NASA Finds Ice on Mercury!

Click Here to read about NASA's discovery of Ice on Mercury!

Another Sun Dog in North Texas!

"Sun dog" Photo taken by: Mr. Burris November 21, 2012 in Forth Worth, Tx

 

 

 

 

Sun Dogs are a atmospheric weather phenomenon where ice crystals, usually in wispy cirrus clouds, refract the light rays of the sun.  This forms a rainbow around the sun! Sun Dog is Greek for "beside the sun." The rainbow spot, to the left of the sun, is the "dog," in relation to the fact that dogs often stay near their owner.  These are visible in every country around the world in any season but can be viewed best when the sun is low in the sky.

Butterfly flys Southwest airlines to Texas from New York!

 ALBANY, NEW YORK 11/5/12
Today a late blooming monarch butterfly was assisted in its normal trip south without lifting a wing!  "Butterfly Lady" Marleen Manos-Jones had been keeping her eye on arthropod since September when it was in the mid-stages of metamorphosis.  Soon all the other butterflies in her Albany neighborhood   

 had begun their trip south, covering thousands of miles to Mexico's Sierra Madre Mountains.  When Marleen saw the
butterfly emerge from its pupa, she felt the butterfly belonged with the departed butterflies, along their journey south, so as to survive the frigid New York winter.  After receiving permission to bring the butterfly aboard a southwest flight and obtaining a butterfly traveling permit, Manos-Jones prepared the butterfly's habitat.  The butterfly traveled in a small tupperware with holes to breath accompanied by a damp cloth of sugar water.  She then had the tupperware surrounded in another container with ice to help keep the butterfly calm and cool on its journey.

 “I knew if I just let her go, she'd die,” Manos-Jones said. “But she's so fabulous she deserves to be in Mexico with all of her millions of brothers and sisters. She was such a magnificent specimen, and my heart just responded to her.”

Manos Jones has raised and released thousands of butterflies of her own and worked at the American Museum of Natural History's seasonal butterfly conservatory for over a decade.  Today she released the tardy butterfly in the San Antonio Botanical Gardens, hoping to reunite it with its brothers and sisters along their epic trek across America.

Did You Know?

Monarch Butterflies are the only species of butterfly that make the amazing migration across our country.  It takes three to four generations of monarchs to make the journey north to south and back every year.