Neil Armstrong

    Coincidence?  I think not.

Space Vampires

    Well, I for one am worried.

Pluto

    I am totally committed to this cause.  I am also reading a Stephen Baxter novel about colonizing the planets right now.

Andromeda

    A way-kewl composite photo that a FB friend shared the other day.  Basically, it simulates what the Andromeda Galaxy would look like from earth, if it was visibly brighter.  I am fascinated by it because it gives me, a non-astronomer, a sense of perspective as to its size.

    I'd be tempted to say the image would be getting smaller and smaller because the universe is expanding, so Andromeda's getting further and further away.  But IIRC, it and the Milky Way are on a collision course.  And that when this happens, Andromeda swallows us, not the other way around.  So don't be surprised if you look up one night, and there it is, growing bigger and brighter even as you watch.  (JK)

    Of course, I wouldn't worry too much about impending head-on crash.  It's not going to happen for another 3.75 billion years.

Nothing on TV

    Wormholes.  A whole new way to travel.

Hayabusa!

This is an incredible close-up picture of the asteroid Itokawa, taken in 2005 by the Japanese space probe, Hayabusa. That shadow you see is of the spacecraft itself, which actually landed on the asteroid, gathered some cosmic dust, and brought it back to earth. You can read the full article about this here. Live long and prosper.

Scoping out the Milky Way

The MSNBC.com article (here) describes it as a panorama. ANAICT, it's what we would see if we were planet-sized and gazing towards the center of the Milky Way from here. With the background light from the earth subtracted out, and then the light of all these stars and galaxies enhanced by a thousand times or so. . All I know is that it's cool as heck. Even when I time- and dimension-hop, I don't get to see scenes like this.