It's Origin and Purpose is Still a Mystery

I've linked to this in the past, but it is worth linking again since it came up in my feeds: A massive look at 2001: A Space Odyssey (including the script) at Cinephile.

Deep in the Red

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day takes a familiar telescopic sight (Messier 20, The Trifid Nebula) and pushes our view into the infrared. There's a lot more out there than our naked eye can see!

Only Occasionally the Dark Side

There really is no dark side of the Moon. At least, not all the time. Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the lunar farside, of which we can only see glimpses as the Moon "nods" in orbit around us. Another image from the hard-working (and mostly forgotten by us) Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Bubbles

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows expanding shells of gas around young stars in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. Oh, for a sight of those southern skies on a dark isolated island in the Pacific!

Approaching Aeolis Mons

Two years on from this entry, today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the progress of Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity on the journey to "Mount Sharp" (Aeolis Mons).

Brace for Impact

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows Messier 31, the Andromeda Galaxy. Brace for impact, we're on a collision course.

Layers

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day peers (with the help of X-rays and infrared) into the heart of NGC 6357.

Neigh

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a elusive (for my skies) object in the nebula found in and around Orion: The Horsehead Nebula.

Foxes Have Dens and Birds Have Nests

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows NGC 2264, a diffuse nebula in the constellation of Monoceros. The area is popularly known as the Fox Fur, Unicorn and Christmas Tree Nebula.

Little Prince

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day combines modern photographic techniques with a classic story.

Specters

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a glory (heiligenschein) as seen from the window of a airplane.

Pathways

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a short video tracing the path of the Sun over the course of a year.

Godel Escher Bach

If you feed a infinite number of monkeys all of the music of Bach would they be able to reproduce works that you couldn't distinguish from the real thing?

The Weight of the Nation

You ever notice how the "kit" carried by a soldier never seems to shrink?

Newer Waves

An interesting article on Stanislaw Lem and, by extension, the "New Wave". Do certain segments of Genre embrace the New Wave as wrongly as other segments of Genre are accused of embracing the Golden Age? Perhaps both sides need to look beyond these "singularity points" in our reading?

And in other news, a bit from one film version of Solaris. Bruegel, Tarkovsky, Bach.

Quality Issues

A shrinking budget, an aging and shrinking workforce, management issues and inattention probably aren't a good things when your product is a launch vehicle.

First Mission

The first crewed mission for NASA's Orion sounds interesting and finally gets us away from Low Earth Orbit, but why does it always seem to me that the planned date keeps creeping into the future?