Earth Day Earth Hour

Earth Day is an annual day on which events are held worldwide to demonstrate support for environmental protection. Earth Day is observed on April 22 each year. The April 22 date was designated as International Mother Earth Day by a consensus resolution adopted by the United Nations in 2009. Earth Day is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network, and is celebrated in more than 192 countries every year.

 To celebrate the Earth Hour and in an attempt to attract people attention to conserve energy International Space Station turned off its light on March 23 2013 and send this spectacular picture of stars to earth by its commander Chris Hadfield. Earth aurora (polar light) is visible under stars. 

Toronto day and night in winter

Toronto capital of Ontario province is the largest city of Canada with 5.5 million population. Toronto is a modern city which established in 1793 by Lord Simcoe, governor of Canada. It was named York. Later the city decide to change the name to Toronto which means "meeting place" in a native language. Winter in Toronto is long, snowy and cold but beautiful.Its location along the great lakes gives the city a unique milder climate comparing to the interior territories of Canada.Toronto at night shows all of its beauty in form of lights of well organized streets. These pictures which dated to 19 of January 2013 are taken by International Space Station from 400 to 500 km above the earth surface and Canadian Space Agency distributed it through its Facebook.

Toronto in night 19 Jan. 2013 lake Ontario at the top 

Toronto at winter 19 Jan. 2013 Ontario lake at the bottom 

Fish Rush from Space

Pacific white line

The Pacific White Line is a periodic but random natural feature in the Pacific Ocean. It is a huge collection of fish, foam and algae that usually occurs between January and August. When conditions are right it can be seen from space. Below picture send by Col. Chris Hadfied from International Space Station dated March 5th 2013.

Under certain circumstances the deeper and colder current of pacific ocean comes to surface. This cold current  is rich in nutrition and algae from depth of the ocean.Probably the ocean surface winds and their directions play important role in displacement huge amount of water.La Nina current is an example of  cool water which comes to surface while carrying nutrition which fish are depend on it. Contrary to La Nima called El Nino which is a hot current. All fish attract to this huge source of food and create a white line which can be seen from 400 kilometer above earth surface. Combination of huge school of fish, foam and algae form a line which has 2 kilometers wide and hundreds of kilometers long.

Night Vision of Cities from Space

Cites shows interesting geographical pattern at night. International Space Station provides us with up to date images of cities after sunset. The images send by Col. Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut who was the first Canadian to walk in space.Chris Hadfield a former Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot, now spending more than three months in the space station. By comparison we will find out that most European cities show a eccentric, circular pattern and cites along rivers and seas show a linear pattern. In coastal cities, settlements follow the coast lines and in arid and semi arid regions cities follow the river courses and water supplies. Cities like Seoul and Pyongyang the city's lights reflect their economic and industrial development and energy consumption under two different political system. Developed countries shows higher consumption of energy and their cities are sparkling at night.New part of the cities shows a more organized distribution of light which imply to better urban plan and architecture.

Beijing
 The total population Including
suburbs as of 2012 was 20,693,000.

Calgary, Canada

Brussels

England, Ireland and Northern light in distance (Aurora) 

Dublin

Dhahran ,Saudi Arabia 

Nile and its delta along Mediterranean sea to the right

An eye in Sky

Satellite images provide us with up to date and in some cases Real-Time information about physical features of earth. International Space Station (ISS) is a low earth orbit satellite which supports by the USA, CANADA , JAPAN, RUSSIA and EUROPEAN UNION. One of the on-board officer is Chris Hadfield (born 29 August 1959).He is a Canadian astronaut who is the first Canadian to walk in space. He is regularly sending images from different parts of earth by sharing them through his Facebook and Twitter.His spectacular images cover entire earth on an hourly base.The images taken from altitude 330 kilometer to 410 kilometer above the earth surface. Below you will see some of the most current images of the earth by Chris Hadfield.

 Haruna, a large and powerful tropical cyclone
 across Madagascar Feb 23, 2013.

Tehran at night pictured Feb 8,2013

Asteroid impact , Manicouagan Crater Quebec 100 km Diameter  

A Spaceship is closing to ISS

Aurora (green and red lights) over Canada and The USA 

Amazon Basin

 A heart figure inside clouds over the surface 

Meteorite impact in Russia Fact and Fiction

Facts

METEORS are pieces of space rock, usually from larger comets or asteroids, which enter the Earth’s atmosphere. Many are burned up by the heat of the atmosphere, but those that survive and strike the Earth are called meteorites.

• The blast occurred around 9:20 a.m. local time (12:20 a.m. EST) over Chelyabinsk, which is 950 miles east of Moscow.
• The meteor that entered the earth in Russia was about 55 feet in diameter, weighed around 10,000 tons and was made from a stony material, making it the largest such object to hit the Earth in more than a century.here
•  Explosion unleashed nearly 500 kilotons of energy, more than 30 times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

Gold rush
The meteor that crashed in central Russia on Friday 15 of February  has sparked a modern-day gold rush as treasure hunters flock to the area for fragments worth more than £10,000.here
Large pieces of it have yet to be found. However, a team from Ural Federal University, which is based in Yekaterinburg, collected 53 fragments, the largest of which was 7 millimeters.

• It had a hyper-sonic speed of at least 33,000 mph  = 14 752.32 m / s and shattered into pieces about 18-32 miles above the ground.
• Most of the injuries and damage seem to have been caused by shock waves–sonic booms–from the meteor streaking through and breaking up in the atmosphere. Bits of it hit the ground, but they did not cause significant destruction, based on early reports.

It is the largest reported meteor since the one that hit Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908.

The site which hit by a meteorite in 1908 the picture taken in 1953

All of the available footage raises the question, why do so many Russians have dashboard cameras?
Answer: to prove who was at fault in car accidents.Russia has one of the highest car-accident rates in the world.Hit-and-run crashes are incredibly common.Pedestrians will throw themselves on car hoods at crosswalks and then lie on the asphalt, pretending to be injured.

Fiction
The meteor and an asteroid which came very close to earth, happening within one day makes us think they could be connected. That instinct comes from doing the math -- if it is improbable, then we think it cannot be a coincidence.

Bruce Willis does not help
Scientists hope never to find out, but they’re still trying to prepare for such an event. Mr Von Weyhe, the European space agency spokesman, says experts from Europe, the United States and Russia are already discussing how to spot potential threats sooner and avert them.
“It’s a global challenge and we need to find a solution together,” he said. “But one thing’s for sure, the Bruce Willis Armageddon method won’t work.”here

Conspiracy theory
A meteor that rained down on central Russia last week, injuring up to 1,200 people, was in fact a US weapons test a prominent Russian politician has claimed.
In language echoing that of the Cold War, nationalist Russian lawmaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said: "Those were not meteorites, it was Americans testing their new weapons.here

Colours of Fall 2012

Temperature in Toronto was above average in the fall of 2012,and slowly decreased.So Toronto and surrounding area showed colourful landscapes in a long period of time.