the infinite universe

I've lived my life not believing in a creator, nor an afterlife of the Heaven or Hell type variety, but believing space is infinite, with infinite possibilities.  This renders our lives on this tiny planet insignificant, and l'm happy with that, but think people should enjoy life as they wish, but try not to harm others.  One of the early arguments about space being infinite, therefore with infinite amounts of stars, is why is the night sky not lit up with them, rather than dark?  Obviously the fault is with our poor optics and the vast distances of the stars, but with advanced technology, we are getting there.  As evidence, here's a recent photograph from the Hubble Space Telescope of a mere 500 million stars (roughly) in the Andromeda Galaxy.

Remember - enjoy life while you can.  There's bugger all else.

Toodle pip

space - walking in the final frontier and deep purple - space trucking

As it's the anniversary of the Moon landing this week, here's some more space related stuff (see earlier blog).
The first picture is Alexey Leonov leaving his spacecraft and taking the first steps into space. The second picture is Bruce McCandless, out and about in space by himself. The courage they had to do such things is remarkable, and the same goes for the first Moon landing guys.
And now we have Donald Trump and Boris Johnson - two men l would happily send into space (with a one way ticket).

Plus one of my favourite Deep Purple songs - Space Truckin' from their Made In Japan album



toodle pip

vanity fair moon landings / nasa at 40 special feature

As it's the anniversary of the moon landings, l thought l would stick these up - a Vanity Fair article around NASA turning 40 that l ripped out and have kept for the last 20 years. I amaze myself sometimes with my hording mentality, but l will now throw them away as l will now be able to read them online here, and probably elsewhere if l could be bothered to look. I particularly like the Buzz Aldrin photo - it just amuses me for some reason.

toodle pip

earth from cassini

So, Cassini has perished, but has still left us with (amongst many other things) a mind boggling photograph of Earth from Saturn.

Plus,  l never tire of videos showing how insignificant and irrelevant we are in the universe. That's not morbid, just factual and reassuring. Makes it much easier to try and enjoy life without harming anyone else, and not be worried about an afterlife of any kind.

Just sweet oblivion - but hopefully not for a while.

toodle pip

the project apollo archive

If you want more proof that man has been to the moon, check out the hundreds of photographs at the Project Apollo Archive, which has just been released, and can be found here.
Some of amy favourites are below, and the released batch reinforces to me how brave the astronauts were, and how alone they must have felt out there, looking back at Earth, or the never ending vastness of space.
Yet also, the best moment of their lives, never to be repeated.

toodle pip

the blood moon - crappy photographs ahoy!

My rather crappy photographs of the recent 'Blood Moon'.  The sky was really clear and free from light (up on the moors), but as you can tell, my camera is shite at taking night time photographs.
You can't tell from the above pics, but the moon looked really impressive, and to me, seemed a lot closer to Earth, and more of a rounded shape, highlighting the fact that we have such a rock orbiting the planet at such close quarters, and reinforcing how magical space is (bloody hippy that l am).
I've nearly finished reading 'Moondust' (by Andrew Smith), about the various missions to the moon, and looking at it that night, it reminded me of the bravery of the astronauts and how often the missions were so close to failure (and some obviously did fail, with drastic consequences).
An amazing feat (and yes - l do believe men landed there!).

The picture below was not taken by me, but this is how the moon looked up on t'moors.

toodle pip

the michael collins photograph from space

Another space picture to put things into perspective. Michael Collins took this from the command module, as the Eagle occupants (Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin) were returning from the moon, before heading back to Earth.
He was therefore looking out at everyone that has ever lived, or was living, apart from himself.
What an experience that must have been, although l would still have rather stepped on the moon itself.

toodle pip

the day the earth stood still (1951)

I was watching 'The Day The Earth Stood Still' today.  A 'classic' movie from 1951, featuring the Christ like Klaatu and his companion, Gort. A film that clearly affected some musicians of a certain age, as there are a few references to it over the years. One of the most famous is Ringo Starr's 'Goodnight Vienna' lp, which features the spaceship, Ringo and Gort (not Klaatu, as most people think).

There was also a Canadian band that were called Klaatu, who released a 1976 album that sounded a bit like the Beatles, sparking rumours that it was an unreleased, or possible new product from the fab four themselves.  It's also the album that The Carpenters got 'Calling Occupants from Interplanetary Craft' from. God, my head is filled with so much crap it's unbelievable.

As for the film itself, the acting leaves a bit to be desired, the effects are pretty crap, and the ending is pretty sudden, but l still enjoyed it, despite many things annoying me about it as well, such as the lack of onlookers or interested parties when the spaceship is being guarded (by two soldiers!), but especially the clearly visible wires helping to hold up Helen when she is being carried by Gort.

Ah well, these are some of the sacrifices you make if you watch old films. The suspension of belief switch has to be turned right up to 10.

Remember kids - Klaatu Barada Nikto!

toodle pip

putting things into perspective - size of the planets

I've posted before about the vastness of space, but it's something l never tire of. 

Here's the size of the planets. 

There's more photographs on this site, plus more about some of the galaxies, that is staggering.

What's the point?  There is none.

toodle pip

the comparative size of continents and countries, plus the afterlife

Most people have probably seen the comparison of the map of Africa with other countries (above) by Kai Kraus (which is here), but Business Insider have done some more, which can be found here, and some of the comparisons are certainly surprising, with China being 12 times the size of Texas for one.
It's a big old (insignificant) world.
Arthur C Clarke said 'Either we are alone in the Universe, or we are not.  Both are equally terrifying', which l don't actually agree with, because unless an evil alien force comes to conquer us, l believe we will all just live and die, with no consequences regarding any kind of afterlife.
And l'm happy with that.
Now watch me get struck down by a thunderbolt thrown by God.

toodle pip