Starship Asterisk*

orin stepanek wrote:I remember this picture from before.

readm wrote:It is curious that there is no information on where this photo was taken. APOD always give that information. Did I miss something?

Chris Peterson wrote:

orin stepanek wrote:I remember this picture from before.

Yes, the same image ran on 2006 November 22. I seem to recall it generated some disgruntlement that time, as well.

[b]Curious grooves and ridges appear to cross the surface of Pandora.[/b]

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora wrote:
In Greek mythology, Pandora (Πανδώρα, derived from πᾶν "all" and δῶρον "gift", thus "all-gifted", "all-endowed") was the first woman. As Hesiod related it, each god helped create her by giving her unique gifts. Zeus ordered Hephaestus to mould her out of earth as part of the punishment of mankind for Prometheus' theft of the secret of fire, and all the gods joined in offering her "seductive gifts". Her other name, inscribed against her figure on a white-ground kylix in the British Museum, is Anesidora, "she who sends up gifts," up implying "from below" within the earth. According to the myth, Pandora opened a JAR (pithos), in modern accounts sometimes mistranslated as "Pandora's box", releasing all the evils of mankind— although the particular evils, aside from plagues and diseases, are not specified in detail by Hesiod — leaving only Hope inside once she had closed it again. She opened the JAR out of simple curiosity and not as a malicious act.

Ex-JARhead: Col. Miles Quaritch

The myth of Pandora is ancient, appears in several distinct Greek versions, and has been interpreted in many ways. In all literary versions, however, the myth is a kind of theodicy, addressing the question of why there is evil in the world. In the seventh century BC, Hesiod, both in his Theogony (briefly, without naming Pandora outright, line 570) and in Works and Days, gives the earliest literary version of the Pandora story; however, there is an older mention of JARS or urns containing blessings and evils bestowed upon mankind in Homer's Iliad:

• The immortals know no care, yet the lot they spin for man is full of sorrow; on the floor of Zeus' palace there stand two JARS, the one filled with evil gifts, and the other with good ones. He for whom Zeus the lord of thunder mixes the gifts he sends, will meet now with good and now with evil fortune; but he to whom Zeus sends none but evil gifts will be pointed at by the finger of scorn, the hand of famine will pursue him to the ends of the world, and he will go up and down the face of the earth, respected neither by gods nor men.>>

Chris Peterson wrote:

readm wrote:
It is curious that there is no information on where this photo was taken.
APOD always give that information. Did I miss something?

The image was made in Germany.

rdea wrote:
Several people have commented here that this is not an astronomical picture.
True enough, but it's cool anyway.

• Definition of ASTRONOMICAL (Webster's Online Dictionary):
  
  • 1. Relating or belonging to the science of astronomy.[Wordnet]
    
    2. Inconceivably large.[Wordnet]
    
    3. Of or pertaining to astronomy; in accordance with the methods or principles of astronomy.[Websters]
    
    4. Being enormous, gigantic, colossal, immense or huge. [Eve - graph theoretic]
    
    5. Being tremendous, monstrous, monumental, mighty or whopping. [Eve - graph theoretic]
    
    6. Being great, big, considerable, large or massive. [Eve - graph theoretic]
    
    7. Being giant or gargantuan. [Eve - graph theoretic]
    
    8. Being excessive or extreme. [Eve - graph theoretic]
    
    9. Being extraordinary, prodigious or terrific. [Eve - graph theoretic]

rstevenson wrote:
And of course an appropriate APOD image is whatever these guys say it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Astronomer_%28Vermeer%29 wrote:
<<The provenance of The Astronomer can be traced back to 27 April 1713, when it was sold at the Rotterdam sale of an unknown collector together with The Geographer. The presumed buyer was Hendrik Sorgh, whose estate sale held in Amsterdam on 28 March 1720 included both The Astronomer and The Geographer, which were described as ‘Een Astrologist: door Vermeer van Delft, extra puyk’ (An Astrologist by Vermeer of Delft, topnotch) and ‘Een weerga, van ditto, niet minder’ (Similar by ditto, no less).

Between 1881 and 1888 it was sold by the Paris art dealer Léon Gauchez to the banker and art collector Alphonse James de Rothschild, after whose death it was inherited by his son, Édouard Alphonse James de Rothschild. In 1940 is was seized from his hotel in Paris by the Nazi Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg für die Besetzten Gebiete after the German invasion of France. A small swastika was stamped on the back in black ink. The painting was returned to the Rothschilds after the war, and was donated to the Louvre in 1982 by Guy de Rothschild.>>

probley1 wrote:
I can't believe APOD can be so irrepsonsible! here we are, in a struggle to preserve what's left of our climate, and you have the gall to post the engine of destruction of said climate, not to mention the environment, by facilitating the removals of vast quantities of coal, clearly the commodity with the biggest carbon footprint of them all.

rstevenson wrote:And of course an appropriate APOD image is whatever these guys say it is.

Rob

neufer wrote:
<<The provenance of The Astronomer can be traced back to 27 April 1713, when it was sold at the Rotterdam sale of an unknown collector together with The Geographer. The presumed buyer was Hendrik Sorgh, whose estate sale held in Amsterdam on 28 March 1720 included both The Astronomer and The Geographer, which were described as ‘Een Astrologist: door Vermeer van Delft, extra puyk’ (An Astrologist by Vermeer of Delft, topnotch) and ‘Een weerga, van ditto, niet minder’ (Similar by ditto, no less).

Ann wrote:Hey, Rob! You were the one who pixelated Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell in their guises as Astronomer and Geographer! I didn't notice before. Now I can see that you deserve your distinguished Toroidal Pixelator title even more!

Chris Peterson wrote:I don't think so. Blades work by cutting, a process that is different from digging. If you run a blade very slowly, it doesn't cut at all, but can gouge (dig) out material. Unless this excavator spins at a few hundred RPM, it really can't be called a saw blade. Also, material properties don't scale with size; the material behavior of a small piece of wood or metal is nothing like the material behavior of a huge section of earth.

Extra puyk! I agree. And what a delightful expression. Why don't we use that all over the world these days?