#PPOD: Enjoy this aesthetically stunning picture and consider the latitude at which it was captured. This is Portonovo (45N), a small town near Mount Conero in the province of Ancona in Italy. (We had it pretty good in San Francisco - 37N with purple and green). This low latitude tells you the strength of that solar storm that just hit. In fact, aurorae were observed in the Caribbean! Before May 12, only the Carrington Event reached those latitudes. Credit: Michele Elisei
Particle physics and cosmology go hand-in-hand, despite the vast difference in scales. So when something new starts brewing in the quantum world, we pay attention. On this week’s Big Picture Science - could physics experiments take us “Beyond the Standard Model?”
For World Turtle Day, please enjoy this 54-million-year-old fossil of a baby sea turtle, which was found in Denmark and includes preserved soft tissue.
In fact, it's so well-preserved that scientists discovered molecules of a pigment that would have darkened the turtle's shell, perhaps to protect it against sun damage.
The 2008 book, A TIME TRAVELLER'S FIELD NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS OF DINOSAURS; I'll post a bunch of my illustrations. It is a fictional story, so be prepared for plenty of inaccuracies, for example, there is no evidence for autotomy in Tanystropheus.
The SETI Institute’s 2024 Drake Awards ceremony took place last Thursday at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, honoring significant contributions to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. This event brought together experts in astrobiology, astrophysics, nuclear physics, and signal processing.
Could recent information about dark energy fundamentally alter our understanding of the universe? It's possible. Here's a deep dive into what dark energy is and how new results on the expansion history of the universe may change everything we thought we knew.
TONIGHT, May 22, 2024, at 7 pm (PDT), Dr. Robert Pappalardo (NASA Jet
Propulsion Lab) will give a free, illustrated, non-technical lecture entitled:
“Europa Clipper: Exploring Jupiter’s Ocean World"
#PPOD: Mimas drifts along in its orbit against the azure backdrop of Saturn's northern latitudes in this true-color view. The long, dark lines on the atmosphere are shadows cast by the planet's rings. At the bottom, craters on icy Mimas (398 kilometers) give the moon a dimpled appearance. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/CICLOPS
#PPOD: This stunning photo was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. Phobos is the larger and closer of Mars's two moons, the other being Deimos. One hypothesis of their origin involves the possible capture of primitive asteroids. Unfortunately, Phobos is being pulled apart and closer by Mars's tidal forces and gravity. Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/ @andrealuck CC BY (https://www.flickr.com/photos/192271236@N03/53635851891/)
A single gold earring found in a burned Iron Age settlement in Iberia was hidden by its owners more than 2,000 years ago, perhaps to keep it safe from invaders under Hannibal during the Second Punic War.
Archaeologists found the earring in the scorched remnants of a two-story building, along with more than 1,000 fragments of pottery, tools for weaving, and the burned remains of sheep, goats and a horse.
In 2007 I painted a mural on the ceiling of an exhibition room at Pools Cavern Visitor Centre, Derbyshire, UK. It was a Carboniferous scene, partly depicting life on land but mostly marine and freshwater species. It was fun but it demanded long hours and a few nights sleep in my car.
New resource! 📣 Science is more than lab coats and beakers, so I've illustrated 18 science objects for you to use in your presentations and social media
Something interesting is rumbling in the physics community. Are we on the brink of discovering a new force of nature? At least one particle physicist thinks so. We venture “Beyond the Standard Model” on Big Picture Science.
How should numeric probabilities be translated into words? Maybe they shouldn't be.
"Words of estimative probability" wreak havoc in high-stakes communication like #intelligenceCommunity assessments and briefings, in part because intelligence and defense institutions map numbers to different words (!) — see Amelia Kahn's forthcoming work at ameliakahn.wordpress.com.
Another “victim” of my sorting & clearing ahead of our move: five copies of my 1988 University of Edinburgh PhD thesis headed for recycling 😬✌️
But don’t panic: these are all water-damaged & I still have eight clean copies of the one hundred originally printed for me during my first postdoc at NASA Goddard 🚀🛰️
The rest were circulated to colleagues back in the early days of infrared arrays in astronomy 🔭
https://www.seti.org/keeping-eye-comet-a3-next-naked-eye-comet-candidate
In early 2023, a new comet took stargazers by surprise. Called Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinan-Atlas), this icy visitor was discovered by two separate observatories in South Africa and China. Comet A3 had scientists and amateurs alike wondering if it would be the next naked-eye comet to light our skies. As 2024 unfolds, we eagerly anticipate whether Comet A3 will deliver the breathtaking celestial display we have all been hoping for!
The SETI Institute is proud to learn that Science Advisory Board member Mike Garrett was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society yesterday. Prof. Garrett is the Sir Bernard Lovell Chair of Astrophysics and the Director of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics (JBCA), Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester.
🐚 Connaissez-vous les "laisses de mer" ? Il s'agit des débris naturellement déposés sur les plages par les vagues et le vent, dont l'accumulation constitue un véritable écosystème.
🎨 J'en ai illustré quelques-uns des éléments, dont certains sont de véritables petits trésors qu'on peut s'amuser à dénicher et répertorier !
#PPOD: This photo was taken by NASA's Bill Dunford near Malad City, Idaho, on May 11, 2024; the International Space Station appears as a white streak in this 8-second exposure. Credit: NASA/Bill Dunford
In 2007, Roar Publishing planned a book about evolution. I created some artworks for it but the book was shelved. Here is my draft drawing for the Ordovician spread that never happened...