The Earth With Rings

This is how awesome the Earth would be if it had rings.

Felicia Day <3 astronomy

Via the Bad Astronomer. To be honest, if they just kept the Felicia Day part and got rid of everything else it would be much better. This is what happens when scientists try too hard to be cute.

Enough with the auto-tunes already. After this one.

Mars Shit

There’s enough material here for Vaughan Oliver to do like ukumillion more ’80s era 4ad albums. See more lovely Mars pics here.

HOLY SHIT IT WAS REAL???

Oh wait. That's right, it was totally real.

SUCK IT, conspiracy theorists.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has returned its first imagery of the Apollo moon landing sites. The pictures show the Apollo missions' lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon's surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules' locations evident.

My new favo(u)rite shirt

Hey, I just got this at a charity shop in Shepherd's Bush. !!!

Creation SCIENCE!

After seeing religion being pwned by children, I think we often don't give equal time to different points of view on this blog. Thusly... here!

Now, having given them a minute: How completely self-centered and egotistical do you have to be to be so close to getting perspective right, but still think that you're the center of the universe?

Mini asteroid passing right the frick over Hawaii!*

From this article in Sky and Telescope about 2009 DD45, a mini asteroid that's passing between our Earth and its Moon:

...the point of closest approach occurs over the Pacific somewhere west of Tahiti, so the most likely viewers are in Australia, Japan, and maybe Hawaii.

It turns out to be happening basically right now (3:44 AM Hawaii time). So if anyone's up, run outside and look for an amazing spectacle*.

*maybe

Phoenix lander, as seen by HiRISE

Gonna nerd out for a sec here, but this is one hell of a shot: It's a close-up from yesterday of the Phoenix lander descending through the Martian atmosphere, as seen by a satellite that just happened to be orbiting Mars at the time (the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, in fact). That is rad.

Just about as rad as this: a photo from one of the Mars rovers looking back at its discarded heat shield, next to one of the spots it bounced at whilst landing. And the SCIENCE they do isn't half bad, either.