Eclectic Perambulations in the Noosphere
A famous depiction of the 1833 meteor storm, produced in 1889 for the Seventh-day Adventist book Bible Readings for the Home Circle
The silence of the vast and starry Heavens may terrify us; its immensity may seem to overwhelm us. But our inquiring thought flies curiously on the wings of dream, toward the remotest regions of the visible. It rests on one star and another, like the butterfly on the flower. It seeks what will best respond to its aspirations: and thus a kind of communication is established, and, as it were, protected by all Nature in these silent appeals. Our sense of solitude has disappeared. We feel that, if only as infinitesimal atoms, we form part of that immense universe, and this dumb language of the starry night is more eloquent than any speech. Each star becomes a friend, a discreet confidant, often indeed a precious counsellor, for all the thoughts it suggests to us are pure and holy."
ASTRONOMY FOR AMATEURS (1904)
by Camille Flammarion
via gutenberg.org
Credit: Simulation by Ceverino, Dekel & Primack
"Is there any place in space which hasn’t been affected by time ? The answer is yes. Thanks to some very awesome research, the W. M. Keck Observatory and a team of scientists have recently located two clumps of primordial gas which may very well have had its origin within minutes of the Big Bang.
How do we know these gas clouds are so special? In this case, they are simply too disseminated to enable stellar birth and contain no heavy metals which would support it. These diaphanous regions are pure hydrogen and helium… along with a heavier isotope, deuterium. This combination could mean the two billion year old regions are pure – never involved in the star-forming process. An exciting discovery ? You bet. The clouds could have possibly survived in an unchanged state – giving us a look at what may have occurred at the dawn of time."
"This latest work by Williams, Unwanted Visitor: Portrait of Wildfire, just opened at the National Ranching Heritage Center at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. The five swirling flames made of thousands of crayons are meant to resemble the recent wildfires that ravaged the state several weeks ago.
Over time, the sculptures themselves will be ravaged by the hot Texas heat, and will gradually begin to melt, turning the already brilliant color gradation into a dripping, gooey mess. Awesome right? The project began as a small proof-of-concept on Kickstarter only a month ago and is now open to the public at NRHC."
via thisiscolossal.com
"Herb is one of the only individuals in the world with an account with Crayola. He creates original sculptures out of individual crayons that may require as many as hundreds of thousands. He will also cast the completed crayon sculptures in a silicone jacket mold with a two-part epoxy resin and then paint the resin sculpture to look like the original, occasionally producing a small edition. The cast sculptures have been placed in public arenas, such as children’s hospitals, corporate lobbies, and museum walls." Herb Williams
Maybe you've read Stephen King's huge fantasy epic "The Dark Tower", or perhaps the Tower of Mordor from "The Lord of the Rings" more readily comes to mind? In any case, you'll be surprised to find the fantastic huge black tower actually exists... on a small island near Africa. More precisely, in the Obo National Park on the São Tomé island in the Gulf of Guinea. It's called Pico Cão Grande, or the Great Dog peak.
This is one of the highest needle-shaped "volcanic plug" peaks on Earth (300 m), perhaps even more impressive than the Devils Tower in Wyoming (386 m), as it rises above the landscape in an equally unexpected and even bluntly obscene way. It will be however more difficult to photograph than Devils Tower : its top is often hidden by clouds or precipitation, not to mention that it's harder to get to the tiny country of São Tomé and Principe.
The heavy mist and humidity over the surrounding jungle (the rainfall varies between 4500 mm to 5000 mm per year) adds to the mystery and the foreboding feeling of the Great Dog Peak, as its rocky presence rises and darkly glistens in the murk.
