Ship Ready For Return (Unfinished) - Chesley Bonestell

Come fare pisolini nello spazio 😴

James Hall Nasmyth - Full Moon - 1874 - via Eastman Museum

In July 1967, astronomers at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, observed an unidentified radio signal from interstellar space, which flashed periodically every 1.33730 seconds. This object flashed with such regularity that it was accurate enough to be used as a clock and only be off by one part in a hundred million.

It was eventually determined that this was the first discovery of a pulsar, CP-1919.  This is an object that has about the same mass as the Sun, but is the size of the San Francisco Bay at its widest (~20 kilometers) that is rotating so fast that its emitting a beam of light towards Earth like a strobing light house! Pulsars are neutron stars that are formed from the remnants of a massive star when it experiences stellar death.

A hand drawn graph plotted in the style of a waterfall plot, in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy, later became renown for its use on the cover of the album “Unknown Pleasures”  by 1970s English band Joy Division.

Some even managed to point out the resemblance of this plot to some other waterfall plot gifs.

Also, two days ago today was Joy Divisions singer’s, Ian Curtis, birthday!

Mathematica code:

R[n_] := (SeedRandom[n]; RandomReal[]) ListAnimate[ Table[ Show[ Table[ Plot[ 80 - m  + .2*Sin[2 Pi*R[6*m] + Sum[4*Sin[2 Pi*R[4*m] + t + R[2 n*m]*2 Pi]* Exp[-(.3*x + 30 - 1*100*R[2 n*m])^2/20], {n, 1, 30, 1}]]  + Sum[3(1 + R[3*n*m])*Abs[Sin[t + R[n*m]*2 Pi]]* Exp[-(x - 1*100*R[n*m])^2/20], {n, 1, 4, 1}],   {x, -50, 150},   PlotStyle -> Directive[White, Thick], PlotRange -> {{-50, 150}, {0, 85}}, Background -> Black, Filling -> Axis, FillingStyle -> Black, Axes -> False, AspectRatio -> Full, ImageSize -> {500, 630}],  {m, 1, 80, 1}]], {t, 0, 6.3*18/19, 6.3/19}], AnimationRunning -> False]

😢

constellation Cetus

Sufi Latinus (Latin translation of ‘Kitāb al-kawākib al-thābita’ of 'Abd al-Rahmān al-Ṣūfī), Bologna 1250-1275

BnF, Arsenal 1036, fol. 34v

Anelli di Saturno, il grande Titano e Encelado coi suoi geyser di ghiaccio. Un altro grande regalo della Cassini, che sta per concludere la sua missione.

50 YEARS AGO TODAY: The Gemini 12 space capsule orbits the Earth while docked with the Agena target vehicle, November 12, 1966. (NASA/ASU)

A magnificent moon looms large over the Space Shuttle Columbia at Cape Canaveral, 1981.