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"You can't exactly bake a man to your specifications... A hybrid of Einstein, Tarzan and Inge Meysel doesn't exist." -Peer Steinbruck Of course, if you create enough chances, all the things that could eventually happen will come to pass. This is as true for human beings as it is for the physical Universe. And for our planet, our nearest major neighbor in the Universe -- the Moon -- provides us with a huge variety of sights, if only we're willing to wait. Image credit: Doug Zubenel. Every 27.3 days, the Moon makes a complete orbit around the Earth, traveling a full 360° through space. As it…
"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 -- split evenly between night and day: the equinoxes! Image credit: timeanddate.com. Like all known objects that revolve around another due to gravity, the Earth rotates along its journey around the Sun. But on those two days of the equinox (from the Latin, meaning "equal nights"), the Earth's axis-of-…
"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. From my first eclipse expedition, to False Klamath Cove, on the coast in northern California. This happens, of course, because -- from our point of view -- the Moon appears to pass in front of the Sun, blocking a fraction of the light coming from it. Image credit: NASA / Solar Dynamics Observatory. And…
Starts With A Bang! is off to a great start; each the past three days we have topped the 100 visitor mark, bringing our total number of unique visitors up to 1,413! I'm going to attempt to start a new tradition here of making a weekend post on a topic that I just find neat, and share it with you. This first Weekend Diversion is an optical illusion about color. Take a look at the image below: Looks like a cube with a bunch of different colors on it. Now do the following: Look at the top face of the cube, and tell me what color the tile in the middle of that face is. Look at the near face, and…