Today starts the final meteor shower of 2012 with Geminid.

The Geminid meteor shower is scheduled to appear during the night sky between Dec. 13 and Dec. 14.

According to NASA, Geminids are pieces of debris from the 3200 Phaethon, originally considered to be an asteroid, it is now categorized as an extinct comet.

"Basically it is the rocky skeleton of a comet that lost its ice after too many close encounters with the sun," states NASA. "Earth runs into a stream of debris from 3200 Phaethon every year in mid-December, causing meteors to fly from the constellation Gemini."

What could make Geminid the best meteor shower of the year will be the visibility. The moon will be in a new phase during Dec. 13, when the meteor shower is expected to peak at around 2 a.m. local time, but expect some scatters even earlier by 10 p.m.

What does this mean?

It means why sky will be darker, providing better viewing of the Geminids.


In preparation of the final meteor shower of 2012, NASA is scheduling a live web show with experts answering viewers' questions and will stream the meteor shower during from the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

NASA has provided live stream of previous meteor showers, as seen below. Latinos Post will provide live stream feed as the Dec. 13 date approaches.(Source)


Video streaming by Ustream

These super-high-resolution images, made possible by a new type of infrared sensor on the satellite, were revealed here at the American Geophysical Union conference Dec. 5.

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite has a "day-night band" that can detect natural and man-made light with unprecedented resolution and clarity.

It can resolve everything from the nocturnal glow of the atmosphere to the light of a single boat at sea. It can detect auroras, wildfires, the reflection of moon and star light off clouds and ice and the lights alongside highways.

The sensor has six times better spatial resolution and 250 times better resolution of lighting levels than anything that came before it.

The VIIRS instrument works by scanning in 22 different wavelength bands. For each pixel, it uses a low-, medium- or high-gain mode to accurately depict the light from each source. Low-light signals are amplified and bright lights are kept from being over-saturated.

The data from the Suomi satellite is freely available to the public within hours, providing the first look at the Earth at night for most scientists.

Previously, the U.S. Air Force had a suite of night-time satellites with low-light sensors, but the data wasn't nearly as good, was mostly classified, and was available only to a few scientists. (SOURCE)

 This timelapse video was made to look beyond the intrinsic beauty of NASA’s pictures taken from the International Space Station , and use them to tell a story and share the messages sent by the astronauts who worked on the station in the last 11 years.

The story tells about a group of pioneer astronauts, working on the ISS to open a Gateway to space for all humankind. Their static filled voices tell the story of exploration while a day passes on Earth, from dawn to sunset. They are aware that what they are building can’t be of any use for mankind until the people on Earth understand that they must think without borders, promoting cooperation between nations. This is what the astronauts learned by working together and watching our Planet from above.

The astronauts send their wishes to the people down on Earth, their last thoughts fading out as they are flying above an aurora borealis and the lights of the European cities. Then, suddenly, a burst of light and the Gateway to Space is opened.

The ISS gains speed, flying faster and faster to the stars, the astronauts ready to leave our planet, which they see getting smaller and spinning faster and faster, melting borders, oceans and people together, ready to follow them, further up into space.

The focus of the video was on the workflow on colors and harmony of movements, syncing every frame with the music and the voices of the astronauts. Every picture has been post processed individually before being imported in the NLE software, in an attempt to take the most out of every image in terms of colors, contrast and neatness.

Enjoy the video with it's beautiful message to all those on Earth, especially significant during this holiday season.


Further Up Yonder from Giacomo Sardelli on Vimeo.

NASA scientists took time on Wednesday, Nov. 28, to soothe 2012 doomsday fears, warning against the dark side of Mayan apocalypse rumors — frightened children and suicidal teens who truly fear the world may come to an end Dec. 21.

These fears are based on misinterpretations of the Mayan calendar. On the 21st, the date of the winter solstice, a calendar cycle called the 13th b'ak'tun comes to an end. Although Maya scholars agree that the ancient Maya would not have seen this day as apocalyptic, rumors have spread that a cosmic event may end life on Earth on that day.

Thus NASA's involvement. The space agency maintains a 2012 information page debunking popular Mayan apocalypse rumors, such as the idea that a rogue planet will hit Earth on Dec. 21, killing everyone. (In fact, astronomers are quite good at detecting near-Earth objects, and any wandering planet scheduled to collide with Earth in three weeks would be the brightest object in the sky behind the sun and moon by now.)

"There is no true issue here," David Morrison, an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center, said during a NASA Google+ Hangout event. "This is just a manufactured fantasy."

Real-world consequences

Unfortunately, Morrison said, the fantasy has real-life consequences. As one of NASA's prominent speakers on 2012 doomsday myths, Morrison said, he receives many emails and letters from worried citizens, particularly young people. Some say they can't eat, or are too worried to sleep, Morrison said. Others say they're suicidal.

"While this is a joke to some people and a mystery to others, there is a core of people who are truly concerned," he said.


Not every 2012 apocalypse believer thinks the world will end on Dec. 21. Some, inspired by New Age philosophies, expect a day of universal peace and spiritual transformation. But it's impressionable kids who have NASA officials worried.

"I think it's evil for people to propagate rumors on the Internet to frighten children," Morrison said.

Myths and misconceptions

NASA scientists took questions via social media in the hour-long video chat, debunking doomsday myths from the rogue planet Nibiru to the danger of killer solar flares.

In fact, said NASA heliophysicist Lika Guhathakurta, it's true that the sun is currently in an active phase of its cycle, meaning electromagnetic energy has picked up. Large solar flares can impact electronics and navigation systems on Earth, but satellites monitoring the sun give plenty of warning and allow officials to compensate for the extra electromagnetic activity when it hits our atmosphere. What's more, Guhathakurta said, this particular solar maximum is the "wimpiest" in some time — scientists have no reason to expect solar storms beyond what our planet has weathered in the past.


Nor are any near-Earth objects, planetary or otherwise, threatening to slam into our planet on Dec. 21, said Don Yeomans, a planetary scientist who tracks near-Earth objects at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The only close asteroid approach on the horizon is forecast to occur on Feb. 13, 2013, when an asteroid will pass within 4.5 Earth radii to our planet (for perspective, Earth's radius is 3,963 miles, or 6,378 kilometers). The asteroid is not going to hit Earth, Yeomans said.

Other rumors — that the Earth's magnetic field will suddenly reverse or that the planet will travel almost 30,000 light-years and fall into the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy — were also dismissed. (A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 6 trillion miles, or 10 trillion km.)


One popular rumor that the planet will undergo a complete blackout from Dec. 23 to 25 earned a "What?" and blank looks from the panel of scientists.

Ultimately, concerns about Earth's fate would be better focused on slow-acting problems such as climate change rather than some sort of cosmic catastrophe, said Andrew Fraknoi, an astronomer at Foothill College in California.

Mitzi Adams, a heliophysicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, agreed.

"The greatest threat to Earth in 2012, at the end of this year and in the future, is just from the human race itself," Adams said.
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Looking for a celestial show? Well this weekend is the perfect time to look up to the sky for the Leonid meteor shower that's lightening up the night sky. According to ABC News, the meteor shower peaked before dawn on Saturday and is expected to last a couple of nights more.

The meteors, only about a dozen an hour, race through the sky in about a second or less, ABC News reported. Leonid meteor shower's peak came early Saturday morning at about 3 a.m. and was more easily visible in North America.

This year's Leonids were aided by a crescent moon, which allows skygazers to better see the show. It's recommended to head away from the cities to catch the most shooting stars. According to ABC News, those wishing to see the Leonids should make sure to have clear skies and should take time to adjust their eyes to the darknes..

So what exactly lights up the night sky in the beautiful celestial streaks? The debris left behind by comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle burns up, leaving behind bright burning streaks in the atmosphere. According to ABC, the debris comes from the constellation of Leo the Lion.

NBC News reported that those who missed the peak meteor shower on Saturday will have another chance to catch a show in the morning of Tuesday, November 20. If not, the Geminids are expected on December 13, with as much as 100 shooting stars in an hour, ABC News reported.

Not able to escape the city or wish to watch the shooting doors indoors? You can watch NASA's live stream below.


Live video by Ustream

The airplane is a civilian version of the Lockheed U-2 spy plane known as an ER-2 (Earth Resources). The aircraft have been used by NASA as a high-altitude science platform for decades, which is actually one of the cover stories used by the airplane maker and CIA when the airplane was originally being developed. This week one of NASA’s ER-2s will fly three separate eight-hour missions at more than 65,000 feet to collect dust from the Perseid meteor showers.

The airplane is equipped with collectors under each wing (the collectors are not in the picture above) and have clam-shell doors that can be controlled by the pilot. Once at altitude the pilot opens the doors, which exposes surfaces that have been coated with a sticky, sterile silicon oil that collects material — hopefully Perseid meteor dust — from the lower stratosphere.

Once the mission is complete, the doors on the samplers are closed and the ER-2 descends through the atmosphere, making its way back to Edwards Air Force Base in southern California where the Dryden Flight Research Center is located. The samples are sent to the Johnson Space Center in Houston where they are identified and cataloged. Perseid samples collected by the ER-2 are then made available to scientists around the world.

The ER-2 Perseid flights have been taking place since the 1980s. The NASA aircraft have also participated in a wide range of scientific missions including a wide range of remote sensing and mapping projects around the world, hurricane research and other atmospheric sampling programs including some of the original ozone depletion measurements over Antarctica.
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