(via uraniaproject)

The 4.5 billion year earth with 

3.8 billion years of simple cells (prokaryotes),

3 billion years of photosynthesis,

2 billion years of complex cells (eukaryotes),

1 billion years of multicellular life,

600 million years of simple animals,

570 million years of arthropods (ancestors of insects, arachnids and crustaceans),

550 million years of complex animals,

500 million years of fish and proto-amphibians,

475 million years of land plants,

400 million years of insects and seeds,

360 million years of amphibians,

300 million years of reptiles,

200 million years of mammals,

150 million years of birds,

130 million years of flowers,

65 million years since the non-avian dinosaurs died out,

2.5 million years since the appearance of the genus Homo,

200,000 years since humans started looking like they do today and

25,000 years since Neanderthals died out.

toknow:

Mother Jones has a great article by Chris Mooney titled “The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science”.

The article provides a frustrating overview of why so many people who hold strong convictions on a particular subject such as climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers or creationists, cannot, and will not be convinced by scientific evidence.

(Hat tip to John Gruber at Daring Fireball.)

(via toknow-deactivated20111201)

A real time recreation of Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering first orbit, shot entirely in space from on board the International Space Station. The film combines this new footage with Gagarin’s original mission audio and a new musical score by composer Philip Sheppard. For more information visit http://www.firstorbit.org

nedwright:

“…as though in a miraculous hour it has become aware of the law that shapes it and begins to strive toward the fulfillment of its being.”

- Hermann Hesse (1877 - 1962, swiss poet, novelist and painter.)

The very first picture of everything, recorded by the self proclaimed “star-counter,” William Herschel. Euclidian geometry suggests that space is finite, but does space really have bounds, or is it simply the space in which things occur? Is there such thing as the infinite?

(via ideasareawesome)

itsfullofstars:

Movie Shot From Space Celebrates 50 Years Since Gagarin’s Orbit

This is the trailer for First Orbit a unique new film that’s due for global release via YouTube on April 12th, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first manned orbit of the Earth.

The 108-minute film was made by British filmmaker Chris Riley, who engaged the help of an astronaut on the International Space Station to shoot much of the footage.

Riley told TechLand: “The idea of the film is to convey a sense of what a single orbit of Earth actually feels like.”

Read more.

pretty much like the our moon. 

ideasareawesome:

This is the first-ever image of Mercury taken from orbit. NASA has more!

itsfullofstars:

Earth’s gravity revealed in unprecedented detail

After just two years in orbit, ESA’s GOCE satellite has gathered enough data to map Earth’s gravity with unrivalled precision. Scientists now have access to the most accurate model of the ‘geoid’ ever produced to further our understanding of how Earth works.

The new geoid was unveiled today at the Fourth International GOCE User Workshop hosted at the Technische Universität München in Munich, Germany. Media representatives and scientists from around the world have been treated to the best view yet of global gravity.

The geoid is the surface of an ideal global ocean in the absence of tides and currents, shaped only by gravity. It is a crucial reference for measuring ocean circulation, sea-level change and ice dynamics – all affected by climate change.

Read more and see an animated version of the geoid here.

inothernews:

BOOMSDAY   The Tycho supernova remnant in the Milky Way, produced by the explosion of a white dwarf star in our galaxy, is seen in this image captured by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.  Low-energy X-rays (red) show expanding debris from the supernova explosion and high energy X-rays (blue) show the blast wave, a shell of extremely energetic electrons.  (Photo: Chandra Observatory via the Telegraph)

Beautiful

(via itsfullofstars)