#March2011
California Gets Its Own Nebula; Swank and Cosmic.
Enlarge. | Via.
Oh shit! Just when you thought that California couldn’t be any more out of touch with reality, the son of a bitch has taken to the cosmos. The California Nebula, or if you want to call it by its slave name, NGC 1499, is straight-up chilling out in Orion’s Arm, in our own goddamn galaxy. We’re famous!
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Saturn’s Moon Rhea Takes A Beautiful Picture; Dione Isn’t Shabby Either.
Check Out Discovery’s Launch From An Airplane. Perspective ++
The Space Shuttle Discovery took its final journey off of this this giant blue-skinned rock on Thursday. All us dorks peeped the launch in a variety of manners, but I sure hadn’t seen it like this. NeilMonday on YouTube was in an airplane when he caught the beauty in motion. It’s a different perspective than I’m used to catching these launches at, and I’ll be goddamned it isn’t gorgeous.
Look at that scrapheap of ingenuity that us humans cobbled together. Sometimes we’re capable of some pretty impressive shit.
Hit the jump for the video.
Yo, The Pisces Constellation Got Itself Some Weird Galaxies.
Enlarge. | Via.
Behind the stars that form the Pisces constellation, there’s some flamboyant galaxies. When you’re in (relatively, but of course everything is relative) close proximity to a total famous constellation, you’re going to have to do things to stand out. Right? Right!
Read the rest of this entry »
Video Of An Enormous Solar Flare Erupting On The Sun; Solar Splooge.
The Sun’s fucking cranky these days. We’re in an increased period of solar activity, and one benefit for geeks like me is that it’s giving us a plethora of sun ejaculation flicks to enjoy. I mean, I like ejaculation videos as-is, but now we’re taking them onto a scale the size of the solar system? I vote yes.
The latest solar flare to rock our socks off occurred on February 24.
‘Sidereal Motion’; Video That Shows The Motion Of The Stars
A new video by José Francisco Salgado featured over at Bad Astronomy displays the beauty of sidereal motion. That fancy term is used to describe the movement of the stars in the night sky. As Phil Plait explains, it is “the apparent rising and setting caused by the rotation of the Earth. You don’t notice it second-by-second as you watch the sky, but over minutes and hours the inevitability of our planet’s angular momentum makes itself known.”
Ah, our perceptions. I can’t help but wish I was capable of perceiving the Milky Way rise across a night sky without the aid of time-lapse. But for now, this’ll do.
Hit the jump for the video.
Video Shows Relative Size and Distance Between Moon And Earth; Cosmic Scale!
Riffing off of a video a couple of days ago which displayed the relative scale of planets in our solar system in comparison with crazy ass fucking stars and the what-not comes this video. A gentleman takes to the street to ask people how far away they think the Moon is from Earth, using the relative scale of a tennis ball and a basketball. How does the actual scale work out?
Phil Plait answers that question:
(If) the Earth is a basketball, does a tennis ball get the size of the Moon right?
The Earth is 12,740 km (7900 miles) across, and the Moon 3474 km (2150 miles) in diameter, for a ratio of 3.7.
A standard NBA basketball is 24 cm (9.4 inches) in diameter, and a tennis ball 6.7 cm (2.6 inches), for a ratio of 3.6. Pretty good! I’ll have to remember that; it’s pretty useful.
Outstanding.
Hit the jump for the video.
Gorgeous Image of Discovery Before Her Final Launch.
Enlarge. | Via.
You need to click this pig to get a full sense of her majesty. This is an image of the Discovery, taken a few weeks ago. Tomorrow, Discovery is taking her final voyage into space. Sloughing off the shackles of our niggling orbit and ascending to the cosmos. Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy notes that “barring this and one more flight of Endeavour later this year, it’ll be a while before we can put humans into space at all.”
What.
A.
Fucking.
Bummer.
We need to take to the stars, to exert our reach through the cosmos. All the time and energy wasted here, lead-footed and fighting amongst one another. Ah, to dream! Of a day when we can look forward to launches again.
Video Shows Relative Size Of Planets, Stars, Universe. We Are Nothing!
This video starts with the Moon and then scales out and out and out until it reaches the largest known star. It’s a staggering moment of cosmic awesomeness. One of those “holy shit – this place the Universe is enormous!” type things.
Hit the jump for the video. Try and not existentiapuke.
High-Res Photo Of The Moon Is Swank; Where’s The Face?!
