Mars during the Noachian Epoch

Mars today

Mars during the Noachian Period

The view is centered around the area called the Ares Vallis (below right, the water filled basin). This area shows variety of water related features, e.g. sediments, river canyons, and flat-bottomed crater (characteristic of an ancient water-filled craters). Some water overflowed from the crater that contains them, creating flood across the plain.

Also shown are some meteors impacting the Martian surface. 

I am not very sure what is that volcano on the left. Volcanism is important in forming water in Mars. Volcano produces material for a thicker atmosphere, in this visualization, you can even see there’s a plume of gas coming out from the volcano. This process makes the planet warmer and makes it possible for water to form. That volcano is probably part of the Alba Mons volcanic system, although I think Alba Mons should be a little bit to the north. 

The color of Mars is not red during that time, because the oxidation of the soil happens when the volcanism stops.

 Floods in Kasei Vallis, caused by volcanism in the Tharsis Bulge

Source:

http://www.marssociety.org/portal/c/society-tools/mars_art

One of the Oldest Globe from the Islamic World

 

"this globe comprises all of the constellations mentioned in the Almagest, after modification according to the time elapsed between the calculations of Ptolemy and year 540 [of the Hejira] (...), the work of Yûnus Ibn al-Husayn al-Asturlabî." © R.M.N./H. Lewandowski

No functional celestial globe has come down to us that predates the coming of Islam. This celestial globe is a three-dimensional model of the universe, and is the third-oldest globe from the Islamic world. Only two others, created by an Andalusian astronomer, are older, and this is the oldest known globe from the eastern part of the Islamic world.

The globe differs from its Andalusian predecessors by the use of an alphanumeric system of notation (abjad) for numbering the stars within each of the 120 Ptolemaic constellations. Each of the 1,025 stars depicted is represented by a dot of inlaid silver, a technique that was unknown in the West. The diameter of the point varies depending on the magnitude of the star. The two hemispheres that make up the globe are joined along the Milky Way. The globe represents the final celestial sphere, that of fixed stars - a very precise version of Ptolemy's Almagest, a catalogue of stars written in Alexandria in the 2nd century AD. The difference between Islamic globes and what we know about ancient globes lies in the fact that Islamic globes represented the constellation from the front, instead of from the back.

Scientifically, this globe is exceptionally precise. It was created by a master astronomer who was capable, as the inscription engraved in the vicinity of the South Pole indicates, of recalculating astronomical calculations: "This globe comprises all of the constellations mentioned in the Almagest, after modification according to the time elapsed between the calculations of Ptolemy and year 540 of the Hejira: that is, fifteen degrees and eighteen minutes. Created by Yûnus Ibn al-Husayn al-Asturlabî in the year 539." The iconography of the constellations faithfully follows the model presented in the Book on the Constellations of Fixed Stars (kitab suwar al-kawakib) by 'Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi. The original of this work was lost, but we have been able to reconstitute it through a copy made by al-Sufi's son in 1099 and a manuscript from 1125 that explicitly refers to it. In addition to its remarkable scientific precision, the work is equally captivating due the quality of the engraving. Many of the clothed figures, including Cassiopeia, feature drapery comparable to figures in manuscripts. Their sinuous and stylized folds are characteristic of the art of the book that continued to develop into the mid-13th century, and even beyond, in the Arab part of the Islamic world.

Full figure Gemini, Cancer, Canis Major.

 Centaurus and Lupus. In above left is part of Hydra’s coil.

 Scorpio and Libra, legs of Virgo and the head of Lupus is also seen here.

Source:

http://www.louvre.fr

The Star Wars Galaxy – More Science than Fiction

 The Star Wars Galaxy. Can you find the beautiful planet Naboo?

“If there's anything I like more than space it's fake space. That's why this map of the Star Wars Galaxy, from Coruscant to the Wild Space region, has me fascinated this morning. High res inside.”

Planet Bespin	In the Star Wars sci-fi saga, the fictional planet Bespin is an immense gas giant surrounded by a number of moons. It contains a band of habitable atmosphere among the clouds. This is where Cloud City is located, a mining colony set up to extract valuable Tibanna gas. "I don't know what Tibanna gas might be," said Seth Shostak, a real-life astronomer with the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, California. "Gas-giant planets seem to be swathed in ammonia, methane, and other vapors that, frankly, are neither rare nor particularly valuable. They are useful for cleaning the bathroom or cooking dinner, of course."
Planet Coruscant	Situated in the heart of the fictional Star Wars galaxy, the planet Coruscant is completely covered by one massive city and is the seat of government for both the Galactic Republic and later the Empire. "In general, you don't want to be quite in the 'heart' of any large galaxy, as that's almost invariably the site of a massive black hole, and an active nucleus that will fill nearby space with corrosive radiation guaranteed to ruin your whole day," said Seth Shostak, a real-life astronomer with the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, California.
Planet Dagobah	Dagobah is a forgotten world where Luke Skywalker trains with the Jedi master Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back. Its huge lagoons and mist-shrouded swamps are teeming with life. "This swamp planet is really only a [stand-in] for Earth during the Pennsylvanian period, when swamps were common, vegetation was lush, and coal was being formed," said Seth Shostak, an astronomer with the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in California. "It's our planet as it was 300 million years ago, before things got a bit colder."
Planet Hoth	In the Star Wars films, the fictional planet Hoth is a world of snow and ice. Although small meteorites from a nearby asteroid field constantly pelt its surface, the planet has developed several life-forms, including the tauntaun snow lizard ridden by rebel soldiers in The Empire Strikes Back. "A nearby asteroid field? Hmm, it would be tricky to keep it in place. … said Bruce Betts, a scientist at the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California. "Perhaps it's early in that solar system's development and the planet, like early Earth, is under bombardment. But then it would be odd to have very advanced life evolved there."
Planet Mustafar	In Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the fictional planet Mustafar serves as a volcanic backdrop for the final duel between the characters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. "To make this compatible with contemporary life is a challenge. It's really tricky to imagine that you would have oxygen here," said Bruce Betts, a scientist at the Planetary Society in California. "But, hey, they're Jedi—they can probably control their breath."
Planet Naboo	In the Star Wars movie saga, the fictional planet Naboo serves as the home of Queen Amidala. It's an idyllic world populated by peaceful humans and a species of intelligent amphibians, the Gungans. "We have rather few examples of two or more intelligent species simultaneously sharing a planet, but it has happened. The Neanderthals coexisted with Homo sapiens for millennia," said Seth Shostak, a real-life astronomer with the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, California. "So maybe it's possible to share, as long as neither species has the technology to obliterate, enslave, or merely cook and eat each other."
Planet Tatooine	The large and dusty planet Tatooine is the fictional home of Anakin and Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars sci-fi saga. "You can develop a really arid world, like Mars, but once it is mostly arid, it is hard to keep any liquid water," said Bruce Betts, a scientist at the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and an expert on things extraterrestrial. "Liquid water is one of three things needed for life on Earth, so it's probably not a terrible assumption to make that it's needed for life elsewhere too."

 

source:

Trukstop via Wookieepedia via Dark Roasted Blend via gizmodo.com/tag/astronomy/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/photogalleries/starwarsgalaxy/index.html

Roman Scaphe (Bowl Sundial)

Roofed spherical sundial from the 1st or 2nd century AD.

The scaphe is a bowl sundial, designed with a hole to let through a ray of sunlight. The inside is engraved with line and Greek inscriptions. The spot lit by the sunbeam would mark the month, day, and hour. This sundial is created in the shape of a skyphos, or drinking vessel, which is fashionable during the time.

The scaphe was supposed to be positioned vertically with the hole uppermost and the concave bowl facing the observer. The broadest division corresponds to the summer solstice, 24 June, and the narrowest the winter solstice, 25 December.The fan of eleven lines dividing the curving sections marks the length of the twelve daytime hours of the Roman day, which were longer in summer and shorter in winter. The hole in the vessel let through a ray of sunlight that marked the month, day, and hour, moving round the bowl as the position of the sun changed. The opening would originally have been partly closed off with a bronze plaque, restricting the opening and thus focusing the beam more precisely, but this has been lost. The sundial was made for use at a latitude of 41.

Source:

http://www.louvre.fr/llv/oeuvres/detail_notice.jsp;jsessionid=Kh35G2FQJX2VFnXVX7vQd1jHTCLL62MPpyQZXB10CYPXJW5pz3zJ!2029486743?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673225839&CURRENT_LLV_NOTICE%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673225839&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=9852723696500819&baseIndex=55&bmLocale=en

~Dahin’s OC Community Thing?

Except the first one. But I like Antlia!

Source: http://dahin.deviantart.com/art/Request-106203860

Star Birth

Artist's Conception of L1014 (NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC))

“In this artist's conception, we peer through the dark dust of L1014 to witness the birth of a star. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected a faint, warm object inside the apparently starless core of a small, dense molecular cloud. If, as astronomers suspect, there is a young star deep inside the dusty core, it would have a structure similar to this illustration.
Dark dust from the cloud, attracted by the gravity of the newborn star, forms a disc as it spirals inward. Often, the hidden birth of a star is heralded by bipolar outflows, jets of material moving outward from the star's poles. Although astronomers do see a faint "fan-shaped nebulosity" where they might expect the jet to be, the existence of the jet has yet to be confirmed.”

L1014 is a very young star located in Cygnus. It is the smallest star of this age discovered so far. It is hidden within a dark nebula in which no stars have been suspected. If it won't grow much more it will become a brown dwarf.

Source:

http://sscws1.ipac.caltech.edu/Imagegallery/image.php?image_name=ssc2004-20b

http://jumk.de/astronomie/special-stars/l1014.shtml

Pink Floyd’ Astronomy Domine

 

Cover of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967)

"Astronomy Domine" is a song by British psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd. It is written by Syd Barrett (the original vocalist/guitarist) and was the first track on their album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967). The lead vocal was sung by Barrett and keyboard player Richard Wright.

The song opens with the voice of their manager at the time Peter Jenner, reading the names of stars through a megaphone. The intention of this opening is to replicate the feeling of outer space, with Jenner's voice sounding like an astronaut's over an intercom. Barrett's Fender Esquire then seemingly emerges from the distance and grows louder. At 0:19 a rapid beeping sound appears, again reaffirming the feeling of distant space. At 0:26, Mason's distinctive drum fills emerge, followed closely by Barrett's bluesy, sinister-sounding guitar (perhaps reminiscent of Duane Eddy) in a figure suggestive of the brass motif from "Mars, the Bringer of War" in Holst's The Planets. Wright's Farfisa organ is mixed into the background. Barrett's incantatory lyrics about space again support the cosmonautical theme in the song, mentioning planets Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune as well as Uranian moons Oberon, Miranda, and Titania, and Saturn's moon Titan. Barrett and Richard Wright provide lead vocals. Waters' repetitive bass line, Wright's Farfisa organ, and Barrett's kinetic slide guitar then dominate, followed by the voice of Peter Jenner again through a megaphone.

The song has an unusual chord progression: E, E-flat, G, A. The sound of this chord progression, in conjunction with the use of a Binson echo machine for the guitar, has a very distinctive psychedelic character. The track is the album's most "space rock" song, alongside the longer "Interstellar Overdrive". The style of the song and its use of sound effects would influence the future work of Pink Floyd, and its influence can be felt on Ummagumma (1969) and even The Dark Side of the Moon (1973).

 

 

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomy_Domine

Planisphaerium Bianchini – The Greco-Egyptian Constellation

 

Planisphaerium/Tabula Bianchini or the Planisphere astrologique de style Egyptian (From Origine de tous les cultes, ou religion universelle, par Dupuis. (Paris E. Babeuf 1822) Dupuis (1742-1809), Author.)

 

This drawing is a graphical depiction of an astrological dicing board made of marble, which involved divination by throwing a dice on top of it. It is probably from the 3rd century AD. It was found on the Aventine Hill, Rome, and now was kept in Louvre, Paris.

The center of the system is drawn on the pole of the ecliptic (which is exactly alpha Draconis), and not on the pole of the equator (Ursa Major), because the Sun’ passage through the sky along the ecliptic is the relevant path for astrology. Because of this, three polar constellations are depicted in an interesting manner: Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, with Draco coiling between them.

The first band from the center depicts the animal of the Dodecahoros Chaldaike, a Chaldean zodiac. It was incomplete, but based on another finding from Egypt (see below), it can be listed that the constellations are: a sitting cat (Aries), a dog or a jackal (Taurus), a serpent (Gemini), a scarabeus or a crab (Cancer), a donkey (Leo), a walking lion (Virgo), a goat or gazelle (Libra), a bull (Scorpio), a falcon (Sagittarius), a baboon/ape (Capricorn), an ibis (Aquarius), and a crocodile (Pisces)

The complete marble slab of the Dodecahoros, sighted in Cairo antique shop in 1901.

 

The next two outer band depicts the standard Greek zodiac.

The last band shows the Egyptian decans, the Greco-Egyptian names of each one is inscribed below each figure. Just outside this band are depiction of faces of the 7 planetary gods that is associated with the decans. We can see that a woman holding a mirror is definitely Venus, and the one with a winged hair is Mercury. Based on this, I can - more or less - list the name of each decans and the associated god:

Aries Asiccan, Mars Senacher, Sun Acentacer, Venus	Taurus Asicath, Mercury Viroaso, Moon Aharph, Saturn	Gemini Thesogar, Jupiter Verasua, Mars Thepisatosoa, Sun
Cancer Sothis, Venus Sith, Mercury Thuimis, Moon	Leo Aphruimis, Saturn Sithacer, Jupiter Phuonisi, Mars	Virgo Thumis, Sun Thopithus, Venus Aphuth, Mercury
Libra Semeuth, Moon Aterechinis, Saturn Arpien, Jupiter	Scorpio Senthacer, Mars Thepiseuth, Sun Sencmer, Venus	Sagittarius Eregbuo, Mercury Sagen, Moon Chenen, Saturn
Capricorn Themeso, Jupiter Epima, Mars Homoth, Sun	Aquarius Oroasoer, Venus Astiro, Mercury Thepisathras, Moon	Pisces Archathapias, Saturn Thopibui, Jupiter Athembui, Mars

It’s a pity that I cannot find a complete list of these figures that represent the decans.

And the lastly, on the four corners are winged heads representing the four main winds, only one is depicted here.

 

Source:

http://members.optusnet.com.au/gtosiris/page11-14.html

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org

al-Sufi’s Book of Fixed Stars

 

 

The front page from Al-Sufi’s Kitab suwar al-kawakib, this one is a copy from year 1417

al-Sufi was a Persian astronomer who worked in Isfahan and Baghdad during the golden age of Islam. His most famous work is the Kitab suwar al-kawakib, “Book of the Constellations of the Fixed Stars” (986) which described the 48 constellations from Ptolemy’s Almagest.

The book was illustrated with observations and descriptions of the stars, their positions, their magnitudes and their color. For each constellation, he provided two drawings, one from the outside of a celestial globe, and the other from the inside. For each of the constellations, he provides the indigenous Arab names for their stars, drawings of the constellations, and a table of stars showing their locations and magnitude. The Kitab suwar al-kawakib initiated further work on astronomy in the Islamic worlds, and exercised a huge influence on the development of science in Europe. The work was frequently copied and translated. This copy, from the collections of the Library of Congress, was produced somewhere in south or central Asia, circa 1730, and is an exact copy of a manuscript, now lost, prepared for Ulug Beg of Samarkand (present-day Uzbekistan) in 1417.

Here are the 48 constellations from the copy of his book, sorted by page, which is basically from the north to south.

Ursa Minor The small bear with long tail.

Ursa Major The large bear with long tail.

Draco The dragon.

 

Auriga The charioteer.

Boötes The herdsman.

Hercules The club is replaced with a sickle.

 

Corona Borealis The tiara.	Lyra The lyre.

 

 

 

Cygnus The hen.

Cassiopeia  The seated woman, seating on a cushioned chair

Perseus  The hero, holding the severed head of a demon instead of Medusa

 

Cepheus The king.

Ophiuchus and Serpens The snake holder holding the large snake.

Sagitta The arrow. It looks similar with Coma Berenices.

 

 

 

Aquila The Falcon.

Delphinus The dolphin. Looks more like a cat or a fox.

Equuleus The little horse.

 

Pegasus The winged horse.

Andromeda Andromeda

Triangulum The Triangle

 

Aries The ram.

Taurus The bull.

Gemini The twins.

 

Cancer The crab.

Leo The lion. Here it is a female lion.

Virgo The virgin. Here the ear of corns has been replaced with wings.

 

Libra The scales.

Scorpio The scorpion. I thought since the Arabs live close to the desert, they supposed to have a good knowledge about scorpion anatomy, but no …

Sagittarius The archer. He wears a turban!

 

Capricorn The sea-goat. Weirdly, the fish tail is missing.

Aquarius The water pourer. depicted holding the water as if it is a robe

Pisces The fishes.

 

Cetus The sea monster.

Orion Instead of a shield, his west hand is shown with a long sleeve, characteristic of Muslim dresses at that time

Eridanus The river Eridanus.

 

Lepus The hare.

Canis Major The great dog. Those stars below are probably Columba.

Canis Minor The lesser dog.

 

Argo Navis  The ship.	Hydra The sea serpent.

 

Crater The cup.

Corvus The raven.

Centaurus and Lupus  The Centaurs and the Wolf. Instead of being impaled, Lupus is shown held by Centaurus

 

Ara The altar

Corona Australis The shell of a tortoise?

Piscis Austrinus The southern fish, with the prominent star Fam al-Hut (Fomalhaut) on its mouth.

 

Source:

http://muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?TaxonomyTypeID=18&TaxonomySubTypeID=107&TaxonomyThirdLevelID=-1&ArticleID=833

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/world/heavens.html

http://www.wdl.org/