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