This Is One Of Those Extraordinary Exercises In Which You See What You Hear, And You Hear What You See

A planet called HD 114762 b is so big that when it was first discovered, scientists thought it was a star.

Yoongi is that vine of that guy holding a nerf gun saying “Someone dropped ice on the floor and it melted now my sock is wet, who the fuck wanna die?”

Arabesque No. 1 | Isao Tomita

10 Things: Why Cassini Mattered

One year ago, on Sept. 15, 2017, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft ended its epic exploration of Saturn with a planned dive into the planet’s atmosphere–sending back new science to the last second. The spacecraft is gone, but the science continues. Here are 10 reasons why Cassini mattered…

1. Game Changers

Cassini and ESA (European Space Agency)’s Huygens probe expanded our understanding of the kinds of worlds where life might exist.

2. A (Little) Like Home

At Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, Cassini and Huygens showed us one of the most Earth-like worlds we’ve ever encountered, with weather, climate and geology that provide new ways to understand our home planet.

3. A Time Machine (In a Sense)

Cassini gave us a portal to see the physical processes that likely shaped the development of our solar system, as well as planetary systems around other stars.

4. The Long Run

The length of Cassini’s mission enabled us to observe weather and seasonal changes over nearly half of a Saturn year, improving our understanding of similar processes at Earth, and potentially those at planets around other stars.

5. Big Science in Small Places

Cassini revealed Saturn’s moons to be unique worlds with their own stories to tell.

6. Ringscape

Cassini showed us the complexity of Saturn’s rings and the dramatic processes operating within them.

7. Pure Exploration

Some of Cassini’s best discoveries were serendipitous. What Cassini found at Saturn prompted scientists to rethink their understanding of the solar system.

8. The Right Tools for the Job

Cassini represented a staggering achievement of human and technical complexity, finding innovative ways to use the spacecraft and its instruments, and paving the way for future missions to explore our solar system.

9. Jewel of the Solar System

Cassini revealed the beauty of Saturn, its rings and moons, inspiring our sense of wonder and enriching our sense of place in the cosmos.

10. Much Still to Teach Us

The data returned by Cassini during its 13 years at Saturn will continue to be studied for decades, and many new discoveries are undoubtedly waiting to be revealed. To keep pace with what’s to come, we’ve created a new home for the mission–and its spectacular images–at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/cassini.

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It’s Murder time at college so everything’s chaos

Created using still images taken by the Cassini spacecraft during it’s flyby of Jupiter and while at Saturn. Shown is Io and Europa over Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill

The Pantheon, Paris, France

Cute little music box playing “Clair de Lune” 🌙⭐

A Few of Louis XIV’s Favourite Things

1. Louis XIV’s favourite colour was blue, especially a dark and vivid blue. This blue was the colour of the costume de sacre, worn by French kings during their coronation ceremony. Another name for this colour is ‘royal blue’.

2. You know what figs, melons, peaches, asparagus, peas, st. nectaire cheese, and oysters have in common? They were some of Louis’ favourite foods. If any of these foods were present at his table, they would be gone within minutes.

3. Louis loved the smell of citrus fruits, and this all came down to his favourite perfume ‘orange blossom’. In his earlier years, he wore an array of different perfumes. In his older years, however, he could only tolerate ‘orange blossom’.

4. Even though he was at war with the Dutch, that didn’t stop Louis from having a keen interest a certain flower; the tulip. Tulips were his favourite flower; however, they were not planted in his gardens until after the Treaty of Nijmegen was signed in 1678.

5. Louis’ favourite opera was “Atys” by Jean-Baptiste Lully. That’s how it got the alias “the king’s opera”. It was said that Louis would hum some of the arias out loud.

6. I bet most of you have heard about Niccolo Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’, but you haven’t heard the fact that it was Louis’ favourite book. In his memoirs, Louis stated that this book was his ‘favourite nightcap’, meaning it was his favourite thing to soothe him before going to bed at night.