Starship Asterisk*

Gosh. That is SO skilful, alter-ego. And SO helpful.

Chris wrote From Kim Stanley Robinson's book 2312, set in a heavily colonized Solar System, a passage about the plan to send one of the moons of Pluto out on a 1000 year journey to the stars: "So. Our little pearl of warmth, our spinning orrery of lives, our island, our beloved solar system, o...

I thought these later photographs were pretty stunning http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/marateaman/51037455/82248/82248_original.jpg http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/marateaman/51037455/82488/82488_original.jpg http://marateaman.livejournal.com/27910.html How amazingly quick-witted he was, to get all th...

Beyond wrote:The World's Cutest Kitten?
http://gma.yahoo.com/photos/is-this-the ... slideshow/

They are marvellous photos - and the photographer ISN'T professional!

And Daisy, the kitten, is --- well, she just sets the Gold Standard in Adorable and in Cute...

Margarita

Ann wrote: Today's APOD is nice and interesting. I couldn't help thinking to myself, however - wow, fancy that, a misty day on Mars!

Ann

What is the light in the sky? Surely not the Sun??!

And, what causes the mist? I hadn't played attention properly, so hadn't taken that in.

Margarita

Poor Curiosity!

All that effort to make that wonderful self-portrait and no-one (apart from myself and Abdullah - Hi, Abdullah ) seems to be taking any notice of it!

Margarita

Oh - and Ann, too

Does anyone else* know that the Discuss link on today's Apod goes to yesterday's Asterisk discussion?
Margarita

* Apart from Abdullah and myself, that is.

Get the Vikings in - that'll deal with Spam!

... It's just that everything has a lot more in common with everything else, than is realized. It's just a matter of understanding what is being described, by different words than you are used to hearing . I think that is rather a profound observation, Beyond. Worth pondering on. ( I could really d...

... It's just that everything has a lot more in common with everything else, than is realized. It's just a matter of understanding what is being described, by different words than you are used to hearing . I think that is rather a profound observation, Beyond. Worth pondering on. ( I could really d...

Oh Rob - he is GORGEOUS! And how regal he is. Yes, I can see why he insisted on an appropriately elegant name and am most surprised that he tolerated being referred to as Big Al! I've only come to sharing my life with cats in my later years as during all my childhood I was seriously allergic to thei...

Wow! Elvira's a beauty. (Sorry Syd, but you know how it goes with cute kittens. You were one once.) Rob There is lovely, somewhat sad, but still lovely story about Syd and Elvira. I don't think that I have told it on this thread yet - yawn and move on if I have! Syd became ill very suddenly last No...

Kinda like... BIG BANG... UN-BANG... BIG BANG... UN-BANG... BIG BANG... UN-BANG. Isn't that a yo-yo :?: :?: Looks like Tom Smothers was right :!: It's all in the power of YO. :yes: It looks to me like you have a masterful grasp of Hindu cosmology... Let's just hope Brahma doesn't let go off that st...

I'm surprised the APOD writers didn't even know that very excellent science was done in trying to figure out this strange structure. Here's your answer: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2010/2471.html This is from the link that walfy posted http://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/image/Fig...

I have seen this beautiful image of the Saturn hexagon. In the explanation it is said that the jovian plane eclipses the Saturn rings. I think his a mistake: jovian planet is Jupiter, isn't it? Can 'jovian' be used also for Saturn? Thanks The quick answer is, "Yes." http://en.m.wikipedia....

http://www.bhagavgita.org/Gita/verse-08-17.html Madhvacarya's Commentary on Bhagavad Gita, Ch.8 v.17 Lord Krishna ... cites the potency of His unmanifest Brahman by the example of the cyclic dissolution of creation referring to Brahma's day. The literal meaning for sahasra is one 1000; but actually ...

BRILLIANT! Thanks so much, alter-ego. It clarifies things for me as well.
Margarita

Our kitten is growing fast, and Elvira is fast becoming an elegant young lady.

I love this photo of Syd, who used to take over the bathroom in last August's heatwave.

Margarita

Two hundred days from Pluto, nine years after launch, the real work of New Horizons will begin as LORRI starts making images... Ralph, using less power than a nightlight, will record close-up color images. Alice will probe Pluto's atmosphere with its ultraviolet imaging spectrometer. Bob & Caro...

Neufer wroteI would be a little more suspicious of any PODcasts on this subject if I were you, Margarita. And you best stay awake

Toooooo late...

I've been pod-snatched...

Joe Stieber wrote ..If it is indeed an evening picture, then Mercury would be in direct motion starting in the lower-left as it draws away from superior conjunction on January 5, 2000. It was stationary at Greatest Eastern Elongation on February 14, 2000, at the top of the hump, then in retrograde ...

Sam wrote:I remember this podcast as addressing many of these probability issues: http://www.radiolab.org/2009/jun/15/.
Sam

That is very interesting podcast and very relevant to this current discussion. Thank you, Sam, for posting it.

M.

So the two meteors are only related by being in the same solar system with us. Which is about the same as my relationship to President Obama. What a coincidence! WHAT is the is the probability of Geckzilla and Barack Obama being alive, on the same planet, at the very same time, in the total life sp...

Boomer12k » Tue Feb 19, 2013 11:52 am

Or, if you have a computerized telescope you can get a shot of Mercury even through the branches of the trees at the end of the street! If you're LUCKY!.

That is most impressive, Boomer. Yes, I can actually see the phase of Mercury in your picture.

M

I sheepishly confess to a feeling of relief, after all the excitement of the last few days, to open my browser to this blissfully calm and beautiful Apod. I've never yet managed to see Mercury and hadn't realised what a very marked arc it makes over this period of ¿19? days. (That is how many images...