Hubble – Ten Years
The Washington Post has a nifty Hubble photo Gallery (free registration required). Here is a sample.
Astronomy
Surf’s Up
New computer simulations suggest that Saturn’s moon Titan might be pretty entertaining for surfers:
Wind speeds of 20 km/h produce waves five metres high (16 feet). This is seven times as high as those produced on Earth by the same wind speed, although Titan’s lower gravity makes the waves more widely spaced and slower moving.
However, the wind speed estimates used are conservative and could be higher, generating truly giant waves.
Some improved wet suit designs will be needed to take adavantage…
Water of Life
On Mars:
The Mars rover Opportunity has discovered powerful evidence that water once “drenched” the surface of Mars and made the planet habitable for life at some unknown time in the distant past, NASA scientists said Tuesday.
This is very cool stuff.
On the other hand, we are, perhaps, lucky Mars is not currently suspected of supporting life. Or we might be dealing with this:
Why take chances?
Life, if found on Mars,
Might evolve and threaten Earth:
Launch pre-emptive strikes!
Update (3/2): There is a lot of good info on what the water announcement really means here. Via Electolite.
The Sun
Pictures, illustrations and visualizations. You get it all at this site (Flash) which was jointly developed by NASA and UC Berkeley. I partiulcarly liked the coronal Mass Ejection visualiazation which shows the earth’s magnetosphere turning aside charged solar particles.
Via The Internet Scout Report.
Eating Stars
No, not what you are thinking….
The Speculist links to these nifty animations of of black holes gorging on various delectable morsels and there is a photo album of other nifty Chandra images here.