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Explanation: This clear night skyscape captures the colorful glow of aurora australis, the southern lights, just outside the port city of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, planet Earth. As if staring into the dreamlike scene, the Tasmanian Earth Resources Satellite Station poses in the center, illuminated by nearby city lights. Used to receive data from spacebased Earth observing instruments, including NASA's MODIS and SeaWiFS, the station was decommissioned in 2011 and dismantled only recently, shortly after the picture was taken on April 30. Still shining in southern skies though, the central bulge of our Milky Way galaxy and two bright satellite galaxies...

Bystanders file suit after being detained by Aurora police looking for suspect

The aurora is more than just a breathtaking display of light. It may also hold the secret of a magnetic phenomenon related to the nuclear fusion powering the sun. This secret could even help create nuclear fusion in the lab, says a team of researchers. Nuclear fusion is a reaction that combines the nuclei of two atoms into one. The process powers stars, but getting a self-sustained fusion reaction going on Earth is very difficult, and has so far eluded scientists. For example, in February, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California made headlines when they managed to spur...

Explanation: Sometimes it is hard to believe what you see in the sky. While leading his annual aurora tour last month near Fairbanks in central Alaska, astrophotographer John Chumack and his company saw a most unusual aurora. This bright aurora appeared to change into the shape of a jumping dog, complete with a curly tail. He was able to capture the fleeting natural apparition in the above image with a 15-second exposure through a wide-angle lens. By coincidence, he also captured a background sky filled with familiar highlights. Planets visible include bright Jupiter through the dog's front legs and reddish...

As a former Klan leader is charged with killing three in Kansas, the frayed white supremacy group is trying to attract new members. The Southern Poverty Law Center estimates the number of hate groups in the U.S. has risen from 602 in 2000 to 939 in 2013 The Ku Klux Klan was once a major force in America, with a membership of nearly 4 million that regularly included mayors, chiefs of police and other grandees of segregated regions, especially in the South and Midwest. It’s been decades since the Klan held that sort of mainstream sway, but Sunday’s deadly rampage...

Anti-Israel Leftist Cited by Anti-Semitic Killer Mocked Idea that American Jews are At Risk - FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - Anti-Israel Leftist Cited by Anti-Semitic Killer Mocked Idea that American Jews are At RiskPosted By Daniel Greenfield On April 14, 2014 @ 12:27 pm In The Point | 4 Comments Leftist Anti-Israel journalist Max Blumenthal, who is affiliated with The Nation, ridiculed the idea that American Jews are an at risk population.Blumenthal, whose attacks on Israel and Jews were described as anti-Semitic even by many on the left, and whose work was allegedly cited by the Kansas City killer and...

In a 2010 interview, Alan Colmes talked with a KKK Grand Dragon, who would later become the Jewish Center shooter, as he was running for Senate in Missouri as a Republican–and the glimpse into the mind of this madman that the interview offers is simply horrifying. On Sunday, Frazier Glenn Miller, or Frazier Glenn Cross, murdered three people at two different Jewish centers in Overland Park, Kansas–including a man, woman, and child. He shot at two others, but they were uninjured. As he was arrested, the founder of the White Patriot Party screamed “Heil Hitler!” Frazier/Cross told Colmes, a Jewish...

The shooting in the Kansas City area on Sunday at Jewish facilities that killed three was a horrifying reminder of the dangers some hate groups pose. Attorney Gen. Eric Holder on Monday morning issued a statement on the matter. “I was horrified to learn of this weekend’s tragic shootings outside Kansas City. These senseless acts of violence are all the more heartbreaking as they were perpetrated on the eve of the solemn occasion of Passover. “Justice Department prosecutors will work with their state and local counterparts to provide all available support and to determine whether the federal hate crimes statute...

A smirking gunman who reportedly shouted Nazi slogans opened fire at a Jewish community center and an old-age home in a suburb of Kansas City, killing three people. The gunman, said to be an older man, singled out Jewish victims for death, Rabbi Herbert Mandl, a chaplain with the Overland Park Police Department, told CNN. “Asking someone if you are Jewish before shooting sounds very much like a hate crime,” Mandl said. Police said two people were killed at the JCC of Greater Kansas City, where children were auditioning for a musical. Despite Mandl’s assertion, the JCC victims were identified...

Local radio is reporting that there has been a shooting at the Overland Park, Kansas Jewish Community Center around 1:00 p.m. Central time. Man walking up to people asking if they are Jewish and boom. News conference at 5:00. Evidently CNN is reporting.

ABC News Vice President Jeffrey Schneider has apologized for a story on his network that connected a CEO who supports traditional marriage to the Westboro Baptist Church and their offensive "God hates fags" signs. Mr. Schneider contacted the Media Research Center on Thursday after our social media department requested members call and complain about the comparison.

WASHINGTON – The Westboro Baptist Church, an extremist organization known for its anti-gay activism, announced that it will picket the funerals of the three people killed in Sunday afternoon’s shooting attacks at two Kansas City Jewish sites. The church, which has famously picketed funerals of US military personnel and has protested against the American Jewish community, sent out a tweet shortly after the shooting saying, “Thank God for shootings at Overland Park KS jewish centers! Westboro to picket funerals. God did not passover.”

The 73-year-old man charged with murder in the shooting at a Jewish community center and retirement community in Overland Park, Kansas, that left three people dead is reportedly the former Grand Dragon of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Fraiser Glenn Cross Jr., of Aurora, Mo., was taken into custody in the parking lot of an elementary school near the scene of the shootings, and was booked on a charge of first degree murder, according to the Johnson County, Kansas, Sheriff's Office. Cross is an alias for Frasier Glenn Miller, the former KKK leader, according to the Southern...

A retired Marine with nearly two decades of aviation experience has stepped forward with a compelling theory about a mysterious plane that was spotted flying over Texas last month. On March 10, photographers Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett took pictures of three puzzling aircraft flying over Amarillo, and posted them online in hopes of identifying the planes. Retired-Marine James Vineyard has submitted one of the more interesting explanations, telling the Houston Chronicle he believes they are SR-72 Blackbirds - a spy plane that can cross the U.S. in less than an hour, unmanned.

first time. Aviation Week & Space Technology journalist Bill Sweetman has posted photos taken March 10 by two veteran sky watchers, Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett. In his blog post of March 28, Sweetman writes that he and two Aviation Week editors agree that the photos depict "something real." In other words, these pictures aren't easily explained away by reports of known military flights or the work of someone who got carried away with Photoshop. So what can aviation experts say about the object in the photos? "The photos tell us more about what the mysterious stranger isn't than what...

Explanation: If you see a sky like this -- photograph it. A month ago in Iceland, an adventurous photographer (pictured) chanced across a sky full of aurora and did just that. In the foreground lies the stratovolcano Öræfajökull. In the background, among other sky delights, lies the constellation of Orion, visible to the aurora's left. Auroras are sparked by energetic particles from the Sun impacting the magnetic environment around the Earth. Resultant energetic particles such as electrons and protons rain down near the Earth's poles and impact the air. The impacted air molecules obtain excited electrons, and when electrons in...

GARRETTSVILLE, Ohio - Firefighters are battling a massive 3-alarm blaze in the Village of Garrettsville. Flames swept throughout Garrettsville’s historic downtown buildings and businesses on Route 82 (Main Street), just east of the Route 88 intersection, around 1:15 p.m. Saturday. The blaze is not under control, but spreading. Buildings from the 1800's are a total loss. Sources tell NewsChannel 5 that water is being pulled from the Silver Creek River to help battle the massive fire. A person witnessing the blaze said that it feels like the whole downtown portion of the village is on fire. Auburn, Aurora, Bainbridge, Boardman,...

Explanation: Sometimes, after your eyes adapt to the dark, a spectacular sky appears. Such was the case in 2011 March when one of the largest auroral displays in recent years appeared over northern locations like the border between Norway and Russia. Pictured in the above time-lapse movie, auroras flow over snow covered landscapes, trees, clouds, mountains and lakes found near Kirkenes, Norway. Many times the auroras are green, as high energy particles strike the Earth's atmosphere, causing the air to glow as electrons resettle into their oxygen hosts. Other colors are occasionally noticeable as atmospheric nitrogen also becomes affected. In...

Explanation: A remarkably intense auroral band flooded the northern night with shimmering colors on December 7. The stunning sequence captured here was made with a camera fixed to a tripod under cold, clear skies near Ester, just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. Left to right, spanning a period of about 30 minutes, the panels follow changes in the dancing curtains of northern lights extending to altitudes of over 100 kilometers in a band arcing directly overhead. The panels span 150 degrees vertically, covering about 500 kilometers of aurora laying across the sky from edge to edge. The auroral activity was triggered...

Explanation: It was Halloween and the sky looked like a creature. Exactly which creature, the astrophotographer was unsure (but possibly you can suggest one). Exactly what caused the eerie apparition was sure: one of the best auroral displays in recent memory. This spectacular aurora had an unusually high degree of detail. Pictured above, the vivid green and purple auroral colors are caused by high atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen reacting to a burst of incoming electrons. Birch trees in Tromsø, Norway formed an also eerie foreground. Many other photogenic auroras have been triggered by recent energetic flares on the Sun.