Cosmic Curation

The Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co. are purveyors of the finest space travel supplies this side of the Magellanic Stream: including scientific theory (in bulk), non-toxic consumables, entertainment suitable for zero-gravity, and soft fiber garments. 100% of our proceeds benefit The Greater Seattle Bureau of Fearless Ideas, a non-profit writing, tutoring, & communication center.

[spacetravelco]

Please use extreme caution when merging black holes to verify LIGO findings.

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Happy birthday to pioneering science communicator Jeanne Bendick! Prior to her passing two years ago (at age 95), Bendick spent over 70 years writing and illustrating more than 100 science books for kids. Believe it or not, her First Book of Space Travel was what first inspired our very own Captain T. McGillicuddy to pursue a path to the stars. In other words, GSTS might not exist if it weren’t for her trailblazing work! We’re honoring her shockingly under-celebrated legacy today with excerpts from the wonderful autobiographical essay she wrote for Contemporary Authors.

We also humbly propose that February 25th henceforth be recognized as Jeanne Bendick Day!

Head over to Brain Pickings for high-quality scans of The First Book of Space Travel and read the full essay through the Gale Literature Resource Center.

[kevindart]

“Through scientific study and understanding, we deepen our connection to the natural world.”

FORMS IN NATURE: Understanding Our Universe An audiovisual collaboration by Kevin Dart, Stéphane Coëdel, David Kamp, and Nelson Boles.

Produced by CHROMOSPHERE

I am so proud to finally show this film we have been working on for the last year! This film is meant to inspire and to draw a connection between the wonders of nature and the fields of science which are all informed by careful observations of our world.

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Gorgeous new animated exploration of Kevin Dart’s Science & Nature show

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Symmetry Magazine's cute and catchy ABC's of Particle Physics

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Emperor X pays tribute to the detection of gravitational waves with a song “generated entirely from the signal pulse the LIGO team.“

Artist’s statement: “I made this track to commemorate the LIGO team's direct observation on September 14th, 2015 of gravitational waves emitted after the collision of two stellar mass black holes in a distant galaxy 1.5 billion years ago, when life on Earth was mostly eukaryotic slime. The signal traveled across empty space for eons, arriving on our world in the form of this unassuming pop, as humble as it is unambiguous. Our laser interferometry ears work and we just got one more tool with which we can understand the baffling cosmos. Gravity waves are real, and we can hear them.

Science progresses in fits and starts. It's easy to think we're in a lull because our lives in 2016 resemble those of our parents in 1976 far more than the lives of our parents resembled that our our grandparents in 1936. We are mired in a tedious game of economic catch-up, trying to consolidate the gains of the 20th century without blowing ourselves up. Things seem slow right now as a result. “Where's my flying car?!?”, “We were promised jetpacks!”, etc., etc. Don't worry, this little pop assures us. Keep at it. They're coming.

This track was generated entirely from the signal pulse the LIGO team uploaded during the PR push surrounding their paper's publication on February 11th, 2016 and a 1-second sample of a conversation about the discovery I was having with some strangers at a bar the following day. The original LIGO pulse doesn't sound or look like much, just a simple fast-attack/fast-decay semi-sinusoidal pop. But such a pop is a blank slate for someone who works with sound as a tool for invigorating humans. No other additive synthesis was used. All tones and percussion sounds come directly from the pulse or effect artifacts thereof. The timbral diversity of the audio material is far removed from the initial LIGO pulse, just as the consequences of this discovery are unpredictable from our naive early vantage point in the history of science.

Now turn it up and dance with me, O fellow cerebral weirdos.“

[carolynporco]

This week we learned that a prediction made by the brilliant, staggeringly counter-intuitive theory of general relativity, formulated by Albert Einstein 100 years ago, has been confirmed.

A billion light-years across the universe, two massive black holes spiraled round and round each other, ever closer, ever faster, until they merged in an extremely brief but tremendous explosion of energy. In that fraction of an instant, more power was produced than that of all the stars in the cosmos, sending subtle ripples in the space-time continuum, of which we are a part, in all directions. A billion years later, on September 14, 2015, these disturbances were intercepted by detectors on Earth, marking the first time we have ever witnessed a gravitational wave.

This is the immense triumph of 50 years of scientific inquiry and technological experimentation, and a watershed in the history of human knowledge.

A new window on the cosmos has just opened. We will be peering through it forevermore.

LIGO: Gravitational Waves Detected 100 Years After Einstein’s Prediction

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Powerful words from Carolyn Porco on the magnitude of the LIGO announcement. A truly pivotal discovery for physics and space science!

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Our Hand-Activated Gravity Detectors may not be quite as sensitive as LIGO, but they're certainly much easier to carry on interplanetary missions. Rumor has it that Einstein himself used one of these while ruminating on relativity.

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Happy International Women’s Day!

Please take a look at this trailer for Sepideh, a documentary which follows the life of a young girl in Iran who dreams of becoming an astronaut.

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Revisiting Sepideh today in honor of the UN’s inaugural International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

Now available on iTunes.

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Two beautiful 1930s WPA Federal Theatre Project posters for R.U.R.

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Happy Robotmas, everyone! Today marks 78 years since the very first piece of sci-fi TV was broadcast—an adaptation of Karel Čapek's R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), which introduced the word "robot" to the world.

Read or listen to the play, and learn more about the history of robots in fiction.

[oldsidelinghill]

I think the first thing of mine that was ever published officially was this choose-your-own-adventure style space comic from 2005. It was included in a illustration/comic collection called “The Industry Standard”.

[spacetravelco]

Jherek Bischoff, Amanda Palmer, and Neil Gaiman cover David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” on the marvelous orchestral tribute EP, Strung Out In Heaven (learn more). Artwork by Sarah Beetson.

Bischoff also composed this beautiful instrumental rendition of "Life On Mars?" (artwork by Félix Marqués)

Strung Out In Heaven: A Bowie String Quartet Tribute by Jherek Bischoff

[sanderdraws]

A WIP of my contribution to Light Grey Art Lab’s upcoming ROBO show -obviously I had to do something with cats!

[spacetravelco]

Watch out, Professor Astro Cat! This looks like trouble...

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“Gravity” by Deih

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We are closed today to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. If you’ve never heard about Dr. King’s encounter with Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura from Star Trek), don’t miss Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk interview with her about the life-changing conversation.

Here’s an excerpt:

“For the first time in my life, I had no words to say. They wouldn’t come out anyway. I’m shaking in front of this man. And he is saying how important Star Trek is to the future. That ‘this man who has written this, who has produced this, has seen the future - and we are there, because you are there’. He said, 'You have one of the most important roles. This is a first. It’s non-stereotypical, it’s brilliant, it’s beauty, and it’s intelligence. And you do it with warmth and grace.’ …You have changed the face of television forever. Because this is not a black role, it is not a female role - anyone can fill that role.’ He said, 'It can be filled by a woman of any color, a man of any color. It can be filled by another Klingon or an alien.’ He said, 'This is a unique role in a unique point in time that breathes the life of what we are marching for: Equality.’”

*Nichols went on to inspire Sally Ride, Guion Bluford, Mae Jemison, and countless others to pursue careers in science and aerospace.

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“Gold Record” by Rachel Lynn Rose

Artist’s statement:

“This piece was inspired by the most 'out of this world' gold records of the 1970's: The golden records aboard each of the voyager spacecraft and David Bowie's Aladdin Sane. The work of Carl Sagan and David Bowie has been a great inspiration for me over the years so I decided to create a tribute to these swell fellas. I've been wanting to give embroidering on wood board a go and this seemed like an appropriate project because of all the awful wood paneling that was so popular in the 1970s.”