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Many Join Saudi Online Platform to Teach Arabic Calligraphy

Alkhattat Platform courses allow Arabic calligraphers to excel and cultivate their creativity
Alkhattat Platform courses allow Arabic calligraphers to excel and cultivate their creativity
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Many Join Saudi Online Platform to Teach Arabic Calligraphy

Alkhattat Platform courses allow Arabic calligraphers to excel and cultivate their creativity
Alkhattat Platform courses allow Arabic calligraphers to excel and cultivate their creativity

The Ministry of Culture announced its launch of the first electronic platform to teach Arabic calligraphy and Islamic decoration, with support from the Quality of Life Program, one of the programs of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, under the title “Alkhattat Platform” (Calligrapher Platform).

The electronic platform will be supervised by a group of professional calligraphers from the Kingdom and the Arab world. Through the platform, they will teach the basics of Arabic calligraphy, its arts, and methods via training courses, projects, and professional workshops.

Nasser Maymoun, a prominent Saudi calligrapher, praised the initiative put forth by the culture ministry especially after Saudi Minister of Culture Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan having announced that 2020 would be designated as the “Year of Arabic Calligraphy.”

Maymoun said that it is a great start to presenting the work of Arabic calligraphers and it is part of promoting Islamic and Arabic heritage.

The platform offers various training courses, including professional courses in the types of Arabic calligraphy, explanation of the alphabets and how to combine them, writing the words and expressions, improving handwriting, training in making calligraphic paintings and artwork in Arabic calligraphy, letter formations, gilding, Islamic decoration, drawing and coloring, the art of paper marbling and Ebru (needle art).

The platform will also give the trainee the opportunity to develop Arabic computer fonts by learning designs and programming fonts.

Alkhattat Platform founder Mohammed Al-Sharqawi told Asharq Al-Awsat that it was important to keep up with technological advances.

Sharqawi revealed that, due to the coronavirus, the Year of Arabic Calligraphy was extended until 2021.

He added that the platform first launched in 2018 and has over 19,000 users from 30 different countries around the world. Top tier calligraphers have joined the platform and were selected to teach.

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NASA's Lucy Spacecraft Is Speeding toward Another Close Encounter with an Asteroid

This image from video animation provided by NASA in October 2022 depicts the Lucy spacecraft. (NASA via AP)
This image from video animation provided by NASA in October 2022 depicts the Lucy spacecraft. (NASA via AP)
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NASA's Lucy Spacecraft Is Speeding toward Another Close Encounter with an Asteroid

This image from video animation provided by NASA in October 2022 depicts the Lucy spacecraft. (NASA via AP)
This image from video animation provided by NASA in October 2022 depicts the Lucy spacecraft. (NASA via AP)

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will swoop past a small asteroid this weekend as it makes its way to an even bigger prize: the unexplored swarms of asteroids out near Jupiter.

It will be the second asteroid encounter for Lucy, launched in 2021 on a quest that will take it to 11 space rocks. The close approaches should help scientists better understand our early solar system when planets were forming; asteroids are the ancient leftovers.

The upcoming flyby is a dress rehearsal for 2027 when Lucy reaches its first so-called Trojan asteroid near Jupiter.

Cranking up its three science instruments, the spacecraft on Sunday will observe the harmless asteroid known as Donaldjohanson. The encounter will take place 139 million miles (223 million kilometers) from Earth in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, so far away it will take 12 minutes for each bit of data to reach flight controllers in Colorado.

The paleontologist for whom the asteroid is named plans to be at spacecraft builder and operator Lockheed Martin’s Mission Control for all the action. He discovered the fossil Lucy in Ethiopia 50 years ago; the spacecraft is named after the famous human ancestor.

NASA’s Lucy will venture as close as 596 miles (960 kilometers) to this asteroid, an estimated 2 ½ miles (4 kilometers) in length but much shorter in width. Scientists should have a better idea of its size and shape following the brief visit. The spacecraft will zoom by at more than 30,000 mph (48,000 kph).

The asteroid is among countless fragments believed to have resulted from a major collision 150 million years ago.

“It's not going to be a basic potato. We already know that,” said lead scientist Hal Levison of Southwest Research Institute.

Rather, Levison said the asteroid may resemble a bowling pin or even a snowman like Arrokoth, the Kuiper Belt object visited by NASA's New Horizon spacecraft in 2019. The other possibility is that there are two elongated but separate asteroids far apart.

“We don’t know what to expect. That’s what makes this so cool,” he said.

There will be no communications with Lucy during the flyby as the spacecraft turns its antenna away from Earth in order to track the asteroid. Levison expects to have most of the science data within a day.

Lucy’s next stop — “the main event,” as Levison calls it — will be the Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the sun. Swarms of Trojans precede and follow the solar system’s largest planet as it circles the sun. Lucy will visit eight of them from 2027 through 2033, some of them in pairs of two.

Lucy’s first asteroid flyby was in 2023 when it swept past little Dinkinesh, also in the main asteroid belt. The spacecraft discovered a mini moon around it.