To Panic or Not To Panic ?

it’s been almost 20 days since the earthquake hit Japan, and they are still counting bodies…in addition the nuclear disaster which hit the Fukushima region on the 11th of March will continue to release radioactive material in the atmosphere, soil, freshwater and seawater for months or even years.

Up to now we know almost nothing solid for the disaster, and the only information which is available to the scientists, has been gathered either by unmanned planes (drones) or by scientific models for nuclear disasters.

the following photos were taken by the Japan Air Photo Services Co.

Reactor #3

Reactor #4

radioactive steam from reactors #2 and #3

Chile … once again in the news

33 miners were trapped for 69 days, 700 meters below the surface …

and today this came to an end…

the first miner out... Florencio Avalos

they are being re-surfaced via a capsule named Phoenix.

The world is holding its breath while waiting the last miner to come out of the 700m deep hole, which will eventually be the case  in a couple of hours…

good luck to the remaining 8 miners    25 miners have already left the mine and are spending the next 48h to a medical center for any treatment needed.

 

Got Oil ?

Plenty!

Everywhere…

About a month ago, an explosion caused a burst of an underwater oil well at the seabed of Mexican Gulf.

BP, which is responsible for the well and the explosion… was trying to seal the well for the past month with no success… till today!

High pressured mud and cement was used to seal the leak…

800,000 litres of oil leak to the Atlantic Ocean every day...

Green Power is needed !

According to the CNN article,

Cresting the brow of autovia A-49 in Andalusia, 10 miles outside of Seville, the world’s first commercial solar “power tower” appears on the skyline like a giant obelisk.

solar tower

Even on an overcast morning the sun’s rays are so intense they illuminate the water vapor and dust hanging in the air to create a giant lattice of white lines that appear to emanate from the eye of the tower.

how it works...

The tower itself is 115 meters high — the height of a 14-storey building — and, bathed in intense white light, the overall effect resembles nothing so much as a religious object.

religious object... ?

Valerio Fernandez is director of operations for the PS10 platform and its neighbor, PS20. That means he is responsible for the 624 giant mirrors — or heliostats — that reflect the sun’s rays into a receiver located at the top of the tower.

full article

the actual company responsible for the project

It is important to see how Greece will utilize the sun and wind power!

Fingers crossed !

Does it really leak?

The biggest shopping mall in the Middle East has been evacuated as workmen scramble to contain a leak (???) in the massive shark-filled aquarium

it's just a thin layer of glass between them!

inside the centre.

“There was a small problem, a simple crack,

a simple crack???

and the water leaked”,

water leaked...

an official at Dubai’s civil defense department commented.

full story  of the leak  you can find it here

by the way,  the photos do not represent real events… they are just figments of my imagination!!!

This photo is out of this world!

I really like this photo!

I am following the three astronauts of  the ISS .

Not literally, I follow them on twitter!

Astro Jeff

Astro Soichi is the photographer…

Astro TJ

Moon Crater on the spot… ready for a photoshoot?

One thing that can be said for certain about the Moon is that it has had a rough life. Since it first formed, it has been constantly battered by asteroids, meteorites and comets, as evidenced by the massive amounts of impact craters that adorn its surface. Some of these landscape features are very important because they appear to be very young, in the sense that they were formed only millions of years ago. Such is the case with the Tycho Crater, believed to be one of the youngest on the lunar surface, which recently got a new set of images, Space reports.

Tycho Crater

Tycho is average in size, astronomers say, but it is obvious that it is very young. According to geologists, as a crater gets older, its surface begins to get covered by smaller impact marks, and its edges start showing signs of erosion. This is not the case with Tycho, as the feature still looks pristine, with no signs of newer impacts obscuring its surface. This was again proven recently, as the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) moved above the structure, and snapped a series of high-resolution images of the area. In addition to the immediate scientific value of these images, they are also important in terms of the future, planned missions to the Moon, which NASA has planned.

source

Earthquake in Haiti…

The quake, of a 7.1 R magnitude  struck about 15km  south-west of Port-au-Prince, was quickly followed by two strong aftershocks of 5.9R and 5.5R magnitude.

a map showing the epicenter of the quake...

The tremor hit at 16:53 local time,according to the US Geological Survey.

People are trying to dig victims out with flashlights.  Hundreds of casualties would be a serious understatement for sure!

A French official told AFP news agency about 200 people were missing in the collapsed Hotel Montana, which is popular with tourists.

Earlier, bodies white with dust could be seen piled on the back of a pick-up truck as vehicles tried to ferry the injured to hospital.

Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and has suffered a number of recent disasters, including four hurricanes and storms in 2008 that killed hundreds.

dust and rumbles everywhere

source

Cold… Cold… Colder !

this is the photo of  a frozen UK , taken today by a NASA satellite today 7.1.10

White Christmas, White New Year’s Eve, White Everything!!!

I thought it was a hoax !!!

Air traffic controller … for ships…!

I found this very cool site , which shows in real time the traffic in the seas around the globe…

greek seas traffic

an archive still from the live tracking