i'm a sucker for a good bad nerd joke.
i saw this one somewhere on twitter this week, but i cant remember from whom... sorry.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
black hole joke
if a black hole got married, would it still be considered a singularity?
i'm a sucker for a good bad nerd joke.
i saw this one somewhere on twitter this week, but i cant remember from whom... sorry.
i'm a sucker for a good bad nerd joke.
i saw this one somewhere on twitter this week, but i cant remember from whom... sorry.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
saturn and iapetus
here are some fantastic images of saturn that i received from a friend and/or from the jpl cassini website. these images were taken by the cassini space craft using red, green and blue spectral filters then combined to create natural-looking photographs.
i absolutely love the details of the atmosphere that you can see above the shadow of the rings!
the image below shows the moon, rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across) in the foreground. the little moon shadow at the upper left in from the moon mimas, and the skewed shadow at the bottom right is from the moon, iapetus [eye-AP-i-tus].
the above image shows some cool seasonal features of saturn. the northern (upper) part of saturn is currently experiencing winter and is therefore cooler on average as it is turned away from the sun more than the southern part. in the northern hemisphere, above the ring shadow, you can see the detailed structure of the gas deep down into the atmosphere, whereas you cannot see such structure at the equator or in the southern hemisphere. this is likely due to two effects: the higher temperatures at the equator and the south, and also the reflection of sunlight. we can see some structure in the southern atmosphere, but it is mostly flushed out by scattered sunlight. photons that reach saturn from the sun are bounced around off the particles high up the atmosphere and reflected back out in all directions. this makes it harder to see the deeper layers....
like when you turn your bright lights on while driving thru fog: you quickly realize you can actually see less than if you just have dim lights on!
here are some great images of the saturn's moon, iapetus. iapetus has a crazy, unexplainable bulging waistline that hasnt been seen on any other planet or moon in our solar system.
iapetus is saturn's third largest moon and has a lot of craters. the big crater near the bottom is about 500 km across! this moon is locked in synchronous rotation with saturn, meaning the same side is always facing the planet (just like our moon - we always see the same side of the moon!). it's not really understood why iapetus has such a strongly 2-toned surface!
cool stuff!
i absolutely love the details of the atmosphere that you can see above the shadow of the rings!
the image below shows the moon, rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across) in the foreground. the little moon shadow at the upper left in from the moon mimas, and the skewed shadow at the bottom right is from the moon, iapetus [eye-AP-i-tus].
the above image shows some cool seasonal features of saturn. the northern (upper) part of saturn is currently experiencing winter and is therefore cooler on average as it is turned away from the sun more than the southern part. in the northern hemisphere, above the ring shadow, you can see the detailed structure of the gas deep down into the atmosphere, whereas you cannot see such structure at the equator or in the southern hemisphere. this is likely due to two effects: the higher temperatures at the equator and the south, and also the reflection of sunlight. we can see some structure in the southern atmosphere, but it is mostly flushed out by scattered sunlight. photons that reach saturn from the sun are bounced around off the particles high up the atmosphere and reflected back out in all directions. this makes it harder to see the deeper layers....
like when you turn your bright lights on while driving thru fog: you quickly realize you can actually see less than if you just have dim lights on!
here are some great images of the saturn's moon, iapetus. iapetus has a crazy, unexplainable bulging waistline that hasnt been seen on any other planet or moon in our solar system.
iapetus is saturn's third largest moon and has a lot of craters. the big crater near the bottom is about 500 km across! this moon is locked in synchronous rotation with saturn, meaning the same side is always facing the planet (just like our moon - we always see the same side of the moon!). it's not really understood why iapetus has such a strongly 2-toned surface!
cool stuff!
Monday, April 28, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
be excited about 2009
2009 is the UN-declared international year of astronomy. this marks the 400th anniversary of the first time a telescope was used to look upward into the skies instead of outward across the lands. galileo used his refracting telescope to look at the details of the craters on the moon and discover that jupiter had moons of its own... demonstrating that it was possible for an object, other than the earth, to be the center of *something*!!
this also adds to the long list of reasons why i'm excited to move to the UK... i'll be close enough to venture to the places where astronomy as a science was first practiced... during their celebrations of the international year of astronomy!
this also adds to the long list of reasons why i'm excited to move to the UK... i'll be close enough to venture to the places where astronomy as a science was first practiced... during their celebrations of the international year of astronomy!
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
carnival of space #51
for your space reading pleasure... journey over to astro engine for the 51st installment of the carnival of space!
that means next week is #52 - the one year anniversary of the blogiverse's carnival of space! hopefully, i'll have time this week to write something for the big event. not positive that will happen though as today marks exactly 3 weeks until certain doom....
that means next week is #52 - the one year anniversary of the blogiverse's carnival of space! hopefully, i'll have time this week to write something for the big event. not positive that will happen though as today marks exactly 3 weeks until certain doom....
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
to do
in honor of earth and her day, here are some things to consider:
simplify your life: 72 ideas
learn about ideas worth spreading: TED
put money to good use: kiva
change your thinking: world changing
eat real food from nearby: local harvest
quit for q
look at the earth: earth cam
simplify your life: 72 ideas
learn about ideas worth spreading: TED
put money to good use: kiva
change your thinking: world changing
eat real food from nearby: local harvest
quit for q
look at the earth: earth cam
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
milky way reflection
i found more really great astronomy photographers: tony and daphne hallas at astrophoto.com
the image below shows the galaxy, M63, as featured on APOD today. this galaxy is about the same size as our Milky Way at 100,000 light years across. It floats about 25 million light-years away from us and is known as the sunflower galaxy. you can easily see the blue spiral arm structure, but the most amazing parts of the image, i think, are the faint wisps of structure around the outskirts of the galaxy! it's difficult to se these very dim features in most images! they show what are probably streams of dust and gas left over when smaller galaxies came within close range of the sunflower. gravitational interactions can cause such distortions in galaxies when they pass by each other and eventually merge together into one.
the image below shows the galaxy, M63, as featured on APOD today. this galaxy is about the same size as our Milky Way at 100,000 light years across. It floats about 25 million light-years away from us and is known as the sunflower galaxy. you can easily see the blue spiral arm structure, but the most amazing parts of the image, i think, are the faint wisps of structure around the outskirts of the galaxy! it's difficult to se these very dim features in most images! they show what are probably streams of dust and gas left over when smaller galaxies came within close range of the sunflower. gravitational interactions can cause such distortions in galaxies when they pass by each other and eventually merge together into one.
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