Ancient Egypt: From the British Museum

Ancient Egypt – Menu page.

A very interesting an informative website from the British Museum.

The Most Beautiful Machine, 2003

The Most Beautiful Machine, 2003.
Well, I don’t know about the “most beautiful.” Certainly one of the strangest.

 

Curiosity Landing a Success; First Images Received From Martian Surface

The Curiosity Rover is safely on the Martian surface. The picture shows the first two images taken on the surface, just several minutes ago. In the first image, on the right, you can see a wheel of the rover; the horizon and the sun are in the distance. The second image, to the left, was taken in the opposite direction and shows the shadow of the vehicle, itself.

Mission controllers showing both exultation and relief as Curiosity reports that it is safely on the Martian surface.

The Story of the Space Needle

The Story of the Seattle Space Needle is an Infographic by Hotels.com.

NASAs Newest Launch Vehicle on the Drawing Board

The many successes and achievements of the SSTS nothwithstanding, I still am forced to wonder how the flying body/space plane concept fit into this scheme, since this is essentially a beefed up Apollo, right up to the never-tested and of unknown efficacy escape tower and ablating  heat shield. In terms of what they were trying to do with the shuttle program, this is either a step backwards or SSTS was a misguided, albeit highly expensive sideline.

The upside is that with advancements in materials science and computer technology, this is gonna be one beefy SOB, as attested to by a size that exceeds the Saturn V.  It’s gonna be a glorious thing to see/hear  launch. From at least ten miles away.

Source: SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

The Great Earth-Grazing Fireball of August 10, 1972

At 2:30 pm local time on August 10, 1972, an asteroid ranging from car-to-house size entered the Earth’s atmosphere over  Utah, and traveled northwards at an altitude of approximate 35 miles for 100 seconds, finally exiting the atmosphere somewhere over Alberta, its mass substantially reduced and its orbit around the sun dramatically changed.

Linda Baker, a tourist in Grand Teton National Park captured the following footage with her 8mm camera–

 

 

“The Planets” – A Poem

I first encountered this poem by Diane Ackerman in one of the late Carl Sagan’s books, many years ago, and it has remained with me, ever since.

We imagine them
flitting
cheek to jowl,
these driftrocks
of cosmic ash
thousandfold afloat
between Jupiter and Mars.
Frigga,
Fanny,
Adelheid
Lacrimosa.
Names to conjure with,
Dakotan black hills,
A light-opera
Staged on a barrier reef.
And swarm they may have,
Crumbly as blue-cheese,
That ur-moment
when the solar system
broke wind.
But now
they lumber
so wide apart
from each
to its neighbor’s
pinprick-glow
slant millions
and millions
of watertight miles.
Only in the longest view
do they graze
like one herd
on a breathless tundra.

- Diane Ackerman,
The Planets (New York, Morrow, 1976)