La Rosa de los Vientos

var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-25110540-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); EN ESTE TUMBLR ENCONTRARÁS: @rosadevientos Two friends talking about HISTORY, SCIENCE, RELIGIONS, SKEPTICISM, ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS, LEGENDS, TRADITIONS [Esp/Eng] http://paper.li/rosadevientos/1359896510 Blog operativo desde 8-Agosto-2011

[i-cant-swim-actually]

how are we feeling about the new book this week chat

[for-all-mankind]

After a poor weather scrubbed Thursday’s initial launch attempt, NROL-37 took to the skies on a Delta IV Heavy Saturday afternoon, June 11. Classified as NROL-37, Delta’s payload is actually the top-secret Advanced Orion/Mentor surveillance satellite. Known as a SIGINT satellite for signal interference, the latest incarnation of the Orion/Mentor series is speculated to have a dish more than 300 feet in diameter. This makes it the largest spacecraft ever orbited, and required the largest rocket in the world to do so.

[astroperlas-blog]

Un Falcon 9R con la Dragon V2 (SpaceX).

[colchrishadfield]

New spaceship launches tomorrow morning, to test avionics, attitude control, parachutes and the heat shield. 

Go Orion!

[astronautfilm]

"An astronaut’s life is one of preparation and simulation, and training, and support from the ground, and anticipation, visualization, and very, very seldom - almost never - is an astronaut’s life about flying in space."

- Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield; former Commander of the International Space Station

[itsokaytobesmart]

There’s a really food metaphor for life in here.

I think.

[itsokaytobesmart]

Dear Evolution: Letters of Gripe and Gratitude from some of life’s many odd forms to Mother Nature.

A hilarious little diversion from Scientific American and Mara Grunbaum, who rund the hilarious Tumblr WTF, Evolution? More at the link above, like this note from a giraffe:

Dear Evolution,

Seriously?

No love, Giraffe

(via Scientific American)

[itsokaytobesmart]

Zhangye Danxia - Geology From a Storybook

Long ago, colorful sediments were deposited in western China, layer after layer, century after century. If you were there at the time, you would have seen unremarkable ground, a single hue of dirt no different from a thousand other places on Earth. 

But after thousands and thousands of years subject to the forces of pressure and tectonic movement, the total of those layers has been pushed upward, letting us peek at a rainbow-hued slice of Earth’s past perhaps unmatched on this planet. The planet looks more like the cross-section of a jawbreaker candy than layers of rock in these photos, near Zhangye, China.

The Zhangye formation, not to be confused with this danxia, a UNESCO heritage site, reminds us how our crust is heaved and hurled throughout the ages, a slow evolution that will continue into the distant future. It’s yet another story of Earth’s past, written in stone, but perhaps with the same pen as a fantasy storybook.

Check out more photos from Flickr user Melinda ^..^, and take some time to tour the formation in Google Earth.

[discoverynews]

Dragon’s Bounty: SpaceX Mission Complete

After delivering its bounty of fresh food, supplies and experiments to the orbiting outpost, the SpaceX Dragon capsule completed its mission when it splashed down off the Baja California coast this morning (March 26, 2013). Here’s a photo diary of some of the Dragon’s voyage to low-Earth orbit and back.

[the-science-llama]

Elements By KcD Studios - on tumblr

[itsokaytobesmart]

These are the characters that illustrate the comic book of life, one chemical at a time.

[rosadevientos]

Cartas para quimic@s Muy originales

[nickthejam]

[rosadevientos]

Nos ha hecho gracia...

[astroperlas-blog]

EVA en la ISS durante la STS-110 (NASA).

[astroperlas-blog]

La Soyuz TMA-07M vista desde la ISS (NASA).

[koermarulk]

[rosadevientos]

Documento historico: algo que declarar?? Jejeje

[walkingonsunshin--e-blog]

Apollo 11: East Crater Panorama by NASA on The Commons on Flickr.

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin and Buzz Aldrin became the first to walk on the Moon. This panorama of their landing site sweeps across the magnificent desolation of the Moon’s Sea of Tranquility, with their Lunar Module, the Eagle, in the background at the far left. East Crater, about 30 meters wide and 4 meters deep, is on the right (scroll right), and was so named because it is about 60 meters east of the Lunar Module. Armstrong had piloted the Eagle safely over the crater. Near the end of his stay on the lunar surface Armstrong strayed far enough from the Lunar Module to take the pictures used to construct this wide-angle view, his shadow appearing at the panorama’s left edge. The object near the middle foreground is a stereo close-up camera.

[itsokaytobesmart]

Imagine a Living Mars

Mars was likely not always the desolate, red-rocked planet that we see today. The Curiosity rover has found what appear to be water-smoothed pebbles, shaped by ancient rivers of flowing water. Curiosity and previous missions have also seen footprints of alluvial fans and river deltas, sure signs of a previously wet world.

Software engineer Kevin Gill has taken those observations to the next level with these simulations of a “living” Mars, covered with seas and lakes and teeming with vegetation and clouds. He used a survey of Martian terrain and elevation, plugged in a sea level to form oceans, and then painted the clouds and terrain as it might look or have looked.

It’s definitely more an exercise in imagination than in reality, as there’s no indication of past forests or marshy plains on the red planet, but it’s an informed imagination, a realization of a planet’s possible rich past or terraformed future.

Check out Kevin Gill on Flickr.

(via io9)

[collectivehistory-deactivated20]

The bronze “Chimera of Arezzo” is one of the best known examples of the art of the Etruscans. It was found in Arezzo, an ancient Etruscan and Roman city in Tuscany, in 1553 and was quickly claimed for the collection of the Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo I, who placed it publicly in the Palazzo Vecchio, and placed the smaller bronzes from the trove in his own studiolo at Palazzo Pitti, where “the Duke took great pleasure in cleaning them by himself, with some goldsmith’s tools,” Benvenuto Cellini reported in his autobiography. The Chimera is still conserved in Florence, now in the Archaeological Museum. It is approximately 80 cm in height.

In Greek mythology the monstrous Chimera ravaged its homeland, Lycia, until it was slain by Bellerophon. This bronze was at first identified as a lion by its discoverers in Arezzo, for its tail, which would have taken the form of a serpent, is missing. It was soon recognized as representing the chimera of myth and in fact, among smaller bronze pieces and fragments brought to Florence, a section of the tail was soon recovered, according to Giorgio Vasari. The present bronze tail is an 18th-century restoration.

The Chimera was one of a hoard of bronzes that had been carefully buried for safety some time in Antiquity. They were discovered by accident, when trenches were being dug just outside the Porta San Laurentino in the city walls. A bronze replica now stands near the spot.

Inscribed on its right foreleg is an inscription which has been variously read, but most recently is agreed to be TINSCVIL, showing that the bronze was a votive object dedicated to the supreme Etruscan god of day, Tin or Tinia. The original statue is estimated to have been created around 400 BC.

Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Florence, commentary by Ugo Bardi 

[discoverynews]

Voyager 1 Can ‘Taste’ the Interstellar Shore: “Although Voyager 1 still is inside the sun’s environment, we now can taste what it’s like on the outside because the particles are zipping in and out on this magnetic highway,” Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at Caltech in Pasadena said. “We believe this is the last leg of our journey to interstellar space. Our best guess is it’s likely just a few months to a couple years away. The new region isn’t what we expected, but we’ve come to expect the unexpected from Voyager.”

[discoverynews]

What a profound and awe-inspiring journey.