Saturday, July 30, 2016
Sunsets And Sounds: Inside The Philippines' Best Villa
US military plane has unplanned landing in Russia
Philippines, southern China brace for storm 'Carina'
Friday, July 29, 2016
Nazi Germany's Battleship Bismarck vs. America's Iowa Class: Who Wins?
The Forbidden City’s 600-year-old plumbing keeps it dry as the rest of China floods
Biggest Spacecraft to Fall Uncontrolled From Space
Business
The Blue Angels Are Getting a Super Upgrade
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Putin and Erdogan to meet for first time since jet downing—they have lots to talk about
Next week, a meteor shower created by a mysterious comet will reach its peak — here’s how to watch
Right now, we are in the middle of a meteor shower called the Delta Aquarids, which began around July 12.
Around July 28 and 29, the Delta Aquarids will reach their peak. Although the shower favors the southern hemisphere, northern observers won’t be completely left in the dust. During this peak, you might be able to see as many as 20 meteors an hour.
After the peak, the Delta Aquarids will continue until around August 23, overlapping with the Perseid meteor shower (which peaks in mid-August).
How to watch
The best time to watch the sky for these shooting stars is in the hours between midnight and dawn, around 2 or 3 am.
Because Delta Aquarid meteors can be a little faint, it’s important to look for them in a dark sky, free of moonlight and artificial lights.
Since the beginning of August marks a new moon, the peak of the Delta Aquarids will be blessed with waning crescent moons, which means darker skies and more visible meteors.
If bad weather or bright lights are preventing you from catching any meteors, Slooh, an online observatory, will be offering a live broadcast of the meteor shower from an observatory on the Canary Islands. See the broadcast stream below.
During the broadcast, professional astronomers will discuss the meteor shower and take questions from the public.
What causes a meteor shower?
The orbits of comets are often a little lopsided.
When a comet swings too close to the sun, the sun's light boils its icy surface, releasing particles of ice and dust.
This debris follows the comet's path, forming a tail that points away from the sun. As Earth crosses the orbit of this comet, we pass through the tail.
The gravity of our planet attracts the dust and ice that the comet has left in its wake. When the debris is pulled into our atmosphere, it rubs up against air molecules, causing the debris to burn up and streak through the sky.
This results in glowing trails of light that we see as meteors, or "shooting stars."
The comet producing the meteors in the Delta Aquarids is a bit of a mystery. According to EarthSky, it was originally thought to come from the Marsden and Kracht sungrazing comets. More recently, the Comet 96P Machholz that was discovered in 1986 has been the prime suspect.
A small fraction of Delta Aquarid meteors leave something called a persistent meteor train, which is a glowing trail that can linger for a couple seconds after the meteor has shot by.
The meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, but if you trace their paths back, they all appear to come from the same point: the radiant. That's because the meteors are all approaching us at the same angle. Meteor showers are all named after the radiant that the meteors can be traced back to.
The radiant point for the Delta Aquarids is nearby star Skat, or Delta Aquarii.
Delta Aquarid vs. Perseid meteors
To figure out whether you’re seeing a Delta Aquarid meteor or a Perseid meteor, you can trace the meteors backward through the sky to find their radiant. According to EarthSky, the Delta Aquarids will appear to radiate from the nearby star Skat, or Delta Aquarii, which is in the constellation Aquarius the Water Bearer.
If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, the Delta Aquarids will be appear to come from the south, while the Perseids, radiating from the constellation Perseus, appear to originate in the northeast or north.
In the Southern Hemisphere, the Delta Aquarids will appear to radiate from just about overhead, while the Perseids will dart up from the northern horizon.
Check out the livestream from Slooh on Thursday, July 28 below:
New Zealand invite to US Navy marks end to nuclear stalemate
SYDNEY (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that the U.S. had accepted an invitation to send a Navy ship to New Zealand for the first time in three decades, signaling an end to a stalemate between the two countries that was sparked by New Zealand's anti-nuclear policy.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key announced during a joint news conference with Biden in Auckland that New Zealand had invited the U.S. to send a ship to participate in the Royal New Zealand Navy's 75th anniversary later this year. Biden, who is visiting New Zealand as part of a tour of the Pacific, said he had gladly accepted the offer.
"It will be yet another expression, another expression of our close and cooperative relationship between both of our countries that we've worked together so hard to strengthen," Biden said.
No U.S. warships have been allowed to visit the country since the 1980s, when New Zealand introduced its nuclear-free policy. Because the U.S. won't officially confirm or deny if its ships have nuclear capabilities, New Zealand's default position has long been to ban them from its waters. But as military relations have improved between the two countries in recent years, speculation had grown that New Zealand would allow the U.S. to participate in its anniversary celebration.
"It would be very odd for us to have all of our friends and acquaintances there, sending ships to celebrate our 75th Naval commemorations, and yet on the same point not have the United States there," Key told reporters.
Key still needs to formally sign off on the ship visit. The prime minister said he did not yet know what type of vessel the U.S. was planning to send, but said it would still need to comply with New Zealand law, which requires that he be satisfied that any ship entering the country's waters has no nuclear capabilities.
"We've found a way of respecting one another but agreeing that we've got a different position on these matters," Key said.
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