A Golden Pot

Spring temperature suddenly arrived. Toronto's temperature is now well above 22 degree Celsius. Today, a warm front arrived from south west and brought a hot,humid weather . To surprise us more, a beautiful rainbow formed just above Toronto downtown. Sun rays hit small water drops in the atmosphere with a certain angle. The result is breakdown of the sun light into seven colors.Mix of a cloudy sky,sun and Toronto city created a magnificent picture of nature and the city.
Picture captured 6:30 a.m.May 15,2013,

Home Sweet Home Or Astronauts Coming Home

A Canadian astronaut is leaving the ISS and will touch the ground shortly tonight after 5 months in orbit. Chris Hadfield will land in Kazakhstan around 10:30 pm Canadian Eastern Time.Live broadcast here. Sending hundreds of images from earth made him most famous astronaut in history.He went around earth 15 times a day in a speed of 8 Km per second, He saw sunrises and sunsets 15 times a day from 450 to 500 Km above earth surface. He pictured many active volcanoes, rivers,forests, clouds and sand dunes. He have a picture for each occasion.You may watch some of those fantastic pictures here:

His humble and down to earth attitude made him a cool, lovely astronaut. He shared his experiences with  world through Twitter, Facebook,talking to TVs and radios stations and above all school kids.
 He called every picture where we live.
He Tweeted 15 hours before returning to earth:
Good morning, Earth! We're supposed to be sleeping late to be rested for tonight's Soyuz flight home, but I'm finding it hard to sleep in.

This is his last picture that he send to his Twitter and Facebook. He comments on the picture:

Spaceflight finale: To some this may look like a sunset. But it's a new dawn.

It is a new start for space Odyssey. To understand and to appreciate mother earth and unlimited space above us we need many people like Chris Hadfield. Even he made the first space video music clip by singing and playing David Bowie Space Oddity,s song which attracts many attention to YouTube. Welcome back to earth Commander.

Space Junk Goes to Heavens

 Modern technology helps us to reach as far as moon and Mars. Satellites and iridium satellites give us instant access to every corner of the world.
Iridium are communications satellites  The Iridium satellite constellation is a large group of satellites providing voice and data coverage to satellite phones, pagers and integrated transceivers over Earth's entire surface. So far 66 Iridium Satellites undertaking the earth communications. So sky is quite busy all the times.Add weather networks, military and commercial satellites.Add scientific devices such as Hobble telescope.Add high altitude jets and rockets. Add the biggest  international scientific station in space (ISS).Add the waste from ISS including washroom waste which shoot toward the earth to be burn by contacting to the air.Including all flying objects you may conclude that a huge amount of precious metals and debris flying over us.It is true.So it is time to think about space jam and space junks.
Satellites are tracked by United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN), which has been tracking every object in orbit over 10 cm (3.937 inches) in diameter since it was founded in 1957 (after former Soviet Union launched Sputnik).There are approximately 3,000 satellites operating in Earth orbit, according to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), out of roughly 8,000 man-made objects in total. In its entire history, the SSN has tracked more than 24,500 space objects orbiting Earth. The majority of these have fallen into unstable orbits and incinerated during reentry. The SSN also keeps track which piece of space junk belongs to which country.
Satellites have an operating lifespan between five and 20 years. As of 2008, the former Soviet Union and Russia had nearly 1,400 satellites in orbit, the USA about 1,000, Japan more than 100, China about 80, France over 40, India more than 30, Germany almost 30, the UK and Canada 25, and at least ten each from Italy, Australia, Indonesia, Brazil, Sweden, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea.

According to Sixth European Conference on Space Debris(22-25 April 2013 Darmstadt, Germany), Since 1957, more than 4,900 space launches have led to an on-orbit population today of more than 22,000 traceable objects, with sizes larger than 10 cm. Approximately 1,000 of these are operational spacecraft. The remaining 94% are space debris, i.e. objects which no longer serve any useful purpose. About 64% of the routinely tracked objects are fragments from some 250 breakups, mainly explosions and collisions of satellites or rocket bodies. In addition, an estimated 700,000 objects larger than 1 cm and 170 million objects larger than 1 mm are expected to be in Earth orbits.  
Due to relative orbital velocities of up 56,000 km/h, centimeter-sized debris can seriously damage or disable an operational spacecraft, and collisions with objects larger than 10 cm will lead to catastrophic break-ups, releasing hazardous debris clouds of which some fragments can cause further catastrophic collisions that may lead to an unstable debris environment in some orbit regions.
So the lower orbits or lower heavens are not a safe place any more. We should think about a cleanup strategy and space management otherwise we have to go higher and higher in space while carrying space junks with us!

A solar array of the International Space Station hit by an unidentified object and made a hole through the panel. Is it happened by a stray stone or a space junk?https://www.facebook.com/AstronautChrisHadfield