雪で遊ぶレッサーパンダ〜Red Panda playing in the snow

Aisi Lagi Lagan

TREMORS

I remember an incident years back , we used to sleep on terrace in summer. It was a cool and starry night . Soon I was asleep. At midnight I was awakened by a rumbling noise, the vibrations penetrated my bones. I gasped for breath and wondered what it was. I felt the tremors on the floor and knew for sure that it was an earthquake. I woke everybody up. The vibrations had lasted for seconds only.. my family did not notice anything and they all went to sleep. It took quite sometime for me to get back to sleep. Next morning there were headlines in the newspapers that our city had experienced an earthquake. Many people experienced the tremors in different parts of the city.. No damage or loss of life was reported. I thanked the almighty!

Another incident i recall,of childhood when we were in Srinagar. We were playing outside on the playground. A sudden moms cry calling us all to come out of our houses . She witnessed the vessels and articles on the stand starting tumbling . We heard the rumbling sound, we could see our house and ground tilted to some degrees and back. People came out shrieking. God know what was the scale of the richter. We were too young to know what was it all about.

By Gods grace no tragic incident had occurred . It was indeed a memorable hair raising incident though.

There were n number of questions in my mind. What caused the Earth to Tremor. The encyclopedia was referred. It said that sudden release of energy in the earths crust creates seismic waves.. Earthquakes are caused mostly by rupture of geological faults, huge amount of gas migration mainly methane deep within the earth, also by volcanic activity landslides mine blasts and Nuclear experiments. Remember the earthquake in Gujrat (26January 2001), nearly 20, thousand people were killed and many thousands rendered homeless.The Tsunami waves (26December 2004).. The earthquake in China on 12 of May 2008 left thousands of homes and families devastated! I felt the pangs of sorrow . I pondered we can know the impending disaster of climate etc. by the help of satellite .Isn’t there any way to know the impending earthquakes so that we could save the lives of people.

A couple of years back:
The BBC News “Plan for Quake warning System” by Paul Rincon had caught my attention . I gave a sigh of hope and read it eargely. In the news they reported that NASA has achieved a breakthrough in forcasting earthquake. They have found a link between the electrical disturbances occurring at the edge of our atmosphere and the impending quakes on the ground below. Signals were spotted during devastation in China . Minoru Freund a physicist and director for advanced aerospace material and devices at NASA Ames Research Centre in California told BBC “I do believe that we will be able to establish a correlation between certain earthquakes and certain pre-earthquakes signals in the unbiased way”.
The Research is going on.

A lot of devastation of Japan due to the recent earthquake and Tsunami waves has triggered new peril for the whole of mankind. The Nuclear Plants getting damaged by the earthquakes. The Fukushima Nuclear Plant is quake damaged . A Nuclear War not from the countries or Terrorrists but by natural calamities is going on. The fresh memories of Chernobyl disaster in 26th April 1986 in Ukraine when millions of people suffered the blast and the aftermaths.

At Home:
India has 20 nuclear reactors in operation in total six nuclear plants. People are concerned and fear the nuclear explosions due to seismic or any other activity.

What amount of security measures can we take for Natural disasters.? If Japan is prone for earthquakes why were it permitted for Nulear Development. Actually none of the countries should be permitted for Nuclear Armaments or Energy Source. Why are we not learning lessons from the recent disasters.

There has to be a total ban on Nuclear developments. An eye opener for the survival of our Beloved Planet Earth.

Beautiful Bhajan by Sonu Nigam

Shri Anup Jalota - ऎसि लागी लगन मीरा हो गयी मगन

Shri Ram Stuti

Planet Venus The Goddess of Love and Beauty



I got up for my early morning walk. It was still dark. A jewel shone brightly amongst the star studded sky. I knew it was Venus (Shukra Tara). It is also referred as morning and evening star. Venus has been known from prehistoric times. Venus is named after the Roman goddess of Love and Beauty. It was considered as the most beautiful and most bright shining(except for the Sun and the Moon) among the other planets then discovered.

Planet Venus is closest to Earth. It is also known as the sister planet of our Earth, due to similarities in their mass volume and densities. The astronomers were of the opinion that Life might exist on Venus too!.

Probes are being launched on Venus. Detailed study revealed that Venus nowhere resembles our Earth. It is the least hospitable place for life in the Solar System.

Venus is covered by dense thick clouds not water vapors but sulphuric acid. Due to the thick dense clouds the astronomers could not access the study of the surface ofVenus. But with the help of Radar Telescope and Imaging System orbiting the planet Venus it was possible to see through the clouds the surface of Venus. The temperature of the surface is very very hot 482 degrees Celcius (900degrees F) hot enough to melt Lead. Its atmosphere consist mostly of Carbon dioxide. Its atmospheric pressure is 90 times that of Earth. It is hotter than Planet Murcury which is closer to Sun. This high temperature is caused by the runaway greenhouse effect. It so happens that the sunlight passing through the atmosphere heats the surface . The radiated heat from the surface eventually gets trapped by the dense sulphuric acid clouds surrounding the planet. This heat cannot escape into the space. The infrared radiation moves up causing increase in the temperature.

To measure this infrared radiation , the astronomers launched a probe Pioneer Venus. It needed a sturdy window that was transparent to infrared radiation. A Diamond 13.5karat was imported and milled in the window of the probe… It is said that the trader who supplied the Diamond had to pay tax of $12,000 as import duty. The Pioneer Venus mission was successful . But the Diamond damaged and was of no use on Earth so the trader was given the compensation.( refer..Cosmos). Imagine the heat on Venus. It is really hellish. Its rotation is retrogate, from east to west.  From Vesus we see the Sun rises in the West and sets in the East.  A Venusian day is 243 Earth days and it is longer than its year of 225 days.



After the discovery of the Telescope it was possible to spot Venus periodically passing across the face of the Sun. The first transition was observed in 1631, 1639. Then 1761, 1769. 1874, 1882. More than a century separating these pairs. On 8th June 2004 astronomers worldwide saw the transit of Venus dot crawling over the Sun. The pair will occur on 6th June 2012.


The latest news about Venus Probe Akatsuki (meaning dawn) by the Japanease astronomers (JAXA)Japanese Exploration Agency failed to enter Venus Orbit. It was sent for detailed study of theVenus’ clouds ,atmosphere and weather. But, they hope to try again. Another orbital insertion burns when the probe returns to Venus in six years. At present it is orbiting the Sun instead of its intended Venusian orbit.The Probe will come close enough to make another attempt in the late 2016 or early 2017. We wish them good luck next time.




My above article got published in The Hitavada dt 6/3/2011.
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Pasaydan - Sant Dnyaneshwar

My Prayer Room