Korean pensinsula: Seoul and DMZ from ISS

Korean pensinsula from ISS, captured by @astro_paolo. You can see very well Seoul and part of the DMZ.

Skywatcher: Stunning Image of Aurora Borealis

Skywatcher Kwon, O Chul of The World At Night (TWAN), shot this image of the Northern Lights at Yellowknife in northern Canada.

CREDIT: (c)Kwon O Chul / TWAN

It took a collision of charged particles from Earth’s magnetosphere and one veteran landscape astrophotographer from Seoul, Korea to deliver this green spectacle.

Skywatcher Kwon, O Chul of The World At Night (TWAN), traveled to Yellowknife in northern Canada with a Canon 5d mark II + 24mm lens to capture this image of the Northern Lights.

The northern and southern lights — also known as the aurora — are mostly witnessed in polar latitudes. A clash of charged particles from Earth's magnetosphere with atoms and molecules of Earth's atmosphere (at altitudes above 50 miles, or 80 km) cause these lights. Solar wind from the sun carries these particles to Earth.

Kwon often uses several medium-format and panorama-format film cameras in his exhibitions. The skywatcher “looks for the harmony between celestial motion and star trails, ancient relics, and Korean beautiful landscapes,” according to the TWAN website. 

Arirang 5 satellite in Daejon, South Korea

The Korea Aerospace Research Institute unveils the Arirang 5 satellite in Daejon, South Korea, ahead of its launch in Russia planned for mid-November.

The satellite, which is four metres high, 2.6 metres in diameter and 1.4 tons in weight, has been completed after six years of work with an investment of 240 billion won (about £140 million).

It will provide geographical images while orbiting the earth 15 times a day for five years at an altitude of 550 kilometres.

Picture: EPA/YONHAP NEWS AGENCY

NASA Aqua Image: Extreme Snow in Korea

This image taken from NASA's Aqua satellite shows heavy snowfall all along the eastern side of the Korean Peninsula. Parts of Gangwon province have also been hit by the heaviest snowfalls since record-keeping began a century ago.

Picture: AFP / NASA

China: CNPC wins 3-billion-dollar Turkmenistan energy deals

Foreign firms win 10-billion-dollar Turkmen energy deals

The Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan has awarded contracts worth 9.7 billion dollars (6.8 billion euros) to a series of foreign companies to develop one of the world's most prized gas fields.

China National Petroleum Corporation, South Korea's LG International and UAE-based Petrofac International are among the firms set to develop the South Yolotan gas field, Turkmenistan's state information agency said late Tuesday.

"This event marks one more step on the path to the realization of Turkmenistan's energy strategy," the agency said in a statement posted on the website of the secretive, energy-rich state's website.

"The largest projects of regional and world significance have been given a start," it added.

Turkmen officials say that South Yolotan holds at least four to six trillion cubic metres of gas and possibly as much as 14 trillion, numbers that have been confirmed by Gaffney, Cline and Associates, a British energy consulting firm.

Turkmenistan's then-president Saparmurat Niyazov announced the discovery of the field in the east of the country in 2006, saying at the time that it was among the world's largest.

Under the contracts signed with Turkmenistan's state energy company Turkmengaz, the companies will develop the field and build gas plants.

UAE-based Gulf Oil and Gaz Fze will build drilling facilities to secure annual production of 20 billion cubic metres of gas under one of the contracts, worth up to 1.15 billion dollars.

CNPC Chuanqing Drilling Engineering Company will produce 10 billion cubic metres of gas a year under a contract worth just over three billion dollars.

Smallest Dinosaur footprints

ONLY just hatched and new to the world, the little guy who left these prints in the riverbed was probably running for its life. Barely 10 centimetres tall, the hatchling would have been the length of a wren and easy prey for pterosaurs and other hungry dinosaurs.

The prints are the tiniest dinosaur footprints ever found. They were left between 125 and 110 million years ago, are just 1.27 cm and 1.51 cm long, and clearly show soft foot pads and three pointed claws.

Kyung Soo Kim of Chinju National University of Education in Jinju, South Korea, says the baby track-maker was a cousin of the fearsome T. Rex and belonged to the theropod sub-order, which includes tyrannosaurs.

"It was running to hide right after hatching," Kim speculates. It had plenty of reasons to do so: nearby tracks show it shared its home with fleet-footed, meat-eating dromeosaurs, such as Velociraptor, together with other dinosaurs, pterosaurs and shorebirds.

The prints were discovered in 2008 during the construction of a reservoir on Changseon Island, located 320 kilometres from the South Korean capital of Seoul.