Stars. Early civilization. Intimidating nature. Stars. Technology. Human adventurousness. And stars.
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http://www.bretwebsterimages.com/gallery-list
Trivia (“spine of night”): http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2003/november/cosmic.htm
What does Earth look like? What colours does it have?
Well, who knows?
What images satellites send us, turns out, always have to be manipulated if simply to acquire some colour. Because they wouldn’t gain much if they saw only in the visible-by-humans spectrum. So we have to rely on space agencies’ word that an effort for realism doesn’t take over reality.
And that’s why the photos published by the russian meteo satellite Elektro-L look as similar to the ones we’re used to as Tarkovski did to Hollywood ;)
Pic and whole story: http://gizmodo.com/#!5787176/this-is-the-moon-and-the-earth-like-you-have-never-seen-them-before
Today I was getting ready to write about the sun’s position in the Milky Way when I came across something. Tears filled my eyes. This is so unbearable funny and cute.
“The Sun may be found close to the inner rim of the galaxy’s Orion Arm, in the Local Fluff inside the Local Bubble, and in the Gould Belt… ”
Local Fluff. There IS Local Fluff in the Milky Way.
From wikipedia: “The Local Interstellar Cloud, casually called the Local Fluff, is the interstellar cloud (roughly 30 light years across) through which the Solar System is currently moving. The cloud formed where the Local Bubble and the Loop I Bubble met.”
Apparently the keeping in place of such a cloud is slightly absurd, given the supernovae in the larger area, but it so happened that a couple of months ago NASA was able to shed some light using data from Voyager: “The Fluff is much more strongly magnetized than anyone had previously suspected. This magnetic field can provide the extra pressure required to resist destruction.”
Fluff. Right.
Be well Douglas, wherever you are.
From http://www.midnightkite.com/render.html, which also gives the code for the POV-Ray 3D graphics packet.
(Mmh, Pluto fans will never give in;)
An astronomy thing on sundays 