Starship Asterisk*

It's Groundhog Day?!? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day_%28film%29 Does that mean this is As Good As It Gets? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Good_As_It_Gets Rob (I think, after months of reading neufer's posts, that I'm finally getting into the spirit of irrelevantly relevent references. N...

It looks like the animation is asking for permission to run, even though I can see it running behind that dialog box. The page's code needs to be updated but it's fairly old, so there may be no one paying attention. (I just sent a note to the page owner.)

Rob

Today's (Nov. 27th, 2009) APOD provides an interesting adjunct to this discussion. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091127.html Quoting the Oct. 2005 article at the last link on the APOD page ("massive black hole")... ...images showing in unprecedented detail how matter spirals toward the black...

This article may get you started towards a better understanding of what spiral arms are in a galaxy. (I Googled "spiral arms galaxy simulations" and chose just this one link. There are many, and this may not be the best.) http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/ESSAYS/Carlberg/carlberg.html ...

I recall -- but not fondly -- using DEC terminals with gold text on a sort of dark olive background. (Not only are my floppies showing too, but they're BIG floppies.) It wasn't too bad because the text was quite large and blocky so it was reasonably readable. But white text on black? There are many ...

My favorite thing that helped me understand, at least partially, how spiral galaxies might get their spiral formation was this little Java applet. Here is a link for you. Just click "Applet" on the side menu and tinker away at it. http://burro.cwru.edu/JavaLab/GalCrashWeb/ Nice applet, bu...

mark swain wrote:... topics that will never be discussed thanks to sputnik. ...

Truer words were never spoked.

Rob

Yes, looks like they would help.

I want them!

Rob

A general rule might be that if you can jump h feet high (in a sqrt(h)/2 second ride) on earth then you can jump ~ 4*h/g feet high (in a sqrt(h)/g second ride) on a small planetoid where g is the planetoid's surface gravity in G's. One issue I saw mentioned in another on-line discussion of this is ...

Rover Opportunity spent a long time in that area just looking around. (The other rover, Spirit, is the one that keeps needing to find shelter, sort of.) Opportunity tried going down the slope in the foreground to enter the crater but found it a little too hard going. The controllers thought it might...

I am no geologist. Is it possible for such a formation to occur without sedimentation? Neither am I, but given what we've found out so far, there's no reason to think that sedimentation could not have occurred, or did not occur on Mars. Here's a definition from wikipedia... Particles that form a se...

Maybe it's not an APOD. Maybe it's not even Mars. It's Mars (as already confirmed, I see.) I have dozens of images of that rock face which I cycle through as desktops. I know Cape St. Vincent (the Martian one) better than I know my own backyard. (You'd have to see my backyard to know how literally ...

apodman wrote:I think I hear the Moody Blues again.

Its just a 60s flash back. Ignore it. Unless it involves coloured oils on water, in which case invite me in.

Rob

If Mark's musings were set to music, would they be l ei der? German pronounces the second one of two adjacent vowels. L ie der (pronounced with a long e) are songs. L ei den (pronounced with a long i) are pains. Freudian Fehlleistung? Oops! :oops: Lacking lead time -- and being laden by overwork --...

Damn! I knew I was missing something.

Rob

PS
If Mark's musings were set to music, would they be leider? Or loss leader?

What's amazing to me is that the natrual processes quite clearly operating on Mars have not led to the emergence of life. While it seems obvious that there is no life as we know it (including mammalian politicians, to take just one example of an extremophile) on Mars, it's way too soon to assume th...

If we could strip these four down, What do you mean "strip" them down? And divide by 100 trillion times .. Divide what? No or very little mass particle Why not? <------- pointing a way back? Pointing? Back? <--------- to past nothing? Eh!?! to smaller and smaller until what? What's gettin...

The picture in greyscale, magnified, middle left hand side at http://hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu/PDS/EXTRAS/RDR/ESP/ORB_014400_014499/ESP_014426_2070/ESP_014426_2070_RED.NOMAP.browse.jpg raises another ton of questions. Just for one, how can there be an overhang with dust devil tracings apparenly go...

makc wrote:interesting map here

I am very surprised to see the distance along the bottom of the map defined in miles. Even the NG, staid old thing that it is, must know that science uses SI units.

Rob

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny..." -- Isaac Asimov

mnmcallister wrote:I am deeply curious as to where the ISS in the APOD dated 2009 October 5 was taken (Earth geographicaly)
I'd like to place the landmass in the photo.

Up above, in the third post in this thread, someone says it's New Zealand. I take them at their word, even though they're upside down.

Rob

soupphysics wrote:What is "above", when weightless?

Further from the center of the nearest large mass?

Rob

apodman wrote:... mylar windshield tear-offs. ... And after you tear them off, you can leave them around like floating fly paper to collect dangerous space debris.

Should have patented that idea rather than posting it in a public forum. It's too good to throw away like that.

Rob

Where's a squeegy-kid when you need one?

Interesting thought... How do you clean the outside of an ISS window?

Rob

I second that. although its all relative, id want to see the mountains of new zealand right side up! (its an earthling thing) Agreed, it's all relative. And since I have none in New Zealand, I like it as is, with the sunlight coming from upper-left. :lol: Does anyone know if that brown smudge just ...