alignments: Eclipse on Jupiter, photographed by Galileo, 22nd May 2000.
Shadow of Europa. The storm at top right is the Great Red Spot.
Image credit: NASA/JPL.
(via kugel-blitz)
I was never really able to snag a good photo of this one, and it’s currently hanging in a gallery, so I’ve forgotten the dimensions! But it’s oils on a pretty large canvas.
(via nippontanukiclub)
Tibetan monks partner with conservationists to protect the snow leopard
by Jeremy Hance
Tibetan monks could be the key to safeguarding the snow leopard (Panthera uncia) from extinction, according to an innovative program by big cat NGO Panthera which is partnering with Buddhist monasteries deep in leopard territory. Listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List, snow leopard populations have dropped by a fifth in the last 16 years or so. Large, beautiful, and almost never-seen, snow leopards are the apex predators of the high plateaus and mountains of central Asia, but their survival like so many big predators is in jeopardy.
Tom McCarthy the head of the Snow Leopard Program at Panthera told mongabay.com that the high-altitude predators are facing three major threats: poaching for illegal snow leopard skins, fur, and parts; decline in natural prey; and revenge killing by locals over livestock losses.“Snow leopards share their mountain habitat with poor herding families whose lives are highly dependent on livestock,” McCarthy says. “When a snow leopard kills a sheep, goat, yak or even a young camel, it is a huge economic loss to the herder. It is hard to blame them for wanting to kill the snow leopard in retaliation.”…
(read more: MongaBay) (photo: Steve Winter/National Geo)
