Only in Japan. Only. in. Japan.

Better than "cats and dogs", I suppose.

Happy birthday, Bruce McCandless!

McCandless was the first guy to try out the MMU in space.
The G-rated version of the phrase that springs to mind when I see this photo of him would be "nerves of steel."
I guess I've heard Space Oddity one too many times, because this photo makes my stomach turn.

Above: Bruce McCandless goes renegade after one rehydrated beef stew too many:
"You know what? FORGET IT! I'll get my own damn dinner!"

Friday Song

I'd like to post a video of the lovely first movement of William Herschel's Chamber Symphony in F ; alas, there isn't one on You Tube and I'm much too lazy to make one.
But this is good, too.

Good gravy.

Yaron Koler of Israel snapped this photo of the ISS and the Moon - in broad friggin' daylight.
H/T Spaceweather.com, of course.

Project Constellation goes dumpster diving.

Reduce, reuse, recycle, y'all!

Wow! The stars at night are big and bright!

So. very. beautiful.

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

:(

RIP, Kevin Beurle.

Of course...

this particular type of meteorite costs three times as much as a regular meteorite and is only available at Whole Foods.

Friday Song

Gol drat, this was a good album.

90th anniversary of the "Relativity Eclipse"

90 years ago today, Arthur Stanley Eddington viewed "the eclipse that proved Relativity."
Eddington photographed the Hyades during the eclipse, then compared these photos to the ones he had taken of the Hyades the night before.

Einstein was right, of course.

Space is flexible and warped (sorry, Newton) and the light passing near massive objects bends due to gravity. And that gravity actually shifts the positions of the smaller objects when they near something massive.

Of course, you can't SEE objects near massive bodies, because massive bodies are very, very bright. (Except for black holes, right. But this was 1919.) Eddington had an idea which now seems obvious. Observe objects near the Sun during a total eclipse, and you'll know whether their positions are shifted by the Sun's gravity. Conveniently, the calendar showed there would be a solar eclipse on May 29th.

There you have it.

Above: The proof

Press reaction was extraordinary. Almost immediately, the word "Einstein" became a synonym for "genius" and remains one to this day.



Big ups to Eddington for getting the eclipse idea, and for organizing the expeditions to both Brazil and West Africa to get the photos.

Below: "Suckas."