This is kind of awesome (even if the headline is wrong - it's the 'far side' of the moon, not the 'dark side'): MIT, NASA to probe universe from dark side of the Moon
NASA has selected a proposal by an MIT-led team to develop plans for an array of radio telescopes on the far side of the moon that would probe the earliest formation of the basic structures of the universe. The agency announced the selection and 18 others related to future observatories on Friday, Feb.15.
The new MIT telescopes would explore one of the greatest unknown realms of astronomy, the so-called "Dark Ages" near the beginning of the universe when stars, star clusters and galaxies first came into existence. This period of roughly a billion years, beginning shortly after the Big Bang, closely followed the time when cosmic background radiation, which has been mapped using satellites, filled all of space. Learning about this unobserved era is considered essential to filling in our understanding of how the earliest structures in the universe came into being.
The Lunar Array for Radio Cosmology (LARC) project is headed by Jacqueline Hewitt, a professor of physics and director of MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Science. LARC includes nine other MIT scientists as well as several from other institutions. It is planned as a huge array of hundreds of telescope modules designed to pick up very-low-frequency radio emissions. The array will cover an area of up to two square kilometers; the modules would be moved into place on the lunar surface by automated vehicles.
Observations of the cosmic Dark Ages are impossible to make from Earth, Hewitt explains, because of two major sources of interference that obscure these faint low-frequency radio emissions. One is the Earth's ionosphere, a high-altitude layer of electrically charged gas. The other is all of Earth's radio and television transmissions, which produce background interference everywhere on the Earth's surface.
The only place that is totally shielded from both kinds of interference is the far side of the moon, which always faces away from the Earth and therefore is never exposed to terrestrial radio transmissions.
If I buy I'm supporting artisans. It's all so very pretty. I need pretty.
Jesse, Jesse, you're the lady
You can do it 'cuz you're not shady!!!
Hee! And yes, it was fine. Nobody really cared about the thing I was getting myself all psyched up for.
Nails of the Crucifixion on eBay: [link]
Yep, the actual nails used to crucify Christ. Starting bid 500 Euros. Buy it now price 10,000 Euros.
Especially funny for those with cats: Kitchen-Floor Conflict Intensifies As Rival House Cats Claim Same Empty Bag
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The bag, a brown paper grocery bag from Stop & Shop with no prior claims of cat ownership attached to it, became the center of a wide-scale power play when Boswell seized control of its highly contested interior, and occupied the disputed area for approximately 30 seconds. Following immediate Johnsonian reprisals, Boswell unleashed a barrage of swats, but failed to secure a position in the bag.
Reports from the ground indicated that Johnson, once in possession of the perimeter region up to the cat dish, was forced in the early afternoon to retreat to the green rug zone, where he licked his paws with apparent disinterest for an estimated 10 minutes. Without warning, Johnson then launched a full-frontal assault on Boswell's forces, pouncing from behind and eventually chasing his rival all the way to the bathroom sink. The heavy leaping and grappling was broken only by periods of intense mutual licking. At one point, the conflict escalated into full-fledged upside-down kicking of each other in the face before Boswell was distracted by an errant ball rolling across the floor, bringing the factions to an uneasy standstill.
Happy birthday, Katie! I raise my glass to you.
Thanks for the slide show, tommy. I've had my eye on Agyness for a while but I'm glad to see she's inspiring a full on trend.
Juliana! You should do it. I love it when you're platinum blonde.
Yesterday I had Buffistas on the brain. As I wandered from comic book store to comic book store, I couldn't help but think how much they would make Scola smile. And Corwood and billytea came to mind as I discussed the merits of various euro games at this awesome game store I found. And then on my way to buy Matilda a super-chic new dress, I discovered that Paris now has Lush! Truly a Buffistas-in-Paris sort of day.
Awww. Matilda is so much better dressed than the rest of us.
I took the car into the shop to get the flat fixed and because I wasn't mentally prepared to say, "No, just fix the flat" I'm on the hook for a full check up, oil change, air filter. Stupid stupid stupid. I need to go into that situation with a mental script prepared but I was just feeling ragged about a 90 minute r/t commute with Matilda in the rain.
Feh on me.
Happy Birthday, Katie!!
Ooh, S2 Dexter was better than S1? Be still, my heart. Because I loved S1.
Feeling much better today, which is good, because it's back to work tomorrow. I may even venture out and get some copies made and mail some stuff out. Dream big, right?
I wasn't mentally prepared to say, "No, just fix the flat" I'm on the hook for a full check up, oil change, air filter.
ugh. it's so hard to resist the pressure of the auto mechanics.
...
In my pants!
Bah. A customer is talking to the owner of the coffee shop I'm in at the moment. He's a global warming denier. He keeps on saying stuff like, "How do we know what conditions in the world were hundreds or thousands of years ago?" So he's basically saying there's no evidence for it. Plus he says doing something about it would cost too much.
I should just ignore the conversation, but I can't. But I think it'd be rude to butt in. Plus I'm eating.
