Super Blood Moon: a (probably) thrice-in-a-lifetime opportunity

Sunday, September 27th, 2015. This date not only marks my fantasy football win over a world-renowned chemistry professor, but also marks a rare appearance of a super blood moon (...spooky). 

What's that you ask? It's a phenomenon in the Earth-Moon-Sun system where the moon is at perigee, the point in its orbit when it's closest to the Earth, while also being in the Earth's shadow because of a total lunar eclipse! 

Basically, the moon will appear unusually large and remarkably reddish. In other words, it will hit your eye like a big pizza pie. Thats amore!

Unfortunately, Manhattan does not present optimal viewing conditions and my phone does not have the optimal photographic capacity, so the photos I got just show the visible sliver of moon getting slightly smaller. The red hue was hard to see and even harder to capture due to clouds and light pollution. Thankfully, there were some nice smelling flowers nearby to take photos of as well!. 

Large, medium, small moon slivers and pretty white flowers. 

All photos by S. Soni. 

Update: Here are some better photos of the eclipse taken in non-light-polluted Mystic, CT by Manju Soni. Special thanks to Manju!

The Earth's shadow getting in the way of the sunlight trying to reflect off the moon (M. Soni)

The eerie red hue... (M. Soni)

AweSTEM ebooks: Pizza Pizzazz

This post was originally posted on www.awestem.org. It is intended to engage middle-school readers in a STEM topic. 

Pizza Pizzazz: Where does food get its deliciousness?

What do pizza, burgers, apple pie, and French fries all have in common? They are very popular and delicious foods! If you cooked any of these foods differently, they would have a very different taste. Imagine if you cooked a pizza by boiling it in water. Would it still have the same yummy melted cheese and crispy crust? Probably not. This is because the Maillard Reaction would not have occurred.

Mmm... Hot Cross Buns get their golden brown color from the Maillard reaction. (S. Soni)

This chemical reaction happens between amino acids and simple sugars and produces a diverse range of complex (and mouthwatering!) molecules. The Maillard reaction (pronounced my-YAR) gives bread, meat, and many other foods their typical brown color.

You may have noticed that bread baking, steak searing, and potatoes being fried don’t taste or even smell the same. This is because the Maillard reaction takes simple sugars and amino acids and rearranges them into ring-shaped molecules, which become rearranged again into different molecules, and again and again until unique flavors and aromas are created. Each combination of amino acids and sugars in various foods, as well as how long you cook them, will give you distinct tastes.

It’s one of the most common reactions in cooking and it only happens within a certain temperature range — higher than the boiling point of water and lower than the burning point of the food you’re cooking.

The Maillard Reaction can also occur outside of the kitchen. Did you know it is one of the chemical reactions that make sunless tanners work? 

Click here to read more. 

All photos by S. Soni. 

Slimy-Shelled Alien Spotted Once Again

A generally fat, disk shape, pinhole eyes, shimmery slime covering most of it, and a flap that looks like the arm of a sea star covering a dozen small tentacles… What exactly is this animal?

Allonautilus scrobiculatus, of course, a type of nautilus so rare that it doesn’t even have a common name. It has been sighted recently in Papua New Guinea for the first time in 30 years.

First illustration of internal anatomy of Allonauticus scrobiculatus, 1912 (Public domain)

This remarkably rare species is considered a “living fossil” because it shares similarities with species seen in the fossil record. Today, these bizarre animals are threatened by something that would never be seen in the fossil record, homo sapiens. Specifically, illegal fishing and the trade in nautilus shells are leaving this population vulnerable to extinction.

Chambered Nautilus shells on display at Hoga Island Marine Research Station, Indonesia (S. Soni)

The marine world is genuinely such an alien place. It still amazes me that the organisms seen there are so different, sometimes even in their basic biological functions, from familiar land organisms.

I’ve always loved exploring the ocean, understanding and interacting with this most fascinating of places. Knowing that there are creatures as elusive as this slimy nautilus makes it all the more thrilling!

For more info on this sighting, see here.