Have Pannikin, Will Travel

sea beasts, age of sail, OFMD, aubreyad, the usual nerd stuff suspects. lotta ofmd at the moment, ngl

[ltwilliammowett]

Roman wall mosaic depicting a merchantship in a harbor with a lighthouse, late 2nd–early 3rd century AD.

The work was discovered in Rome in 1876 during construction work in the grounds of Palazzo Rospigliosi Pallavicini (Quirinal Hill). It is currently part of the collections of the Capitoline Museums and is housed at the Centrale Montemartini Antiquarium.

[lightbluetown]

the Literacy Duo, as i like to call them

[midshipmanhornblower]

gif request meme → Hornblower + favorite brotp ( requested by @hopelessdreamer80 )

↳ Horatio & Kitty

[mbari-blog]

In the deep sea, we know all about romance. ⁠❤️⁠

Tomopterids are pelagic polychaetes (segmented worms) with paddle-like parapodia that propel them through the water column. They are relatively common in the midnight zone and can live down to about 2,500 meters (8,200 feet). Many Tomopterids are only a centimeter or two long, but some can also get to be quite large—up to 30 centimeters (12 inches!). They are voracious predators, using their speed and agility to capture and consume a variety of midwater organisms. ⁠ ⁠ Females of this group produce a pheromone that attracts males and signals them to shed sperm into the water. This, in turn, signals the female to release her eggs—a behavior called swarming.

[jelloapocalypse]

Someone asked me a while ago if I still had a photo of the worst sink I had ever seen while apartment hunting in Los Angeles. I assumed I deleted it so I didn't answer the ask and now it's gone, but as it turns out, yes, I do still have a photo of it.

[pitbolshevik]

the mercedes clr incident at le mans is one of the only racing crashes i feel comfortable laughing at because a) nobody was seriously injured and b) it is a little funny that mercedes watched their car do That and were like "okay. uh. you know what we're just never doing le mans ever again"

[pitbolshevik]

mercedes watching their car do this: huh. maybe we're not good at endurance racing.

[pitbolshevik]

my tags were correct, it did in fact do it twice

[szczekaczz]

Takeuchi Seihō, Tranquility (circa 1935)

[currentlycryingaboutlancelot]

if you ever feel bad about your laundry situation you can reflect on book six of the odyssey where princess nausicaa has been putting off her laundry for so long that the GODDESS ATHENA notices and COMES TO HER HOUSE using a lecture on laundry procrastination to get her to meet odysseus

[vaegtersang]

Tile, William De Morgan, c. 1875-1897, Victoria & Albert Museum Ceramics Collection, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O277916/tile-william-de-morgan/

[sphinxenos]

just so you know

[nasa]

Meet Dr. Nancy Grace Roman

A photo of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman holding a model of the Hubble Space Telescope.

You have to be a pretty big deal for NASA to name a space telescope after you, and that is certainly the case for Dr. Nancy Grace Roman — our Roman Space Telescope’s namesake. She’s sometimes called the “mother of Hubble,” but she’s really the mother of all space-based observatories and NASA science in general. As NASA’s first chief astronomer, Dr. Roman's vision and leadership supercharged space science and helped make NASA the world-class scientific institution it is today.

Nancy Grace Roman as a young child.

Nancy Grace Roman was born on May 16, 1925 in Nashville, Tennessee. She was naturally curious about the world, a trait she attributed to taking nature walks with her mother as a child. By seventh grade, she had decided that she was going to be an astronomer. 

She later recounted, “I certainly did not receive any encouragement. I was told from the beginning that women could not be scientists.”

A 1972 photo of Dr. Roman at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Nancy received her bachelor’s in astronomy from Swarthmore College in 1946 and her doctorate in astronomy from the University of Chicago in 1949. She specialized in spectral classification, which involves spreading starlight out into a rainbow to see the individual colors. She would decode these rainbows to learn about the temperature and brightness of the stars, and their distances and movements.

In 1959, just six months after NASA was founded, someone at the agency asked Dr. Roman if she knew someone who might be interested in creating a space-based astronomy program. She sure did — she applied for the job herself, and she got it!

Dr. Roman works with a model of the Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO).

Creating a whole space program from scratch was no small feat. Dr. Roman quickly set her sights on the stars, determined to make space-based telescopes a reality.

Scientists had been batting around the idea of Hubble for generations. Today, after more than three decades in orbit and thousands of discoveries, it’s hard to believe that Hubble was ever a contentious idea. But in the mid-20th century, a budget-starved NASA and a post-World War II government were hesitant to follow the ambitious ideal of a giant new telescope.

But Dr. Roman knew how transformative it would be to observe the cosmos from above Earth’s turbulent atmosphere, which blurs images from even the best ground-based telescopes. So she gathered astronomers from around the country and sat them down in a room with NASA engineers to hash out the possibilities. 

Then she championed the idea to Congress, saying that “for the price of one night at the movies each year, each American would receive 15 years of exciting discoveries.” (And she actually undersold it, since we’ve now received over 36 years of discoveries from Hubble!)

In this 1965 photo, Dr. Roman (center) conducts a demonstration with Smith College students during a visit to NASA.

With leadership experience stretching back to at least the fifth or sixth grade, when she organized her friends into an astronomy club, Dr. Roman paired a personable approach with unwavering commitment to the mission, regardless of who or what stood in her way. And now we have her to thank for not just Hubble but for every other space telescope that has followed.

A portrait of Dr. Roman with the Stratoscope II balloon in the background.

In less than a month, the observatory named in Dr. Roman’s honor will journey to the heavens to transform our view of the universe. Read more about the woman behind the mission’s name here: https://science.nasa.gov/people/nancy-roman/. Follow along with Roman’s road to launch at nasa.gov/roman, and virtually tour the Roman observatory here.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[oneofthosecrazycatladies]

You've been kidnapped but the main character of the last TV show you watched is coming to rescue you.

Who’s rescuing you?

[whitepeopletwitter]

[samshine-and-lollipops-deactiva]

Wait, it got better.

[antiqueanimals]

Wildlife in North Carolina, April 1974. Illustration by Wade Clifton Walker Jr.

Internet Archive

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[dinopant]

Love the universe need of all babies human and animal to just lay on adults

[dinopant]

A collection

[dinopant]

Further proof

[amemait]

Let’s snuggle on mama

[goldensunset]

ok i’ve been curious about something. can you name a character who is, all three at once,

1. canonically female (no variation)

2. canonically the protagonist of her story (if it’s an ensemble cast you have to say you can legitimately see her as The main character)

3. your personal #1 favorite character in that story (ties are acceptable)

?

yes

no

super nuance bald extract button (use this wisely)

Voting ended on18h