“How do I get out of here?”
Russian version of New York City Projects, 18,000 people live in this “ring”
Month: January 2022
Astronaut Bruce McCandless II, the first person to conduct an untethered free flight in space
Bruce McCandless II (June 8, 1937 – December 21, 2017) was a United States Navy officer and aviator, electrical engineer, and NASA astronaut. In 1984, during the first of his two Space Shuttle missions, he completed the first untethered spacewalk by using the Manned Maneuvering Unit.
The Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) is an astronaut propulsion unit that was used by NASA on three Space Shuttle missions in 1984. The MMU allowed the astronauts to perform untethered extravehicular spacewalks at a distance from the shuttle. The MMU was used in practice to retrieve a pair of faulty communications satellites, Westar VI and Palapa B2. Following the third mission the unit was retired from use. A smaller successor, the Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue (SAFER), was first flown in 1994, and is intended for emergency use only.
Did the Gillman from “Creature from the Black Lagoon” Evolve from Iguanas?
The similarities are uncanny!
Turkmenistan’s President Wants Fiery ‘Gates of Hell’ Crater Extinguished
The president of Turkmenistan hopes to extinguish a massive fiery crater, dubbed the ‘Gates of Hell,’ which has been burning for decades and has become one of the country’s most popular tourist attractions. Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov reportedly issued the decree this past Saturday, explaining that the inferno’s output “negatively affects both the environment and the health of the people living nearby.” He also argued that “we are losing valuable natural resources for which we could get significant profits and use them for improving the well being of our people.” As such, Berdymukhamedov told officials in the country to figure out a way to finally snuff out the fire.
The origins of the monstrous chasm and its iconic inferno are murky at best with legend stating that it was accidentally created in the 1970s by Russian miners hoping to extract natural gas from the area. That version of events is now doubted by researchers, who believe that the crater probably formed sometime in the 1960s. Although it has been burning continuously for several decades, how and when the fire started remains a mystery. Be that as it may, it has become a genuine landmark which draws visitors from all over the world to Turkmenistan.
Before one sheds a tear for the tourist attraction, the fate of the ‘Gates of Hell’ is far from certain as this is actually the second time that Berdymukhamedov has called for the fire to be extinguished. Back in 2010, he issued a similar order to experts in the country, but the effort clearly failed as the inferno continues to burn to this day. With that in mind, there is a strong possibility that the authoritarian leader’s wishes will once again be thwarted by the mysterious fiery chasm.
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The “Gates of Hell”
The Darvaza gas crater, known locally as the “Door to Hell” or ”Gates of Hell”, is a natural gas field in Derweze, Turkmenistan, that collapsed into an underground cavern, becoming a natural gas crater. Geologists set it on fire to prevent the spread of methane gas, and it has been burning continuously since 1971. The diameter of the crater is 69 metres (226 ft), and its depth is 30 metres (98 ft).
The crater is a popular tourist attraction. Since 2009, 50,000 tourists have visited the site. The gas crater has a total area of 5,350 m2. The surrounding area is also popular for wild desert camping.
The gas crater is located near the village of Derweze, also known as Darzava. It is in the middle of the Karakum Desert, about 260 kilometres (160 mi) north of Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan. The gas reserve found here is one of the largest in the world. The name “Door to Hell” was given to the field by the locals, referring to the fire, boiling mud, and orange flames in the large crater, which has a diameter of 70 metres (230 ft). The hot spots range over an area with a width of 60 metres (200 ft) and to a depth of about 20 metres (66 ft).
According to Turkmen geologist Anatoly Bushmakin, the site was identified by Soviet engineers in 1971. It was originally thought to be a substantial oil field site. The engineers set up a drilling rig and operations to assess the quantity of oil available at the site. Soon after the preliminary survey found a natural gas pocket, the ground beneath the drilling rig and camp collapsed into a wide crater and was buried.
Expecting dangerous releases of poisonous gases from the cavern into nearby towns, the engineers thought it best to burn the gas off. It was estimated that the gas would burn out within a few weeks, but it has instead continued to burn for more than four decades.
In April 2010, the president of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, visited the site and ordered that the hole should be closed. In 2013, he declared the part of the Karakum Desert with the crater a nature reserve.
The crater was featured in a Die Trying episode titled “Crater of Fire”. Explorer George Kourounis became the first person to ever set foot at the bottom, gathering samples of extremophile microorganisms. The episode was broadcast on the National Geographic Channel on July 16, 2014.
Camping on the edge of the “Gates of Hell”
Ostrich Breakout and Stampede in Chinese City
In a wild story out of China, more than 80 ostriches escaped their farm and, much to the amazement of motorists, wound up flooding the streets of a city. The strange incident reportedly occurred early Saturday morning in the community of Chongzuo. Thanks to an unlocked gate on the property where they live, the bevy of birds managed to make a break for it and enjoy a brief taste of freedom.Drivers cruising the streets of the city could not believe their eyes as the ostriches dashed down the streets in droves and overwhelmed nearby sidewalks.
Perhaps thinking that no one would believe their story, several witnesses filmed the jaw-dropping scene with their cellphone and their videos went viral on social media. Fortunately no one was injured during the unexpected stampede and the owner of the farm was able to wrangle nearly all of their escaped ostriches. That said, since not every bird was captured, there may be more than a few of the rogue birds still hiding out somewhere in Chongzuo.
Little Critters
Baby lamb 15 minutes old.
2 month old sloth.
Baby stoat. Related to weasels and otters.
Pictures from space best drone photos
An astronaut on the International Space Station (ISS) snapped a picture of the United State’s Cascade and Rocky Mountains, as well as Canada’s Coast Mountains. An ISS solar array can be seen in the upper center part of the frame.
Cloudy Tail
A massive cloud of hydrogen streams from a Neptune-sized exoplanet due to the extreme radiation given off by the planet’s star. Researchers have never seen this occur around such a small planet dubbed – GJ 436b – before.
Auroras
Crew members on the International Space Station got a front seat view of this week’s auroras and captured this image.
Up, Up, and Away
A Soyuz rocket shoots into space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 23. Three crewmembers bound for the International Space Station for a five month mission on board.
Sunlit
This is the first picture of Earth’s entire sunny side that NASA has released since the famous “Blue Marble” image in 1972. Images published in the interim have been stitched together from multiple pictures taken at different times.
Smoky
Satellites captured smoke from Canadian and Alaskan wildfires drifting over the Greenland Sea. Alaska has had its worst fire season ever, with millions of acres burned as of July 7. Over three million acres have burned in Canada as of July 15.
Solar Marble
Our sun glows in x-ray and ultraviolet light. High-energy x-rays are shown in blue, low-energy x-rays are green, and extreme ultraviolet light shines in yellow and green. Active regions flare up in bursts of white.
Drone photos
Snorkeling With Sharks
Snorkelers swim with sharks near Moorea Island in French Polynesia.
Lost Island
Tourists wait for a sunset in French Polynesia, a group of islands in the South Pacific.
Glorieto Rodolfo Sanchez Taboada
A cliff diver jumps into the ocean in Mazatlan, Mexico.
Above the Mist
The Cathedral of Maringa pokes through heavy fog in Parana, Brazil.
Mont-Saint-Michel
Mont-Saint-Michel is an island commune off the coast of Normandy, France.
Why we are in ‘the age of artificial islands’
BBC
We are building more islands than ever before. In the latest edition of our photographic series Anthropo-Scene, we explore the striking results of humanity’s attempts to colonise the world’s lakes and oceans with new land.H
Hundreds of years ago, the Lau people of the Solomon Islands built around 80 artificial islands in a lagoon, placing bits of coral and rock into the water, piece by piece. It took them centuries.
Throughout history, humans have sought to create dry land within lakes, rivers and oceans, which they could then populate. But the 21st Century has brought a new ambition – and perhaps a touch of hubris – to this endeavour.
We are living in an “age of islands”, according to the social geographer Alastair Bonnett of Newcastle University, UK. “New islands are being built in numbers and on a scale never seen before.”
This new generation of islands are bolder, grander – and potentially more damaging – than anything our ancestors constructed, writes Bonnett in his book Elsewhere: A Journey Into Our Age Of Islands.
The geographer visited human-made islands all over the world, exploring a variety of constructions. Giant artificial archipelagos, created by pouring millions of tonnes of sand into the ocean. Concrete-coated “Frankenstein” atolls, designed to consolidate military and political power. And dizzyingly tall oil rigs extending hundreds of metres down to the seafloor.
While some artificial structures have been reclaimed by nature, that process takes time. Often, there’s little life beneath the waters surrounding man-made islands. “All too often artificial islands are dead zones. Trying to make them live again is hard work,” writes Bonnett. In places like the South China Sea, “once pristine and untouched reefs…have been horribly mutilated: squared off and concreted over”.
But nonetheless, Bonnett found himself drawn to these artificial creations, to try and understand how they were built, and why they came to be. Whether you approve of them or not, they will tell future generations a story of how humanity saw itself in the early Anthropocene.
A traditional house on an artificial island in Lau Lagoon in the Solomon Islands (Credit: Alamy)
A ship in the Persian Gulf pumping tonnes of sediment into the sea, gradually growing an island (Credit: Getty)
Dubai’s map-like The World was intended for the super-wealthy, but many of the islands remain sand, while others are for retail, hotels and apartments (Credit: Getty Images)
The man-made Pearl island, in Qatar, spans nearly 4 million sq metres and cost billions to build (Credit: Alamy)
Swan Island in Paris was created in the early 1800s to protect the city’s bridges (Credit: Getty Images)
Built in the early 20th Century, property on the six Venetian Islands of Miami was sold while they were still underwater (Credit: Alamy)
The Venetian project was meant to be much bigger – but then a hurricane, property bubble and the Great Depression happened (Credit: Alamy)
The Palm, in Dubai, required 120 million cubic metres of sand to build (Credit: Getty Images)
Balboa Island in California was built on a mudflat, and for years residents struggled with poor infrastructure (Credit: Alamy)
Now it’s one of the most expensive real estate markets in the US, populated by 3,000 people (Credit: Alamy)
While oil rigs might not seem to qualify as islands, many emerge from the seafloor, sitting on columns taller than skyscrapers (Credit: Getty Images)
From the dry land of a Scottish village, an oil rig can seem like an alien structure… (Credit: Getty Images)
…but there are few structures more alien-like than the Red Sands Fort in the Thames Estuary, UK, built for anti-aircraft guns in WW2 (Credit: Alamy)
The future of islands? Subi Reef is one clue, part of a huge Chinese island-making project in the South China Sea (Credit: Getty Images)
As well as accruing geopolitical power, artificial islands are also helping China access oil, like this one called Qingdong-5 (Credit: Getty Images)
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