Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Sky Study 1: Brightest Star Explosion

On June 21, The bright X-ray burst blinded Swift orbiting observatory and the observatory's software ignored it as if it were an anomaly.



"The burst was so bright when it first erupted that our data-analysis software shut down," said Phil Evans of Britain's University of Leicester, who discovered the burst when he was going through some recorded data from Swift.
"The intensity of these X-rays was unexpected and unprecedented," Neil Gehrels, Swift's principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said in a statement.
Gehrels said the burst, named GRB 100621A, is the brightest X-ray source that Swift has detected since it started looking for them in 2005.

"Just when we were beginning to think that we had seen everything that gamma-ray bursts could throw at us, this burst came along to challenge our assumptions about how powerful their X-ray emissions can be," Gehrels said.

"So many photons were bombarding the detector each second that it just couldn't count them quickly enough. It was like trying to use a rain gauge and a bucket to measure the flow rate of a tsunami."

When a star explodes, radiation travels at the speed of light in all directions. Gamma rays reach Earth first, followed by X-rays. This particular star was 140 times brighter than the brightest continuous X-ray source in the sky i.e. a nearby neutron star.


The most interesting fact is that this particular star died 5 billion years ago, far beyond our own Milky Way galaxy, and it took this long for the radiation to reach the Earth.

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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Shab e Barat: celebration and recipes

To the younger generation shab-e-barat is purely eating ruti-halwa-mangsho, and distributing them to the neighbours. to me shab-e-barat is a demo version of eid, reminding us of the upcoming ramadan, followed by the first eid of the year. There is good food to eat and endless opportunity for fun since parents being busy with their prayers.

It is said that Allah determines the destiny of all people, including whether a person lives or dies, in the coming year on this day. I find the rituals of celebrating shab-e-barat linked to the sub-continent only, it is not very widely celebrated in the middle east. 
Since Halwa, roti, beef bhuna is an integral part of the celebration, let me put forward some easy and well recognised recipes here:

Main course:

Jhura Mangsho Bhaja ( Shredded Beef Fry):

This is a recipe that we expreimentally discovered at home. it turns out to be very delicious and a perfect match with ruuti.

Required:
  • boneless meat (750 gm to 1 kg),
  • oil about 1.5 cups,
  • ground spices (onion - half cup, garlic 3 tea spoons, ginger 1 tea spoon)
  • powdered spices (corainder, cumin, chilli  - 1 tea spoon each )
  • salt, 3-4 green chillis slitted in half, grated onion 2 cups, cumin seeds 1 tea spoon

1. cut the meat into small peices
2. wash and keep it aside to drain the excess water
3. in a seperate pan heat half the oil, mix ground onion, garlic, ginger, and other spices (salt, coriander powder, cumin powder, chilli powder, no need for turmeric powder)
4. mix in the meat and fry it in the spices for about 10-15 minutes, adding aboout half cup water (mangsho koshano)
5. after 15 minutes transfer the meat in a pressure cooker, and cover lid
6. once the pressure cooker has heated up (starts whistling frequently), lower the flame, and let it cook for more than an hour.
7. put off the flame after 1 hour and remove the lid
8. with a spoon batter the meat. the attachments of the meat should be loosened by now, and become shredded. (jhura hoye jabey)
9. in a seperate pan heat oil, add grated onions ( about 2 cups), salt, cumin seeds, green chillies. fry the onions till semi transparent, add the shredded meat and fry. adjust salt and chilli levels as required. occasionally you may add the stew left in the pressure cooker to increase taste.

Serve hot with ruti-paratha or even steamed rice.
very shortly in Bangla:
mangsho koshay niye pressure cooker e diye 1 ghonta olpo aanche rakhte hobe, 1 ghonta pore mangsho ta chamoch diye narlei jhura hoye jabe. tel gorom kore peyaj, kacha morich. lobon aar jeera bheje taar moddhe jhura mangsho diye aro kichukkhon bhajlei hoye jabe.


Sweet dishes:
Gajorer (Carrot) Halwa : (the easy way)

1.take 2 cups of ground or grated carrots
2. put it in 1 liter of milk, add raisins and cardamom and boil till the carrots are cooked, keep aside and let dry
3. heat oil/ghee ( oil: 1 table spoon, ghee: 3 tea spoon) in a pan, add the carrot
4. pour about 250 gm of sugar, let the sugar melt. taste to adjust sweetness levels.
Garnish with nuts and raisins

This can be served both hot or cold; and can store these in the freezer for days.


Badamer (nut) Halwa :

1. add 4 table spoon of ghee in a pan, and heat
2. add half cup of ground peanut paste, and quarter cup of ground cashenut paste
3. add raisins, half tea spoon of cardamom powder
4. fry for 1-2 minutes and then add 200 gms of sugar
5. adjust sugar level as required
6. add raisins, cream, and cashewnut slices (optional)
7. remove from heat, once the halwa seperates from the pan
8. after cooling cut into desired shapes and serve

Instead of peanut and cashewnut, almond can also be used in step 2. almond is to be soaked in milk for an hour and then ground along with milk. rest of the procedure to be followed same.


 Happy celebration!

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