Amplified by last week’s ‘solar tsunami’ the striking Northern Lights dance over Michigan’s Lake Superior.

Female photographer Shawn Malone, 46, observed the phenomenon for two days last week, using 20 minutes exposures to capture the full array of colours.

She photographed the effects of the series of massive explosions on the Sun last week that caused the Northern Lights to appear brighter than usual.

Skywatchers in the UK were denied the chance to witness the Northern Lights after missing out on the spectacular sight due to cloudy skies.

A view of the Northern Lights affected by the solar tsunami over Lake Superior on August 4th iin Marquette, Michigan

‘We do photograph the Northern Lights here in Michigan and this is one of the best places below the 48th Parallel to do so,’ Mrs Malone said.

‘I have lived here for ten years and the lights are always wonderful and this was nice when it was here and it was pretty.

‘It would come and go in waves around midnight and that was when I photographed the supercharged lights.

‘But, I have to say that the spectacular event that we were led to believe by the media unfortunately didn’t materialise for me at least.’

Armed with her Canon 5D Mark 2 camera, Shawn still feels lucky to live in such a spot where she can photograph the compressed and charged gases that cause the Aurora Borealis.

‘There is so little light pollution over Lake Superior and the area surrounding Marquette, it makes for a wonder and clear setting,’ said Mrs Malone.

Green rising: Moonrise taken from the shores of Lake Superior on August 3rd

Scientists were excited last week by two minor solar storms on The Sun that erupted on Sunday and which shots superheated plasma in the direction of The Earth.

The plasma, which is ionised atoms, can cause electrical systems and orbiting satellites to fail on Earth.

Scientists are braced for increased solar activity over the coming five years as The Sun ‘wakes up’ from an estimated decade long slumber.

More of Shawn Malone’s work can be viewed at: www.lakesuperiorphoto.com.

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The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used? Because that’s the way they built them in England, and English expatriates designed the U.S. railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used.

Why did they use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder, “What horse’s ass came up with this?” you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses (two horses’ asses).

Now the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s ass. And you thought being a horse’s ass wasn’t important? Ancient horses’ asses control almost everything… and CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else.

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