On June 5-6 2012,
SDO is collecting images of one of the rarest predictable solar events:
tthe transit of Venus across the face of the sun. This event happens in
pairs eight years apart that are separated from each other by 105 or 121
years. The last transit was in 2004 and the next will not happen until
2117. This image was captured on June 5, 2012.
During the transit
of Venus across the Sun's face on June 5-6, 2012, the Hubble Space
Telescope will be looking in the opposite direction -- at the Moon.
Hubble cannot look at the Sun directly, so astronomers are planning to
use the Moon as a mirror to capture reflected sunlight and isolate the
small fraction of the light that passes through Venus's atmosphere.
Imprinted on that light are the fingerprints of the planet's atmospheric
makeup. This is an experiment to see how well Venus's atmosphere can be
studied spectroscopically, as a proxy for transit observations of
extrasolar planets.
Mexico-based artist Omar Ortiz stuns us with his new hyper-realistic paintings. Just when we thought they couldn't get any more beautiful, his oil paintings become even more sensual and provocative, giving us a renewed appreciation for the gorgeous female form.
Recently, Ortiz gave an interview to Sunrise Artists
where he talked about his love of oil on canvas (saying it's "the
noblest way of painting") as well as how the Internet has helped shaped
his career ("The computer is a global and immediate way of
communication, and using a blog to publish/post my work has given me
many more advantages than disadvantages. I have been able to open doors
around the world, and all of the contacts that I have gotten have been
thanks to my work published on the Internet.")
My favorite quote was when he was asked about his current series,
which we were happy to hear he's not stopping anytime soon. "For now, I
am not planning on changing my central theme: Female nude. I could paint
the human figure for all my life and still feel that there are more
things to explore. The female nude is one of the most beautiful things
in the world; it is something I love to do."
