Around 7.25pm on Sunday (dark there of course as it's winter in the southern hemisphere), Alasdair Burns, a stargazing guide on Stewart Island/Rakiura, received a text from a friend: go outside and look at the sky. “As soon as we actually went outside, it was very obvious what it was he was referring to,” Burns said.
“It looked like an enormous spiral galaxy, just hanging there in the sky, and slowly just drifting across,” He said. “Quite an eerie feeling.” He snapped a few images of the lights on long exposure, capturing the spiral from his phone. “We quickly banged on the doors of all our neighbours to get them out as well. And so there were about five of us, all out on our shared veranda looking up and just kind of, well, freaking out just a little bit.”
I love the fact that they went and told all the neighbours to come out and look too.
Aliens? Apparently not.mScientists say it’s something to do with rockets launching satellites into space.
“When the propellant is ejected out the back, you have what’s essentially water and carbon dioxide – that briefly forms a cloud in space that’s illuminated by the sun,” Prof Richard Easther, a physicist at Auckland University said. “The geometry of the satellite’s orbit and also the way that we’re sitting relative to the sun – that combination of things was just right to produce these completely wacky looking clouds that were visible from the South Island.”
There you go. There’s an explanation for almost everything. But we are all more than a little excited at the idea of strange phenomena in the sky. I remember long years ago a friend and I spent quite a bit of time trying to work out what might be causing the strange light we could see in the sky from the staffroom window. We would have been better employed getting on with our marking and report writing but there it is!
Last night would have been a good time to see interesting things in the sky as it was so clear but there were only the usual stars - not even the moon which seems to be rising very late at the moment.
Back on earth we have the rail strikes, which fortunately are not affecting me at all. Rather concerning is the suggestion that agency staff should be used to drive the trains and man the signal boxes. Don’t these occupations need skill and at least a modicum of training. I’m rather surprised our Mr Johnson hasn’t had a go at driving a train himself. After all, he seems to relish those photo opportunities of himself as a man of action driving a tram or a digger! Just as I had that thought going through my head I came across one of Michael Rosen’s spoof Borisisms:
“Dear Mogg
We won't be put off by what these Communist train drivers say about our splendid agency men. Trains run in straight lines. All you have to do is press a button to make them go and another one to make them stop. I'm going to drive one. Hah!
Nostradamus ignoramus
Boris”
Great minds … and all that sort of thing!
As we continue to stagger through the economic crisis I read today that Rolls-Royce is going to give more than 14,000 staff a £2,000 payment to help them cope with the soaring cost of living, the first time the engineering firm has made such a move. This is not a pay rise although a pay rise is on the cards as well. No, this is just a one-off payment to help their workers deal with the current problem. They’re mot alone in this apparently: it turns out that Lloyds Bank will give more than 64,000 staff a similar one-off payment, this time £1,000 to help with rising living costs. The payment, due to be made in August, comes after a campaign by the Unite union. Who says unions don’t serve a useful purpose!?
Good for Rolls Royce and Lloyds Bank, say I. We need more big companies to follow suit.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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