I just came across a long writeup regarding the probability of a serious nuclear catastrophe in Japan that might be worth a read. In my opinion we’re spending a lot of “news” cycles speculating about a situation which poses a small risk instead of focusing on the actual tragedy that has already happened.
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I saw this very cool animation of the shadow of Mars‘ moon Phobos passing over a dust storm. Apparently an enterprising enthusiast combed through online archives of photos taken by the Viking 1 probe back in ’76 and found this sequence. It’s kind of cool to see that people are still finding new information this much later. If you’re an astronomy nerd like I am you’ll probably find it worth checking out!
I just came across this cool photo of the binary star AFGL 3068 on Bad Astronomy. The star is dying and is wrapped in a cloud of carbon and because it’s a binary star the cloud has formed a spiral around the star itself. You’ve probably never seen anything quite like it and the accompanying article is also worth a read if you have any interest in astronomy.
Was poking around the web this morning and noticed that NASA has some photos from the MESSENGER probe online now. Enjoy!