2012: London Olympic Games

The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and commonly known as London 2012, was a major international multi-sport event celebrated in the tradition of the Olympic Games, as governed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). 

 It took place in London, United Kingdom, from 27 July to 12 August 2012. The first event, the group stage in women's football, began two days earlier, on 25 July. More than 10,000 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) participated.

Around 10,500 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) took part, surpassing the 1948 Summer Olympics in London and the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester as the largest multi-sport event ever to be held in the UK.
Three athletes from the Netherlands Antilles Olympic Committee, which the IOC Executive Committee had ceased to recognise at the IOC session of July 2011, and one athlete from South Sudan, which has no recognized NOC, participated independently under the Olympic flag.

 Following a bid headed by former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe and then-Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, London was selected as the host city on 6 July 2005 during the 117th IOC Session in Singapore, defeating bids from Moscow, New York City, Madrid and Paris. London was the first city to host the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and in 1948. 

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London 2012: Olympic torch begins its journey after being lit in Olympia, Greece

Greek actress Ino Menegaki, playing the role of High Priestess, lights a torch from the sun's rays reflected in a parabolic mirror during the torch lighting ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games at the site of ancient Olympia in GreecePicture: REUTERS/John Kolesidis

The High Priestess holds up the lit Olympic torch at the Temple of HeraPicture: Jamie McDonald/Getty Images

The Olympic flame is held aloft by the High PriestessPicture: Jamie McDonald/Getty Images

The high priestess passes on the Olympic flame to a priestess holding a cauldronPicture: Petros Giannakouris/AP

The High Priestess holds up the cauldron with the Olympic flamePicture: REUTERS/John Kolesidis

Actresses playing the role of priestesses take part in the torch lighting ceremonyPicture: REUTERS/John Kolesidis

An actress playing the role of a priestess releases a dovePicture: EPA/ALEXANDROS VLACHOS

Actors and actresses perform a traditional dance during the lighting ceremonyPicture: ANGELOS TZORTZINIS/AFP/GettyImages

Priestesses dance during the ceremonyPicture: Jamie McDonald/Getty Images

Royals greet Olympic torch 

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry join the festivities, while crowds gathered in Hyde Park for a concert, as the Olympic Flame nears the end of it's 70-day, 8,000 mile relay.

Wrestling: Omid Haji Noroozi won the 60kg Greco-Roman event

Wrestling: a victory somersault for Ryutaro Matsumoto

Rhythmic gymnastics: the Belarusian team, silver medallists

Rhythmic gymnastics: the Italian team in the ball routine

Rhythmic gymnastics: Daria Dmitrieva in the ball routine

Rhythmic gymnastics: Evgeniya Kanaeva won the gold medal

Rhythmic gymnastics: three ribbons and two hoops for Russia

Equestrian - eventing: William Fox-Pitt in action in the jumping event

Equestrian - eventing: Michael Jung with Sam in the cross country event

Equestrian - eventing: Sandra Auffarth with Opgun Louvo in the cross country event

Equestrian - eventing: Linda Algotsson jumping the wagon

Phoenix rises as Flame is extinguished

Brazilian singer Marisa Monte

Carnival atmosphere en route to Rio

Olympic rings and Phoenix

Supermodels in gold

Closing ceremony fireworks

Rio mayor takes the Olympic flag

Fireworks close the show

# pictures thankfully shared from: telegraph.co.uk, olympic.org and wikipedia.org

2012: Pictures from space

From Mars Curiosity’s self portrait to a destructive Saturn cyclone, view of cosmic highlights from November 2012.

Satellites, balloon-borne instruments and ground-based devices make 30 million observations of the atmosphere each day. Yet these measurements still give an incomplete picture of the complex interactions within the membrane surrounding Earth. Enter climate models. NASA models and supercomputing have created a colorful new view of the way aerosols move through the atmosphere.  NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Fellow travelers: Several tiny satellites are photographed by an Expedition 33 crew member on the International Space Station.  NASA

Spectacular jets dance in elliptical galaxy Hercules A, powered by the gravitational energy of a super massive black hole in the galaxy's core.  NASA, ESA, S. Baum and C. O'Dea (RIT), R. Perley and W. Cotton (NRAO/AUI/NSF), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

The temperature on Saturn's moons Mimas (left) and Tethys (right) is not evenly distributed. Indeed, as thermal images from the Cassini spacecraft show, it actually forms a strangely evocative Pac Man pattern—complete with a crater on Mimas about to get gobbled.  NASA / JPL-Caltech / GSFC / SWRI

How fine and tenuous are Saturn's seemingly massive rings? Consider that the tiny moon Tethys (660 miles, or 1,062 kilometers across), here seen as a dot in the upper left hand corner of the frame, may be many times more massive than the entire ring system combined. That's how fine and tenuous.  NASA / JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

This may look like an Earthly hurricane but it's actually something much, much larger: an enormous cyclone that's swirling above Saturn's north pole, captured in a raw image by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Nov. 27, 2012.  NASA

China's space program continues to grow. Here, a Long March-3B rocket carrying a satellite heads toward space, after blasting off from the launch pad at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on Nov. 27, 2012 in Xichang, Sichuan Province of China.  China Foto Press / ZUMA PRESS

A high-resolution self-portrait by Curiosity rover arm camera, taken on Oct. 31, 2012. NASA's Curiosity used the Mars hand lens imager (MAHLI) to capture a set of 55 high-resolution images, which were then stitched together to create this image.  NASA / JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

The Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft is seen shortly after it landed in a remote area near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, on Nov. 19, 2012. Astronauts Sunita Williams, Akihiko Hoshide and Yuri Malenchenko returned from four months onboard the International Space Station.  Bill Ingalls / NASA

# pictures thankfully shared from: science.time.com

2012: The best satellite views of the earth

If you really want to know where you are, you need to pull back—way back. 

Rounded up most amazing satellite images of the Earth created this year, ranging from a glimpse of the desert cauldron of creativity that is Burning Man to a massive copper mine in the South 

American country of Chile. 
These images show the surface of our planet as we’ve shaped it, either through developments like the sprawling Olympic Village in London to the simple fall colors of a second-growth forest in Pennsylvania. 

They serve as a reminder of the wealth we enjoy—see the yachts floating lazily off Monte Carlo—to the destruction we endure in places like Homs, Syria, which shows up wreathed in the tar-black smoke of a pipeline explosion. It’s an amazing world.

Easter mass in Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City, April 8, 2012.

The Olympic Village in London, July 23, 2012.

The Skytree, the tallest self supported building in Asia, located in Tokyo, April 4, 2012.

Mt. Fuji, the highest peak in Japan, Sept. 20, 2012.

The Puntiagudo-Cordón Cenizos volcanic chain in the Andes mountains of Chile, Oct. 14, 2012.

A mine sculpture known as "The Lady of the North" in north England, Sept. 6, 2012.

A pipeline fire that occured in Homs, Syria, Feb. 15, 2012.

Burning Man festival in Nevada, Aug. 28, 2012.

The Chuquicamata copper mine in Chile, Oct. 14, 2012.

The annual yacht show in Monte Carlo, Monaco, Sept. 22, 2012.

Fall colors in Reading, Pa., Oct., 5, 2012.

#picture credit: DigitalGlobe
# pictures thankfully shared from: science.time.com

Night glow from space: India and world

....and God said let there be light !!
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Lights of our nights.... !!

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An invocation to the Light divine:

 

"Lead me from the unreal to the Real.
Lead me from darkness unto Light.
Lead me from death to Immortality."

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It is through 'Divine Light' that a seeker can escape the bondage of mortal life and be reborn in the 'Life Divine'.

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The image, taken on November 12, 2012 – when the celebrations for the Hindu festival of lights were in full swing – shows Indian towns and cities brightly lit.

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http://throughpicture.blogspot.in/2012/11/light-painting.html

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A view of the Indian subcontinent.
Photo: On November 12, 2012, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite captured this nighttime view of southern Asia. Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Defense.
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using VIIRS day-night band data from the Suomi NPP.

A view of northern and central India.
Photo: On November 12, 2012, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite captured this nighttime view of southern Asia. Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Defense.
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using VIIRS day-night band data from the Suomi NPP.

A view of central and southern India.
Photo: On November 12, 2012, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite captured this nighttime view of southern Asia. Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Defense.
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using VIIRS day-night band data from the Suomi NPP.

Photo: This new image of the Earth at night is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite over nine days in April 2012 and thirteen days in October 2012. It took 312 orbits and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth’s land surface and islands.
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data provided courtesy of Chris Elvidge (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center).

Photo: This image of Asia and Australia at night is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite in April and October 2012. The new data was mapped over existing Blue Marble imagery of Earth to provide a realistic view of the planet.
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data provided courtesy of Chris Elvidge (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center).

Light pattern showing continued story of human civilization in the region:

Everything Is Illuminated

Image courtesy NASA Earth Observatory/NOAA NGDC

Patterns of population density emerge in this composite image of the United States released by NASA on Wednesday, part of a global composite image captured from spa

ce by a NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite.

The cloud-free images show the glow of natural and artificial light in what a NASA press release calls the most detailed night images yet.

The images were unveiled during the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco.

Published December 5, 2012

Along the Nile

Image courtesy NASA Earth Observatory/NOAA NGDC

A brightly illuminated Nile River Valley tells the continued story of human civilization in the region. The nighttime image was captured by the Suomi NPP satellite's new senso

r, what NASA calls the "day-night band" of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), which is able to detect light in a range of wavelengths.

According to NASA, the new sensor is sensitive enough to detect "the light from a single ship in the sea."

Published December 5, 2012

#The images thankfully shared from the above mentioned credit sources of the NASA, the U.S. space agency.

# link to to browse NASA’s city lights map of the world.

 http://earthdata.nasa.gov/labs/worldview/?map=-24.484375,14.05078125,50.75,62.14453125&products=baselayers.VIIRS_CityLights_2012~overlays.sedac_bound&switch=geographic