One of the more fascinating meta-qualities of the intertubez is how it’s opened up a bunch of sub-cultures to people who would otherwise have no idea they exist. Sure, we all know about Trekkers and Whovians and Steampunkers, but until the advent of Twitter, Facebook and the other social nets I was not aware of the popularity of crafters: people who make things. I mean people who knit, do papercraft, create clothes, and so on.

Oh sure, I knew it was a fun hobby and all that — what I didn’t know is how devoted some folks are to it. It’s pretty cool; they make cozies, socks, hats, skirts, dresses, sweaters… it’s amazing. And of course, this being the web and all, a lot of these folks are also space/math/science/scifi nerds. Still I never, ever, ever would’ve predicted this. I present to you The Vitruvian Dalek:

EXTERMIKNIT!^*

Spoonflower, the site that hosts this pattern, has tons of other nerdy ones, like math equations, a solar system diagram, and even the odd Ood or two.

Winter’s coming… I could use a quilt. Hmmm.

Tip o’ the sewing needle to Mary Firestone.

^* I know, it’s not knitting, and I used that joke once before. But it’s still funny.

I suddenly realized I never put my photos up from Dragon*Con a few weeks ago, so I’ve corrected that oversight.

Those pictures are just a taste of how much fun I had. If you’re an old school Doctor Who fan, then check this out:

That’s me with Sylvester McCoy, the Seventh Doctor! We chatted for a few minutes backstage before the Paul and Storm/Jonathan Coulton/Molly Lewis concert. I only got to see the first few minutes of the music because I had a panel at the same time and had to run. But Doctor McCoy (see what I did there?) was great. I was on a panel — really, a goofy quiz show that was uproarious and maybe a little naughty — with him the next night (and Doc Hammer from Venture Brothers; here’s proof) and it was awesome.

In fact, I’ll admit I felt like an A-list geek the whole con. It was amazing and gratifying and wonderful. I have been a fanboy my whole life; I went to science fiction cons when I was in high school and doted over my favorite authors. I stopped going for a long time, but then started back up again a few years ago, and now they’re magical all over again. It’s incredible to me that I not only get to meet so many people I truly admire, but that I also get to call them friends.

My thanks to Rain Glynn, Derek Colanduno, Ken Plume, and everyone else who made this con so much fun. Special thanks to Jennifer Teeter and Jason Thomas from Red Rocket Farm for giving me a rocket painting and other adorable swag. His art is terrific, and you should check out their t-shirts.

So yeah, Dragon*Con was made of win. I can’t wait to go back next year!

If there’s a bright center to the Universe, astronomers have found the planet it’s farthest from. Called Kepler-16b, it’s a Saturn-like world which has the distinction of being the first discovered to orbit both Sun-like stars in a binary system.

OK, Star Wars references aside, this is pretty cool. Most of the planets being found around other stars are orbiting single stars. A very few — like a possible planet orbiting Gamma Cephei — orbit one of the stars in a binary system, and some (like NN Serpentis b and c) orbit both stars, but one of them is a dead star like a white dwarf or a neutron star.

Unlike those, Kepler-16 is a binary where both stars, though dinky, are bona-fide stars like the Sun, and the planet orbits both. Actually, how it was found is pretty nifty. The orbiting Kepler observatory is designed to stare at over 100,000 stars and detect the tell-tale drop in light when a planet transits (that is, from our point of view passes directly in front of) its parent star. Kepler has found a lot of planet candidates this way — well over 1200!

Kepler-16 is one (OK, two) of those stars (hence the name), located about 200 light years from Earth. The two stars are eclipsing binaries, meaning that we are viewing them from Earth in the plane of their orbit. Twice every orbital period, one of the stars blocks the light from the other and we see the total light from the system dip a little bit. We know of a lot of eclipsing binaries, and their properties are pretty well understood.

But Kepler-16 is different. (more…)

Blowing up a planet is hard. Really, really, really, really hard. In fact, if you had one "really" in that sentence for every Joule of energy it would take to make the Earth all explodey, you’d need more than 2 x 10³² of them. That’s a lot of "really"s.

I actually calculated that number using some basic physics and math, and then decided to write an entire article around it, which is now up on Blastr. It doesn’t matter how big a supervillain you are, blowing up a planet is next to impossible, despite the non-existence of Ceti Alpha 6.

There are ways of tearing a planet apart, actually, but I didn’t want the article to go on too long, and I figure exploding one versus ripping it apart are different things. Maybe I’ll do a follow up article. And really, why blow it up at all? If you want to kill everything on it, just set up a massive ad campaign for hair spray, sell the inhabitants a billion cans of the stuff, and then sit back and wait for them to destroy their ozone layer. Done and done.

[P.S. Today marks the 12th anniversary, ironically, of the Moon being blasted out of Earth orbit. Happy Breakaway day!]

- Blastr: My Favorite TV Scientists
- Blastroid
- Blastr: Other than that, Spock, how was the movie?
- Blastr: I Was A Zombie For Science
- Big budget movies that got their science right
- Master of Blastr

Check. This. Out: a perfectly-formed collapse pit on Mars that leads to an underground cavern!

Amazing! [Click to barsoomenate.]

This was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in July 2011. See the hole in the bottom? You can tell from the lighting that this is an underground opening to a cavern — a skylight. Quite a few of these have been found on Mars, actually. We see them on Earth and even on the Moon. Given the angle of the shadows, the vertical distance from the bottom of the pit to the floor of the cavern is about 20 meters (65 feet). Watch your step!

Here’s how we think skylights like this form. In the distant past, Mars was geologically active. Rivers of lava ran across the surface. If the surface of the lava hardens it can form a roof, allowing the lava underneath to continue flowing; these are called lava tubes and there are bazillions of them in Hawaii, for example. Eventually, the source of the lava chokes off and the lava flows away, leaving the empty tube underground. If the roof is thin in one spot it can collapse. Sometimes that just leaves a hole, but apparently in this case it was under a sand field. Some of the sand must have fallen into the chamber below and eventually blown away, leaving the pit and the hole. The pit is located not too far from Pavonis Mons, a known (long-dead) Martian volcano.

The hole is about 35 meters (115 feet) across, so the pit is about 175 meters (nearly 600 feet) across the rim. I love how it sits in an otherwise nearly featureless sand field; the contrast is beautiful. In the high-res image you can see boulders perched on the pit wall, having rolled part of the way down as well. The inside of the pit has lines and furrows that are instantly recognizable to anyone who has tried to dig a hole at the beach and had sand continually flow down from the rim.

It would be incredible to see something like this up close. It’s possible eventually someone will: such lava tubes would make good homes for future Mars explorers; they’d be protected from sand storms, temperature swings, and solar radiation (which is worse than for us on Earth because Mars doesn’t have a strong magnetic field to protect it).

… but you couldn’t pay me enough to go inside one of those. I have no desire to be slowly digested over ten thousand years.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. Tip o’ the light saber to reddit.

- More Mars caves found
- There’s a hole in the Moon!
- Spelunking the lunar landscape
- Martian dunes under the microscope

[I suppose this post has a PG-13 rating. Not for language or nudity, but for what may be a (humorously) disturbing image for some folks. Be ye fairly warned, says I.]

So the European Southern Observatory took the Very Large Telescope, pointed it at NGC 1929 — a cluster of stars 180,000 light years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud — and got this amazing picture:

[Click to ennebulenate, or grab the huger 1780 x 1780 pixel version.]

I was all set to talk about how this huge bubble — over 300 light years across! — is being blown into the gas surrounding the cluster by the combined mighty winds of the stars inside it, young massive stars that live short, violent lives that end in short, violent deaths, and how this will compress the gas further and induce even more star formation, but how in the meantime they’re flooding the gas with powerful ultraviolet radiation that’s lighting up the gas precisely like a neon sign, and how amazingly detailed this image is despite the cluster and gas being in another galaxy at a distance of nearly 2 quintillion kilometers…

(more…)

I received my schedule for Dragon*Con, a really big scifi/fantasy/what-have-you convention in Atlanta from September 1 – 5. If you’re going, this is where I’ll be (besides slowly traversing the huckster rooms). The descriptions are from TPTB at D*C, which I’ve modified here and there so they make more sense.

Thursday September 1:

Although not part of the official D*C schedule, the annual Star Party is becoming a fun tradition. It’ll be at 7:30 p.m. at Emory University, and details are online. It’s a fund raiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society; I’ll be there as well as George Hrab, Pamela Gay, and Nicole Gugliucci. We’ll have telescopes set up!

Friday September 2:

13:00 – Geek a Week Podcast Reunion

Description: Join artist Len Peralta as he talks with geek superstars that were featured on the Geek A Week Podcast.

Location: Regency VI – VII – Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)

Saturday September 3:

11:30 a.m.: These are the ways the world will end…

Description: Our panel tears apart the asteroid apocalypse theory, rips into the latest “world enders”, and answers questions. We’re probably safe (for now).

Location: 207 / 206 / 205 – Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)

**

10:00 p.m.: The Kevin & Phil Show: 2012 – The End of the World

Description: Late night with the Space Track’s dynamic duo is BACK! Join (Battlestar Galactica and Eureka science advisor) Kevin Grazier and Phil Plait as they take apart the myths & lunacy of the end of the world alarmists.

Location: 203 – Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)

Sunday September 4:

2:30 p.m.: Wait, Wait, Don’t Fool Me!

Description: Trivia game show with some of your favorite thinkers.

Location: Crystal Ballroom – Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)

**

4:00 p.m: Space Scientists on TV
Description: Astronomy Cast Live will talk to space scientists who regularly appear on TV. What’s it like for scientist to talk on topic for scripted TV?

Location: 204 – Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)

**

8:30 p.m.: Great Superhero Skeptics! The History (and Herstory)

Description: Many of us know some names, but who have you missed and who should we know? A roundtable discussion on great authors, thinkers, past and present.

Location: 207 / 206 / 205 – Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)

That’s it! Hope to see you there!