Link roundup

1. How China bought its first aircraft carrier. (Hint, they lied about it.)

2. MIT students receive their acceptance letters in cardboard tubes and are encouraged to modify them. One student sent hers into space. (Have you noticed that all of the interesting stories about space have nothing to do with NASA?)

3. Mysterious new Google device being tested. Via.

Poor Pluto

The solar system by Mathias Pedersen available as a print. Via.

Watches for astronomy lovers

Christiaan van der Klaauw astronomical watches. Via these sites.

Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co.

Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co. (the 826 in Seattle) has a newly revamped website full of awesome goods including globes of other planets, and bottles of certainty:









(One of the best purchases you can make is Essentially Odd: A Catalog of Products Created For and Sold at the 826 Stores, which is only $12 at Amazon.)

Link roundup

Timm Schneider adds eyeballs to things. Via.




Comic strip by Box Brown, who has art on sale here. imdb says:

During the filming of some scenes for The Princess Bride, the weather became markedly cold for Robin Wright Penn. Andre the Giant helped her by placing one of his hands over her head; his hands were so large that one would entirely cover the top of her head, keeping her warm.

Via.







Cheshire Cat, Batman, and Wonder Woman snuggies. Via.




Your Are A Cat Pick-A-Plot available at Amazon.




The new Mars rover will land in a very cool way (the video gets interesting about two minutes in).

*Previously: Choose Your Own Adventure book by Carl Sagan.

Aurora Australis from Space

From 2005, courtesy of NASA's IMAGE satellite, the Aurora Australis from Space.

Aurora

NASA:

Many aurora appear green, but sometimes — as in this image from the International Space Station — other colors such as red can appear. The colors depend on which atoms are causing the splash of light seen in the aurora. In most cases, the light comes when a charged particle sweeps in from the solar wind and collides with an oxygen atom in Earth’s atmosphere. This produces a green photon, so most aurora appear green. However, lower-energy oxygen collisions as well as collisions with nitrogen atoms can produce red photons -- so sometimes aurora also show a red band as seen here.

Sunset on Mars

Sunset on Mars. Via.

Link roundup

1. Remember that David Bowie/2001-inspired book I (and everyone else) mentioned a few weeks ago? The artist has been threatened by the copyright holder.

2. A summary of the NBA owners' bargaining positions.

3. "There's a famous legend that America spent millions on the development of a 'space pen' that writes upside down, while the Russians used a pencil. Here's the truth behind the legend."

Glow in the dark constellation chart

Glow in the dark illustrated constellation chart by Scott Benson on sale at Etsy.



He also draws a good Samus:







*Buy Metroid toys at eBay.

Link roundup

1. I have no reason to think this is the case, but wouldn't Joseph Gordon-Levitt be great as Robin?



2. A gas giant orbiting a distant star is darker than coal.



3. Militarized garden gnomes.



*Buy Batman posters at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Boeing "is planning to send its own employees to the International Space Station on the first crewed mission of its CST-100 ship, the company said Friday. Apparently internal interviews are already ongoing, because Boeing wants its astronauts to help drive further development of the space capsule."



2. I'm guessing Jock is working on a poster for the movie Zombie for Mondo.



3. Fairy tale specimen creator Alex CF is looking for commissions.



*Buy Mondo posters at eBay.

Journey to Mars posters

Mars United posters by Andy Rohr on sale here. Via.

*Buy travel posters at eBay.

Image roundup

Ministry of Magic access point.




Most popular names in Europe for newborns.




Grains of sand - - one of the many terrific magnified photographs by Gary Greenberg that are available as prints. Via.




"Easter eggs" from The Dark Knight Rises poster. Via.



Image from The Anthology Project, I believe.




There's Waldo.




Rapture wallpaper.




Solar system.

Moon light

The Moon by Nosigner (one of a kind as far as I could tell). Via.

*Previously: Tree growing in a light bulb.

Flash game lets you play golf on the moon

Golf Sector 6:

What will it be like to do ordinary things on the extraordinary alien worlds of our solar system? For instance, will we still play our favorite games? In 1971, during the Apollo 14 mission, astronaut Alan Shepard hit a few golf balls on Earth's moon, where the gravity is six times weaker than on Earth. But what if you took a swing on Hyperion, where the gravity is 500 times weaker than on Earth? How gently would you have to swing to prevent the ball from going into orbit?

GOLF SECTOR 6 is an easy-to-play, Flash-based golf game that lets you tee off on Saturn's moons. It is based on some of our most stunning images returned from the high resolution cameras onboard the Cassini spacecraft that have been processed by CICLOPS and released to the public here on this website. Each of Saturn's moons has its own weak gravity, which should keep things interesting, so be sure to take that into account when you make your swing! Just like golfing on Earth, the goal is to hit the ball into the hole -- or in this case, the crater! -- using the smallest number of swings.

It loaded instantly and ran smoothly in Chrome and was pretty fun. Via.

The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball

Wikipedia:

The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball was an Earth-grazing meteoroid which passed within 57 kilometres (35.4 miles) of the surface of the Earth at 20:29 UTC on August 10, 1972. It entered the Earth's atmosphere in daylight over Utah, United States (14:30 local time) and passed northwards leaving the atmosphere over Alberta, Canada. It was seen by many people and recorded on film and by space-borne sensors.

More at Astronomy Pic of the Day. Via.

Image roundup

Scary bridge.




Moon wallpaper.




Up wallpaper.



SR-71 (?) wallpaper.



Dramatic cat.