HUBBLE THURSDAY

(The Pleiades, visible to the naked-eye [just 430 light years away], are a 100 million year old open star cluster. They contain well over a thousand stars; the "spikes" of light surrounding the bright stars are due to the diffraction of light at the secondary mirror supports. Click on image to enlarge.)

Every Thursday, I post a very large photograph of some corner of space captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and available online from the picture album at HubbleSite.


The moon has set, and the Pleiades; it is midnight, the time is going by, and I sleep alone. ~~Fragment #52 by Sappho.

ANOTHER WORD NOW RENDERED MEANINGLESS

Overheard in Buenos Aires: "Yess, yess, he vass my SSSOULMATE!"


For more reading, check out Jill's post at Brilliant at Breakfast. What she said. Plus, I'm so glad Republican Christianist heterosexuals are preserving the sanctity of marriage for all of civilization, aren't you?


[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]

LOLCATS WEEKLY ROUND-UP, 30 JUNE 2009

Here's the weekly best of what I've gleaned from I Can Has Cheezburger efforts. There are some really creative folks out there. As usual, those from little gator lead the pack.

Kitteh Does The Laser Dance

TIME-LAPSE MONDAY

Here's your weekly time-lapse video showing a fascinating natural event. Hat-tip to WordWeaverLynn for the original link, and Wired Science for the article which brought them all to our attention.



JAXA/KAGUYA Earth-Rise and Earth-Set image over the moon, created for YouTube by NnoxS3, who states:

HDTV movie here.

pic: Earth-Rise /set from about 380,000 km away Moon by Kaguya HDTV Cam on November 7, 2007(JST)

The EarthRise image Wide Shot taken from near the North Pole, and the Arabian Peninsula and Indian Ocean can be observed on the Earth.

The Earthset image Tele Shot taken from near the South Pole, and we can see the Australian Continent (center left) and the Asian Continent (lower right) on the Earth. (C) JAXA/NHK