Month: September 2009

Chandrayaan-1 is Lost, Astroengine Appears on Al Jazeera

As far as blogging about space news goes, this is most definitely the pinnacle of my writing career. After hearing the frustrating news that the Indian Space and Research Organization (ISRO) had lost touch with their Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission, I, of course, felt compelled to blog about it.

Not 24 hours later, I receive an email from the producer of an Al Jazeera news show called Inside Story asking me if I’d be interested in sharing my views about Chandrayaan-1 on the show early Monday morning. Hell yes!

So I spent the rest of Sunday cramming the (very interesting) history of the Indian space program, along with some of the specifics of Chandrayaan-1. By Monday, I was ready to go.

The filming for the show started at 7:05am in a studio in Culver City and lasted about 25 minutes. And it was a lot of fun! Check out the video above, I think the Inside Story production is highly professional, with a very BBC feel to it. I’m very happy to have been asked for my opinion live on air, on the international stage.

Although my brain wasn’t functioning particularly fast at such an early hour, I think it went well, and I eventually got my points across…

Wildfire? Volcano? Warzone? Hell? All of the above?

wildfires

I think this timelapse video pretty much puts the Station Fire into perspective. The fire has so far destroyed over 120,000 acres of land, gutted dozens of homes and taken the lives of two fire fighters. Although it would appear fire crews are slowly getting a handle on the blaze (it was around 20% contained at time of writing), should there be a change in weather, the fires could flare up once more, but there are hopes that humidity should continue to rise through the night.

Also, it would appear the earlier fires spotted on the summit of Mount Wilson were primarily controlled backfires (i.e. small fires started deliberately by the fire service to burn off brush, thereby removing fuel for an uncontrolled fire). Now, an airborne assault has begun, water and fire retardant being dropped to slow the advance of the Station Fire around the mountain leading to the observatory. And now, the word is that fire crews seem to be winning the fight to save the Mount Wilson Observatory (thank you @palomarskies for the update!).

So, for now, I’ll leave you with this phenomenal HD timelapse video of the Station Fire created by willieworks. The view is of the mountains to the north of LA, from Mulholland Drive, above Universal Studios. It’s a scene that really does belong in the movies. What a sight.

Fires Hit Summit of Mount Wilson [Update]

mt-wilson-fire2

Update (14:07 PDT): Mount Wilson’s server has now gone offline it seems. The webpage with fire updates stopped functioning a little before 14:00 PDT and the Towercam is no longer sending images to the mirror website. The last image was taken at 13:49 PDT. Although we were warned this may happen due to power outages to the observatory, this is the first time it’s been offline since the start of the fires.

13:25 PDT: In a bad turn of events, the Station Fire reached the summit of Mount Wilson, coming within feet of the observatory buildings. It seems possible that this fire may be due to secondary effects from the Station Fire (i.e. airborne embers). Watch the unfolding events via the KTLA helicopter.

The 150ft Solar Tower and the 100″ Hooker Observatory are both under siege from the smoke and fire. Fortunately, the fires aren’t as active as they have been, possibly due to increased humidity in the region, but this is obviously a concern. However, fire crews appear to be controlling the blaze so far. According to @CalFireNews, fire crews are in the area protecting the structures:

*Station IC* There are between 5-8 Engines providing Structure protection for Mount Wilson. — CalFireNews

In case you cannot access the Solar Tower’s Towercam, check the mirror site.

My thoughts are with the fire crews bravely fighting the fires around the observatory.

Updates pending…