Scales and Such

SIZING IT UP:  We were fortunate to be gifted an inflatable solar system set (plus Pluto and a couple of planets' moons) last week. Over the weekend, Annabelle blew them all up, and right away, she suspected they were not to scale. 

Turns out they're exponentially out of whack. 

For starters, 1.3 million or so Earths could fit inside the sun. In Exhibit A above, you see the set's Earth and Sun. I'm pretty sure 1.3 million of those Earths couldn't fit in the orange orb. Or our house, for that matter!

One-point-three-million Earths is pretty hard to even contemplate. Fortunately, we found a cool story online that provides a visualization of it. Check it out here:  http://space-facts.com/how-big-is-the-sun-million-earths/

MEANWHILE, NEAR SATURN:  We loved this photo today from NASA 360. Check out moon Dione crossing the face of the planet Saturn, a process also known as a 'transit.'  Per NASA, "Transits play an important role in astronomy and can be used to study the orbits of planets and their atmospheres, both in our solar system and in others."

Read more about the Cassini mission here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html

FREE FREE FREE: Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day Live! A subtle reminder that there's an opportunity to get free museum admission for two to one of hundreds of venues across the U.S. (Seattle friends, this includes EMP, the Museum of Flight and SAM). All you have to do is go to this Web site and register!
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/museumday/

A list of participating venues is here:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/museumday/venues/

WHAT'S ON THE MENU: Annabelle is often 'doing an art,' to use poor grammar. She takes a sketchbook almost everywhere. When we're at a restaurant, the back of the kid's menu becomes her 'canvas.' Here are three creations of hers from a recent restaurant stop. 

Often, she'll ask me for a topic to draw. For this one, I said, "Fish eating pizza."

I love the little details like the fish wearing a tie and another fish happy to see anchovies.

I also suggested a shark water skiing.

I like how she has the shark explaining he can breathe out of water a bit, just not very well.

And this last one chronicles the struggles CJ and she had with the ketchup bottle.

IN REVIEW: CJ recently purchased a new (old) video game. I'll let him tell you a bit about it. 

The Mega Man Legacy Collection is a collection of the 8-bit Mega Man games, including games 1 through 6, originally released from 1987 to 1993. The Mega Man franchise was created by Keiji Inafune, who, according to Wikipedia, is a Japanese video game producer and illustrator.

In the games, you play as Mega Man, a blue robot whose job is to destroy and get the powers of other robots made by the evil Dr. Wily. Although the games are without a doubt the primary focus of the collection, there are other features included with the game.

These extra features include Challenges, which are challenges presented to you (examples: going through all the bosses from a single game, speedrunning through parts of certain stages, etc.) that must be completed within a time limit. There is also the museum, featuring pictures such as development sketches and advertisements for the games. Then there is the database, featuring information about certain characters and enemies in the games. Lastly, there are the soundtracks for the games that you can listen to.

The Mega Man Legacy Collection costs $14.99 digitally, and it was released on August 25th (or 9:00 P.M. on the 24th if you live on the West Coast).

I think CJ bought his version at 9:01 p.m. on the 24th.