From the ancient Greeks to the modern space age, we continue our cosmic exploration, forever hopeful that ET will answer our call. Cupertino TV Productions' Grace Trafton interviews the Deputy Director of the SETI Institute's Carl Sagan Center, Simon Steel.
#PPOD: Some of the incredible solar activity was captured last month by spacecraft near the Sun, including these plasma tornadoes. These walls of plasma are higher than the Earth is in diameter. And, of course, all this solar activity has provided us with stunning aurorae. With solar maximum approaching, chances are high that we'll see more incredible views like this one! Credit: NASA
We’re gearing up for the fourth flight test of Starship, SpaceX’s megarocket, on Thursday (pending FAA approval) and…it feels like there’s more pressure on this test than previous ones.
Here’s my rundown on this mission, and what I think SpaceX has to get right:
In the Netherlands, hunter-gatherers of the Swifterbant culture start using pottery around 5000 BC and carry out crop agriculture around 4200 BC. But they also hunt, fish, and gather wild resources, and migrate seasonally 🐟🐗🌰 4/
Our biggest discovery? These people weren't just keeping cattle, they had TWO completely different herds of cattle 🐄🐄The isotopes of the cattle (and sheep!) showed that one herd had lived in the forest 🌲 while the other grazed either on salt marshes or on manured fields 💩 7/
When you gaze up at the stars, you see the same constellations that the ancient Greeks, and even the early hunter-gatherers, did. But it's also a changing tapestry, as new stars are constantly being born, and others are dying. In fact, that will be the fate of our own sun in roughly 5 billion years. But how quickly does the night sky change, and in the Milky Way, how many stars die each year? According to James De Buizer at the SETI Institute, it's complicated.
Social media allow you to find thousands of friends, many more than evolution has equipped us for. What are the consequences of being in touch with more people than you can hope to meet? It’s “Post Social Media” on Big Picture Science.
#PPOD: This scene is a mosaic of two Right Mastcam-Z camera images taken by NASA's Perseverance rover on 27 May 2024 at a local time of 3:15 pm. The color approximates natural human vision. Most boulders are largely basaltic, with evidence of being rounded by wind. We can't wait to learn the composition of the lighter-toned one in the middle of the scene, though, as it appears to be something different. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Paul Byrne
@skribe I dashed a quick post off while I was making my to do list for the week in an effort to be helpful to others for free. Sorry it wasn't good enough for you!
I see very impressive, very complicated #graphs with curves in my TL these days. And again and again the outcry: Why don't people want to understand that!?
Quite simply: because even highly educated non-specialists can't interpret these graphs. Because you show no #context. Tip: Tell the #story behind it! Tell it so that EVERYONE understands it. (That's why I love news for children: they do it!) A survey showed: people want more #explications.1/2
2/2 A survey of young people was conducted by German educational television: around 20 per cent of 12 to 19-year-olds in Germany have never heard of climate change. Most of the young people (and adults) would like to get more and better explanations of the causes and consequences. https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/panorama/klimawandel-jugendliche-studie-100.html
As an activist, you may find this tiring: you know everything. But be aware that others thirst for simple explanations! More often than you think.
2/2 A survey of young people was conducted by German educational television: around 20 per cent of 12 to 19-year-olds in Germany have never heard of #climatechange. Most of the young people (and adults) would like to get more and better explanations of the causes and consequences. https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/panorama/klimawandel-jugendliche-studie-100.html
As an activist, you may find this tiring: you know everything. But be aware that others thirst for simple explanations! More often than you think.
Seven candidate Dyson spheres found from their excess infrared radiation could be a case of mistaken identity, with evidence for dusty background galaxies spotted close to three of them.
“They could be an astrophysical phenomenon such as extreme debris discs, or something more exotic,” says Ann Marie Cody, an astronomer at the SETI Institute in California who is not involved in Project Hephaistos, but has conducted her own Dyson swarm search.
#PPOD: To end our week, we look back at this beautiful picture of Titan and Saturn taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on May 22, 2015. Processed using calibrated near-infrared (MT2, CB2) filtered images. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill
A 2008 piece depicting Corosaurus. The only purpose for this was playing around in Photoshop and learning how to create painting and photo composite art.
@BobNicholls in your opinion are there no-nos when it comes to doing digital art of this kind? things that are tempting to the novice but are best avoided