If you were lucky enough to live in Asia or the western United States
or anywhere in between, you would've been graced with the clear sight of what
looked like a ring of fire in the sky. Or more specifically, an
annular eclipse. If you missed the eclipse, don't worry, we
got you. Here are the best pictures we've seen.
But why does an annular eclilpse happen, and why is it so rare?
The answer is tied to the
supermoon from a few weeks ago. That giant—although sometimes
deflated—lunar spectacle occurred because the moon was at its fullest when
it was also the closest to Earth it will be all year. The astrophysical term
for the latter is perigee, which is greek for GIANT WOLFMAN MOON.
But because the moon's orbit follows an ellipse, if it's closer than usual
to the Earth in one cycle that means it will also end up being further away.
That was last night: A moon so tiny that it failed to block out the sun when
their paths crossed.
The picture
above was taken in Japan
by Joseph Tame. He actually has video of the
raw footage of the eclipse, if
you fancy a look. Looking at all of the pictures of the eclipse, the sky
looked like it held a suspended icy ring of fire. Or maybe even a halo. Either
way, they're amazing.
If you missed out last night, don't fret. The next annular is expected May
10, 2013, and even if it skips your corner of the Earth again you should be
able to watch online. Who knows? Maybe
our post-apocalyptic war lords will make a holiday out of it.
Seen from Pyramid
Lake, NV 6:30PM PST
May 20th, 2012,had to drive there to avoid high cirrus coming in from front
approaching from coast
Photo by Stacey Watts
f you’re one of the lucky ones living across a broad swath of the United
States from the Pacific
Northwest to north Texas, you’re in for a rare treat this evening.
It’s called an “annular solar eclipse,” which happens when the moon slides
over the sun, blocking out the center and leaving a glowing ring called an
“annulus.”
We could get into “umbra,” “penumbra,” and “antumbra” but you’ll have to Google
those yourselves. The main thing is, the difference between an annular solar
eclipse and a total eclipse of the sun has to do with how far away the moon is
from the earth.
The closer to the earth it is, the larger the moon appears – blocking out
more of the sun. When the moon is farther away from the earth, it appears
smaller, leaving that “ring of fire” when it appears to pass in front of the
sun. Right now, the moon is at its greatest distance from the earth, hence an
especially wide fiery ring.
Actually, it’s not only Americans along that swath who’ll be able to witness
this very occasional solar-lunar event. (The last one was in 1994.)
It’ll start in southern China, then move across the southern coast of Japan,
crossing the Pacific just south of the Aleutian
Islands before hitting the US near the Oregon-California
border. (Speaking of “ring of fire,” the Aleutians are part of another “ring of
fire” – the volcanic rim around the Pacific from South
America to New Zealand. It has nothing to do with Johnny Cash,
however.) These
graphics by the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office are especially good.
The main advice in observing this evening’s annular eclipse and its “ring of
fire” is be careful.
Ron Hipschman, who describes himself on Twitter
as the “loose cannon at the Exploratorium” in San
Francisco, offers this warning: “As a kid, did you ever take a magnifying glass out into the sun and burn
leaves? If so, you probably remember that when the focused sunlight coming
through the lens was refracted and concentrated to a small spot, the energy
available there was truly remarkable. Guess what? You have a lens just like
that in your eye. If you look at the sun, your eye-lens will concentrate the
sun's light and focus it to a very small spot on the back of your retina. This
can cause permanent eye damage or blindness. Additionally, there are no pain
sensors back there so you won't even know it's happening! Have I scared the
willies out of you? Good!”
On this
website, Mr. Hipschman gives directions for safely observing any solar
eclipse.
As you might have done in your junior high school science class, you can
build a pinhole projector using a long box, a piece of aluminum foil, a pin,
and a sheet of white paper. What a great opportunity to do something with your
kids! This site shows how to build such a projector using a
dark-colored plastic cup, wax paper, scissors, a rubber band, and a pushpin.
The Clark Planetarium in Salt
Lake City has good directions for making a simple pinhole projector here.
“Getting even more basic, you can use your own hands,” Hipschman explains.
“Just hold up both hands with your fingers overlapping at right angles. The
holes between your fingers make pinholes.”
Clark Planetarium director Seth Jarvis says forget about the old suggestions
of putting soot from a candle flame on a piece of glass, using exposed black-and-white
film, or doubling up on sunglasses. None offer adequate protection, and he
recommends against trying to use welder’s goggles to peer at the sun unless
they are rated for arc-welding (at least grade 14).
So enjoy this evening’s light show, but do it carefully.
Will Smith was walking the red carpet at the Men In Black
III premiere when a male reporter leaned in for a kiss. & then another kiss.
& then another. The Fresh Prince finally had & shoved the reporter off
of him, slapped him, & told him that he was lucky Will didn’t punch him.
Smith said:
“What’s wrong with you man.”
The actor moved on down the red carpet where he told the next set of
reporters:
“Dude tried to kiss me on the mouth. He’s lucky I didn’t sucker punch him.
Oh no, I shouldn’t have said that on camera.” TMZ reports that the unnamed Ukrainian reporter often
tries to kiss celebrities. Smith was obviously not aware that the smooch was
coming.
A little hub-bub has flared up as some have criticized Smith for being
homophobic, saying that the actor over-reacted in the situation, but it looks
like Smith was just caught off guard. What do you think?
media social news
Smith pushed him away and then slapped him lightly across the cheek with the back of his left hand.
The reporter from the Ukrainian media social tv channel 1+1 approached Smith on the red carpet, put his hand on the actor's shoulder and tried to kiss him.
In any case, Smith appeared shocked by the journalist's behavior at Friday night's premiere in the Russian capital.
It was not clear whether reporter Vitalii Sediuk intended to kiss Smith on the cheek or on the lips.
Facebook has confirmed
that it will price its stock at $38, raising $16 billion to $18.4 billion in
its IPO.
The IPO may be the second-largest ever in the U.S., next to Visa’s. It will also
be the biggest tech IPO. Facebook will start trading Friday on Nasdaq under the
symbol “FB,” Facebook confirmed Thursday afternoon.
The price is on the high end of the $34-$38 range that Facebook had
disclosed in an amended S-1 earlier in the week.
May 18, 2012 4:17 AM GMTUpdated:
05/17/2012 09:17:37 PM PDT
After months of anticipation, Facebook on Thursday
set the share price for its first public stock offering at $38 as the social
networking giant made final preparations for a record-breaking market debut
Friday.
At that price, the planned stock sale is expected to raise $18.4 billion for
the company and some early investors, making it the second-biggest offering of
any U.S.
company in history in terms of dollars raised, behind Visa's $19.6 billion
debut in 2008.
More significantly, the price sets a total value for Facebook at $104
billion, giving it a greater worth than any other U.S. company at its stock market
debut.
n the world have debuted with market values
higher than Facebook's, according to data-tracking firm Dealogic; both of them
were Chinese banks. Facebook's IPO involves only a small portion of its
estimated 2.74 billion shares outstanding, which are held by a combination of
investors and insiders -- including co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
"There's no question: It's a lot of money. It's evidence that
entrepreneurs in the United
States have been able to create
extraordinary value with creative thinking," said Larry Harris, a
professor of finance and business economics at USC's Marshall School of
Business.
Public trading of Facebook stock is set to begin about 8
a.m. Pacific time Friday on the Nasdaq exchange under the symbol FB.
To kick things off, the company is holding an official all-night
"hackathon" starting Thursday evening at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, where
employees will be free to work on any project that interests them. Facebook,
which takes pride in its programming ethos, has held 30 similar all-night
coding events since 2007.
Early interest in the new stock was so feverish that Facebook this week
raised the potential range of its IPO price, which was originally listed as $28
to $35. At the final price of $38, most of the shares sold in the IPO went to
institutional funds and other big clients of the IPO's underwriters.
Now the question for many in the tech industry and on Wall Street will be
how much the price rises in open trading.
"Given the demand that they had, it doesn't take a genius to predict
the stock is likely to have a pretty good day," said Sterne Agee analyst
Arvind Bhatia. "How high does it go? It's hard to tell."
Deciding just where to price the stock is "a little bit of a fine
dance," said one person close to Facebook who has taken companies public
in the past. If there is a huge run-up once the stock begins trading
publicly, that suggests the price was set too
low and the company left millions of dollars on the table.
But if the IPO price is too high, there may be less potential for a
"pop" from public investors, which companies generally see as a badge
of honor. "The targeted pop is 15 to 20 percent," the Facebook
insider said.
Several smaller social networking companies saw their stocks dip Thursday,
including LinkedIn, Jive and Yelp. Analysts said that may be a result of a
broader market decline, although some suggested investors may be freeing up
funds to buy Facebook instead.
Some investment advisers have warned that opening-day exuberance could push
Facebook shares to unsustainable heights.
Facebook has grown rapidly and boasts more than 900 million users worldwide.
But the company, which reported $1 billion in profit last year on revenue of
$3.7 billion, still faces many challenges. Analysts say its revenue growth has
slowed and it has yet to show it can make money from the growing number of
users who access Facebook's mobile app on smartphones and other gadgets.
Facebook decided this week to increase the number of shares it planned to
sell through the underwriters of its IPO, after demand for the stock
outstripped supply. Those additional shares came not from the company but from
early investors, including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and venture capital
firm Accel Partners,
The IPO will raise $6.8 billion for the company, which is selling 180
million shares. Early investors and Zuckerberg will reap an additional $9.2
billion by selling 241.2 million shares.
Facebook and its investors are expected to raise a further $2.4 billion from
63 million shares that have been set aside in an "over-allotment," a
cache of stock to be sold if subsequent demand warrants. That would bring the
total value of the IPO to $18.4 billion.
Among U.S.
companies, that's second only to Visa, which raised $17.8 billion worth of
shares in its IPO four years ago and hit $19.6 billion after its over-allotment
was sold, according to figures from Dealogic and from Renaissance Capital,
another firm that tracks IPO data.
But the IPO price pushes Facebook past the previous record for a U.S. company's
total value at the time of its stock market debut. That record was held by
United Parcel Service, which was valued at $60 billion at the time of its 1999
stock debut.
Facebook's $104 billion market value makes it one of the largest companies
in the nation. By comparison, Apple (AAPL)
is now worth slightly less than $500 billion, and Google (GOOG)
is worth more than $200 billion. Hewlett-Packard
(HPQ),
an older company that has struggled with changing technology markets, is valued
at slightly more than $43 billion.
