Showing posts with label Dancing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dancing. Show all posts
Peanuts Dance
I was delighted to see this Peanuts / Bad Brains mash up video and started wondering if anyone had reenacted the Peanuts kids dances. Thankfully the Kids in the Hall scooped the YouTube generation:
Rappin'
I am of the firm belief that Kano's I'm Ready is one of the best dancing songs ever. I got a bunch of ItaloDisco comps hoping to find some other songs like it but to no avail. I did however come across this song that with a little production work could be next year's D.A.N.C.E. (another top dance contender). Now I just found the video of it that's filmed in 80s London, rad!
And while on the subject of 80s London Amazingness, here's an early BBC documentary on the nascent rap scene (PS Two of my all time favorite rappers have British roots):
And look what I found while looking for Doom videos!:
And while on the subject of 80s London Amazingness, here's an early BBC documentary on the nascent rap scene (PS Two of my all time favorite rappers have British roots):
And look what I found while looking for Doom videos!:
Know Your History
I really really try to not blatantly rip-off boingboing on a daily basis but this it too fantastic:
And it has an annotated version (swoon!):
This is the same guy who made a "premake" of Ghost Busters (sadly not as good). See also Steve Martin's underrated Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid:
It also reminded me of this fantastic Origins of the Moonwalk video (which along with my previously posted Little Prince video is a little damning for MJ):
Lastly there's the kids adaptation of Raiders (that I have and can give to you if you want it—call me) which I'm obligated to add:
Good night Amsterdam!
And it has an annotated version (swoon!):
This is the same guy who made a "premake" of Ghost Busters (sadly not as good). See also Steve Martin's underrated Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid:
It also reminded me of this fantastic Origins of the Moonwalk video (which along with my previously posted Little Prince video is a little damning for MJ):
Lastly there's the kids adaptation of Raiders (that I have and can give to you if you want it—call me) which I'm obligated to add:
Good night Amsterdam!
Little Liam in Slumberland
Oh man, so last night I ate about a half pound of Gruyère and as a result had this crazy dream. I was on the set of Mr. Rogers but he was just kind of hanging out on a porch when this 10 year old breakdancer walks up with his cardboard and boombox and starts teaching him how to wave. Oh wait, it wasn't a dream:
DANCE OVERLOAD!
See? Everybody loves dancing! I'm dreading slash hoping that I'll look and move like Stephen in 18 years...
James Brown Babies
I was going to wait until his birthday or deathday (aka x-mas) but they're both months away and I can't wait. This is officially my favorite song of the week (you can listen to it right away here). It's from a 1970 album called Ghetto Reality that a group of elementary school students wrote and performed themselves! It's a lot cooler but not as cute as this:
You Are In My System
I've been privately sending this to people for a while but it's time the world knew how amazing The System are (no further comment or explanation necessary):
I'm sorry, I can't help it! The clothes! The shoes! The attitude! The special effects! The signature dance moves! Bow down before greatness...
I'm sorry, I can't help it! The clothes! The shoes! The attitude! The special effects! The signature dance moves! Bow down before greatness...
Vogue, Vogue & Voguing
This is an old video but I'm so proud this person is my friend:
I even think it's better than the original (Madonna is, as you should know, an awful person):
And while we're at it:
I even think it's better than the original (Madonna is, as you should know, an awful person):
And while we're at it:
"I've got a lot of ideas. I've been working with the staff kids on a cross between a Cuban rhythm and soul dancing..."
Theme music: Archie Bell & the Drells - I Can't Stop Dancing
Ad Rock getting ready to go out in the late 80s over a Beastie instrumental of the Jam's Start!
Getting ready to go out dancing in this anti-dance age is an important ritual. Besides the clothes and the drinks and the drugs, getting your mind and body primed for movement is crucial, but who and where are your role models? Thanks to the endlessly amazing internet you can now cop some new moves from the comfort of your tiny apartment in your even tinier room!
My old stand-by was just to watch a dozen vintage Soul Train clips (especially the Soul Train Line) before going out but fucking Don Cornelius Productions, Inc. has deleted them all off of YouTube. Thankfully, with a little creative searching (Google video), you can still find some. On a side note, most of the performances are unfortunately lip-synced including this Marvin Gaye performance where he's too high (simultaneously funny and sad) to remember to sing along. On the other hand, maybe he's such an amazing singer he's just refusing to play their game and is more than happy to just dance around and hit on the ladies in the front row:
Once and a while however an artist performs live and kills it! Like James Brown did on one of his two ever performances on the show (do I have to point out that the man is so funky he has two drum sets?!):
Do yourself a favor and try and seek out some of the other performances (or just come over to my house and watch them). One of the most surprising is David Bowie doing an interview and performing Golden Years and Fame during his "Thin White Duke" phase where he was subsisting on nothing but peppers, milk and cocaine. Then there's Al Green singing Tired of Being Alone where it had to be pointed out to me that he's wearing a vinyl miniskirt (or are those hot shorts?) and a halter top. The man is dripping with so much sex that he can wear anything and his sexuality won't even be questioned! I spent a weeks pay once to see him and never regretted it. Make sure to put spermicidal cream in your ears so you don't get knocked up.
But all of this is getting away from the point: dancing. As I was saying, the legendary Soul Train Line is probably the most consistent and practical way to learn some new steps. Here are two I could find:
And here's a rare clip of James Brown showing you the moves:
And another one of M.I.A. doing likewise:
[I'm afraid I have to add a caveat to this video. It's a clip from an indie-rock kids show from Washington D.C. called Pancake Mountain that apparently features one of the most annoying TV hosts I've ever seen. Seriously, even kids should be able to tell that this guy sucks. It's so awful it's like when you're making out with a really rad girl and some obnoxious guy keeps walking into the room and turning on the light and drunkenly yelling and maybe puking a little and it happens to be a day where maybe your complexion could be looking a little better and you spent all week planning on how to get this girl alone and...ugh, you get my point. I really want to hurt this guy. So just ignore the him and watch Mathangi Arulpragasam explainin how to "step on the cockroach" and little kids yelling "Yay! We don't have to learn anything!!"]
I guess as long as we're talking about dancing and cockroaches...oh wait, I was confusing The Champs' "Tequila" with "La Cucharacha." Oh well, fuck it. Here's Pee-Wee Herman in maybe the best movie ever made showing how dancing crosses all cultures and helps build bridges:
Now that that's all done and dusted and you're feeling all twitchy come and meet me at one of the many coverless soul dance parties in New York! Or if you're not in the city, schedule your visit around one of these (out of too many to mention):
Smashed Blocked and SoulShaker at Beauty Bar
and Subway Soul at Rififis.
I need to add one last thing. My friend Pearl and I went to see Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings at the Apollo a while back and half-way through an hour and a half of non-stop dancing I started to get a little misty eyed because this was the same Harlem stage where James Brown recorded his legendary album Live at the Apollo in 1962, the recorded performance where he had the audience wrapped around his finger to the point where the smallest whimper would send them into hysterics and allegedly the typical full-throttle Brown performance was supposedly restrained because recording equipment at the time couldn't handle the his scream [see Cold Sweat] . Anyway, for their encore, Sharon Jones and guest Lee Fields did a medley of the album and made me almost cry. One of the best shows I've ever seen.
Don't stop dancing.
Ad Rock getting ready to go out in the late 80s over a Beastie instrumental of the Jam's Start!
Getting ready to go out dancing in this anti-dance age is an important ritual. Besides the clothes and the drinks and the drugs, getting your mind and body primed for movement is crucial, but who and where are your role models? Thanks to the endlessly amazing internet you can now cop some new moves from the comfort of your tiny apartment in your even tinier room!
My old stand-by was just to watch a dozen vintage Soul Train clips (especially the Soul Train Line) before going out but fucking Don Cornelius Productions, Inc. has deleted them all off of YouTube. Thankfully, with a little creative searching (Google video), you can still find some. On a side note, most of the performances are unfortunately lip-synced including this Marvin Gaye performance where he's too high (simultaneously funny and sad) to remember to sing along. On the other hand, maybe he's such an amazing singer he's just refusing to play their game and is more than happy to just dance around and hit on the ladies in the front row:
Once and a while however an artist performs live and kills it! Like James Brown did on one of his two ever performances on the show (do I have to point out that the man is so funky he has two drum sets?!):
Do yourself a favor and try and seek out some of the other performances (or just come over to my house and watch them). One of the most surprising is David Bowie doing an interview and performing Golden Years and Fame during his "Thin White Duke" phase where he was subsisting on nothing but peppers, milk and cocaine. Then there's Al Green singing Tired of Being Alone where it had to be pointed out to me that he's wearing a vinyl miniskirt (or are those hot shorts?) and a halter top. The man is dripping with so much sex that he can wear anything and his sexuality won't even be questioned! I spent a weeks pay once to see him and never regretted it. Make sure to put spermicidal cream in your ears so you don't get knocked up.
But all of this is getting away from the point: dancing. As I was saying, the legendary Soul Train Line is probably the most consistent and practical way to learn some new steps. Here are two I could find:
And here's a rare clip of James Brown showing you the moves:
And another one of M.I.A. doing likewise:
[I'm afraid I have to add a caveat to this video. It's a clip from an indie-rock kids show from Washington D.C. called Pancake Mountain that apparently features one of the most annoying TV hosts I've ever seen. Seriously, even kids should be able to tell that this guy sucks. It's so awful it's like when you're making out with a really rad girl and some obnoxious guy keeps walking into the room and turning on the light and drunkenly yelling and maybe puking a little and it happens to be a day where maybe your complexion could be looking a little better and you spent all week planning on how to get this girl alone and...ugh, you get my point. I really want to hurt this guy. So just ignore the him and watch Mathangi Arulpragasam explainin how to "step on the cockroach" and little kids yelling "Yay! We don't have to learn anything!!"]
I guess as long as we're talking about dancing and cockroaches...oh wait, I was confusing The Champs' "Tequila" with "La Cucharacha." Oh well, fuck it. Here's Pee-Wee Herman in maybe the best movie ever made showing how dancing crosses all cultures and helps build bridges:
Now that that's all done and dusted and you're feeling all twitchy come and meet me at one of the many coverless soul dance parties in New York! Or if you're not in the city, schedule your visit around one of these (out of too many to mention):
Smashed Blocked and SoulShaker at Beauty Bar
and Subway Soul at Rififis.
I need to add one last thing. My friend Pearl and I went to see Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings at the Apollo a while back and half-way through an hour and a half of non-stop dancing I started to get a little misty eyed because this was the same Harlem stage where James Brown recorded his legendary album Live at the Apollo in 1962, the recorded performance where he had the audience wrapped around his finger to the point where the smallest whimper would send them into hysterics and allegedly the typical full-throttle Brown performance was supposedly restrained because recording equipment at the time couldn't handle the his scream [see Cold Sweat] . Anyway, for their encore, Sharon Jones and guest Lee Fields did a medley of the album and made me almost cry. One of the best shows I've ever seen.
Don't stop dancing.
My Favorite Moons
This post got a little out of hand. I don’t think I’ll ever write about moons again.
I have to start somewhere so let’s just begin with the formation of the solar system (note: just because the narrator has an English accent doesn’t mean one should forgive the explosion sound effects they added to the video):
Thus we end up with a moonless proto-Earth until roughly 4.5 billion years ago when it is theorized it suffered the biggest blow our planet has ever experienced. Recent chemical research has shown that the Mars-sized planet that Earth collided with was its twin, a planet called Theia (mother of the Moon in Greek mythology) that must have formed in an orbit almost identical to that of the Earth's. The collision was a glancing one, it shattered our Earth, but pulverized the incoming planet. Simulations show the impactor being sprayed out into a shower of orbiting debris. But within a matter of hours, much of this had re-grouped to form a new impactor that smashed into the Earth's surface a second time at which point the impacting object was destroyed. Most of the impactor rained down on to, and became incorporated into, the Earth - the last major component to be integrated into our planet. Scientists call this point “time zero” as anything that had happened to the Earth geologically before would have been erased. The remaining 10% or so of the impactor’s mass was spread out into an incandescent disc around the Earth - a scorching equivalent of Saturn's rings. It was out of this material that the Moon was formed in a matter of decades.
(This is the best animation I could find. It’s from the beginning of the BBC’s Walking With Monsters series so the second half of the clip isn’t exactly pertinent but is definitely awesome)
At this time the moon was 15 times closer than than it is today. If you had been able to stand on the surface of the Earth (although its surface was probably melted down to a depth of 1,000 kilometers, cloaking the Earth in a magma ocean) you would have seen a moon that appeared 15 times larger than it does today.
Fortunately the Moon-forming impact gave the Earth the spin on its axis that now gives us 24-hour days and stirs up the atmosphere so that no part of the Earth is too hot or too cold for life, so don’t knock it.
Google now let’s you peruse the Moon in a Google Maps style format. They also recently offered a 25 million dollar “Lunar X Prize” calling for entrants to land a rover on the moon that will be able to travel at least 500 meters and send high-resolution video, still images and other data back home. Last month NASA announced plans to construct a permanent base on the moon by 2020, a move some consider an essential step towards humankind’s ultimate survival.
Lastly, who can forget the best Onion headline ever.
[1] [2]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lapetus of Saturn
Saturn’s moon Lapetus has been dubbed “The Walnut Moon” because of a unique ridge that runs 1300 km along its equator, 20 km wide and 13 km high. It was discovered when the Cassini spacecraft imaged Lapetus on December 31, 2004. Parts of the ridge rise more than 20 km above the surrounding plains. The ridge forms a complex system including isolated peaks, segments of more than 200 km and sections with three near parallel ridges. Within the bright Roncevaux Terra there is no ridge, but there are a series of isolated 10 km high peaks along the equator. The ridge system is heavily cratered, indicating that it is ancient. Unsurprisingly plenty of people rushed to declare it an ancient barricade or marker created by an alien civilization but in truth it appears to have been formed after the crust froze, when the interior of the planet contracted for some reason, squeezing the crust as though in a vice.
[3] [4]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Europa of Jupiter
My favorite moon by far (so far).
It is thought that below the permanently frozen surface of Europa there lies a global subsurface layer of liquid or slushy water kept warm by tidally generated heat. The most dramatic example in support of this theory is "chaos terrain," a common feature on Europa's surface that some interpret as a region where the subsurface ocean melted through the icy crust. This interpretation is extremely controversial. Most geologists who have studied Europa favor what is commonly called the "thick ice" model, in which the ocean has rarely, if ever, directly interacted with the surface. The different models for the estimation of the ice shell thickness give values between a few hundred meters and tens of kilometers.
The best evidence for the so called "thick ice" model is a study of Europa's large craters. The largest craters are surrounded by concentric rings and appear to be filled with relatively flat, fresh ice; based on this and on the calculated amount of heat generated by Europan tides, it is predicted that the outer crust of solid ice is approximately 10–30 km thick, including a ductile "warm ice" layer, which could mean that the liquid ocean underneath may be about 100 km deep, suggesting that Europa's oceans are slightly more than twice the volume of Earth's.
The so called "thin ice" model is a conclusion of the formation of ridges and the flexure of the ice shell due to loading at the surface. With these models the crust of solid ice could be as thin as 200 meters. The "thin ice" model allows regular contact of the liquid interior with the surface through open ridges.
The Galileo orbiter has also found that Europa has a weak magnetic field which varies periodically as Europa passes through Jupiter's massive magnetic field. A likely explanation of this is that there is a large, subsurface ocean of liquid salt water.
This moon intrigues astrobiologists because of its potential for having a “habitable zone.” Life may exist in this ocean, perhaps subsisting in an environment similar to Earth's deep-ocean hydrothermal vents or the Antarctic Lake Vostok (another very interesting subject!).
So far there is no evidence that life exists on Europa but due to the likely presence of liquid water, there are proposals to send a probe there. One proposal calls for a large nuclear powered "Melt Probe" (cryobot) which would melt through the ice until it hit the ocean below. Once it reached the water, it would deploy an autonomous underwater vehicle (hydrobot), which would gather information and send it back to Earth. Both the cryobot and the hydrobot would have to undergo some form of extreme sterilization to prevent it from detecting earth organisms instead of native life and to prevent contamination of the subsurface ocean.
Personally I am very excited about this hopefully happening in my lifetime. For years I’ve dreamt of us discovering some sort of highly intelligent space whales there but am prepared to be disappointed. (Not to be confused with the Acanti)
A "Solar System Exploration Roadmap" published for NASA in 2006 placed exploration of Europa high on its list, and suggested that plans for a "flagship-class" mission to Europa begin by 2008 with hopes to launch by 2015.
[5] [6]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Io of Jupiter
Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. As it travels, Jupiter's immense gravity causes “tides” in the solid surface 100 meters high, generating enough heat to give rise to the volcanic activity and drive off any water. Io's volcanoes are driven by hot silicate magma.
(I found a great clip of Io erupting that won't show up on this page for some reason so just click here to see it)
[7]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Minmas of Saturn
“That’s No Moon”
On a side note, several people are pointing out the catastrophic result of detonating a 500 mile wide object in low orbit above a small moon. This theory is generally referred to as The Endor Holocaust. Of course there are also deniers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moons with Moons
Although scientists haven’t identified any yet it is theoretically possible (and therefore highly likely) for moons to have sub-satellites of their own! It depends on the object’s gravitational sphere of influence called its Hill or Roche sphere. Earth, for example, has a Hill sphere of 1.5 million km. The Moon's orbit, at a distance of 0.384 million km from Earth, is comfortably within the gravitational sphere of influence of Earth and it is therefore not at risk of being pulled into an independent orbit around the Sun. The Moon has its own Hill sphere with a radius of 60,000 km (1/6th of the distance between the Earth and Moon) where a sub-satellite could exist. If an object lies outside the Moon's Hill sphere, it will orbit Earth instead of the Moon. The only problem is that the sub-satellite cannot stay in orbit around the Moon indefinitely because of tides.
[8] [9]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Uranus + Shakespeare
“O, swear not by the moon...”
While most of the satellites orbiting other planets take their names from Greek mythology, 25 of Uranus' 27 moons are unique for being named after characters from Shakespeare (including Puck!):
A Midsummer Night's Dream: Titania, Oberon, Puck
The Tempest: Ariel, Miranda*, Caliban, Sycorax, Prospero, Setebos, Stephano, Trinculo, Francisco, Ferdinand
King Lear: Cordelia
Hamlet: Ophelia
The Taming of the Shrew: Bianca
Troilus & Cressida: Cressida
Othello: Desdemona
Romeo and Juliet: Juliet, Mab
The Merchant of Venice: Portia
As You Like It: Rosalind
Much Ado About Nothing: Margaret
The Winter's Tale: Perdita
Timon of Athens: Cupid
* In the fictional Star Trek universe, the crystalline mineral dilithium was first discovered on Miranda in the mid-21st century. The moon said to be the only naturally occurring source of dilithium in the Sol system. This mineral was, a short time later, used to facilitate warp drive propulsion systems which allowed spacecraft to achieve faster-than-light travel.**
** Despite this being the second Star Trek reference in this blog I need to say that I'm really not that big a Star Trek fan, although I do deeply, deeply respect it.
[10] [11] [12]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Earth’s “Second Moon”
Earth has a “second moon,” the asteroid 3753 Cruithne that I’m too lazy and tired to explain.
[13] [14]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As much fun as it is to be reminded of how mind-boggling the universe is it can also leave you feeling cold, alone, and insignificant. On the other hand, most of space is empty and what little remains is cold, boring rock and dust. It's important to remember how fascinating it is to be human, especially a human in 2007 with a high-speed internet connection so you can watch scenes from the fantastic 1974 film adaptation of The Little Prince co-starring Gene Wilder and Bob Fosse!
If my kids don't sound exactly like the Little Prince I'm disowning them. As far as I'm concerned all children should speak with British accents, have perfectly messy hair and smell of peanut butter. Oh, and while we're at it, check out how much Michael Jackson completely ripped-off Bob Fosse in this clip!
I have to start somewhere so let’s just begin with the formation of the solar system (note: just because the narrator has an English accent doesn’t mean one should forgive the explosion sound effects they added to the video):
Thus we end up with a moonless proto-Earth until roughly 4.5 billion years ago when it is theorized it suffered the biggest blow our planet has ever experienced. Recent chemical research has shown that the Mars-sized planet that Earth collided with was its twin, a planet called Theia (mother of the Moon in Greek mythology) that must have formed in an orbit almost identical to that of the Earth's. The collision was a glancing one, it shattered our Earth, but pulverized the incoming planet. Simulations show the impactor being sprayed out into a shower of orbiting debris. But within a matter of hours, much of this had re-grouped to form a new impactor that smashed into the Earth's surface a second time at which point the impacting object was destroyed. Most of the impactor rained down on to, and became incorporated into, the Earth - the last major component to be integrated into our planet. Scientists call this point “time zero” as anything that had happened to the Earth geologically before would have been erased. The remaining 10% or so of the impactor’s mass was spread out into an incandescent disc around the Earth - a scorching equivalent of Saturn's rings. It was out of this material that the Moon was formed in a matter of decades.
(This is the best animation I could find. It’s from the beginning of the BBC’s Walking With Monsters series so the second half of the clip isn’t exactly pertinent but is definitely awesome)
At this time the moon was 15 times closer than than it is today. If you had been able to stand on the surface of the Earth (although its surface was probably melted down to a depth of 1,000 kilometers, cloaking the Earth in a magma ocean) you would have seen a moon that appeared 15 times larger than it does today.
Fortunately the Moon-forming impact gave the Earth the spin on its axis that now gives us 24-hour days and stirs up the atmosphere so that no part of the Earth is too hot or too cold for life, so don’t knock it.
Google now let’s you peruse the Moon in a Google Maps style format. They also recently offered a 25 million dollar “Lunar X Prize” calling for entrants to land a rover on the moon that will be able to travel at least 500 meters and send high-resolution video, still images and other data back home. Last month NASA announced plans to construct a permanent base on the moon by 2020, a move some consider an essential step towards humankind’s ultimate survival.
Lastly, who can forget the best Onion headline ever.
[1] [2]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lapetus of Saturn
Saturn’s moon Lapetus has been dubbed “The Walnut Moon” because of a unique ridge that runs 1300 km along its equator, 20 km wide and 13 km high. It was discovered when the Cassini spacecraft imaged Lapetus on December 31, 2004. Parts of the ridge rise more than 20 km above the surrounding plains. The ridge forms a complex system including isolated peaks, segments of more than 200 km and sections with three near parallel ridges. Within the bright Roncevaux Terra there is no ridge, but there are a series of isolated 10 km high peaks along the equator. The ridge system is heavily cratered, indicating that it is ancient. Unsurprisingly plenty of people rushed to declare it an ancient barricade or marker created by an alien civilization but in truth it appears to have been formed after the crust froze, when the interior of the planet contracted for some reason, squeezing the crust as though in a vice.
[3] [4]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Europa of Jupiter
My favorite moon by far (so far).
It is thought that below the permanently frozen surface of Europa there lies a global subsurface layer of liquid or slushy water kept warm by tidally generated heat. The most dramatic example in support of this theory is "chaos terrain," a common feature on Europa's surface that some interpret as a region where the subsurface ocean melted through the icy crust. This interpretation is extremely controversial. Most geologists who have studied Europa favor what is commonly called the "thick ice" model, in which the ocean has rarely, if ever, directly interacted with the surface. The different models for the estimation of the ice shell thickness give values between a few hundred meters and tens of kilometers.
The best evidence for the so called "thick ice" model is a study of Europa's large craters. The largest craters are surrounded by concentric rings and appear to be filled with relatively flat, fresh ice; based on this and on the calculated amount of heat generated by Europan tides, it is predicted that the outer crust of solid ice is approximately 10–30 km thick, including a ductile "warm ice" layer, which could mean that the liquid ocean underneath may be about 100 km deep, suggesting that Europa's oceans are slightly more than twice the volume of Earth's.
The so called "thin ice" model is a conclusion of the formation of ridges and the flexure of the ice shell due to loading at the surface. With these models the crust of solid ice could be as thin as 200 meters. The "thin ice" model allows regular contact of the liquid interior with the surface through open ridges.
The Galileo orbiter has also found that Europa has a weak magnetic field which varies periodically as Europa passes through Jupiter's massive magnetic field. A likely explanation of this is that there is a large, subsurface ocean of liquid salt water.
This moon intrigues astrobiologists because of its potential for having a “habitable zone.” Life may exist in this ocean, perhaps subsisting in an environment similar to Earth's deep-ocean hydrothermal vents or the Antarctic Lake Vostok (another very interesting subject!).
So far there is no evidence that life exists on Europa but due to the likely presence of liquid water, there are proposals to send a probe there. One proposal calls for a large nuclear powered "Melt Probe" (cryobot) which would melt through the ice until it hit the ocean below. Once it reached the water, it would deploy an autonomous underwater vehicle (hydrobot), which would gather information and send it back to Earth. Both the cryobot and the hydrobot would have to undergo some form of extreme sterilization to prevent it from detecting earth organisms instead of native life and to prevent contamination of the subsurface ocean.
Personally I am very excited about this hopefully happening in my lifetime. For years I’ve dreamt of us discovering some sort of highly intelligent space whales there but am prepared to be disappointed. (Not to be confused with the Acanti)
A "Solar System Exploration Roadmap" published for NASA in 2006 placed exploration of Europa high on its list, and suggested that plans for a "flagship-class" mission to Europa begin by 2008 with hopes to launch by 2015.
[5] [6]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Io of Jupiter
Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. As it travels, Jupiter's immense gravity causes “tides” in the solid surface 100 meters high, generating enough heat to give rise to the volcanic activity and drive off any water. Io's volcanoes are driven by hot silicate magma.
(I found a great clip of Io erupting that won't show up on this page for some reason so just click here to see it)
[7]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Minmas of Saturn
“That’s No Moon”
On a side note, several people are pointing out the catastrophic result of detonating a 500 mile wide object in low orbit above a small moon. This theory is generally referred to as The Endor Holocaust. Of course there are also deniers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moons with Moons
Although scientists haven’t identified any yet it is theoretically possible (and therefore highly likely) for moons to have sub-satellites of their own! It depends on the object’s gravitational sphere of influence called its Hill or Roche sphere. Earth, for example, has a Hill sphere of 1.5 million km. The Moon's orbit, at a distance of 0.384 million km from Earth, is comfortably within the gravitational sphere of influence of Earth and it is therefore not at risk of being pulled into an independent orbit around the Sun. The Moon has its own Hill sphere with a radius of 60,000 km (1/6th of the distance between the Earth and Moon) where a sub-satellite could exist. If an object lies outside the Moon's Hill sphere, it will orbit Earth instead of the Moon. The only problem is that the sub-satellite cannot stay in orbit around the Moon indefinitely because of tides.
[8] [9]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Uranus + Shakespeare
“O, swear not by the moon...”
While most of the satellites orbiting other planets take their names from Greek mythology, 25 of Uranus' 27 moons are unique for being named after characters from Shakespeare (including Puck!):
A Midsummer Night's Dream: Titania, Oberon, Puck
The Tempest: Ariel, Miranda*, Caliban, Sycorax, Prospero, Setebos, Stephano, Trinculo, Francisco, Ferdinand
King Lear: Cordelia
Hamlet: Ophelia
The Taming of the Shrew: Bianca
Troilus & Cressida: Cressida
Othello: Desdemona
Romeo and Juliet: Juliet, Mab
The Merchant of Venice: Portia
As You Like It: Rosalind
Much Ado About Nothing: Margaret
The Winter's Tale: Perdita
Timon of Athens: Cupid
* In the fictional Star Trek universe, the crystalline mineral dilithium was first discovered on Miranda in the mid-21st century. The moon said to be the only naturally occurring source of dilithium in the Sol system. This mineral was, a short time later, used to facilitate warp drive propulsion systems which allowed spacecraft to achieve faster-than-light travel.**
** Despite this being the second Star Trek reference in this blog I need to say that I'm really not that big a Star Trek fan, although I do deeply, deeply respect it.
[10] [11] [12]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Earth’s “Second Moon”
Earth has a “second moon,” the asteroid 3753 Cruithne that I’m too lazy and tired to explain.
[13] [14]
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As much fun as it is to be reminded of how mind-boggling the universe is it can also leave you feeling cold, alone, and insignificant. On the other hand, most of space is empty and what little remains is cold, boring rock and dust. It's important to remember how fascinating it is to be human, especially a human in 2007 with a high-speed internet connection so you can watch scenes from the fantastic 1974 film adaptation of The Little Prince co-starring Gene Wilder and Bob Fosse!
If my kids don't sound exactly like the Little Prince I'm disowning them. As far as I'm concerned all children should speak with British accents, have perfectly messy hair and smell of peanut butter. Oh, and while we're at it, check out how much Michael Jackson completely ripped-off Bob Fosse in this clip!
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