South Dakota Milky Way Time Lapse

Bob Parks is featuring a video from Dakotalapse.com which filmed an excellent time lapse sequence of the Milky Way in South Dakota.

Well worth 3 minutes of your time. So beautiful it makes you want to cry. The panning shots are breathtaking.

No Beer In Space

Followers of this blog will know that Me and the Homebrews have a respectful appreciation for good beer. According to Mary Roach at NPR, we can't bring beer into space, and therefore to Mars.

No beer in space? Well, then it's very simple. I'm not going into space and I'm not going to Mars. 
Never mind all those dreams as a kid of being an astronaut, floating weightlessly among the stars, blasting off to brave new worlds.

It's a fascinating listen, but probably one best heard in an easy chair with a cold one in hand ...

Staring At The Sun

For those of you who dig astronomy and space and stuff, NASA has published its first images from the Solar Observatory.

So stare at the sun - safely in this case, via National Geographic.

Hubble, Hubble

Astronauts finished repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope today.

It was a tricky operation since the Hubble was never meant to be serviced in space. At one point when a stuck bolt on a handrail couldn't be loosened by hand or by tools, the astronauts just yanked the thing off by brute force.

Careful, don't puncture that suit.

Launched in 1990, the Hubble needed to be repaired in space a first time to correct a defect that gave it blurry vision. After that, the famed telescope has been sending back glorious images of stars and galaxies that had never been seen before or with this clarity.

Because of the curious relationship between the speed of light and the unimaginable vastness of space, the farther away the Hubble peers, the farther back in time it can see. Scientists are giddy with the prospect of seeing back to near the beginning of the universe.

First Hubble saw the "Pillars of Creation".
Next was the "Crown of Thorns"After that? I wonder if they won't see God Himself waving at them. Hello. I've been waiting for you.