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George W. Bush, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

Happy birthday to Christopher Clavius (March 25, 1538-February 6, 1612), the German Jesuit mathematician and astronomer. And now, ladies and gents, here are some fun facts:

History doesn’t know his actual German name. It could be Christoph Clau or Klau. It might be Schlüssel, which is German for “key”, which in turn is “clavis” in Latin. But really, it’s all speculation.

At the age of 17, Clavius joined the Jesuit Order, which was founded when he was a child.

While studying at a Jesuit college in Portugal, he excelled in math. Upon observing a total solar eclipse in 1560, he decided that astronomy would be his life’s work.

As a professor at the Collegio Romano in (you guessed it!) Rome, Clavius taught mathematics and wrote textbooks, including works on algebra, the astrolabe, and practical arithmetic and geometry. He also did his own version of Euclid’s Elements; that probably contributed to him being called “the Euclid of the sixteenth century.”

Clavius was the senior math guy on the commission that reformed the calendar in 1582. This gave us the Gregorian calendar that most of the Western world uses to this day. Check out my previous post on this subject.

In his astronomical works, Clavius was geocentric in his opposition to the Copernican model of the universe for reasons both scientific and scriptural. He remained an everything-rotates-around-the-Earth guy until near the end of his life.

He budged on the matter. A little. Well, not quite, maybe. Clavius and Galileo had a mutually respectful relationship, and Clavius was rather thrilled (in his cautiously Jesuit way) with Galileo’s groundbreaking observations of Jupiter’s moons and other wonders. In 1610, during Galileo’s visit to Rome, Clavius and other scientists confirmed the existence of Jovian satellites and the phases of Venus, which contradicted the Ptolemaic view of the cosmos. But the geocentrism-vs-heliocentrism debate raged on.

Clavius also seemed to take this skeptical-but-delighted approach to Galileo’s telescopic observations of the Moon’s rough surface. He wrote that “when the Moon is a crescent or half full, it appears so remarkably fractured and rough that I cannot marvel enough that there is such unevenness in the lunar body.”

Speaking of the lunar body, Clavius was honored with his own crater formation on the Moon, as you can see above. Largest to smallest, the craters are designated Clavius D, C, N, J, and JA. Fans of 2001: A Space Odyssey might recognize this lunar location as the setting for Clavius Base, a human colony featured in both the film and book.

Feel free to contact me if I’m getting any of this wrong. I’m no Clavius.

(Rice University/Wikipedia)

European Scientists Want to Shoot a Giant Bullet at Europa

Europa has been calling to astrobiologists for years. Although its surface is frigid and bombarded with radiation, inside it contains a vast liquid ocean that might be capable of supporting life. NASA is planning to launch an orbiter and lander to Europa in 2022, and during today’s meeting of NASA’s Outer Planets Assessment Group, scientists expressed interest in getting the European Space Agency (ESA) involved in the mission.

The most exciting proposal is for ESA to build a projectile that could penetrate a few meters below the surface of the icy Jovian moon, to learn about its geophysics and search for hints about the moon’s ability to support life.

Read about the full plan here.

Image Credit: Geraint Jones

Columbia, Houston. UHF Comm Check. Columbia, Houston. UHF Comm Check. Columbia, Houston. UHF Comm Check. Columbia, Houston. UHF Comm Check...?

Col. Charles O. Hobaugh, USMC, CapCom for the ill-fated STS-107 mission, February 1st, 2003

Darrell Sweet cover art for a 1978 edition of Space Cadet by Robert A. Heinlein.

Good God...

Where We Drill, We Spill: Commemorating Exxon Valdez

The Trump "starvation" budget would axe funding to the already beleaguered and under resourced agencies tasked with managing oil drilling safety risks, effectively taking what few cops are left off the beat.

As I write, crude oil is flowing into the Mississippi and a gas leak in Alaska’s Cook Inlet is ongoing, and has been for more than 3 months.

Sea ice is making repairs impossible, underscoring again the unique challenges of oil and gas exploration in Alaska’s frozen and tumultuous waters…

Excuse me-So you're the one?

Charlotte Blackwood, Top Gun (1986)

Rare double impact crater on Mars. Such features are thought only to from simultaneous impacts.

via reddit

I’m just going to reblog this for future use. Followers(the few of you), feel free to check it out.

i am watching Big Bang Theory online with this link if you need it !!