Yes folks, Space Saturday has returned! After a few months hiatus, I bring you M8: The Lagoon Nebula:
Credit: Michael Sherick (via APOD) – Clickable for larger version.
There are many photos of the Lagoon Nebula around and this is from its center and one of my favorites. This one (the Hourglass Nebula) and this one are also extremely beautiful. This is a diffuse nebula which contains a number of young stars. The glowing gasses are Hydrogen regions that are heated and illuminated by the stars from within. The nubula is about 5000 light years away towards the center of our galaxy in the constellation Sagittarius and is some 50 light years across. The different colors represent different emissions of light from various elements like hydrogen, oxygen, and silicon. Beautiful, eh?
For more astronomy photos, see my Space Saturday Archive.
Resources:
APOD: August 3rd, 2005: The Busy Center of the Lagoon Nebula
APOD: February 10th, 2006: M8: The Lagoon Nebula
APOD: October 6th, 2002: The Lagoon Nebula in Three Colors
SEDS: M8
SEDS: Hubble Studies the Hourglass Nebula in M8
Wikipedia: Lagoon Nebula
I know I am a few days late on this, but for those that don’t read James Lileks’ The Bleat on a regular basis, I wanted to share this (Lileks is one of the big boy bloggers who is always quite clever and humerous).
I know a few of you are waiting for the “Firefly” review. Well. I watched the pilot. I should preface my remarks, by way of explanation, with a confession of prejudices. Western stuff doesn’t do much for me – horses, six shooters – and it’s not what I look for in my sci-fi. And I find myself less and less interested in committing to another sci-fi world, since the ones in which I invested anything either disappointed … or went on too long…. When “Firefly” first came out I read good reviews, and stayed away because I was certain it would be cancelled, and I would be annoyed. … So I watched the pilot Friday night out of obligation, really – arms crossed across the chest, remote in hand on the FF button, looking for an excuse to bail, because it just can’t be that good.
About fifteen minutes in, I thought: well, this is just the best sci-fi TV pilot ever. An hour into it I hit pause, shrunk the screen and hit Amazon to see if they had any Serenity toy ships. I enjoyed every minute. Every half-minute. Sometimes I rewound and did a frame by frame so I could enjoy certain seconds at my leisure. I’m sure there will be lesser episodes and better ones; I don’t care. I love it. And, as usual, I’m late. But at least I don’t have to worry about it being cancelled; as far as I’m concerned, it’s just begun, and it ends with a big movie. Happy day.
What the hell is wrong with you Fox? If only you had actually promoted and been dedicated to the show ::cough Arrested cough:: !! I think Fox chooses shows based on the reaction of chimps.
Last week while browsing through Hypercubed‘s Links of the Week (as any good minded geek should), I found myself at Physics Education Technology. These folks at the University of Colorado have created numerous interactive physics Java simulations. There program is downloadable so you don’t have to be online to use it (although Java is required as well). This is an awesome tool for teachers of high school, middle school, and even college level physics (or just physics enthusiasts in general – like me).
A few of the simulations that I particularily enjoy: Circuit construction (allowing you to choose voltages, resistances, wires, random objects),wave on a string (with different tensions, dampings, and ends – fixed, sliding, unattached), moving man (where you can see distance, velocity, and acceleration graphs and how they are related) and many, many more! Check out all the simulations!
Sally, I think you will really enjoy this resource (at the rate your kids are going, maybe sooner rather than later!) so I will bring you a copy (since it might take quite a while to download over dial-up) next time I see you. Erin’s graduation I suppose. Wow, that is soon! My little sister is growing up! heh.
Fellow Regent student Beth over at The Beth Blog Ever has been discussing church unity and division (here and here). Since I am somewhat conflicted over the issue, I thought I would post on it myself.
The just of my thoughts are this: Some division is good, some is bad. Some diversity is good, some is bad. Clear? Thought so. An obvious good example of good division is at the Reformation when folks like Luther and Calvin took a look at the Roman Catholic Church and concluded it was not true church and took off. That kind of division I can get behind. The kinds of division I cannot get behind are those that arise because of silly differences. The problem here becomes: what is a “silly difference?” Churches and congregations have split of trivial reasons and that becomes sinful as the reasons will not justify such fractures.
Two areas of diversity that were brought up at Beth’s blog are the Eucharist and worship. Both areas are places that diversity can be accepted and even embraced. I cannot beleive that any one denomination (even all denominations combined) has a monopoly on worship. God is big enough that the way in which we worship him should be and can be quite diverse. Is a monk chanting any better than a gospel chior? A restrained presbyterian chior or a vibrant African tribal service? This type of diversity is a good thing within the church.
Do we have to agree on every aspect of the Eucharist in order to share it with other believers? I would have to say, for the most part, no. I am perfectly fine taking communion with my home Presbyterian church, or visiting at a traditional Anglican church, or even with a Catholic believing in transubstantiation. Just because I may disagree with some of the particular doctrine does not mean that Christ and the Holy Spirit cannot be found there.
Where do we go from here? How do we embrace diversity of tradition while at the same time rejecting (in a meaningful way) inappropriate (sinful even) division? Thoughts on this? Am I leaving anything out?
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