Category: Misc

This is an image of Europa, one of the four largest moons of Jupiter. Europa was discovered in 1610 by Galileo, along with Jupiter's three other largest moons - Io, Ganymede, and Callisto. This image was taken by the Galileo spacecraft, which was named for the famous astronomer. The surface of Europa is ice, and the features observed in this (false-color) image are believed to be cracks in the surface ice, which many scientists believe may cover a liquid ocean. This is very exciting, because scientists believe that it may be possible that Europa's subsurface ocean may once - or even may still - harbor life.

Those who know me from back in the day probably know Chris Crook. What some of you may not know is that Chris now lives in Ohio, is married, and is a photojournalist - and a damn good one at that. After an on-again, off-again romance with having an internet presence, Chris appears to have buckled down and started a blog. This is cool for me, because I have always wanted to know more about the day-to-day stuff in his work. If you know Chris, check out his blog. And if you don't know Chris, check it out anyway - because he is an interesting and witty guy, and it's a good read.

Here's a woodworker that I find inspirational - Kagen Schaefer. He builds puzzle boxes of his own design, and they are quite clever and beautiful. A puzzle box is a small wooden box that is opened using a secret combination of 'moves'. Different types of boxes use different types of moves. Traditional Japanese puzzle boxes often used sliding panels moved in a specific sequence to open the box. Kagen's boxes sometimes use the method, but he has also invented many other opening methods. Aside from the sheer creativity of designing the opening mechanisms, the boxes themselves are quite expertly crafted. Check out his page for examples of his work.

I myself would LOVE to build a puzzle box. I think I have come up with a couple of different types of opening mechanisms, but so far I have not had the time (or the accuracy in my tools) to try and build one. Maybe I will try very soon!

This image was taken from Cape Canaveral in Florida at the launch of the New Horizons spacecraft last week. New Horizons is a fly-by mission to Pluto, and will take almost 10 years to get there. The craft is one of the fastest spaceships ever launched, and will reach the moon in only nine hours (astronauts typically took 3 days to reach the moon) and will pass Jupiter in early 2007. Even traveling that fast, New Horizons will not reach Pluto until 2015. Pluto is the only remaining planet that has never been visited by a spacecraft or photographed up close. The coolest thing about New Horizions, in my opinion? I did some work on this project. I was actually invited to the launch, but was unable to go.

This image is composed of a montage of images taken by SOHO (the SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory) over the 10 years that the satellite has been in orbit. While I personally was not involved with the mission, UNH does have an instrument flying on SOHO. SOHO has provided some very valuable scientific data during its lifetime, including providing detailed data about the Sun's internal structure, solar atmosphere, and solar wind. In addition, SOHO images have been used to discover over 1000 comets as they pass near the Sun.

This image of Saturn's moon Dione was taken by the Cassini spacecraft, which arrived at Saturn in July 2004. In this image, you can see Saturn's rings edge-on, and the shadows they cast on the planet itself. Dione is 1,118 kilometers across and lies about 300,000 kilometers from the ring's edge.

This has got to be one of the funniest things I've seen in the last few seasons of Saturday Night Live. Chris Parnell is severly under-rated and under-used on the show. That white boy was born to drop rhymes! Check it out, yo!

In December 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to visit the Moon. They didn't land on the surface, but paved the way for those who did. They also took the first photographs of the Earth from deep space. This photo of the 'rising' Earth was taken from their orbiter during that mission.

Check out this panoramic shot taken by the Spirit rover on Mars! This picture was taken from the top of of a spot called "Husband Hill". It's amazing to think about the fact that you are looking at another planet. Really - aside from the sky color - it doesn't look that different from a few places on this planet.

NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this image of the western coast of Mexico on November 19, 2005. The red boxes in the image mark the locations of wildfires in the dry shrub lands of northern Baja California. The Santa Ana winds blow hot, dry air from the deserts to the east, which dris out the plants in this area. Once a fire starts, the winds fan the flames into an uncontrollable wildfire.