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      What's up everybody SonOfTerra92 here, this is just a quick update for the weekend while I have the time.

     Last Wednesday I got the chance to witness what was literally a once in a lifetime occurrence that demonstrated the elegance and beauty of celestial mechanics (how things move in space). I'm referring to the event of the Venus transit across the same plane as the Earth and the sun. The phenomenon was extensively advertised on-line  weeks before the event and although I had actually planned on skipping it, the buzz on Twitter ended up making me change my mind.

     Unfortunately I was unable to cover the event in further detail, there was a well received gathering at the Malaysian National Planetarium, where I got to see the transit via telescope but unfortunately I did not vlog the moment, my apologies.

    What really surprised me the most (in a good way) was how how diverse the crowd at the gathering was. The people that had gathered to witness the dance of heavenly bodies varied in terms of age , gender , race and even religion (I should know because I was able to pick out a fellow free thinker from among the attendees of the day). This is where the ability of science and nature to inspire the human mind really shines, in its capacity to do little harm and to captivate different people from different walks of life. You have the curious young ones whose minds may or may not have been affected by indoctrination, you have adults who sincerely want to teach kids about science, you have tourists that have come from different parts of the country (some from out of the country), and you have me the free thinker trying to get by as an engineer. It really puts things in perspective as we come to realise how the endeavour of science and naturalistic inquiry is a very "human" thing. You can survey a plethora of species on Earth but in none among them will you find the desire to systematically figure things out, appreciate what they have figured out and and subsequently pass on that knowledge to their younglings.

      It is a rather beautiful and humble process if you ask me.

The Concept is the same, its basically a mini eclipse.

    Astronomy is a very descriptive physical science. Astronomers pride themselves in "calling them how they see them". So in this case we have what is known as a transit or a shift in position between point to point of one celestial body relative to the backdrop of another. Even if you have never witnessed a Venus transit in your life you will immediately find that this sounds kind of familiar. It is exactly what happens during a solar eclipse but instead of the moon passing in between the Sun and the Earth this time it is the planet Venus. You can work out the respective trajectory and path of the transit using Newton's Laws or if you really want an even more accurate description of reality try general relativity, I heard it works too LoLz.

     And on this note I would like to segway into my final thought for the day and that is the significance of how we look at reality and nature in general.

:I have a working relationship with reality: This picture does not look any less magnificent because of that ...

    When I tell people that I am a "nature freak" or "reality freak" they commonly associate me with hippie tree huggers or a person that goes around pondering poetry while trying to get high all day. While it is indeed true that I am always in search of a daily fix I think we as a species need to re-evaluate the way we appreciate the workings of the universe not just for the added survival value of the individual but for the survival value of the whole species. Theses occurrences such as the Venus transit or any other given eclipse aren't just pretty phenomenon for us to look at and subsequently be amazed by. These things happen in our Universe because we are a part of it, not like a spectator to a theatre play more like the actors on the stage. There are a great number of other phenomena that have equal if not greater impact to the survival of our species and our fleeting planetary domain. We may look in wonder to the eclipse, but are we aware of the Asteroid with our planet's name on it ? We may be captured by the beauty of stars shining at night, but do we understand the power of the Supernova ? Our ancestors looked to the sky as we do now but the main difference is that we know more than them. We now know that understanding nature down to its principle levels can aid our survival and that to me really goes beyond the whole "pretty picture" perspective.

The backbone of night,

    That's all from me, SonOfTerra92 signing off, see you in the next video ....

Peace,
6/9/2012