On Sharon Carter

What’s happening in Russia

Decided to put this in a separate post. 

Quick Breakdown:

-Alexey Navalny (main opposition leader in Russia) was poisoned with Novichok, a chemical nerve agent that is internationally outlawed.

-He nearly died, and was in a coma for a while. Then he spent a few months in a clinic in Germany recovering

-He released investigations proving that his poisoning was ordered and carried out by the Russian government (not that you would need the investigations to know that, but watch them anyway. They include a phone call to one of the agents actually involved in the poisoning. Check out the video, its called “I called my murderer and he confessed”, bc Navalny is a badass and even his Youtube video titles reflect that)

-While in Germany for treatment, the Russian gov suddenly decided they wanted to convert his old suspended prison sentence (for bogus charges, obviously) to a real one. On the LAST day of that suspended sentence. To be very clear, this suspended sentence is for a FABRICATED crime. As recognized by the European Court of Human Rights (the decisions of which Russia is supposed to abide by).

-Despite the risks, Navalny came back to Russia. He was arrested right in the airport, denied access to phone calls and his lawyer, and then put on trial the same day IN THE FUCKING POLICE STATION. His lawyer, who had been standing outside the station for hours trying to get access to him, was told about the trial a minute before it commenced. He was given a 30 day sentence (for what? who knows. just because) and is currently being held in prison. There is a very large chance that he will get his old suspended sentence turned into a real one (of 3.5 years, or 2.5 if they count out the time he spent under house arrest). Or he’ll get an even larger sentence. Or they’ll just kill him.

-After he got arrested, Navalny’s team released a new investigation they had been sitting on; one about Putin’s lavish lifestyle. In 4 days, it got 75 MILLION views. For context, the population of Russia is about 144 million.

-Navalny was briefly able to access his phone through a meeting with his lawyer and made a post, saying (with his usual dark humor) that he is not planning on hanging himself or slitting his wrists, that he walks down the stairs very carefully, and has the “blood pressure of an astronaut”. What he means is that if something happens to him in prison, it’s not suicide, or an accident, or a heart attack. Since then, his lawyer has not been able to see him, and is not even sure of his whereabouts

- This Saturday, there were protests all over Russia. People are taking to the streets, demanding that Navalny is freed. This is despite the fact that students have been threatened with expulsion if they are spotted at protests, ditto with adults losing jobs. And despite violence from Russian police/OMON officers.

I’ve only laid out the main events: theres an infinite amount of other horrific and absurd details to this story. But please take a moment to care about this.

#politics#russian politics#protests#opposition#oppression#freedom#alexei navalny#navalny#aleksey navalny#alexey Navalny#Navalny#Russia#russian#news#elections#political#kremlin#putin#anti putin#police#алексей навальный#навальный#россия#протест#митинг

Cassini Spacecraft: Top Discoveries

Our Cassini spacecraft has been exploring Saturn, its stunning rings and its strange and beautiful moons for more than a decade.

Having expended almost every bit of the rocket propellant it carried to Saturn, operators are deliberately plunging Cassini into the planet to ensure Saturn’s moons will remain pristine for future exploration – in particular, the ice-covered, ocean-bearing moon Enceladus, but also Titan, with its intriguing pre-biotic chemistry.

Let’s take a look back at some of Cassini’s top discoveries:  

Titan

Under its shroud of haze, Saturn’s planet-sized moon Titan hides dunes, mountains of water ice and rivers and seas of liquid methane. Of the hundreds of moons in our solar system, Titan is the only one with a dense atmosphere and large liquid reservoirs on its surface, making it in some ways more like a terrestrial planet.

Both Earth and Titan have nitrogen-dominated atmospheres – over 95% nitrogen in Titan’s case. However, unlike Earth, Titan has very little oxygen; the rest of the atmosphere is mostly methane and traced amounts of other gases, including ethane.

There are three large seas, all located close to the moon’s north pole, surrounded by numerous smaller lakes in the northern hemisphere. Just one large lake has been found in the southern hemisphere.

Enceladus

The moon Enceladus conceals a global ocean of salty liquid water beneath its icy surface. Some of that water even shoots out into space, creating an immense plume!

For decades, scientists didn’t know why Enceladus was the brightest world in the solar system, or how it related to Saturn’s E ring. Cassini found that both the fresh coating on its surface, and icy material in the E ring originate from vents connected to a global subsurface saltwater ocean that might host hydrothermal vents.

With its global ocean, unique chemistry and internal heat, Enceladus has become a promising lead in our search for worlds where life could exist.

Iapetus

Saturn’s two-toned moon Iapetus gets its odd coloring from reddish dust in its orbital path that is swept up and lands on the leading face of the moon.

The most unique, and perhaps most remarkable feature discovered on Iapetus in Cassini images is a topographic ridge that coincides almost exactly with the geographic equator. The physical origin of the ridge has yet to be explained…

It is not yet year whether the ridge is a mountain belt that has folded upward, or an extensional crack in the surface through which material from inside Iapetus erupted onto the surface and accumulated locally.

Saturn’s Rings

Saturn’s rings are made of countless particles of ice and dust, which Saturn’s moons push and tug, creating gaps and waves.

Scientists have never before studied the size, temperature, composition and distribution of Saturn’s rings from Saturn obit. Cassini has captured extraordinary ring-moon interactions, observed the lowest ring-temperature ever recorded at Saturn, discovered that the moon Enceladus is the source for Saturn’s E ring, and viewed the rings at equinox when sunlight strikes the rings edge-on, revealing never-before-seen ring features and details.

Cassini also studied features in Saturn’s rings called “spokes,” which can be longer than the diameter of Earth. Scientists think they’re made of thin icy particles that are lifted by an electrostatic charge and only last a few hours.  

Auroras

The powerful magnetic field that permeates Saturn is strange because it lines up with the planet’s poles. But just like Earth’s field, it all creates shimmering auroras.

Auroras on Saturn occur in a process similar to Earth’s northern and southern lights. Particles from the solar wind are channeled by Saturn’s magnetic field toward the planet’s poles, where they interact with electrically charged gas (plasma) in the upper atmosphere and emit light.  

Turbulent Atmosphere

Saturn’s turbulent atmosphere churns with immense storms and a striking, six-sided jet stream near its north pole.

Saturn’s north and south poles are also each beautifully (and violently) decorated by a colossal swirling storm. Cassini got an up-close look at the north polar storm and scientists found that the storm’s eye was about 50 times wider than an Earth hurricane’s eye.

Unlike the Earth hurricanes that are driven by warm ocean waters, Saturn’s polar vortexes aren’t actually hurricanes. They’re hurricane-like though, and even contain lightning. Cassini’s instruments have ‘heard’ lightning ever since entering Saturn orbit in 2004, in the form of radio waves. But it wasn’t until 2009 that Cassini’s cameras captured images of Saturnian lighting for the first time.

Cassini scientists assembled a short video of it, the first video of lightning discharging on a planet other than Earth.

Cassini’s adventure will end soon because it’s almost out of fuel. So to avoid possibly ever contaminating moons like Enceladus or Titan, on Sept. 15 it will intentionally dive into Saturn’s atmosphere.

The spacecraft is expected to lose radio contact with Earth within about one to two minutes after beginning its decent into Saturn’s upper atmosphere. But on the way down, before contact is lost, eight of Cassini’s 12 science instruments will be operating! More details on the spacecraft’s final decent can be found HERE.

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This. My similar experience includes beer bottle thrown at me. To make me smile and want to sit with 6 drunk guys apparently. Don't see much logic here but, well...

This is part of why art that depicts the female experience is so important because on one hand for women and girls it allows us to go ‘oh I have that experience too’ and those that aren’t in our bodies can look at it and go ‘wait, that happens to you?’ // Brie Larson for Yahoo

Because it’s true

That weird moment, when the “election 2018” and “circus” billboards are next to each other

True Blood (2008–2014) by Alan Ball

okay I know you wrote this a year ago but, Steve DID become captain America because of Bucky. he became cap only when he saved the 107th and the reason he wanted to save the 107th is because he knew Bucky was in there. like I totally agree on not defining Steve or Bucky solely on each other, but facts are facts and Steve picking up the shield of Cap happened because he wanted to save Bucky

Look, you must know how much I adore Bucky if you’ve come at me on anon with this because you probably have seen at least a few *cough* posts on my blog about Bucky, but I’ll never see them in the (usually shippy) light of ‘they only ever do anything because of each other uwu” that a big majority of this fandom is so stuck on. (Whoa, what?? Cairi’s not in lockstep with a fandom??? So shocking.) Steve didn’t even know Bucky needed saving when he went through the serum experiment–he just wanted to join the Army despite Bucky, because it was the right thing to do and because his father died on the front lines. He too wanted to fight on the front lines and not do the little red wagon thing Bucky preferred him to do, both because of his father’s legacy and because he always had a fiesty fighting spirit twelve thousand times stronger than his frail li’l bod and so yeah, he may have been from Brooklyn but he lived in the state of Total Stubborn Denial.

But he finally found a crack in the 4F wall the Army erected in front of him and Steve became Captain America the moment he stepped out of that machine and had to chase after the HYDRA assassin. He became Captain America even before that when he threw himself on the dummy grenade and Bucky wasn’t even there. And when Phillips all but said he’d written the letter saying Bucky was KIA, Steve still wanted to save the rest of the 107th. So *maybe* we can at least agree that the Army didn’t recognize him as a combat-ready Captain America until he saved the 107th (and yay bonus Bucky was alive so he got saved too, because yes, Steve had to make sure, since he was already there rescuing the 107th). But to his own mind, far before that moment, Steve was already combat-ready and fully Captain America in the way that Dr. Erskine and Peggy intended for him to be… a fighting soldier, not just a dancing monkey in tights.

Steve has always been focused on what, to his mind, is the right thing to do… sometimes that involves Bucky and sometimes it doesn’t.

Блогу "Без названия" сегодня исполнился 1 год!

Wow.

Coming on briefly to squee… there *is* going to be a new Captain America run after Secret Empire, starting with Captain America #695, and Mark Waid is writing it (with Chris Samnee doing the art)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“The most difficult thing I had to achieve in this film was creating the fabric for the Captain America Stealth Suit.  The Russos were very specific that they wanted a suit that was made of textured, woven, hard fabric like a Kevlar and not a printed stretch suit like you see over and over again in these films. But in reality it needed to be made of a stretch fabric that would allow movement and comfort, as well as the ability to be constructed into a more realistic military type trouser and protective top. I went through many incarnations of printed textures on stretch which then posed a whole new set of challenges and problems.  The HD cameras made raised textures strobe or moiré.  So finding the right one became a trial.  Then the printing ink would shine like plastic, which I disliked.  It took four months of research and development to create a texture that seems so simple and was yet, so complicated.” - Judianna Makovsky