Bulletproof

The above photograph shows "supersonic 'bullets' of gas" shooting through "clouds of molecular hydrogen in the Orion Nebula." These "bullets" are moving "more than a thousand times faster than the speed of sound."
On the other hand, to call them bullets "is somewhat misleading since these objects are truly gigantic. The typical size of one of the bullet tips is about ten times the size of Pluto's orbit around the Sun." (!) Which is to say that objects made of iron, larger than our solar system, are moving 250 miles per second through huge, interstellar curtains of colored gas... I wonder if you could build houses on them.
Meanwhile, don't miss this photo of the Gemini Observatory itself, a kind of hilltop Cyclopean building-machine shining lasers into the sky.

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe you could build gaseous houses (to insulate your nongaseous self from the hot gaseous iron bullets on which you are building)

April 02, 2007 10:49 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Geoff: Side note - have you seen this blog? http://www.synchronizm.com/blog/

It's got some crazy stuff, such as the most current post discussing links between sunspots and bee movements (which may be related to the current bee holocaust, which is fascinating to me), and suggestions bees are sensitive to quantum mechanical effects.

I can't evaluate the reputability of the blog, but it's interesting reading.

April 02, 2007 11:02 PM  

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