Of Produce and Pluto

SEEING RED:  Today, I plucked the first tomatoes off plants in our garden. I was trying to wait until the kids got home from camping, but a few were so red, I dared wait no longer for fear of wasting homegrown produce.

I'm also happy to report that we're starting to see some pepper action, MUCH earlier than we did last year (it wasn't until October we harvested our two and only Trinidad moruga scorpions in 2014).

MEANWHILE, IN OREGON: The happy campers continue to enjoy activities they don't get to do here in Seattle, like get dragged behind a boat while bouncing on an inflated "biscuit."

Looks like Annabelle was going for some style points, while CJ was hanging on for his life. :)

PLUTO UPDATE: I received a great email today from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory pointing me toward a great blog post about how to make the Pluto flyby a 'teachable moment.'

In the article, education specialist Lyle Tavernier shares some Pluto math problems (and answers) as well as activities and resources.

Regarding the math problems, the blog post suggests using new data supplied by the New Horizons mission to compute Pluto's radius, circumference, surface area, volume and density.

FYI, NASA will be releasing more new Pluto photos and science findings tomorrow (Friday, July 17), during a briefing broadcast on NASA TV. To view it, point your browser to http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv at 10 a.m.

In the meantime, here's a fun photo - it's a picture of Pluto taken by the Cassini space probe circling Saturn on the day of the New Horizons Pluto flyby. 

     PHOTO: NASSA, Cassini mission

In other space-y news, the European Space Agency is happy to report comet-landing probe Philae has phoned home again! The 'call' came via Rosetta, Philae's mothership. Philae successfully sent data from its COmet Nucleus Sounding Experiment by Radiowave Transmission (CONSERT) instrument. Right now, Philae and the comet it hitched a ride on are about 300 million kilometers (186 million miles) from Earth. The comet will make its   closest approach to the sun this month, and everyone's hoping Philae will soak up some solar energy and send more signals, including data about how the comet changes caused  by the sun's warmth.