ASTRONOMY - Starburst Galaxy M94 from Hubble

 2022 July 31

Starburst Galaxy M94 from Hubble
Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Explanation: Why does this galaxy have a ring of bright blue stars? Beautiful island universe Messier 94 lies a mere 15 million light-years distant in the northern constellation of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici). A popular target for Earth-based astronomers, the face-on spiral galaxy is about 30,000 light-years across, with spiral arms sweeping through the outskirts of its broad disk. But this Hubble Space Telescope field of view spans about 7,000 light-years across M94's central region. The featured close-up highlights the galaxy's compact, bright nucleus, prominent inner dust lanes, and the remarkable bluish ring of young massive stars. The ring stars are all likely less than 10 million years old, indicating that M94 is a starburst galaxy that is experiencing an epoch of rapid star formation from inspiraling gas. The circular ripple of blue stars is likely a wave propagating outward, having been triggered by the gravity and rotation of a oval matter distributions. Because M94 is relatively nearby, astronomers can better explore details of its starburst ring.

ASTRONOMY - The Eagle rises

 2022 July 30

The Eagle Rises
Image Credit: Apollo 11, NASA - Stereo Image Copyright: John Kaufmann (ALSJ)

Explanation: Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this stereo view from lunar orbit. The 3D anaglyph was created from two photographs (AS11-44-6633, AS11-44-6634) taken by astronaut Michael Collins during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. It features the lunar module ascent stage, dubbed The Eagle, rising to meet the command module in lunar orbit on July 21. Aboard the ascent stage are Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the first to walk on the Moon. The smooth, dark area on the lunar surface is Mare Smythii located just below the equator on the extreme eastern edge of the Moon's near side. Poised beyond the lunar horizon is our fair planet Earth.

PHOTOGRAPHIE - Lever de lune à Socoa

 

Lever de la Lune le 20 octobre 2013 en Pays Basque

Emmanuel LINDEN

LA VOIE LACTEE SUR TERRE - Plateau de Valensole, France

Des étendues infinies de champs de lavande, des fermes éparses très caractéristiques du plateau de Valensole et un parfum d'ambiance à couper le souffle. À l'est de la Durance, cette région naturelle, située dans les Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, au sud-ouest de Digne-les-Bains, près des Gorges du Verdon et du lac de Sainte-Croix au sud, est unique au monde. Son altitude moyenne est de 500 m et il s'étend sur 800 km2. Ces champs de lavande offrent aux visiteurs le calme et la beauté de la nature. À visiter de début juillet à début août, c'est le moment idéal où la lavande fleurit et que les champs s'illuminent d'un bleu violet profond. 

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© Delil Geyik

ASTRONOMY - SOFIA's Southern Lights

 2022 July 29

SOFIA's Southern Lights
Image Credit & Copyright: Ian Griffin (Otago Museum)

Explanation: SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, is a Boeing 747SP aircraft modified to carry a large reflecting telescope into the stratosphere. The ability of the airborne facility to climb above about 99 percent of Earth's infrared-blocking atmosphere has allowed researchers to observe from almost anywhere over the planet. On a science mission flying deep into the southern auroral oval, astronomer Ian Griffin, director of New Zealand’s Otago Museum, captured this view from the observatory's south facing starboard side on July 17. Bright star Canopus shines in the southern night above curtains of aurora australis, or southern lights. The plane was flying far south of New Zealand at the time at roughly 62 degrees southern latitude. Unfortunately, after a landing at Christchurch severe weather damaged SOFIA requiring repairs and the cancellation of the remainder of its final southern hemisphere deployment.

ASTRONOMY - North Celestial Tree

 2022 July 28

North Celestial Tree
Image Credit & Copyright: Jeff Dai (TWAN)

Explanation: An ancient tree seems to reach out and touch Earth's North Celestial Pole in this well-planned night skyscape. Consecutive exposures for the timelapse composition were recorded with a camera fixed to a tripod in the Yiwu Desert Poplar Forests in northwest Xinjiang, China. The graceful star trail arcs reflect Earth's daily rotation around its axis. By extension, the axis of rotation leads to the center of the concentric arcs in the night sky. Known as the North Star, bright star Polaris is a friend to northern hemisphere night sky photographers and celestial navigators alike. That's because Polaris lies very close to the North Celestial Pole on the sky. Of course it can be found at the tip of an outstretched barren branch in a postcard from a rotating planet.

LA VOIE LACTEE SUR TERRE - Suisse : le Cervin sommet mythique des alpinistes

Le Cervin culmine à 4478 mètres au-dessus du niveau de la mer, c'est l'une des plus hautes montagnes des Alpes valaisannes en Suisse. En raison de sa silhouette saisissante en forme de pyramide et de son histoire, le Cervin est l'une des montagnes les plus célèbres du monde. C'est le 14 juillet 1865, après diverses tentatives que le britannique Edward Whymper a réussi le premier son ascension.

© Delil Geyik

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ASTROPHOTOGRAPHIE - La comète Catalina et ses deux queues

Gerald Rhemann, l'auteur de cette photo est un photographe chasseur de comètes plein de talents. Il nous fait découvrir ici la comète Catalina (C/2013 US10) et ses deux queues qui bifurquent. L'auteur rappelle combien ces petits corps célestes sont parmi les objets les plus difficiles à photographier du fait de leur déplacement rapide et des changements brusques de leur chevelure. La photo a été prise en Autriche, le 11 décembre 2015. 

© Gerald Rhemann, IAPY 2016

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ASTRONOMY - Comet NEOWISE Rising over the Adriatic Sea

 2022 July 26

Comet NEOWISE Rising over the Adriatic Sea
Video Credit & Copyright: Paolo Girotti

Explanation: This sight was worth getting out of bed early. Two years ago this month, Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) rose before dawn to the delight of northern sky enthusiasts awake that early. Up before sunrise on July 8th, the featured photographer was able to capture in dramatic fashion one of the few comets visible to the unaided eye this century, an inner-Solar System intruder that has become known as the Great Comet of 2020. The resulting video detailed Comet NEOWISE from Italy rising over the Adriatic Sea. The time-lapse video combines over 240 images taken over 30 minutes. The comet was seen rising through a foreground of bright and undulating noctilucent clouds, and before a background of distant stars. Comet NEOWISE remained unexpectedly bright until 2020 August, with its ion and dust tails found to emanate from a nucleus spanning about five kilometers across.

ASTRONOMY - Crepuscular Moon Rays over Denmark

 2022 July 27

Crepuscular Moon Rays over Denmark
Image Credit & Copyright: Ruslan Merzlyakov (astrorms)

Explanation: This moon made quite an entrance. Typically, a moonrise is quiet and serene. Taking a few minutes to fully peek above the horizon, Earth's largest orbital companion can remain relatively obscure until it rises high in the nighttime sky. About a week ago, however, and despite being only half lit by the Sun, this rising moon put on a show -- at least from this location. The reason was that, as seen from Limfjord in Nykøbing Mors, Denmark, the moon rose below scattered clouds near the horizon. The result, captured here in a single exposure, was that moonlight poured through gaps in the clouds to created what are called crepuscular rays. These rays can fan out dramatically across the sky when starting near the horizon, and can even appear to converge on the other side of the sky. Well behind our Moon, stars from our Milky Way galaxy dot the background, and our galaxy's largest orbital companion -- the Andromeda galaxy -- can be found on the upper left.

MICROPHOTOGRAPHIE - Une tête de fourmi psychédélique

 

Voilà à quoi ressemble une fourmi vue de très près. On peut apercevoir les deux antennes (en jaune), qui servent à de nombreuses fonctions sensorielles, comme l'odorat, le toucher et le goût. Elles sont tapissées de sensilles, des structures qui abritent des neurones sensoriels responsables de la détection des stimuli extérieurs. On peut également distinguer les mandibules (en orange), utilisées pour la mastication.

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ASTRONOMY - Find the new moon

 2022 July 25

Find the New Moon
Image Credit & Copyright: Mohamad Soltanolkotabi

Explanation: Can you find the Moon? This usually simple task can be quite difficult. Even though the Moon is above your horizon half of the time, its phase can be anything from crescent to full. The featured image was taken in late May from Sant Martí d'Empúries, Spain, over the Mediterranean Sea in the early morning. One reason you can't find this moon is because it is very near to its new phase, when very little of the half illuminated by the Sun is visible to the Earth. Another reason is because this moon is near the horizon and so seen through a long path of Earth's atmosphere -- a path which dims the already faint crescent. Any crescent moon is only visible near the direction the Sun, and so only locatable near sunrise of sunset. The Moon runs through all of its phases in a month (moon-th), and this month the thinnest sliver of a crescent -- a new moon -- will occur in three days.

ASTRONOMY - Apollo 11 Landing Panorama

 2022 July 23

Apollo 11 Landing Panorama
Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11, NASA

Explanation: Have you seen a panorama from another world lately? Assembled from high-resolution scans of the original film frames, this one sweeps across the magnificent desolation of the Apollo 11 landing site on the Moon's Sea of Tranquility. The images were taken by Neil Armstrong looking out his window of the Eagle Lunar Module shortly after the July 20, 1969 landing. The frame at the far left (AS11-37-5449) is the first picture taken by a person on another world. Toward the south, thruster nozzles can be seen in the foreground on the left, while at the right, the shadow of the Eagle is visible to the west. For scale, the large, shallow crater on the right has a diameter of about 12 meters. Frames taken from the Lunar Module windows about an hour and a half after landing, before walking on the lunar surface, were intended to initially document the landing site in case an early departure was necessary.

ASTRONOMY - Messier 10 and Comet

 2022 July 21

Messier 10 and Comet
Image Credit & Copyright: German Penelas Perez

Explanation: Imaged on July 15 2022, comet C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) had a Messier moment, sharing this wide telescopic field of view with globular star cluster Messier 10. Of course M10 was cataloged by 18th century comet hunter Charles Messier as the 10th object on his list of things that were definitely not comets. While M10 is about 14 thousand light-years distant, this comet PanSTARRS was about 15 light-minutes from our fair planet following its July 14 closest approach. Its greenish coma and dust tail entertaining 21st century comet watchers, C/2017 K2 is expected to remain a fine telescopic comet in northern summer skies. On a maiden voyage from our Solar System's remote Oort Cloud this comet PanSTARRS was discovered in May 2017 when it was beyond the orbit of Saturn. At the time that made it the most distant active inbound comet known. Its closest approach to the Sun will be within 1.8 astronomical units on December 19, beyond the orbital distance of Mars.

ASTRONOMY - Pleiades over Half Dome

 2022 July 19

Pleiades over Half Dome
Image Credit & Copyright: Dheera Venkatraman

Explanation: Stars come in bunches. The most famous bunch of stars on the sky is the Pleiades, a bright cluster that can be easily seen with the unaided eye. The Pleiades lies only about 450 light years away, formed about 100 million years ago, and will likely last about another 250 million years. Our Sun was likely born in a star cluster, but now, being about 4.5 billion years old, its stellar birth companions have long since dispersed. The Pleiades star cluster is pictured over Half Dome, a famous rock structure in Yosemite National Park in California, USA. The featured image is a composite of 28 foreground exposures and 174 images of the stellar background, all taken from the same location and by the same camera on the same night in October 2019. After calculating the timing of a future juxtaposition of the Pleiades and Half Dome, the astrophotrographer was unexpectedly rewarded by an electrical blackout, making the background sky unusually dark.

ASTRONOMIA - Sabe como soa um buraco negro no espaço? Assim

LE SON D'UN TROU NOIR (VOIR LINK)

Agora já pode conhecer um pouco mais do que se passa no Espaço: a NASA divulgou um áudio de 35 segundos que replica os sons que se ouvem dentro de um buraco negro.

O som é uma combinação de dados eletromagnéticos recolhidos do Perseus Galaxy Cluster – um aglomerado de galáxias na constelação de Perseu -, que fica a cerca de 240 milhões de anos-luz de distância.

A NASA, desde há dois anos, decidiu começar a traduzir as representações visuais do Espaço em algo que pudesse ser apreciado ao ouvido.

“Comecei os primeiros 10 anos da minha carreira a prestar uma maior atenção apenas ao visual, e percebi que havia uma falha para pessoas que não eram aprendizes visuais ou para pessoas cegas ou com pouca visão”, explicou a cientista visual Kimberly Arcand à NPR.

Em 2003, os astrónomos descobriram que as ondas emitidas pelo buraco negro causavam ondulações no gás quente do aglomerado, podendo, assim, traduzi-las para uma nota musical. A verdade é que nem sempre os buracos negros soam da mesma forma, dependendo da sua posição no centro das galáxias.

Um buraco negro é uma região com uma força da gravidade tão intensa, que atrai tudo à sua volta, inclusive a própria luz.

Visão

ASTRONOMY - Stephan's Quintet from Webb, Hubble, and Subaru

 2022 July 18

Stephan's Quintet from Webb, Hubble, and Subaru
Image Credit: Webb, Hubble, Subaru; NASA, ESA, CSA, NOAJ, STScI; Processing & Copyright: Robert Gendler

Explanation: OK, but why can't you combine images from Webb and Hubble? You can, and today's featured image shows one impressive result. Although the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) has a larger mirror than Hubble, it specializes in infrared light and can't see blue -- only up to about orange. Conversely, the Hubble Space Telescope (Hubble) has a smaller mirror than Webb and can't see as far into the infrared as Webb, but can image not only blue light but even ultraviolet. Therefore, Webb and Hubble data can be combined to create images across a wider variety of colors. The featured image of four galaxies from Stephan's Quintet shows Webb images as red and also includes images taken by Japan's ground-based Subaru telescope in Hawaii. Because image data for Webb, Hubble, and Subaru are made freely available, anyone around the world can process it themselves, and even create intriguing and scientifically useful multi-observatory montages.

ASTRONOMY - Europa and Jupiter from Voyager 1

 2022 July 17

Europa and Jupiter from Voyager 1
Image Credit: NASA, Voyager 1, JPL, Caltech; Processing & License: Alexis Tranchandon / Solaris

Explanation: What are those spots on Jupiter? Largest and furthest, just right of center, is the Great Red Spot -- a huge storm system that has been raging on Jupiter possibly since Giovanni Cassini's likely notation of it 357 years ago. It is not yet known why this Great Spot is red. The spot toward the lower left is one of Jupiter's largest moons: Europa. Images from Voyager in 1979 bolster the modern hypothesis that Europa has an underground ocean and is therefore a good place to look for extraterrestrial life. But what about the dark spot on the upper right? That is a shadow of another of Jupiter's large moons: Io. Voyager 1 discovered Io to be so volcanic that no impact craters could be found. Sixteen frames from Voyager 1's flyby of Jupiter in 1979 were recently reprocessed and merged to create the featured image. Forty-five years ago this August, Voyager 1 launched from Earth and started one of the greatest explorations of the Solar System ever.

ASTRONOMY - Tycho and Clavius at Dawn

 2022 July 16

Tycho and Clavius at Dawn
Image Credit & Copyright: Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau

Explanation: South is up in this dramatic telescopic view of the lunar terminator and the Moon's rugged southern highlands. The lunar landscape was captured on July 7 with the moon at its first quarter phase. The Sun shines at a low angle from the right as dawn comes to the region's young and old craters Tycho and Clavius. About 100 million years young, Tycho is the sharp-walled 85 kilometer diameter crater below and left of center. Its 2 kilometer tall central peak and far crater wall reflect bright sunlight, Its smooth floor lies in dark shadow. Debris ejected during the impact that created Tycho make it the stand out lunar crater when the Moon is near full though. They produce a highly visible radiating system of light streaks or rays that extend across much of the lunar near side. In fact, some of the material collected at the Apollo 17 landing site, about 2,000 kilometers away, likely originated from the Tycho impact. One of the oldest and largest craters on the Moon's near side, 225 kilometer diameter Clavius is due south (above) of Tycho. Clavius crater's own ray system resulting from its original impact event would have faded long ago. The old crater's worn walls and smooth floor are now overlayed by newer smaller craters from impacts that occurred after Clavius was formed. Reaching above the older crater, tops of the newer crater walls reflect this dawn's early light to create narrow shining arcs within a shadowed Clavius.

ASTRONOMY - Lubovna Full Moon

 2022 July 15

Lubovna Full Moon
Petr Horalek / Institute of Physics in Opava

Explanation: On July 13 this well-planned telephoto view recorded a Full Moon rising over Lubovna Castle in eastern Slovakia. The photographer was about 3 kilometers from the castle walls and about 357,000 kilometers from this Full Moon near perigee, the closest point in its elliptical orbit. Known to some as supermoons, full moons near perigee are a little brighter and larger in planet Earth's sky when compared to full moons that occur near the average lunar distance of around 384,000 kilometers. Of course any Full Moon near the horizon can show the effects of refraction over a long sight-line through dense clear atmosphere. In this image, atmospheric refraction creates the slight green flash framed by thin clouds near the top, with a ragged red rim along the bottom edge of July's perigee Full Moon.

ASTRONOMY - Webb's Southern Ring Nebula

 2022 July 14

Webb's Southern Ring Nebula
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NIRCam

Explanation: Cataloged as NGC 3132 the Southern Ring Nebula is a planetary nebula, the death shroud of a dying sun-like star some 2,500 light-years from Earth. Composed of gas and dust the stunning cosmic landscape is nearly half a light-year in diameter, explored in unprecedented detail by the James Webb Space Telescope. In this NIRCam image the bright star near center is a companion of the dying star. In mutual orbit, the star whose transformation has ejected the nebula's gas and dust shells over thousands of years is the fainter stellar partner. Evolving to become a white dwarf, the faint star appears along the diffraction spike extending toward the 8 o'clock position. This stellar pair's orbital motion has resulted the complex structures within the Southern Ring Nebula.

MERVEILLEUX MONDE SOUS-MARIN - Le doris dalmatien, un drôle de nudibranche

Méditerranée - Doris dalmatien (Peltodoris atromaculata) sur doris dalmatien : difficile de voir qu'ils sont deux !

© Alexis Rosenfeld

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ASTRONOMY - Webb's First Deep Field

 2022 July 13

Webb's First Deep Field
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NIRCam

Explanation: This is the deepest, sharpest infrared image of the cosmos so far. The view of the early Universe toward the southern constellation Volans was achieved in 12.5 hours of exposure with the NIRCam instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope. Of course the stars with six visible spikes are well within our own Milky Way. That diffraction pattern is characteristic of Webb's 18 hexagonal mirror segments operating together as a single 6.5 meter diameter primary mirror. The thousands of galaxies flooding the field of view are members of the distant galaxy cluster SMACS0723-73, some 4.6 billion light-years away. Luminous arcs that seem to infest the deep field are even more distant galaxies though. Their images are distorted and magnified by the dark matter dominated mass of the galaxy cluster, an effect known as gravitational lensing. Analyzing light from two separate arcs below the bright spiky star, Webb's NIRISS instrument indicates the arcs are both images of the same background galaxy. And that galaxy's light took about 9.5 billion years to reach the James Webb Space Telescope.

ASTRONOMY - Noctilucent Clouds over Paris

 2022 July 12

Noctilucent Clouds over Paris
Credit & Copyright: Bertrand Kulik

Explanation: It's northern noctilucent cloud season. Composed of small ice crystals forming only during specific conditions in the upper atmosphere, noctilucent clouds may become visible at sunset during late summer when illuminated by sunlight from below. Noctilucent clouds are the highest clouds known and now established to be polar mesospheric clouds observed from the ground. Although observed with NASA's AIM satellite since 2007, much about noctilucent clouds remains unknown and so a topic of active research. The featured image shows expansive and rippled noctilucent clouds wafting over Paris, France. This year, several northern locations are already reporting especially vivid displays of noctilucent clouds.

ASTRONOMY - Andromeda over the Sahara Desert

 2022 July 11

Andromeda over the Sahara Desert
Credit & Copyright: Jordi Coy

Explanation: What is the oldest thing you can see? At 2.5 million light years distant, the answer for the unaided eye is the Andromeda galaxy, because its photons are 2.5 million years old when they reach you. Most other apparent denizens of the night sky -- stars, clusters, and nebulae -- appear as they were only a few hundred to a few thousand years ago, as they lie well within our own Milky Way Galaxy. Given its distance, light from Andromeda is likely also the farthest object that you can see. Also known as M31, the Andromeda Galaxy dominates the center of the featured zoomed image, taken from the Sahara Desert in Morocco last month. The featured image is a combination of three background and one foreground exposure -- all taken with the same camera and from the same location and on the same calendar day -- with the foreground image taken during the evening blue hour. M110, a satellite galaxy of Andromenda is visible just above and to the left of M31's core. As cool as it may be to see this neighboring galaxy to our Milky Way with your own eyes, long duration camera exposures can pick up many faint and breathtaking details. Recent data indicates that our Milky Way Galaxy will collide and combine with the similarly-sized Andromeda galaxy in a few billion years.

MACROPHOTOGRAPHIE - Un mariage au naturel

La photographe japonaise Miki Asai a imaginé ce cliché comme le symbole d'un mariage. Une fleur -- blanche, il va sans dire -- qui prend racine et qui se noie dans l'eau en guise d'arche de cérémonie romantique. Et deux autres petites fleurs, toutes en innocence, pour figurer les époux, prêts à se promettre le meilleur. Le tout se reflétant comme par enchantement dans une étendue d'eau calme.

Quitte à briser un peu la magie, sachez que pour obtenir un résultat aussi gracieux, il suffit à Miki Asai de poser les protagonistes de la scène sur un plateau de couleur sombre, peu profond et rempli d'eau. Pourquoi de couleur sombre ? Pour qu'un simple papier coloré puisse offrir sa couleur à l'arrière-plan. 

© Miki Asai

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MACROPHOTOGRAPHIE - le monde mystérieux et raffiné de Miki Asai - Quand une fourmi prend la pose

Pour la photographe amateur japonaise Miki Asai, l'aventure a commencé lorsqu'elle s'est offert un objectif macro. Ce sont alors tous les

petits secrets invisibles de son jardin qui se sont ouverts à elle. Il y avait là d'incroyables gouttelettes de pluie et de délicates fourmis qui semblaient n'attendre que le regard poétique de Miki Asai pour révéler leurs splendeurs à nos yeux.

Ici, quelques fleurs lilas et de petites gouttes d'eau déposées sur un support, à proximité d'une fourmilière. Un peu de patience et la fourmi, tant désirée pour compléter le tableau, apparaît. Ne reste plus qu'à attendre qu'elle prenne la pose parfaite. Et à espérer qu'aucune poussière ne viendra gâcher le tableau. 

© Mika Asai

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ASTRONOMY - In the Center of the Cat's Eye Nebula

2022 July 10

In the Center of the Cat's Eye Nebula
Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA; Reprocessing & Copyright: Raul Villaverde

Explanation: Three thousand light-years away, a dying star throws off shells of glowing gas. This image from the Hubble Space Telescope reveals the Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543), to be one of the most complex planetary nebulae known. Spanning half a light-year, the features seen in the Cat's Eye are so complex that astronomers suspect the bright central object may actually be a binary star system. The term planetary nebula, used to describe this general class of objects, is misleading. Although these objects may appear round and planet-like in small telescopes, high resolution images with large telescopes reveal them to be stars surrounded by cocoons of gas blown off in the late stages of stellar evolution. Gazing into this Cat's Eye, astronomers may well be seeing more than detailed structure, they may be seeing the fate of our Sun, destined to enter its own planetary nebula phase of evolution ... in about 5 billion years. 

SANTé/MEDECINE - Le lourd secret des salades en sachet

Des salades lavées avec une solution chlorée

Les salades en sachets ont la côte

Pas besoin de la trier, ni de la laver ou de l'égoutter... les salades en sachets ont de quoi nous séduire.

Pratiques ces salades... mais pas top pour la santé ! Car pour aseptiser au maximum ces salades emballées, une solution chlorée (type eau de Javel) est utilisée pour éliminer les germes et les bactéries.

Et il est prouvé que le contact de l'eau chlorée avec la terre qu'on trouve sur les salades crée des substances potentiellement cancérigènes : les trihalométhanes. En plus, des résidus de chlore peuvent être évacués dans les eaux usées. Ou pire... ils peuvent contaminer les feuilles de salade mal rincées et se retrouver dans nos estomacs. Bref, s'il est parfois recommandé de rincer les salades en sachet une seconde fois, ce n'est pas pour rien...

L'autre problème de ces salades, c'est qu'elles ont perdu toutes leurs vitamines. En cause : l'atmosphère protectrice utilisée pour conserver la salade plus longtemps selon Felicity Lawrence, auteure de "Not on the Label". La vitamine C et la vitamine E, notamment, ne survivent pas à ce conditionnement, tout comme certains antioxydants normalement présents dans la salade. Bref, la salade est bien verte, mais elle est bien pauvre en nutriments. Du coup, quel intérêt d'en manger ?

Nous vous invitons à lire l'article dans son intégralité sur

https://www.comment-economiser.fr/

ASTRONOMY - Roots on a Rotating Planet

2022 July 8

Roots on a Rotating Planet
Image Credit & Copyright: Marcella Giulia Pace

Explanation: With roots on a rotating planet, an old tree is centered in this sequence of 137 exposures each 20 seconds long, recorded one night from northern Sicily. Digital camera and fisheye lens were fixed to a tripod to capture the dramatic timelapse, so the stars trailed through the region's dark sky. Of course that makes it easy to spot the planet's north celestial pole. The extension of Earth's axis of rotation into space is toward the upper left, at the center of the concentric star trail arcs. The Milky Way is there too. The plane of our galaxy stretches across the wide field of view from north to east (left to right) creating a broader luminous band of diffuse starlight. 

ASTRONOMY - The NGC 6914 Complex

2022 July 7

The NGC 6914 Complex
Image Credit & Copyright: Giorgio Ferrari

Explanation: A study in contrasts, this colorful skyscape features stars, dust, and glowing gas in the vicinity of NGC 6914. The interstellar complex of nebulae lies some 6,000 light-years away, toward the high-flying northern constellation Cygnus and the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. Obscuring interstellar dust clouds appear in silhouette while reddish hydrogen emission nebulae, along with the dusty blue reflection nebulae, fill the cosmic canvas. Ultraviolet radiation from the massive, hot, young stars of the extensive Cygnus OB2 association ionize the region's atomic hydrogen gas, producing the characteristic red glow as protons and electrons recombine. Embedded Cygnus OB2 stars also provide the blue starlight strongly reflected by the dust clouds. The over 1 degree wide telescopic field of view spans about 100 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 6914. 

ASTRONOMY - Milky Way Motion in 3D from Gaia

 2022 July 6

Milky Way Motion in 3D from Gaia
Credit & License: ESA, Gaia, DPAC; Text: Ata Sarajedini (Florida Atlantic U., Astronomy Minute podcast)

Explanation: Our sky is alive with the streams of stars. The motions of 26 million Milky Way stars are evident in the featured map constructed from recent data taken by ESA's Gaia satellite. Stars colored blue are moving toward us, while red indicates away. Lines depict the motion of the stars across the sky. The large blue on the left and red areas on the map's right give the overall impression that stars in the Milky Way are rotating around the center. However, there is a region near the middle -- caused by our own Sun's motion relative to a rigidly-rotating central Galactic bar -- that seems to reverse it. Understanding details about the motion of stars is helping humanity to better understand the complex history of our Milky Way galaxy and the origin of our Sun.

ASTRONOMY - A Molten Galaxy Einstein Ring

 2022 July 5

A Molten Galaxy Einstein Ring
Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. Jha; Processing: Jonathan Lodge

Explanation: It is difficult to hide a galaxy behind a cluster of galaxies. The closer cluster's gravity will act like a huge lens, pulling images of the distant galaxy around the sides and greatly distorting them. This is just the case observed in the featured image recently re-processed image from the Hubble Space Telescope. The cluster GAL-CLUS-022058c is composed of many galaxies and is lensing the image of a yellow-red background galaxy into arcs seen around the image center. Dubbed a molten Einstein ring for its unusual shape, four images of the same background galaxy have been identified. Typically, a foreground galaxy cluster can only create such smooth arcs if most of its mass is smoothly distributed -- and therefore not concentrated in the cluster galaxies visible. Analyzing the positions of these gravitational arcs gives astronomers a method to estimate the dark matter distribution in galaxy clusters, as well as infer when the stars in these early galaxies began to form.

MERVEILLEUX MONDE SOUS-MARIN - La danseuse espagnole, le plus grand nudibranche au monde

 

Ocean indien - Nord Madagascar.

Danseuse espagnole (Hexabranchus sanguineus).

C'est le plus grand nudibranche que l'on puisse trouver. Sa taille peut dépasser les trente centimètres pour 2 kilos. Sa coloration varie du rouge vif à un blanc moucheté. C'est une espèce assez commune de la mer Rouge au Pacifique. Elle se nourrit en broutant des éponges ou des ascidies.

© Alexis Rosenfeld - FuturaSciences

ASTRONOMY - Strawberry Supermoon Over Devil's Saddle

 2022 July 4

Strawberry Supermoon Over Devil's Saddle
Image Credit & Copyright: Lorenzo Busilacchi

Explanation: Near the horizon the full moon often seems to loom large, swollen in appearance by the famous Moon illusion. But time-lapse image sequences demonstrate that the Moon's angular size doesn't really change as it rises or sets. Its color does, though. Recording a frame about every 60 seconds, this image also shows how red the Sun can look while low on the horizon. The featured montage was taken from Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy, the day after June's Strawberry Moon, a full moon dubbed a supermoon due to its slightly larger-than-usual angular size. This Strawberry Supermoon is seen rising behind the Devil's Saddle, a mountain named for the unusual moon-sized dip seen just to the right of the rising moon. A shrinking line-of-sight through planet Earth's dense and dusty atmosphere shifted the moonlight from strawberry red through honey-colored and paler yellowish hues. That change seems appropriate for a northern June Full Moon also known as the Strawberry or Honey Moon. A Thunder Supermoon -- the third of four supermoons in 2022 -- will occur later this month.

ASTRONOMY - Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars

 2022 July 3

Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars
Image Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA

Explanation: This moon is doomed. Mars, the red planet named for the Roman god of war, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic. These martian moons may well be captured asteroids originating in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter or perhaps from even more distant reaches of our Solar System. The larger moon, Phobos, is indeed seen to be a cratered, asteroid-like object in this stunning color image from the robotic Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, with objects as small as 10 meters visible. But Phobos orbits so close to Mars - about 5,800 kilometers above the surface compared to 400,000 kilometers for our Moon - that gravitational tidal forces are dragging it down. In perhaps 50 million years, Phobos is expected to disintegrate into a ring of debris.

PHOTOGRAPHIE - Lever de lune

"Lever de lune"

Stelvision

MUSIC - Hauser - Wicked game

"Wicked game"

ASTRONOMY - Solargraphic Analemmas

 2022 July 2

Solargraphic Analemmas
Image Credit & Copyright: Dawid Rycabel (Pinholove)

Explanation: For the northern hemisphere June 21 was the summer solstice, the Sun reaching its northernmost declination for the year. That would put it at the top of each of these three figure-8 curves, or analemmas, as it passed through the daytime sky over the village of Proboszczow, Poland. No sequence of digital exposures was used to construct the remarkable image though. Using a pinhole camera fixed to face south during the period June 26, 2021 to June 26, 2022, the image was formed directly on a single sheet of photographic paper, a technique known as solargraphy. The three analemmas are the result of briefly exposing the photo paper through the pinhole each day at 11:00, 12:00, and 13:00 CET. Groups of dashed lines on the sides show partial tracks of the Sun from daily exposures made every 15 minutes. Over the year-long solargraphic photo opportunity clouds blocking the Sun during the pinhole exposures created the dark gaps.

SANTE/MEDECINE - ATTENTION : Tampons hygièniques cancérigènes

Le Le glyphosate est un désherbant très répandu produit par Monsanto. Il est reconnu comme cancérigène probable par le Centre international de recherche sur le cancer de l’OMS. Aussi incroyable que cela puisse paraître, du glyphosate a été détecté dans 85 % des produits d’hygiène intime en coton.

En plus du glyphosate, 62 % des échantillons testés se sont révélés positifs à l’AMPA (ou acide aminométhylphosphonique), un dérivé du glyphosate. Les échantillons qui comportaient de la gaze, des cotons-tiges des lingettes et des produits d’hygiène intime féminine, comme des tampons et des serviettes hygiéniques, ont été achetés dans les supermarchés et les pharmacies locales de la région de Plata en Argentine. Les résultats ont été présentés à l’occasion du 3e Congrès des Médecins des Villes Traitées par Fumigation, à Buenos Aires. « 85 % de l’ensemble des échantillons ont été testés positifs au glyphosate, mais dans le cas du coton et des gazes stériles de coton, le taux est de 100 % », précise le Dr Damian Marino, responsable de l’étude, à l’agence de presse Telam. « Nous avons pu constater, en ce qui concerne la concentration, que l’AMPA domine dans le coton brut (39 parties par milliard – PPB - et 13 PPB pour le glyphosate). Bien que la gaze ne contienne pas d’AMPA, son taux en glyphosate s’élève néanmoins à 17 parties par milliard. »

Pourquoi c'est dangereux ?

Le Dr Medardo Avila Vazquez, président du congrès, a déclaré que les résultats de cette étude étaient « préoccupants dans la mesure où vous utilisez du coton et de la gaze pour soigner des blessures ou pour des raisons d’hygiène en pensant qu’ils sont stérilisés. Les résultats montrent qu'ils sont contaminés par une substance probablement cancérigène. » La majorité du coton produit dans ce pays est génétiquement modifié pour devenir résistant au glyphosate. Celui-ci est pulvérisé quand le bourgeon s’ouvre. Le glyphosate va directement dans le plant de coton.

Le glyphosate est le composant clé du Round Up produit par le géant Monsanto.

C'est le désherbant le plus répandu dans les cultures aux États-Unis. Le coton, le soja, et le maïs ont tous été génétiquement modifiés pour résister à la diffusion de cet herbicide. Dans les faits, les agriculteurs ont pulvérisé 1,2 milliard de kilos d’herbicide à base de glyphosate de Monsanto, sur les terres agricoles aux États-Unis entre 1992 et 2012 selon le US Geological Survey. En 2015, le ministère de l’Agriculture américain a estimé que la culture de variétés génétiquement modifiées représente 94 % de la surface cultivée en coton.

Quelles sont les alternatives sans risque ?

Vous ne voulez plus utiliser de tampons ? C’est tout à fait possible !

Connaissez-vous les coupes menstruelles, les serviettes hygiéniques lavables ou encore les éponges naturelles ? Ce sont des alternatives sans danger pour votre santé. Vous pouvez opter également pour des tampons estampillés « bio » composés entièrement de coton biologique. Celui-ci n’est pas blanchi au chlore. Et il est sans plastique ni parfum. Vous pouvez les trouver dans les pharmacies, les magasins bio, ou encore sur Internet.

NB : une pétition a été lancée par un particulier en France pour exiger l’affichage de la composition des tampons d’une très grande marque. La pétition en ligne a déjà reçu plus de 265 211 soutiens ! Vous pouvez la trouver ici.

CommentEconomiser

ASTRONOMY - The Solar System's Planet Trails

 2022 July 1

The Solar System's Planet Trails
Image Credit & Copyright: Zheng Zhi

Explanation: Stars trail through a clear morning sky in this postcard from a rotating planet. The timelapse image is constructed from consecutive exposures made over nearly three hours with a camera fixed to a tripod beside the Forbidden City in Beijing, China on June 24. Arcing above the eastern horizon after the series of exposures began, a waning crescent Moon left the brightest streak and watery reflection. On that date the planets of the Solar System were also lined up along the ecliptic and left their own trails before sunrise. Saturn was first to rise on that morning and the ringed planet's trail starts close to the top right edge, almost out of the frame. Innermost planet Mercury rose only just before the Sun though. It left the shortest trail, visible against the twilight near the horizon at the far left. Uranus and Neptune are faint and hard to find, but mingled with the star trails the Solar System's planet trails are all labeled in the scene.