A Squashed Space Station Supermoon
On Monday, Discovery News asked for our readers’ photographs of the weekend’s “supermoon.” Unfortunately, we totally overlooked a photographer who was orbiting 250 miles over our heads who had a front row seat for the bright lunar event. European astronaut André Kuipers watched the perigee moon set over the Earth’s atmosphere on May 5 from the International Space Station, but it looked remarkably different from how the supermoon looked for most of us on the ground.
As seen from Kuipers’ vantage point, the reflected light from the bottom of the lunar disk had to travel through more atmospheric gases than light from the top of the disk. The light from the bottom of the lunar disk was therefore strongly refracted, causing the light to bend upward, giving the moon a squashed appearance (above). An earlier photograph by Kuipers (below) shows the supermoon in all its glory, completely free from any atmospheric distortions — but the “squashed supermoon” is beautiful in its own right.
Our Tumblr and Twitter follower photos here
Bezmo Designs
"There are three kinds of art; Good, Bad and Great. Bad art elicits no response in the person encountering it. Good art will make you feel an emotion that you’ve felt before or triggers a memory. Great art will make you feel something you’ve never felt before. That’s what we’re trying to do with our music, cut as deep, emotionally, as we can so the audience feels something they’ve never felt before and hopefully takes that home with them.”
-Paul O'Neil, Trans-Siberian Orchestra
...and I'm here to attempt at making great art and to experience great art...
And be a nerd too while I'm at it.
This tumblr account has reblogs of all the things I like and/or have come to like and appreciate.
Ask me anything :) keep it G - PG/13
May92012
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