Solar Eclipse

An eclipse of the Sun (or solar eclipse) can only occur at New Moon when the Moon passes between Earth and Sun. If the Moon's shadow happens to fall upon Earth's surface at that time, we see some portion of the Sun's disk covered or 'eclipsed' by the Moon. Since New Moon occurs every 29 1/2 days, you might think that we should have a solar eclipse about once a month. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen because the Moon's orbit around Earth is tilted 5 degrees to Earth's orbit around the Sun. As a result, the Moon's shadow usually misses Earth as it passes above or below our planet at New Moon. At least twice a year, the geometry lines up just right so that some part of the Moon's shadow falls on Earth's surface and an eclipse of the Sun is seen from that region.


The Moon's shadow actually has two parts:

Penumbra - Faint outer shadow; partial eclipses are seen from within this shadow.

Umbra- Dark inner shadow; total eclipses are seen from within this shadow.



Total solar eclipses are very rare events for any given place on Earth because totality is only seen where the Moon's umbra touches the Earth's surface. A total solar eclipse is a spectacular natural phenomenon and many people consider travel to remote locations in order to observe one. The 1999 total eclipse in Europe, said by some to be the most-watched eclipse in human history, helped to increase public awareness of the phenomenon.

There are 4 Types of Eclipses:

A total eclipse occurs when the Sun is completely obscured by the Moon. The intensely bright disk of the Sun is replaced by the dark outline of the Moon, and the much fainter corona is visible (see image above). During any one eclipse, totality is visible only from at most a narrow track on the surface of the Earth.

An annular eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are exactly in line, but the apparent size of the Moon is smaller than that of the Sun. Hence the Sun appears as a very bright ring, or annulus, surrounding the outline of the Moon.

A hybrid eclipse is intermediate between a total and annular eclipse. At some points on the surface of the Earth it is visible as a total eclipse, whereas at others it is annular. Hybrid eclipses are rather rare.

A partial eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are not exactly in line, and the Moon only partially obscures the Sun. This phenomenon can usually be seen from a large part of the Earth outside of the track of an annular or total eclipse. However, some eclipses can only be seen as a partial eclipse, because the umbra never intersects the Earth's surface.

To learn more please check out this website!!!

Why is the water blue?

Recently I have been spending alot of time with my friends along the shores of Hilo, and recently I have been asking myself how come I can see into the water better when the sun is out? And I knew it had something to do with the sun, then that brought me to this weeks blog as simple as, How come the water is blue?

Sunlight is made up of all the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Some of the sunlight is reflected off the surface of the water, reflecting the color of the sky. Some of the sunlight penetrates the water and is scattered by ripples and particles in the water. In deep water, much of the sunlight is scattered by the oxygen in the water, and this scatters more of the blue light.

So we all know that pure water is perfectly clear, of course, but if there is a lot of water, and the water is very deep so that there are no reflections off the sea floor, the water appears as a very dark navy blue. If there are any particles suspended in the water, they will increase the scattering of light. In coastal areas, runoff from rivers, resuspension of sand and silt from the bottom by tides, waves and storms and a number of other substances can change the color of the near-shore waters


This is all alpart of the amazing information that is out there on the web today. So go check out more info about colors!

Solar Flares

Working off sun spots I can across something very interesting called solar flares! So I decided to keep on working with the sun and find out as much as I could about our own star! Some of the question I asked myself was: What is a solar flare? How do solar flares happen? Are they dangerous to us?

A flare is defined as a sudden, rapid, and intense variation in brightness. A solar flare is a violent explosion in the Sun's atmosphere with an energy equivalent to a billion megatons. A solar flare occurs when magnetic energy that has built up in the solar atmosphere is suddenly released. Lets just say that the incredible energy level of a solar flare is equivalent to tens of millions of atomic bombs exploding at the same time!

Most flares occur around sunspots, where intense magnetic fields emerge from the Sun's surface into the corona. The energy efficiency associated with solar flares may take several hours or even days to build up, but most flares take only a matter of minutes to release their energy.

They produce streams of highly energetic particles in the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere that can present radiation hazards to spacecraft and astronauts. The flares have been known to affect the electro transmission of many earthly communication devices including computers, cell phones, pagers and automobiles. Solar flares release a cascade of high energy particles known as a proton storm. Protons can pass through the human body, doing biochemical damage. Most proton storms take two or more hours from the time of visual detection to reach Earth

On January 20th, 2005, a giant sunspot named "NOAA 720" exploded. The blast sparked an "X-class" solar flare, the most powerful kind, and hurled a billion-ton cloud of electrified gas into space. Solar protons accelerated to nearly light speed by the explosion reached the Earth-Moon system minutes after the flare. Here on Earth, no one suffered. Our planet's thick atmosphere and magnetic field protects us from protons and other forms of solar radiation. In fact, the storm was good. When the plodding coronal mass ejection arrived 36 hours later and hit Earth's magnetic field, sky watchers in Europe saw the brightest and prettiest auroras in years.



The Moon is a different story. The Jan. 20th proton storm was by some measures the biggest since 1989. It was particularly rich in high-speed protons packing more than 100 million electron volts (100 MeV) of energy. Such protons can burrow through 11 centimeters of water. Since there was no astronaut on the moon no one was hurt. But if there were austronauts on there moon at that time they would've gotten sick. At first, he'd feel fine, but a few days later symptoms of radiation sickness would appear: vomiting, fatigue, low blood counts.

If you think that this blog is interesting you should check you this web cite on Solar Flares

Sun Spots are Super!!!

Ever since the Onizuka Day i have been wanting to take a look at the sun again and see if there were any more sunspots! I like the sun a lot more than the other parts of your system because the sun is always changing and sometimes is unpredictable. So I am wondering, what causes these "Sun Spots"? Why are they dark?

Sunspots are caused by disturbances in the Sun's magnetic field, sometimes scientists track the region of the sunspot and have found out the specific areas of the sun have and abnormal amount of sunspots which can help predict solar storms.

Sunspots are dark, planet-sized regions that appear on the "surface" of the Sun. Sunspots are "dark" because they are cooler than their surroundings, but if you could cut an average sunspot out of the Sun and place it elsewhere in the night sky, it would be about as bright as a full moon. Some as large as 50,000 miles in diameter, move across the surface of the sun, contracting and expanding as they go.

What makes up a sun spot?
UMBRA:
The umbra is the inner, dark, cool region of a sun spot. The umbra of a sunspot can be up to 12,000 miles wide. In the umbra, the Sun's magnetic field is very strong.

PENUMBRA:
The penumbra is the outer, relatively light region of a sun spot. It is shaped like a ring surrounding the darker, cooler umbra.

PORES:
A pore is a small sunspot that doesn't have a penumbra. Pores are up to about 1,500 miles across and are lighter than a sunspot's umbra.


To check out more about the these Super Sunspots take a look at this Super Website!

Saturn's Rings

For a long time I have wondered why Saturn's Rings are always there. They are so amazing to see in a telescope, picture, or even on-line. So I was wondering what makes up Saturn's Rings?

Galileo Galilei was the first person known to have reported observations of Saturn's rings, in 1610. Galileo was not actually able to see the rings but in 1655, Christiaan Huygens was the first person to propose that there was a ring surrounding Saturn. The rings show intricate structure some of this structure is from the gravitational effect of shepherding moons. Saturn does not actually have one ring, it actuall has 7 major ring divisions of rings. There are several gaps between the rings, all of which are caused by "orbital resonances." There are thousands of rings made of up billions of particles of ice and rock. The particles range in size from a grain of sugar to the size of a house. The rings are believe to be pieces of comets, asteroids or shattered moons that broke up before they reached the planet. Each ring orbits at a different speed around the planet.

The rings of Saturn are a magnificant sight to see and something that would be amazing to be able to study and learn about!

What is the Giant Trevally?

For the 3 years that I have been here, I have always wondered what that infatuation is with the Giant Trevally or Ulua? I also have always wanted to go on a fishing trip and catch this infamous Ulua! So my question is what is the ulua? And what make it so special?

The Great Trevally (Caranx ignobilis) is one of the main predators of the coastal waters here in Hawaii. It feeds on the smaller reef fish and are most active just after sunset. Some Ulua fisherman customize thier own pole, which ranges from 10 - 15ft. The Giant Trevally can range from 10lbs. to over 190lbs!!! Anything below 10lbs. is called a Papio

One of the main reasons that the Ulua is so charished here is Hawaii is because, "the ulua played an important role in ancient Hawaiian culture and were often fished for food and sport. Still today the ulua are the most prized fish to catch when fishing in Hawaii from shore because of their ability to give a long hard fight."

Here's how to get more info on the Great Trevally!

Pacific Earthquakes

What causes earthquakes in the Pacific Ocean?

In the October 15th earthquake I was standing outside of my appartment and was wonder if this will ever stop or are we going to slide of in the ocean! But Luckly 45 seconds later I found myself hugging my girlfriend wondering what made this earthquake so different than the others.

This earthquake was contibuted to a build up of tention underneath the ocean on the plates underneathe the Big Island. After a long build up of tension the crust finally cracked. Causeing a long rumbleing throughout the island. The aftershocks were caused by the crust trying to settle itself.

"Earthquakes are caused by faulting, a sudden lateral or vertical movement of rock along a ruptured surface!" Earthquakes are very interesting!