I am inspired daily by photography and research of our universe and the stars in the sky.  Hubble knocks my socks off - what it can do, how it sees our universe so clearly and beautifully; it has the best perspective of life as we know it.  NASA  has this website devoted to sharing a picture a day of our cosmos since 1995, when the internet and the sharing of information was taking off.  I try to search the web daily for awe-inspiring photos of our Cosmos and place them here.

I read a lot about chemistry and the elements.  I am obsessed with learning about my materials - where do they come from, what have they meant or what value have they had to human kind through the centuries?  Learnings and notes about chemistry and alchemy are posted here.  

This page is a place for all of my wanderings through the universe and science.  This page is my "mood board" of inspiration for creation - creation itself.  Please enjoy.  

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My Materials 

Ag ∞ Silver

Al ∞ Aluminum

Ar ∞ Argon

Au ∞ Gold

C ∞ Carbon

Cu ∞ Copper

Fe ∞ Iron

He ∞ Helium

Hg ∞ Mercury 

Kr ∞ Krypton

Na ∞ Sodium 

Ne ∞ Neon

O ∞ Oxygen 

Pb ∞ Lead

S ∞ Sulfur

W ∞ Tungsten 

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From Alchemy, Astronomy and Relativity
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June 30,2012
S ∞ Sulfur
A symbol for the alchemical element Sulfur, (Brimstone as it is universally termed in English Bible translations) which is spiritually analogous to the human soul. Alchemically, sulfur has the qualities of masculine, hot and dry. Combined with Mercury (feminine, cool and moist), the pair were considered the parents of all metals.

*In the Bible, there are fourteen mentions to Brimstone in all and not one of them is complimentary.  Its every appearance is accompanied by scenes of punishment and destruction.  Sodom and Gomorrah are overthrown when 'brimstone and fire from the Lord our of heaven' is rained upon them.  The fact that hellfire is always accompanied by brimstone, that brimstone is never present without fire, indicates not only that brimstone is flammable but also that there is something specially horrific about its flame.  Sulfur burns not like a candle, but with a low blue/black flame that is barely luminous - 'darkness visible' (from the Bible).  It is not rapidly consumed like a wood fire so that it is easy to imagine the flame as 'ever-burning', especially if the ignited sulphur occurs, as it sometimes does in nature, in a seam that runs endlessly and invisibly into the Earth [*sited from Periodic Tales] 

Combustion is an accelerated form of oxidation.  Oxidation is something that sulfur helps contribute to metal when applied as a patina and exposed to the oxygen in the air.  What would happen if combusted onto materials like metal or metal dust in handmade paper?  What aesthetic properties would this have

Leviathan Cross - sign for Brimstone

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June 29, 2012: 
Ag ∞ Silver
No. 47

Anglo-Saxon Seolfor or siolfur; meaning 'silver', and Latin argentum meaning 'silver'.  Silver occurs native and in ores including argentite (Ag2S) and horn silver (AgCl). Lead, lead-zinc, copper, copper-nickel, and gold ores are other principal sources of silver.

The melting point of silver is 1763 °F.  Pure silver has a brilliant white metallic luster. Silver is slightly harder than gold. It is very ductile and malleable.  Pure silver has the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of all metals. Silver is stable in pure air and water, although it tarnishes upon exposure to ozone, hydrogen sulfide, or air containing sulfur.  

There are many commercial uses for silver.  It is used in photography, batteries, jewelry and silverware, mirrors and electrical contacts.  Freshly deposited silver is the best known reflector of visible light, but it rapidly tarnishes and loses its reflectance.  Silver iodide is used in cloud seeding to produce rain. Silver chloride can be made transparent and is also used as cement for glass. Silver nitrate, or lunar caustic, is used extensively in photography.  Mirrors, which need superior reflectivity for visible light, are made with silver as the reflecting material in a process called silvering, though common mirrors are backed with aluminum. Using a process called sputtering, silver (and sometimes gold) can be applied to glass at various thicknesses, allowing different amounts of light to penetrate.

Silver has a deep cultural link with the feminine and with the moon, implicitly opposed to gold, which is equated with the sun and represents the male principle.  This belief is shared very widely by ancient cultures from Greece to the pre-Columbian Americas.  The white luster of the metal that explains these associations also carries with it more precise meanings to do with purity and virginity, and by extension with virtue, innocence, hope, patience and the passage of time.  Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon and virginity and protectress of women, carries a silver bow.  

Silver’ alchemical symbol is a half-circle – an icon of the moon, but also a symbol of incompleteness or imperfection.  Silver was regarded as incomplete because it wasn’t gold.  The alchemists reasoned that it wanted only for greater yellowness.   

The imperfection lay in its evident morality, the tendency for a pure body of silver to become corroded over time.  Gold does not tarnish, which is why it is associated primarily with immortality.  Silver has an almost human propensity to lapse into tarnished blackness. 

Of course, ritual polishing can resurrect silver from tarnished black to shining metal.  This ritual has written into it a narrative of death and resurrection, corruption and redemption.  This duality, its cycle, is forged into its nature. 
        
(Sources: Wikipedia and "Periodic Tales: A Cultural History of The Elements from Arsenic to Zinc" by Hugh Aldersey-Williams )

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April 29, 2012: 

All of the elements in the world come from the universe outside of Earth. They were made before our world  and deposited on Earth through the turbulent creation of our galaxy, our sun, solar system and, lastly, our planet.  How much of an elemental deposit and location depends on entirely on the miraculous events that shaped and built light and life.  It really is miraculous.  


Most people who don't believe in a god (and I'm not sure myself) think that science has the answer.  But once you start looking at the answers that science, astronomy, biology and physics has to offer and see them all combined, the sheer amazement of the realization that everything had to happen just so and just right to create what now exists only lends itself to thinking about a higher power or plan.  The most tangible answer is Hydrogen.  


Hydrogen, in space, condenses and heats to create stars.  Without stars, life would not exist.  We could have easily been a universe that created no hydrogen or that had less hydrogen that didn't create as many stars.  We happen to have a perfect amount of hydrogen to create, and keep creating, what we see today.  Stars are born violently within clouds of dust and gas called Nebula.  These Nebula are numerous within billions of galaxies.  


When a star forms, the dust and particles and enormous gravity combine, dance and revolve to create solar systems over millions or billions of years.  If a planet is in the "Goldilocks" zone of star, it means that it is situated in the "just right" area for any H2O present on the surface to become liquid water.  This supports life, as we know it.  


The elements that we see on the surface of Earth and in our bodies are because of stars that died millions or billions of years before our star was born.  The dust and gas created during its explosive death repurposed itself to create more life.  

October 17, 2012
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Baumgartner at the edge of the World

By now, most of us know about this amazing event - Felix Baumgartner the high dive king, "Fearless Felix", has set the record for highest free-fall (24 miles) and fastest (over 800 mph breaking the sound barrier).  I have been nerding out about it all week and finally getting the chance to post.  

Felix Baumgartner hit Mach 1.24, or 833.9 mph, according to preliminary data, and became the first person to reach supersonic speed without traveling in a jet or a spacecraft after hopping out of a capsule that had reached an altitude of 128,100 feet above the Earth.

Coincidentally, Baumgartner's accomplishment came on the 65th anniversary of the day that U.S. test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first person to officially break the sound barrier in a jet. Yeager, in fact, commemorated that feat on Sunday, flying in the back seat of an F-15 Eagle as it broke the sound barrier at more than 30,000 feet above California's Mojave Desert.

Unfortunately, Felix failed to break Kittinger's 5 minute and 35 second longest free fall record. Baumgartner's was timed at 4 minutes and 20 seconds in free fall.  He said he opened his parachute at 5,000 feet because that was the plan.  Hey man, whatever, you broke the freaking sound barrier!!!

Baumgartner's team included Joe Kittinger, who first tried to break the sound barrier from 19.5 miles up in 1960, reaching speeds of 614 mph.  The stunt was sponsored by Red Bull but also provides NASA an opportunity to test its plans for future spacesuits. 

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September 9, 2012
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Rising at sunset, the gorgeous Full Moon of August 31 became the second Full Moon in a month. According to modern reckoning, that makes it a Blue Moon. In fact, parts of the Full Moon do look a little blue in this sharp lunar portrait. Taken just hours before the exact full phase in delightfully clear skies over Nottingham, UK, it features eye-catching bright rays extending from the prominent young crater Tycho in the Moon's southern hemisphere. The slightly color enhanced image also brings out subtle shades of blue, a real characteristic of terrain with a high content of titanium oxide and iron. The blue lunar terrain on the right includes the dark flat expanse of the Sea of Tranquility and the Apollo 11 landing site.

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August 8, 2012
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Oh the Mars Rover, Curiosity, landing is so exciting.  I know there are some that believe that we should be spending more money focusing on our planet than researching and visiting others (and some that even think we shouldn't be in space at all.)  Let me just say a couple of things; if for no other reason, these endeavors made by NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and our tax payer dollars should give us joy and hope.  It's quite amazing that the human mind, faith and determination can figure out ways to take us to different planets.  I am spending my tax dollars on many other things that I am more inclined to complain about.  Furthermore, it is not about narcissism but rather, it's humbling to look out to realize how fragile we are.  It's important that we are able to research and visit other planets like Mars in order to look on ourselves and see how important our actions are.  Sometimes, our problems here at home seem gigantic but, to look into the universe is to realize that we are a part of something bigger yet fragile.  Here are some links and a video on the Curiosity landing and Mars.
Interactive Panorama View of Mars from Mars Rover Opportunity
First pictures from Mars Rover Curiosity

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August 5, 2012
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Why does Jupiter have rings? Jupiter's rings were discovered in 1979 by the passing Voyager 1 spacecraft, but their origin was a mystery. Data from the Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003 later confirmed that these rings were created by meteoroid impacts on small nearby moons. As a small meteoroid strikes tiny Adrastea, for example, it will bore into the moon, vaporize, and explode dirt and dust off into a Jovian orbit. Pictured above is an eclipse of the Sun by Jupiter, as viewed from Galileo. Small dust particles high in Jupiter's atmosphere, as well as the dust particles that compose the rings, can be seen by reflected sunlight.

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July 16, 2012
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Using cutting-edge science, National Geographic constructs a 3-D state-of-the-art CGI model of our galaxy.  Great short film about our galaxies compared to others, black holes and star birth and death.  

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July 15, 2012
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The sun's surface erupted into an angry solar flare on July 12, 2012 at 12:52 p.m. EDT.  The X1.4-class flare unleashed about 1 billion hydrogen bombs' worth of energy into space. Right behind it is a slower-moving coronal mass ejection, or CME, which is a belch of solar particles.  When strong CME's reach Earth, they can peel back Earth's magnetic layers, cause dazzling auroras, affect satellites in space and even fluctuate power grids. Read More

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July 12, 2012
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This is a pair of interacting galaxies. The large spiral galaxy, NGC5194, and the smaller, M51, at the top the larger's extended spiral arm. Galaxies do collide in our universe, it's a common occurrence with older galaxies. Spiral galaxies are typically younger than elliptical galaxies. When galaxies collide, they frequently become elliptical in shape. The galaxies meet, collide, spin apart and then, because of their gravity and mass, collide back into each other until they are merged. These interactions take millions of years to complete. In this picture, you can see the faint "tidal debris" of the smaller galaxy as a result of this interaction. Our Milky Way Galaxy will collide with our closest neighbor, Andromeda, in about 4 billion years time. Our sun is predicted to die in about 8 billion years time. Will the human race still be alive to see a new collection of stars in our sky as Andromeda approaches closer? Astro-physicists have done the Math: the chances of stars colliding during these collisions is very rare because of the unimaginably vast distance between them. Rather, huge amounts of matter are thrown out into the universe during the violent occurrence.

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July 8, 2012
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July 8, 2012
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This grouping of galaxies is knows as the Leo Triplet. A mere 30 million light-years away, large spiral galaxy NGC 3628 (center left) shares its neighborhood in the local Universe with two other large spirals. But, perhaps most intriguing is the spectacular tail stretching up and to the left for about 300,000 light-years from NGC 3628's warped, edge-on disk. Know as a tidal tail, the structure has been drawn out of the galaxy by gravitational tides during brief but violent past interactions with its large neighbors. We are so small.

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July 3, 2012
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Explanation: Part of a dark expanse that splits the crowded plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the Aquila Rift arcs through the northern hemisphere's summer skies near bright star Altair and the Summer Triangle. In silhouette against the Milky Way's faint starlight, its dusty molecular clouds likely contain raw material to form hundreds of thousands of stars and astronomers eagerly search the clouds for telltale signs of star birth. This telescopic close-up looks toward the region at a fragmented Aquila dark cloud complex identified as LDN 673, stretching across a field of view slightly wider than the full moon. In the scene, visible indications of energetic outflows associated with young stars include the small red tinted nebulosity RNO 109 at top left and Herbig-Haro object HH32 above and right of center. The dark clouds in Aquila are estimated to be some 600 light-years away. At that distance, this field of view spans about 7 light-years.

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July 1, 2012
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Great Wall Street Journal video on Exo planet research and discovery. 

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June 30, 2012
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November 1, 2008 Veil-East: by Paul Mortfield and Stefano Cancelli November 1, 2008 The Veil Nebula is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus. It constitutes the visible portions of the Cygnus Loop. a large but relatively faint supernova remnant. The source supernova exploded some 5,000 to 8,000 years ago. The analysis of the emissions from the nebula indicate the presence of oxygen, sulfur, and hydrogen.

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July 29, 2012
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Photo by NASA. Our Sun contains 99.86 percent of the mass of the entire solar system: well over a million Earths could fit inside its bulk. The total energy radiated by the Sun averages 383 billion trillion kilowatts, the equivalent of the energy generated by 100 billion tons of TNT exploding each and every second.

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June 28, 2012
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Every 90 minutes, astronauts aboard the International Space Station experience just that. Recently, crew members took a series of light-sensitive videos looking down at night that have been digitally fused to produce the above time-lapse video. Many wonders of the land and sky are visible in the eighteen sequences, including red aurora above green aurora, lights from many major cities, and stars in the background. Looming at the top of the frame is usually part of the space station itself, sometimes seen re-orienting solar panels. Please help create a useful companion guide for this moving video by identifying landmarks, cities, countries, weather phenomena, and even background constellations that appear.

Video Credit: Expedition 28 & 29 Crews, ISAL, NASA's JSC;
Compilation and Editing: Michael König; Music: Do Dekor (Jan Jelinek), faitiche

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June 27, 2012
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When stars form, pandemonium reigns. A particularly colorful case is the star forming region Simeis 188 which houses an unusual and bright cloud arc cataloged as NGC 6559. Visible above are red glowing emission nebulas of hydrogen, blue reflection nebulas of dust, dark absorption nebulas of dust, and the stars that formed from them. The first massive stars formed from the dense gas will emit energetic light and winds that erode, fragment, and sculpt their birthplace. And then they explode. The resulting morass can be as beautiful as it is complex. After tens of millions of years, the dust boils away, the gas gets swept away, and all that is left is a naked open cluster of stars. Simeis 188 is located about 4,000 light years away and can be found about one degree northeast of M8, the Lagoon Nebula.

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June 25, 2012
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The Sombrero Galaxy - 28 million light years from Earth - was voted best picture taken by the Hubble Telescope. Originally called M104, the galaxy has 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light years across.

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June 24, 2012
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Europa, the sixth closest moon to Jupiter, taken by Hubble. Europa was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei. Europa is surprisingly similar to Earth in that it has a metallic iron core and is comprised of mostly water (a thick ice surface and liquid water underneath). A different version of life could be living on Europa. Scientists agree that Europa could sustain life (as we know it) and possibly be the only other environment in our solar system, besides Earth, that could.

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June 23, 2012
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Saturn's rings by Voyager 2 in infrared. Saturn's rings are the most extensive in the solar system. The ring particles are made almost entirely of water ice, with some contamination from dust and other chemicals.

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3D images of Mars from the Mars Spirit Rover. Mars aims to take humans to Mars by 2030.

Me viewing the Mars Rover 3D pic with my handy 3D glasses

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