Apple adds Earth Day fitness badge to Apple Watch

Just a couple of days after releasing its new NikeLab version of the Apple Watch, Apple is leveraging the device's reputation as a fitness tool to join in the Earth Day festivities.

Early Saturday, Apple CEO Tim Cook posted a photo of a new special edition achievement badge on the Apple Watch designed to get people outside and active. 

"Get outside, enjoy our planet and complete a 30-minute workout today," said Cook on Twitter. 

If you open the Apple Watch-associated Activity app, you'll now see a badge that comes with a message dedicated to Earth Day. 

"Get outside and celebrate Earth Day on April 22 and earn this award," reads the app message. "Go for a walk, run, cycle, wheelchair, or swim workout of 30 minutes or more in the Workout app in any third party app that writes these workouts to Health. You will also earn special stickers for Messages."

Awesome. 

But while I consider myself a fairly dedicated Apple Watch user, specifically for fitness, I just don't pay much attention to the badges. Yes, the badges are well-designed, and can often come as a nice surprise when you hit an activity milestone, but in reality, it took a while for me to even take the activity rings seriously as a indication of my workout progress. The badges? Barely ever notice them. 

Regardless, the badges remain a great marketing tool to pull non-Apple Watch owners into the Apple Watch ecosystem, even if they eventually forget about the badges. 

Oh, and the prominent Earth Day reminder is a good look for any company still struggling to clean up its own environmental profile. 

WATCH: Why Facebook's AR announcement should excite iPhone fans

The JunoCam camera on board NASA's Juno mission is operational and sending down information after the shuttle's July 4 landing in Jupiter. Juno's obvious light camera was turned on six days after Juno let go its primary motor and set itself into space around the biggest planetary tenant of our nearby planetary group. The principal high-determination pictures of the gas monster Jupiter are still a couple of weeks away.

"This scene from JunoCam shows it survived its first go through Jupiter's great radiation environment with no corruption and is prepared to go up against Jupiter," said Scott Bolton, chief examiner from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "We can hardly wait to see the primary perspective of Jupiter's shafts."

The new view was gotten on July 10, 2016, at 10:30 a.m. PDT (1:30 p.m. EDT, 5:30 UTC), when the shuttle was 2.7 million miles (4.3 million kilometers) from Jupiter on the outbound leg of its underlying 53.5-day catch circle. The shading picture demonstrates climatic components on Jupiter, including the well known Great Red Spot, and three of the huge planet's four biggest moons - Io, Europa and Ganymede, from left to right in the picture.

"JunoCam will keep on taking pictures as we go around in this first circle," said Candy Hansen, Juno co-examiner from the Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona. "The primary high-determination pictures of the planet will be gone up against August 27 when Juno makes its next close go to Jupiter."

JunoCam is a shading, noticeable light camera intended to catch striking photos of Jupiter's shafts and cloud tops. As Juno's eyes, it will give a wide view, giving setting to the shuttle's different instruments. JunoCam was incorporated on the shuttle particularly for reasons for open engagement; in spite of the fact that its pictures will be useful to the science group, it is not viewed as one of the mission's science instruments.

The Juno group is as of now attempting to place all pictures taken by JunoCam on the mission's site, where the general population can get to them.

Amid its central goal of investigation, Juno will circle the Jovian world 37 times, taking off low over the planet's cloud tops - as close as around 2,600 miles (4,100 kilometers). Amid these flybys, Juno will test underneath the darkening overcast front of Jupiter and study its auroras to take in more about the planet's roots, structure, climate and magnetosphere.

JPL deals with the Juno mission for the key agent, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is a piece of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is overseen at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Michael Ravine of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, is the JunoCam instrument lead. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, manufactured the rocket. Caltech in Pasadena oversees JPL for NASA.

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View

Five years in the wake of withdrawing Earth, and a month in the wake of slipping into space around Jupiter, NASA's Juno rocket is nearing a defining moment. On July 31 at 12:41 p.m. PDT (3:41 p.m. EDT), Juno will achieve the most remote point in its circle of Jupiter surprisingly, known as "apojove," 5 million miles (8.1 million kilometers) from the mammoth planet. After that point, Jupiter's gravitational grasp on Juno will bring about the rocket to start falling back toward the planet for another pass, this time with its investigative eyes totally open. 

The shuttle is as of now executing the first of two long circles before starting its science mission. Every catch circle is about two months in length - an incredible sit tight for the mission's enthusiastic group of researchers - however it's nothing contrasted with the long hold up the group continued on the trek to Jupiter. 

Juno dispatched on Aug. 5, 2011. The rocket took a long, circling way around the internal nearby planetary group to set up an Earth flyby, in which our planet's gravity flung the turning test ahead toward Jupiter. 

"For a long time we've been centered around getting to Jupiter. Presently we're there, and we're focusing on starting many flybys of Jupiter to get the science we're after," said Scott Bolton, Juno central specialist at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.Juno touched base at Jupiter on July 4, terminating its principle rocket motor as made arrangements for 35 minutes. The faultless move permitted Jupiter's gravity to catch the sun based controlled rocket into the first of two 53.4-day-long circles, alluded to as catch circles. Taking after the catch circles, Juno will fire its motor yet again to abbreviate its orbital period to 14 days and start its science mission. 

In any case, before that happens, on Aug. 27, Juno must complete its first lap around Jupiter, with a completion line that speaks to the mission's nearest ignore the gas mammoth. Amid the experience, Juno will skim past Jupiter at a minor 2,600 miles (4,200 kilometers) over the cloud tops. 

Juno's science instruments were killed amid circle insertion, to streamline rocket operations amid that basic move. Interestingly, every one of the instruments will gather information amid the Aug. 27 pass, which serves as a trial keep running before the mission gets the opportunity to work gathering the valuable information it wanted. 

"We're in a brilliant condition of wellbeing, with the rocket and every one of the instruments completely looked at and prepared for our first very close take a gander at Jupiter," said Rick Nybakken, Juno venture administrator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. 

With its intense suite of science instruments, Juno will test Jupiter's profound structure, air dissemination and the high-vitality material science of its attractive surroundings. What Juno finds there will uncover critical intimations to Jupiter's arrangement and advancement, alongside bits of knowledge about how our planetary framework and others are fabricated. 

JPL deals with the Juno mission for the central examiner, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is a piece of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is overseen at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Caltech in Pasadena oversees JPL for NASA.

Earth Day

Earth Day is an annual event, celebrated on April 22, on which day events worldwide are held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It was first celebrated in 1970, and is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network^[1] and celebrated in more than 193 countries each year.^[2]

On Earth Day 2016, the landmark Paris Agreement is scheduled to be signed by the United States, China, and some 120 other countries.^[3][4] This signing satisfies a key requirement for the entry into force of the historic draft climate protection treaty adopted by consensus of the 195 nations present at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris.

In 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco, peace activist John McConnell proposed a day to honor the Earth and the concept of peace, to first be celebrated on March 21, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. This day of nature's equipoise was later sanctioned in a proclamation written by McConnell and signed by Secretary General U Thant at the United Nations. A month later a separate Earth Day was founded by United States SenatorGaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970. Nelson was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom award in recognition of his work.^[5] While this April 22 Earth Day was focused on the United States, an organization launched by Denis Hayes, who was the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations.^[6][7] Numerous communities celebrate Earth Week, an entire week of activities focused on the environmental issues that the world faces.

Earth Day 1970

The first Earth Day celebrations took place in two thousand colleges and universities, roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of communities across the United States. More importantly, it "brought 20 million Americans out into the spring sunshine for peaceful demonstrations in favor of environmental reform."^[8] It now is observed in 192 countries, and coordinated by the nonprofit Earth Day Network, chaired by the first Earth Day 1970 organizer Denis Hayes, according to whom Earth Day is now "the largest secular holiday in the world, celebrated by more than a billion people every year."^[9] Environmental groups have sought to make Earth Day into a day of action to change human behavior and provoke policy changes.^[10]

New York City

In the winter of 1969–1970, a group of students met at Columbia University to hear Denis Hayes talk about his plans for Earth Day. Among the group were Fred Kent, Pete Grannis, and Kristin and William Hubbard. This group agreed to head up the New York City activities within the national movement. Fred Kent took the lead in renting an office and recruiting volunteers. "The big break came when Mayor Lindsay agreed to shut down Fifth Avenue for the event. A giant cheer went up in the office on that day," according to Kristin Hubbard (now Kristin Alexandre). 'From that time on we used Mayor Lindsay's offices and even his staff. I was Speaker Coordinator but had tremendous help from Lindsay staffer Judith Crichton."

In addition to shutting down Fifth Avenue, Mayor John Lindsay made Central Park available for Earth Day. The crowd was estimated as more than one million—by far the largest in the nation.^{[citation needed]} Since Manhattan was also the home of NBC, CBS, ABC, The New York Times, Time, andNewsweek, it provided the best possible anchor for national coverage from their reporters throughout the country.^[11]

Philadelphia

U.S. Senator Edmund Muskie was the keynote speaker on Earth Day in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. Other notable attendees included consumer protection activist and presidential candidate Ralph Nader; Landscape Architect Ian McHarg; Nobel prize-winning Harvard Biochemist, George Wald; U.S. Senate Minority Leader, Hugh Scott; and poet,Allen Ginsberg.

Predictions from Earth Day 1970

During the 1970 Earth Day, given assumptions of continued exponential annual population growth of 2% or more^[12] and unchanged or increasing climate impact per person, the following predictions were made:^[13]

• Denis Hayes, the chief organizer for the first Earth Day, wrote, "It is already too late to avoid mass starvation."
• Senator Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day, stated, "Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct."
• Peter Gunter, a professor at North Texas State University, stated, "... by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions.... By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine."
• Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, predicted that between 1980 and 1989, 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would starve to death.
• Life Magazine wrote, "... by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half."
• Ecologist Kenneth Watt stated, "The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age."
• Watt also stated, "By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil."

Earth Day 1990

Mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting the status of environmental issues onto the world stage, Earth Day activities in 1990 gave a huge boost to recyclingefforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Unlike the first Earth Day in 1970, this 20th Anniversary was waged with stronger marketing tools, greater access to television and radio, and multimillion-dollar budgets.

The first Earth Day celebrations took place in two thousand colleges and universities, roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of communities across the United States. More importantly, it "brought 20 million Americans out into the spring sunshine for peaceful demonstrations in favor of environmental reform."^[8] It now is observed in 192 countries, and coordinated by the nonprofit Earth Day Network, chaired by the first Earth Day 1970 organizer Denis Hayes, according to whom Earth Day is now "the largest secular holiday in the world, celebrated by more than a billion people every year."^[9] Environmental groups have sought to make Earth Day into a day of action to change human behavior and provoke policy changes.^[10]

New York City

In the winter of 1969–1970, a group of students met at Columbia University to hear Denis Hayes talk about his plans for Earth Day. Among the group were Fred Kent, Pete Grannis, and Kristin and William Hubbard. This group agreed to head up the New York City activities within the national movement. Fred Kent took the lead in renting an office and recruiting volunteers. "The big break came when Mayor Lindsay agreed to shut down Fifth Avenue for the event. A giant cheer went up in the office on that day," according to Kristin Hubbard (now Kristin Alexandre). 'From that time on we used Mayor Lindsay's offices and even his staff. I was Speaker Coordinator but had tremendous help from Lindsay staffer Judith Crichton."

In addition to shutting down Fifth Avenue, Mayor John Lindsay made Central Park available for Earth Day. The crowd was estimated as more than one million—by far the largest in the nation.^{[citation needed]} Since Manhattan was also the home of NBC, CBS, ABC, The New York Times, Time, andNewsweek, it provided the best possible anchor for national coverage from their reporters throughout the country.^[11]

Philadelphia

U.S. Senator Edmund Muskie was the keynote speaker on Earth Day in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. Other notable attendees included consumer protection activist and presidential candidate Ralph Nader; Landscape Architect Ian McHarg; Nobel prize-winning Harvard Biochemist, George Wald; U.S. Senate Minority Leader, Hugh Scott; and poet,Allen Ginsberg.

Predictions from Earth Day 1970

During the 1970 Earth Day, given assumptions of continued exponential annual population growth of 2% or more^[12] and unchanged or increasing climate impact per person, the following predictions were made:^[13]

• Denis Hayes, the chief organizer for the first Earth Day, wrote, "It is already too late to avoid mass starvation."
• Senator Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day, stated, "Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct."
• Peter Gunter, a professor at North Texas State University, stated, "... by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions.... By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine."
• Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, predicted that between 1980 and 1989, 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would starve to death.
• Life Magazine wrote, "... by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half."
• Ecologist Kenneth Watt stated, "The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age."
• Watt also stated, "By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil."