Good Little Rover

The Mars Rover Spirit is currently parked for the winter. Opportunity has been exploring a rock formation called the Chocolate Hills.

Analemma

Happy Winter Solstice, everyone!

What I'll be doing instead of having fun this Friday and Saturday

This is how I will be spending my Friday evening, rather than having fun with good company, good food, and a glass of wine. Once a year, every medical accelerator has to have an extensive round of testing done. This tank is a "water phantom". It is pictured here with a Varian 21-EX linear accelerator. The water phantom is used for a variety of tests and calibrations. I'll be doing much of this work after hours on Friday and continuing on into Saturday.

Catblogging will continue when I am less busy.

Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider is online today. It may be the end of the world, but I feel fine.

For some reason, whenever I try to type "hadron", I accidentally switch the D and the R. Hilarity ensues. I mean, what's not funny about a "large hardon collider"?

Still Raw

If this is your kind of humor, you'll find more here.

It works, bitches.

Like my new t-shirt?

The back has a graph of the background microwave radiation of the universe, showing data from the COBE mission plotted over the theoretical curve (equation included at no extra charge). The perfect match is a beautiful thing. Science works!

The cats gave it to me for my birthday. Those kids really know how to shop.

A Blood Red Moon

Don't miss tonight's total eclipse of the moon!

Partial Eclipse Begins 8:43 pm EST
Total Eclipse Begins 10:00 pm EST
Mid-Eclipse 10:26 pm EST
Total Eclipse Ends 10:52 pm EST
Partial Eclipse Ends 12:09 am EST

How rusty is your 8th grade science?

Why are there so many things out there comparing adult knowledge to that of an 8th grader? What's up with that? Is there something special about the 8th grade that I don't know about (possibly because I am not smarter than an eighth grader)?

I couldn't resist giving this one a whirl:

Dang. A- is OK I guess, but with two masters degrees and many years of postgraduate education in physics, I shouldn't have missed any of these. In my defense, the two I missed had nothing to do with physics.

Happy Solstice

It wouldn't be right if I didn't give you a geeky link or two.

Pity Poor Pluto

Not only is it not a planet, turns out it ain't even the largest dwarf planet in the solar system.

Alien Landscapes

Check out today's Astronomy Picture of the Day. It shows an artist's vision of what the newly discovered 'earth-like planet' Gliese 581c might look like, complete with very large and dim red dwarf sun looming low on the horizon. In addition to being a larger star than our sun, this star would look huge to planet dwellers due to the very close orbital distance (closer than Mercury's orbit around our sun). None of us will ever experience a truly alien landscape such as this, but it is interesting to speculate about what it would be like.

New Worlds and Giant Fungi

A prehistoric mystery fossil has finally been identified as being a 20 foot tall fungus. Originally thought to be a conifer, the carbon diversity of the fossil was too great for it to have been a plant. (Fungi are between plant and animal life in terms of complexity.) The fossil fungus was a variety that became extinct around 350 million years ago. Apparently, before animal life took over the planet, fungi used to rule the world. The tallest trees were only about a meter high, while towering fungi were commonplace. It would be eons before animal life grew large enough to trample the fungi into more manageable sizes. A planet full of giant fungi and miniature trees would be interesting to see. And maybe one day we will see something like that, perhaps on a world such as the one described below.

In other news, a habitable planet was found outside our solar system, orbiting a red dwarf. It is a bit larger than earth and has a very short orbital period, but its temperature range would support liquid water. No word on rotation or the presence of an atmosphere. It orbits a red dwarf star, which is larger and less bright than our own sun. Wouldn't it be cool if we ever got to colonize a new planet, and it turned out to harbor life in its prehistoric stages, with giant 20 foot fungi all over the place? Like being an alien world wouldn't be strange enough. Giant fungi! That would really be something.

The nifty illustration is a scanned image of the cover of my 1978 Avon edition of Omnivore. I would credit the artist, but the book doesn't name names.

Scientists Discover Kryptonite.

Yes, really. Scientists recently found a new crystalline material that has the same chemical formula as kryptonite: sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide.

The kryptonite, or 'jadarite' as they prefer to call it, was discovered in Serbia. Only it isn't green or radioactive, doesn't contain fluorine, and doesn't glow. What a letdown.

The scientists describe it as a white, powdery substance. Maybe it's white kryptonite. If so, Superman has nothing to fear, but the plants of Serbia are in big trouble.

Disclaimer: The picture of the green crystal may look pretty, but it is an emerald - NOT kryptonite, or jadarite!

What's the deal with pollen counts?

According to our local newspaper, a pollen count over 120 particles per cubic meter is "extremely high". We've had three days this week with pollen counts over 5000. This is an order of magnitude greater than "extremely high" on the scale. There is no way to distinguish any difference between a pollen count of 500 or 1000 or 5000 without resorting to ridiculous nomenclature. Very extremely high? Stupendously amazingly high? Really, really astronomically tremendously very high?

What we need is a non-linear scale for pollen counts. Sort of a pollen count Richter scale, if you like. Because otherwise, every spring day that does not include rain will end up being rated "extremely high" for pollen, and that doesn't tell us anything that a glance at our car wouldn't give away.

Spring: geeky facts, cleaning, and crossing stuff off my list

It's official -- as of 8:07pm EDT, 3/20/07 (or 00:07 UTC, 3/21/07 if you want to get technical) the vernal equinox has arrived! Now here is where I would usually post a bunch of science geek links about the event. Oh what the hell. Here they are: Why are the day and night not exactly equal on the first day of spring? Because the sun is not a point source! That whole "standing an egg on its end on the vernal equinox" thing is bad astronomy, i.e. just a myth. If you are dying to know the exact moment spring arrives, here are the dates of the vernal equinox every year from 1452 to 2547. That ought to cover ya.

I'm feeling the need for sunshine and spring cleaning. Not exactly looking forward to the cleaning part of it, but we ordered a new vacuum cleaner and when that puppy arrives, I will be vacuuming every surface in the house. Cats beware!! There are dust bunnies bigger than a rottweiler floating around under things and in corners and it is high time we get rid of them. Our vintage 1965 vacuum needs the bearings re-packed, and nobody seems to want to do it even if we pay them good money, so the house has not had a decent vacuuming in months (just a quick going over with our little stick vac right before company comes).

And for some other fresh news, I'm happy to report that I am writing this post using my newly-repaired notebook computer. You know, the one that has been broken for approximately two years, that I never used because it was such a pain in the ass to get it to boot up. That one. I finally sent it in, and now that it has a new motherboard, it is as good as it ever was. Getting this sucker fixed was number one on my big damn list of shameful procrastination, so I am happy that it is now a "to enjoy" item rather than a "to do" item. I guess that one of these months I'll have to move on down the list and get a new cell phone with a local number.

Did you miss it?

If you missed the total eclipse of the moon last weekend, there is a lovely picture of it over at Astronomy Picture Of The Day.

Eclipse Watch

Don't forget there is a total lunar eclipse this evening. The moon will spend 74 minutes completely within the earth's shadow, and will appear reddish. It should be a great show. You don't even have to stay up late.

Here in Atlanta the moon will rise at 18:32 EST, just after mid-totality. The moon remains in totality until 18:58 EST. The eclipse ends at 21:25 EST. To find out when events will occur in your local timezone, click on this handy link.

Like I Need Another Reason To Eat Chocolate...

Now it's good for your brain. This is great news!

(I'm blatantly choosing to ignore the fact that the study was paid for by Mars Inc., and is no doubt completely biased and unrealiable. La la la lalalala -- I cannot hear your voice of logic and reason telling me this is too good to be true -- lala la. My brain has latched firmly onto this new factoid and is filing it right next to the "red wine is good for you" area.)

To The Moon, Alice!

In honor of the first full moon of 2007, I am blatantly ripping off today's Astronomy Picture of the Day because it was so cool. [OK, not a total ripoff - I used a different image of the moon and I'm throwing in some extra links.] The moon orbits the earth in an elliptical orbit, not a circular one. Since the distance from the earth to the moon is not constant, the full moon varies in apparent size. This can be easily seen in this series of images showing twenty consecutive full moons. The slight wobble you see is called libration. Each Full Moon of the year has a traditional name (or two, or three). Once in a blue moon, there is a blue moon, like the one we'll see this spring.

I enjoy looking at and photographing the moon during all of its phases. One of the quiet pleasures of winter is to take a walk in the woods under a full moon. Without the leaf canopy, the moonlight filters through the bare branches and lights your path. Everything is still and quiet. The stars twinkle in the cold, crisp air. Lovely.

Enjoy the Wolf Moon, y'all.