Jherek Bischoff, Amanda Palmer, And Neil Gaiman Cover David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” On The Marvelous

Where Could Life Exist?

When NASA scientists announced earlier this year that they had found evidence of liquid water on Mars, imaginations ran wild with the possibility that life could exist somewhere other than here on Earth.

Scientists continue to explore the possibility that Mars once looked a lot like Earth — salty oceans, fresh water lakes, and a water cycle to go with it. That’s exciting stuff.

So where else are they looking? What exactly are they looking for?

There are nine places in our universe where scientists say life is a possibility. The locations range from a smoking hot planet like Venus to a moon that orbits Saturn called Enceladus, which looks a lot like a massive, tightly-packed ball of ice.

All of these places show signs that water is, or at least was, a possibility. They also appear to feature some kind of energy that could produce heat.

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It all started with a Big Bang...

The origins of the universe

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

Actually, there is no reason either to go to your local theatre or to leave this galaxy for another one far away if you want to know what happened a long time ago in our universe. You can travel back in time and space to the microseconds following the Big Bang, with the answers found by DOE nuclear physicists working at our National Laboratories and universities.

The Big Bang

Everything we know in the universe – planets, people, stars, galaxies, gravity, matter and antimatter, energy and dark energy – all date from the cataclysmic Big Bang. While it was over in fractions of a second, a region of space the size of a single proton vastly expanded to form the beginnings of our universe.

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Michael Tunk, The Wild West Guide To The Galaxy # 185, 2016, analog collage, 10.5" x 10".

Leap Day…Why Does It Exist?

Once every four years, an extra calendar day is added: a leap day. But why?

The reason for adding leap days to the calendar is to align the calendar year with the actual year – which is defined by the time it takes Earth to circle the sun. It is equal to 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds, or 365.24219 days.

If all calendar years contained exactly 365 days, they would drift from the actual year by about 1 day every 4 years. Eventually, July would occur during the northern hemisphere winter! Wouldn’t that be weird?

To correct (approximately), we add 1 day every 4 years…resulting in a leap year.

By making most years 365 days but every fourth year 366 days, the calendar year and the actual year remain more nearly in step.

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Why Would He Do That?

Fascinating article, not AT ALL surprising, but fascinating all the same

Rare double impact crater on Mars. Such features are thought only to from simultaneous impacts.

via reddit

A little brightness to aid your quest towards the weekend.  Those poor S.O.B’s didn’t stand a chance. 

I call this one "Terraluna."