2024 total eclipse map

 Sundial for a binary star system.

Summits on Titan named for Middle Earth locations

More weird exo-planets, from NASA:

"Super-Puffs" may sound like a new breakfast cereal. But it's actually the nickname for a unique and rare class of young exoplanets that have the density of cotton candy. Nothing like them exists in our solar system.

I personally favor "Hot Neptunes" for extraterrestrial life, on the theory that they are the likeliest breeding ground for dragons.

Atmospheric Circulation of Hot Jupiters

Abstract
The full-phase infrared light curves of low-eccentricity hot Jupiters show a trend of increasing dayside-to-nightside brightness temperature difference with increasing equilibrium temperature. Here, we present a three-dimensional model that explains this relationship, in order to provide insight into the processes that control heat redistribution in tidally locked planetary atmospheres. This three-dimensional model combines predictive analytic theory for the atmospheric circulation and dayside–nightside temperature differences over a range of equilibrium temperatures, atmospheric compositions, and potential frictional drag strengths with numerical solutions of the circulation that verify this analytic theory. The theory shows that the longitudinal propagation of waves mediates dayside–nightside temperature differences in hot Jupiter atmospheres, analogous to the wave adjustment mechanism that regulates the thermal structure in Earth's tropics.

Happy New Year!

Mysterious and beautiful seasonal patterns in Martian sand dunes: geysers, microbes, or something else?

Yes, the eclipse indeed occurred.

Far out: Saturn's north pole features a rotating hexagonal clouds system.

I went out to photograph yesterday's lunar eclipse in the New Mexico badlands, with some success. Enjoy!

New modeling indicates that the Chicxulub meteor probably did not cause the eruptions of the Deccan Traps. Still a hell of an impact, though, 2 million times an H bomb!


HT: Instapundit.

Music of the exploding spheres

Explanation here.

Answers to all your questions about the titanic storm currently raging on Saturn

The tallest known cliff in the solar system: Verona Rupes on Miranda, 12 miles high. For comparison, El Capitan in Yosemite is about 0.6 miles high.

And here's a 2.5-mile high cliff band on Mars. Terraforming, please!

Two planets found sharing one orbit

With a Lagrange point, naturally.

Take a few minutes out of your evening and do a favor for astronomers by submitting some data to the Globe at Night project. They're crowd-sourcing data on light pollution. All you have to do is go outside and see how many stars are visible in Orion, and then report your results and location. I'd particularly encourage our readers in out-of-the-way locations (err... that's most of you) to weigh in. Help them get to 15,000 data points by March 6!

Our back yard rated a pretty respectable Mag 4, not half bad for being a literal stone's-throw from the biggest intersection in a state capitol.

Results:

Update, just to prove I did something other than drink and stay up till 3am:



Yours truly, liveblogging the eclipse.

Isn't that the most boring and predictable live-blog ever, you ask? Pretend you're an Aztec and get back to me.

Recreating the Antikythera Mechanism with legos

Update: Here's a video of a more traditional reconstruction. Amazing!

Was Tycho Brahe murdered by Kepler? Doubtful at best, but it's nice to see research putting paid to the absurd notion that he died of superhuman bladder control.

(Note to NYT: Please remove writers obsessed with Hollywood adaptations or aspiring to be gossip columnists from the science beat.)

Close-up photos of comet nucleus