The three zones of the earth are called the lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere that comprise the land, water and the air. The rocky part down towards the center is called lithosphere while the water and ice portion is called hydrosphere and the air surrounding the earth is called atmosphere. The nine percent of earth is land and about 71 percent is water.

The earth rotates on its axis and this actually causes the day and the night. As a part of the earth faces the sun, it gives us sunlight and calls it daytime. As it faces away completely from the sun, the stars shine and call it the night. For the earth to rotate on its own axis, it will take one whole day or about 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.09 seconds. It rotates east to west or counterclockwise . The earth turns 365 ¼ days to complete its rotation in a year.

Now - there are several factors affecting and causing the many seasons on earth. The earth continues to travel around the sun in an orbit thus keeps the earth moving continuously. As the earth orbits the sun - the day changes so thus the temperature. Depending on the place, the heat and the cold vary and because of the inclination of the earth's axis it produces seasons like winter, spring, autumn, and fall. The axis of the earth inclines at 23-26-59 degrees to the plane of its own orbit.

The seasons of the north of the equator are always opposite the seasons of the south thus each pole is turn down the sun for a certain period in a year. When north pole is tilted towards the sun then it would be summer in Northern Hemisphere.

It becomes winter in the Northern Hemisphere when the north pole is tilted away from the sun. The earth leans to one side only when it rotates on its axis and it leans as it goes around the sun and this is how the revolution of the earth produces the four seasons in the Temperature Zone.

The slanting of the sun's rays received by a certain part of the earth brings changes in climate and in seasons. The Torrid Zone which is the middle part of the earth receives the vertical rays of the sun. It is hot in this part of the earth because the rays are direct and straight.

Farther away from the middle part of the earth is the Temperature Zone where it does not receive too much heat from the sun because the rays of the sun that reaches this part of the earth are slanting. It is very cold in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere where it receives the greatest slant of sun rays.

Countries that belong to the Torrid Zone have two seasons: the rainy season and the dry season. There is plenty of rain during the rainy season along with strong winds while it is warm during the dry season. Tropical countries in Asia like the Philippines are one of the countries that enjoy this kind of seasons. It is rainy season from May to October and dry season from November to April. The coolest months are December to February. The nights are longer than the days during December and January while days are longer than nights during March and April.

In another experiment, Galileo rolled a ball down a slope. With this he proved that a body moving on a perfectly smooth horizontal surface would neither speed up not slow down.

Sir Isaac Newton, the English physicist and mathematician laid the foundation of modern physics. It was the who discovered the law of gravity. As a young boy while sitting under an apple tree he began to wonder why objects always fell down instead of going up. His mind dwelled on this subject for a long time. As he grew older he started to investigate the phenomenon of gravitation. Finally in 1685 Newton expounded the Universal Law of Gravitation.

According to this law, all objects fall to the earth with the same acceleration regardless of mass. He wrote down in great detail his observations and theories with mathematical calculations. His famous book, Principia, was published with the aid of Edmond Halley, the English astronomer who financed it.

Much later Albert Einstein attempted to explain what is gravity. His theory was a very complicated one that required a very scientific mind to understand it. As science has taken leaps and bounds in the field of astronomy we now know that the force of gravity is 6 times more on the earth than on the moon. The planet of Jupiter has a still stronger force of gravity. A person on that planet would weigh three times more than he would on the earth.

Photographs taken from Southern Cyprus.

The lunar eclipse is seen in Polemi village at midnight. Polemi, Paphos in Southern Cyprus.

Photographs taken on a digital camera by Glynis Smy. No flash was used for capturing these images.

The lower pictures were taken with flash used the eclipse can be seen at the lower end of the light rays given off by the sun, camera movement made these pictures look incredible, I gave some of the photographs names because they captured my imagination
The dogs howled and the air was still

The Worm

The night sky was clear.

The Grub

The light from the partially eclipsed moon was very bright.

The Light Bulb

The weather in the village that day had been hot and humid.

The Seahorse

The Bust

The Train

Check here to read more about the light rays given off during a Lunar Eclipse.

Check here to watch a video of the process.

All of the latest discoveries are based on the fact that the Sun is considered a normal star, yet offers us many things such as light and heat. It is also our ultimate source of energy which allows the Earth to not only exist but to fully function in a most habitable manner. Without it, our planet would be nothing more than an uninhabitable frozen rock. Located close to us, we have learned to study the Sun over the years to better understand many other stars, the Milky Way, other galaxies, and the universe. Considered a huge anchor which provides the gravity to keep Earth and other planets in our solar system together, the Sun is our "glue" which holds us together.

Climate Change

On July 18, 2008, ScienceDaily.com (Change, 2008) stated that an announcement was made by Manuel Vázquez--a researcher from the Canary Islands' Astrophysics Institute in Madrid, Spain--at the Sun and Climate Change conference regarding the fact that solar activity is responsible for approximately 15-20% of global warming. During the conference, Vázquez stated there was evidence that demonstrated after the last glacier era, during the past 10,000 years, and before the beginning of any industrial activity--the Sun's magnetic energy successfully regulated most variations of the Earth's climates on its own. Information at the conference shows that over the past 40 years of solar activity, it has not increased-- remaining constant or diminished, making it extremely difficult to "attribute a single global warming effect to it, "the cause of which needs to be looked for in human activities."

Manuel Vázquez made a slightly controversial statement at the conference which represented the entire global warming agenda: "If man had never started burning fossil fuels, the sun might have been the only agent regulating the climate until the next glaciations. However, back in the 19th century we started an experiment which we are now beginning to suffer the consequences of", explained the astrophysicist Manuel Vázquez to SINC.

Termination Shock

Data arriving from the NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft have allowed scientists to recognize a change in the magnetic bubble of solar wind surrounding our solar system, with the recent findings published in a series of papers in "Nature" on July 3. What was observed was a squashed shape instead of a regular round shape that was made by the solar wind. These are great findings as they demonstrate how our Sun interacts with the surrounding interstellar medium through an elongated-spherical shape, but one that is pressed inward in the southern hemisphere.

The termination shock is referred to as the beginning stages of an area between the solar wind bubble of the heliosphere and the remaining aspect of interstellar space referred to as the "termination shock." When it was noticed that the Voyager 2 crossed this boundary much closer than expected to the Sun, it was suggested this region's heliosphere was being pushed inward by its interstellar magnetic field--closer to the sun.

New mountains are formed as a result of violent changes in the surface of the earth. Geologists divide the mountains into four categories to the way they were formed. The fold mountains are made up of several layers of different types of rocks that were squeezed by great pressure into folds. This explains why the fossils of marine animals and plants can be sometimes found on the peaks of fold mountains. The Himalayas, Andes, Alps and the Rockies are examples of fold mountains.

Some times molten lava from beneath the earths surface tries to force up the rocks in order to come out. They are unsuccessful, but leave a bulge on the surface. These are known as the dome mountains. The black hills of south Dakota, in the USA are the eroded remains of such a type of mountain formation.

At certain places huge blocks of rock can split and slide along lines of weaknesses or faults, as they are generally called. Great masses of rocks can tilt or be lifted above the level of the rest of the neighboring rocks. Such mountains, known as block mountains rise abruptly from the surrounding plains. The sierra Nevada Range of California in the western part of USA, is an excellent example of this kind.

Due to disturbances in the layers below the surface of the earth, the crust cracks. The lava from the inner pars of the earth comes gushing out of these gaps as a volcano. As the molten lava flows out in subsequent eruptions a volcanic mountain is formed. Mount Fuji in Japan, mount Vesuvius in Italy and mount st.helens in the USA are mountains that are formed by volcanic activity.

There are certain mountain ranges that are formed by a combination of different methods. The Rockies in North America is basically an example of a fold mountain range. Yet there are mountains in this range, which are formed due to doming, faulting and outpourings of lava.

I shall start just after the sun was shining brightly.

The sun shone brightly and spun around on it axis  Circling around it was lots of gases, dust and rock...  They circled around in all sorts of different orbits not necessarily aligned with the suns rotational axis.  The sun shone on these bits and made them hotter.  The bits aligned themselves into a disk and they all rotated around the sun's equatorial plane.  Gradually the bits got together under the effects of gravity. So that as one lump formed it clearer the zone near it of smaller bits. 

As they fell together they all got hotter. To the extent that much of the rock was molten.  One such lump was a binary system.  A big lump and a small lump.  They rotated around their common center of mass.  The earth lump spun on is axis once every 20 hours.  The moon lump went around the earth every 20 days.  Its orbital period dictated that it orbit more closely. Both had molten surfaces.  Both raised tides of molten rock on each other. The tides were bigger because they were closer.  The tides caused friction in the molten rock and slowed down the rate of rotation. 

When the dust and rock was spread out the sun was able to heat it and increase its temperature.  As the bits came together in a disk the heating effect was diminished and then further diminished as they formed small round planets.  The planets began to cool.  They continued to be warmed by the sun.  They had their own residual heat.  They had warmth created by atomic reactions from the interior.  They had the warmth of friction caused by the tides. They were warmed by the occasional arrival of a further lump of rock and dust.

The moon being smaller cooled more rapidly.  The surface froze. 

In the molten earth the various components sorted themselves by density.  The denser bits sinking to the center and lighter bits floating to the surface. So the nickel and iron being denser collected at the center while the lighter rocks floated to the surface. Whatever air or water was about was heated and flung off away from the earth.

The earth cooled more slowly.  The earth's rotational axis was not aligned with the axis of it rotation around the sun.  So for half the time during the orbit around the sun a polar region was tilted away from the sun and cooled more quickly.  The surface of the molten rock froze.  A good example of this would be the TV pictures of an eruption in Hawaii.  Molten rock arrives at the surface and cools due to radiation and conduction into the air.  The frozen rock forms a crust on the outside of the molten rock.  Inside this crust the molten rock can still flow.  So each winter a frozen rock island formed in a sea of molten rock. Each summer the heating effect of the sun melted the frozen rock and the bits floated away toward the equator.  Just like we can see TV pictures of icebergs breaking away from the icecap each spring and drifting toward the equator.

Time progressed and the frozen rock covered nearly the whole surface.  The equator continued to be molten but with an increasing coverage of “iceberg” lumps.  At some stage all the “iceberg” lumps all joined up.  But there was a problem.  The moon was still raising tides on the molten rock.  So once a day the molten rock heaved up and then down, cracking the nearly solid surface.  Into every exposed crack molten lava welled up and froze. So the cracks spread apart and pushed it neighbours harder against the next one and in some cases up and over its neighbour and this formed a more rigid bond between the pushed up mass. 

Where the original crack had occurred it was more susceptible to further cracking and next day it cracked again and up came the molten lava and as the tide subsided so it pushed it neighbours away again.  So the whole plate moved away and on the other side up and over the adjoining plate.  So once established the cracks were self perpetuating.  And once a few bits had been crushed together and ridden up and over and under each other these too were self sustaining because they were less susceptible to cracking. 

As the lumps became bigger they sank deeper into the molten rock and since the rock was hotter toward the centre the bottom of the lump was melted.   That was the bit of the plate that had ridden under its neighbour.  Again, once this process became established the part which rode over was protected from melting and became more established while the bit that went down had the end melted off - making room for more for it. 

The moon raised the tide, and at any one pass it lifted up a body of molten rock all along a line of longitude.  I. e. a bulge that extended from north to south with maximum bulge near the equator and nearest to the moon.  So the cracks that occurred tended to be north and south orientated.  But this organised system did not last.  It became fragmented and buckled.  Some crack would expand more rapidly than others and other bits that were sliding underneath would get caught on other bits and not progress evenly.  The process of expanding the cracks continued but became disorganised so that the neatly organised north-south cracks swung around and caused additional cracks along established bits of crust and the whole process would get going again.  But higgdely piggdely with no organised pattern.

So after a short while the whole thing was composed of lots of separate plates, of various shapes a various sizes.  When you watch ships in a harbour with a strong wind and a lot of swell - they each roll and pitch at a rate defined by their shape and mass. If they were not all held separate by mooring lines they would scrape up and down against each other.  And so it was with the plates - they each had their own harmonic motion.  So that the driving frequency of the tide was adopted by motions that the plates could use. So some which were near a harmonic of the driving frequency would leap and thrash about while others would slump docilely.  Such enormous bodies of rock treated leaping and thrashing as tiny movements but still sufficient to crack the the crust. 

You can see the effect of driven harmonic motion in the Lake Lundy in Canada where the body water has a frequency near to the di-urnal cycle.  The tides (of water) are the highest in the world.

The plates were floating on viscous treacle.  Well not really treacle but viscous molten rock so any violent motion was damped down.  But the parts that tended to crack were those places where a node occurred - that's a point where the oscillations are at a maximum. And cracking did not occur at anti-nodes.  In special cases there could be parts where two plates move up and down in unison and that would tend to limit cracking.  So cracking did not occur all along a boundary but at particular places where differential movements occurred.  And so the molten lava would spring into the crack and expand the crack  - but not evenly along the whole length of a crack and so the plates became even more disorganised. 

And then the surface cooled even more. And then it rained!  Where the water came from I cannot say.  It rained on the tops of the heaped up bits. And trickled downhill to the valley.  The lowest point was the edge of the plate and the water dribbled down the crack at the edge of the plate and cooled the upwelling lava even more.  The process of cracking and spreading continued but even more slowly.  It rained some more and the water accumulated in seas and hid the edges of the plates.

The seas were affected by the moon and formed tides.  And the plates continued to be affected by the moon.

And that is the end of my story.  But they did not live happily ever after, because they squabbled about the reason for the spreading plates.

Earth

We live on the planet earth, the planet is the third from the sun and it is the only terrestrial planet of the 3 planets after mercury to keep its ocean's.

Why is the sky blue?

The sky is blue because of the composition of the atmosphere. When light bounces off nitrogen it makes the color blue that is why the sky is blue during the day and not blue during the night.

• What we know?
• What we don't know?

We know a lot about the place that we call home but we also know very little about it at the same time. Did you know that we know more about the lunar surface then we do about our oceans on the earth? The moon was formed when the earth was still a ball of molten rock. The Earth was struck by a big rock about the size of mars and it made a lot of the rock to go into space which eventuality formed our moon. We also know that the moon is slowly moving away from the earth and in a billion year it will be it's own planet. So long and read about Ceres.

Some believe it shrinks the objects into compact particles. While continuously spinning in a circle. Dropping them into another peace of data like on a disc or cd. Except for there is no end to the amount of data being stored.

In many theories there is a possibility that each one is correct until proven otherwise. Another theory is that the black hole is a black mirror. That can be easily slipped threw. And so that would mean that there are planets the same as ours with numerous galaxies the same as ours. Just everything is in a reversed rotation.

Whatever the case, we can be for sure that if something goes in. It will never return. Unless there was a possible way to get close enough to keep attached a camera probe on a tag line, and then sent into the black hole to collect pictures. This may be worth a try.

Let's begin at the beginning, starting with what is known as the earth's crust. This is where pretty much everything is kept: our oceans, our continents, our cities; in fact, pretty much our whole civilization. Although the crust seems substantial to us, it really is the thinnest of all the layers of our earth (It is both the thinnest at only 40 miles thick on the continents and as little as 9 miles thick underneath the oceans.) and the lightest-made of materials that “floated to the top” as it were. The composition of the earth's crust depends largely on your location. On the continents, the crust is mostly granitic rock, while the ocean floor is mostly basalt. This is because granite is lighter than basalt and “floats” above the heavier rock.

The earth's crust (at about 8,000 miles in diameter) is quite thin-thinner than an eggshell would be if it were shrunk down to the same size. It also ahs a definite boundary, called the Mohorovicic discontinuity, or moho, for short. This marks the place where seismic waves traveling down through the crust of the earth speed up.

The next level is called the mantle, which like the crust, is made up of rocky material though there are two big differences: the rocky material of the mantle is denser, which is why seismic waves speed up-and it's much hotter: about 1,800 degrees and increasingly so the further down we go. (Of course, if we were really digging down to the core, we would have cooked by the time we were at the mantle, having melted alongside any shovels we'd have been using-but no worries, since your still just sitting on your comfy couch, remember?) The heat makes the rocky mantle the consistency of Silly Putty, and is impressively thick: at 1,800 miles thick.

The outer core follows, and is even denser than the mantle because it's composed of molten metal: mostly iron, some nickel, and some sulfur and oxygen tossed in, boiling along at about 6,700 degrees. It is because of this liquid iron that scientists believe that the earth has such a great magnetic field. This works well for us, as our planet's magnetic field deflects a substantial amount of harmful cosmic rays from the earth's surface. Though the outer core's environs are hellish, they help make our earth a paradise for life.

Think that's hot enough? No, not yet. The hottest and densest part of the planet is he inner core, at the nearly impossible fathomable 7,700 degrees, composed of (almost) entirely solid iron, solid despite the heat. At the heart of our planet, the pressure is some three million times greater thatn on the surface. Though we do know a lot about the center of the earth, we do not know what it actually looks like, since we've never actually seen it. The deepest hole humans have ever dug has never even punctured through the crust. We “see” by tracking the seismic waves as they trbvel down into the depths. However this is just one possible option. Some scientists think that the earth's core is composed of uranium and plutonium undergoing a huge fission reaction that's been simmering for billions of years, which is why our core has remained hot for so long.