numberless multitude

     from Conversations with Woody Allen by Eric Lax, p.72

sun, the

from nasa's solar dynamics observatory (sdo)

universe, the

c o s m o s

my friend elizabeth sent me this. awesome

Saturnal equinox

 more here

neptune, triton

nebulaic fireworks

new pic of the helix nebula.

"...Unlike real fireworks, the scene in the Helix Nebula involves no explosion. Rather, as a sun-like star ages, it ejects material in stages over tens of millions of years. A wind of charged particles continues to flow from the aged star, and the wind runs into the previously ejected layers, creating shock waves. Radiation from the star ionizes atoms in these outward-racing crash sites. Tiny particles are forced together and emit light. The knots might be remnants of planets that once existed around the star, astronomers figure. Or perhaps they involve material ejected from the star at some stage in its life. Nobody knows..."

moon, the

new looks at moon

sentence of the day 12.4.08

"...so as you're listening to stars what you're looking for is changes in the modulation of the radio [signal] that are not nonsense, are not white noise..."

dr. pamela gay on astronomy cast re the search for extraterrestrial life

i give thanks

Many warm thank you's to all those people and events in the past 24 hrs that have summoned my buddha nature.

let's start the roll call off w/ the safety class i had to take last night at legacy emmanuel, which goes back to a traffic infraction i made in july (ran red light on bicycle in front of law-enforcement enforcer) the veracity of which i think is dubious but i ultimately need to take responsibility so i will. the class, while pretty much exactly what you'd suspect 2 plus hours of 'instruction' led by a bike-riding judge, a trauma nurse, a crunchy bike alliance guy about sharing the road in portland would be like still had moments of wit and insight. To handle the wit-less, insight-less moments you simply take breaths, take inventory and arrive at a platform of gratitude that this class is a welcome substitute for the $242 penalty of your violation. thank you class, even though attending meant i missed the Blazer game last night. thanks Legacy emmanuel too. the last time i was there i met with a radiation oncologist. comparatively speaking, i'll take a boring class any day of the week...

next up let's give thanks to pyramid taproom at the rose garden, where i arrived after class to meet my wife. i found a decent parking spot a few blocks away and walked thru the windy chill to the arena, planning to sit my fat seat in a chair and watch the game on TV while downing a handsome quanitity of beers. I tried to enter from the plaza/promenade at the door that said "Enter" but the employee/guard told me i had to go thru the arena instead. I walked into the arena and 3 red-vested ushers met my request (to go sit in the pyramid room and drink a beer while waiting for the game to end and my wife to come join me) w/ a glazed bafflement. "You don't have a ticket" they said. I explained that no, i did not have a ticket but i wasn't entering the arena, i was merely going to be in the pyramid room drinking a beer and that i didn't see what the big deal was b/c last summer my dad and my wife sat in there before a game and had dinner but they were unimpressed by this claim. There was 4 minutes left in the 3rd plus the whole 4th which translated into at least 45 minutes of real-time for me to kill. I went outside and sat in the wind and chill, staring thru the windows at the patrons and felt a burn in my stomach. I acknowledged it and took deep breaths, grateful to be drawing them at all and listened to this american life on my ipod. eventually the game ended and i saw my wife through the glass in the restaurant, wondering where i was, and we were happily reunited. thanks to all involved.

now, let's give a warm and generous shout-out to henry and strunk - our cats. On the drive home margaret and i joked about how they were going to be upset that we were coming home so late and that they didn't get fed dinner. I said "they probably shit on the bed". Well I was wrong, they did not shit on the bed - they pissed all over the bed, in two giant pools that necessitated stripping, soaking, washing and drying of bedsheets and linens. thank you kits, for making me laugh. It was very instructive indeed.

major shout out to norman who has reasons of his own that may not be visible to me. his refusal triggered a familiar swell of gut-burn anger that i've been breathing into and exploring for the past hour or so. maybe i'm looking at the small not the big? who knows what's underfoot?

the fact is that in meditative reflection and spelunking of the inner variety one encounters terms like 'obstacle' or 'challenge'. Those are abstractions. The above are specifics. Losing your toolbag out in space is specific. The junction of the sublime and the mundane is near. In fact, right here.

m e r c u r y

new color photography of mercury. (you know, the planet). as always for me, all things astronomical are crushing reminders of our
(in)significance. the size and scope of infinity always does a number on me. what's all this for anyway?

opportunity

it's been a busy few wks, what w/ guests in town for every single wknd in august, and me and mm both battling colds and with various projects in various states and stages of being. i'll attempt to speak to them in the coming days but for now just enjoy this pic of the mars rover opportunity finally climbing out of the victoria crater. onward!

nanotubes

amazing possibility from nasa today, at the junction of the astronomical and the human. to think that the technologies that facilitate extreme spectroscopic electronic systems or nebulae gas-analysis in space may be used for/toward brain tumors is nuts. meaning awesome.

audio file of radio emissions from Saturn

you can listen to the planet saturn here. then be sure to go here and compare the sound to Forbidden Planet.
more info from the cassini site here

actually, all that got me thinking so i dug around and found some more sounds of space from the European Space Agency. check it.

Moon, The

i've been getting a little geeky about astronomy lately but this is sincerely cool. gives me goosebumps and that tingle in my stomach

hdtv movie of the moon

The movie consists of two sequences - one shot over the western region of Oceanus Procellarum. The other is a fly over of the Moon’s north pole region, flying over the northern part of Oceanus Procellarum to the north pole.
more info here

brain trauma, miscellany

interesting article on bob woodruff today.
we feel notable kinship w/ the symmetry of their experience. very interested to read their book as well but not until our own is written. don't want it to influence our layout or structure or whatever.

in other worlds, the blazers beat the sonics in a preseason game last night at the rose garden. got to sit in some decent seats this time. no kevin durant, no greg oden but still an entertaining game. also, a shiny brand new video screen w/ shiny new parts.

and finally: man, if i had an extra 400 bucks laying around. saw this item featured in the nytimes today. don't know if it would be updated to include new information though. how would that work? like say if i pointed it at saturn's rings. would i learn about moonlets? what about new black holes?

powers of ten

Mesas in the Nilosyrtis Mensae region of Mars

this is a possible landing site for the mars exploration rover in 2009.
click on the picture for fuller detail

more info can be found here.

jet plumes on enceladus

i know this is old news to everyone
but the implications on astrobiology are profound
and certainly exciting for everyone at jpl

the sun in different wavelengths

here