1 by 1

a lump of coal for christmas

A series of incredible aerial photos of coal mines.  I always imagined them being dark dingy down down down.  I wonder where I can learn more about that...  (It looks like 60% of coal mines are still underground but the rest are "open cast" like the one above.  It's so odd to see these big strip mines just happily coexisting with farms and even towns...)

Binary Black Holes

Living in Alaska is not much different than being an interstellar space explorer. Or maybe i'm just an interstellar space explorer who's stuck without a spaceship in Alaska.....

Today i encountered these two dangerous black holes. I needed to pass right between them, but the way was treacherous with unknown forces at play.

The bridge and the log were both covered in ice and frost. The log was a cylinder but the bridge was tilted towards the closer hole, which would be similar to feeling a stronger gravitational pull in that direction.

So i needed to stay outside the Roche Lobes and trace a path right through the Lagrangian Point to make it safely to the other side. The Lagrangian Point is the place between two gravitational bodies where the forces are equal between the two objects, so that anything at that point will not be pulled toward either object.

But i'm not crazy, so first i sent out a space probe. I call my space probe Kona. If Kona slipped on the tilted bridge as if being caught in the gravity of the black hole, and she disappeared, that would be enough data to decide to turn around and go back home.

The good news is her mission was a complete success and we continued deeper into the last frontier

Flat Globe

Here is a great looking alternative to your other online map programs. It's very attractive with lots of place names at various scales, and it's even more detailed than google maps for the areas around my house.

http://www.arcgis.com/apps/HeaderFooter/main/index.html

Cuddle the Cuttlefish

I went to the Utah aquarium the other day where they had a tank full of cuttlefish. I realized after a few minutes the cuttle fish could see me. Once when i pressed my camera up to the glass one of them briefly made a perfect black circle on it's side that was facing my camera lens!

Next time you get the chance to go see some cuttlefish you should do an experiment and maybe write some symbols or letters on little index cards. Hold the cards up against the glass if a fish is nearby and see if it mimics the symbol on the card.