Archive for the 'Space' Category

An Astronaut and Alien

Sunday, February 13th, 2022

  • (Madison Chock and Evan Bates)

    Happy Valentine’s Day!

    Happy birthday Harriet Andersson (90 years old today)

  • <> <> <>
    (Peter Weller and Diane Keaton in Shoot the Moon)
    Also a birthday of Alan Parker who directed Midnight Express, Shoot the Moon, Angel Heart etc. (See an obit for Alan Parker who passed away July 2020)

  • Maria Mitchell’s Dome Party at Vassar

    Thursday, August 1st, 2013

    Google celebrates Maria Mitchell today.

    Maria Mitchell (August 1, 1818 – June 28, 1889) was an American astronomer who, in 1847, by using a telescope, discovered a comet which as a result became known as “Miss Mitchell’s Comet”.
    Maria Mitchell was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts. She was a first cousin four times removed of Benjamin Franklin.[5] She had nine brothers and sisters. Her parents, William Mitchell and Lydia Coleman Mitchell, were Quakers. Maria Mitchell was born into a community unusual for its time in regard to equality for women. Her parents, like other Quakers, valued education and insisted on giving her the same quality of education that boys received. One of the tenets of the Quaker religion was intellectual equality between the sexes.

    Maria Mitchell at Vassar

    Mitchell used her observatory dome not only for the study of science, but also as a gathering place for the discussion of politics and women’s issues. On May 10, 1875, Julia Ward Howe, Maria Mitchell’s guest (and composer of the Civil War anthem “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”) lectured in the observatory on “Is Polite Society Polite?” One of Mitchell’s popular traditions was her annual “dome party,” which took place for the first time on June 16, 1870. On that occasion Mitchell introduced a game in which everyone took turns in writing poems on scraps of recycled paper. One poem that day was composed by Mitchell and addressed to Mary Mineah, an undergraduate student, on her 24th birthday. Another poem ran:
    Some rhymes are fitted by Eleanor Clark
    Pleasing words like lark and park,
    But such rhymes as Bark and Cark
    These are not for Eleanor Clark,
    and,
    Some rhymes are fitted to Eleanor Peirce
    Pleasing words like nurse and verse
    But such words as curse and worse
    These are not for Eleanor Peirce.
    In June 1883 these verses were arranged to imitate the words of Auld Lang Syne

    Planets & Space 2012

    Sunday, December 30th, 2012
  • <>

  • Auroras
    Night time view of Auraras over Canada (via Nasa Shines New Light Earth)

  • Furure physics amazing web art by Rafael Rodendaal(move your mouse, grab a planet and hit another planet and so on).

  • Happy New Year!

    Mission to Mars

    Saturday, July 7th, 2012

  • Nasa Imge mission to Mars

    Nasa scientists say crater, formed by an impact billions of years ago, is the largest yet encountered

    Tom Sachs (Space Talk – previous post)

  • The Soviets used to hold atomic weapons at Vogelsang — ready to strike at a moments notice. This crumbling fresco of Russian astronauts serves as a reminder of the former might of the USSR.

    A photographic journey through an abandoned Sovient Military Base.

    Space Talk

    Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

    Stephen Colbert interviews Neils deGrasse Tyson

  • Lunar Tom Sachs

  • Black hole lensing Moving Side by Side

  • Tom Sachs Nasa

  • Kepler by Philip Glass

    Monday, December 27th, 2010

    Kepler Opera (youtube in German)
    A review from last year (NYtimes)

    Johannes Kepler was born on December 27, 1571, he was the first strong supporter of the heliocentric theory of Copernicus and the discoverer of the three laws of planetary motion.
    Kepler Nasa homepage

    The chart keplerhoroscope drawn by Kepler.
    (Recently discovered horoscope calculated by Kepler for an Austrian nobleman named Hans Hannibal Hütter von Hütterhofen, who was born in 1586.)

    Arthur Koestler ArthurKoestler and Kepler (previous post – one year ago)

  • Koestler and Kepler; the perfect fusion.

  • keplerglass

  • Elsewhere:
    David Foster Wallace david_foster_wallace and Wittgenstein.

    Philosophical Sweep
    To understand the fiction of David Foster Wallace, it helps to have a little Wittgenstein.
    By James Ryerson

    David Foster Wallace (previous post)

    An interview of DFW (Boston Phoenix)

    The Structuralist claude_levi-strauss
    A biography explores Claude Lévi-Strauss’ fascination with what makes cultures tick

    In Claude Lévi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory (Penguin Press, $29.95), Patrick Wilcken has written the biography not just of a man, but of an intoxicating intellectual moment.

    Claude Lévi-Strauss (previous post)

    Telescope & Flap a Phone

    Friday, August 14th, 2009

    15041w_beethovenstrumpet
    Beethoven’s Trumpet John Baldessari from Tate.

    Christopher DeLaurenti plays Goofus on flap a phone

    Christopher

    Johanna plays drum (recorded by jtwine)

    Johanna <>

    Now once more with feeling you can play both video together and let them jam. (One in Seattle and the other in San Francisco)

    valery57
    Valery Grancher 2009 Space Odyesy

    Is that what Jurgen is trying so hard to see?

    Or a little jurgenpaper tree. ( Field work 4 – jtwine blog)

    Backward Planet here New Planet found to rotate backward.

    orsted09 Hans Christian Ørsted
    Google did not celebrate Steve Martin, Wim Wenders and Richard Von Kraft Ebing

    NAS(A)U Digi Day

    Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

    <> <> <> Google Nasu Day or 50th anniversary of NASA

    Phoenix Mars Lander
    nasamars

    <> <> Death Valley Sky deathvalleysky_nps1
    Night Sky Death Valley photos recognized by NASA

    Death Valley Video by Philip Bloom (With good music and good editing)

    Update:Funny Face Space Man <> Drilling the gallery floor <> NASA according to Tom Sachs

    Mid March Mars Madness

    Monday, March 13th, 2006

    Percival Lowell at google Mars is celebrating Percival Lowell who was born on March 13.

    Percival was a businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars, founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and formed the beginning of the effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death.

    Click to see large
    Percival observing Venus from the Lowell Observatory in 1914.

  • Percival Lowell and his book on Korea
    Percival Lowell
    (Right image source)

    Mars and Its Canals his sketch of canals, more interesting image of his drawing.

    “Shifting his interests to astronomy, he established the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona in 1894 and in 1895 wrote the first of his three books about the planet Mars. Although Lowell mistakenly concluded that Mars displayed evidence of intelligent beings, he awakened wide popular interest in the planet, including fantasy literature, War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells in 1898, as well as a riot inducing 1938 radio broadcast declaring Invasion from Mars by Orson Wells” (Via)

    “Many Flee Homes to Escape ‘Gas Raid From Mars’–Phone Calls Swamp Police at Broadcast of Wells Fantasy
    This article appeared in the New York Times on Oct. 31, 1938.” (Radio’s War of the Worlds Broadcast – from here)
    “Eventually Lowell’s theory was discredited. We have not, however, given up on our search for signs of life on Mars. Recent missions to Mars have discovered features on the surface that bare an extraordinary resemblance to dry river beds on Earth. It is possible that there may have been liquid water on the surface of Mars, and therefore, there may have been life.”Misunderstanding Mars.

    Lowell’s birth chart, here
    (Planets all in one corner – inclined to tunnel vision or canal vision).

    Two hustlers from the right share a birthday on March 11, Antonin Scalia and Rupert Murdoch. Scalia no longer goes duck hunting with Cheney but he is alive and serving the bench.
    March 11 is the birthday of Terrence Howard of “Hustle and Flow”. He plays a pimp in the movie.
    Our planet has a way of balancing good and evil, Jack Kerouac and Edward Albee were born on March 12 to give us literature and truthiness.

    Let us watch our planets in motion.
    Draw a flower with Moon’s motion.

    Mars retrograde.