Category Archives: Astronomy

Buzz Aldrin told a ‘Toy Story’ joke. Babyman is confused.

Posted on by
Reply

Babyman did something involving space and NASA this past week. I don’t feel like I have to explain it because he didn’t know what he was doing, so what’s the point? Anyway, he continues his never-ending efforts to show he doesn’t have a clue, even though he loves ceremonies where they give him a pen so he can write his name in big-boy letters on papers people put in front of him. (Via Gizmodo):

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday to revive the National Space Council, signifying a renewed (yet vague) focus on space exploration. Colonel Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, was there to witness the event. He tried to liven the room with a Buzz Lightyear quip, only to have Trump crash and burn on the landing pad.

It kind of went like this:

Babyman: We know what this is, space. That’s all it has to say, space. (Then, to Aldrin), There’s a lot of room out there, right?

Buzz Aldrin: Infinity and beyond. (Laughter)

Babyman: This is infinity here. It could be infinity. We don’t really don’t know. But it could be. It has to be something, but it could be infinity, right?

 And the world erupts in one great face palm.

Beyond clouds: Meet the Milky Way

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s a timelapse flight from Europe to South America and the view a pilot has at night.

Now I know it’s beautiful, but I can’t help thinking “wouldn’t it be great to get from Europe to South America in less than three minutes?”

According to the pilot:

Our flight is packed and some 340 passengers are settling in for a long night flight. Its my turn to be at the flightdeck for the first part of the journey, as my other co-pilot gets the chance to rest in the crew bunk above the passenger cabin. We are heading our westbound, along the clearly visible Alps to our left. Just before reaching Geneva and the western tip of Switzerland we are making a shallow left turn to join the Rhone valley leading us to Marseille and onward onto the Mediterranean Sea. Our routing will bring us towards Algeria and on across the northwestern part of the vast Sahara. We will be flying past Dakar in Senegal where we will be heading out onto the Atlantic Ocean. Our south-westerly course will get us across the wide blue – in fact it was pitch-black during the night – to the north eastern shore of Brazil. Landfall is expected just north of Rio de Janeiro and the remaining few hundred miles will get us straight towards Sao Paolo. Our landing is expected around 6am local time, still before the sun will rise.

Life in the solar system

Posted on by
Reply

From Gizmodo:

Saturn’s moon Enceladus features a warm subterranean ocean covered in ice. In an extraordinary new finding, scientists have confirmed the existence of a chemical energy source within this moon’s water that’s capable of sustaining living organisms here on Earth. Enceladus is now officially the best place beyond Earth to look for life.

Molecular hydrogen is being produced in the ocean of Enceladus, according to a new study published today in Science. The most plausible source of this hydrogen is hydrothermal reactions between hot rocks and water in the ocean beneath the moon’s icy surface. So in addition to warm water, organic molecules, and certain minerals, this moon is also producing an accessible source of energy that could conceivably support alien microbes.

Indeed, hydrothermal processes near volcanic vents are known to sustain complex ecosystems here on Earth. The new study marks an important development in our ability to assess the habitability of distant celestial objects, while setting the stage for future missions.

Hopefully, we are going to do future missions. But the way things are going, the “we” is a global “we” instead of an American “we”, since there’s an anti-science pathology in the pigmy fingered pinhead’s administration.

An analysis of ‘Arrival’

Posted on by
Reply

The Oscars are coming up this weekend and I know my pick for the Best Picture of the year isn’t going to win. (If you click on the video, be aware there are spoilers.)

I think “Arrival” is a great movie, and I believe Amy Adams was robbed of a nomination because I was sure she would have won the best actress award.

I was in awe when I saw where it was going and I still can’t stop thinking about its message about life and time. But when I talked to intelligent people about it, the response was, “what the hell was that all about?”

I’ve seen it four times since then, and it’s been great every time.

The odds of intelligent life in the universe

Posted on by
Reply

Two things.

  1. If someone is our there, do we really want them to know how insane thing have gotten since Jan. 20?
  2. Maybe someone is out there, has already found our transmissions and said, “Hell no!  Those people are crazy!”

Because look at it this way. Transmissions are radio waves. The first public radio broadcast was on Jan. 13, 1910, and it was music. Since radio waves travel at the speed of light, that means that broadcast has traveled for 107 years or a distance of 107 light years. Pretty far.

Since that time, we’ve broadcast everything from news to entertainment. So an alien civilization tuning in to the radio would think we’re a dangerous place, since entertainment includes science fiction about battling alien invasion (remember “War of the Worlds“?) and murder mysteries, not to mention actual wars and general mayhem that humans seem to enjoy so much..

Then we bring in television, and the first TV broadcast was in 1928 of a ventriloquist’s dummy. Since that time, we’ve broadcast images of war, destruction, murder and mayhem that’s travelled 89 light years. Seeing destruction is much more unnerving that hearing destruction.

So maybe the first thing they saw wasn’t death and destruction, but they caught the first television broadcast in the United States, which happened in 1936. What would civilizations that live 80 light years away from us have seen?

OK, it’s official. Humans are weird. Stay away.