Spring in Indian Gangetic plains

Northern plains of India do get spring but for a short lived period as compared to northern hills where it is prolong and prominent.

A map showing north India with western region of Indus civilization and northern region with Ganges fertile plains

This marks a transistory phase of weather, winter behind and summer just ahead, when fields are flooded with the yellow of mustard (Brassica sp.) crop, with intoxicating fragrances all in the air.

A typical village, almost hidden with Mango and Eucalyptus trees and surrounded with fields of Mustard (Brassica) crop
pictures at: Rasalpara

Rivers arising from Himalayan mountain range, flowing through these northern plains, have rendered them most fertile soil resulting in thick human population........clearly showing why the Post-Vedic-civilizations of India (Aryan, Harappan and Mohanjodaro) decided to settle-down in these fertile plains of north, after the collapse of Saraswati river in west.

http://throughpicture.blogspot.in/2013/01/kumbh-mela-allahabad-india.html

http://sciencedoing.blogspot.in/2013/01/saraswati-lost-river-of-india.html

http://sciencedoing.blogspot.in/2012/09/indian-tectonic-plate-rich.html

http://sciencedoing.blogspot.in/2012/09/exploring-lost-places-indus-valley.html

Following are the pictures of a typical north Indian village, showing a day of their life: 
fields with various seasonal crops, working in home and fields, a primary school, school-kids on their way through sugar cane fields;
and at the end of the day: a fire-side to cope up the chilling cold before retiring for the day.

Pea-hens in the field of Mustard (Brassica sp.), Yellow Bean (Cajanus cajan) and Sugar Cane (Saccharum officinarum)
pictures at: Rasalpara

Carrying fodder for cattle
pictures at: Rasalpara

Making of Cow-dung cake, to be used as fuel
pictures at: Rasalpara

Sugar cane processing in the fields, to be sent later to the Sugar Mill
pictures at: Rasalpara

A government primary school in the village
pictures at: Rasalpara

Cycle ride for the school through the fields
pictures at: Rasalpara

Group of school kids in recess
pictures at: Rasalpara

Learning time, happy faces, beside Wheat fields
pictures at: Rasalpara

Burden of school bags with a smile
pictures at: Rasalpara

A lot to learn and a lot to laugh
pictures at: Rasalpara

Recess time is a good excuse to enjoy the Sugar cane from the nearby fields
pictures at: Rasalpara

A little time to clean the place where their elder comes to worship
pictures at: Rasalpara

Came evening with a cozy fire-side to get warm before the dinner
pictures at: Rasalpara

Fire-side often serves a place to talk and get more understood by peers and friends
pictures at: Rasalpara

#People and places in these pictures were covered from Rasalpara, a remote village in northern state of India.

Earth art: Satellite images

The lidless eyes of the satellites circle the Earth, looking down upon the surface. The images that satellites like the U.S. Geological Survey’s Landsat 7 become instant feedback about our effect on the planet, how the Earth is shaped by processes both human and natural. But as this collection of photos from an exhibition at the Library of Congress in Washington shows, satellite image can be made into art as well. Band combinations and shades in these Landsat images were optimized to dramatize their appearance, to show off the colors and the contrasts of the Earth. The result is breathtaking.

ICELAND - This stretch of Iceland's northern coast resembles a tiger's head complete with stripes of orange, black, and white. The tiger's mouth is the great Eyjafjorour, a deep fjord that juts into the mainland between steep mountains. The name means "island fjord," derived from the tiny, tear-shaped Hrisey Island near its mouth. The ice-free port city of Akureyri lies near the fjord's narrow tip, and is Iceland's second largest population center after the capital, Reykjavik.

GREAT SALT DESSERT, IRAN - Like poster paints run wild, this image reveals an eclectic montage of landscapes in Iran's largest desert, the Dasht-e Kavir, or Great Salt Desert. The word kavir is Persian for salt marsh. The almost uninhabited region covers an area of more than 77,000 square kilometers (29,730 square miles) and is a mix of dry streambeds, desert plateaus, mudflats, and salt marshes. Extreme heat, dramatic daily temperature swings, and violent storms are the norm in this inhospitable place.

MALASPINA GLACIER- The tongue of the Malaspina Glacier, the largest glacier in Alaska, fills most of this image. The Malaspina lies west of Yakutat Bay and covers 1,500 sq mi.

COLMINA VOLCANO, MEXICO - Snow-capped Colima Volcano, the most active volcano in Mexico, rises abruptly from the surrounding landscape in the state of Jalisco. Colima is actually a melding of two volcanoes, the older Nevado de Colima to the north and the younger, historically active Volcan de Colima to the south. Legend has it that gods sit atop the volcano on thrones of fire and ice.

YUKON, CANAD - After beginning in northern British Columbia and flowing through Yukon in Canada, the Yukon River crosses Alaska, USA, before emptying into the Bering Sea. Countless lakes, sloughs, and ponds are scattered throughout this scene of the Yukon Delta. The river's sinuous, branching waterways seem like blood vessels branching out to enclose an organ. It is one of the largest river deltas in the world, and currently (2010) protected as part of the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.

LENA RIVER, RUSSIA - The Lena River, some 2,800 miles(4,500km) long, is one of the largest rivers in the world. The Lena Delta Reserve is the most extensive protected wilderness area in Russia. It is an important refuge and breeding grounds for many species of Siberian wildlife.

SYRIA DESSERT - Between the fertile Euphrates River valley and the cultivated lands of the eastern Mediterranean coast, the Syrian Desert covers parts of modern Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.

FLORIDA EVERGLADES - The Florida Everglades the southern tip of the Florida Peninsula and most of Florida Bay, Everglades National Park is the only subtropical preserve in North America. It is the only place in the world where alligators and crocodiles exist side by side.

GANGES RIVER, INDIA - The Ganges River forms an extensive delta where it empties into the Bay of Bengal. The delta is largely covered with a swamp forest known as the Sunderbans, which is home to the Royal Bengal Tiger.

LAKE DISSAPOINTMENT, AUSTRALIA - Surrounded by sand dunes, Lake Disappointment is an ephemeral salt lake in one of the most remote areas of Western Australia. An early explorer supposedly named the lake in 1897 after following a number of creeks that he thought would lead to a large lake; they did, but the lake's extremely salty water was not drinkable.

NIGER RIVER, MALI - Coursing through parched, landlocked Mali in Western Africa, the Niger River flows north through an ancient sand sea before turning sharply east to skirt the edge of the dune-striped Sahara. At the confluence of the Bani and Niger Rivers is an island delta complete with narrows, twisting waterways, lagoons, and tiny islands.

DHOFAR, OMAN - Much of Oman is desert, but the Arabian Sea coast in the Dhofar region represents a startling difference in climate. This coastal region catches the monsoon rains, or khareef, during the summer months. Drenching rains fall primarily on the mountainous ridge that separates the lush, fertile areas along the coast from the arid interior, recharging streams, waterfalls, and springs that provide plentiful water supplies in the fertile lowlands for the remainder of the year.

NETHERLANDS - Along the southern coast of the Netherlands, sediment-laden rivers have created a massive delta of islands and waterways in the gaps between coastal dunes. After unusually severe spring tides devastated this region in 1953, the Dutch built an elaborate system of dikes, canals, dams, bridges, and locks to hold back the North Sea.

USGS / NASA

DEFORESTATION, BOLIVIA - Once a vast carpet of healthy vegetation, the Amazon rain forest is changing rapidly. This image of Bolivia shows dramatic deforestation in the Amazon Basin. Loggers have cut long paths into the forest, while ranchers have cleared large blocks for their herds. Fanning out from these clear-cut areas are settlements built in radial arrangements of fields and farms. Healthy vegetation appears bright red in this image.

GARDEN CITY, KANSAS - In Garden City, Kansas, center pivot irrigation systems created these circular patterns in crop land. The red circles indicate irrigated crops of healthy vegetation. The light-colored circles represent harvested crops.

ROCKY MOUNTAINS - What appears to be a stroke of thick red paint is actually a remarkable interplay of light and cloud in the Canadian Rockies. Angling through them is part of the Rocky Mountain Trench, a valley that extends from Montana, USA, to just south of the Yukon Territory. Low clouds filled a part of the Trench near the border between the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. The light-reflecting nature of the clouds coupled with low sun elevation resulted in this startling effect.

MAYN RIVER, RUSSIA - The Mayn River, seen here with what is thought to be a portion of the Anadyr River, flows through the far northeastern corner of Siberia.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER -Turbid waters spill out into the Gulf of Mexico where their suspended sediment is deposited to form the Mississippi River Delta. Like the webbing on a duck's foot, marshes and mudflats prevail between the shipping channels that have been cut into the delta.

BALTIC SEA - In the style of Van Gogh's painting "Starry Night," massive congregations of greenish phytoplankton swirl in the dark water around Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea. Phytoplankton are microscopic marine plants that form the first link in nearly all ocean food chains. Population explosions, or blooms, of phytoplankton, like the one shown here, occur when deep currents bring nutrients up to sunlit surface waters, fueling the growth and reproduction of these tiny plants.

GUINEA-BISSAU is a small country in West Africa. Complex patterns can be seen in the shallow waters along its coastline, where silt carried by the Geba and other rivers washes out into the Atlantic Ocean.

#picture credit: USGA / NASA
#thankfully shared from: science.time.com

Nasa: 50 years of space photography

It's half a century since Mariner 2 swept past Venus at a distance of 22,000 miles, and this year's stunning pictures from across the solar system show how much technology has advanced.

Venus begins its transit of the sun in June 2012. This rare astronomical event occurs when Venus passes directly between the sun and Earth will not happen again until 2117. Photograph: Nasa/Reuters

The Solar Dynamic Observatory's ultra-high definition view of Venus passing in front of the sun. Photograph: Nasa/AP

A field of crescent-shaped dunes in the northern polar region of Mars, which appear to be traversing a bumpy, boulder-strewn terrain. The image was captured by the HiRise camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in July 2012. Photograph: University of Arizona/JPL/Nasa

Sun spots are seen as the moon moves into full eclipse position in May 2012. Photograph: Nasa/Getty Images

A composite image of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East at night, assembled from data from the Suomi NPP satellite. The satellite detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe dim signals such as city lights, gas flares, auroras, wildfires and reflected moonlight. Photograph: Nasa/Reuters

A global composite image created from cloud-free night images from a new Nasa and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite. Photograph: Nasa/Rex Features

Britain, Ireland and part of western Europe on the night of 27 March 2012. Photograph: Nasa/Reuters

A dying star throws a cosmic tantrum in this combined image from Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Galaxy Evolution Explorer. The star's dusty outer layers are unraveling into space, glowing from the intense ultraviolet radiation being pumped out by the hot stellar core. This object, called the Helix nebula, lies 650 light years away in the constellation of Aquarius. Photograph: Nasa/AP

The base of Mount Sharp, the Curiosity rover's eventual destination on Mars. This image is a portion of a larger image taken by Curiosity's 100mm mast camera in August 2012. Scientists enhanced the colour in one version to show the Martian scene under the lighting conditions we have on Earth, which helps in analysing the terrain. Photograph: Nasa/EPA

A photo from the Nasa/ESA Hubble Space Telescope released in December 2012 shows NGC 6388, a middle-aged globular cluster in the Milky Way. While the cluster formed in the distant past - like all globular clusters, it is more than 10bn years old - a study of the distribution of bright blue stars within it shows that it has aged at a moderate speed, and its heaviest stars are in the process of migrating to the centre. Photograph: F Ferraro/AFP/Getty Images

A full-circle scene made up of 817 images taken by Nasa's Mars exploration rover Opportunity. It shows the terrain that surrounded the rover while it was stationary for four months of work during the most recent Martian winter. Photograph: Nasa/AFP/Getty Images

This image released in August 2012 shows the Curiosity rover's wheels after it made its third drive on Mars. Photograph: Nasa/AP

A nearby planetary nebula called NGC 5189, a dying star that is expelling a large portion of its outer envelope. This material becomes heated by the radiation from the stellar remnant and radiates, producing glowing clouds of gas. Photograph: Nasa/AFP/Getty Images

Cassini spacecraft cameras were turned toward Saturn and the sun so that the planet and rings are backlit. In addition to its visual splendour, the very-high-phase viewing geometry of the image lets scientists study ring and atmosphere phenomena. Photograph: Nasa/AFP/Getty Images

This Spitzer Space Telescope infrared image obtained on 24 December 2012 shows Zeta Ophiuchi, a young, large and hot star around 370 light years away. It is about six times hotter, eight times wider, 20 times more massive and 80,000 brighter than our own sun. Photograph: Nasa/AFP/Getty Images

This image shows the variations in the lunar gravity field as measured by the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) during the primary mapping mission from March to May 2012. Very precise microwave measurements between two spacecraft, named Ebb and Flow, were used to map gravity with high precision and high spatial resolution. Photograph: Nasa/AFP/Getty Images

It's 50 years since the first interplanetary probe, and this year's stunning pictures from across the solar system show how far space technology has come !!

#image courtesy: NASA
#reference courtesy: guardian.co.uk