Starship Asterisk*

I think you raise an important point, Harry. The term “mainstream” can only refer to the bulk feeling of scientific opinion in whichever discipline. The accuracy of such a feeling, whether advanced by the editors of reputable journals, or merely being general thought of by scientific persons, may be...

Would someone please inform me as to how to "encircle" an APOD object in the manner effected so adroitly?

Isn't it somewhat overoptimistic to consider the possibility of sustainable water supplies for humans occupying any "Moonbase?"

The existence of what I understand to be mere traces of water at some craters at the poles seems insufficient to base much confidence in the concept.

Because you have the reputation of being some sort of guru, Chris. Whilst I have known for some time of the "cylindrical" concept regarding the nature of some planetary nebulae, and the current beautiful APOD seems to bear this out, I have difficulty in working out why (in the sense of sol...

My opinion, which might not be worth much, is that galactic clusters seem to be gravitationally coherent, so that almost all objects of, say, stellar size are confined therein (barring the odd sling shot event.) The presumed existence of dark matter and/or dark energy inevitably complicates our disc...

Now you made me hungry! :wink: Blue suns are too hot. :lol: The energy source of our Sun is the nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium deep within its core. There used to be a lot of talk about using fusion for generating electricity. Containment seemed to be an overwhelming problem then. I haven't...

Do people still use ft-lbs on your side of the pond?

One aspect of the photograph which interests me is the condensation occurring thanks to the lower pressure and hence adiabatic lowering of temperature near the front of the nose of this machine. A stunningly interesting (to me) APOD was of a jet aircraft travelling through the sound barrier, display...

Is there not a further problem regarding orientation, Chris? Some astronomers seem to invert their images and some seem not so to do. Therefore some Norths are South and some Easts are West. I have a video on a documentary about the First World War. The producers decided that, for simplicity, the al...

Henceforth I shall definitely utilize the word "platypodes." Incidentally I learnt some time ago that they literally have a sting in their tail. Dangerous, though inoffensive, animals (and the only egg-laying mammal.)

I am no geologist. Is it possible for such a formation to occur without sedimentation? Many thanks for the earlier posts.

I have tell that I, totally accidentally, once triggered a button on my machine, Windows XP, and have always since got the APOD wallpaper, updated at about 6 a.m. (Universal Time) every single day. I do not intend to change the setting. When one shuts off one's machine (or not) makes no difference.

How did Sir William Herschel know anything about Infrared spectra? Well actually the details are well described. I am sorry to have intruded on this thread.

I thank "bystander" for his interesting contribution, regarding van Gogh, of which I was previously unaware. I did know already that Gauguin left van Gogh in what I might delicately describe as a situation of "disharmony," but I knew nothing about swordplay. What surprises me is ...

According to the Wikipedia article on van Gogh, the poor (and great) man suffered from mental problems all his adult life. He voluntarily committed himself to an asylum for a time near Arles in 1889, following a month between hospital and home suffering hallucinations and delusions. He once cut off ...

One interesting consideration about the statues is, I read some time ago, that all the statues face inland and not towards the Pacific Ocean.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091012.html

Good joke, Neufer. Did you sell it?

Everyone will have noted the "wavy" style utilized by Van Gogh in this painting. It was not confined to the particular painting illustrated here, in any particular way, but manifested itself in many other of his paintings depicting Cypress trees or cornfields, for example, around Arles whe...

It might be maintained that a meteorite is either rocky or iron-nickel, but surely our knowledge is based on that which arrives at the surface of the Earth, from which any volatiles may have disappeared. But what about Kuiper belt objects, or even objects in the Oort cloud?

Of course, long distance interferometry is invaluable in the direct measurement of stellar dimensions (so I am informed - I have never done it myself.) A contributor to this thread mentioned Airy, a great 19th Century physicist. He is also well known for his accurate analysis of the formation of rai...

And now we all look forward to the analysis. For all the standard reasons I always doubted the existence of surface ice on the Moon (lack of an atmosphere, low gravity, high Noon temperatures, and so on.) Of course, in my lack of wisdom and foresight, I completely neglected what might be going on in...

Right at the beginning of this thread Neufer penned a little 4 line ditty, which reminded me of another one of which the authorship is unknown to me.

"As I was walking up the stair, I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. I wish to hell he'd go away!"

I understand JohnD's reply. If anyone thinks that the "concentric Ring" phenomenon is due to accidental double impacts, then where are they? Perhaps Chris Peterson may be able to provide us with astronomical photographs of double ring systems in which it is quite clear that two separate im...

And I think that whoever is running this site has a difficult enough job in producing a new picture every single day. I agree that every now and again (or maybe more frequently) some observers are disappointed at the current APOD, but this is vastly overweighed by the truly stunning examples produce...

Perhaps the best way to analyze the "co-central by accident" versus the "another reason" argument for the phenomenon described in the original post, is to look at other examples, on the Moon or Mercury or Mars for that matter, in which a larger crater circumscribes a smaller crat...