Gymnosomata, commonly known as Sea Angels. An apt name- the sea angels are the ethereal, translucent, fluttering angels of the sea.
In hard scientific terms, they’re small swimming sea slugs, but we’ll pass over that for now and just admire how delicately beautiful these wonderful creatures are.
The combination of Titan’s low gravity and thick atmosphere would allow a human to fly by strapping “fake wings” to their arms.
The second-largest moon in the solar system, Saturn’s Titan is the only moon with a substantial atmosphere, which is much deeper than Earth’s. It’s so thick and the gravity so weak, in fact, that you could strap wings on your arms and flap them like a bird to fly. The air is mostly nitrogen, but the rest is mostly hydrocarbons, giving Titan’s atmosphere a thick orange smoggy haze that is opaque to visible light. Cassini studies Titan in infrared light (which can penetrate the haze) and with radar — and in 2004, via the Huygens Probe, an atmosphere probe became the first spacecraft to transmit from the surface of a moon other than our own. Titan is remarkably earthlike, apart from being so cold that water is as hard as rock; in addition to the atmosphere, it is the only place other than Earth known to have bodies of liquid on the surface — lakes as large as the Great Lakes, except that it’s not water: it’s probably methane or ethane. The climate is probably similar to some of our deserts, with gigantic monsoons perhaps once a decade or more, and long droughts between. NASA scientists are working on a mission called Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) specifically to study the lakes of Titan.
Read the full text here: http://mentalfloss.com/ It’s Raining on Titan! Illustration Credit & Copyright: David A. Hardy (AstroArt)
Stargazing At The Elqui Domos Hotel In Chile | Designed by RDM Arquitectura | Photos by James Florio
In the heart of the mythical Elqui Valley in Pisco, surrounded by the Andes Mountains, 500km north of Santiago in central Chile, lies a magical place that allows for star-spangled dreams beneath the clear pure sky. Combining stargazing and specialized astronomic tours with night-time horseback riding, meditation and even tarot readings, Elqui Domos is a hotel quite like no other.
It was completed in 2005 to fulfil its owners’ desire to observe and enjoy the grandeur of the one of the world’s most star-filled skies. It is one of only seven astronomic hotels around the world and the only one in the Southern Hemisphere, offering breathtaking views of the magic skies draped over the Elqui Valley (the valley is renowned for its sharp, clear skies, as it happens to sit under one of the clearest atmospheres in the world). The lack of rain and pleasant weather all year round set the perfect conditions for astronomic tourism, where guests can gather to enjoy a unique chance to liaise with the stars.
(via Yatzer)
Wow, geodesic domes and stargazing. This is a amazing.
Part of what psychedelics do is they decondition you from cultural values. This is what makes it such a political hot potato. Since all culture is a kind of con game, the most dangerous candy you can hand out is one which causes people to start questioning the rules of the game.
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| — | Terence McKenna (via zenful-mysteries) |
Nimbadon by Peter Schouten
“The long-extinct Nimbadon was the largest arboreal marsupial herbivore ever to have lived and it was well suited to life in the treetops” Keep reading at UNSW
