Pluto is changing color
See also: crash blossoms.
Don’t Stare; You’ll Go Blind
Solar eclipse, seen from Kalfeng, China.
(Here)
earliest photo of the universe
Scientists released the photo Tuesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. It’s the most complete picture of the early universe so far, showing galaxies with stars that are already hundreds of millions of years old, along with the unmistakable primordial signs of the first cluster of stars.
super Earth
Astronomers have discovered a new Earth-like planet that is larger than our own and may be more than half covered with water, according to a study published Wednesday in the science journal Nature.
The so-called “super Earth” is about 42 light years away in another solar system and has a radius nearly 2.7 times larger than that of our planet, according to the study by the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics.
But:
Its temperature is estimated at between 280 and 120 degrees Celsius (536 and 248 degrees Fahrenheit) with its host star about one-fifth the size of the Sun, according to the scientists.
‘the weirdest thing’
Dr Tandberg said: “I agree with everyone in the science community that this light was the weirdest thing. I have never seen anything like this ever.
“It may have been anything from an exploding missile whose launch went wrong – to a comet or other celestial object that for some reason has been behaving strangely.
Hat tip Andrea
GJ 758 B
Astronomers say they have taken the first direct image of a planet-like object orbiting a star much like our own sun.
The object called GJ 758 B orbits a parent star that is comparable in mass and temperature to our own sun, said study team member Michael McElwain of Princeton University. The star lies 300 trillion miles (480 trillion km), or about 50 light-years, from Earth.
whiteboard
GRB 090423
Astronomers have seen the light from a gamma-ray burst, now the most distant object ever recorded.
The discovery is especially exciting for scientists because the explosion occurred during the so-called “cosmic dark ages”, which started a mere 400,000 years after the Big Bang set the Universe in motion some 13.7 billion years ago.
2012
I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff.
it’s raining rocks
When a front moves in, small rocks rain down on the surface, a new study suggests.
More satisfying than the ending to Magnolia.
quote out of context
Evidence is mounting, however, for things on which the moon has no impact.
Sun Ra Meets Napoleon
Over the winter of 2004-2005, the Philadelphia-based Slought Foundation sponsored an exhibition titled “Sun Ra Meets Napoleon: Fragments of the Alter-Future”. In conjunction with the exhibition, a 1990 recording of Sun Ra in conversation with jazz critic Francis Davis was released.
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coldest, driest, calmest
The coldest, driest, calmest place on earth has been found.
All these elements combine to make the perfect recipe for an astronomical observation post: “The astronomical images taken at Ridge A should be at least three times sharper than at the best sites currently used by astronomers,” Saunders said. “Because the sky there is so much darker and drier, it means that a modestly-sized telescope there would be as powerful as the largest telescopes anywhere else on earth.”
Where’s the moon?
This morning on the 2 train, a large white-haired man boarded in downtown Brooklyn, wearing overalls and a hat covered with all manner of buttons, clutching a worn, wrinkled photocopy. As the train started to move, he sat up straight, held the paper aloft, and began reciting the following to the assembled commuters, in the sing-song tone of a storyteller or a town cryer. This continued until I exited the train, a few stops later, and has been playing in my head for the better part of the day.
Where’s the moon, where’s the moon?
Where’s the moon, where’s the moon?The globe in Columbus Circle–that’s the Earth.
The moon’s on 63rd Street West;
It’s a simple test
Of spacial reality.How well did you do?
Where’s the moon, where’s the moon?
Where’s the moon, where’s the moon…?
Cosmic Dust Rocks Tonight!
Perseid meteors (red) streak past stars in the skies over Amman, Jordan, in August 2005.
The peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower will be especially dazzling in August 2009, experts say, due to a gravitational boost from Saturn.
Photograph by Ali Jarekji/Reuters.
WASP wobbles backwards
A newly discovered planet orbits its star backwards.
WASP-17 is about half the mass of Jupiter but bloated to twice its size. “This planet is only as dense as expanded polystyrene, 70 times less dense than the planet we’re standing on,” said professor Coel Hellier of Keele University.
The bloated planet can be explained by a highly elliptical orbit, which brings it close to the star and then far away. Like exaggerated tides on Earth, the tidal effects on WASP-17 heat and stretch the planet, the researchers suggest.
The tides are not a daily affair, however. “Instead it’s creating a huge amount of friction on the inside of the planet and generating a lot of energy, which might be making the planet big and puffy,” Seager said.
gulp
Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer, found an earth-sized impact blot on Jupiter.
I was imaging Jupiter until about midnight and seriously thought about packing up and going back to the house to watch the golf and the cricket. In the end I decided to just take a break and I went back to the house to watch Tom Watson almost make history.
I came back down half an hour later and I could see this black mark had turned into view.
Useful and Beautiful Devices
Skinner’s July 2009 auction of Science, Technology & Clocks features the most comprehensive collection of scientific instruments to come to market in a long time. From a private collection, offerings include several important pairs of globes by Newton, a sextant by Ramsden, an octant by George Jones, equinoctial dials, astrolabes, chronometers, microscopes and nautical antiques.
Le voyage dans la lune | Georges Méliès | 1902
Buzz Aldrin was a Presbyterian
And it turns out that the first food consumed on the moon was bread and wine:
“In the radio blackout, I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.’ I had intended to read my communion passage back to earth, but at the last minute [they] had requested that I not do this. NASA was already embroiled in a legal battle with Madelyn Murray O’Hare, the celebrated opponent of religion, over the Apollo 8 crew reading from Genesis while orbiting the moon at Christmas. I agreed reluctantly. …I ate the tiny Host and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquility. It was interesting for me to think: the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the very first food eaten there, were the communion elements.”
The ‘lost’ NASA tapes
Detail of the Earthrise picture taken by the first Lunar Orbiter in 1966, as rendered at the time.
Detail of the Earthrise picture taken by the first Lunar Orbiter in 1966, rendered with modern technology.
A MacBook Pro and forty-year-old tape drives are helping restore the original Lunar Orbiter tapes.
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Cindy’s Bruised Elbow
Cindy had too much to drink, tried to look up at the stars–and promptly pitched over. It’s just a matter of time before we get an image of Jesus in one of her bruises.
Omphalos | Cooper Renner
Here is a glorious drawing from Our Cooper.
I see a constellation, or rather, one of those illustrations intended to answer the question, “How in tarnation did them ancients connect the dots and see an archer?”
Here is how it happened. This morning I was listening to “Spinning Away”, a gorgeous song from the Eno/Cale collaboration, Wrong Way Up. And I recalled Cooper’s once telling me of swimming in a phosphorescent sea and of feeling like a constellation.
of primordial blobs and Japanese Queens
Astronomers have discovered a primordial blob 12.9 billion light years in the universe’s past.
The gas cloud, spotted from 12.9 billion light-years away, could signal the earliest stages of galaxy formation back when the universe was just 800 million years old.
“I have never heard about any [similar] objects that could be resolved at this distance,” said Masami Ouchi, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution in Pasadena, Calif. “It’s kind of record-breaking.”
The cloud predates similar blobs, known as Lyman-Alpha blobs, which existed when the universe was 2 billion to 3 billion years old. Researchers named their new find Himiko, after an ancient Japanese queen with an equally murky past.
Curious, I googled.
The shaman Queen Himiko is recorded in various ancient histories, dating back to 3rd century CE China, 8th century Japan, and 12th century Korea.
From a Chinese History:
The country formerly had a man as ruler. For some seventy or eighty years after that there were disturbances and warfare. Thereupon the people agreed upon a woman for their ruler. Her name was Pimiko [卑彌呼]. She occupied herself with magic and sorcery, bewitching the people. Though mature in age, she remained unmarried. She had a younger brother who assisted her in ruling the country. After she became the ruler, there were few who saw her. She had one thousand women as attendants, but only one man. He served her food and drink and acted as a medium of communication. She resided in a palace surrounded by towers and stockades, with armed guards in a state of constant vigilance.
Apparently, the Japanese histories contain no direct references to Himiko, only these references to shamans associated with her:
After this Yamato-toto-hi-momo-so-bime no Mikoto became the wife of Oho-mono-nushi no Kami. This God, however, was never seen in the day-time, but at night. Yamato-toto-hi-momo-so-bime no Mikoto said to her husband: “As my Lord is never seen in the day-time, I am unable to view his august countenance distinctly; I beseech him therefore to delay a while, that in the morning I may look upon the majesty of his beauty. The Great God answered and said: “What thou sayest is clearly right. To-morrow morning I will enter thy toilet-case and stay there. I pray thee be not alarmed at my form.” Yamato-toto-hi-momo-so-bime no Mikoto wondered secretly in her heart at this. Waiting until daybreak, she looked into her toilet-case. There was there a beautiful little snake, of the length and thickness of the cord of a garment. Thereupon she was frightened, and uttered an exclamation. The Great God was ashamed, and changing suddenly into human form, spake to his wife, and said: “Thou didst not contain thyself, but hast caused me shame; I will in my turn put thee to shame.” So treading the Great Void, he ascended to Mount Mimoro. Hereupon Yamato-toto-hi-momo-so-bime no Mikoto looked up and had remorse. She flopped down on a seat and with a chopstick stabbed herself in the pudenda so that she died. She was buried at Oho-chi. Therefore the men of that time called her tomb the Hashi no haka [Chopstick Tomb].
Chopstick to the pudenda.
