The image below is just breathtaking. I found it at the Astronomy Picture of the Day site and just gaped at it for a few moments. Pictures like this are what draws us all to astronomy — if for nothing else than the sheer loveliness of such distant, alien visions. This was actually released a couple of years ago as a part of a story about looking for what we thought might have been the heaviest (most massive) star in the Milky Way Galaxy. When astronomers first studied this region, they speculated that there was a single star here that could be as much as 200 solar masses, which would make it the most massive known.
It turns out that what they thought was a single massive star was, in fact, three stars with about 100 solar masses divided between them. If you’re interested, they’re the central bright stars above the cloud in this image. Even three stars having a hundred solar masses is … well… massive. These stars will become insanely bright and stupendous supernovae when they die. And, below them is a huge stellar nursery, cranking out more hot, young stars for future astronomers to study!
The maiden flight of the Airship Ventures first blimp. Guess its name and win a free flight!
Okay, so Wired beat me to it, but you gotta admit, it’s a great title. And, the story behind it is one that I’ve known about since last year when one of the two principals told me about it at a meeting. The “blimp” in question is actually a zeppelin (essentially a blimp with rigid airframe) — and the first to touch down on American soil in more than 70 years. It doesn’t have a name yet, but it belongs to a company called Airship Ventures, founded by a couple named Brian and Alexandra Hall.
Alex is an old friend and colleague who we got to know from her work with a couple of different science center fulldome theaters in England and the U.S. I ran into her at an Association of Science-Technology Centers meeting in Los Angeles a year ago and she regaled me over lunch with the tales of hers and Brian’s latest adventure.
I have to admit, I’ve wondered how this venture would go, considering that zeppelins haven’t been used much for human transport in an age of jet aircraft. Still, we’re all used to seeing the Goodyear Blimps (which are different in design but follow the same principles as zeppelins) in the skies over games. So the idea of gliding along in an airship that lets designers take advantage of the way gases can be compressed (remember the gas laws!) into bags (cells) that can be attached to rigid skeletons and used to loft people into silent flight isn’t a new one. I hope it goes well for Airship Ventures — and maybe sometime I’ll be able to save up and take a ride with Alex and Brian!
