Centripetal Notion: category

A reversed-polarity sunspot was detected today, marking solar minimum and the beginning of the 24th solar cycle (since humans first recorded the undulating pattern of solar intensity nearly 400 years ago).

(time-lapse video of Milky Way setting on Earth’s horizon)

Put a bunch of humans on a tiny ship on a 6 month trip to Mars and, you can imagine. Astronauts need to do it like anyone else, especially if the mission counts on their mental and physical well-being.

There’s a high-res version of the above collage that makes the detail in the bottom-most view of Europa really stunning. Images recently reprocessed by Ted Stryk from original Galileo telemetry.

“Where forward thinking terrestrials share ideas and information about the state of the species, their planet and the universe, living the lives of science fiction.”

(video)

I think the bottom one is more into the top one than vice versa but such is love. The pair is known as Arp 87 and are flirting just 92 million parsecs (300 million light-years) away. Image released today at HubbleSite.

The full moon this Thursday & Friday, on the 25-26th of October will at the perigee of its orbit, and will appear as much as 14% wider and 30% brighter than normal as it passes.

Playing around with Videator and Mac OS X’s Core Image tonight. Original footage taken from the STEREO spacecraft.

Tomorrow night, Sunday, August 12, around 9:00 pm (in your local time zone), this year’s Perseid meteor shower will be starting to peak. These meteors are considered “earthgrazers”: they will appear on the horizon and skim long and colorful overhead. By 2 am Monday morning their rate might be up to dozens an hour, climaxing around dawn at more than one a minute.