This is pretty cool: astronomers have recorded a meteor impact on the surface of the moon. The resulting explosion appears as a white flash in the black-and-white video clip, looking to my eye like the dust speckles you frequently see in old movies. However, this particular dust speckle was about 10 inches wide, detonated with a force equal to four tons of dynamite, and left behind a crater 14 meters wide and three meters deep. Meteors hit the moon all the time, of course, but it’s pretty wild that this one was actually captured on film. (Or tape, or a chip, or whatever…) Go check it out!
Jun142006
“And new Philosophy calls all in doubt,
The Element of fire is quite put out;
The Sun is lost, and th’earth, and no mans wit
Can well direct him where to looke for it.
And freely men confesse that this world’s spent,
When in the Planets, and the Firmanent
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out againe to his Atomies.
‘Tis all in peeces, all cohaerence gone;”
–Donne, The First Anniversary
Very nice quote, Robert… that’s why they pay you the PhD money!
I’m still waiting for a check.