The Boston Globe has an absolutely stunning series of high-resolution images of our nearest star in the ocean of suns.
I’ve put the following very large (3 MB) animated image file behind a spoiler tag for your dial-up protection. Click on “More”, then click on the image to open the animation.
Hard to believe, but this is not the most stunning picture available.
Jeff Patterson Conquers the Solar System.
The model consists of markers with hand-painted globes spaced out across forty miles of Maine countryside.
…At this scale one mile equals one AU, and the speed of light is 7 MPH. A brisk walk becomes relativistic, incurring sizable time dialation. Even the lowest speed limit is several magnitudes into the transluminal. It is also staggering to realize that Alpha Centauri would be about as far as the moon.
Lovely graphic simulator of the effects of gravity on the universe, from simple two-body problems to colliding galaxies.
The Universe Sandbox.
[Click to enlarge. More screenshots here.]
Less than a decade ago, this was the province of room-sized supercomputers. Now available on your desktop.
I do so dearly love living in the future, although unfortunately, I haven’t been able to try this out for myself since it’s Windows-only. I have got to get around to setting up Wine or dual-boot.
Link from frequent commenter Chanda via email.
Bad Astronomy points theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking very rightly ripping British politicians for eviscerating the science budget. It’s a great article, well worth reading, but Hawking doesn’t get the good quote. That comes at the end of the article, and is from Brian Cox, of the Large Hadron Collider project:
The notion that scientists will make a more valuable contribution to the economic and social wellbeing of the world if their research is closely directed by politicians is the most astonishing piece of nonsense I have had the misfortune to come across in a long time.
["Very Scientific"?]
Friend Chanda (Hi Chanda! Glad I finally found something that ticked you off enough to make you speak up!) rightfully upbraids me on a point that’s been nagging at me since I posted the Google Black story:
I mean, my god(s), it’d be nice to see the freaking Milky Way again no?
Darn betcha, and I should have followed my instincts and at least mentioned the Dark Sky movement, which I am wholly sympathetic to, and which has nothing to do with the Google Black / Earth Hour insanity.
Light pollution is a serious problem for all of us who see the sun as our nearest star, and the night sky as an ocean of suns.
From Astronomy Magazine’s article on the International Dark-Sky Association:
Without question, lights help us feel secure. Whether in our houses, our cars, or on our sidewalks, we bask in the protective glow of lights. The IDA does not seek to eliminate such useful and necessary forms of lighting. Instead, it just hopes to modify the current excessive lighting practices. Following through with such efforts can conserve energy, reduce harmful glare on the road, and of course, allow for a purer view of the night sky. The IDA, though, is trying to convince local and state governments to light intelligently and, coincidentally, economically.
For this reason, I am not likely to, say, install a “six-bar of 1kw PAR-64’s” as a permanent protest fixture.
Of course, simple thrift dictates turning out unused lights, and being as efficient as possible. I’ve even installed a few CFL’s, although I have some problems with that particular solution to the insane wastefulness of ordinary incandescents. I eagerly await good-looking LED lamps, or even something more exotic.
What I do have a problem with is people wanting to turning out their lights to, in my view, protest civilization. Instapunk eloquently rebuts that trend:
Think about it. Your idea of progress is watching the lights go out on civilization? It’s never occurred to you that the beginning of the self-absorbed obsession you have with yourselves occurred in the torchlight of the aged twenty-somethings who finally had the post-sunset leisure time to invent social criticism (i.e., art) in the Lascaux caves 15,000 years ago?
But you’ve used your so-called rationalism to turn everything 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Your ancestors equated light with life. You’ve tricked yourselves into equating light with death.
Read the whole damning thing. That’s what ‘Punk, Beck, Tremayne, the Grouch, and I and many others were railing about yesterday.
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