Daily Archive for January 24th, 2007

Tell-Tale Tail

Published on January 24, 2007 in astronomy. 7 Comments

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a spacecraft that studies the sun, has been taking rather spectacular photos of comet McNaught. See here, for example. But the recent news that’s been exciting everyone are the comet pictures from the newer twin-spacecraft Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatories (STEREO), such as this one of the comet’s tail (the sharp lines are artifacts due to bright objects in the background):STEREO/SECCHI comet McNaught image

Click the image for a larger version. They put together a number of images to make a rather impressive movie of the comet, with a great deal of detail in a sort of fly Continue reading ‘Tell-Tale Tail’

The Proud Parent

Published on January 24, 2007 in biology and science. 3 Comments

Flora komodo babyThe BBC1 are calling her the proud “mum and dad”. I’m talking about Flora, who is the parent of five baby Komodo dragons so far. Read the story at the link above. flora the komodo dragon You’ll recall my earlier post about her, back when she featured in the “virgin birth” story leading up to the Christmas period. Just to remind you, she is one of the first Komodo dragons known to Continue reading ‘The Proud Parent’

I’d Like To Go South Please… Now.

Published on January 24, 2007 in astronomy. 16 Comments

I’m watching my email for an invitation to fly suddenly to the Southern Hemisphere. Perhaps the Latin American Summer School (being held in Argentina this year) needs an emergency strings lecturer? I’ll be happy to reprise my lectures from the one I taught at in Mexico city in 2000…

Why do I want to go South with such urgency? This is largely because Comet McNaught continues to put on a wonderful show in the Southern Hemisphere. Amara Graps has kindly put several links for us to look at in the comment stream of my Look Up Down South post. Have a look here, here, here, here, and here. I did, and I found this lovely shot (by Mary Fanner – click for larger) of the comet over the beautiful city of Cape Town, which I miss a lot from the days when I helped run the ASTI science education program in 2004:

comet over cape town by Mary Fanner

There are several more to be found on the various sites Amara linked to, some that Continue reading ‘I’d Like To Go South Please… Now.’

Check Your Light Cone

Published on January 24, 2007 in fun and science. 2 Comments

On the comment stream of my Light Cone post, commenter Neil pointed out something you may find amusing. I quote:

At this website, you can generate an RSS feed of your personal light cone (starting from your date of birth), which notifies you when it passes a stellar object. Quite cool!

He’s right.

-cvj