Astronaut yells FIRE ... from SPAAAACE
Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield has posted photos of Australian wildfires taken from orbit on the In ternational Space station. One image is sufficiently detailed that it depicts flames licking at local foliage. Australia has, over the last ten days, been beset by fire. More than 100 homes were destroyed in Tasmania and …
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They also had to invent a new level of fire danger.
Us Aussies are getting too used to 'Extreme' fire danger warnings, apparently, so now we have warnings of 'Catastrophic' fire danger.
Next year we get 'Plaid' fire danger, I think.
Re: They also had to invent a new level of fire danger.
I still think here in New Zealand that our top fire rating above extreme should be called "Australian"
Re: They also had to invent a new level of fire danger.
Maybe the fire danger warnings need to be more descriptive:
1. Go ahead and have a campfire, it's winter and you'll appreciate some hot marshmallows.
2. Please be careful with your campfire so it doesn't spread to the next tent.
3. Don't light a campfire because it might burn down a couple of nearby homes.
4. Definitely don't light a campfire because it'll probably burn down dozens of homes including your own.
5. DON'T BE A FUCKING IDIOT AND LIGHT A CAMPFIRE BECAUSE YOU'LL BURN DOWN THE ENTIRE STATE AND THEN YOU'LL GO TO JAIL. MORON.
Re: They also had to invent a new level of fire danger.
Point 1 is wrong as it's just gone into Spring down under.
Re: They also had to invent a new level of fire danger.
Fire danger warnings, as in a potential for how safe it would be to light a fire, not what it is now.
Re: They also had to invent a new level of fire danger.
6. PUT THAT FIRE OUT! YOU'RE DAZZLING THE GUYS IN THE ISS!
Re: They also had to invent a new level of fire danger.
Spring? More like Summer, unless climate change has changed the Earth's angle to the sun since I lived in the civilised hemisphere (or the civilised part of the antipodes (not Australia).
Re: They also had to invent a new level of fire danger.
As opposed to 'Fluffy' and 'Totally Harmless' fire danger warnings?
Re: They also had to invent a new level of fire danger.
the usual aussie way is simply. If there is a rope across then dont swim in the billabong as it is full of crocs. If there is no rope then swim away son.
Re: They also had to invent a new level of fire danger.
If there is no rope, the crocs ate it.
Re: They also had to invent a new level of fire danger.
It has? In the northern hemisphere Winter started on Dec 21st-ish, so I would have thought that in the southern hemisphere that same date would herald the start of summer.
Re: They also had to invent a new level of fire danger.
"Next year we get 'Plaid' fire danger, I think."
Nah, you'll get "I just shit my pants" fire danger before Plaid.
Re: They also had to invent a new level of fire danger.
Yes - I should have type summer. In fact I did and then changed it to spring for some unfathomable reason.
Thanks for the downvotes and replies - suitably chastised :)
icon: to myself.
Re: They also had to invent a new level of fire danger.
>In the northern hemisphere Winter started on Dec 21st-ish, so I would have thought that in the southern hemisphere that same date would herald the start of summer.
You'd think wrong then.
Cool photos of a horrible situation. It's been bloody hot here and the idiots children and psychopaths (is there a difference?) out setting fires haven't helped.
So nimrods are out setting fires in the 100+ Fahrenheit heat?
How charming..... If they get people burned or killed then they should spend their prison terms being forced to watch pics of those they killed or injured.
scale of photo
Would be good to know the scale of the photo - how many miles does it show
Re: scale of photo
It's about 2,000 London buses wide, and 3,000 Brontasaurases long. xx number of Olympic swimming pools of water have been poured on, and...ok, you get the picture.
Re: If the fire don't get ya
"I have had it with these motherf*#%^n' snakes on this motherf*#%^n' continent!
Geometry fail
270-degree bend? So it goes in a loop and crosses itself?
A 90-degree bend would turn exactly right (or left). A 180-degree bend would leave you facing the way you came. A 270-degree bend requires you to turn to face the way you've come, and then turn *another* *90* *degrees*.
Re: Geometry fail
Depends on which way you look at it. 0%=up, 90%=right, 180%=down, 270%=left so the article appears to be describing the up to left angle. Thing is the river flows into the lake to the right so it would be more accurate to say that the rivier bends 90% to the right.
Re: Geometry fail
As the convention is to count angles from 0 clockwise, 270-degree gives you absolutely geometrically correct description of the bend, and which does not need any additional qualifiers, like "right" or "left".
Re: Geometry fail
Or another way to look at it...
The river takes a 90 deg turn left, then another 90 deg turn, before striking out at another 90 deg right turn, resulting in a net right angle turn but involving 270 deg of actual turning.
I'm here all week.
Re: Geometry fail
Are you all stupid?
Assuming north is up, and the river flows from north west to south east, it enters said bend going north east and exits, having turned 270 degrees to the right, going south west.
No, it doesn't cross itself. In fact, and this is where it gets complicated, there are other bends on either side of the 270 degree bend (that's the big squiggly one, by the way). So in fact it comes into the whole shebang going south, and exits it going south.
Let's spell this out. It turns 135 degrees left, then 270 degrees right, then 45 degrees left.
There, do we all understand? If not, ask your teacher to explain it, once she's finished setting out the sand and water play areas.
Re: Geometry fail
Three lefts make a right, but two wrongs do not.
Re: Geometry fail
"270-degree bend? So it goes in a loop and crosses itself?"
Non-Euclidean geometry
Re: Geometry fail
"Are you all stupid?
Assuming north is up, and the river flows from north west to south east,..."
I can confirm that north is up in the pic. Unfortunately for your assumption, the river actually flows from south east to north west.
Re: Geometry fail
"270-degree bend? So it goes in a loop and crosses itself?"
Non-Euclidean geometry"
No - just a billabong
From the headline I thought it was the ISS that was ablaze. It would of made for an interesting Stargazing Live tonight.
Re: Open a window,
Open window, stop being able to breath, the fire is no longer your problem.
Cameras
A lot of photography on the ISS is taken using dSLRs. Until recently I think they were using the Nikon D2x but they may have recently upgraded.
Here's a video where one of the cameras is being used to demonstrate the effects of acceleration on the iss. You can see another couple clipped to the wall.
Re: Cameras
Also good shot of those massive zoom lenses:
https://twitter.com/i/#!/Cmdr_Hadfield/media/slideshow?url=pic.twitter.com%2F3VIdnEUl
Re: Cameras
NASA bought nearly a dozen D3S's shortly after they came out. As well as a bunch of high-end Nikkor lenses, reputedly at least 7 14-24mm Nikkors to add to their other collection of top-of-the-line Nikkors. So I'd guess it's a D3s. Though they'll probably bring D4's up there pretty soon as well.
http://nikonrumors.com/2010/07/08/new-images-from-space-captured-with-nikon-d3s.aspx/
Which makes sense because at the time (and probably still today), the D3S was the best DSLR in the world in low light conditions, and NASA has been using Nikons for decades. The Russians are apparently using them in space too:
http://www.nikon.com/news/2010/0614_energia_01.htm
Stuff strapped to his arm?
What is that he seems to have strapped to his arm and hand?
Re: Stuff strapped to his arm?
From the twitter feed the other day - He's conducting biological experiments (on himself) and it's part of the monitoring kit for at least one of those experiments.
Those were fun days......
A few years back in Central / Western Victoria, Australia... it was about 52 or 53*C, and the wind was blowing at 120Kmh +
And half the country was on fire.
Fuck it was a "difficult time".....
2 years later, half of the country was under water.....
I Love A Sunburnt Country
The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded Lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens,
Is running in your veins;
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies -
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains,
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me.
The tragic ring-barked forests
Stark white beneath the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
An orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the crimson soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart around us
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold;
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown Country
My homing thoughts will fly.
He forgot a bit about,
"I love the flaming fireballs,
As they race on through the sky,
Every time they touch down,
All are sure to die,
As the annual bush fires,
Have us running for out lives."
Re: Those were fun days......
"He forgot a bit about,"
Umm, I think you'll find 'He' was actually a 'She'. Dorothea Mackellar.
All that technology to get a man into space
And he's taking photos by pointing a camera out of a window!
Re: All that technology to get a man into space
Hope they cleaned the outside before they left... Birch of a job otherwise
Re: All that technology to get a man into space
Well pointing at a wall wouldn't had achieved much...
Re: All that technology to get a man into space
But it shows the value of manned spaceflight.
How else would we get pictures of Australian wildfires on twitter
Where's Lewis Page when you need him?
Shouldn't he be telling us how this is all perfectly normal and that australia has been experiencing these sorts of extreme temperatures and wildfires consistently for thousands of years and its all part of a natural cycle that purely coincidentaly matches the rise in CO2 due to human activity?
Re: Where's Lewis Page when you need him?
Actually we have massive fires every couple of year. It just moves around the country, 1998 was Adelaide, 2004 was Western Sydney, 2006 was Canberra, 2009 was Victoria. This year Tassie and central NSW.
Nothing to unusual about the fires, the temperatures are a bit higher then normal, but still its Summer - what do you expect?
Re: Where's Lewis Page when you need him?
"Actually we have massive fires every couple of year. It just moves around the country, 1998 was Adelaide, 2004 was Western Sydney, 2006 was Canberra, 2009 was Victoria. This year Tassie and central NSW."
You might want to go back a bit further than 1998 for your examples to have much credibility.
Re: Where's Lewis Page when you need him?
There's a full list on Wikipedia going back to 1851 if you're that interested...
Just look under Australian Bushfires.
Re: Where's Lewis Page when you need him?
Its Australia! Short of anything living, now everything non-living is also trying to kill those that venture there!
Re: Where's Lewis Page when you need him?
2003 was Canberra, not 2006. It will be the 10 year anniversary the day after tomorrow, and it still gives me the horrors.
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