These Days

so the spiral thingy

everyone is pinning it on the Russian’s at the moment, or at least that’s the most popular, earth based, plausible theory even though their anonymous source within the Russian army claims that they had no knowledge of anything. The poor Russians. We’re forever blaming the Russians. Still.

Anyway…over at Universe today there’s a weird little snippet claiming that someone in Indonesia witnessed something bizarre last night too. Which is a long way from Norway. And which makes the whole thing even extra strange.

I also received a report today from a geophysicist in Papua, Indonesia who observed “an enormous flare (bolide?) visible here at Tomage (2°39’27”S 132°59’27”E), and the sighting was at a bearing approximately 165 (East of South) and the flare seemed to begin at about 30 degrees above the horizon.” Paul Anderson said the date and time of the flare was approximately 2009.12.09 12:39 UTC

“I have seen meteors all my life but this was extraordinarily bright and lit up the sky. Not sure what the trajectory was aside from a slight (15 degrees, perhaps) trend to the West but this should probably be known
somewhere. My guess is it entered steeply from the North,” he said.

Anyways. There’s that

source

5 days ago 2 notes

Water on the Moon

First it’s on Mars. Now it’s on the moon. Sorry Visa, but you’ve been beat.

Water is everywhere you wanna be.

4 weeks ago 3 notes

proofmathisbeautiful:

macmankev:

invaderxan:

Closeup of a sunspot.

The radius of this sunspot looks to be roughly the same as the radius of planet Earth. The entire surface of the Sun is constantly roiling with all of those lumps and bumps you can see around that sunspot. Known as granules, they’re cells of hot gas and plasma at temperatures of around 5500°C which constantly bubble up to the Sun’s surface. A single solar granule will only last for about 10 minutes before bursting, and is generally about the size of Greenland!

This. Is. AWESOME. OMG. I LOVE THE UNIVERSE SO MUCH!

1 month ago 29 notes View Larger Image

gilmoure:

lickystickypickyme:

Artwork showing space debris in low and geostationary Earth orbit. Space debris includes thousands of inactive satellites, fragments of broken up spacecraft and equipment lost by astronauts. This artwork is based on density data, but is not to scale

Picture: EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRAR

This is bad bad bad terrestial Feng Shui! Terrible! We need to clean up that clutter! Oh..ick…it just makes me cranky looking at it. GOD!

This reminds me of Raphaelesque Head exploding which was always an evocative, gorgeous space garbage scene to me. I inexplicably found it in a strip mall in a crap part of Calgary in the mid 80s (I didn’t know what it was at the time…i was a goofy suburban teenager). I loved it so much I drove home to my parents (before the time of the cellphone) explained it best I could, had the presence of mind to mention it was by Dali and they sent me back with a visa. This is how they came to own one of 300 signed prints.

That is the end of my story.

1 month ago 39 notes View Larger Image

cosmicpower:

The “lifestyles” of 75 neighboring galaxies are illuminated in this poster from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

In this composite, blue colors reveal light from an older population of stars. Tints of green represent organic molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, while red lumps show clouds of warm dust and gas heated by radiation from newborn stars.

The galaxies are organized by shape, according to the Hubble-Tuning Fork.

In this structure, elliptical galaxies sit on the left side of the poster, creating the tuning fork’s handle. They are designated by the letter “E”, and given a number from zero to seven. An “E0” galaxy looks round, while an E7 galaxy is very long and thin.

Spiral galaxies are located to the right side of the poster creating the fork’s two prongs. The top prong is made up of regular spiral galaxies, and identified by the letter “S.” Barred spiral galaxies make up the bottom prong, and are branded “SB.” Meanwhile, letters – “a”, “b”, and “c” – indicate how tightly the spiral arms are wound. An “Sa” galaxy’s arms are wound very tightly, while an “Sc” galaxy’s spiral arms are very loosely wound.

Irregular galaxies are organized on bottom-left side of the poster because they were not represented in Hubble’s original Tuning Fork.

1 month ago 48 notes View Larger Image

cosmicpower:

Hubble Captures Full View of Uranus’s Rings on Edge

2 months ago 33 notes View Larger Image

There's water in them thar craters

Water ‘officially’ found on the moon.

2 months ago 13 notes

awaywiththefairies:

tjpytheas:

SALT (Southern African Large Telescope) near Sutherland, Northern Cape, South Africa

Lovely ~~moon~~landscape there. It’s also one of the coldest places in South Africa in winter. Pack your thermals.

2 months ago 10 notes

travelhighlights:

Trails of Moon, Venus & Jupiter by miuvincent

Over the Nepean River, New South Wales, Australia.

From Jason Kottke: Astronomy Photographer of the Year runner-up

incredible.

3 months ago 142 notes View Larger Image

elvira:

wolfandfox:

benjaminhilts:

The November meteors. As observed between midnight and 5 o’clock A.M. on the night of November 13-14 1868. (via NYPL Digital Gallery)

3 months ago 60 notes View Larger Image

so the spiral thingy

Water on the Moon

There's water in them thar craters

These Days

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