Fringy, science-stuff, maybe fact or fiction?

Possibly the most important issue facing our western culture.

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Cat's Eye Rings and Peek-a-Boo Shadows

Astronomers have long known that Saturn's rings reflect sunlight most strongly when Earth is located directly between Saturn and the sun. Flat, shiny surfaces can appear particularly bright when light reflects off them. However, even rough surfaces can appear bright when the source of light is directly behind the observer's head, no matter what the orientation of the surface is, a phenomenon is known as the opposition effect. Examples include the eyes of a cat, which seem to glow brightly when they are illuminated by a flashlight, or highway signs that "light up" when they are caught in a car's headlights.

On Aug. 16, 2006, as Cassini flew directly between the sun and Saturn, it captured images that vividly show this opposition brightening. Saturn's rings were observed while they were in front of the planet, producing a complex interplay of sunlight reflected from the rings and the shadows cast by the rings on the cloud tops of Saturn. The yellow-green sunlit clouds of Saturn are seen in the upper right corner of the image beyond the outer edge of the A ring, and also through the 4,000-kilometer-wide (2,400 mile) Cassini Division in the left third of the mosaic. (Yellow indicates a mixture of reflected sunlight and thermal emission.) The shadowed regions of the planet, on the other hand, appear deep red because only thermal emission produced deep inside Saturn itself is visible.

At exact opposition, the shadows of the rings are hidden behind the rings themselves, but away from this point shadows can be seen peeking out from behind the edges of the A and B rings into the Cassini Division, as well as beyond the outer edge of the A ring.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona


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A pool filled with non-newtonian fluid

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At the Edge of the Sun

Dramatic prominences can sometimes be seen looming just beyond the edge of the sun. A solar prominence is a cloud of solar gas held just above the surface by the Sun's magnetic field. The Earth would easily fit below the prominence on the left. A quiescent prominence typically lasts about a month, and may erupt in a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) expelling hot gas into the Solar System. Although very hot, prominences typically appear dark when viewed against the Sun, since they are slightly cooler than the surface. The above image in false color was taken on June 1 from Stuttgart, Germany with an amateur telescope and camera. Photo Credit & Copyright: Stefan Seip (AstroMeeting)

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Camel Downs Coke

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I'm gonna learn y'all math:

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Neptune on Triton's Horizon

This composite illustration is of the planet Neptune, as seen from its moon Triton. Neptune's south pole is to the left; clearly visible in the planets' southern hemisphere is a Great Dark Spot, a large anti-cyclonic storm system. This three-dimensional view was created using images from the Voyager spacecraft.

Image Credit: NASA


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Cosmos - Speed of Light

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Jun 13 1886 The bodies of Bavaria's mad King Ludwig II and his physician, Dr. Gudden, are discovered floating face-down in Lake Starnberg. The recently-deposed monarch had been under house arrest ever since his uncle, Prince Luitpold von Bayern, staged a coup a few days earlier. Jun 13 1920 The United States Postal Service rules that children may not be sent via Parcel Post. Jun 13 1934 Two months before becoming Fuhrer, Hitler meets Mussolini in Venice. Unfortunately, Mussolini refuses to have an interpreter and his German is not good, so neither man can understand the other. Unimpressed, Mussolini gathers a general impression of the German as "a silly little monkey." Jun 13 1944 The Third Reich fires eleven V-1 flying bombs at England from France. Only four of the Buzzbombs actually strike London, but the Germans will eventually follow that up with another 9,000. Jun 13 1962 Three convicts -- Frank Lee Morris and the brothers John and Clarence Anglin -- escape from Alcatraz island in a rowboat made out of raincoats. They are the only prisoners believed to have successfully escaped. Jun 13 1971 Next to the White House wedding photo of President Nixon's daughter Tricia, the New York Times runs its first story on the "Pentagon Papers," a top secret DoD analysis authored by the RAND Corporation detailing every mistake and deception made during the 30-year history of the Vietnam War. Attorney General John Mitchell manages to block any further publication of the embarrassing documents, but the court order is countermanded two weeks later in a Supreme Court decision. Jun 13 1981 During the Trooping the Colour ceremony, a 17-year-old fires six blanks from a revolver at Queen Elizabeth II, startling her horse. Marcus Sargeant is later sentenced to five years imprisonment for the offense. Jun 13 1985 Mailroom workers discover a bomb inside a suspicious parcel at Boeing, Inc.'s Fabrication Division in Auburn, Washington. After the police bomb squad disarms it, investigators discover the initials "FC" stamped on both caps, making it the first explosive device recovered intact from the Unabomber.

Yesterday in Rotten History

Jun 12 1963 Civil rights lawyer Medgar Evers is shot dead in the driveway of his home in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The assassin, a Klansman named Byron De La Beckwith, dodges prison when two all-white juries return hung verdicts, but is finally convicted of the crime in 1994. Jun 12 1978 David Berkowitz is sentenced to 365 consecutive years in prison without the possibility of parole. Berkowitz killed six New Yorkers between 1976 and 1977, known collectively as the Son of Sam murders. Jun 12 1991 After 500 years of silence, Mount Pinatubo erupts, making an estimated 100,000 homeless and killing 300. Two U.S. military bases, Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay Naval Base, are abandoned. The blast is ten times larger than the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. Jun 12 1994 Nicole Brown Simpson and her male friend Ronald Goldman are savagely murdered in front of Simpson's condominium complex in Brentwood, California. The most plausible suspect turns out to be Nicole's estranged husband O.J., who is arrested for the crime a month later.

Wait there's more

Jun 11 1881 A phantom vessel appears in the sky to the passengers and crew of the ship Bacchante, including Price Albert Victor and Prince George, both sons of the Prince of Wales. Jun 11 1936 Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, suicides by blowing his brains out. Jun 11 1955 An Austin-Healy and Mercedes-Benz collide at the Le Mans Grand Prix. The Mercedes drove into a dirt retaining wall, disintegrated, and the hood, chassis, and various auto parts sliced through the spectator crowd. Eighty-three were killed, and 100 others were missing various "parts". Jun 11 1962 Frank Morris and the brothers John and Clarence Anglin escape from Alcatraz. Jun 11 1963 Protesting the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam, Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection. Jun 11 1963 Governor Wallace stands in the schoolhouse door, blocking admission of blacks to the University of Alabama. Jun 11 1964 Just after 9am, deranged World War II veteran Walter Seifert barges into a busy Cologne, Germany elementary school with a homemade flamethrower. He then proceeds to burn 8 children to death and seriously injure 21 others. In the process, he also stabs 2 teachers to death with a lance. Before police are finally able to apprehend him with a gunshot to the leg, Seifert swallows insecticide and proceeds to die in the hospital the next day. Jun 11 1979 John Wayne dead of lung cancer. Jun 11 1993 Actor Ray Sharkey dead from AIDS. Ray was a cocaine/heroin addict who appeared as mobster Sonny Steelgrave on the TV show Wiseguy. Jun 11 1999 I ' M D E A D J I M DeForest Kelley, "Bones" from the original Star Trek television series, dead of a "lingering illness".   Thanks to www.rotten.com

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No! This is really weird. What next will science pick gifted minds for.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 19:09 | link | comments

Neon Saturn

Flying over the unlit side of Saturn's rings, the Cassini spacecraft captures the planet's glow, represented in brilliant shades of electric blue, sapphire and mint green, while the planet's shadow casts a wide net on the rings.

This striking mosaic was created from 25 images taken by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer over a period of 13 hours, and captures Saturn in nighttime and daytime conditions.

This image was acquired on Feb. 24, 2007, when Cassini was 1.58 million kilometers (1 million miles) from the planet and 34.6 degrees above the ring plane. The solar phase angle was 69.5 degrees. In this view, Cassini was looking down on the northern, unlit side of the rings, which are rendered visible by sunlight filtering through from the sunlit, southern face.

A pronounced difference in the brightness between the northern and southern hemispheres is apparent. The northern hemisphere is about twice as bright as the southern hemisphere. This is because high-level, fine particles are about half as prevalent in the northern hemisphere as in the south. These particles block Saturn's glow more strongly, making Saturn look brighter in the north.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona


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Avalanche 

 I don't know, maybe I'm a coward, but I would most probably run my butt off in the opposite direction.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 01:19 | link | comments (2)

I'm into trains. I was a qualified engineer on three types of early locomotives. An Alco RS-1(rebuilt to include the tyical EMD control stand), S-1., and an EMD SW-9.

Posted by: NeutronNorman at 15:56 | link | comments

Sand Sharks, Leave them alone!

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Young Stars Emerge From Orion's Head

This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows infant stars "hatching" in the head of the hunter constellation, Orion. Astronomers suspect that shockwaves from a supernova explosion in Orion's head nearly three million years ago may have initiated this newfound birth.

The region featured in this Spitzer image is called Barnard 30, located approximately 1,300 light-years away and sits on the right side of Orion's "head," just north of the massive star Lambda Orionis.

Wisps of green in the cloud are organic molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These molecules are formed any time carbon-based materials are burned incompletely. On Earth, they can be found in the sooty exhaust from automobile and airplane engines. They also coat the grills where charcoal-broiled meats are cooked.

Tints of orange-red in the cloud are dust particles warmed by the newly forming stars. The reddish-pink dots at the top of the cloud are very young stars embedded in a cocoon of cosmic gas and dust. Blue spots throughout the image are background Milky Way along this line of sight.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Laboratorio de Astrofísica Espacial y Física Fundamental


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The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star

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