Blue
esiegel | November 18, 2013“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” -Leonardo da Vinci
Welcome back to another exciting Messier Monday here on Starts With A Bang! As Comet ISON dives towards the Sun and a nearly perfect full Moon towers overhead, it's easy to forget about those wondrous deep-sky objects that are fixed, but the 110 prominent members of the Messier Catalogue are always on tap for dedicated skywatchers. Although the extended objects -- galaxies and nebulae -- are difficult to view with a…
esiegel | October 18, 2013"If you are writing any book about the end of the world, what you are really writing about is what's worth saving about it." -Justin Cronin
Well, it's Friday again, and that means it's time to dip into the question/suggestion box, and see what you've come up with for me. This week's Ask Ethan comes from our reader Michael Acosta, who wants to know about the end of the world. Not, mind you, the way the world is actually likely to end, but in a way that would be satisfying to an aspiring science fiction writer.
In this wonderful science fiction book I am writing, there is a subplot involving…
esiegel | November 26, 2012"The man's a born straggler... another lucky exception to the rules of natural selection. A million years ago he would've been an easy snack for a saber-toothed tiger." -Carl Hiaasen
Welcome to the latest Messier Monday, where each week we take a look at one of Charles Messier's original catalogue of 110 deep-sky objects that comet-hunters might easily confuse with those transient passers-by in our Solar System.
Image credit: Greg Scheckler, from his 2008 Messier marathon, where he nabbed 105/110.
Quite to the contrary, each of the 110 objects in the Messier catalogue are (semi-)permanent…
esiegel | June 27, 2012"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way -- things I had no words for." -Georgia O'Keeffe
When it comes to the Universe, it isn't just the stuff that's in it that's important.
Image credit: 2MASS Extended Source Catalog (XSC).
It's also how all that stuff interacts with itself and everything else. To the best of our knowledge, there are four fundamental forces in the Universe, and they're all essential to our existence.
Image credit: Stichting Maharishi University of Management, the Netherlands.
Some of them are familiar, like gravitation. On the…
cwilcox | March 2, 2009Also check out the awesome new Carnival of the Blue up at Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice and Sunsets.
*Sigh* back to work for me!
edyong | February 5, 2009Having trouble with a word puzzle? Suffering from writer's block? Perhaps you're not looking at the right colour...
We encounter many of the colours in our lives under the same circumstances and as a result, we have come to associate certain colours with specific attributes. Red invokes thoughts of action, danger or mistakes because it is a common feature of warning signs and editorial ink. Blue, however, is a more soothing hue, and its presence in both sky and sea have connected it to peace and openness.
These associations aren't trivial ones - they can affect the way we think. In a clever…
esiegel | February 14, 2008The closest you're going to get from me on Valentine's Day is something red, dear readers. As the Moon is now a waxing gibbous and will be for the next week, it will brighten the sky for the majority of the night. But before sunrise, it will dip below the horizon and set. The funny thing is, if you've ever watched this (or watched a waning gibbous rise), you'll notice it changes color! In fact, this composite photo shows you what I'm talking about:
So the Moon, although white once it gets high up into the sky, appears yellow, orange, or even red when it's close to the horizon. I got a…
grrlscientist | October 16, 2007tags: researchblogging.org, blue feathers, Tyndall scattering, Rayleigh light scattering, schemochromes, white feathers
A pair of hyacinthine macaws, Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus.
Image: The Guardian.
Most avian plumage colors are the result of different types of pigments that are deposited into feathers while they are regrowing after moult. However, pigments alone do not produce all avian feather colors. Blues, such as those seen in hyacinthine macaws, Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus, and white, such as the snowy color of Bali mynahs, Leucopsar rothschildi, typically result from small changes…