Geminids Meteror Shower This Thursday 12/13/12!

Viper Fish!

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.

 

Hurricane Sandy Makes Landfall on the East Coast

East coast prepares for hurricane Sandy late in hurricane season

OCEAN CITY, NJ - OCT. 28: Ed Wicks secures plywood over the windows of a hair salon to protect from the high winds of approaching Hurricane Sandy in Ocean City. New Jersehttp://www.slate.comy is expected to be hit hard by approaching storm sometime on tomorrow, bringing heavy winds and floodwaters.
Mark Wilson/Getty.http://www.slate.com

http://abcnews.go.com

New Planet Found Just Outside Our Solar System

Scientists have found a planet around the same size as earth but with much less mass and with a surface temperature reaching over 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit! (1,200C).  The unnamed planet cannot support life, that we know of, but scientists believe other planets could also be orbiting the same sun that are capable.  The planet revolves around it's sun every few days, so you would have a birthday every 3 days!  Though scientists are calling it a neighbor of earth, the planet is 25 trillion miles away and would take over 40,000 earth years in our fastest spacecraft!  Since the 1990's scientists have found over 800 exoplanets (planets outside our solar system) but none as close as the newly discovered planet.

Felix Baumgartner Freefalls to Earth from Outerspace!

On Sunday October 14, 2012 Australian Felix Baumgartner plunged to planet earth from the edge of outer space.  Felix traveled in a small capsule attached to a 7 story hot air balloon from a height of over 128,000 ft from the surface of the earth.  He became the first human to break the sound barrier by free falling.  Felix reached speeds of over 850mph passing the speed of sound by almost 100mph!

2011-2012 Ranger's Science Vocabulary Challenge Winner!

With Rusty Greer

Lynn Hale Comes to Visit!

September 26, 2012

Happy First Day of Fall!

Lost Maples State Park
Vanderpool, Tx

Guatemala's Volcan De Fuego erupts forcing over 33,000 people to evacuate

Volcan De Fuego (volcano of fire) night eruption in Palin, Guatemala 9/13/12

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/guatemala-volcano-of-fire-eruption_n_1881764.html 

Hurricane Issac makes landfall on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

 Photo taken on August 25, 2012 Courtesy of Divacfo.com

Hurricane Isaac made landfall today, August 28, 2012, slamming into the coast of Louisiana around 7:00 CST.  Tomorrow marks the 7 year anniversary of one of the most devastating hurricanes our country has every experienced, hurricane Katrina.  Scientists watched closely today as the tropical storms winds reached 74MPH making it a category one hurricane.  The center of Isaac is a direct hit on the city of New Orleans, the town ravaged by the category 3 hurricane Katrina in 2005. To learn more about Hurricanes and how they form visit weatherwhizkids.com

 Listed below are wind speeds that determine which category a hurricane is classified. 
1.Category 1 Hurricane: 74-95mph
2.Category 2 Hurricane: 96-110mph
3-Category 3 Hurricane: 111-130mph
4.Category 4 Hurricane: 131-155mph
5.Category 5 Hurricane: 155+

Mars Landing! NASA lands high tech robot on the surface of the red planet to study the surface of our closest neighbor. 8/5/12

Supermoon this weekend!

This Saturday, May 5th, the largest full moon of the year will be visible!  May's full moon happens at the same time as the moon's perigee (when the moon is closest to earth). The moon will come within 221,802 miles from our planet, making for the biggest and brightest moon this year, nicknamed a SUPERMOON! To view this phenomenon look for it just as it rises (Approx:6:30am) or as it sets (Approx:8:00pm) when it is close to the horizon. If viewed behind buildings or trees it can be an optical illusion making the moon seem larger than it really is!

Did you know that the
moon's orbit is not 
a perfect circle
around the earth?

Over a dozen torandos touched down across the DFW area yesterday with major damage in Arlington, Lancaster and Forney Texas.

The United States plays host to around one thousand tornados each year making us the world's leader in tornado activity.  In fact three out of four tornados in the world occur in the U.S.  Nebraska, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas make up tornado alley.  These states are likely to see tornados  in the spring and summer seasons.  Thunderstorms that are likely to spawn tornados are called super cells.

DID YOU KNOW?  A Tornado in Oklahoma once destroyed a whole motel. A few days later people found the motel’s sign in Arkansas!

Information courtesy of tornado-facts.com

Discovery Channel's Frozen Planet Sunday nights at 7:00pm.

    An icefall occurs in the arctic ocean at the beginning of the winter season.  Small starfish scatter as the ice tries to consume their lives. All pure water freezes at 32 degrees farenheight and 0 degrees celcius, but we know that oceans contain salt which makes the freezing point of ocean water.....

a.  the same freezing point as pure water

b.  higher than the freezing point of pure water

c.  lower than freezing point of pure water

d.  the same as the freezing point of pure water only in the summer months 

Which planet in our solar system has the most violent storms, often having hurricanes ten times stronger than the ones Earth produces?  Its surface is made up of water and is almost four times the size of earth!

Labapalooza Begins Tomorrow!

3/29/12-3/30/12 8:30am-1:40pm

Lynn Hale Elementary

Arlington,Tx

2 Days, 7 Hands On Science Labs!

Tickets and Prizes Awarded to Outstanding Students!

The Future of Space Travel comes to Dallas!

American astronauts could be going on missions to the moon, asteroids or even Mars in the next two years!  Space shuttle ORION is a considerably smaller spacecraft that will house up to four astronauts and is designed go beyond normal orbit levels of earth.  The space craft is making a cross country trip on its way to Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Dallas was one of its three stops!

The Largest Solar Storm since 2005 could disrupt communication on Earth!

1/23/12

Tomorrow marks the peak of the most powerful solar storm since the spring of 2005.  Over a three day span (1/22/12-1/24/12)  our universe will be showered by high levels of radiation. This massive three punch explosion from the sun could cause disruption in satellites, some types of plane communication and even effect out cellphones and ipods!  First the electro-magnetic radiation ejects itself from the sun followed by more radiation of protons; both propelling themselves into space at over 93 million miles per hour! Finally the coronal blast shoots pure solar plasma at a rate of one to two million miles per hour.  Although THIS storm is much stronger than ordinary solar storms...  Tomorrow's coronal explosion will travel at a rate of over four million miles per hour! No major threat has been know for humans but scientist are continually studying the effects of the sun as well as the "storms" it produces.

2nd NASA probe en route to moon on New Year’s Day - Chicago Sun-Times

Did you know that one side of the moon has many more hills than the other side? This leads some scientists to believe that our planet once had two moons which crashed together creating our lop-sided moon!
2nd NASA probe en route to moon on New Year’s Day - Chicago Sun-Times