I just scanned over the news headlines of the Maldivian media to see if there has been any mention of the lunar eclipse that is to take place tomorrow morning but, quite unsurprisingly, found none. Anyway, I thought I'd dish out some useful info for anyone interested in it.

Although tomorrows eclipse is a total lunar eclipse the eclipsing will not be visible in the Maldives as the moon sets well before it happens. Instead, Maldives will witness what is known as a penumbral eclipse starting 5:34 AM on 21 Feb (local time) as the Moon enters the penumbra - which, sadly, most likely will not bring about much discernible difference for the naked eye. At the time, the moon will be well on its way to set and can be seen approximately West-Northwest at an elevation of 9.5 degrees in the sky. The moon sets at 6.18 AM, which is well before the partial eclipse phase kicks off at 6.43 AM.

If you are disappointed, then wait for the partial lunar eclipse that is to take place on the 16 of August this year which should be clearly visible throughout the Maldives. As for me, I hope to be up tonight watching this magnificent event here in the UK where the total eclipsing is to be visible - it truly is a wondrous sight after all!

More info:
- NASA page about the 20 February eclipse including the visibility mapping
- General information on eclipses (+ listing of future eclipses)

Hope that was useful.

Just thought I'd share this:

Best Meteor Shower of 2007 Peaks Dec. 13
"What could be the best meteor display of the year will reach its peak on the night of Dec.13-14.

Here is what astronomers David Levy and Stephen Edberg have written of the annual Geminid Meteor Shower: "If you have not seen a mighty Geminid fireball arcing gracefully across an expanse of sky, then you have not seen a meteor."

...

There is a fair chance of perhaps catching sight of some "Earth-grazing" meteors. Earth grazers are long, bright shooting stars that streak overhead from a point near to even just below the horizon. Such meteors are so distinctive because they follow long paths nearly parallel to our atmosphere.

The Geminids begin to appear noticeably more numerous in the hours after 10 p.m. local time, because the shower's radiant is already fairly high in the eastern sky by then. The best views, however, come around 2 a.m., when their radiant point will be passing very nearly overhead."

The full article is at http://www.space.com/spacewatch/071207-ns-geminids.html

As I've said before I find meteoroids very exciting! I surely will be out watching for this meteor shower. Will you?

I gave a presentation titled "Cybernetics and Intelligent Search", as I had mentioned earlier, at the Faculty of Management and Computing at the Maldives Center for Higher Education in late September this year. The presentation went as planned and went well but I'm not too sure what impact it had on the attendees. The presentation was attended by about 20 or so students of FMC but they all kept awfully quiet throughout and especially in the Q&A slot. The only time anyone reacted was during the demonstration of some A.I systems in practice. I guess I have to take comfort in the reassurance by a FMC faculty member present that this was standard response by students!

I am very thankful to Adam Khalid (Assistant Coordinator, Bachelor of IT) and the Faculty for hosting my presentation and arranging it all. I am also grateful to the students who attended the presentation and sat through the entire hour and I sincerely hope that they found it interesting and informative.

I've put up some photos of the event here.

I will be giving a presentation on cybernetics and (more specifically) artificial intelligence at the Faculty of Management and Computing (FMC) of the Maldives College of Higher Education (MCHE) on Monday 24th of September and will run from 11.30am - 1.30pm. I've titled the presentation "Cybernetics and Intelligent Search". Students at FMC (or elsewhere at the college, I suppose) are invited to attend.

My presentation will include a general introduction to cybernetics (and it's sub-fied of AI), notes on some important intelligent search methods and finally some information on the various aspects of my intelligent search-related project at uni this year. I (hope to) have some interesting demo's and simulations packed in as well. There'd also be a Q&A session at the end to wrap things up.

I am doing this presentation towards fulfilling a requirement for my study programme at the University of Reading where I am currently working towards a MEng in Artificial Intelligence and Cybernetics. I hope that I'd be able to take this opportunity to fulfil my university obligations and at the same time impart something of value to everyone who attends.

(Please feel free to pass the message onto any of your friends attending FMC or MCHE. Thanks!)

I would like to request Television Maldives (and do urge them most earnestly!) to obtain permission and translate "Cosmos: A personal voyage" - the award-winning TV documentary series by Carl Sagan. It maybe a bit old by now but the scientific facts and explanations and the presentation of the series make it a remarkable and timeless production that truly is a candle in the dark. It would, or rather should, spark wonder in any young/old curious mind eager to learn and help achieve a better understanding of this crazy world we find ourselves in...

If TVM can find the time to translate and broadcast the utterly unscientific, pseudo-philosophical ramblings of Harun Yahya, then surely can it afford to do the same for some science proper?

There I was gazing up aimlessly into the sky last night when this brilliant white dot showed up out of nowhere. This object was much larger and much brighter than any other object in the night sky these days. I paused for a split second, discounting the possibility of it being an airplane, before I settled on what it most probably was: a meteoroid!

I stared at this relatively rare sight, as the meteoroid moved rapidly across the sky painting a short but very strong streak of light on the dark sky which we usually call "shooting stars". What was really amazing is that the meteor exceeded all the stars in the sky, both in size and brightness, by several magnitudes. The brightest object in the Maldivian night sky these days is Jupiter which can be seen right overhead around 8-9pm local time - imagine something brighter and atleast thrice larger! The famous Perseid meteor shower occurs this month and I suspect this one I saw was among them. However, the peak of the shower (July 25 - August 18) passed earlier this month.

The last time I saw a sizeable meteor was about 10 years ago. I vividly recall that meteor as being very blueish, extremely large and bright and traversed the sky in a blink of the eye to disappear into the horizon - it might have even crashed into the sea somewhere in Male' atoll!

Meteoroids are space debris in the solar system - essentially tiny bits of dust and rock left in the wake of comets in orbit around the sun. The Earth regularly comes into contact with these when it crosses the path of these debris during its orbit around the sun. The debris burn up almost entirely when they hit the Earth's atmosphere leaving that tell-tale streak of light commonly referred to as a shooting star (or "ginihila" as known in Dhivehi). Some of the larger debri may not burn up entirely and pass through the atmosphere to hit the Earth's surface as meteorites. Well, that's the scientific explanation...

I still remember the time I first saw the planet Saturn, with it's glamorous-mysterious rings, on a borrowed low-end refracting telescope. I had spent hours tuning and adjusting for better focus while scouring the sky for that normally elusive close-up of one of the most sought after beauties that the heavens hold. I stood awestruck as the dot-in-the-sky got magnified enough times for my eyes to feast upon. The huge planet floated there in deep dark space peacefully minding its own business - just as it had been since Galileo set his sights on it. The planet was within the grasp of a single eyeful on the telescope yet knowing that it was hundreds of times larger than the Earth (Saturn's volume is over 700 times larger than that of Earth) made the experience all the more surreal!

The whole event changed something deep within me. Looking at Saturn from my telescope on that quiet, dark night made me feel like I was looking at myself on the surface of the Earth from afar. It made me realize how SMALL and INSIGNIFICANT I was! The universe was bigger than me - it was even bigger than the 2 km² island of Male' that I had lived all my life. Heck, it was much bigger than the distance to the furthest place I had travelled. There were an unimaginable number of planets and stars existing for a time much much longer than my (statistically) expected 75 years on Earth. There I was, a mere blip both in space and in time. Till that moment, I had been an arrogant human being just like most others, walking tall and claiming the universe as being almost subservient to my random wishes. The apparent meaninglessness of being a random replicator that infected the surface of a random planet in a random galaxy, in a universe that could boast to contain millions upon billions of stars and planets, is just too overwhelming to be said. Yet, in that moment of understanding, hints of something very elegant, with purpose and more beautiful a meaning than I had supposed shone through brightly.

I would encourage everyone to dish out for a telescope and start gazing at some of the wonders that are out there. If you can't afford one quite yet, then do read up a little about the universe and our solar system and grab a copy of a sky map to help you identify the stars in the sky so you know which is which. The stars would soon loose their role as mere dots of light or hanging lamps on the black canopy of the night sky and become real, tangible objects - as real, as meaningful and often grander than the planet we walk on.

I wish there was an observatory in the Maldives for the public - an amateur one at the least. I surely would build one myself if I had the funds. It would do so much, I believe, to instil a sense of wonder and a much needed appreciation of science (as compared to technology!) in the country and hopefully make people a bit more aware of just how "significant" they really are. Sigh...

PS: Google has added a brilliant new feature to their already awesome Google Earth software - maps of the SKY! Traverse the visible universe on your computer