On Valentine's Day 1990, thirteen years after leaving earth, Voyager 1 directed its cameras back towards the sun and took a series of images of the planets, creating the first ever 'family portrait' of our solar system.
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| Image credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Cal tech |
Famed astronomer Carl Sagan spent years trying to convince NASA to have Voyager 1 turn around and take this picture on the way out. The picture is actually a mosaic that combines sixty frames.
In the Roman Catholic tradition of the Christian Faith St. Valentine is the Patron Saint of betrothed couples, happy marriages, love, lovers, bee keepers, fainting, epilepsy, plague, travelers, and young people. His feast day is today.
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| click on the relics for a closer look |
Composed by Sly Stone in 1968 this was the first single by his band to shoot to the number one slot on the Soul Singles Chart and the US Hot 100 Chart. The single occupied the hot 100 spot for an entire month making it one of the most popular songs of the 1960s. Billboard ranked it as the Number 5 song of 1969.
As one of the first racially integrated bands in the history of rock and roll the message of the band Sly and the Family Stone was reflected in the song lyrics.
Turn-up the volume for Everyday People....
One of the benefits of viewing the night sky during the winter months is the lack of humidity - a contributor to light pollution clutter and general impediment to star-gazing.
In any event this time of the month there is a waning crescent moon and if you are fortunate-enough to live with generally dark skies there is limited competition from the moon this evening. Which is an opportunity to become familiar with a popular and easy to locate constellation. Cassiopeia - The Queen.
You will locate Cassiopeia in the northwest in the evening during the month of February. In the shape of an M or W it is one of the easiest constellations to spot.
Speaking of radioactive stuff there is this.
A couple of decades ago a free radon detection kit came into my possession. Some of my readers may know that radon is an odorless, colorless, naturally-occurring radioactive gas that is produced as a consequence of the decay of uranium and radium in soil, bedrock and groundwater. It enters buildings primarily through foundations, footings, construction supports and plumbing.
And like all things radioactive, radon is hazardous. Prolonged exposure to the stuff is a major contributor to lung cancer.
Pondering the detection kit I figured I would use it on our newly-constructed house as opposed to our almost one hundred year old house. The foundation of the new house was close to bedrock along with a high water table and the logic was that it was tightly-constructed and therefore more likely to trap or retain dangerous gases. I didn't give much thought to the fact that a certified Energy Star dwelling was also equipped with a whole-house fresh air exchange system. I wasn't thinking. I digress.
As for the old house, it was constructed upon a shallow hand-dug basement, poorly insulated, generally leaky and drafty and to my mind if it was capable of allowing mice to come and go freely it was unlikely to retain any gas for very long; radioactive or not. I wasn't going to test it for radon even if it was free.
So I tested the new house.
Wouldn't you know it, the dwelling tested positive for radon. A more sophisticated follow-up test conducted by a HVAC contractor revealed sufficient radon contamination to warrant remediation.
So we had the contractor install a sub-slab depressurization system which uses a pipe and fan to draw radon from beneath the basement, via the sump-pump crock, and vent it safely outside.
After installation a follow-up test resulted in no detectable radon. And the basement smelled remarkably fresh from there-on.
Anyway, while outside and playing with the dog recently I happened to look up for some reason and absolutely had to take a picture of the stack from which our radioactive radon is vented.
To be clear this has happened before, yet is exceedingly rare and unusual; likely the result of a week of negative Fahrenheit temperatures.
Nevertheless, a passing thought occurred to me that if a person mixed a cocktail and used the ice from the stack would the libation have radioactive properties? Glow in the dark perhaps? In my lifetime all things nuclear enjoyed some popular culture notoriety after all....
When our doggo has her On/Off switch in the Off position she is most certainly off.
Whether it is at the end of the day sprawled on the couch getting toasted in front of the fire;
or basking in the warmth of an early morning sunbeam.
That big yawn says she's all business.
Don't poke sleeping dogs.
At this age if you go out of your way to wake them from a nap they think you'll want to go outside and play.
This year the NFL is expanding its international series to a record
eight regular-season games across five countries: Spain (Madrid),
Germany (Munich), Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), the UK (three games in
London), France (Paris), and Australia (Melbourne). These games will
feature match-ups in new cities, including the first-ever game in France
and Australia.
It is no secret the NFL wants to make their product a global brand.
People from other countries who might not even use English as a primary
language are going to figure significantly in NFL marketing. Old white
guys like me need to get over it because we're not a target market.
The NFL brand is a business and I don't think they care what the current
occupant of the White House thinks about their business model.
Why?
The NFL wants to expand their brand beyond our borders. The NFL wants
to grow profits. The NFL is bigger than Trump. The NFL will be around
long after Trump is gone.
If I were a fly on the wall of the NFL's boardroom I'd likely learn
they're tickled-silly that everyone's jabbering this week about record viewership
of a halftime performance interrupted by a thoroughly forgettable game.
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