the extinct thesaurus

spotted at one good move.

total solar eclipse of the heart (in china!)

a long laboring title for the post, i know, but i have some great news to share!

first, my sister sent me the literal version of that super cheesy song that i remember belting out in the car with my mom: total eclipse of the heart (view at your own risk, but parts are funny)!

second, in a little over a week i will be going here...


...to see and record one of these!!!!!


i've been invited to china to comment on and help film the total solar eclipse that is occurring on july 22nd, 2009! wwoohhhooooo!!!! i've never seen a total eclipse before, only a partial one, so i'm super excited!

a solar eclipse occurs when the (new) moon passes directly in front of the sun in our sky! the full eclipse is only visible over narrow path along the earth, seen as the blue area on the map below...


i'll be in the eastern city of ningbo and then spending a few days in shanghai afterwards. i've never been to china before and am currently working quickly to get my visa in time! if anyone has recommendations on what to do or see in and around shanghai, let me know! also, if there are any words i should absolutely know (hello, how much?, yes, no) that you can phonetically teach me, please share in the comments! thank you!!!

photo credits: shanghai, china by flickrgao; solar eclipse by stefan seip

approaching jupiter

this excellent animation was created by adding images taken by one of the voyager space crafts, as it approached the planet jupiter in 1979!


notice how the gas from different horizontal layers moves in *different* directions creating amazing vortices in the atmosphere!! the 66 images used to create this animation were some of the first close-up shots humans collected of jupiter!

the voyager space crafts continue to travel away from the earth and beyond our solar system! as of may 2009, voyager 1 had traveled 16.4 billion kilometers (110 astronomical units) from the sun. 1 astronomical unit is the distance between the earth and the sun, so this little chunk of synthetic machinery is 110 times farther from the sun than we are, and it is escaping the solar system at a speed of about 3.6 astronomical units per year!

voyager 1 remains the most distant human-made object in space!

rain rain go away

this is what it feels like in england this week...


of course, its not really flooding, but i think it's a great photo! my guess is that it was taken in italy!

galileoscope

if you are looking for a fun and simple little telescope for yourself, or someone you know, i would like to recommend the galileoscope! this little refracting telescope has a 2-in diameter lens and is modeled after the first telescope galileo built 400 years ago to look at night sky objects for the first time! the only accessory you really need is a tripod to mount the telescope on, and i think any simple one will do.


the telescope at the top of the image below is a replica of one of galileo's original telescopes.


the cute little galileoscope is only $15 and will allow you to see great features on the moon, the phases of venus, the rings of saturn, the moons of jupiter, and much more! find out more here. enjoy!

42 meter diameter telescope

sometimes telescopes are named after famous scientists, or people who donate loads of money to build them, or an acronym relating to the type of science it will do, etc... as this sixty symbols episode on the diameter of telescopes illustrates, we are severely lacking in creative new telescope names, considering the big one they talk about is the ELT which stands for "extremely large telescope!"



so on twitter, a friend suggested that if we name the ELT something a bit more attention-grabbing for current times, maybe we could guarantee funding! he suggested OBAMA, and like any good scientific name, we have been trying to turn OBAMA into an acronym!! mine is OBAMA: Overwhelmingly Big Aperture Measures All!

NASA recently had a contest to name a new Mars rover. the winner was a 12-year-old girl from kansas who suggested possibly my favorite name for any tool of astronomy: curiosity.

can you think of any good names for telescopes or other universe explorers?

electromagnetic leaks from earth

how far do our electromagnetic (EM) signals reach in to outer space? lets estimate that we started transmitting EM signals with the first radios about 100 years ago... which means we have been sending weak signals in every direction for 100 years, and the first signals have reached a maximal distance of 100 light years away from earth! there are about 130 stars within a radius of 20 light years from us and probably several thousand stars within 100 light years.

a recent abstruse goose cartoon puts this into perspective for us earthlings, by showing what TV shows are currently being broadcast to stars at various distances from earth! (click image for larger view)


there are ~400 billion stars in our galaxy alone, and hundreds of billions of galaxies in our universe... just remember that our synthetic radiation hasnt really traveled very far! (aka. to know who yoda is, closer than pollux a civilization must be!)

have a giraffe-themed art party!

yes, modern technology is loads of fun to play with, but nothing beats using your imagination to create art with your hands - especially with friends! a norwegian person has challenged the people of the world to create one million giraffes by 2011 using any technique possible, except on a computer. of course, you'll probably eventually capture your creation with a digital camera and upload the photo to the one million giraffes website, but thats not the point! the point is to take a break from digital media for a little while and create something with your hands!




i like this idea, and i might make a big dinner for some friends this weekend to celebrate the 4th of july, and then insist we make some giraffes ;)

mercury - sixty symbols

here's my latest contribution to the sixty symbols of physics and astronomy project: the closest planet to the sun... mercury!