Hubble captures celestial fireworks display 179,000 light years away

Wow! What an amazing display to celebrate the Canadian and USA’s July holidays. 
 Article on RedNova.com
 Hubble Space Telescope — Resembling the puffs of smoke and sparks from a summer fireworks display in this image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, these delicate filaments are actually sheets of debris from a stellar explosion in a neighboring galaxy. 
 Hubble’s target was a supernova remnant within the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a nearby, small companion galaxy to the Milky Way visible from the southern hemisphere.
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Inca may have used knot computer code?

An article in the Independent reports that a leading scholar believes the Incas may have used a form of binary code 500 years before computers were invented. ‘Gary Urton, professor of anthropology at Harvard University, has re-analysed the complicated knotted strings of the Inca – decorative objects called khipu – and found they contain a seven-bit binary code capable of conveying more than 1,500 separate units of information…If Professor Urton is right, it means the Inca not only invented a form of binary code more than 500 years before the invention of the computer, but they used it as part of the only three-dimensional written language.
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Lunar eclipse to thrill star-gazers

A blood-red orb will hang for nearly an hour in the skies over parts of central and eastern Canada on Thursday night as the planets align for a full lunar eclipse, the likes of which haven’t been visible here in more than three years.  
 At its peak Thursday night between 11:14 p.m. and 12:07 a.m. EDT, the eclipse will be most visible in the southeastern skies over central and eastern Canada. Sky watchers across most of the Americas, Europe and Africa should also be able to see some of it.
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Last Great Meteor Show for Decades Tonight

Set the alarm and get out your deck chair, your long johns, and your sleeping bag; tonight is the night for watching the sky’s own light show. The Leonid meteor showers occur every year in mid-November, but some years are far better than others. Astronomers say the next truly spectacular display after tonight won’t occur until 2098 or 2131. 
 Thanks Jaclyn for the heads up. I will make a wish for you! 
 See the link here…

Spectacular Eruptive Prominence Captured by SOHO

solar_eruption (4k image) – A massive solar eruption, more than 30 times the length of Earth’s diameter, blasted away from the Sun on Monday at 9:19 a.m. EDT. The ESA/NASA SOHO satellite captured this image of the spectacular eruptive prominence escaping the Sun.  
  
 Prominences are loops of magnetic fields with hot gas trapped inside. Sometimes, as the fields become unstable, they will erupt and rise off of the Sun in just a few minutes or hours. If eruptions like these are directed toward the Earth they can cause a significant amount of aurora and other geomagnetic activity. Click to enlarge image

North Carolina uses tobacco settlement money to build a new tobacco processing plant.

TIME.com: Full Story –When 46 states agreed in 1998 to settle their claims against the nation’s tobacco companies for $206 billion, they promised that a “significant” portion of the money would go toward antismoking efforts. North Carolina, has directed only 1.2% of their tobacco revenues to smoking prevention. 
 The North Carolina General Assembly was to distribute the state’s settlement revenues and they spent $15,000 for a tobacco-history video. Perhaps more egregiously, it granted rural Nash County $400,000 to attract a tobacco-processing plant.