Variable

A wonderful piece about (Edwin) Hubble, galaxies, variable stars and the Hubble (Space Telescope).

Doooode!

If you're going to try and "comment" on a posting by embedding a spam link, maybe send me some money for the ad space first?

Just sayin'...

Outflow

The Chandra space-based observatory detects gas flowing into the central black hole of galaxy NGC 3115.

They Must Be Kidding

Seen on my Yahoo bookmarks...

Yahoo! Bookmarks will be undergoing site maintenance from 1-August-2011 to 31-October-2011. During that time, you will not be able to add new bookmarks. You will, however, still be able to view your bookmarks during this time. Sorry for the inconvenience.

All of August, September and October to "do maintenance" and block us from basic functionality? Yikes!

Splat.

NASA's Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (Orion) undergoes a splashdown test.

Country Drive

Apollo 15 on the Moon. First drive on another sphere. Unless you count that whole Apollo 14 golf thing.

Harness Makers

Excellent article on how insane the publishing industry is when it comes to eBooks.

Future Path

Neil deGrasse Tyson on NASA's path forward.

Capsule

Thirty years of shuttle operations (less Enterprise tests) in eight minutes. Great video.

All Around Shuttle

Panoramic view of the space shuttle's flight deck. Wish there was a way of downloading this!

Slow News Month

But don't let the slowness of the news cycle stop you from getting excited...the new Ansible is here!

The Dead Past. 60 Years Ago, there was multimedia fun at the UK national convention ('Festivention'): 'The last item of the day was a showing of the "Lost World", a film based on A. Conan Doyle's famous fantasy of a South American land in which dinosaurs and pterodactyls still exist. Made in 1925 and starring Wallace Beery and Bessie Love, the film was naturally silent, but by clever manipulation of gramophone records ("Night on Bare Mountain", "Rite of Spring", etc), and of the volume control, [William F.] Temple and Arthur C. Clarke managed a very appropriate accompaniment.' (Science Fantasy News 8, July 1951). Less well received was the festival year's South Kensington Exhibition of Science: 'Frankly, from the coal mine blackness of the first section (designed to show the atomic structure of a lead pencil) to the final case showing the Universe (which during our visit was not working and invisible), the whole affair is very disappointing. [...] There are some extremely interesting Waltzing Mice (no information), a cinema show we didn't have the courage to see, and, best of all, an exit into the time-tested Science Museum proper.' (Ibid, July 1951)