Starship Asterisk*

I am wondering if the narrowness of the corona show here is an artifact of the photography or if it is really reduced compared to previous eclipses. I understand are entering a 'quiet sun' period but it's early in this part of the solar cycle.

A tour de force that we have come to expect from NASA! But is it worth $750M? For that amount a hospital could be funded for an entire year. For instance, it costs St Jude Children's Hospital about $2M per day to provide free care. Is NASA even relevant to the needs of the USA anymore? $750 million...

Hyperion always reminds me of the surface structure we see in snowbanks in late winter, when we have cold days (about -20C) and colder nights, but the sun is strong enough to sublimate snow. You get exactly the same pitted structure. Each cavity focuses the sun's energy within the cavity, so they ge...

There is more to this image than yellow balls. I can see the red balls, surrounded by green rings, but can also see green balls with red rings! BUT, the most intriguing thing I see is in the lower left corner. It looks like a red daisy with a series of green balls rising from the centre. MORE INFO o...

The Omega Centauri cluster is 150 ly in diameter, giving a volume of about 1.7 million cubic ly. With 10 million stars crammed into that space, they must average about 0.2 ly apart, which would put them well inside the Solar System's Oort cloud but just outside the Kuiper belt. I'm really curious ho...

Hurricane Sandy was never more than a category 1 storm but it wrought enough damage to NY & NJ to match Hurricane Katrina, a category 5. Sandy pulled heat and water vapour from the Gulf Stream, which is much cooler than the Gulf of Mexico, which hits over 30°C and quickly turns category 1 storms...

This photo reminds me of one of Isaac Asimov's stories: The Stars Like Dust.