The temperature range in these images (and others on the site) mean that these were taken with a thermal imaging camera; 300-310K blackbody spectra peak somewhere between 9 – 10 microns, rather than a regular ol’ digital camera with the IR filter disabled.
Frankly, though, most of the other birds and mammals in the menagerie have more interesting IR spectra associated with them, like yappy dog.
Of course, the real explanation here is that this is a stroboscopic effect, aka the wagon wheel effect — the rotor speed and the film speed are matched (to some ratio) so there is no apparent movement of the blades for each frame of the camera.
Try it yourself and alias your monitor’s refresh frequency
Greg Laden on the Pioneer Anomaly
I’ll be interested to see a more detailed analysis. I can easily imagine how nonuniform heat flow and different emissivities could lead to asymmetric radiation patterns, and that would cause a small force on the craft.
[N]owhere in this story do you hear people denigrating, belittling, or even expelling scientists who are suggesting that a change in the dogma may be afoot. Einstein’s gravitational theory is dogma in physics, and physicists are always questioning it. Darwinian evolution is dogma in biology and biologists are always questioning it. This crap about how we expel people who don’t blindly accept the dogma is, well, crap.
OK, so there really isn’t any dogma, I was just kidding. Though I’d have put “dogma” in quotes, and say something like “Einstein’s gravitational theory is “dogma” in physics, and yet physicists are always questioning it.” and similar for the sentence that follows. All that it takes to see that science isn’t dogma is to open your eyes and look at the data and evidence.
But we are high priests of science. That much I know.
Two fun things that taste great together.
Is it Jason Latimer, or only someone that looks like Jason Latimer?
I ran a cross some comments over at A Quantum Diaries Survivor, in a book review, that raised my eyebrows (note that I haven’t read the book being reviewed and I’m not specifically commenting on the author in question):
However, after a first quick look, I was left wondering about the soundness of my pre-judgement. For one thing, the book contained no formulas at all. I mean none, not even a few. This did not quite fit the crackpot idea I had put together.
Which runs counter to my experience on science discussion-boards (SFN and others). Many crackpots, in my experience, want nothing to do with math. They run away as fast as they can from any suggestion that they quantify things. The ones that do show math, generally, either can’t do it, and fall prey to the simple mistakes that you find in 1+1=1 “proofs,” or their work is a mishmash of numerology.
Space is Full of Crap. Literally.
The European Space Agency has just released images showing all the satellites and human-made debris now orbiting space as a result of 51 years of launching stuff since Sputnik. That’s about 6,000 satellites up there—of which only 800 remain operational—plus thousands of other objects from launches and accidents. According to their mindblowing simulations things are getting a lot worse:
About 50 percent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events (about 200) or collision events (less than 10).
Well, among other things there’s laser cooling and trapping, cutting Mr. Bond in half, CD players, gyroscopes, and now triggering electrical activity in a thunderstorm
No mention of whether these devices can be mounted on frikkin’ sharks.
Making Lichtenberg figures. First video seems to be with an external discharge
This video is using an internal charge. Mind you, absolutely anyone who has a large particle accelerator at their disposal can do this.
(HA! Take THAT, Cool Chemistry!)
A very nice writeup at Cosmic Variance
OK, after linking to some cool chemistry, here’s a physics demonstration that involves flames.