APOD: Flyby Image of Saturn's Sponge Moon... (2015 Jun 03)

[emc]

I was trying to soak all this in but my hype filter is out of control...

[neufer]

there are no horses on the moon

No stallions, perhaps, but there are quite a few mares.

[Chris Peterson]

Anybody have an idea how long it would take for such a chaotic rotation or tumbling to stabilize?

There's no reason it would ever stabilize. No orbital or rotational system is perfectly stable, but this one is subject to forces that make it highly chaotic.

[Tszabeau]

If the odd craters are formed by ejected material from impacts... might'n the jetting action cause the moon to tumble?

[Sum body]

If the odd craters are formed by ejected material from impacts... might'n the jetting action cause the moon to tumble?

More from the impacts themselves, I would suspect.

[Chris Peterson]

If the odd craters are formed by ejected material from impacts... might'n the jetting action cause the moon to tumble?

More from the impacts themselves, I would suspect.

But most likely, neither.

[DavidLeodis]

In information about the image that was brought up through the "featured above" link it states the image was released on May 28 2015 but was taken on May 31 2015 and "received on Earth June 1, 2015". An image taken in the future that has been transported back in time! That's awesome!

In the information it also states "The camera was pointing toward Hyperion at approximately kilometers away". I wonder how many kilometres that was? It seems to me that someone at CICLOPS rushed the release out without taking care.

[BMAONE23]

In information about the image that was brought up through the "featured above" link it states the image was released on May 28 2015 but was taken on May 31 2015 and "received on Earth June 1, 2015". An image taken in the future that has been transported back in time! That's awesome!

In the information it also states "The camera was pointing toward Hyperion at approximately kilometers away". I wonder how many kilometres that was? It seems to me that someone at CICLOPS rushed the release out without taking care.

They obviously didn't have 2 eyes on the write-up

[emc]

there are no horses on the moon

No stallions, perhaps, but there are quite a few mares.

Ha!... We probably want to steer clear of Mare Vaporum...

[neufer]

Technology Review Feb 22, 2016

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<<When Steven Holl set out to design a dormitory that looked like a sponge, he wanted holes. Lots of holes. So huge gaps that double as terraces separate Simmons Hall’s three aluminum towers. Volcano-shaped lounges push through the floors. And thousands of two-foot-square windows indent the facade.

The result is an undeniably spongelike edifice, and the $78.5 million MIT dormitory, named in honor of Dorothy Simmons, the late wife and philanthropy partner of ­Richard P. Simmons ‘53, has garnered plenty of attention since it opened in 2002. The most expensive dorm built on campus since Baker House, Simmons has won multiple architecture awards for its looks, functionality, and energy efficiency. Carlo Ratti, an architect who heads MIT’s SENSEable Cities Laboratory, calls it “one of the most talked-about buildings in the architectural community.”

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

But what’s it like to live in a work of art? The average single room in Simmons has nine windows, each providing a fractured view of the city–and its own curtain to pull shut at night. “Architects say, ‘Oh, that’s wonderful. We’ve got a curtain for every window,’” says Ratti. Talk to students, though, and they’ll counter, “I need to spend five minutes every night to close my curtains!” They’ll also point out that the windows’ screens create a “Faraday cage,” a metal box that blocks cell-phone signals. To make their first calls home, some of the 116 freshmen who moved in this fall had to pop out screens.

This year’s new students had plenty of reasons for choosing the dorm that’s also called the Space Waffle: a love of modern architecture, carpet allergies (it’s nearly carpetless), a sense of adventure. “I first heard Simmons described as ‘the giant metal thing that looks like it’s going to eat the football field,’” says freshman Katrina Ellison. “[But] by the time I got to campus, I was excited about the prospect of living there.”

Still, Ellison did a double take when she saw the geometry of her ninth-floor room: a curving wall from the adjacent lounge took up half her floor space. She and her roommate measured the walls to try to “squeeze in a chair or something,” she says. Instead, her bed got shoved wall-ward, and Ellison now performs a nightly acrobatics routine to reach it. “I have to crawl into it from the end,” she says. “For the first few days, I really hated it.”

[b][color=#0000FF][size=150]Typical M.I.T. Freshman[/size][/color][/b]

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Other freshmen strove to achieve pleasing configurations of their furniture. The pieces, all designed by Holl, include beds and drawers that stack like Lego bricks–or would, if they weren’t too heavy to lift. Movers hired by MIT helped freshmen settle in; eventually an underground trade developed in wrenches to unbolt the furniture. Senior Aron Zingman doled them out with a warning: “The beds weigh 250 pounds. You can get crushed to death by them.” Many freshmen made their first handful of friends while hoisting beds.

Ratti understands that the function of a dorm is more important to most students than its form. So when Simmons housemasters Ellen and John Essigmann asked him to design some functional improvements for the building in 2004, he got the idea to launch a student contest called “Drill a Hole in Simmons Hall.” Students’ sketches envisioned chalkboards in the hallways and paint for the mono-color walls. The winning design poked outright fun at Holl. It suggested erecting a second Simmons, a “diversional clone,” across Vassar Street for admiring architects to tour. In the spirit of the impractical, it called for a cloud-shaped zeppelin to fly over Simmons to shuttle students to class.

[Agustya Mehta ‘08] held a Star Wars marathon, served late-night waffles, and sent freshmen zipping down a water slide on top of big rubber ducks. After their first week in Simmons, many freshmen who chose the dorm smiled as they called it “quirky,” “lighthearted,” and “fun.” [Students] successfully campaigned to uphold the practice of adding rubber ducks to Dan Graham’s rock, glass, and water sculpture Yin/Yang Pavilion. They also converted the photography lab into an ­electrical-­engineering lab and wired the A-tower elevator to play Christmas carols. Ratti marvels at their creative uses of Simmons’s holes, where they park bikes or place flowers.>>

[Ann]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4179_Toutatis wrote:
<<4179 Toutatis (too-TAH-tis) is an Apollo, Alinda, and Mars-crosser asteroid

Potatis (poo-TAH-tis), is the Swedish name for potato


Ann

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[Ann]

You say Toutatis, and I say potatis...

Ann

[Beyond]

I say mashed with gravy. Yum!