10 Responses to “Ridiculously Cool Image of the Day”

1. Jack Stephens Writes:
   March 18th, 2009 at 5:05 am

   Saturn, possibly the most bad ass of all the planets in the solar system.

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2. Silenced is Foo Writes:
   March 18th, 2009 at 5:21 am

   Dunno Jack, I’ve always had a soft spot for Jupiter. Swirling red clouds beat gaudy rings any day of the week.

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3. Type12point Writes:
   March 18th, 2009 at 6:47 am

   Don’t let Jupiter hear you say that.

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4. RonF Writes:
   March 18th, 2009 at 7:33 am

   Whenever I’ve got the scope out for the kids I point it at Saturn if it’s up, for sure. I’m an Astronomy Merit Badge counselor and bring a telescope or two to our campouts. It’s neat to see the kids go out with us to somewhere where’s there’s dark skies. Out here in the ‘burbs we’ve got a 2nd magnitude sky (only stars of that brightness or more are visible), which means that there’s only about 50 stars out at any one time. Their first night in camp they look up and see thousands. They’re stunned.

   I have a subscription to Sky and Telescope - they publish a lot of Hubble pictures as well as pictures taken by their own subscribers in it (and we’re talking National Geographic production values) and on their website. Anytime you hear news about an asteroid coming close to Earth or Sun activity affecting the Earth or satellites crashing into each other, etc., check their website for the details. And the pictures are gorgeous.

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5. Silenced is Foo Writes:
   March 18th, 2009 at 7:40 am

   Speaking of planets, I bought a set of paper planets to hang from the ceiling for my son’s room.

   There was no Pluto. Just the eight planets. While intellectually, I know that Pluto is just an overgrown Kuiperoid and it has no place being counted as one of the planets, it still hurts to see it missing.

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6. Jake Squid Writes:
   March 18th, 2009 at 7:46 am

   While intellectually, I know that Pluto is just an overgrown Kuiperoid and it has no place being counted as one of the planets, it still hurts to see it missing.

   When I was a kid, Pluto was a planet. Now there’s all these namby-pamby new-fangled rules on what qualifies as a planet. By jiminy, Pluto has a moon. Let me tell you, we don’t need any fancy degrees to tell us what’s a planet and what isn’t. If it was good enough to be a planet in the good old days, it’s good enough to be a planet now.

   Now get off my lawn!

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7. Dianne Writes:
   March 18th, 2009 at 7:49 am

   Pluto’s still a planet. It’s a dwarf planet. Not that what we call it makes any difference to what the object is, of course.

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8. chingona Writes:
   March 18th, 2009 at 8:50 am

   Out here in the ‘burbs we’ve got a 2nd magnitude sky (only stars of that brightness or more are visible), which means that there’s only about 50 stars out at any one time.

   When I was a kid, we lived in Houston. I remember lying in bed, looking out the window, and wondering why folks said the night sky was black, when really it was red. (And when we’d go to the beach in Galveston, I’d wonder why people said the ocean was blue, when clearly it was brown.)

   When I was nine or ten, we went out to Big Bend National Park in west Texas. It was the first time I really saw stars, the first time I saw the Milky Way. I’ve seen fantastic stars lots of places since then, but I still remember the first time I saw what the night sky really looks like.

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9. Jeff Fecke Writes:
   March 18th, 2009 at 10:56 am

   The thing to remember about Pluto is that whatever we call it, it’s still gonna keep going about its business, looping around the remnants of the Sun, long after we’re all dead and gone.

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10. Julie Writes:
    March 18th, 2009 at 6:45 pm

    Why is the third moon called Titan?

    Kidding, kidding.

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