Women Scientists Made Up 25% Of The Pluto Fly-by New Horizon Team. Make Sure You Share This, Because

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson becomes first woman to command ISS twice

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson achieved a new milestone at the International Space Station on Sunday, when she became the first woman to command the ISS twice.

Whitson is replacing astronaut Robert Shane Kimbrough, who will depart the space station Monday.

“Up here we don’t wear shoes, but Shane is leaving me some pretty big socks to fill,” Whitson said during a live broadcast as she assumed her new position. Read more. (4/9/2017 3:40 PM)

Stepping on Lava

GIF made by Sixpenceee. Original video via YouTube.

A photon checks into a hotel and is asked if he needs any help with his luggage. He says, “No, I’m traveling light.”

The extent of humanitys mark on our Universe

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The Chimaera, known informally as the “ghost shark” or “rat fish”, is a deep sea cartilaginous fish in the order Chimaeriformes. Living at over 8,000 ft below the surface, the Chimaera is well adapted to the deep, dark sea. The dots on its nose are sensory organs that detect electrical fields in the water - helping the Chimera find its prey. While little is known about the Chimaera’s diet, it’s speculated that it feeds on molluscs and crustaceans that it crushes open with the grinding plates in its mouth. The spines on the top of its body are loaded with venom; the Chimaera uses these spines to defend itself.

Artists impression of ‘Hot Jupiter’ exoplanets.

Credit: NASA, ESA, D Sing

Spectacular collision of stars will create new star in night sky in 2022

1800 years ago two stars were coming together in a huge cataclysmic explosion. The light from that collision will finally arrive on Earth creating a new star in the night sky - dubbed the ‘Boom Star’ - in an incredibly rare event which is usually only spotted through telescopes. Before their meeting the two stars were too dim to be seen by the naked eye, but in 2022, the newly formed Red Nova will burn so brightly in the constellation Cygnus that everyone will be able to to see it. For around six months the Boom Star will be one of the brightest in the sky before gradually dimming, returning to its normal brightness after around two to three years.  Read more

As a paleo-artist, one of my biggest pet peeves are prehistoric whales reconstructed not as whales but as sinewy, snarling, shrink-wrapped marine reptiles. It’s just not a plausible reconstruction, even if it’s highly speculative, and it paints an incorrect image in the public eye. Granted, this is a struggle I’ve exlpored in all forms of paleo-art and reconstructive illustration. But the whales have really been getting to me recently.

Here are some recontructions of Basilosaurus, if you don’t know what I mean (one by Karen Carr, the other by an artist I could not determine):

These snakey, reptilious reconstructions may stem from the fact that Basilosaurus, one of the first early cetaceans to be found, was believed to be a reptile when first discovered (hence the name). Maybe we simply haven’t fully shaken that mindset.

But still! Even the damn Smithsonian, which has such a wonderful collection of ancient cetaceans, is at fault in this:

Don’t even get me started on their recently-closed dinosaur hall. Thank the lord they’re finally renovating that dated piece of crap.

I have struggled to find a way to reconstruct these animals so that they are just a little bit more believeable. Up top I’ve done a really really quick sketch of Dorudon. I tried to not only make its body more streamlined and whale-like (because Dorudon has a lovely, almost but not quite modern-looking skeleton), but I also tried to give it markings similar to what we find on modern cetaceans for camouflage. Because hey, who’s to say they didn’t have ‘em? I tried to make them familiar but not directly copied from any modern species.

Aaaaand end rant.

Cristobalite, Hematite

SiO2, Fe2O3

Locality:

Caspar quarry, Bellerberg volcano, Ettringen, Mayen, Eifel, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

An interesting homoepitactic intergrowth from brown and black hematite  

Photo: Michael Förch

Cristobalite is a silica polymorph that is thermodynamically stable only at temperatures above 1470°C, up to the melting point at 1705°C, at atmospheric pressures. It commonly metastably persists or even forms at much lower temperatures in silica-rich volcanic and sedimentary environments. It can form crystals in cavities, probably vapour-deposited, or spherulites in obsidian or other silicic volcanics.

Hematite is rather variable in its appearance - it can be in reddish brown, ocherous masses, dark silvery-grey scaled masses, silvery-grey to black crystals, and dark-grey masses, to name a few. What they all have in common is a rust-red streak.