Professional wildlife photographer Andy Rouse has been awarded the prestigious Cherry Kearton Medal by the Royal Geographical Society. The annual award recognises the contribution made by a wildlife photographer to photography, conservation and bringing geography to the masses. In this gallery, we present a selection of his work. Gentoo penguins (Pygoscelis papua) on iceberg, Mikkelsen Harbour, Antarctica Picture: Andy Rouse / Rex Features
A crocodile fails to catch a wildebeest, Masai Mara, Kenya Picture: Andy Rouse / Rex Features
Cheetah adolescents chase a Thomson gazelle fawn, Masai Mara, Africa Picture: Andy Rouse / Rex Features
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“The sheer height of the Himalayan plateau – known as the roof of the world – is captured in a spectacular shot taken by one of the keenest photographers on the International Space Station.
Cloud formations swirl around the base of the plateau in the image captured by Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers, but the shot offers a view of Everest and its neighbours that few human beings will ever see, from 245 miles above our planet.
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André Kuipers – a keen photographer – launched to the ISS on 21 December last year from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, on a Soyuz spacecraft as flight engineer for Expeditions 30 and 31, together with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and NASA astronautDon Pettit.
They remained in space for nearly six months, during which time Kuipers took some of the most spectactular shots from the space station, hosted on his Flickr page and the European Space Agency‘s page.
‘I remember how thin the Earth atmosphere looks like from space and how black the Universe is. It made me realise that billions of people live in a very fragile planet. We really should take care of it,’ says Kuipers.
Kuipers is medical doctor who has been actively involved in microgravity research for more than ten years. ‘The data I will collect from my own body can bring valuable information about the effects of weightlessness on the human body. This research may help in preparation for a future mission to Mars,’ he says.
Kuipers has since returned to Earth.
This Saturday evening, take a look at the night sky and you might see something special. The moon will make its largest, most stunning appearance of the year—an event known to scientists as “the perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system” and to the popular skywatching public simply as the “supermoon.” As one of the most spectacular supermoons in years, the moon will appear 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than when it is on the far side of its orbit.
A supermoon is a perigee-syzygy, a new or full moon (syzygy) which occurs when the Moon is at 90% or greater of its mean closest approach to Earth (perigee). The March 19, 2011 supermoon is just 221,566 miles (356,577 kilometers) away from Earth. The last time the full moon approached so close to Earth was in 1993, according to NASA. it is about 20 percent brighter and 15 percent bigger than a regular full moon. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Apart from providing a sight to behold in the night sky, the moon’s perigee also has a tangible effect on Earth: It causes higher than normal tides. Because tides are driven by the moon’s gravitational effects, a closer moon means that the oceans will be pulled more than usual towards the satellite. In most places, this will mean a tide that is an inch or so higher than usual, but geographical factors can multiply the effect up to around six inches.
There has long been speculation that the moon’s gravitational effect during its perigee could be the cause of natural disasters, including earthquakes and volcanic activity. In particular, many suggested this link following the earthquake and subsequent tsunami off the coast of Japan in March of 2011. However, the devastating quake occurred over a week before the supermoon, and studies have shown no strong evidence for increased frequency of high-intensity seismic activity during the moon’s perigee.
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