible for rapidly developing, innovating, demonstrating, and infusing revolutionary and high pay off technologies that enable research and discoveries more efficiently.

The beneficial uses of outer space, including strengthening communications infrastructures, disaster management, education, agriculture, environmental protection and natural resource management, had enormous relevance for human development, especially for developing countries

Space-based technologies, namely communications satellites, enable global telecommunications systems by relaying signals with voice, video and data to and from one or many locations. For instance, instead of constructing a series of transmission and relay towers to broadcast television programmes to far-to-reach places, one satellite dish could be provided to a remote community to pick up broadcast signals sent from a satellite.

The Global Positioning System commonly known as GPS was first developed by the military for precision navigation and weapon targeting purposes. However today GPS is used for various reasons and has proven to be a top-notch innovation. Using maps and travel atlases and stopping to ask for directions are now largely anachronisms. GPS has enabled ride-hailing services, as well as package tracking and delivery. It has improved our fitness by tracking our workouts. It has improved our safety by quickly providing our location in emergency situations.

Another popularly cited benefit of space technology is “job creation”, or the fact that a space agency and its network of contractors, universities and other entities help people stay employed. From time to time, NASA puts out figures concerning how many associated jobs a project generates, or the economic impact.

The FireWatch is a technology used to monitor forests and detect fires using high-resolution optical sensors installed on towers or masts and connecting to a remote central office. The sensors can distinguish over 16,000 scales of grey, which allows it to spot developing fires in any weather or during any time of day, with a detection rate of more than 90%. Positioning satellites are used to track endangered wildlife, and a turtle with GPS receiver attached is shown in the video. Today, over 7 million acres of forests worldwide use the technology.

There are numerous benefits of space technology for humans today. Fascinating as it may sound, space technology is a compilation of innovation, passion and hard work of some extremely curious minds who have inspired and intrigued humans by the outer world. Space technology is evolving rapidly and has created an inquisition to know more about what goes on beyond.

Who is Katie Bouman and why is she connected to the first black hole picture?

Beyond Exclamation — Thu, 11 Apr 2019 18:45:10 +0000

Internet is a complex place and being famous on the internet is not always a great thing. But for Katie Bouman, an MIT graduate, who might just be the most famous woman on the internet since Wednesday, it’s all great and dream come true. Her recognition is likely to withstand well beyond the 15 minutes owing to her imperative role in an exceptional and excellent historic development in science.

Katie, a computer scientist, steered the formation of a new algorithm to create the first-ever image of a black hole. That’s right. And, on Wednesday that image was finally released.

While still at school, Katie had developed the program and more recently has been working in secrecy on managing the testing to verify the images of black hole.

In the initial reporting of this historic scientific event of this decade, her fame and contribution, to what she herself describes a big team effort, wasn’t front and center but thanks to social media, she has got the recognition she deserves.

In 2016, Katie gave a TedX talk tiled “How to take a picture of a black hole,” in which she briefly explained that “getting this first picture will come down to an international team of scientists, an Earth-sized telescope and an algorithm that puts together the final picture.”

She had said, “At the heart of the Milky Way, there’s a supermassive black hole that feeds off a spinning disk of hot gas, sucking up anything that ventures too close — even light. We can’t see it, but its event…”

Katie’s role in the development is being reported as predominantly significant due to the shortage of women in STEM around the globe.

This young woman in America has played such a pivotal role in making the ‘impossible possible’ in computer science and is powerful in its imagery. Literally.

Beyond Exclamation is beyond words to describe how thankful we are to her contribution. Take a bow, Katie Bouman.

Names on Mars, Hearts here on Earth!

Beyond Exclamation — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 16:05:12 +0000

Names on Mars, Hearts here on Earth: You might have been aware of the craze that came up recently that went something along the lines of this – NASA would be sending a new spacecraft into space, to be specific, to Mars, in early mid-2018. Now the public became more excited about this since a very important component of this mission called the InSight mission, is to send a whole bunch of names into Mars. How they did it is for later. As of now, read on to know more details about this planned spacecraft to Mars.

Objective: The main and primary objective of the Mars lander would be to place a single lander on Mars soil. That would be stationary and would serve to study the deep interiors of Mars and its cores, extensively, so that it would be able to conduct researches and get to know more about the formation of the rocky planets of the solar system, including our earth. This would be huges step taken in the right direction and would uncover many secrets of our solar system.

Launch: The InSight spacecraft is scheduled to launch any date starting from the 5th of May 2018 to the 8th of June 2018. The carrying rocket will be an Atlas V 401 and will take off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in the US. Interestingly this mission will be the first ever interplanetary space flight mission to be launched from California.

Name chips: As you might have guessed, perhaps the main star attraction of the show is the Name chips aboard the InSight spacecraft. The chips are made of silicon and are roughly about eight square millimeters in area. The program called the “Send your name to Mars” was initiated in 2017 and as of 28th January, 2018, the chips were placed on the deck of the spacecraft. The chips have roughly one point six million names on them and each of them are written super finely with the width of a line exceeding no more than a thousandth of the width of a human hair.

The InSight spacecraft is perhaps one of the most widely popular spacecrafts of all time, and more so because of its wide popularity since NASA started taking in names of people from all around the world. The names will be on Mars, but the hearts of all those people down here on earth will be beating, fast! Kudos to NASA and InSight for this initiative.

A Home Miles above Our Home Planet!

Beyond Exclamation — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 15:47:44 +0000

A Home Miles above Our Home Planet: Unless you are an age old cave man living in some remote undiscovered island on planet earth, in which case you would not be reading this anyway – you must have heard about the International Space Station or the ISS in short. However, in case you do not know what it is all about, the International Space Station is essentially a habitable environment that has been created way up in outer space. It is an artificial satellite that orbits the earth continuously, and hence maps the earth thoroughly among many other diverse roles and jobs.

Purpose: One of the main reasons why human beings continuously go to depths that they have never previously gone in their respective field sis because of their curiosity. The ISS was no exception. As a matter of fact, The main motive behind the establishment of the International Space Station was to conduct extensive research and get to know more about the earth than we had ever done. In case of exploration too – the International Space Station would help out a lot. Last but not the least the implications of this man made marvel would promote education and cultural outreach to an unprecedented extent.

Structure: The assembly and the structure of the station of the International Space Station would go on to be one of the most unique designs ever. It has many modules and components that were constantly being sent up into orbit in the years following its launch, the most important of which included Zarya, Unity, Zvezda, Destiny, Quest, Harmony, Columbus and so on and so forth. All these modules had been designed with specific function sets in mind. They were so efficient that it has been predicted that will safely last for at least more than a decade more with the existing components.

Operations and controls: Life support is one of its main operations, coupled with efficient thermal and power control so as to make communication with earth way more efficient and enable computers to work at their optimal range.

We down here on earth can never fully understand how important this International Space Station truly is until we get a glimpse into how much we come to know about the earth from this man made marvel. This artificial satellite orbits the earth in a low earth orbit and provides data that we would not have been able to receive otherwise. Operating continuously since 1998, the ISS is truly a wonder out of the world.

Reusing beyond Imagination – Reusable Spacecrafts!

Beyond Exclamation — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 15:33:19 +0000

Reusing beyond Imagination – Reusable Spacecrafts: The domain of advent in space exploration and new technologies ranging from the electric futuristic cars that will no longer require any drivers to move from place to place, to rockets that are equipped with some of the best launch rockets that will safely land back on a launchpad to be reused again and again, all this while carrying some rather heavy payloads, if you are thinking Elon Musk behind this all, you are right. Elon Musk- the name itself resonates with other names like Tesla and SpaceX.

What it is: SpaceX is actually the business name of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. which is a private aerospace manufacturing and space transporting company that is based in America and is the brainchild of Elon Musk himself.

Achievements: To say that SpaceX has made many unique and praiseworthy achievements over the years would be an understatement. It was the first private company to put a liquid fueled rocket into orbit, to launch, then orbit and ultimately recover a rocket, to send a spacecraft to the ISS or the International Space Station, to send a satellite into a geosynchronous orbit and so on and so forth.

Setbacks: Behind every success is a failed attempt. SpaceX was no exception to this. There were quite a few instances wherein SpaceX was almost deemed to fail and there was almost no chance of any recovery, but Elon Musk and his team always managed to surprise everyone with their marvellous successes year after year, continuing even now.

Reusable launch systems: It also boasts the first landing of the first stage of an orbital rocket on land as well as on an oceanic platform, the first ever relaunch and landing of a used rocket, the first re-flight of a commercial spacecraft meant for cargo et cetera. The list would go on and on. Kicking off first in 2011-2012, the reusable launch systems and the landing pads have been one of the shiniest gems that SpaceX boasts.

One of the main motives behind the founding of SpaceX was the idea that had taken shape in the mind of Elon Musk that the earth would be too crowded and we would need another place to stay in and prosper. So the colonization of Mars would be the next plausible and feasible thing to look forward to and strive for. With its reusable launch systems and rockets, suffice it to say that SpaceX is going in the right direction, fast.

Space – | Beyond Exclamation

The Next Blue Moon in 2021

Read More >>

Blood Moon: The Appearance of 2021

The Appearance of Blood Moon

The Occurrence of Blood Moon

All the "blood moons" coming up in the next 10 years

Read More >>

How old is the universe

Can we ever know the actual how old is the universe?

Read More>>

Space Technology: An Important Innovation

Read More >>

Who is Katie Bouman and why is she connected to the first black hole picture?

Read More >>

Names on Mars, Hearts here on Earth!

Read More >>

A Home Miles above Our Home Planet!

Read More >>

Reusing beyond Imagination – Reusable Spacecrafts!

Read More >>