also apparently this is a jelly fish and space blawg, who knew???
Consider that you can see less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum and hear less than 1% of the acoustic spectrum. As you read this, you are traveling at 220 km/sec across the galaxy. 90% of the cells in your body carry their own microbial DNA and are not “you.” The atoms in your body are 99.9999999999999999% empty space and none of them are the ones you were born with, but they all originated in the belly of a star. Human beings have 46 chromosomes, 2 less than the common potato.
The existence of the rainbow depends on the conical photoreceptors in your eyes; to animals without cones, the rainbow does not exist. So you don’t just look at a rainbow, you create it. This is pretty amazing, especially considering that all the beautiful colors you see represent less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum.
NASA Lunar Science Institute, We Originated in the Belly of a Star (2012)
#what? #huh? #what? what? what? what? #i am freaking out over here right now. #i feel like i got the wind knocked out of me. #we see 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum???? i just typed it out and tears came to my eyes! #i feel like i knew this in my heart in some deep subconcious way and then i saw it written out and it has destroyed. me. #i hope that when we die #we get to be turned into something #that can see the rest of the colors #and then we just float around like that for the rest of ever #just trying to come up with names for all the new things our ghost eyes can see#jesus christ.
(via despairbaby)
Luca Nino Antonucci - Second Star to the Right (2010)
Artist’s statement:
“The study of astronomy is a practice that engages in a delicate balancing act between hope and truth. Our vision of the universe is a systematic categorization of existence. As inhabitants of our planet, we are all involuntary participants in the organization of the known universe and the exploration of the unknown.
One could say that an entire pattern of thinking comes from studying the delicate position of the human being in the universe. Somewhere between fear and romanticism, all rational thought is held and subjected.
And the truth, whatever it may be, is conditioned by our relative position
and our ‘rational’ thought, which is constantly and consistently subject to
romanticism.
These cards are intended as valentines to the universe, pointing out a personalized romantic relationship we all have with the cosmos. All of text is taken from scientific reports.”
Tomorrow night I shall sleep under Southern stars again.
Milky Way Shows 84 Million Stars in 9 Billion Pixels
Side Note: The two images shown above are mere crop outs from ESA’s recent hit: The 9 Billion Pixel Image of 84 Million Stars. These two focus on the bright center of the image for the purpose of highlighting what a peak at 84,000,000 stars looks like.
Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile have released a breathtaking new photograph showing the central area of our Milky Way galaxy. The photograph shows a whopping 84 million stars in an image measuring 108500×81500, which contains nearly 9 billion pixels.
It’s actually a composite of thousands of individual photographs shot with the observatory’s VISTA survey telescope, the same camera that captured the amazing 55-hour exposure. Three different infrared filters were used to capture the different details present in the final image.
The VISTA’s camera is sensitive to infrared light, which allows its vision to pierce through much of the space dust that blocks the view of ordinary optical telescope/camera systems.
The Large Magellanic Cloud in Ultraviolet
Image Credit: UV: NASA, Swift, S. Immler (Goddard) & M. Siegel (Penn State); Optical: Axel Mellinger (CMU)
A bit of M45 by chris_swatton on Flickr.
Eta Carina Nebula NGC 3372 by - sebastion on Flickr.
![ikenbot:
The Planetary Nebula of NGC7027
Image by Delio Tolivia Cadrecha
A very young and dense planetary nebula located around 3,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. It was discovered in 1878 by Édouard Stephan, using the 31 inch reflector at Marseille Observatory. [**]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/1a4cc5e17fab092e154e1e7cc9739500/tumblr_mnvn5kq5pD1qbn5m1o1_500.jpg)
The Planetary Nebula of NGC7027
Image by Delio Tolivia Cadrecha
A very young and dense planetary nebula located around 3,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. It was discovered in 1878 by Édouard Stephan, using the 31 inch reflector at Marseille Observatory. [**]
photos of Saturn taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft
source: dailymail.co.uk
Moon Phases
The Beauty of the Heavens : a Pictorial Display of the Astronomical Phenomena of the Universe’, 1842 by Charles F Blunt
(source)
