24.8.15

16.8.15

Taken from the Deep

Action Stations still
Watches no longer governed
By Mighty 'Ood's bell

or do you prefer

Slumber undisturbed
Fifteen hundred fathoms deep
No more hours' tolling



 Copyright: Paul G Allen.

Bravo Zulu, Mr Allen and team for recovering HMS Hood's bell from the Denmark Strait, at a depth of ~2,800m, and donating it to the Royal Navy's National Museum. It will serve as a memorial to the 1,415 officers and men who died when she sank on 24th May 1941 in action against the KMS Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. Only three men, Briggs, Tindall and Dundas survived her sinking, though they too have now joined their shipmates.



9.8.15

Nagasaki

Eyes seared by the light
Of the second atom bomb
Less fame but still death



"Nagasaki temple destroyed" by Cpl. Lynn P. Walker, Jr. (Marine Corps) - 
DOD "War and Conflict" image collection (HD-SN-99-02900). 
Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

4.8.15

What's occurring?

Thought Barycentre
Heart of a Welsh coastal town
'Til New Horizons



Credit: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA's New Horizons probe brought everyone's attention to the barycentre - the common centre of mass around which two (or more) bodies orbit. Where one body (eg Earth) is much larger than the other (eg, the Moon), the barycentre lies below the surface of the larger body. Where the difference between masses is smaller, or non-existent, such as is the case for Pluto and its largest satellite Charon, the barycentre is clear, as both worlds in such a binary system can be seen to be orbiting around it.

credit: "Pluto-Charon System" by Stephanie Hoover - Own work. Wikipedia