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Cartoon by Bob Mankoff. For more from this issue: http://nyr.kr/12BytFa
(Source: newyorker.com)
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Cartoon by Drew Dernavich. For more: http://nyr.kr/YdkWV9
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Click-through for a look back at 20 of the most striking images of our home planet as seen from orbit in 2012: http://nyr.kr/UosuxW, images courtesy of NASA’s Earth Observatory,
(Source: newyorker.com)
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"Actually, there are two basic theories about how the universe was created. There is a scientific explanation: that the universe began to expand about 13.7 billion years ago and continues today to do so. And there’s an explanation offered by people who believe that angels are real… People who suggest that we teach children competing theories are using a sophisticated code to further the forces of creationism."
— Michael Specter responds to Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s comments in GQ magazine about the age of the Earth. Continue reading. -
“Hey Google, can I have a little privacy here?”→
In this week’s Questioningly contest, we asked people to imagine that they were tweeting from an imaginary official Twitter account for Earth. The results took two tacks, some people imagined they were representing humanity, while others tweeted as the Earth itself. Click-through to see the best entries: http://nyr.kr/MTIqDW
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Ever since putting together our slide show of the transit of Venus, I’ve been following NASA’s Goddard Flight Center on Instagram. Recently the center posted an image of a crater on Mars that bore a startling resemblance to Mickey Mouse. Inspired by this, and also reminded of a childhood desire to see shapes in clouds, I decided to troll the NASA archive for space formations that look like earth objects.When it comes to outer space, resemblance is often a fleeting thing. “Galaxies change shape significantly as they interact gravitationally and even collide and merge with other galaxies, as the Milky Way and Andromeda are one day expected to do,” Frank Reddy, a NASA senior science writer, told me. “Nebulas are vast clouds of gas and dust, and they morph under the influence of powerful outflows and intense radiation from the stars and star clusters within them. Impact craters change via the same factors that alter any landscape: erosion by wind, flowing water, glaciers, living organisms, earthquakes, volcanoes and even the formation of new impact craters nearby.” (Results may vary depending on local conditions: “No wind or life on the moon,” he noted.)Click-through for more images of space at its most suggestive, with captions from NASA: http://nyr.kr/NI3vFH
