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Tag: Eclipse

  • Microsoft Announces Preview Version of OpenJDK Java Distribution

    Microsoft Announces Preview Version of OpenJDK Java Distribution

    Microsoft has announced a preview build of its OpenJDK Java distribution.

    It’s been a bad week for Oracle. First, the company lost its decade-long battle with Google over Android and its use of Java code. Now the company has a major new competitor to contend with, as Microsoft is making progress on its plans for its own OpenJDK Java distribution.

    Microsoft’s distribution has already passed several significant milestones in its development, which the company touted in a blog post.

    The Microsoft Build of OpenJDK binaries for Java 11 are based on OpenJDK source code, following the same build scripts used by the Eclipse Adoptium project and tested against the Eclipse Adoptium Quality Assurance suite (including OpenJDK project tests). Our binaries for Java 11 have passed the Java Technical Compatibility Kit (TCK) for Java 11, which is used to verify compatibility with the Java 11 specification. The Microsoft Build of OpenJDK is a simple drop-in replacement for any other OpenJDK distribution available in the Java ecosystem.

    The Microsoft Build of OpenJDK 11 will be supported until at least 2024, and the company plans on releasing OpenJDK 17 binaries by the end of the year, once Java 17 is finalized.

  • Lunar Eclipse Explained by NASA Astronomer

    Lunar Eclipse Explained by NASA Astronomer

    Tonight’s the night. Millions of people in the Earth’s western hemisphere will be treated to a spectacular event tonight when the moon falls beneath the shadow of the Earth.

    The event, called a full lunar eclipse, will cast the moon in an eerie orange light and produce an event colloquially known as a “blood moon.” The eclipse will begin at around 2 am and will continue for three hours as the moon becomes dark and eventually passes through the Earth’s shadow.

    Though not as rare as a solar eclipse, a full lunar eclipse is rare enough that it sparks curiosity among those not familiar with such an event. Like many other celestial happenings, it also brings its share of pseudo-scientific and metaphysical prophecies from astrologers and others. Luckily, real scientists are very familiar with lunar eclipses, their cause, and what people can learn from the events.

    Today NASA ‘s Goddard Space Flight Center released a new video detailing everything most anyone might want to know about the upcoming eclipse. As NASA astronomer Michelle Thaller explains in the video, the sunlight that normally produces the bright reflection seen coming from the moon will be blocked tonight by the Earth itself. Thaller even reveals that the blood moon effect and color is produced because the light reaching the moon passes through the Earth’s atmosphere, the same atmosphere that generally reflects more blue light, leaving the red-tinged edge of the visible spectrum to pass through.

    As Thaller mentions in the video, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will be reliant on battery power during the eclipse (it normally runs on solar power). Though this particular eclipse will mean the LRO will have to make two full passes withing the Earth’s shadow during the event, NASA’s LRO project scientists will be shutting off many of the probe’s instruments and are confident that the LRO will survive this eclipse, as it has many others.

    Image via NASA

  • Full Lunar Eclipse Coming April 15

    Full Lunar Eclipse Coming April 15

    A full lunar eclipse is not nearly as rare as a solar eclipse, but the event still draws eyes to the heavens. This month people in the Earth’s western hemisphere will get to see the moon at its most impressive.

    Early on the morning of April 15 the moon, Earth, and the sun will be perfectly in alignment. From Earth’s perspective this will cast the Earth’s shadow across the moon’s surface – a total lunar eclipse. The moon will appear to be cast in an orange light, creating the state known as a “blood moon.”

    The event will be particularly scenic in North America, where this will be the last full lunar eclipse until the year 2019. The eclipse is scheduled to start at around 2 am EDT and will last for three hours.

    “Sometimes they’ll happen and you’ll have to be somewhere else on Earth to see them,” said Noah Petro, deputy project scientist for NASA‘s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. “Most [residents] of the continental United States will be able to see the whole thing.”

    Though the event will be a sight to see from Earth, Petro and his colleagues will be keeping careful watch on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Since the LRO relies on solar power to charge its batteries, the eclipse will mean the probe will be running without sunlight for an extended period.

    The LRO has, of course, made it through lunar eclipses in the past. This time, however, the probe will have to make two complete passes through the Earth’s shadow before the event is over. Even so, Petro predicts that the LRO will make it through unscathed.

    “For quite a while, people in LRO have been analyzing what’s going to happen during this eclipse,” said Petro. “The spacecraft will be going straight from the moon’s shadow to the Earth’s shadow while it orbits during the eclipse.

    “We’re taking precautions to make sure everything is fine. We’re turning off the instruments and will monitor the spacecraft every few hours when it’s visible from Earth.”

    Image via NASA

  • Lunar ‘Blood Moon’ Eclipse Expected In Mid-April

    A much-anticipated astronomical event will leave sky-gazers seeing red for hours.

    A total lunar eclipse dubbed as a “blood moon” is expected to occur on April 15th and will be visible to most parts of the country. The first of four “blood moons” to take place over the next couple of years, astronomers say that this eclipse will begin at around 3:07 am EST and will last for approximately 77 minutes.

    West coast residents will be able to see the eclipse one day ahead of the rest of the country.

    It might be easy for religious fanatics to associate “blood moons” with the supernatural because of their striking reddish-orange color, but this phenomenon can be fully explained by science. During a total lunar eclipse, a full moon almost always exhibits a coppery red color, which is due to the scattered light from the Earth’s sunrises and sunsets that fall on the surface of the moon.

    The moon’s face might appear more brownish or gray during a lunar eclipse, but this only happens when the moon has a lot of volcanic activity. Otherwise, the moon has a red hue during lunar eclipses.

    Despite its astronomical nature, the “blood moon” cycle remains religiously significant to several beliefs. In Judaism, the four “blood moons” fall on the major feast days between 2014 and 2015. Online publication Guardian Liberty Voice reported that these coinciding events can be connected to a prophecy in the Book of Genesis, as well as the Book of Joel in the Hebrew Bible.

    To some Christians, the “blood moon” event signifies the Second Coming of Christ.

    This year, the “blood moons” are scheduled to take place on April 15 and October 8, both of which fall on the Jewish Passover and Feast of the Tabernacle, respectively. Next year, the “blood moons” will occur on April 4 and September 28, which again fall on the aforementioned Jewish holidays.

    ‘Blood Moon’ Prophecy


    Image via YouTube

  • Partial Lunar Eclipse Occurring Friday

    Partial Lunar Eclipse Occurring Friday

    There will be a partial lunar eclipse on Friday, October 18, though it maybe be a bit tricky to view from the vantage of North America. The eclipse will be at maximum at 7:50 p.m. EDT, as viewed from the Western Hemisphere.

    Tomorrow’s event will be a penumbral lunar eclipse, which occurs when the Moon passes through the Earth’s penumbra. This penumbra causes a subtle darkening of the Moon’s surface.

    The penumbra (from the Latin paene “almost, nearly” and umbra “shadow”) is the region in which only a portion of the light source is obscured by the obstructing body. An observer in the penumbra experiences a partial eclipse.

    When a shadow is cast by a nearby object, the penumbra is small. Though, when the shadow is as far away as the distance between the moon and the Earth, roughly 238,000 miles, the penumbra is wide. It should also be noted that since the U.S. government is back up and running, these eclipses can now happen again.

    For skywatchers in North and South America, maximum eclipse will occur around the time of moonrise, which is also the time of sunset. This is why the event will be difficult to see – the moon will be obscured by the Earth’s atmosphere. The eclipse can be better viewed the further east one is located.

    For those watching in North America, the effects of the Earth’s shadow will be most evident on the lower right corner of the moon. And, the shadow will likely be more pronounced in photographs than with the naked eye, so a fast telephoto lens would be a good idea, if available.

    For skywatchers in Africa, Europe and western Asia, the eclipse will occur in the middle of the night, when the moon is high in the sky. The fuzzy shadow will look like a slight reddish dimming of the normally bright full moon.

    In related news, NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE, is safely in orbit around the moon, regardless of the skeleton crew on hand at the space agency during the aforementioned shutdown. The probe has been tasked with studying gases surrounding the moon, as well as to search for electrically charged dust rising from the lunar surface.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons.

  • Amazon Makes It Easier To Integrate Its APIs Into Android Apps

    So, you’re building an Android app, and you want to make it available on the Amazon Appstore. You’re going to have to integrate all the necessary Amazon APIs into your app, and that could take a long time. Rather, it used to as Amazon has just introduced a new tool that makes it easier to develop apps for its appstore.

    Amazon announced today the availability of its Mobile App SDK Eclipse Plugin. The software is currently in beta, but it should “increase your productivity in developing apps and games for distribution on Amazon.” It works by generating the “appropriate config entries for the APIs you select,” and then “copies over the relevant API jar files.” Amazon says you can also use the tool to quickly undo API integration without affecting the original Eclipse project.

    Amazon Makes It Easier To Integrate its APis Into Android Apps

    Here’s some more additional details about Amazon’s new Eclipse plugin:

  • Free to use: As with other resources we make available, the plugin is free for developers distributing their apps on Amazon.
  • Easy to use: Developers have indicated that it is surprisingly fast to deploy and use the plugin. The deployment of this tool follows the typical Eclipse plugin download and installation experience and does not require a new usage paradigm.
  • Gives you control of APIs and versions: The plugin allows you to use the latest version of the APIs in the Amazon Mobile App SDK that you have on your system and will alert you if your project is using an older version of the APIs.
  • Works for all apps and games: The plugin helps you to quickly develop any Android app that you plan to offer via the Amazon marketplace, including Kindle Fire tablets and Android smartphones.
  • If you need help in obtaining the Eclipse plugin, hit up Amazon’s help site. It has all the information you need. If you’re feeling especially helpful, you can also fill out this survey on what you think of the product in its current beta form.

  • Ring of Fire Eclipse: When and How to See It

    Ring of Fire eclipse — which occurs when the moon passes directly in front of the sun — will go down in the skies above the western US and eastern Asian on May 20th. National parks across the nation are having viewing parties to celebrate the event, which hasn’t happened since 1994. If eclipses are your thing, then you’d better clear your schedule, as you may not live long enough to see the event transpire again.

    The eclipse, which follows an 8,500 mile path across the heavens, will last for nearly three-and-a-half hours during the late afternoon. Unfortunately, depending on where you are at the time it occurs, the event may be witnessed for two glorious hours to five brief minutes. Those who live on the Eastern Seaboard will be completely in the dark, though you can check out the event in its entirety by logging on to various websites that will be streaming the eclipse live.

    Other areas will only see partial eclipse, while others will be able to see the moon cover nearly 95% of the sky. The locations hosting viewing parties for the latter are Petroglyph National Monument, Redwoods National Park, Lassen Volcanic National Park, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Zion National Park, and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

    Of course, if you’re going to watch the eclipse as it unfolds, then you’re going to need some sort of protection. Looking at the ring of fire directly may result in severe eye trauma, which means that you may not be able to look at another thing for as long as you live, let alone an eclipse. Your best bet, assuming that you can readily locate a pair, are wielder’s glasses with a number 14 filter. Can’t find any? Don’t stress about it — just punch a small hole in a cardboard box and you’ll be on your way. Remember: Skywatch responsibly, folks!

    For added fun, listen to this song on repeat until the eclipse is over.

  • Google Updates Eclipse Plugin With More APIs

    Eclipse is a great software development environment that’s heavily supported through the use of plugins. One of those plugins comes from Google that helps with the development of Cloud SQL and Google APIs. They’ve recently updated the plugin with two new features that are sure to be a big help to developers.

    The two features added to the plugin include “Tooling for using Java Persistence API to access Cloud SQL” and “Importing the latest Google APIs into your GPE project.” The two updates will bring a “richer” coding and tooling experience for developers working on these programs.

    The Java Persistence API introduces Object-Relational Mapping for accessing relational databases. The new plugin adds these tools to Cloud SQL and the Google App Engine. If you are in a GPE project, JPA can be enable and configured as a project facet.

    The new Google Plugin for Eclipse also offers access to all the new Google APIs. They can be accessed easily with a simple click. You can also download the Google API Java client library to grant access to Google APIs from within the App Engine project. It also features update notifications so that you can keep track of any new versions of the various APIs.

    The next update to the App Engine SDK will include a notification within Eclipse that will notify you of the latest updates to the App Engine SDK.

    If you want to start coding right away, GPE 2.6 is available for your downloading pleasure right now. Eclipse users will want to take advantage of all of the new Google APIs.

  • YouTube Streams Twilight: Eclipse Premiere

    Update: MySpace is streaming it as well.

    Original Article: YouTube announced that it will be streaming the red carpet footage of the Twilight: Eclipse premiere this evening. It’s that big a deal.

    "The scene from Hollywood may look nothing like Forks, but all of your favorite vampires and werewolves will be there giving live interviews and greeting fans," says YouTube’s Thomas Henry. "Many of these Twilight faithful have been waiting for up to three days in order to catch a glimpse of their favorite pale-faced friends."

    The coverage starts at 5:30 p.m. PT tonight. Watch it here.

    If you can’t tune in live (and you still actually want to see it), you will still be able to watch the footage on the Twilight YouTube channel.

    Learn about some online marketing strategies they’ve been using for this film here.