Stardust

[dianeduane]

...of a kind. Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 is falling apart (as it has been since '95, when its nucleus split in four). Check out this one-minute video, an animation created from Hubble Space Telescope stills, as the comet sheds some more of its interior on its inward swing toward the sun. (Its period is about five and a half years.)

...And no, it's coming nowhere near us. The calved-off chunks will be passing Earth at something like seven million miles' distance.

Comments

Apologies for a completely random sidetrack...

[alethea-eastrid.livejournal.com]

...but my insightful friend, siderea just posted a short essay (http://siderea.livejournal.com/342182.html) on Life and Death that struck me as resonating quite interestingly with some of the themes you've played with in the Young Wizard universe, and I thought you might like to take a look.

[firedrake-mor.livejournal.com]

Fascinating. Being an occasional animator, though, what I realized watching it was the way in which pieces moved past each other in the cluster *grin*, I can think of some science-fiction animators who could learn from that.

I've been fascinated by local astronomical effects especially since being at the Griffith Observatory here in L.A. during the Shoemaker-Levy impacts. Thanks for sharing this.

[a-muse-d.livejournal.com]

since your outofambit rss feed is about to go poof, i've added you. :)

[dduane.livejournal.com]

Thanx! Probably somebody will syndicate the feed from the new WordPress version, but with this mirror you get the pretty pictures properly formatted & all. :)