Maps

In 2013, an anonymous hacker mapped the Internet through illegal means, and in the process exposed rampant security problems. The project, called Internet Census 2012, used 420,000 networked devices, dubbed the Carna Botnet, to ping IP addresses across the globe in 2012. Every one of the devices was either entirely unsecured with no password protection, or used the standard password "root" that comes with many off-the-shelf routers (users are supposed to change the password, but rarely do). The hacker released all of the collected data to the public domain in a sort of research paper. The animation above is a map based on that data that shows 24-hours of Internet use.  CARNA BOTNET

WIRED.COM

BETSY MASON

06.10.15

WHEN YOU HEAR the word “Internet,” what do you picture in your mind? Is it a series of pipes, or a three-dimensional spacescape, or maybe a browser on your phone’s screen? Visualizing the Internet is tough, perhaps because it’s this weird combination of physical and conceptual things. But that’s also what makes it an appealing endeavor.

There is of course a physical architecture of cables, wires and switches that exists, but these material things are more like a backbone or a substrate that enables the Internet to exist. And while these tangible aspects of the Internet are hard enough to visualize, the conceptual part is a mind bender. People have assigned all sorts of physical descriptors to it, attempts to give it a shape. They call it the inter-tubes or the inter-webs, the information superhighway, or the cloud.

Perhaps the most ubiquitous nickname is also the least concrete: cyberspace. But even this amorphous moniker implies a geography, or at least a spatial aspect. And where there is a spatial aspect of any sort, even imagined, there will be maps.

But how do you map the Internet? This is an intriguing problem that has drawn many different attempts from cartographers, computer scientists, visual artists, data wranglers and information scientists. We’ve collected some of our favorite maps of the Internet in the gallery above, from the adorably schematic 1977 map of the Internet’s larval stage, known as ARPANET, to geographical maps of the deep-sea cables that transfer the information, to sophisticated computer-generated topologic maps of the connections that make up cyberspace.

Some of these visualizations focus on websites, some on users, some on connections and some on concepts. Many use proximity to represent some sort of relatedness, just as Waldo Tobler taught cartographers. For some, closeness represents similarity, for others it indicates connectedness. Others have mapped the Internet onto an existing architecture, like the Tokyo Metro.

The results are varied and beautiful and will give you lots of visuals to fill your head when you hear the word Internet in the future.

AURORASAURUS

http://www.aurorasaurus.org/

The Northern Lights flare up over Grimersta Lodge on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis in the early hours of March 18, 2015.  SANDIE MACIVER/DEMOTIX/CORBIS

The aurora australis on March 17-18 this year, as captured by the Suomi-NPP satellite.  CURTIS SEAMAN (CIRA/COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY)

On Care for Our Common Home

THE POPE’S MEMO ON CLIMATE CHANGE IS A MIND-BLOWER

www.wired.com

POPE FRANCIS ALREADY has a reputation for barnstorming. His positions on poverty, on gay priests, and liberation theology would have been shocking enough on their own, but in contrast to the more conservative positions of previous popes, they were downright lefty.

Sure, Francis has his more traditional moments. Abortion and assisted suicide are still no-go for the leader of the world’s Catholics. But Francis has been explicit about links between capitalism, materialism, and threats to the world’s poor. There’s a reason he named himself after St. Francis of Assisi—famously poor, famously eco-conscious—after all.

Now the Pope is taking on science. Specifically, in a new encyclical—that’s a letter laying out official Catholic doctrine—Francis describes Earth’s problem with an increasingly messed-up climate, why that’s the purview of religion, and who will suffer the most if people don’t do anything about it. The encyclical, “On Care for Our Common Home,” makes explicit the connection between climate change and oppression of the poorest and most vulnerable. It’s well-argued, clear, at times quite moving…and 42,000 words long. So here’s the good-parts version.

THE THESIS STATEMENT
It is no longer enough to speak only of the integrity of ecosystems. We have to dare to speak of the integrity of human life, of the need to promote and unify all the great values. Once we lose our humility, and become enthralled with the possibility of limitless mastery over everything, we inevitably end up harming society and the environment.

NATURE ISN'T A POSSESSION

If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs. By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously. The poverty and austerity of Saint Francis were no mere veneer of asceticism, but something much more radical: a refusal to turn reality into an object simply to be used and controlled.

Rather than a problem to be solved, the world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise.

THE CLIMATE IS MESSED UP AND PEOPLE HAVE TO FIX IT
The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all. At the global level, it is a complex system linked to many of the essential conditions for human life. A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. In recent decades this warming has been accompanied by a constant rise in the sea level and, it would appear, by an increase of extreme weather events, even if a scientifically determinable cause cannot be assigned to each particular phenomenon. Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF CLIMATE CHANGE ARE A SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUE

Even as the quality of available water is constantly diminishing, in some places there is a growing tendency, despite its scarcity, to privatize this resource, turning it into a commodity subject to the laws of the market. Yet access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights. Our world has a grave social debt towards the poor who lack access to drinking water, because they are denied the right to a life consistent with their inalienable dignity.

Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost for ever. The great majority become extinct for reasons related to human activity. Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their message to us. We have no such right.

SCIENTISTS ARE RIGHT, AND THIS IS ABOUT MORE THAN SCIENCE

We must be grateful for the praiseworthy efforts being made by scientists and engineers dedicated to finding solutions to man-made problems. But a sober look at our world shows that the degree of human intervention, often in the service of business interests and consumerism, is actually making our earth less rich and beautiful, ever more limited and grey, even as technological advances and consumer goods continue to abound limitlessly. We seem to think that we can substitute an irreplaceable and irretrievable beauty with something which we have created ourselves.

BLAME THE MEDIA
Real relationships with others, with all the challenges they entail, now tend to be replaced by a type of internet communication which enables us to choose or eliminate relationships at whim, thus giving rise to a new type of contrived emotion which has more to do with devices and displays than with other people and with nature.

This lack of physical contact and encounter, encouraged at times by the disintegration of our cities, can lead to a numbing of conscience and to tendentious analyses which neglect parts of reality….We have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

BUT LET'S NOT FORGET THAT TECHNOLOGY IS A WONDERFUL THING

Humanity has entered a new era in which our technical prowess has brought us to a crossroads. We are the beneficiaries of two centuries of enormous waves of change: steam engines, railways, the telegraph, electricity, automobiles, aeroplanes, chemical industries, modern medicine, information technology and, more recently, the digital revolution, robotics, biotechnologies and nanotechnologies. It is right to rejoice in these advances and to be excited by the immense possibilities which they continue to open up before us, for “science and technology are wonderful products of God-given human creativity.”

...UNTIL IT TAKES OVER PEOPLE'S LIVES

Our freedom fades when it is handed over to the blind forces of the unconscious, of immediate needs, of self-interest, and of violence. In this sense, we stand naked and exposed in the face of our ever-increasing power, lacking the wherewithal to control it. We have certain superficial mechanisms, but we cannot claim to have a sound ethics, a culture and spirituality genuinely capable of setting limits and teaching clear-minded self-restraint.

SERIOUSLY, STOP LOOKING AT YOUR PHONE

A constant flood of new consumer goods can baffle the heart and prevent us from cherishing each thing and each moment. To be serenely present to each reality, however small it may be, opens us to much greater horizons of understanding and personal fulfillment.

The richer are getting richer by screwing the world’s poor and the environment.
The foreign debt of poor countries has become a way of controlling them, yet this is not the case where ecological debt is concerned. In different ways, developing countries, where the most important reserves of the biosphere are found, continue to fuel the development of richer countries at the cost of their own present and future.

GOD DID NOT SAY PEOPLE COULD DO WHATEVER THEY WANTED TO EARTH

We are not God. The earth was here before us and it has been given to us. This allows us to respond to the charge that Judaeo-Christian thinking, on the basis of the Genesis account which grants man “dominion” over the earth (cf. Gen 1:28), has encouraged the unbridled exploitation of nature by painting him as domineering and destructive by nature. This is not a correct interpretation of the Bible as understood by the Church.

When nature is viewed solely as a source of profit and gain, this has serious consequences for society. This vision of “might is right” has engendered immense inequality, injustice and acts of violence against the majority of humanity, since resources end up in the hands of the first comer or the most powerful: the winner takes all.

The natural environment is a collective good, the patrimony of all humanity and the responsibility of everyone. If we make something our own, it is only to administer it for the good of all. If we do not, we burden our consciences with the weight of having denied the existence of others.

Mistreatment of the environment is as bad as a lot of really bad stuff, like child abuse and stem cells.
The culture of relativism is the same disorder which drives one person to take advantage of another, to treat others as mere objects, imposing forced labour on them or enslaving them to pay their debts. The same kind of thinking leads to the sexual exploitation of children and abandonment of the elderly who no longer serve our interests. It is also the mindset of those who say: Let us allow the invisible forces of the market to regulate the economy, and consider their impact on society and nature as collateral damage.

SERIOUSLY, LAY OFF THE EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH

There is a tendency to justify transgressing all boundaries when experimentation is carried out on living human embryos. We forget that the inalienable worth of a human being transcends his or her degree of development.

AND HOW ABOUT A LITTLE MORE OPEN-MINDEDNESS FOR TRANSGENDER PEOPLE?

Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential element of any genuine human ecology. Also, valuing one’s own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment. It is not a healthy attitude which would seek “to cancel out sexual difference because it no longer knows how to confront it”.

THE POPE WANTS TO TALK THIS OUT

There are certain environmental issues where it is not easy to achieve a broad consensus. Here I would state once more that the Church does not presume to settle scientific questions or to replace politics. But I am concerned to encourage an honest and open debate so that particular interests or ideologies will not prejudice the common good.

Running Fence

"Jeanne-Claude and I borrow space and create a gentle disturbance in it for just a few days. When they appear for a few days, they carry this tremendous freedom of irresponsibility." ~ Christo

The Floating Piers

Christo
The Floating Piers (Project for Lake Iseo, Italy)
Collage 2014
17 x 22" (43.2 x 55.9 cm)
Pencil, wax crayon, enamel paint, photograph by Wolfgang Volz, map, fabric sample and tape
Photo: André Grossmann
© 2014 Christo 

Pensacola

Anthony Atala

The Goshawk

Invisibilia ~ Martin Pistorius

http://www.ghostboybook.com/

Islay

Whisky Island
Steve Kroft and Bob Simon report on the Scottish Island of Islay, home to some of the world's premium single-malt scotch whiskies
http://www.cbsnews.com/

The following script is from "Whisky Island" which aired on May 3, 2015. Bob Simon and Steve Kroft are the correspondents. Harry Radliffe II, producer.

60 Minutes is constantly on the lookout for places we've never been before. So when our late colleague Bob Simon heard about a magical place in the Hebrides Islands off the coast of Scotland, known for making some of the great whiskies in the world, well, the story spoke to him.

The place is called Islay and it's one of five whisky producing regions in Scotland that make an expensive type of scotch called single malt.

Islay's distilleries turn out relatively small amounts of their own handcrafted brands for a worldwide luxury market that's more than doubled in size in the last decade, and become the spirit equivalent of the fine wine business.

Bob liked good scotch and beautiful places. So he went off to Scotland. He died before he could finish the piece, leaving behind a stack of videotapes and some random notes. We decided to finish it for him and raise a glass in his memory.

Islay is a small island 20 miles off the west coast of Scotland. There are few trees -- miles of windswept heather -- and some of the most fertile agricultural land in Scotland. There are sheep and cattle everywhere and an abundance of wildlife but that's not why people come here. This is! Eight small distilleries, that produce some of the world's finest single malt whiskies.

Jim McEwan: This is the whole lifeblood of this island and everybody on it. This is all we know.

Jim McEwan has been working in Islay's distilleries since he was 15 years old. He's now master of the works at Bruichladdich.

Jim McEwan: I just thank God that he chose the Scots and gave them whisky 'cause we appreciate the gift and we look after it.

They've been making it here since the 15th century when supposedly some monks taught the locals how to use barley, water and yeast to make a spirit the Scots now call the water of life. They have been perfecting it for 600 years.

The distilleries are easy to find, but hard to pronounce: Ardbeg, Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Bunnahabain, Caol Ila, Kilchoman, Lagavulin and Laphroaig. As Bob Simon noted, they get harder to pronounce the more you visit.

Jim McEwan: For us guys on the west coast of Scotland, whisky is a religion, because it's a provider. And the great thing about whisky, it's not just a drink -- it's much more than that. Have you ever watched some old Hollywood movies?

Bob Simon: Yes, I have.

Jim McEwan: Scotch was always portrayed in Hollywood as a whisky when you were down or you were in trouble, the one thing that was gonna get you back on your feet and out there was a scotch.

Today, if you are down on your luck, you probably can't afford an Islay single malt. The good ones start at around $70 a bottle. The rare ones can go for hundreds of dollars a glass at chic whisky bars around the world, where they are known for their distinctive smoky taste.

It comes from peat, the mossy earthen fuel that's cut from bogs on the island. It was used to heat Scottish homes for centuries, and is still used to toast the barley at Islay distilleries.

John Campbell: Peat is the thing that makes Islay unique and it really resonates with people and it just engenders a kind of love/hate relationship. And the people that love it absolutely love it with a passion.

And there seems to be no shortage of them. Islay is not easy get to, usually requiring multiple flights, a long drive and a two-hour ferry ride, yet enthusiasts continue to make the pilgrimage, especially for the whisky festival.

Jim McEwan: We get literally thousands upon thousands of single malt tourists coming here. They come from all over the world just to set foot on Islay.

Bob Simon: To study it?

Jim McEwan: No, to drink it.

Officially "whisky fest" is a celebration of Islay's culture - but mostly it's about drinking.

As they listened to Jim McEwan extol the virtues of Bruichladdich, the novitiates, connoisseurs, and whisky snobs, approached each glass with reverence bordering on the religious.

As the glasses empty, the smiles got bigger. But the islanders will tell you that all of this warmth and good feeling comes not from the alcohol in the spirits but from the spirit of the place.

It is almost mystical, beautiful, dramatic and quiet. There's no road rage, barely any traffic, if you do get hung up it's probably because of a farm animal -- they have the right of way. And if you do happen upon people, they'll almost always greet you with the Islay wave.

Ailsa Hayes: Everybody just waves 'cause it's just friendly. There's not so many of us, so you just wave to say hi.

It's what Ailsa Hayes liked about the island when she moved her family here from London to take a manager's position at one of Islay's thriving distilleries.

Bob Simon: It's strange, is it not, that such a small place with so few people, your products are known everywhere in the world?

Ailsa Hayes: I know. Well, it makes us all very proud, it does. There's such a boom, worldwide, for single malt. It's fantastic. And you can really feel that on the island, a lot of the distilleries have double production. And so there's a lot of opportunities there, as well.

Bob Simon: And there's no reason to believe that won't continue?

Ailsa Heyes: Well, times are good, people drink. Times are bad, people drink.

Bob Simon: Is it possible to be socially acceptable to be a teetotaler on this island?

Ailsa Hayes: Yes.

Bob Simon: Are there any?

Ailsa Hayes: Yes. Not-- I'm not one of them.

Over the years, the island's people have learned how to entertain themselves, often at gatherings called Ceilidhs which feature traditional dance and sad songs, mostly about leaving Islay and yearning to return.

[Man sings: "To sit with my love on the bridge above the rippling waterfall. To go back home, never more to roam, is my dearest wish of all."]

If this looks and feels a lot like Ireland, that's no coincidence. It's only 25 miles away. They come from the same tribe, share the same Celtic culture and Gaelic language, not to mention a love of good whisky that gets them through stormy weather and the long winter nights.

There are no movie theaters on Islay, no dry cleaners, no supermarket, and no McDonald's...at least in the fast food business. Jim McEwan says there is a long list of things that Islay doesn't have...and doesn't want.

Jim McEwan: We don't have any crime, we don't have mugging, carjacking, house breaking, rape, just dope, drugs, we don't have that. You can keep that. You're very welcome to it.

Bob Simon: How do you explain the fact that there's no crime here? There's crime everywhere else.

Jim McEwan: There is no crime. If you commit a crime in a small community, you'll be ostracized and have to leave. Not only that, your family, your children and your children's children will be remembered as the children of the man who committed the crime.

Most Scots are forthright, practical people who are proud of their country and the fact that their most famous export has withstood the test of time. They see themselves as artisans and making whisky is more about art and alchemy than manufacturing.

Every distiller has their own secrets and superstitions. We'll give you the unclassified two-minute tour. Sorry we can't offer you free samples.

It begins with a bit of trickery on the malting floor when barley that's been soaked in water is spread out and raked over and over to convince the grain its spring and time to germinate, releasing the starches that are locked inside. It's then dried with peat smoke to add flavor and ground into flour sometimes with 19th century machinery, and then mixed with hot water, transforming the starches into a sugary concoction called mash.

Jim McEwan: Smell that, Bob. Isn't that-- you can smell the goodness.

Yeast is then added changing the sugar into alcohol, a primitive ale, which is then cooked a couple of times in copper stills where the vapor is collected and condensed into this clear liquid.

Jim McEwan: And that's the stuff we want to go into the barrel.

Bob Simon: But what I'm looking at, this looks like rubbing alcohol. This is in fact the whisky.

Jim McEwan: It's very good if you need a rub, there's no doubt about it.

Bob Simon: I bet it would be good. But once this goes into the barrel, from then it's just time?

Jim McEwan: It's just time. It's a great journey, you know. This is a child, but the cask is the mother. And that's what makes the journey. If you get a good cask, you're bound to get a good child. It's that simple.

It takes less than three weeks to make, but requires at least 10 years of aging in these oak casks -- which add flavor and color -- to turn it into world-class single malt whisky.

Jim McEwan: You'll see some of the names. There's Clermont Springs, Buffalo Trace, Jim Beam.

Bob was surprised to learn that 97 percent of the casks used to make single malt whisky, had been previously used to age American bourbon, and bought second hand from U.S. distillers. It's testimony to the ingenuity and frugality of the Scots who have very few oak trees.

Jim McEwan: Without the American barrels, there would be no whisky industry. It's as simple as that.

A sophisticated palate will detect a hint of the oak and bourbon in Islay's single malt...as well as the sweetness of sherry that comes from wine casks bought in Europe.

Before the final product is sold it will have done time in a number of different casks.

Master distiller Jim McEwan is the one who decides when to rotate them and when each barrel is ready to be bottled. He opened a young cask for Bob to sample.

Jim McEwan: I would describe that as mellow yellow. Absolutely pure.

Bob Simon: And it's only seven years old?

Jim McEwan: That's right.

Jim McEwan: Young whiskies are like young people. They're vibrant, they're full of life. In fact this for me is like coming home from work at the end of the day. I worked really hard, nobody appreciates me, my wife doesn't appreciate, my kids don't appreciate me, life's a bitch.

Bob Simon: Couple glasses of that and it doesn't matter.

Jim McEwan: Couple of shots of that and I am the king of the world.

Bob Simon: Absolutely. You know, frankly I never liked this stuff, but the way-- you're talking me into it.

Jim McEwan: But you gotta check every barrel.

Bob Simon: I certainly hope so. Cheers.

McEwan is the man responsible for the taste and consistency of the whiskies at Bruichladdich, which requires a very personal involvement with the product.

Bob Simon: I have heard you described as the cask whisperer.

Jim McEwan: I do talk to casks. There's no doubt about it--

Bob Simon: In what language?

Jim McEwan: Mainly English, depends how many whiskies I've had. If I've had a few whiskies, I tend to revert to the Gaelic language when I'm talking to the casks. It's just one of these things you go into the warehouse and you pop the bung out. You draw your sample, yeah. And you look at it. And you think, "Wow, you know, beautiful but you're not just ready yet. Tell you what, I'm going to come back and see you in three months, OK?" And other times you find a cask which is so incredibly good you can't not speak. "Oh my God, you are the most beautiful thing I have ever tasted in my life." You know, and it's like, oh geez, I just want to share this with somebody. But there's nobody around. There's just me and the casks.

Bob Simon: We'll stay.

On most days, McEwan devotes several hours to quality control, checking up on several hundred casks.

Jim McEwan: Yeah. But it's a fantastic job, nosing and tasting whiskies.

Bob Simon: And you can still walk out of here in the evening?

Jim McEwan: Occasionally I need some help. There's no doubt about that, yeah.

Dying devotion to one's whisky is apparently not all that unusual. While we were on Islay, the camera crew ran into a party of Canadians, the friends and family of a deceased single malt lover named Bill who wanted his ashes scattered in the waters opposite his favorite distillery, funds for the pilgrimage were set aside in his will.

Woman: It's what he wanted. It's good. It's good.

Jim McEwan: Cheers everybody!

All: To Bill! Slainte Mhath!

[Widow pours glass of whisky into bay.]

Widow: Now he's happy. Now he's happy.

After that, the only thing left was for Bob to say goodbye to Jim McEwan. And now it turned out to be "last call" for our old pal Bob Simon.

Jim McEwan: Cheers, Bob. Hope you've enjoyed this little visit here.

Bob Simon: You're speaking in the past. It's not over.

Jim McEwan: Yeah, I've gotta get you outta here, man. This is-- (laughter) you're costing me a fortune.

© 2015 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Baby Stars

Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, R. Sahai (JPL)

The ghost-like nebula, IRAS 05437+2502, includes a small star-forming region filled with dark dust that was first noted in images taken by the IRAS satellite in infrared light in 1983. This recently released image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows many new details, but has not uncovered a clear cause of the bright sharp arc. 

Credit: ESO

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile have captured this image of planetary nebula Abell 33. Image released April 9, 2014.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/McGill

The hand might look like an X-ray from the doctor's office, but it is actually a cloud of material ejected from a star that exploded. NASA's NuSTAR spacecraft has imaged the structure in high-energy X-rays for the first time, shown in blue. Lower-energy X-ray light previously detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is shown in green and red.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Do you see a woman's head in profile? Wispy tendrils of hot dust and gas glow brightly in this ultraviolet image of the Cygnus Loop Nebula, taken by NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer.

Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/P.Slane, et al.

Red represents low-energy X-rays, the medium range is green, and the most energetic ones are colored blue. The blue hand-like structure was created by energy emanating from the nebula around they dying star PSR B1509-58. The red areas are from a neighboring gas cloud called RCW 89. 

Credit: ESO

This new image from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope shows the Running Chicken Nebula, a cloud of gas and newborn stars that lies around 6,500 light-years away from us in the constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur).

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

This infrared image from NASA's WISE space telescope shows a cosmic rosebud blossoming with new stars, including the Berkeley 59 cluster and a supernova remnant.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

A new image taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) shows the Rosette nebula located within the constellation Monoceros (the Unicorn). This flower-shaped nebula is a huge star-forming cloud of dust and gas in our Milky Way galaxy, about 4,500-5,000 light-years away.

Credit: Émilie Storer (Collège Charlemagne, QUE), André-Nicolas Chené (HIA/NRC of Canada), and Travis Rector (U.Alaska, Anchorage)

Gemini North image of the planetary nebula M97, also known as the Owl Nebula, imaged by the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) 

Credit: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/Coelum

The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope produced this stunning image of the well-known Horsehead Nebula. It is part of an enormous cloud of molecular gas and dust obscuring background light from nearby emission nebula IC 434, producing the silhouette.

Credit: space, european southern observatory, eso, eso images, messier 17, vst, vlt survey telescope, vista infrared survey telescope, new telescope, paranal observatory, first light, first light pictures, new telescope images.

The first released VST image shows the spectacular star-forming region Messier 17, also known as the Omega Nebula or the Swan Nebula, as it has never been seen before. This vast region of gas, dust and hot young stars lies in the heart of the Milky Way in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer).

Credit: ESO

A close-up image of the the so-called “Pillars of Creation” located at the center of the Eagle Nebula.

space.com

Marina Abramović e Ulay

From Paranal

ESO/S. Guisard www.eso.org/~sguisard

Ёжик в тумане

The Ornithophobia Diffusion

The Birdcage

Champis ~ Den Vallande Kaninen

Tootsie

685 E. 8th Street

Volodya and Lilya

Strong

David Sedaris

The Daily Show
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Pale Blue Dot

Happy Birthday, 'Pale Blue Dot!' Famous Photo Turns 25 Saturday

by Mike Wall, Space.com  |   February 13, 2015 08:24pm ET

These six narrow-angle color images were made from the first ever "portrait" of the solar system taken by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft on Feb. 14, 1990, when the probe was more than 4 billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) from Earth.

On Feb. 14, 1990, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft took a family portrait of the solar system, capturing Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Venus and Earth — which showed up as a "pale blue dot" — in a single view.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

One of history's most iconic photos turns 25 years old Saturday (Feb. 14).

The famous image "continues to inspire wonderment about the spot we call home," Voyager project scientist Ed Stone, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said in a NASA statement.

The late astronomer Carl Sagan referenced and further immortalized the photo in the title of his 1994 book, "The Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space" (Random House). Sagan was part of the Voyager imaging team when the picture was taken.

Voyager 1 took the photo while located 40 astronomical units (AU) from Earth, NASA officials said. (One AU is the distance from Earth to the sun — about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers.)

Only three of the solar system's then-recognized nine planets failed to find a spot in the picture: Mars was too dark; Mercury was too close to the sun, and Pluto was too dim. (The International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto to "dwarf planet" status in 2006, in a decision that remains controversial today.)

Portion of the famous solar system portrait taken on Feb. 14, 1990 by NASA's Voyager 1 probe. Earth is visible as a pale blue dot at right, in the yellow bar.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, launched a few weeks apart in 1977 to conduct an unprecedented "grand tour" of the outer solar system. Together, the two probes gave researchers some of their first good looks at Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, as well as the moons of those big, gaseous planets.

Both spacecraft then kept right on flying. In August 2012, Voyager 1 became the first man-made object to reach interstellar space; Voyager 2, which took a different route through the solar system, should achieve the milestone soon as well.

The series of images that comprise the "pale blue dot" portrait were the last that Voyager 1 took. The probe's handlers turned Voyager 1's camera off to retask the computer controlling the camera for other purposes.

"After taking these images in 1990, we began our interstellar mission. We had no idea how long the spacecraft would last," Stone said in the statement.

Voyager 1 is now about 130 AU from Earth. If the probe tried to photograph Earth right now, the planet would appear about 10 times dimmer than in did back in February 1990, NASA officials said.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow space.com @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com

David Hockney

All About that *Upright* Bass ~ Kate Davis

Illusion of Lights

Illusion of Lights: A Journey into the Unseen

from Goldpaint Photography

Illusion of Lights introduces you to the concept of movement and time that visually explores our night skies. Beginning with the dazzling chaos of urban light pollution, the film takes you on a magnificent trip across pristine wilderness areas and shares with you the wonders of our night skies. With hundreds of thousands of gorgeous images produced especially for this project, Illusion of Lights gives you scene after scene of unique and detailed views from locations few will ever encounter. Fly over high altitude peaks, soar with the wind, and follow the Milky Way as it dances through the afterhours. From beyond the stars to beneath our feet, each time-lapsed sequence gives the viewer a visual narrative that attempts to communicate what the artist experiences each night in the field; natures expressions of human curiosity and ambition.

Brad Goldpaint spent 3 years of creative exploration crafting visual metaphors which reflect aspects of existence that are often hidden from everyday sight. We interact with these miracles on a daily basis yet we are amazed at the infinite magnitude of our planet. We encourage you to raise your eyes towards the night sky. Explore. Realize you are a part of the illusion and the universe is a part of you.

illusionoflights.com

Baby Turkeys