The Cassini spacecraft detected warmth, water and organic chemicals, the basic ingredients for life on Saturn’s small moon, Enceladus, reinforcing scientists’ believe that our solar system has favorable conditions appropriate for living organisms to develop. full story

Shocking!

Amazing!

This solar system may actually have life in it!

I hear there is this place called Earth that they should check out.

The USSR launched Sputnik 50 years ago today, starting the space age.

Poll #1065940
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

In the next 50 years, humans will...

Sol, lifebringer and lightgiver, our star, the one which holds us tight and keeps at bay the outer darkness. Sol, thank you. Your winds dance in our sky and your breath allows our existence. There is nothing more powerful, nothing greater, nothing more brilliant or amazing in this system than Sol. While there may be bigger things out there, that effect our existence here and now than does Sol. While today we may look to Sol, truly everyday is Sol's day, for without Sol there are no days.

Gliese 581c brings up the tidal lock issue: if Gliese 581c is tidally locked to Gliese 581 then one side of the planet would be scorched while the other would be frozen, rendering the planet uninhabitable for water-dependant life. Most of the planets detected so far (including Gliese 581c) have been only detected through indirect measurements of their mass, we no nothing of the structure of that mass. It is possible at least some of these are double planets. Though perhaps unlikely — if Gliese 581c is a double planet, both planets might be tidally lock to each other instead of the star similar to the situation in Asimov's Nemesis, allowing for liquid water and possibly water-dependant life.

The possibility of life on Gliese 581c brings up something that has been a bit of a minor mental obsession of mine: life that has evolved vision is likely to evolve vision keyed to the spectra of light it most often encounters. Life evolving around a red dwarf would not likely see the same spectra of light we see. Blue would be of little use and their visual range would probably be shifted into the infrared. Something printed red-on-white or blue-on-black in our eyes might simply look like a blank page to such a life form and their chosen inks may be only visible in the near-infrared and be invisible to us. Perceptual differences such as that would serve to further complicate communications with intelligent extraterrestrial life. It is easy to assume our perception of light and sound and smell and feel is the default, because within humanity we consider anything outside of that default a disorder. Our bias is sample bias, and other intelligent life in the universe is likely to perceive things in vastly different ways than we can even imagine.

For each statement, please indicate how much you agree or disagree.
-5 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree

Poll #960552
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Honesty is always the best policy.

Pluto is a planet.

Snow is a good and wonderful thing.

Black jelly beans are the best.

The world will be a better place in 50 years than it is today.

I've been thinking about the Hexagon of Saturn ever since I read about it on apod this morning. It looks almost solid in the time lapse movie. It seems the wind shear should rip such a fine shape to shreds on Saturn, but it has been there for over 20 years. The thing is huge, 3 earths wide. While there is a good chance that a natural explanation for this will be found (polygons have been know to appear in the eye walls of Earth hurricanes as well as in rapidly spinning buckets of water), it is still fantastic enough to spark my imagination in ways the "face" on Mars never did.

Happy Solstice

Today, I thank Sol for providing the light that has guided my days, kept warm the air I breath, allowed grow the food I eat. The center of our spinning system, our little plot in the Universe. Your glory will continue to shine billions of years after I'm gone.

Though there are many others of your kind, you are the caretaker of my world and therefore I honor you above your siblings. You hold a place in our sky and our hearts. Thank you.

ganked from many:

On the twelfth day of Christmas, neitherday sent to me...

Twelve squirrels suffering

Eleven strings writing

Ten crows a-kissing

Nine cats birdwatching

Eight trees a-scrying

Seven cigars a-walking

Six politics a-nothing

Five ci-i-i-ivil liberties

Four zebra finches

Three haunted houses

Two psych wards

...and a luna in an astronomy.

Get your own Twelve Days:

So, the planet vote was "hijacked". I thought having a near unanimous vote sounded a bit odd. I don't like the new definition and prefer the original proposal. Sure if the number of planets jumps to over 200 the word "planet" might lose some of it's "stature", but the definition is the most basic one and natural one. Science isn't about convenience or seemliness or popularity, it's about figuring out what is. The new complicated definition of "planet" only serves to complicate and confuse matters. It is not science, it's PR.

Sol gives us life and light. Without Sol this planet, if it existed at all, would be but a frozen lump hurtling through space. We owe so much to the Sol, that it is only appropriate to look upon the brilliance with reverence. There needs be no religious aspect to such reverence, just mindfulness that all that exists here is due to that most wondrous and grand object in the solar system.

The scale of Sol is so immense that it defies human comprehension. I edited a small blue dot into this image from APOD a while ago, to give a better sense of scale to a solar prominence. The small blue dot represents the relative size of Earth to Sol.

Each lines in this table contains three copies of the exact same icon set on different background colours. If you have a browser that handles .png images correctly, the same icon will look different on each background colour. I though it would be cool if different people saw different icons depending on their layout, and these icons will achieve that effect. Feel free to take any of the six icons here if you like the concept.

WHITE	BLUE	BLACK