Category: Science

At a distance of nine light years, Sirius is one of the brightest well-known stars visible in the northern hemisphere that is close enough that its distance is something we can easily wrap our heads around in terms of a human lifetime.

Every winter with the appearance of the star on the eastern horizon, I think back to what I was doing nine years ago when the light I'm seeing now first departed Sirius on its journey outward.

This year that would be 2012. Ben and I had been in Denver a little over a year.

The beast in the picture above is the Indricotherium (Greek for "Indric beast"); pronounced INN-drik-oh-THEE-ree-um; also known as Paraceratherium. It lived on the plains of what is now Asia during the Oligocene (33-23 million years ago). Its average size was 40 feet (12.2 meters) in length and is estimated to have weighed 15-20 tons (13-18 metric).

Indricotherium was a herbivore.

Ever since its scattered, oversized remains were discovered in the early 20th century, Indricotherium has occasioned controversy among paleontologists, who have named this giant mammal not once, but three times–Indricotherium, Paraceratherium and Baluchitherium have all been in common usage, with the first two currently battling it out for supremacy. (For the record, Paraceratherium seems to have won the race among paleontologists, but Indricotherium is still preferred by the general public–and may yet wind up being assigned to a separate, but similar, genus.)

Whatever you choose to call it, Indricotherium was, hands-down, the largest terrestrial mammal that ever lived, approaching the size of the giant sauropod dinosaurs that preceded it by over a hundred million years. An ancestor of the modern rhinoceros, the 15-to-20-ton Indricotherium had a relatively long neck (though nothing approaching what you'd see on a Diplodocus or Brachiosaurus) and surprisingly thin legs with three-toed feet, which years ago used to be portrayed as elephant-like stumps. The fossil evidence is lacking, but this huge herbivore probably possessed a prehensile upper lip–not quite a trunk, but an appendage flexible enough to allow it to grab and tear the tall leaves of trees.

To date, fossils of Indricotherium have only been found in the central and eastern parts of Eurasia, but it's possible that this gigantic mammal also stomped across the plains of western Europe and (conceivably) other continents as well during the Oligocene epoch. Classified as a "hyrocodont" mammal, one of its closest relatives was the much smaller (only about 500 pound) Hyracodon, a distant North American anecstor of the modern rhinoceros.

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Researching the photo above led me down an internet rabbit hole of nightmare fuel.

We are so small.

What was only one small step 52 years ago, has inspired a lifetime of wonder.

On July 20, 1969, three astronauts of Apollo11, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, made history. Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon.

On this day, we celebrate the Moon landing and salute the heroes, visionaries and explorers who not only made the seemingly impossible, possible – but inspired us to return.

Our NASA Artemis program aims to take the next giant leap: landing the first woman and first person of color on the Moon – using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. In collaboration with our commercial and international partners, we will establish sustainable exploration for the first time, with our sights set on sending astronauts to Mars.

Credit: NASA

This species of trilobite has been known by Paleontologists and collectors alike for many years. There has never been a complete specimen found. However many segments of this trilobite have been found and based on those fossils a life-size reconstruction was made by George Rennie under the guidance and research by Dr. Copeland McClintock of Yale University Division of Invertebrate Paleontology. At this time the original model is on display at the Peabody Museum at Yale. To date this trilobite is considered to be the largest in the world. Terataspis is found in both the lower Onondaga Limestone (middle Devonian of western New York, particularly the former Fogelsanger Quarry in Williamsville, Erie County, and the upper Schoharie Formation of eastern New York. The large size and spiny nature of this trilobite make it one of the more spectacular forms.

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The first new pictures of Ganymede since NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the 1990s…

There are a number of space missions scheduled for the future and they're all awesome, but there is ONE mission in particular that spaghettifies my mind with its gravitational pull more so than the rest. That is the Europa Clipper mission!

Onwards to Jupiter's water moon, Europa!!

• The Europa Clipper mission will target the ice-encrusted moon of Jupiter, which is considered a prime target in the search for life beyond Earth.

• Below its icy shell, Europa is thought to hold a 170km-deep body of water that  could have the right conditions for biology.

• Due to launch in October 2024, let's hope we don't get a repeat of the ongoing James Webb Telescope delay.

• Europa Clipper will carry out an in-depth investigation of the watery world, including whether it can support life in its subsurface ocean.

• Gravitational interactions with Jupiter generate tidal forces and heat, which keeps Europa's ocean liquid. The heating may even drive volcanic vents on the seafloor; on Earth, such vent systems support a wide array of life forms.

So, what would the sky look like if Arcturus, Sirius, Alpha Centauri, Vega or Polaris replaced our Sun?

If Arcturus were put in place of the Sun it might look something like this at sunset, which would last over 50 minutes to set, cause it's, you know, some 25 times larger than our Sun.

White-hot Sirius A would blaze in our daytime sky. 1.75 times the size of the #Sun and 26 times as luminous, we'd all be fried if Sirius stood where the Sun is.

This is AlphaCentauri , comprised of three stars, two stars slightly more massive and luminous than the Sun located roughly, 4.4 light years away. The third star (to the left) is Proxima Centauri, a dim red dwarf and third member of the system.

The star Vega—25 light years from Earth—rotates so rapidly it's oval shaped instead of spherical. Vega measures 2.7 times the Sun's diameter along its equator and is 36 times brighter than the Sun. The sight would make you go blind quickly. Earth would also be roasted in the heat.

Polaris, also known as the North Star is a supergiant 2,500 more luminous than the Sun and 45 times its size. What an eyeful we Earthlings would have if Polaris were our sun. Wouldn't have eyes to enjoy it though. Rigel, the left foot of the constellation Orion, would provide a similar view. with the same results. In order for Rigel to provide a planet the same degree of light and heat as we receive on Earth, the planet would need an orbit so large it would take 2000 years to complete one revolution around the star.

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The western sky is going to be putting on quite the show in September 2040.

I'll probably be long gone by then, but assuming the human species survives, this is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime treat.

From NASA Goddard:

Uranus is (very, very slowly) losing "weight." Our 7th planet's tiny mass loss was known only to Voyager 2 — until Goddard scientists Gina DiBraccio and Dan Gershman did a double-take on the satellite's data, more than 30 years later.

Uranus' twisted magnetic field allows tiny amounts of the planet's atmosphere to leak out into space, potentially taking billions of years for significant loss to occur. This behavior has been observed at other planets, like Venus, Earth and Jupiter, but never at distant Uranus until now.

How much of an effect has this had on Uranus? The data from Voyager 2 is the one time Uranus has gotten on the scale, so to speak, so that's a hard question to answer. But the remaining mystery is part of the draw. "It's why I love planetary science," DiBraccio said. "You're always going somewhere you don't really know." Image: Voyager 2 took this image as it approached the planet Uranus on Jan. 14, 1986. The planet's hazy bluish color is due to the methane in its atmosphere, which absorbs red wavelengths of light. 

Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Even the rest of the solar system is done with our shit.

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Scary Stuff.

…the Abyss stares back.