Starship Asterisk*

I am strictly an amateur, so forgive me if I am wrong about this: In photos like this of distant galaxies, people talk about "dust." I am aware that there is certainly interstellar dust that is probably as fine as. . .well, as fine as dust. But is not the "dust" in these photos a...

This signal is described as "an unusual modulation between a GPS satellite and an unidentified Earth-based source." I believe the appropriate phrase is "beat frequency," not "modulation." A beat frequency is the mixing of two signals to produce the sum and the differenc...

It's too bad we use the phrase "false color" for images like this. The colors aren't really false, but shifted so we can see wavelengths we can't naturally see. I know that for most of us this will sem a trivial distinction, but I recently attended a focus group on astrophotography and one...

I have a used set of gravitational tenterhooks for sale on eBay if anyone is interested. :wink: How many hours are on them? Is a warranty still available? Does the Buy Now price include free shipping? "How many hours are on them?" you ask. How in the heck could I know that? Gravitational ...

Nah... Artificial gravity is a well known by-product of any technology which allows us to accelerate past the speed of light. Not to worry. Actually, in order to produce artificial gravity you need a set of gravitational tenterhooks. As everyone knows, tenterhooks (from the familiar idiom "on ...

1.-I agree with Protagoras that man is the measure of all things, and the construction of the video was made on the basis of man to the maximum, and in man to a minimum.. No, we are not the measure of all things, and this video is not based on that notion. Instead, it is one of the wonders of the c...

Here is another version of the Powers of Ten sequence, this one written in Java at Florida State University.

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java ... index.html

I say it is Tibet, looking south toward the Himalayan foothills at the edge of the globe. I just don't believe there are that many places on Earth that are so arid over the 30 or so degrees of arc in the photograph. By the way, didn't they used to call them "unmanned missions"? Now we have...

I think many people assume that the BB took place in an infinite space, and that matter and energy expanded from a tiny point--a singularity--into an existing matrix of empty space, and continues to fill that space as it expands into infinity. I have always thought of the BB as an actual expansion o...

A corrolary to this photograph is that occupants of the ISS must have observed the eclipse. What a sight that must be from space! I wonder if the ISS (or any other orbiting humans) have ever witnessed a total eclipse of the sun?