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Helicase and other miracles
Cosmos Episode II covers selection, both artificial and natural. The other week I was asked by A.: "Where did the first person come from?". I suspect the god-squadders got to him, so this was an appropriate thing for us to watch together, even if long and overwhelming ( Read more... ) -
New discoveries
Well, well. Today I drove past the former Soviet former Nazi barracks at Kramnitz. My eye was caught by the athletic Soviet mural facing the main road. I didn't stop the car to take the photo, but of course someone else (Remoto13) has done it for me.
This was a part of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, which at the end of the Cold War ( Read more... ) -
We are, all of us, made of star-stuff
My long-lost birthday present to myself, the DVDs of Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series (1978-79) arrived recently. Episode One is easy to summarise: "Space is big. Really big. And old too. Also, Eratosthenes was a clever guy with good library access." Sagan spins a good yarn though; and his love of learning comes through. His wardrobe must have looked ( Read more... ) -
ISS
Heading off to work before dawn yesterday morning I was surprised to see a distant aircraft coming towards me. After some time, I figured out "That's no plane", and the slow-moving bright thing coming towards me had to be the ISS. I haven't seen it in a while, and it was coming directly out of the west, with a full set of fully-operational solar ( Read more... ) -
Venus
There can only be a few transits of Venus that anyone alive at the time was capable of observing, and just a few more that anyone alive might have realised was happening at the time: if the first telescopes appeared in the 1600s, then there have been 8 or 10 opportunities ( Read more... ) -
Looking down on Mars
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/anaglyph/
Get out your 3-D glasses, and enjoy the ride: canyons, coastlines, craters and much much more. -
Steve the Cat
visits Mars on board the Phoenix lander. -
Woomera may get Virgin spaceport
I realise the Tiser isn't quite the paper I used to think it was. But this story is still amusing:
"Woomera may get Virgin spaceport"
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,20697628-910,00.html
The graphic is an "artist's impression of the Woomera spaceport." Obviously, the artist hasn't been anywhere near Woomera, cos it's flat as a ( Read more... )