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  1. Science & Tech
30 January 2011updated 05 Oct 2023 8:19am

Five amazing things: astronomy

The best of the web, brought to you.

By Helen Lewis

The best of the web, brought to you.

The internet is full of astonishing videos, pictures and articles but the noise-to-signal ratio can be boringly high. So, from now on, I’ll be regularly collecting five of the best texts, movies and images, old and new, on a variety of subjects.

This time: astronomy. Next time: dancing.

1. Scale by Brad Goodspeed

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
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How big would the other planets look if they orbited the earth at the same distance — 380,000km — that the moon does? Brad Goodspeed’s visualisation will show you. Watch out for Jupiter, which is intimidatingly vast.

2. Bill O’Reilly doesn’t understand the moon

While we’re talking about the moon, it turns out that Bill O’Reilly doesn’t know how it works — which is why he believes in God. “How did the moon get there?” he asks. “How come we have that, and Mars doesn’t?” As I think Jon Stewart pointed out recently, O’Reilly seems to believe that if he doesn’t understand a given concept, no one does. (By the way, Bill, National Geographic has the answer here.)

3. Eclipsing the sun

File this under “Eek”. The French photographer Thierry Legault took a photo of the International Space Station passing in front of the sun. A humbling reminder that even our most cutting-edge technology is pretty small beer on the cosmic scale.

Oh, and if you want to see what the astronauts on the ISS are looking at right now, you can do that at the Nasa website here.

4. Nasa’s astronomy picture of the day

Always beautiful, often mind-boggling, these photos have recently included the cracked surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa, the deep-space contortions of the Seagull Nebula and gorgeous skies over Libya and Stockholm. Look out, too, for the amazing video of the Peerskill meteor of 1992, which, despite being only the size of a bowling ball, was brighter than a full moon as it screamed towards earth.

5. “Pale Blue Dot” by Carl Sagan

My final pick is a personal one: Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot”. We had this as a reading at our wedding, because its both humbling and hopeful. Starting with a photo of earth taken in 1990 by Voyager 1 from the edge of the solar system — 3,781,782,502 miles away — the great science educator reflects on our responsibility to care for that “mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam . . . the only home we’ve ever known”. If you don’t feel a little prickle in your tearducts by the end, you have no soul.

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Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU