Starship Asterisk*

I have heard the statistics before, but I do not recall previously having seen this image or any other graphic depicting it visually. Cool. Having seen it, the image certainly creates a hard-to-forget imprint on the brain. imho

OK, John. Thanks for the background info and the photography lesson.

this photo is still a good representation of reality. The stars being given faux diffraction spikes doesn't change the fact that all of this light from the aurora did hit a camera sensor. For what it's worth, your very own eyes and brain are in fact not very good at showing you reality. Your brain ...

Here's a practical analogy from a Sky and Telescope Magazine article: "...the universe experienced an explosive growth spurt within its first trillionth of a trillionth of a second — a fleeting moment of hyperexpansion known as inflation. During this interval, the volume that contains today's e...

Thanks, Chris and Art. That's pretty much the conclusion I had come to in my "thought experiment," but it's nice to have it confirmed by someone else's thoughts, too. By the way, I just caught a glimpse of Mars a few minutes ago...it was blood red, about 7 deg above the horizon, not nearly...

Oh, well, Mars. You can believe anything about Mars, right? Little green men, canals... I seem to remember people used to claim (just a few years ago) that Mars would look as bright in our skies as the full Moon. Ann Since what we see of Mars and the Moon is in both cases reflected sunlight, is the...

Only some interstellar dust is stardust, meaning it formed inside stars and is substantially unaltered. I'm thinking that only the elements, not the dust, were formed inside the stars, and that it is in the clumping together of some of those elements in the aftermath of a nova or supernova explosio...

Ann, where did you get that picture of my sister and me sitting on the couch with our feet up? Notice how Mama cheerily incorporates dancing into her housework, impeccably outfitted in her hand-pressed flowery print dress and color-coordinated high-heeled shoes. Ah, the "happy days" of my ...

What exactly is cosmic dust? Does it have a specific chemical composition? Or is it not "exactly" anything, but more of a generic term for "mostly this, but could be some of that"? In the textbook, "The Cosmos" (Pasachoff, Filippenko, 3rd ed., p. 360), Figure 15-27 has ...

Could it not be said that it is now possible to cite the site where site was sighted instead of sight? Yet, nay! The site is not there to cite. For site has been changed to sight, and now we sight sight. Good grief! Good site, good sight, good cite, and good night.

An empyreal job!! (I wanted to use an adjective not already used. 'Stellar' came to mind, but thought that too mundane. :? ) I downloaded the preview file to the desktop and keep it there where it is available at a click any time. Also, as already noted, click on the date and you bring up last year'...

Is there any possibility that this could be set up as a Google "Hangout" and/or create a YouTube video of it?

There is a 1-in-1,000 chance of this asteroid actually hitting the Earth? Hmmm. I seem to remember that not too long ago, there was a perhaps 1-in-25 chance of an asteroid or comet hitting another planetary body in our solar system, perhaps Mars or Phobos. I hoped it would hit, because it would hav...

FYI: A couple of nice pictures from APOD were used (with credit to APOD mentioned!) in this week's SETI Talk about Iapetus, Phoebe and Hyperion. I found this to be one of the most interesting of recent talks. Besides, I like saying "Iapetus." (It's a cool name, ...but I wouldn't lay it on ...

That IS the question.

What's in a name? The play's the thing.
Who said that??

An infrared wavelength goes into a bar and asks, "Is is warm in here, or is it just me?"

How do you make vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup, whipped cream and a cherry on top, better? You don't. If you don't like it, then you have a different taste and you order something else. APOD fits my taste just fine. Variety combined with informed commentary and hyperlink text; it can't be be...

Check out that huge southern polar ice cap! I notice, however, that its 'roundness' leaves something to be desired. I believe the IAU may insist on reclassification.

"Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence." (I'm not sure who I am quoting here, but I have no doubt it is someone extraordinary.)

When I was young enough to build snowmen and shovel snow, if the sun was out, the glare off the snow would have me "seeing green." Does this reflect the fact (oops, sorry for the pun) that the blackbody radiation from the sun peaks in the area of yellow-green wavelengths? Or is something e...

This is great. The next time someone asks me why Pluto isn't a planet anymore, I will show them this picture and say, "If you can point out which one is Pluto, I'll let you call it a planet." If they figure out which one it is, then they're entitled. By the way, I couldn't name any of them...

Take the shade off a lamp, (turn the lamp on) and let the bare bulb be your "sun." Place an earth globe a few feet away (a basketball will do in a pinch). Take a 2" styrofoam ball (hey, it's Christmas time, use an ornament), make it orbit your globe with the same side facing the earth...

"Eternity is very long, especially towards the end." -- Woody Allen (The same could be said for 'infinity.')

the lettering is horrible (I think), and the language is some sort of 17th century Danish-Swedish. Sorry, but as a calligrapher I just cannot let that comment go by. Please do not confuse letter shapes in both a script and a language you are not familiar with as "horrible" lettering. This...