Loser Mountain Nearly ubiquitous with mountaineering in Europe are the Alps. This massive range dips into eight countries: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Slovenia, and Switzerland. More than a quarter of the Alps rests inside Austria, which is quite the statistic since that nation is slightly smaller than Maine! According to PeakVisor, Austria contains more […]
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Manhattanhenge The clock that stands still is right twice per day. Over the years, in our studies of the seasons and equinoxes, we’ve encountered various human-made edifices with connections to the Sun. The ancient Irish sepulcher Newgrange features an aperture that aligns with the rising star on the winter solstice, dripping light into the funerary passageway. Famously,
Parade of Planets Gazing into the night sky can impart a viewer with a sobering sense of perspective. The billions of stars out there. The millions of years the light took to travel from distant galaxies. It’s easy to be overwhelmed with a feeling of unimportance, as if we’re a speck of sand on a
Dumbo Octopuses Walt Disney Productions began an American institution in 1937 with the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Their initial animated feature still ranks tenth all-time in inflation-adjusted box-office gross, selling over 109 million tickets. Disney’s next two films, though now considered classic animations – Pinocchio and Fantasia – failed to provide the company with significant profits,
Jerrie, Queen of the Clouds All right, I will. — Jerrie Mock We’ve noted many times the power of role models during our examinations of exemplary humans, most recently during the biography of Mae Jemison. Trailblazers open the minds of young people and expand their palette for what is possible. In the World War interregnum, Amelia Earhart was
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Doyle’s Delight – Belize’s High Point An English name for a Central American High Point might seem a bit out of place, but Doyle’s Delight is not a translation from a Spanish moniker. Of the seven nations between Mexico and Colombia, all but one feature Spanish as an official language. Belize, the odd-country-out, achieved independence from the
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The Carrington Event It was a sight never to be forgotten, and was considered at the time to be the greatest aurora recorded […]. The rationalist and pantheist saw nature in her most exquisite robes, recognising, the divine immanence, immutable law, cause, and effect. The superstitious and the fanatical had dire forebodings, and thought it
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Sunspots, Solar Flares, & CMEs In Part I of this series, we discovered the Sun emits more than just visible light. The outermost portion of the Sun – the corona – becomes so hot that particles gather enough kinetic energy to escape the star’s gravity. As these masses flee the Sun, they become the solar wind, moving
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Sunlight & Solar Wind Stars are the gnarly dynamos of the largely empty universe. Packed with nuclear reactors at their cores, these bodies make life possible. The number of factors that allow Earth to teem with life is high enough to make one believe in serendipity. We owe everything to our star – the Sun
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Retention & Detention Small, artificial ponds have gained ubiquity in modern developments, such as neighborhoods and commercial centers. The body might have a fountain in the center, and a gaggle of annoying geese might chill there. They often feature an unnatural quality – geometry too straight or incongruous with the surroundings. Despite sticking out to
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