…just in case you had momentarily forgotten: there are humans above us in space right now, and what they’re seeing is utterly unlike any terrestrial experience.
Also: I have no idea how the non-astronomy-nerd public feels about these sorts of things, but as of yesterday, Neptune has finally completed an orbit since the date of its (formal*) discovery: September 24th, 18-fucking-46.
So, Birthday-Neptune, to Regular Humans: bigger deal than, roughly equivalent to, or less significant than Jeter’s 3,000th hit?
* Incidentally, Neptune could have been yet another feather in Galileo’s cap, but he mistook it for a blue star, since it barely moved relative to the background of actual stars.
Astronomy Picture of the Day - Moonscape Sunrise
Any time I show my students an astronomy video, I try to keep them aware of when pictures or video are real, and when they’re CGI. Usually, a seasoned eye can recognize the difference, but this amazingly detailed shot of our moon blurs the line in a way I hadn’t felt quite so acutely before now.
…in space, sometimes the Uncanny Valley works backwards.
Part of what I love about astronomy is its visual elegance: most objects, at astronomical distances, are wonderfully simple. The aggregate difference between 8 lanes of rush hour traffic and this is unfathomable. (And even from space, Earth is an unusually flamboyant planet.)
We learn about the stars by receiving and interpreting the messages which their light brings to us. The message of the Companion of Sirius when it was decoded ran: “I am composed of material 3,000 times denser than anything you have ever come across; a ton of my material would be a little nugget that you could put in a matchbox.” What reply can one make to such a message? The reply which most of us made in 1914 was—”Shut up. Don’t talk nonsense.”
- Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, on the discovery of white dwarves.
