This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you

During the ChE quiz  bowl I was able to answer a question about him at the mere mention of the thickness of his brush strokes. Vincent van Gogh is ubiquitous in quiz shows and it is because of this fact that I came to appreciate his artworks. (Not to mention include Vincent by Don Mclean as one of my favorite songs.)

To honor the artist whose posthumous fame is rivaled only by Rembrandt, NASA features the astronomy picture of the day.

Drumroll please.

Starry Night Over the Rhone
Credit: Vincent van Gogh, Wikipedia; Acknowledgement: B. Schaefer (LSU) 

 

Explanation: How can the majesty of the night sky best be captured in a painting? This was a continual challenge for Vincent van Gogh, a famous painter in the late 1800s who pioneered stirring depictions of star filled skies into several of his works. Pictured above is van Gogh's Starry Night Over the Rhone, where the French town of Arles is depicted complete with gas lights reflecting off the Rhone river. van Gogh's night sky appears alive with turbulent stellar images contrasting with lofty dark blue hues. Above the river, one can discern the stars of the familiar Big Dipper asterism. Following a line connecting the two Big Dipper stars on the right, the North Star Polaris could be easily found, the height of which can then be estimated and actually gives the latitude where the painting was created. 

Credits to:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

I love astronomy.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are floating in space...

..is a reminder that we indeed are floating in space. Isn't it wonderful to look at that kind of perspective? Blame Jostein Gaarder for planting this kind of sentiment, which Einstein referred to as a "cosmic religious feeling." If there's something physically probable in this world to make a rendezvous with my God possible, it would have to be being sucked by a blackhole. (By the way, someone thought blackholes result when God divides the universe by zero.)

The universe never fails to amaze me, or anyone for that matter. Just take a look at some of the various theories of the universe, it's beginning, and its eventual end (if ever it will), portrayed in pictures. I got this from idly clicking and clicking, and, Alas!, i found something interesting. ( It also lets me display my faculty of wonder, which Gaarder said, is the only requirement to being a philosopher. Ahem.)

Simple Is Beautiful

Simple shapes, simple typography, simple colour characterises their work. I snaffled them up for a spread in Information Is Beautiful about the various creation stories across cultures – scientific and mythological.

[It] Struck me. [T]here was something cool about trying to visualize such an unimaginably complex process with super-simple graphics.


A universe of thanks to Information is Beautiful .Indeed it is.

We too are stardust.

Astronomers caught a glimpse of a future star just as it is being born out of the surrounding gas and dust, in a star-forming region similar to the one pictured above. (Credit: NASA, ESA)

ScienceDaily (June 18, 2010) — Astronomers have glimpsed what could be the youngest known star at the very moment it is being born. Not yet fully developed into a true star, the object is in the earliest stages of star formation and has just begun pulling in matter from a surrounding envelope of gas and dust, according to a new study that appears in the current issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

For more details, read Astronomers witness a star being born at sciencedaily.com.

I'm supposed to place my very own picture for this post. But I figured I am not what the article refers to. I'm not in the earliest stages of star formation anymore. Hah! So much for supernovas, a star's birth is equally wonderful. If the Big Bang were true, the same material that is in the stars are also present in us all. In the words of Jostein Gaarder, "we too, are stardust."