As I had mentioned in a post sometime ago, there is a total lunar eclipse taking place on 15th June 2011 and it will be visible in the Maldives. The (nearly) full Moon on the night will go very dark and undergo dramatic color changes.

The lunar eclipse taking place on 15th June will be a central eclipse, with the Moon passing through the center of the Earth's shadow, which will make the Moon appear very dark during the umbral (total) phase. Moreover, with the umbral phase lasting 100 minutes, this eclipse is among the longest eclipses that we will be seeing this century! By comparison, the longest lunar eclipse of this century happening on 27th July 2018 will be central and 103 minutes long (which, Maldives will be able to see in totality as well!).

The penumbral phase of the eclipse starts at 10:25 PM and partial eclipse starts at 11:23 PM on 15th June. The Moon will loose its bright white color and slowly turn into a reddish/orangish color during this period. Total eclipse begins at 12:22 AM of the next day, 16th June. The whole Moon will be very dark and will likely appear a coppery red color for the 1 hour 40 minutes that the total phase lasts. Mid eclipse is reached at 1:13 AM and the eclipse ends at 4:01 AM on 16th June.

The weather forecast is looking promising with only very little rain predicted. Hopefully there will be clear skies for the whole night. Unlike for solar eclipses, you will be able to view it directly with the naked eye. If you are a photographer, you might want to get your gear out and ready!

There is another lunar eclipse that will be visible in the Maldives taking place at the end of the year on 10 December 2011. That eclipse starts at 4:34 PM and reaches mid eclipse at 7:32 PM, which doesn't make for as good viewing as the one this month.

More info:
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OH2011.html#LE2011Jun15T
http://eclipsegeeks.com/MapTotalLunarEclipse15June2011.aspx

Nishan has posted a really gorgeous photo of the night sky he recently took from the island of Guraidhoo. His long exposure photo, directed South at a low angle above a nearby uninhabited island, shows the nice circular star trail left by the rotation of the Earth against the canopy of the night sky.

There are a couple of bright star (trails) in the photo. The first bright star from the left of the photo is Alpha Centauri. It is the fourth brightest star in the sky and is the closest star system to Earth. Although it appears as a single star unmagnified, is actually a binary star system (two stars orbiting around each other). The bright blueish star trail next to that of Alpha Centauri is left by Beta Centauri, again a single star to us that actually is composed of three distinct stars. A line through Alpha Centauri and Hadar point to the top star of the Crux (Southern Cross) constellation. The five stars of the Southern Cross appear in the middle of the photo, with the four bright ones visible in a distinct cross pattern. The Southern Cross is called so because the top and bottom stars point very close to the (celestial) South.

However, what I really liked about Nishan's photo is that it is the first picture of the Maldivian night sky posted online that I've seen that shows clearly our galaxy, the Milky Way. You can see the Milky Way in the picture as a faint haze extending across the trail of stars. That haze is, trivially said, because of the increased concentration of stars towards the galactic center. Our Solar System is very far from the galactic center that affords us this beautiful scene of the busy and bustling center of the galaxy!

Maldivian Association for the Advancement of Science (MAAS) has not held a public event for a few weeks now but we resume with activities this week again with two public presentations scheduled for tonight.

The two presentations are by Dr. K. Sivakumar, Assistant Professor at Faculty of Marine Sciences, Annamalai University (India). He specializes in marine actinobacteria.

Marine Actinobacteria from Indian Islands

This is a research presentation on marine actinobacteria (MAB) and will touch on the following:
- Introduction on Actinobacteria & MAB
- Biotechnological Potentials of MAB
- Indian Research on MAB
- Identification (16S rDNA based) of MAB
- Phylogeography of MAB from Andaman, Nicobar and Gulf of Mannar Islands.

Time: 20:30 PM-21:30 PM
Venue: Auditorium, Mandhu College

Climate Change and World Reefs

This lecture will focus on climate change and world reefs and will touch on the following:
- UNFCCC
- Coral Reefs
- Threats to Coral Reefs
- Climate Change Induced Impacts on Coral Reefs World over
- Darwin Atolls and Climate Change
- Indian reefs

Time: 21:30 PM-22:30 PM
Venue: Auditorium, Mandhu College


Hope to see you there!

Martin Robbins, who authors the "The Lay Scientist" science blog at The Guardian, has posted an article titled which mentions my magnetic implants and the research on magnetic implant based human-machine interfaces.

I like the last line on the article!:

"Jawish Hameed is not 'Magnetoman', but there's something quite amazing about a species that, given five wonderful senses with which to experience our world, sets about trying to build a sixth."

- Read Magnetic kids, and the scientist with magnets in his fingers

I've been asked about the gathering of planets in the sky a few times the past several days and especially today since Sun published an article in Dhivehi on their website. Here's some information that may be useful for those curious to catch it in the sky and hopefully clears up some of the misinformation floating about...

Four of the planets in our Solar System (Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter) have been inching closer together since the second half of last month and will appear in the tightest clustering on the 10th and 11th of May. Unfortunately, the four planets first show themselves on the horizon from the East at 4:15 AM in the Maldives. The best hope of catching them all together is around 4:50 AM - 5:05 AM but the glow of the rising Sun, which is following the four planets closely in the sky, may quickly hinder your ability to observe them so near the horizon. There is a good chance of seeing Venus as it is the brightest, followed by Jupiter while the other two planets may be very hard to spot with the naked eye.



Conjunctions of planets like these happen quite often but a conjunction of 4 planets this close together is considered to be rare. The planets appear to be so close together for us observing from the Earth because all the planets in our Solar System have nearly the same plane of orbit and their orbits around the Sun have lined them them up closely within Earth's perspective - for the moment (see image below).



A helpful way to demonstrate or imagine this might be to lay a large object on a table (to represent the Sun), and lay five other small objects (to represent the four planets and the Earth) at different distances away from the large object to represent planets in their orbits. Choose the third small planet object away from the large Sun object, which represents the Earth, and arrange the other small objects so they line up while looking from the perspective of the Earth object but still lie on their own orbital path.

Remember, there is a total lunar eclipse that is visible in the Maldives next month with the penumbral phase beginning at 22:25 PM of 15th June and the total phase beginning at 00:22 AM of 16th June!

On April 12, 1961, a 27 year old Soviet cosmonaut called Yuri Gagarin was launched into space aboard the Vostok-1 spacecraft and spent 1 hour 48 minutes in orbit around the Earth. With that, he became the first human to ever leave the bounds of our little planet and ushered humans to space.

Maldivian Association for Advancement of Science will join the Global Astronomy Month's global Yuri's Night celebrations with a local event to mark the occasion of this landmark human achievement. The event will take place at Seahouse Café, Male' on 12th April from 8pm-11:30pm and will include electronic down-tempo DJ set by local music trio Trinity Test and the screening of the movie First Orbit (shot entirely in space, recreating Yuri Gagarin's pioneering flight) as part of its global premier.

It's a time to celebrate, so come and join! Join the MAAS Facebook page to keep up with their events.

The Maldivian Association for the Advancement of Science (MAAS) will host a Saturn Watch event on 2nd April to participate in the series of similar events being held across the world to mark the Global Astronomy Month (GAM). The event will run from 8pm to 23:30pm at the abandoned stage area South-East of Mr. Chico's at the Artificial Beach in Male'. The event features an opportunity to view Saturn through a telescope, listen to presentations and explore the planets and night sky through interactive media.

Saturn, the 6th planet from the Sun and 3rd planet from the Earth, is a very unique planet in our Solar System and shines bright in the night sky with a reddish tint. Saturn is classed as a gas-giant as it is mostly made up of Helium and Hydrogen gas and not solid matter like the Earth - which does mean that you would not be able to stand on it and there is no surface to stand on as such. It takes Saturn about 30 Earth years (nearly 11,000 days!) to complete a revolution around the Sun. Saturn has beautiful prominent rings around it, made up of particles of mostly water ice, that is both surreal and humbling to look at through a telescope. Also beautiful to see is Titan, one of Saturn's 62 moons, which can be seen to be hanging speck of light just a little bit away from Saturn.

The Global Astronomy Month, which has its roots in the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) which was celebrated internationally in 2009, is dedicated to astronomy and observing the sky and is organised by Astronomers Without Borders. There is a host of global events scheduled for GAM2011 and MAAS will be participating in several with local events.

Come and join us on the day to get a glimpse of Saturn, its surreal rings and at least one of its moons! And if you are keen on stargazing and would like to learn a few constellations, remember to ask about the Crux (Southern Cross), Scorpio and the Big Dipper which are currently visible in the night sky.