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Why is the sky blue?

The light coming from the sun is made of many colors; light travels as a wave, and each color has a unique wavelength. Violet and blue light has shorter wavelengths, while red light has a longer wavelength, and the other colors have wavelengths in between.

When the different colors of light pass through the atmosphere, they run into molecules, water droplets and bits of dust. Because all these particles are closer in size to shorter wavelengths of light, they tend to scatter violet and blue light much more than red, and so they send rays of violet and blue ricocheting toward the ground — and your eyes. More violet light actually gets scattered by atmospheric particles than blue light, but your eyes are more sensitive to blue, so the sky appears blue.

Sunsets are orange-red because in the evening, with the sun low on the horizon, sunlight must pass through more atmosphere to get to your eyes, and only the red light can make it all the way through. The shorter wavelengths have all been scattered toward the ground in the part of Earth where it is still daytime.

Some migratory birds travel as much as 15000 km to escape the extreme climatic conditions at home. Generally they fly high where the wind flow is helpful and the cold conditions allow them to disperse the heat generated by their flight muscles. But how these birds travel to the same place year after year is still a mystery. It seems that these birds have a built–in sense of direction and know in which direction to travel. Some birds probably use landmarks to guide them. Many birds may be guided by the sun during the day and stars at night. There is some evidence that birds may use the magnetic field of the earth to find direction. And it is not only birds that migrate; mammals, many types of fish and insects are also known to migrate seasonally in search of more hospitable climates.

Why is the moon sometimes out during the day?

The moon is just as likely to be visible during the day as it is at night — it orbits Earth independently of the sun. When its orbit brings it to your part of the sky during daylight hours, it is illuminated by the sun, and we can see it.

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YOU AND THE UNIVERSE:

The universe is the whole enchilada. Everything that exists, exists in the universe. Before you start getting into the details about things that happen in the universe, try to think about how big it is. Start with you. You are only a couple of feet long. Compare yourself to a whale, or a dinosaur. They are enormous. Then think about how big your city is and how much space you take up in your state, your country, or your continent. Then imagine the Earth. You're not very big now. Hold on it gets worse.

The Earth is pretty small when you compare it to Jupiter. Jupiter is pretty small compared to the Sun. As you go on, there are millions of suns in our galaxy and thousands of galaxies in the universe. No one really knows how many. There are some scientists and mathematicians with theories, but nobody really knows. We have discovered a few things and you can check them out in the related links.

How long does oil take to form?

Under ideal conditions small amounts of oil have been known to form in less than ten thousand years. Typical oil deposits, however, likely required hundreds of thousands to a few million years to form.

Many of the coal and oil deposits in the Eastern United States formed during the Carboniferous period around 350 million years ago. Most of the oil in the middle east formed around 145 million years ago, between the end of the Jurassic and beginning of the Cretaceous.
Most of the oil and gas that formed since the Permian probably leaked out of overlaying permeable rock during intervening ages and was subsequently destroyed. We are fortunate large reserves remained trapped here and there where we could exploit them. Though we still have sufficient coal reserves to last us another few centuries, the age of oil is drawing to a close. We'll be able to continue extracting shale oil and other oil reserves for some decades yet to come, but it is unlikely we will be able to significantly ramp up production even if we wanted.

Discovery of SILK:

The exact time of discovery of silk is perhaps unknown. According to an old Chinese legend, the empress Si-lung-Chi was asked by the emperor Huang-ti to find the cause of the damaged leaves of mulberry trees growing in their garden.
The empress found white worms eating up mulberry leaves. She also noticed that they were spinning shiny cocoons around them. Accidentally a cocoon dropped into her cup of tea and a tangle of delicate threads separated from the cocoon.

Silk industry began in China and was kept a closely guarded secret for hundreds of years. Later on, traders and travellers introduced silk to other countries. The route they travelled is still called the ‘silk route’.

# Are you familiar with the term acid rain?
# Have you ever heard about damaging effect of acid rain?

As the name indicates the rain containing excess of acids is called an acid rain.

# Where do these acids come from?

The rain becomes acidic because carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide (which are released into the air as pollutants) dissolve in rain drops to form carbonic acid, sulphuric acid and nitric acid respectively. Acid rain can cause damage to buildings,
historical monuments, plants and animals.

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Wishing you all a happy new year - 2014
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