Start the New Year off right –
January 2nd, 2013 | 
Author: Got the materials together
Sue and I came downstairs this morning (January 1, 2013) and I started gathering up a quick kit of Watercolor supplies so we could go out and sketch at one of the parks around here. We ended up over at Playwicki Park and we had sketchbooks and a palette of watercolor pigments, and a brief variety of paintbrushes, sponges, mechanical pencils, graphite holders and a couple of short water containers and a quarter roll of paper towels, kneaded eraser, etc.
Despite all the usual Standards –
Draw & paint with non-judgmental abandon until you are lost in it
That’s exactly what we did too. I had brought a watercolor sketchbook and a small Arches Block of 140 lb cold pressed paper. I started drawing in my watercolor sketchbook and Sue had grabbed the regular sketchbook. The creative trance came on just like it was supposed to and when I realized that it was getting dark out… It was three hours later. I drew some of a couple small stone foundation buildings. It was great. I painted a bit and all that I had any detail on was a small stone wall in front of me. But that was just fine. Met my needs to get things moving and beside that it was a good way to start the New Year 2013.
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In Antarctica in January, 2013 – the summer at the South Pole – scientists released 20 balloons, each eight stories tall, into the air to help answer an enduring space weather question: when the giant radiation belts surrounding Earth lose material, where do the extra particles actually go? This NASA-funded mission is called BARREL, for Balloon Array for Radiation belt Relativistic Electron Losses. Each balloon launched by the BARREL team floated for anywhere from three to 40 days, measuring X-rays produced by fast-moving electrons high up in the atmosphere.BARREL works hand in hand with another NASA mission called the Van Allen Probes, which travels directly through the Van Allen radiation belts. The belts wax and wane over time in response to incoming energy and material from the sun, sometimes intensifying the radiation through which satellites orbiting Earth must travel. Scientists need to understand this process better, and even provide forecasts of such space weather, in order to protect our spacecraft.› Read MoreImage Credit: NASA
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