Amelia Earhart was a pioneer in the field of Aviation. She achieved fame and acclaim as the first women to make a solo flight across the Atlantic. She made many other achievements in the field of aviation.Earhart’s distinguished career was tragically cut short when she mysteriously disappeared while attempting to make a flight around the globe. Her remarkable story and her legacy in the field of aviation endure to this day.

Amelia was born in 1897 in Kansas, USA. Drawn to flying from a young age, she saved money and took flying lessons, determined to live out her love for aviation. She soon managed to buy an airplane and in the following years made many achievements in aviation, including the first solo transcontinental flight and won recognition by performing many aviation feats.

In 1932, Earhart became the first women to fly solo across the Atlantic, five years after Charles Lindbergh made the first solo flight across the Atlantic. Starting from Newfoundland, she flew across and landed in Londonderry, Ireland.
Three years later in 1935, she scaled another height when she became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean from Honolulu to California.

In the United States, Earhart soon became an icon. She was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by the Congress of the United States and received many other awards. Earhart also made great effort to popularize aviation. She was amongst the first people who tried to develop commercial aviation. The first flight service between New York and Washington DC was set up, thanks in part to her efforts and investment. She also went on to hold important positions in the fledgling airline industry.

In 1936, Earhart made plans for a flight around the world. She chose to circle the globe along the longest path – along the equator with a navigator, Fred Noonan. Her first attempt had to be abandoned due to technical problems. She started again a few months later from Miami. She arrived at Lae, New Guinea on 29th June 1937, having covered over 22,000 miles. She, now, had to cover the remaining 7,000 miles over the Pacific.

The next day, Earhart took off from Lae. Her planned landing was to be at Howland Island, a small island just a few miles long. The US Coast Guard vessel, the USGSC Itasca was stationed to coordinate the landing. Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan were able to make radio contact with the USGSC Itasca. Soon, communication with the aircraft was lost. What happened next remains unclear. The Coast Guard vessel initially received messages from Earhart’s plane. But, the aircraft was unable to receive messages sent from the ship.

Suddenly, all contact with the plane was lost. Desperate attempts were made by radio operators across the pacific to contact Earhart, but, in vain. The US Navy made an exhaustive search and rescue operation in the Pacific to rescue her. However, no trace of the plane and its pilot could be found.

The life of a brave young woman had come to a tragic end. Over the years, many theories would emerge about Earhart and her disappearance. Some claimed that Earhart managed to land her plane on a remote, uninhabited island but died shortly afterwards. Other claimed that she was taken prisoner by the Japanese, an enemy of the United States during the time, and was executed along with her navigator, Noonan.

However, no conclusion could be reached on what happened to Amelia Earhart. Amelia Earhart was a pioneering woman who achieved remarkable things in her life and made contribution to the field of aviation. She was seen as a symbol of women’s achievement. Her accomplishments were admirable, given the time she lived in. She remains an inspiration through her achievement and her career. Read More

Amnesty International is a human rights organization based in England. It was founded in 1961 by a British lawyer called Peter Benenson. Benenson was moved by a case of two Portuguese students who had been sentenced to 7 years imprisonment during the Spanish Civil War. The incident motivated him to start a movement that would highlight such human rights violation and campaign against injustice. Amnesty International was thus born.

Today, the organization is a global movement which campaigns for human rights. It has campaigned on a wide of human rights issues such as people jailed for their political views, violence against women, torture and arms control.

The organization is present in about 150 countries around the world and has about 1.8 million members. The organization adopts many methods of campaigning to get its message across to the public, politicians and decision makers. Public demonstrations, writing letters to leaders and conducting awareness campaigns are some of the methods used by Amnesty International in its campaigns.

Another method which Amnesty International uses is the mobilization of volunteer activists – people who volunteer to work for Amnesty International. Volunteers help in creating awareness about violations amongst the general public. In addition, the organization works with lawyers, journalists and people who can influence public and government opinion. They also work with the governments of various countries to bring change in government policy and to get political prisoners released.

Amnesty International is campaigning against the death penalty, which it says, is a cruel and degrading form of punishment. It has advocated the cause of refugees who are displaced from their home due to war or natural calamities. Besides, it is currently campaigning against child soldiers – the hundreds of children who are forced to join terrorist organizations and other armed groups.

The organization does not accept money or other help from any government. It raises money from its members and supporters. Amnesty International is governed by an International council consisting of representatives from all the countries where it has a presence.

Amnesty International was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1977, in recognition of its efforts in the cause of human rights.

To know about Amnesty International visit their website at http://www.amnesty.org/


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Glaciers are one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring natural features on earth. Glaciers are large and massive features of ice which can be found on the polar regions and at high altitudes on other places on the earth. Vast areas of the polar regions are permanently covered by glaciers. Glaciers cover approximately 10% of the earth’s surface, chiefly, on the poles and hold upto 75% of the earth’s freshwater.

Glaciers are formed when layers of snow get compacted over time due to gravity. The compaction takes place over many years. The snow in the lower layers gets pressed down by the weight of the snow above and compaction occurs. The snow thus gets converted into ice due to pressure – a process known as glaciation. As snow falls further, the snow on the top too gets compacted and the glacier increases in size.

Glaciers can be broadly categorized into alpine glaciers and continental glaciers. Alpines glaciers are found at high altitudes such as mountains from where they also spreadout to the plains. Continental Glaciers, on the other hand, cover huge areas and are principally found in the poles. They are also known as ice sheets. These kinds of large glaciers that cover the land can be found in the poles.


Alpine Glaciers can be found high mountainous regions. In such high altitudes, the temperature remains cold throughout the year which prevents the snow from melting. The snow which accumulates forms the glacier. Glaciers such as the one on Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa belong to this type.

Valley Glaciers are formed when snow accumulated in the mountains forms a glacier and then slides down a valley. Tidewater Glaciers are formed when glaciers slide into the ocean. Big chunks of the glaciers “calve” or fall into the ocean. Tidewater Glaciers are usually found near the poles

Another type of Glacier is the Piedmont glacier which is formed when a glacier slides down from a mountain and spreads over a plain, occupying a wide area.

Glaciers are indeed spectacular features of natures. Their sheer size and scenic beauty is inspiring to see. However, the influence over the land is phenomenal. Over the centuries, glaciers can change the landscape by eroding materials as they slide over the land and depositing the material elsewhere. The breathtaking fjords of Norway are and example of glacial action.

However, today, the Glaciers are threatened by Global warming – the rise in temperatures around the world due to the increased emission of greenhouse gases. Scientists tell us that the increasing temperatures are causing the glaciers to melt at a faster rate causing the glaciers to “recede”. The melting of the glaciers, especially at the poles, may cause an increase in sea levels





Images Courtesy:

www.calstatela.edu
www.visitnorway.com

www.galaxsea.com

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Many students know that to figure out the age of a tree, you count the number of rings that make up its trunk, one ring for each year. But what if you wanted to know the age of the rings that surround the planet Saturn?

It's a tricky question that scientists have tried to answer for decades. In the late 1970s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, sent a pair of spacecraft called Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 into outer space. Part of their mission was to fly past Saturn while taking pictures of and collecting data about the planet, then send all this information back to Earth.

Based on the data collected on those missions, scientists first estimated that the rings surrounding Saturn were only 100 million years old. Even though that sounds very old, 100 million years is actually quite young when compared with the solar system, which is 4.6 billion years old.

Looking at the physical characteristics of the particles that make up the rings is partly what helped astronomers determine the age. They reasoned that because the rings appear shiny and reflective, the particles in them, and the rings themselves, were fairly young. The scientists thought that the particles were young because they had not been around long enough for their surfaces to become darkened and less reflective. Things like dust and craters left from collisions with small meteorites can get particles dirty.

But a team of researchers in Colorado thinks Saturn's rings might be much older, closer to the age of the solar system itself. These researchers used a combination of computer simulations, which mimic events, and data from the Cassini spacecraft, which is currently orbiting Saturn and collecting data.

In the computer simulation, the team estimated the gravitational pull, a force that pulls objects together, between each of the particles making up the rings. Big particles in the rings may pull smaller particles to themselves, where they stick and make one larger particle. In their simulations, the researchers found that the particles making up Saturn's rings stick together in clumps and are not uniformly distributed, as previously thought.

The formation of new, larger ring particles from older, smaller ones could erase any surface darkening from previous collisions with meteorites, the researchers reasoned. They suggest the particles may look younger than they really are because they constantly clump together, possibly burying the cratered, dusty surface of the older particles beneath the surface of the new clumped particles.

Because of these clumped particles, scientists may have also underestimated the mass of the rings. Previously, astronomers calculated the mass of the rings by measuring how much starlight their particles blocked. The thinking was that the amount of blocked starlight could tell the amount of material in the rings. The more starlight was blocked, the more mass was present in the rings, the scientists reasoned.

But the older calculation assumed the particles were fairly evenly spread out in the rings. These newer data suggest the particles in the rings are clumped together with large empty spaces between them. In that arrangement, more light passes through than if the same mass of particles was spread evenly, as previously thought. This new understanding suggests Saturn's rings contain much more mass than scientists first estimated.

Taken together, the findings raise new questions about the estimated age of Saturn's rings, says Mark Lewis, a computer scientist at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. But until astronomers know more about what material the ring particles are made of, and details about how they clump together, the age of Saturn's rings will remain an astronomical puzzle.

courtesy: sciencenewsforkids.org

image courtesy: JPL/NASA, Space Science Institute

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