This is a photo of the asteroid hit by NASA’s “DART” mission on Monday, September 26, 2022, just before impact. The story (read it here) says the egg-shaped asteroid is 530 feet in diameter. (Wikipedia says 560 feet, here.) My question is, in which direction, since it’s not r[...]
Archive for the ‘Science’ Category
October 1st, 2022 - 11:06 pm § in Science
How it was proved the earth spins on an axis
Writer Erik Larson (profile here) described it as follows: “In 1627, a very brave if melodramatic German mathematician, Joseph Furtenbach, aimed a loaded cannon into the sky in preparation for an experiment he hoped would provide the first real-world test of another of Galileo’s theories[...]
September 29th, 2022 - 12:01 am § in Science
Why doesn’t Seattle get hurricanes?
Because we have too many Democrats here, and hurricanes prefer Republicans. Hee hee, just kidding. Actually, because the Pacific Ocean is too cold, and West Coast winds blow in the wrong direction. Hurricanes are an equatorial belt phenomenon, not least because they get their energy from warm water,[...]
September 26th, 2022 - 6:29 pm § in Science
SPLATTT!!! Spacecraft hits asteroid (video)
Return to The-Ave.US Home Page[...]
September 21st, 2022 - 1:27 pm § in Science
PHOTOGRAPHY: Neptune’s rings
Top image below, brought to you by the James Webb Space Telescope. Now, you may ask why Voyager 2 photos — bottom image below — don’t show the rings. After all, Voyager 2 was millions of miles closer than JWST is. The answer is Webb has infrared cameras and Voyager 2 doesn’t,[...]
Study suggests “Little Engine” psychology works
It’s been a long time since children’s stories were read to me, in a previous millenium, before I turned into an old fossil. But those stories, which have a moral and are meant to teach you something, tend stick in your mind. A popular and enduring children’s story is “The Li[...]
Technically, nobody is too stupid to be a U.S. senator
Seriously, the only qualifications to be a U.S. senator are you must “have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and … when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State …” (U.S. Const., Art. I, §3). The Framers intentionally gave[...]
August 5th, 2022 - 10:48 am § in Science
PHOTOGRAPHY: Astronomy
A French astronomer sent out the tweet below. Translated, it says, “Photo of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light-years from us. It was taken by the JWST. This level of detail… A new world is revealing itself day by day.” It’s actually a slice of S[...]
August 1st, 2022 - 2:46 pm § in Donald Trump, Science
Eating hotdogs makes you stupid
A study conducted in Brazil showed people who eat a lot of junk food experience faster mental decline, CNN reported on Monday, August 1, 2022 (see story here). Specifically, study subjects who ate the most “ultraprocessed foods” had a 28% faster rate of global cognitive decline and a 25%[...]
U.K.’s 2050 climate is here now
“Two years ago,” CNN reports, “forecasters in the UK conducted an interesting thought experiment: What will our forecasts look like in 2050?” Meteorologists at the U.K.’s official weather agency produced “super long-range climate models in the sum[...]