Showing posts with label mount rainier. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mount rainier. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

April 22 2020 - Earth Day Shadows

It is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.  There's a picture of the first Earth Day, 1970 in New York City, and lots of young people are wearing masks.  We would have a similar picture today, but would be six feet apart and likely a few years older.  For Earth Day this year, our reduced impact due to COVID-19 is being shown with pictures showing the reduction of pollution, showing wild animals walking down main streets, and the song of spring birds being noticeably louder.  There are many things about this Earth Day that will become historical.

Earth Day made me think about the scale of things and as I looked at a large bank of clouds was on the eastern horizon this morning, they seemed to look like a mountain range.  

Did you know that mountains cast shadows into the sky? Mt. Rainier in Washington State casts a triangular shadow into the sky in a picture from the top of the mountain  HERE. Triangular shadows are not seen from objects much smaller than mountains because their shadows are not long enough.


Perhaps as part of Earth Day, we should look at the Earth's shadow. The Earth casts a shadow which is viewable after sunset.  Here's the explanation:  "After sunset look eastwards. A low horizon is needed but not a volcano. As twilight deepens a dark band rises upwards from the horizon, The band is the shadow of the Earth on the atmosphere. Immediately above, where the evening air is still lit, glows a pink band called the anti-twilight arch or "Belt of Venus". The pink arises from scattered and deeply reddened sunlight mingling with the deep blues of the eastern sky. Look westwards before sunrise to watch the shadow sinking towards the horizon. The shadow is a three dimensional void of unlit atmosphere. The sky high above the shadowed air is bright because it is still sunlit and the air scatters light down to the eye. "

And what about the picture of Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan's photograph of his own shadow cast on the coal black lunar surface December 1972?

"His shadow, or more accurately his camera's, appears to be surrounded by a bright glow.  Cernan's shadow, like many images on the Moon's surface, is surrounded by a bright aureole.  It is an example of the "Opposition Effect".

"Lunar soil has an open structure with many areas of deep shadow.  But, when looking in a direction directly away from the sun, shadows are hidden by the object casting them.   The antisolar point and the adjacent areas therefore appear brighter than elsewhere because they have more sunlit surfaces and less shadow. There are other factors that contribute to the glow, retroreflection by crystalline minerals and a phenomenon called coherent backscattering. The heiligenschein, also at the antisolar point, is a separate effect."


There are no representations of the earth in my database, but there is a picture of Mount Rainier posted last September when we visited Sacramento.  The second is a piece of plastic with drew drops at a gas station.  
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Saturday, September 21, 2019

Autumn? Wait for It

Don't we think of Autumn as starting on September 21st?  Well this year it starts on Monday, September 23rd. It will begin at 3:50 am.

So should you start practicing to balance an egg on its end in preparation for the day? It is said that it will be easier to balance the egg vertically on a flat surface on the equinox days.  This is a myth - the amount of sunlight has no power over the gravitational pull of the Earth or our abilities to balance things on it.  The story goes that if you are good at balancing things, you can balance an egg on its end any day of the year.

I haven't seen the Google car. These cars have been everywhere regularly.  How could I not have seen it? It would help if I knew what the google car looks like.

How do you become a Google Street Map driver?  The story goes that Google puts out ads on Craigslist, Adecco, and similar sites with a generic job title - 'City block driver' is an example.

Drivers have quotas to meet, driving from a starting point to a destination point.  They have difficulties and hazards with the job.  There are many who don't want streets or people mapped. Here's a picture that looks like a swarming - who know if it is friendly or the opposite.  Places and people have tried to stop Google from taking Street Map images of their places.  Even Mark Zuckerberg.
The 5 Weirdest Things I Saw Driving For Google Street View

And there are the strange things that are captured.  Here's the famous 'God Sighting' - or maybe it is Mary and Jesus - click on this YouTube link  to see that one. You can see some of the weird, rude, disturbing sightings.   Here are some in the mashable.com article HERE.  They have titles such as:
  • Bums up for Google
  • Italian cycling apparel
  • Marriage in Rome 
  • Death in Rome (weird costumes abound)
We've touched on Google Street View. There are unusual Google Earth Map images such as the airplane boneyard, mysterious desert pattern, swastika-shaped building complex, Giant Triangle, and many more.

Today's picture comes from our airplane ride travelling from Sacramento to Seattle.  I assume this is Mount Rainier.  It's in the articles on the 7 most scenic US Plane rides.  It was great to be able to get a picture of it.


 
 
Read past POTD's at my Blog:

http://blog.marilyncornwell.com