20 August 2010

Bad Astronomy: The Wonders of the Universe

Somewhat in the vein of asking about links that you-all think might be good to add to the blogroll (I'll get there, honest!), I'll mention a blog that I read and isn't on the blogroll.
One such is Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy. Not that he needs the advertising, but I do read and enjoy his blog for reasons relevant to my own aims here. Namely, he regularly has articles (I'll list a few below; apparently 'dozen' should follow the 'few') that illustrate my own feeling -- that the universe is a wonderful and interesting place, and doing science is a way to embrace that wonder.
The Moon is Shrinking
Bad Universe Premier August 29, 2010
Low mass black hole?
Planetary triangle 6 August 2010
Saturn's rings and a tiny moon
Sunset from space
Possible Naked eye Comet (8 June 2010)
Hubble at 20  -- still amazing!
The Red Lagoon (Nebula)
Amateur Astronomy and the newest new moon ever
The amazing Mimas (no, Saturn's moon, not some circus performer!)
90% of the distant universe
How big is a Billion?
Star at birth
Saturnian moon dance
The Whirlpool Galaxy revisited
Otherworldly eclipse
Cassini craft 10 years (9) since Jupiter
Norway spiral
Fermi and the shape of space
What was before the Big Bang?  Nobel Laureate answer
Winter solstice 2009
Top 10 astronomy pictures of 2009
More planets found
Apollo 12 footsteps photographed
Adler Planetarium giga-galaxy image  (The Adler Planetarium in Chicago is one of my favorite places to visit.  I have this on my list for next time I'm in Chicago.)
Scale of the Solar System (Something I've previously tried my hand at illustrating.  It's truly hard to convey, and the author did well.)
Dark Matter
Water on Moon, 2009
Beautiful Hubble
Lunar Landing revisited
Lunar Eavesdropping
When Worlds Collide
To be or not to be
Apollo landing site images
Optical delusions
Summer Solstice, 2009
Death From the Skies: Magnetars
Moon Occulting Antares, 2009
The Amazing Sun
Differential elemental ablation of micrometeoroids  (If that seems intimidating, rest assured that it isn't, really, and maybe have a look at my own Science Jabberwocky
100 hours of Astronomy, 2009
Galileoscope
(My own plans to distribute a few were bitten by a supply chain bug.  Still, one of these days, I'll be engaging my several nearby schools in something similar.)
Nerdity on parade (I'd probably lose, but I could actually enter a nerdity contest with Phil.)
Galileo and the Moon
2009 Perihelion

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Um. You're confused. Bad Astronomy is quite definitely on your blog roll.

And I agree, Phil Plait is great.

-M

Robert Grumbine said...

D'Oh!

Oh well, you see why. In my rss reader he's in my non-climate grouping, and I mistook that for not on blogroll.

Anonymous said...

Hello Robert,

Just a short note to say I have made an animation of your Arctic SST images. It doesn't perhaps show much by itself, but for laymen like me it gives a feel for warming waters in the Arctic round this time of year.

Best,

Neven

Robert Grumbine said...

Neven:
I like the animations. People are very good at looking at animations and seeing things evolve. Much better than to look at a series of still images. That's why the sea ice page has long since had a 30 day animation. You can watch weather systems move across the ice pack and ice edge.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Robert.

I've started a series today called End Zone, where I combine images from this final phase of 2007, 2008 and 2009 melting season.

Here is part 1 on air temperatures and here is part 2 on ice displacement.

I'm doing SLP and ice concentration in the coming days. Do you happen to know a good resource where I can get SST images (mean or anomaly) for the period 2007-2009?

Cheers,

Neven

ps your SST images are getting very interesting. I think I'll do another animation soon.

Anonymous said...

Forgot the links:

End Zone 1

End Zone 2

ps word verif here is great: first 'morso', now 'bling'. Combining these two words I could write a great treatise on how people buy gadgets and stuff to avoid boredom and having to think of death. Or perhaps I couldn't. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Robert, I don't think I can find daily SST images from previous years, so I've decided these monthly anomalies from JAXA.

Robert Grumbine said...

Neven:
Interesting site and information. I'll be making an update on the sea ice season here myself. Your own displays are interesting, and I'll have to steal some of the design ideas. (With due credit, of course).

Turned out our estimates were pretty good.