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!

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.

The Maldivian Association for the Advancement of Science (MAAS) is organising an event to view and explore the Moon through telescopes on Saturday 19th March, when the Moon's orbit brings it closest to the Earth it has been in 18 years. The Moon will actually reach perigee (its closest orbital approach to Earth) at 12:10 AM, the 20th March.

The Moon is the Earth's only natural satellite and formed about 4.5 billion years ago as a result of what is very likely to have been a collision between the proto-Earth and a slightly smaller-sized proto-planet whose orbit brought about a collision of the two bodies. The Moon orbits the Earth at a distance of about 30 times the diameter of the Earth and takes 27.3 days to complete its elliptical orbit around Earth. The elliptical orbit means that the Moon travels to the position nearest to the Earth, called the Perigee, and the position furthest from Earth, called the Apogee, once every 2 weeks. Moreover, because the plane of this elliptical orbit also rotates through several years, the perigee and apogee distances also change from year to year. The Moon's orbit will take it as close as 356,577 km away from Earth on 19th March. However, the Moon came much closer, at 356,529 km, on 8th March 1993 and will come even closer, at 356,511 km, on 14th November 2016.

The MAAS Moon viewing event will take place in Hulhumale', on the grounds used to hold the night market (see location on map). The moon viewing starts at 8PM and will go on until 11:30PM. There will be presentations about the moon about every 15 minutes to help everyone get a better understanding.

See you there!

Here is a science experiment worksheet, in Dhivehi, detailing how to make a simple electric motor at home with materials easily available anywhere in the Maldives. I had started preparing it to accompany the talk I gave at Jamaluddin School but sadly, due to my schedule of late and the fact that I'm terrible at Dhivehi, I could not finish it on time and thus was not able distribute it to the students as I had intended. I'm putting it up for anyone who might be interested...

- Dowload howtomakeasimplemotor-dhivehi.pdf

I was invited to give a talk on science last Sunday and today to a group of 6-7 year olds attending Grade 1 and Grade 2 at Jamaluddin School. My talk, titled "The Joys of Science", aimed at getting the students interested in science and spurring them to get hands-on with discovering, making and exploring the world. I have lots and lots of fond memories of doing just that when I was a kid and it was so much fun!

The format of my talk was quite simple. I started out with two very simple experiments the kids could do at home - making a simple motor and exploring acids and bases by making an indicator - that I hoped would entice them enough to actually do it. I ended the talks with little tour of the Universe, Earth and the night sky - an attempt at fostering observation. For my second talk, I added little show-and-tell with a selection from some fossils I had purchased recently since Maldives does not have such items anywhere publicly accessible to anyone. It turned out to be a good decision because they all scrambled to see the 140 million year old Spinosaurus tooth and the 440 million year old fossil trilobite I took. Hopefully, they learnt something from all that...

I'd like to thank Jamaluddin School for inviting me to address the kids. It was my first time addressing such young students and it was a big learning experience for me, to say the least!