COME SAIL AWAY: Last night, after making a frozen yogurt run, we took the long way home, around the 'horn' on the south Magnolia border. Glad we did. There was some sort of sailboat regatta going on. We stopped at one of our favorite beaches and watched the boats head for port. So pretty!
IT CONTINUES: More news an images from the successful New Horizons mission to Pluto continues to pour in.
Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI Some of the biggest news? Pluto has atmosphere. Check out the photo above - a 'farewell' shot taken by New Horizons as it zoomed past Pluto, shooting back toward our sun.
You can see Pluto’s atmosphere in the photo, the white ring against the silhouette of the dwarf planet. It was taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on July 15, about 9 p.m. Pacific time. At that point, New Horizons was already 1.25 million miles (2 million kilometers) from Pluto. The image was just delivered to Earth yesterday. Because of New Horizon's distance from home, it is going to take weeks/months for the data it captured to be transmitted, so stay tuned for more of the Pluto show!
Other new photos of Pluto have revealed glaciers made of nitrogen ice creeping across its surface, hazes that come and go around the planet, and dark organic compounds raining down.
Also in today's Pluto news, this fun congratulations to the New Horizons team hit the Internet, featuring rock star and astrophysicist Dr. Brian May. https://youtu.be/PvOF5anPAwo
MEANWHILE, CLOSER TO HOME: Buzz Aldrin has been busy on social media this week, which is the 46th anniversary of mankind's first moon landing. According to Buzz Aldrin, "The true value of #Apollo11 is the story of innovation and teamwork that went into overcoming all the obstacles to land on the moon. That effort was driven in part by competition and scientific discovery and the natural need for humans to explore and push boundaries. The plaque we left on the moon reads:
Here at MPA, we observed the anniversary by making rocket pops with Tang.
FOCUSED: We enjoyed some sunshine and fresh air at Seattle Center this afternoon, splashing in the International Fountain and the wading pool by Key Arena. But first, the kids each took a short right on a very high bike outside Pacific Science Center.
It is actually kinda sketchy feeling when you're on it, you can't see the rail, all you see is the pool about 20 feet below you! The is the first summer Annabelle has been tall enough to ride. She was very pleased to climb on board and take a lap! We headed inside the science center and set about finding the temporary astronaut statue that's part of the Museum of Flight's "Astronauts on the Town" program. We found him or her by the Gemini capsule replica.
This one's called Extravehicular Activity. By artist Matthew Dockrey, its design was inspired by the original Gemini spacewalks. This afternoon, we had our final focus group/feedback session at Pacific Science Center. We've been part of this project for two years now, and our point of contact person thanked us for never missing an appointment. Today, we were giving feedback on "The Studio" part of the Professor Wellbody’s Academy of Health & Wellnessinside PSC. The theme there at the present is "Meet Your Microbes!" The exhibit features info about microscopic organisms that help us digest food, process vitamins, protect us from infections - and sometimes make us sick. A lot of the content features local researchers and physicians, which is cool. For instance, we learned all about Fecal microbiota transplants thanks to a video featuring University of Washington 's Dr. Elizabeth Broussard.
At this station, we could zoom in on microbes to see how big (or small) they really are.
I really liked one station demonstrating that correlation and causation are not one and the same. For instance, a lot of ice cream is sold at the same time a lot of people get sunburned. Does that mean ice cream causes sunburns? No!!
The exhibit features a number of videos. One we took the time (a bit over 5 minutes) to watch was "The Invisible Universe of the Human Microbiome," an animation by NPR.
I found the video on YouTube, so I can share it hear. Its summary reads, "The next time you look in a mirror, think about this: In many ways you're more microbe than human. There are 10 times more cells from microorganisms like bacteria and fungi in and on our bodies than there are human cells. But these tiny compatriots are invisible to the naked eye. So we asked artist Ben Arthur to give us a guided tour of the rich universe of the human microbiome."
https://youtu.be/5DTrENdWvvM
KIND OF A BIG DEAL: We started our day by tuning into a Livestream press conference from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The topic at hand? Earth 2.0! Well, kind of. Maybe. But it's exciting, really! NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has discovered what's believe to be a rocky planet orbiting a star that's just 4 percent more massive than our sun, and 10 percent brighter. In a 'habitable zone,' the rocky planet is about 1.6 times the size of Earth, making it a "super-Earth." This planet, named Kepler 452b for now, is about the same distance from its sun as we are from ours. It's about 1,400 light years from us, however.
Shown is an artist's impression of Earth compared to Kepler 452b. NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle. NASA is calling 452b "a bigger, older cousin to Earth." Our "cousin" has a 385-day orbit of its star. Interesting. In case you're wondering, the SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute has had 452b on their radar (so to speak) for awhile now, and have been watching for signs of life, using the Allen Telescope Array to check it for signals of artificial origin. To date, no such signals have been detected, per SETI. LIME TIME: Today's produce picks included three cute little limes off our one and only lime tree!
BOUNTIFUL: We're finally beginning to reap the benefits of our months of gardening work. We've got multiple zucchini and so many cherry tomatoes, which the kids eat like candy. Sweet! SOMETHING FISHY: For our morning walk, we headed to the Ballard Locks. There were lots of fish moving through the ladders! Annabelle took this photo ...
We stood atop the dam and watched the fish jump.
We watched a few boats passing through the locks, including this tugboat ...
and this one, out of San Francisco. Be glad you can't smell the diesel. :)
We took the opportunity to enjoy the multitude of flowers in bloom on the grounds of the park ...
and we also checked out a special guest, at the visitor's center, one of the "Astronauts on the Town," a fun visual celebration to mark the 50th anniversary of the Museum of Flight. In total, there are 25 unique, life-size "astronauts" stationed around town. Each began as a white fiberglass statue, then "transformed with paint, lasers, plaid shirts and other materials into a colorful new personality" per the MoF.
Today, we encountered this lovely statue, Aboriginaut.
Per the art project's Web site, this particular astronaut's design was "based on cave drawings of astronomy by Aboriginal cultures of Australia. The symbols on the suit depict the sun, the stars and the moon along with symbols representing travel."
If you follow our blog, be prepared to see many more of these Earth-bound astronauts in the future, as we hope to visit a number of them. THREE MORE: This afternoon, we watched three humans (one Russian, one American, and one Japanese citizen) hurtle off Earth, destination International Space Station.
Fortunately their flight went mostly OK (one solar array failed to deploy, per early reports I read, but one was enough to get them where they needed to go). A BIT OF A HIKE: We stumbled across a video today by people who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and made a compilation using one second of video from each day of their journey. In all, it's 2660 miles in just over three minutes. What a trip that would be. Makes me want to blank five months (maybe six) on our calendar and give it a go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=styiDn7YKhE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=styiDn7YKhE >
TURN UP THE STEREO: Had to love the headline on a NASA press release I received in my inbox today:
Rock Star/Astrophysicist Dr. Brian May Goes Backstage With New Horizons
Why, yes, I do think I'll read that!
From watching a New Horizons press conference last week, we knew Brian May was at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Maryland. Turns out his visit was more than a fly-by. Dr. May spent a few days with the team and has been named a New Horizons science collaborator by mission principal investigator Alan Stern. Here he is walking the halls with NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden.
Credits: NASA/Joel Kowsky
Below, Dr. Brian May discusses the latest images of Pluto and Charon with members of the New Horizons GGI team.
Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Henry Throop
The NASA powwow happened to coincide with May's birthday. He called his visit “the best birthday gift ever.”
One of the things May did while visiting with the team was create the first known stereoscopic image of Pluto. (To fully appreciate it, you'd need to be wearing special spectacles.)
In stereoscopy, a 3D illusion is created by using a pair of 2D images, with each of the images representing two perspectives of the same object, with just minor deviation that equals or nearly equals the perspective that a pair of human eyes would receive in typical binocular vision.
High quality stereo image of Pluto assembled by Brian May. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI
May has been fascinated with stereoscope images since he was a child. In a NASA video, he explains, "Stereoscopic images are fun, they are very real they make you feel like you're there, but they also give you a lot of information because you can get heights from this and you can get the whole shape of the mountain ranges, you can establish the depth of the craters, and the rilles or whatever, you know... "
PIXELS: Last night we took advantage of free sneak preview passes (from Sony) to see "Pixels," a flick that's been on CJ's radar for years now. He first learned of it when he saw this short by Patrick Jean from 2010, about New York being invaded by 8-bit creatures: https://youtu.be/SxX_bVluflo
Fast forward a few years and there's a full fledged, big-bidget Hollywood work up on the theme.
Following is a short synopsis from CJ. SPOILERS AHEAD
On July 20th, 2015, I went to see a special preview of Pixels, a movie that will not be released to the public until July 24th. Pixels is named so because it is themed after older video games, which have graphics made out of pixels. Most of the games shown in the movie are from the late 70's and early 80's.
At the start of the movie, which is set in 1982, Will Cooper, a future President of the United States, goes biking with his best friend, Sam Brenner, who is a champion at Pac-Man. They visit a local arcade, and Sam gets a Chewbacca mask from the claw machine, earning him the nickname "Chewie". A short while later, Sam goes up against Eddie Plant, a rival whom he must beat at Donkey Kong in a tournament. a MC who is present at the tournament informs the audience that the competition will be recorded and sent up in a space probe for aliens to discover. Eddie wins at the competition (using cheat codes).
Over 30 years later, Will is now president, but it appears that aliens misinterpreted the content in the probe as a declaration of war. The aliens send attacks in the form of 3-dimensional versions of classic video games, such as Galaga and Pong. Will has to team up with Sam and Eddie to stop the aliens from destroying the planet.
I know this plot sounds silly and/or bizarre, but Pixels was a good movie. If you are interested in retro video games, then I would recommend watching Pixels.
Having seen Pixels last night, we had a hankering to get our hands on some joysticks and buttons, and tonight we headed to Full Tilt's Ballard location. There, Ms. Pacman awaited us. Annabelle was thrilled she got to level three for the first time ever.
