Astronomical Irony

Blenheim's Surprise

Blenheim aircraft from 60 Squadron RAF level out for the "run in" to make a mast-head attack on a Japanese coaster off Akyab, Burma in 1942.

Strange Bird

This strange bird is the Heinkel He 119. It was a high performance reconnaissance bomber. It was developed as a private venture by a rather radical duo of aircraft designing brothers. Designing began in 1936, with the first prototype flying the next year. It featured a very streamlined fuselage with a rather radical cockpit - it was formed by the totally-glazed nose. A drive shaft from two mid-fuselage mounted Daimler-Benz DB 601 engines went right through the center of the cockpit. It was designed to outrun anyone who chased it. It had a crew of three (two pilots, one defensive gunner). Unfortunately, there were only a few prototypes, and the last of them were scrapped in 1942.

The naval seaplane variant of the prototypes. I doubt it would have very good performance with those floats!

Getting into the cockpit.

An up-close of the cockpit. Notice the many diagonal glass pieces. Good visibility, but expensive to produce.

A profile of the aircraft.

Snow Pouncing

And now for something funny.

It looks like he's going after some small animal that has burrowed into the snow. Or maybe he thought the snow was softer.

SM.79 Photos

 I'm not sure why, but I love this aircraft. Partly because of its good performance, partly because of its unique looks. It broke a few world records in its time, and served the Italians well.

Push

Human curiosity will drive us. We won't be able to sit on this planet for much longer. Curiosity will push us to the stars.

Why do I say this? It's pushed us all across the world, it's pushed us to the bottom of the sea and to the top of the sky, it's pushed us to go where we haven't ever been before.

It will never stop pushing us.

Gaseous Diversity

The magnificent swirls of Jupiter's atmosphere. Made up of many different gasses, they have multiple layers leading down to what we believe could be a liquid or possibly solid rocky core.

Solar prominences, caused by magnetic fields being twisted by the differential rotation of the sun's atmosphere. It's amazing that differential rotation on the sun and on Jupiter can create such magnificent occurrences. Jupiter could have become a small star if it had been bigger, which is amazing to thing about.