Starship Asterisk*

"about 2 percent illuminated by sunlight" sounds somewhat strange to me - it is 100% illuminated by sunlight!! I presume you mean that about 2% of the sunlight that hits it is reflected... :) I’ve always taken that sort of statement as meaning that 2% of the disk of Venus is reflecting su...

"about 2 percent illuminated by sunlight" sounds somewhat strange to me - it is 100% illuminated by sunlight!! I presume you mean that about 2% of the sunlight that hits it is reflected... :) I’ve always taken that sort of statement as meaning that 2% of the disk of Venus is reflecting su...

I can't imagine any human will EVER visit Saturn, or even Jupiter for that matter - radiation and particles are killers, and what would humans do there anyway? I can't imagine any human will EVER… cross the ocean, explore the Arctic, work in Antarctica, travel into space, visit the Moon, … . But we...

johnlcarswell@bellsouth.net wrote: ↑Sun Dec 26, 2021 8:52 am Where was the camera that took photo taken?

It was on the upper stage of the rocket. A lot of people asking the same question wherever this pic appears.

Rob

Yes, is dark matter the cousin of cosmic dust twice removed and just a bit smoothed? Ladies and gentlemen, let me present the evidence: Can't the relationship between dark matter and cosmic dust be (a bit) like a Mandelbrot fractal set where everything repeats at smaller and smaller (or larger and ...

Yes, is dark matter the cousin of cosmic dust twice removed and just a bit smoothed? Ladies and gentlemen, let me present the evidence: https://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2007/01/3d_distribution_of_dark_matter_in_the_universe/9773330-3-eng-GB/3D_distribution_of_dark_ma...

I’d have to visit them all in person to really make up my mind. I wonder if Elon wants another project?

Rob

Lacking the science degrees or the experience of flying very fast while shooting at other humans, I certainly wouldn’t be chosen for such a trip. But yes, I’d love to go. Maybe they’ll finally realize that using highly paid scientists and pilots to clean floors and toilets is not a good idea and the...

brf wrote: ↑Mon Aug 02, 2021 11:56 am For all the moaning and complaining in the comments, I think this is a really neat idea !!

I don't see any moaning and complaining, just people who are very interested in this sort of thing talking to each other about it. And yes, it is a really neat idea.

Rob

I see the note that says “Sounds will only play on some browsers.” I can’t hear the sounds on my 2020 iPad, which is odd. Why odd? Because there've been over half a billion iPads sold since they were introduced 11 years ago, and WebKit, the browser engine which runs the Safari browser (as well as Ch...

... I take it is lit by reflected light off of Saturn! Second hand light! :mrgreen: Yes. The description says "An enhanced version better reveals the ... moon lit by sunlight reflected from Saturn itself." (I deconvoluted the sentence structure.) Rob (who enjoys deconvoluting the writing ...

cursor doesn't work. just a mini view o display, doesn't rotate. The moon won't rotate when you click and drag your cursor. It's not supposed to. Sliding your cursor over the image will show the enhanced Saturn-lit view (in a well behaved browser); without the cursor over the image you see the unen...

I am curious why so much of the text of today’s APOD comes from this page…
http://annesastronomynews.com/annes-pic ... obule-cg4/

Attribution is a good thing, even if the originator volunteers the text for APOD’s use.

Rob

The processing required is simple and could easily be done via browser scripting, even on some weak little Chromebook. There are browser-based image processing tools that do much more sophisticated tasks. There is a famous online tool (which shall remain nameless), used within a browser to design o...

I wish there were internet page-friendly interactive tools like zoom and panning in the band of wavelengths. Rendering in RGB a wavelength window in a range of several monochrome images, mapping the longest wavelength monochrome image to RGB red, the shortest one to RGB blue and spreading each of t...

I hadn't realized that about polio. As you say, it has a place in our minds as a terrible disease from the past. (I may have had it, according to my mother. She recalls our GP saying about me "if he recovers, we won't know if he had it." Imagine a parent hearing that! I recovered after 6 w...

Thanks for the quick response, Chris. I needed to hear from sensible people here simply because I'm spending way too much time reading and being upset by the never ending stream of ill-informed argument in other forums. The Asterisk is a refreshing change of pace. I hope all who inhabit this quiet c...

… [re Covid] It is worth keeping in mind, however, that it is only the leading cause of death when categorized and viewed on a daily basis. On any given day, you're still more likely to die of something other than COVID-19. And this is a short term situation (unlike most of the other common causes ...

alter-ego wrote: ↑Wed Apr 28, 2021 4:17 am IFN → Integrated Flux Nebula

They’re just checking that we actually read what they write. Yeah, that’s it!

Rob

The pies have it!

Rob, why don't you check out the Youtube channel called Glen and friends cooking ? Glen is a really nice person, and it's fun to see him cook. Plus, he's Canadian. Here is a video of him making donuts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RFsfTOvgAc Thanks Ann. I’ve seen a few of his videos on YouTube ...

... So they're putting in the biggest, fanciest automatic donut machine money can buy. In fact, it is so big that they had to install it first and then build the building around it, as there would be no way to get it inside once the structure was complete. I don’t suppose you have a link to a local...

You piqued my curiosity (or perseverance!), so I went there (https://www.facebook.com/AstronomyPictureOfTheDay). It's really not so bad - I've seen much worse. I’ve seen much worse — MUCH worse — elsewhere on FB, but it always distresses me when this sort of egregious nastiness breaks out on APOD o...

Whatever you do, don’t go to Facebook to read the comments there on today’s APOD. I fear for the future of the human race.

Rob

... So they're putting in the biggest, fanciest automatic donut machine money can buy. In fact, it is so big that they had to install it first and then build the building around it, as there would be no way to get it inside once the structure was complete. I don’t suppose you have a link to a local...