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Mizth

Asbjørn Grønås
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:thumb189212979: :thumb295482576: Just Keep Swimming by DrewHopper
In wilderness is the preservation of the world.
-- Henry David Thoreau


Underwater Lion by AimishBoy Irish Views by Ssquared-Photography View from Dyrholaey by mescamesh
I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.
-- Frank Lloyd Wright


Your feet by AksBan Baby by iluzoryczna Young boy praying while sitting on a dead tree by LordRobin3K
We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
-- Native American Proverb


:thumb364599705: Arabian eyes by AhmadFayadh Image by Burder
Why should I care about future generations? What have they ever done for me?
-- Groucho Marx


Shy Kitten Stock 1 by ElenaDudina Hali by HippieVan57 :thumb276111438:
The wealth of the nation is its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats and biodiversity… that's all there is. That's the whole economy. That's where all the economic activity and jobs come from. These biological systems are the sustaining wealth of the world.
-- Gaylord Nelson


Snailing in line by Nystuen :thumb221955040: :thumb310577918:
The earth is what we all have in common.
-- Wendell Berry


:thumb363628532: :thumb361882452: Magical forest by Glacierman54
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more.
-- George Gordon, Lord Byron


Facing the sunset by BogdanBoev Primadonna by HiawathaPhoto Rise And Shine! by HiawathaPhoto
Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet, and the winds long to play with your hair.
-- Kahlil Gibran







We have met the enemy and he is us.
-- Walt Kelly



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The Moon

17 min read
Mizth's Journal




An Amazing Collision


Lava planet by shurikhein
Around 4.5 billion years ago when the Earth still was cooling down from a Lava glowing soup. It had a close neighbour called Theia.
Theia was close to the size of Mars, unfortunately Earth and Theia orbits around the Sun was crossing.

Creation Of The Moon by goran-d
And one fateful day they met...

The impact was so catastrophic that an enormous amount of debris was kicked into orbit around
the Earth creating rings like a mini Saturn.
These rings then coalesced and cooled to become the Moon.
Study by RMirandinha Full Moon by XavierJamonet :thumb323656481:

Size And Distance

Moon over Exit Glacier by tisbone holding moon by utopic-man
The Moon is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. It's a quarter the diameter of Earth but only 1⁄81 its mass.
If you're measuring the center-to-center distance from the Earth to the Moon, the distance would be about  384,403 kilometers/238,857 miles.
The average distance between Earth and Moon is approximately 30 times Earth's diameter.
If you could fly to the Moon at a constant speed of 1000 kilometers per hour, which is the speed of a fast passenger jet, it would take sixteen days to get there.
The light needs 1.26 seconds to travel this distance.

In a Tidal Lock

La Luna by Corvinerium Red Moon Rising by SomaKun Moon Willow by lostknightkg
The Moon is in a tidal lock (or captured rotation)
this occurs when the gravitational gradient makes one side of an astronomical body always face another, an effect known as synchronous rotation.
This is why the same side of the Moon always faces the Earth. A tidally locked body takes just as long to rotate around its own axis as it does to revolve around its partner.
This causes one hemisphere constantly to face the partner body

The Dark Bright Moon

July 21, 1969 by mancombseapgood Capture of the moon by ZuluSplitter trip to the moon by begemott
The Moon is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun, although its surface is actually very dark, with a reflectance similar to that of coal.
When you look up at the Moon you'll see "oceans" marked by dark volcanic maria that fill between the bright ancient crustal highlands and the prominent impact craters.
These dark areas are sometimes called "The Man in the Moon" It's the image of a human face, head or body that certain northern hemisphere traditions perceive in the disc of the full moon.
:thumb31068878: the moon by protogeny :thumb205644272:
In the southern hemisphere the disc of the moon is seen as inverted and the Man in the Moon difficult to perceive. Southern hemisphere cultures tend to perceive other images such as the Moon rabbit.

Total Eclipse of The Moon

Lunar Eclipse by hellfirediva Eclipse by ghib10 Eclipse by Smattila
The Moon's current orbital distance, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth, causes it to appear almost the same size in the sky as the Sun,
allowing it to cover the Sun nearly precisely in total solar eclipses.
This matching of apparent visual size is a coincidence.
Earlier in Earth's history, the Moon was closer to Earth,
and would have had an apparent visual size greater than that of the sun.
Eclipse by GabrielGajdos Lunar Eclipse by MeganLeeRetouching Eclipse by A4size-ska
If the Moon were in a circular orbit close enough to the Earth and in the same orbital plane, there would be total solar eclipses every single month.
However, the Moon's orbit is inclined or tilted at more than 5 degrees to Earth's orbit around the Sun so its shadow at new moon usually misses Earth.
Earth's orbit is called the ecliptic plane as the Moon's orbit must cross this plane in order for an eclipse (both solar as well as lunar) to occur.
In addition, the Moon's actual orbit is elliptical, often taking it far enough away from Earth that its apparent size is not large enough to block the Sun totally.
The orbital planes cross each year at a line of nodes resulting in at least two, and up to five, solar eclipses occurring each year; no more than two of which can be total eclipses.

May The Tidal Forces Be With You

Beach by DamianKane Dusk at Havilland Bay by tfavretto St. Stephen's Beach I by Jez92
The tidal force is a differential force. Consider three things being pulled by the moon:
the oceans nearest the moon, the solid earth, and the oceans farthest from the moon.
The moon pulls on the solid earth, but it pulls harder on the near oceans, so they approach the moon more causing a high tide;
and the moon pulls least of all on the far oceans (on the other side of the planet), so they stay behind more, causing another high tide at the same time.

Humans on The Moon

Moon landing minimalist poster by chris3290 1969 by mancombseapgood :thumb129096230:
The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2 mission on 13 September 1959.
The United States's Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon.
A total of twelve men have landed on the Moon.
This was accomplished with two US pilot-astronauts flying a Lunar Module on each of six NASA missions across a 41-month time span starting on 21 July 1969 UTC,
with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11, and ending on 14 December 1972 UTC
with Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt on Apollo 17 (with Cernan being the last to step off the lunar surface).
All Apollo lunar missions had a third crew member who remained on board the Command Module. The last three missions had a rover for increased mobility.
Apoc by Vlue Fallen Moon by Secr3tDesign Moonwalk by hank1
The ongoing Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment measures the distance between the Earth and the Moon using laser ranging. Lasers on Earth are aimed at retroreflectors planted on the Moon during the Apollo program, and the time for the reflected light to return is determined.

India, Japan, Europe (ESA), China, Iran, Russia and some private companies are planning future manned Moon landing missions from 2020-2032.

In The Distant Future

Mr. Jones by williansart The Castle by ClaudioBergamin :thumb318892469:
The Moon affects Earth's rotation so it's being slowed by the friction between the oceans and the ocean floor.
This will continue to happen until Earth's tidal bulges align with an imaginary line running through the center of the Earth/Moon system,
then Earth's rotation will cease slowing down.
This will take a few billion years but when it does happen:
Earth's day will be a month long (960 hours a day).
By then the Moon will be twenty-five percent farther away.
If we were on the Moon looking back at Earth, we would see the same face of Earth,
just as now we see only one face of the Moon.
And if someone were still on Earth: the Moon will have moved far enough away that it appears much smaller.
And there will be no more solar eclipses..
New Years Moon by no-soap-was-harmed

Sources: Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon , Unverse Today www.universetoday.com/19718/fo… and starryskies starryskies.com/articles/2007/…

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Mizth's Journal




The Question


In an interview with Time magazine, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson was asked the question: "What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the universe?"
Neil deGrasse Tyson by characterundefined
The famed scientist and author gives an answer that is perhaps as eloquent as it is mind-blowing; as beautiful as it is sublime.
It's best to hear Tyson's response in the video at the end of the journal but here it is in writing :

The Most Astounding Fact


:thumb290782956: Atom by Jo-Hanes :thumb290593822:
The most astounding fact is the knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on Earth, the atoms that make up the human body are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures.

The Surface by Physco-Matter The End by QuantomStarBox
These stars, the high mass ones among them went unstable in their later years they collapsed and then exploded scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself.

Deerborn by ErikShoemaker New Born by Grim962 Hydron Rev. by Alpha-Element
These ingredients become part of gas clouds that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems stars with orbiting planets, and those planets now have the ingredients for life itself.

  :thumb98277003: american sky by taleism
So that when I look up at the night sky and I know that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us.

UNIVERSE by BRINGYOURHATE Stars Fall by RobertoBertero Neue. by hybridgothica
When I reflect on that fact, I look up – many people feel small because they're small and the Universe is big – but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. There's a level of connectivity.

I Am Not Human. by Zanariya Connections by Shortgreenpigg connectivity by YpsilonS
That's really what you want in life, you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant you want to feel like a participant in the goings on of activities and events around you That's precisely what we are, just by being alive…
Playing by YourEndlessDream water fun by Voodoo-Freak The Universe of Possibilities by Frama

The Video

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Mizth's Journal




The beginning of time


:thumb223582934:   Time effect. by lostknightkg
Most scientists now think that time started with the beginning of the Universe.
And we are pretty sure that the Universe began about 13,700,000,000 years ago.

Temporal measurement


Calendario Azteca by morenoStudio   magic time by BlackAndPurple   2012 calendar project. by keia-was-here
Temporal measurement, or chronometry, takes two distinct period forms: the calendar, a mathematical abstraction for calculating extensive periods of time, and the clock, a physical mechanism that counts the ongoing passage of time. In day-to-day life, the clock is consulted for periods less than a day, the calendar, for periods longer than a day.

History of the calendar



Harvest Moon by YongL    Moon Phases by PauloPPereira    Solar System by Vma5

Artifacts from the Palaeolithic suggest that the moon was used to reckon time as early as 6,000 years ago. Lunar calendars were among the first to appear, either 12 or 13 lunar months (either 354 or 384 days).
Without intercalation to add days or months to some years, seasons quickly drift in a calendar based solely on twelve lunar months.

The reforms of Julius Caesar in 45 BC put the Roman world on a solar calendar.
A solar calendar is a calendar whose dates indicate the position of the earth on its revolution around the sun.
This Julian calendar was faulty in that its intercalation still allowed the astronomical solstices and equinoxes to advance against it by about 11 minutes per year.

Pope Gregory XIII introduced a correction in 1582; the Gregorian calendar was only slowly adopted by different nations over a period of centuries, but is today by far the one in most common use around the world.

History of time measurement devices



Egyptian legends by DarkAsteria    Hourglass by emilieleger    Pharao's Dream by psioniks

The Egyptians were the first people who created a twenty-four hour day.  Time was a little bit different in those days.  The night was divided up into twelve hours, which were designated by the position of stars in the sky.  The day was divided into ten hours and a shadow clock was used to keep track of these hours.  The twilight hours were the hours before dawn and after sunset.

Sundial by JJohnsonArtworks    Time by mofig
The Egyptians thought they were the first to invent the shadow clock, but they were mistaken.  At the same time, the Chinese, Babylonians, Greeks and the Romans were using instruments to tell time.  Sundials were used in some of these groups, not because they work better, just because that's how they decided to tell time.

After a while, the Egyptians and other ancient societies realized that the sun rose and set in different places in the summer and winter.  In fact, the sun never took the same course on any one day throughout the year!  They tried everything, until they realized that if they would just put the post of the sundial in at a special angle, it would work all year.  

The Sands of Time



Hourglass by ChoMonaL    The Sands Of Time : Carpe Diem by darkcalypso    time by Tattoomaus78   

The major fault with sundials and shadow clocks is obvious...They don't work at night!  Amenophis I, the king of Egypt, wanted to know what time it was all through the night without having to check the position of the stars.  As you can imagine, it would be inconvenient to get up and out of bed every time you want to know the time.
So, Prince Amenemhet made the king a clepsydra or a water clock.
He took a big bucket of water, filled it with water up to a specific line.  He then cut a small hole in the bottom of the bucket and marked off lines on the bucket after each hour had passed.

There were, of course, some problems with this water clock as well.  Water would flow more slowly or quickly when the temperature changed.
This is where sand came into effect.
The inventor of the sand clock is unknown but the sand clock or hourglass was commonly used in ancient times and is still used today.

The First Tick



It's never late enough. by Alessia-Izzo    Quartz by LukeShannon    droste clock by Emmk1970

The first mechanical clocks had a weight that would slowly lower, moving gears which moved a hand which showed the hour.
They could only be build in tall towers because the weights needed to fall a great distance or else the clocks would only work for a short amount of time.
People were amazed that these clocks were only off about 2 hours a day.

BB by dubbledude    Escaped From Time by navidsanati    Cuckoo by babylon6
While these clocks were inaccurate long ago, some of them were created with such care that they still work today.

Salisbury Cathedral by JulianWells   Salisbury by AgiVega
In Normandy, France, a big clock exists that was built in 1389.  In the Salisbury cathedral, England you can see the oldest clock in the world, built in 1386.
Today, cuckoo clocks are still built using a weight-dropping mechanism.

Galileo's Discovery



Galileo by Shifter6    Planetario Galileo Galilei by quemas   :thumb137742447:

Galileo made an amazing contribution to the world of time, simply by not paying attention in church.  The year was 1581 and Galileo was 17.
He was standing in the Cathedral of Pisa watching the huge chandelier swinging back and forth from the ceiling of the cathedral.
Galileo noticed that no matter how short or long the arc of the chandelier was, it took exactly the same amount of time to complete a full swing.  

Till the World Ends HDR by ISIK5    Pisa Cathedral by CarolynLaymon    pendulum by netfish

The chandelier gave Galileo the idea to create a pendulum clock.  While the clock would eventually run of energy, it would keep accurate time until the pendulum stopped.
If the pendulum was set swinging again before it stopped, there would never be a loss in accuracy.
Because of this, pendulums caught on and are still widely used today.

Time for Change



Quartz watch by DarkAfi4 a by FaithFX

Since 1761, timekeeping has significantly changed.  In 1900, pendulum clocks had been finely tuned so as to only be off by 1/100 of a second each day.
In the 1920s, scientists discovered quartz crystals could keep even more accurate time than a pendulum and were only off about 1/500 of a second each year.
Half way through the 20th century, atomic clocks were built that would only be off by one second every 300 million years.

The way for the forgotten time by talline-occrerou    It is high time by monika-es    The weight of time by Julie-de-Waroquier
It is evident that times have certainly changed.  Clocks have made major leaps and bounds since the days of the shadow clock.
Now we have accurate, reliable clocks that we can use day and night.  Some of our clocks will run for years without so much as a change of batteries or a twist of a little knob.
We have certainly developed the concept of time and incorporated it into every moment of our lives.

Grand Central Station by Jez92   :thumb100598790:

Resources by Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time and Thinkquest library.thinkquest.org/C008179…


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Pale Blue Dot

13 min read
Mizth's Journal




:thumb188167299:
Take a look at the image above. Doesn't look like anything, does it? Maybe somebody snapped a picture in a room with no light?

:thumb195022285:
Take another look. On closer examination, the picture resolves into four bands of light. Check out the band on the top. Look a little to the right of the center of the band. There is a small dot, brighter than its surroundings. It isn't a speck of dust, it isn't a smudge on the camera lens or on your monitor.

It's us.

It's all of us.

It's Earth.

Earth by Krodil

Postcard from a Voyager


The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken in 1990 by Voyager 1 from a record distance ( 6,086,176,360 Kilometers ), showing it against the vastness of space. By request of Carl Sagan, NASA commanded the Voyager 1 spacecraft, having completed its primary mission and now leaving the Solar System, to turn its camera around and to take a photograph of Earth across a great expanse of space.
Subsequently, the title of the photograph was used by Sagan as the primary title of his 1994 book, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.
In a 2001 article by Space.com, STScI's Ray Villard and JPL's Jurrie Van der Woude selected this photograph as one of the top ten space science images of all time..
Voyager 1 by CoyoteSeige

The Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan


From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us.
mindfields by nurhanch
On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.

The question is by Natushi12 :thumb111158671: suffer by THEuniverse
The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines,

Eagle by pictureaddict hunter by boo-lala Chipmunk 1 by CWOKRAKEN
every hunter and forager,

:thumb203848465: Fireman by mrlusk Afraid of the dark by maxim1990
every hero and coward,

Web Developer by sbloom Japan by pakaworld
every creator and destroyer of civilization,

Lion 2 by rosswillett Portrait of a Rajasthan Farmer by Indiangal Feel the love and sunset by yasincrow
every king and peasant, every young couple in love,

Family Portret by jane-art Explorer by kopankopin Lindos by resmann
every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals,

Hands by CorsairWonton Audience by serhatbayram All in the family by O-Renzo
every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader,"

Disturbed Thoughts by darkmatter257 Mauritius Sunset by DanFreeman Heliocentric Serenade by nitsuJmAI
every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

:thumb195022285:
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.


:thumb124093525:


:thumb188167299:

Carl Sagan, 1934-1996.


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Featured

The Moon by Mizth, journal

The Most Astounding Fact by Mizth, journal

The History of Time by Mizth, journal

Pale Blue Dot by Mizth, journal

Friends Feature by Mizth, journal