Starship Asterisk*

zbvhs wrote:Alright, let me try again. Looking at the right-hand side of the picture: Coming down from the top you have the blue band, the gray/white band, and an elongated triangular black shape. What is the black shape? If the white shapes in the gray/white band are noctilucent clouds, they should be at the very top edge of the stratosphere, not embedded in it, should they not?

• 1) foreground
  2) limb and
  3) background objects.

• 1) White clouds are distant background mesospheric noctilucent clouds in full sunlight
  
  2) Red clouds are background tropospheric clouds in sunset sunlight.
  
  3) Black clouds are foreground tropospheric clouds in the dark.

zbvhs wrote:The layers shown appear to me to be misidentified. The dark edge beginning at the right is the Earth's limb. The gray/white layer is the troposphere with clouds and the blue layer is the stratosphere.

orin stepanek wrote:Oh wouldn't it be nice to be an astronaut and see 16 sunsets every night? (night? would that be 16 nights every day?)

owlice wrote:

The Phrase Finder wrote:
As pleased as Punch: From the Punch and Judy puppet character. Punch's name derives from Polichinello (spelled various ways, including Punchinello), an Italian puppet with similar characteristics. In Punch and Judy performances the grotesque Punch character is depicted as self-satisfied and pleased with his evil deeds. Punch and Judy shows are popular summer-time entertainments in Britain. They have been somewhat in decline during the latter half of the 20th and into the 21st centuries, due to them being seen as politically incorrect. That's hardly surprising as the main character Punch is a baby-murdering wife-beater.

The Phrase Finder wrote:As pleased as Punch
Meaning

Very pleased.

Origin

From the Punch and Judy puppet character. Punch's name derives from Polichinello (spelled various ways, including Punchinello), an Italian puppet with similar characteristics. In Punch and Judy performances the grotesque Punch character is depicted as self-satisfied and pleased with his evil deeds.

Punch and Judy shows are popular summer-time entertainments in Britain. They have been somewhat in decline during the latter half of the 20th and into the 21st centuries, due to them being seen as politically incorrect. That's hardly surprising as the main character Punch is a baby-murdering wife-beater.

There are numerous 'as X as Y' phrases in English - at least 300 are in common use. They invariably compare some characteristic with something that is well-known as exhibiting the same. For example, 'As safe as the Bank of England', 'as white as snow'. Why Punch is seen as synonymous with pleasure or pride is due to the show's storyline which has him calling out "that's the way to do it" in a gleeful voice each time he murders another victim.

Nevertheless, there is still what might be called a folk affection for the old rogue in the UK and it would be a shame to see the tradition fade away completely.

The show had an Italian origin and has been much changed over the years. It began in Britain at the time of the restoration of the monarchy in the 17th century. Samuel Pepys' Diary has an entry from 1666 that shows this early origin and also the popularity of the show even then:

"I with my wife... by coach to Moorefields, and there saw ‘Polichinello’, which pleases me mightily."

The phrase 'as pleased as Punch' appears fairly late in the story. The earliest known record is from Thomas Moore's Letters to Lady Donegal, 1813:

"I was (as the poet says) as pleased as Punch."

RJN wrote:Art, OK. Thanks. I just changed the APOD text. When making a change like this, I try to change as few words as possible. Please see if the new wording is acceptable to you. - RJN

RJN wrote:

neufer wrote:Clearly the deep orange and yellow layer is the Earth's troposphere.
However the stratosphere is TWICE as thick as the troposphere
and thus cannot possibly be the thin white band!

It seems possible to me that the orange band appears to extend more toward the observer, and so the relative widths of the atmospheric bands may be distorted from their physical thickness ratios. The link under "Pictured above" connects to a
spaceflight.nasa.gov page which gives information from which the APOD caption was taken.

neufer wrote:Clearly the deep orange and yellow layer is the Earth's troposphere.
However the stratosphere is TWICE as thick as the troposphere
and thus cannot possibly be the thin white band!

Chris Peterson wrote:

cocao2 wrote:Which layer of the atmosphere is the ISS orbiting in?

That would be the thermosphere.

London Bassman wrote:Surely there is a layer missing? The blogosphere ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Blagojevich wrote:

cocao2 wrote:Which layer of the atmosphere is the ISS orbiting in?