Starship Asterisk*

owlice wrote:a broad definition of the A

owlice wrote:The APOD editors have always had a broad definition of the A in APOD. Views of, or from, our planet fit that definition, as this image clearly demonstrates.

RJN wrote:I posted that video to APOD. About once a month or so, APOD posts an image that is not strictly related to the classical definition of astronomy or space science. Reasons for this are several, including broadening APOD's reader base. APODs like these, in my opinion, interest people in space, science, and astronomy who might not normally have or follow such interests. In my view, the web appears to stratify people by interests, and many times people in one interest group will not wander into other interest areas. Eclectic APODs like this are therefore an attempt to reach across disciplines.

Additionally, in my view, APOD is also about planet Earth, exploration, and making connections between science and things not classically related to science. In this case, this APOD focussed on humans specifically, who have never been highlighted on APOD before. This also gives APOD a "human" link usable inside of future APODs.

- RJN

owlice wrote:
Dost not see? A monstrous giant of infamous repute whom I intend to encounter. ~ Man of La Mancha

• <<for behold there, friend Sancho Panza, how there appears thirty or forty monstrous giants, with whom I mean to fight, and deprive them all of their lives, with whose spoils we will begin to be rich; for this is a good war, and a great service unto God, to take away so bad a seed from the face of the earth.’ ‘What giants?’ quoth Sancho Panza. ‘Those that thou seest there,’ quoth his lord, ‘with the long arms; and some there are of that race whose arms are almost two leagues long.’>>

bystander wrote:

Warmonger wrote:How, exactly, is this an ASTRONOMY pic?!

The Earth is part of the Solar System, the Milky Way, the Local Group, the Virgo Supercluster, and the Universe.
Mount Everest is as close to the stars as you can get without leaving the surface of our local planet.

Statue of Brigitte Bardot in Buzios, Brazil

NoelC wrote:
I should think bb is more likely to be interpreted as "b squared", not "2b".

NoelC wrote:This has been bothering me for days.

APOD Robot wrote: The View from Everest

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

[img3="Until 1852, Kangchenjunga (8,586m) was assumed to be the highest mountain in the world. Joe Brown and George Band made the first Kangchenjunga ascent on May 25, 1955. They followed Aleister Crowley's 1905 route on the Yalung Glacier to the southwest of the peak, and climbs the 3,000 m high Yalung Face. The "Great Shelf" is a large sloping plateau at 7,500 m, covered by a hanging glacier."]http://www.everestnews.com/everest2006/ ... 202008.jpg[/img3]

[b][color=#FF0000]100 km to the east past Makalu (8463m) is Kangchenjunga (8,586m)[/color][/b]

---

<<Kangchenjunga, in the Himalayan Range, is the third highest mountain in the world after Mount Everest and K2, with an elevation of 8,586 m (28,169 ft). Kangchenjunga means "The Five Treasures of Snows", as it contains five peaks, four of them over 8,450 m. The final word on the use of the name Kangchenjunga came from His Highness Sir Tashi Namgyal, the Maharaja of Sikkim, who stated that "although junga had no meaning in Tibetan, it really ought to have been Zod-nga (treasure, five) Kang-chen (snow, big) to convey the meaning correctly". Three of the five peaks (main, central, and south) are on the border of the Indian North Sikkim and Taplejung District of Nepal, while the other two are completely in Taplejung District. Nepal is home to the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area Project run by the World Wildlife Fund in cooperation with the Government of Nepal. The sanctuary is home to the red panda and other montane animals, birds and plants. Kangchenjunga was first climbed on May 25, 1955 by Joe Brown and George Band, who were part of a British expedition. The British expedition honoured the beliefs of the Sikkimese, who hold the summit sacred, by stopping a few feet short of the actual summit. Most successful summit parties since then have followed this tradition. Permission to climb the mountain from the Indian side is rare, but sometimes allowed. Because of its remote location in Nepal and difficult access from India, the Kangchenjunga region is not much explored by trekkers. It has, therefore, retained much of its pristine beauty. In Sikkim too, trekking into the Kangchenjunga region has just been permitted. The Goecha La trek is gaining popularity amongst tourists. It goes to the Goecha La Pass, located right in front of the huge southeast face of Kangchenjunga. Another trek to Green Lake Basin has recently been opened for trekking. This goes to the Northeast side of Kangchenjunga along the famous Zemu Glacier.>>

biddie67 wrote:Scuba divers have to concern themselves with oxygen toxicity at depth, do climbers on these high mountains also have to be concerned with how they are breathing oxygen or special air mixes at altitude?

JohnD wrote:Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?

Chris Peterson wrote: ..... Even on external oxygen, the pO2 of climbers on Everest is dangerously low. ....

owlice wrote:/(bb|[^b]{2})/

bool That(int Be)
{
   bool Answer;

    if ((Be + Be) || !(Be * 2))
        Answer = true;
    else
        Answer = false;

    return Answer;
}

PUBLIC	?That@@YA_NH@Z					; That
; Function compile flags: /Ogtp
; File c:\temp\that.cpp
;	COMDAT ?That@@YA_NH@Z
_TEXT	SEGMENT
?That@@YA_NH@Z PROC					; That, COMDAT

; 931  :    bool Answer;
; 932  : 
; 933  :     if ((Be + Be) || !(Be * 2))
; 934  :         Answer = true;
; 935  :     else
; 936  :         Answer = false;
; 937  : 
; 938  :     return Answer;

	mov	al, 1

; 939  : }

	ret	0
?That@@YA_NH@Z ENDP					; That
_TEXT	ENDS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevation wrote:The elevation of a geographic location is its height above a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic system, vertical datum). Elevation, or geometric height, is mainly used when referring to points on the Earth's surface, while altitude or geopotential height is used for points above the surface, such as an aircraft in flight or a spacecraft in orbit, and depth is used for points below the surface.

Less commonly, elevation is measured using the center of the Earth as the reference point. Due to equatorial bulge, there is debate as to which of the summits of Mt. Everest or Chimborazo is at the higher elevation, as the Chimborazo summit is further from the Earth's center while the Mt. Everest summit is higher above mean sea level.

JohnD wrote:bystander,
The border between Tibet and Nepal runs through the summit, along the North East and West Ridges.
Please look at any map, starting with Google Earth, because it's easy to find.

Owlice, others who complain of my nitpicking,
Quote the caption, " Mt. Everest lies in the Himalaya mountains in the country of Nepal. In the native language of Nepal, the mountain's name is "Sagarmatha" which means "forehead of the sky."
This pressed all my buttons for patronising, parochial information, that is so unlike the usual, informative, intelligent APOD caption that I had to comment.
It is as if it was written for kindergarten children, for whom simple statements are needed. But those simple statements must be correct, and on the location of Everest it's wrong, on the name it's wrong (or only partially correct),and it's wrong on the "native" language of Nepal. Is there any other that is the language of Nepal? Surely we have stopped talking of "natives" as if they were some subhuman race?

John