Mark January 15 on your calendar now because the longest annular solar eclipse we'd see for the next thousand years is set to take place on that day! Some islands of the Maldives, including Male', lie within its central track and will experience the eclipse for a lengthy 10 minutes and 45 seconds.

Here is a video of a simulation of the eclipse showing how exactly the eclipse is going to look in the Maldives. The simulation was rendered by the free and open-source planetarium software Stellarium using a custom script I wrote for Stellarium for the event. The script is up for download and can be added to your Stellarium installation by following the instructions on the Stellarium wiki.

More info:
- Eclipse information at NASA
- Article about the eclipse by the Maldives Science Society

I published a Dhivehi article over at Muraasil on the lunar eclipse to occur on the 31st of this month.

A partial lunar eclipse will occur on 31 December 2009, right before the new year rolls on, and is to be visible in the Maldives. This partial eclipse involves the Moon just barely passing through the Earth's umbral shadow and hence will be only very minor. You are likely to not notice the eclipse unless you are actively watching out for it.

The penumbral phase of the eclipse starts at 10:15 PM on 31 December 2009 and ends 2:30 AM on 1 January 2010, Maldivian time. The umbral phase, which you will see, starts 11:51 PM on 31 December 2009 and ends 12:55 AM on 1 January 2010, Maldivian time.

More details can be found at NASA's "Eclipses during 2009" page.

Here's a TED Talk that should be of interest to all curious Maldivians. Charles Anderson, a British marine biologist working and living in the Maldives for 26 years, reports on how him noticing the sudden emergence of dragonflies in the Maldives at certain times of the year led him to discover the world's longest migratory journey taken by any insect. It is a truly riveting story of curiosity and scientific discovery.

I now have an answer to a question I used to wonder about when I was a kid: Where do the dragonflies came from?

The BBC regularly broadcasts quality, extremely interesting science programmes that, at least in my opinion, exceeds that which you may find on the popular science and nature channels like National Geographic or Discovery. I just watched the first episode of the new nature series called Life which began airing on BBC One last week. The first episode opens with breath-taking shots of a pod of very smart dolphins that have developed the strategy of kicking up a cloud of mud in a tight circle to entrap the fast moving, hard to catch fish that they call their food. The awe-inspiring footage continued throughout the episode with various other animals and plants.

If this first episode is indicative of what's to expect, then this is definitely a series I would definitely reserve some telly time for. Life is available for viewing and download at http://www.bbc.co.uk/life. If you do watch it, make sure you watch it in HD - it's worth it. There is also some interesting supplementary material on the dedicated series mini-site by the co-producer The Open University.

I would also recommend catching the BBC's Bang Goes the Theory science series which takes a very hands-on approach and is especially great for kids. I love the little projects that Jem undertakes in each episode!

I've been experimenting with a potential "new" type of machine-man interface for a little while now. In the process, I've subjected myself to a bit of mutilation, pain and general annoyance. But today, I'm quite happy because I have now obtained some very interesting results...

Hopefully, will share more about the work in the coming weeks/months.

I got news today from Ajmal that the Maldives Science Society had finally received permission from Druyan-Sagan Associates to go ahead with its planned screening of Carl Sagan's award-winning science documentary series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. MSS has been, far as I know, planning this event for well over a month now and was to be their very first event before the lecture on astronomy event slotted in. I think it is admirable that they went about obtaining permission before screening it, especially since it's all too common a practice in Maldives to hold no regard whatsoever for intellectual property rights.

Cosmos is truly a brilliant series; a bit aged (first broadcast in 1980!) yet still very relevant and informative. It tells the story of the universe and us humans through a wide range of scientific topics. It's content is not at all technical and is extremely accessible to everyone, which, I think, makes it a very suitable choice to jump-start conversations in the science-cafe'ish type of informal event MSS is after. MSS is only screening episode 1 out of the 13 episodes that make up Cosmos. The event is scheduled for 8:30pm, 12th Feb at Bankai Coffee Shop (see the MSS announcement).

Carl Sagan was and still is perhaps one of the best science popularizers the world has seen. The famous "Pale Blue Dot" image of Earth snapped by NASA, at the suggestion of Dr. Sagan, using the Voyager 1 spacecraft when it was a mind-boggling 6.4 billion kilometers away from Earth is one of the most moving and humbling things I have ever seen. It really does give a sense of our place in the universe, as a planet, as a species and as a person. At that distance, so far away from Earth, the Earth is seen as nothing more than a mere insignificant speck of dust, occupying less than 0.12 pixels, set against the darkness of the rest of the universe. The fact that a man-made object made it that far, snapped a picture and sent it back to its home (taking on a journey almost 6 hours travelling at the speed of light!) makes me shudder with excitement. Even more exciting is the fact that the Voyager 1 spacecraft is still operating, currently located around twice the distance Pluto is from the Sun, and ready to exit our solar system into the interstellar space! I can't imagine a more fitting choice of words than Sagan's to describe the picture...