Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017 Wows Skywatchers

Saturday, August 26, 2017

Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017 Wows Skywatchers

Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017 Wows Skywatchers:

A total solar eclipse is seen on Monday, August 21, 2017 above Madras, Oregon. Photo Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

The “Great American Eclipse” has officially ended. The first glimpses of the first total solar eclipse to cross the United States from coast to coast in 99 years began in Oregon, with totality just after 1 p.m. ET. What started as a tiny crescent of the moon's shadow turned into a perfectly beautiful eclipse in city after city. It ended in South Carolina about 3 p.m. ET. A partial solar eclipse was visible until just after 4 p.m. in the Southeast.

NASA’s G-III aircraft picked up the stunning celestial event in Salem, Oregon, showing the black orb of the moon covering the blazing sun to create a glowing halo.

The awe-inspiring moment cast total blackness over the area.

It then stretched across 13 other states: Idaho, a sliver of Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, a tiny portion of Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

In most places, the total eclipse lasted less than one minute, but the longest period of darkness lasted 2 minutes and 44 seconds over Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois.

Millions of people moved to get into the path of darkness, putting on their protective glasses to gaze at the sky in wonder.

It was the first total solar eclipse visible from America's lower 48 states in 38 years, and the first since 1918 to track from coast to coast.

In Washington, D.C., where the sun was about 80 percent obscured by the moon, President Trump, Melania Trump and their son, Barron Trump, took in the scene from the Blue Room Balcony just after 2:30 p.m. ET.

The president waved to the onlookers at the White House, and gave a thumbs-up gesture when a reporter inquired about the view. He observed the eclipse at its apex wearing glasses with Mrs. Trump for about 90 seconds.

The Atlantic coastal city of Charleston was the final big urban area tasked with saying goodbye to the eclipse. It experienced the full shadow at 2:47 p.m. ET.

Then totality headed out past Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, across the coastal wetlands and out into the Atlantic.

Although, the US had exclusive rights on totality, a partial eclipse was visible across all of North America and the north of South America.

Parts of western Europe were also set to see the moon take a little chunk out of the sun at the end of the day just before the star dipped below the horizon.

The next total solar eclipse on Earth is on July 2, 2019, over the South Pacific, Chile, Argentina.

Credit: cnn.com, nypost.com, nytimes.com, bbc.com

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958.

UFO SIGHTINGS PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as "An unidentified flying object; a 'flying saucer'." The first published book to use the word was authored by Donald E. Keyhoe. The acronym "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAF's official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, "Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short." Other phrases that were used officially and that predate the UFO acronym include "flying flapjack", "flying disc", "unexplained flying discs", "unidentifiable object", and "flying saucer". The phrase "flying saucer" had gained widespread attention after the summer of 1947. On June 24, a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of discs to be over 1,200 mph (1,931 km/h). At the time, he described the objects' shape as being somewhat disc-like or saucer-like, leading to newspaper accounts of "flying saucers" and "flying discs". In popular usage the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft. and because of the public and media ridicule associated with the topic, some investigators prefer to use such terms as unidentified aerial phenomenon (or UAP) or anomalous phenomena, as in the title of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).

UFO PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

UFO - Unidentified Flying Object An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon. Culturally, UFOs are associated with claims of visitation by extraterrestrial life or government-related conspiracy theories, and have become popular subjects in fiction. While UFOs are often later identified, sometimes identification may not be possible owing to the usually low quality of evidence related to UFO sightings (generally anecdotal evidence and eyewitness accounts). Stories of fantastical celestial apparitions have been told since antiquity, but the term "UFO" (or "UFOB") was officially created in 1953 by the United States Air Force (USAF) to serve as a catch-all for all such reports. In its initial definition, the USAF stated that a "UFOB" was "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object." Accordingly, the term was initially restricted to that fraction of cases which remained unidentified after investigation, as the USAF was interested in potential national security reasons and/or "technical aspects" (see Air Force Regulation 200-2). During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to popularly as "flying saucers" or "flying discs". The term UFO became more widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. UFOs garnered considerable interest during the Cold War, an era associated with a heightened concern for national security. Various studies have concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat to national security nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit (e.g., 1951 Flying Saucer Working Party, 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, USAF Project Blue Book, Condon Committee).

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Saturday, August 26, 2017