background preloader

Pale Blue Dot « a simple prop

Pale Blue Dot « a simple prop
It’s the twentieth anniversary of the famous “pale blue dot” photo – Earth as seen from Voyager 1 while on the edge of our solar system (approximately 3,762,136,324 miles from home). Sagan’s words are always worth remembering: Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. Like this: Like Loading...

http://blog.jmlynch.org/2010/02/13/pale-blue-dot/

100 Time-Saving Search Engines for Serious Scholars While burying yourself in the stacks at the library is one way to get some serious research done, with today’s technology you can do quite a bit of useful searching before you ever set foot inside a library. Undergraduates and grad students alike will appreciate the usefulness of these search engines that allow them to find books, journal articles and even primary source material for whatever kind of research they’re working on and that return only serious, academic results so time isn’t wasted on unprofessional resources. Note: Visit our updated list for the latest in academic search engines. General

Seven Blunders of the World The Seven Social Sins, sometimes called the Seven Blunders of the World, is a list that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi published in his weekly newspaper Young India on October 22, 1925.[1] Later, he gave this same list to his grandson Arun Gandhi, written on a piece of paper, on their final day together, shortly before his assassination.[2] The seven sins or blunders are: History and influence[edit] Mahatma Gandhi, who published the list in 1925 as a list of "Seven Social Sins" (1940s photo) The list was first published by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in his weekly newspaper Young India on October 22, 1925.[1] Gandhi wrote that a correspondent who he called a "fair friend" had sent the list: "The... fair friend wants readers of Young India to know, if they do not already, the following seven social sins,"[1] (the list was then provided). In the decades since its first publication, the list has been widely cited and/or discussed.

Scientists Now Know: We're From Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy! Scientists Now Know: We're Not From Here! Summary & comments by Dan Eden for Viewzone "This first full-sky map of Sagittarius shows its extensive interaction with the Milky Way," Majewski said. "Both stars and star clusters now in the outer parts of the Milky Way have been 'stolen' from Sagittarius as the gravitational forces of the Milky Way nibbled away at its dwarf companion. This one vivid example shows that the Milky Way grows by eating its smaller neighbors."

21 Unbelievable Photographs of Mars Mars is the fourth planet from our Sun in the Solar System. Out of the various planets and moons in our Solar System, Mars perhaps bears the most similarity to Earth, featuring an atmosphere, polar ice caps, and remnants of tectonic activity on the planet’s surface. Mars has fascinated both astronomers and the general public for years, and has been the subject of countless movies and fiction works. Ultimate fate of the universe The ultimate fate of the universe is a topic in physical cosmology. Many possible fates are predicted by rival scientific theories, including futures of both finite and infinite duration. Once the notion that the universe started with a rapid inflation nicknamed the Big Bang became accepted by the majority of scientists,[1] the ultimate fate of the universe became a valid cosmological question, one depending upon the physical properties of the mass/energy in the universe, its average density, and the rate of expansion. There is a growing consensus among cosmologists that the universe is flat and will continue to expand forever.[2][3] The ultimate fate of the universe is dependent on the shape of the universe and what role dark energy will play as the universe ages.

Theta Wave Brain Synchronization This is a replication of a Theta wave entrainment rhythm first created by scientists in the 1960s to lull patients into a deep, colorful, creative dream state. Listen to it for 10 minutes, longer if you can. The longer it plays, the deeper you’ll go. The Relativity of Wrong by Isaac Asimov by Isaac Asimov I received a letter from a reader the other day. It was handwritten in crabbed penmanship so that it was very difficult to read. Nevertheless, I tried to make it out just in case it might prove to be important. In the first sentence, he told me he was majoring in English Literature, but felt he needed to teach me science. (I sighed a bit, for I knew very few English Lit majors who are equipped to teach me science, but I am very aware of the vast state of my ignorance and I am prepared to learn as much as I can from anyone, however low on the social scale, so I read on.)

MNN - Mother Nature Network - StumbleUpon An alien world blacker than coal, the darkest planet known, has been discovered in the galaxy. The world in question is a giant the size of Jupiter known as TrES-2b. NASA's Kepler spacecraft detected it lurking around the yellow sun-like star GSC 03549-02811 some 750 lightyears away in the direction of the constellation Draco.

A Cosmic Exclamation Point VV 340, also known as Arp 302, provides a textbook example of colliding galaxies seen in the early stages of their interaction. The edge-on galaxy near the top of the image is VV 340 North and the face-on galaxy at the bottom of the image is VV 340 South. Millions of years later these two spirals will merge - much like the Milky Way and Andromeda will likely do billions of years from now. Brane cosmology Brane cosmology refers to several theories in particle physics and cosmology related to string theory, superstring theory and M-theory. Brane and bulk[edit] The central idea is that the visible, four-dimensional universe is restricted to a brane inside a higher-dimensional space, called the "bulk" (also known as "hyperspace"). If the additional dimensions are compact, then the observed universe contains the extra dimensions, and then no reference to the bulk is appropriate.

Related: