earth
Tag archives for earth
The Universe Just Keeps Trying to Kill Us
Posted by Ethan on February 15, 2013 
“Don’t wake me for the end of the world unless it has very good special effects.” -Roger Zelazny It’s always the ones you least expect that get you the worst, it seems. I went to bed last night excited that Asteroid 2012 DA14, a 200,000 ton asteroid, was going to pass within just 28,000 km (or…
Where will we all be in 100 billion years?
Posted by Ethan on August 23, 2012 
“It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.” -Winston Churchill We’ve come a long way in this Universe. Over the past 13.7 billion years, we’ve formed the light elements out of a sea of protons and neutrons, cooled and expanded to form neutral atoms for the first…
Another Trip Around the Sun
Posted by Ethan on August 3, 2012 
“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” -Satchel Paige Today marks another year and another trip around the Sun for me. For you, and me, and everything on Earth that makes it through another year on this world, there’s a whole lot we get to experience. Some things are…
The Biggest Storm Ever on a Small, Small World
Posted by Ethan on July 13, 2012 
“For most of the history of our species we were helpless to understand how nature works. We took every storm, drought, illness and comet personally. We created myths and spirits in an attempt to explain the patterns of nature.” -Ann Druyan Here on Earth, we are well aware of how devastating storms can be. From…
Whose world is it, anyway?
Posted by Ethan on June 30, 2012 
“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.” -Mark Twain So, you’ve been around a while, seen all sorts of things, and learned an awful lot about the world, solar system and Universe that we live in. But how well do you know it,…
Discovering the Earth from Space: Top 10 Pictures from the ISS
Posted by Ethan on June 26, 2012 
“We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.” -Bill Anders, Apollo 8 astronaut From hundreds of miles up, the International Space Station speeds around the Earth, completing 18 orbits a day, looking down on us and returning some absolutely fabulous images. But what…
It’s hard to leave this world
Posted by Ethan on June 22, 2012 
“Some prophecies are self-fulfilling But I’ve had to work for all of mine Better times will come to me, God willing Cause I can’t leave this world behind” -Josh Ritter You sure can’t leave this world behind. At least, not very easily. The reason for it, of course, is gravity. Here on the surface of…
Measure the Tilt of the Earth on the Solstice! (This Wednesday!)
Posted by Ethan on June 19, 2012 
“Soon the earth will tilt on its axis and begin to dance to the reggae beat to the accompaniment of earthquake. And who can resist the dance of the earthquake, mon?” -Peter Tosh Every year, there are two special days where every place on Earth receives the same amount of sunlight — 12 hours —…
Incredible Star Trails, from Earth and Beyond
Posted by Ethan on June 8, 2012 
“Building one space station for everyone was and is insane: we should have built a dozen.” -Larry Niven Here on the solid ground of the Earth, the Sun and Moon rise and set on a daily basis. During the hours where the Sun is invisible, blocked by the solid Earth, the stars twirl overhead in…
How long does a Solar Eclipse last?
Posted by Ethan on June 1, 2012 
“The moon shuts off the beams of the sun as it passes across it, and darkens so much of the earth as the breadth of the blue-eyed moon amounts to.” -Empedocles, ~450 B.C. Less than two weeks ago, I saw my first annular eclipse, with some spectacular results at the moment of maximum eclipse. This…
