Day: July 10, 2021

Mercury and the Da Vinci Glow

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On July 8th early morning risers saw Mercury near an old Moon low on the eastern horizon. On that date bright planet, faint glow of lunar night side, and sunlit crescent were captured in this predawn skyscape from Tenerife’s Teide National Park in the Canary Islands. Never far from the Sun in planet Earth’s sky, the fleeting inner planet shines near its brightest in the morning twilight scene. Mercury lies just below the zeta star of the constellation Taurus, Zeta Tauri, near the tip of the celestial bull’s horn. Of course the Moon’s ashen glow is earthshine, earthlight reflected from the Moon’s night side. A description of earthshine, in terms of sunlight reflected by Earth’s oceans illuminating the Moon’s dark surface, was written over 500 years ago by Leonardo da Vinci. Waiting for the coming dawn in the foreground are the Teide Observatory’s sentinels of the Sun, also known as (large domes left to right) the THEMIS, VTT, and GREGOR solar telescopes. via NASA https://ift.tt/3AQHHnt

Wikipedia article of the day for July 10, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is MAX Orange Line. Check it out: Article-Link Summary: The MAX Orange Line is a light rail service in Portland, Oregon, United States, operated by TriMet as part of the MAX Light Rail system. It connects Portland City Center to Portland State University, Southeast Portland, Milwaukie, and Oak Grove. The Portland–Milwaukie Light Rail Project was the second and final phase of the South Corridor Project that in its first phase expanded light rail services to Interstate 205 and the Portland Transit Mall. The extension, which followed years of failed light rail plans for Clackamas County, began construction work in mid-2011. As part of the project, TriMet built Tilikum Crossing (pictured), billed as “the largest car-free bridge in the United States”, over the Willamette River. The extension opened to Orange Line service on September 12, 2015. The line serves 17 stations and runs for 201⁄2 hours daily with a minimum headway of 15 minutes during most of the day.