The First Scientific Map of the Moon (1679)

in Art, Astronomy, Maps, Science | August 14th, 2015

moon-lg (1)

Mil­lions watched as astro­naut Neil Arm­strong put boots to the moon in 1969.

It was, as he famous­ly remarked, one “giant leap for mankind,” but from a sci­en­tif­ic stand­point the ter­ri­to­ry was far from vir­gin.

Near­ly 300 years ear­li­er, engi­neer Gio­van­ni Domeni­co Cassi­ni, astronomer to Sun King Louis XIV, made lunar his­to­ry in 1679, when he pub­lished the first sci­en­tif­ic map of the moon, above.

Need­less to say, the event was not tele­vised and Cassi­ni nev­er had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to walk on the sur­face he stud­ied. Instead he observed it through the eye­piece of a tele­scope, a rel­a­tive­ly new inven­tion.

His pre­de­ces­sors, includ­ing Galileo, used the then-rev­o­lu­tion­ary tool to delve deep­er into their own lunar obses­sions, mak­ing sketch­es and per­form­ing exper­i­ments designed to repli­cate the craters they noticed in the moon’s crust.

Cassi­ni, then eight years into his forty year career as Direc­tor of the Paris Obser­va­to­ry, pro­duced a map so exhaus­tive, it pro­vid­ed his peers with far more details of the moon’s sur­face than they had with regard to their own plan­et.

He also used his pow­ers of obser­va­tion to expand human under­stand­ing of Mars, Sat­urn, and France itself (which turned out to be much small­er than pre­vi­ous­ly believed).

moon maiden

 

A man of sci­ence, he may not have been entire­ly immune to the sort of moon-based whim­sy that has long infect­ed poets, song­writ­ers, and 19th-cen­tu­ry roman­tic hero­ines. Hid­ing in the low­er right quad­rant, near Cape Her­a­clides on the Sinus Iridum (aka Bay of Rain­bows), is a tiny, bare-shoul­dered moon maid. See right above.

Or per­haps this appeal­ing­ly play­ful vision can be attrib­uted to Cassini’s engraver Claude Mel­lan.

Either way, she seems exact­ly the sort of female life form a 17th-cen­tu­ry human male might hope to encounter on a trip to the moon.

via Pick­over Real­i­ty Car­ni­val

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Online Astron­o­my Cours­es

Galileo’s Moon Draw­ings, the First Real­is­tic Depic­tions of the Moon in His­to­ry (1609–1610)

The Birth of the Moon: How Did It Get There in the First Place?

Michio Kaku Schools Takes on Moon Land­ing-Con­spir­a­cy Believ­er on His Sci­ence Fan­tas­tic Pod­cast

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Neil deGrasse Tyson Presents a Brief History of Everything in an 8.5 Minute Animation

in Astronomy, Creativity, Physics | July 24th, 2015

Patre­on, a crowd fund­ing site where fans can auto­mat­i­cal­ly tithe a set amount to their fave artist every time that per­son uploads con­tent, is a great way for pas­sion­ate, under-rec­og­nized indi­vid­u­als to gain vis­i­bil­i­ty and a bit of dough.

So what’s astro­physi­cist Neil deGrasse Tyson doing there? He’s already famous, and one would think his gig as direc­tor of New York City’s Hay­den Plan­e­tar­i­um, cou­pled with the pro­ceeds from his books and dvds, would prove suf­fi­cient to any finan­cial needs.

(Is it some sort of Aman­da Palmer thing?)

Nope. Turns out Dr. Tyson is there on some­one else’s behalf, nar­rat­ing an episode of Har­ry Reich’s Minute Physics. The video series often employs white­board ani­ma­tions to explain such sci­en­tif­ic phe­nom­e­na as dark mat­ter, wave/particle dual­i­ty, and bicy­cles.

The lat­est Tyson-nar­rat­ed episode, above, shoots the moon by cram­ming the entire His­to­ry of the Uni­verse (and some com­pli­men­ta­ry Stravin­sky) into an 8.5‑minute frame­work (a neg­li­gi­ble amount when you con­sid­er phe­nom­e­na like light years, but still many times the series’ stan­dard minute).

Thus far, 1075 fans of Minute Physics have anted up, result­ing in a take of $2,992.66 per video. (Click here to see how that amount com­pares to the var­i­ous wages and salaries of Dr. Tyson’s cowork­ers at the Amer­i­can Muse­um of Nat­ur­al His­to­ry…it’s clear Reich devotes a lot of labor to every episode.)

If you’re feel­ing flush (or ner­vous about the upcom­ing school year), you can join these 1075 fans, earn­ing admis­sion to a sup­port­ers-only activ­i­ty feed where you can ask ques­tions, watch out­takes, pre­view upcom­ing attrac­tions, and pos­si­bly even get your name in the cred­its.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Col­bert & Neil deGrasse Break Down Our Awe­some 3 Bil­lion-Mile Jour­ney to Plu­to

Neil deGrasse Tyson Talks Aster­oid Physics & “Non New­ton­ian Solids” with Inspir­ing 9‑Year-Old Stu­dent

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk Radio Show Pod­cast Tack­les the His­to­ry of Video Games

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Stephen Colbert & Neil deGrasse Break Down Our Awesome 3 Billion-Mile Journey to Pluto

in Astronomy | July 20th, 2015

The Late Show with Stephen Col­bert won’t hit the air­waves until Sep­tem­ber 8th, but Col­bert is already get­ting his Late Show Youtube chan­nel up and run­ning. That’s where you will find this video break­ing down NASA’s amaz­ing fly­by of Plu­to last week, a jour­ney that involved the New Hori­zons space­craft trav­el­ing a stag­ger­ing 3 bil­lion miles. (See pho­tos here.) Join­ing Col­bert is Neil deGrasse Tyson, who needs no intro­duc­tion around here. Enjoy the ban­ter, and don’t for­get that you can down­load Tyson’s short course, The Inex­plic­a­ble Uni­verse. It’s free from The Great Cours­es for a lim­it­ed time.

If the con­cept of Col­bert inter­view­ing Tyson intrigues you, don’t miss this lengthy inter­view orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on OC in 2011.

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps. 

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Col­bert Reads Ray Brad­bury Clas­sic Sci-Fi Sto­ry “The Veldt”

Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intel­li­gent Per­son Should Read

Neil deGrasse Tyson Deliv­ers the Great­est Sci­ence Ser­mon Ever

Free Online Astron­o­my Cours­es

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Free: Download Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Short Course, The Inexplicable Universe, in Audio or Video Format

in Astronomy, Physics, Science | July 16th, 2015

Note: This course is no longer avail­able online. But no wor­ries, you can find relat­ed cours­es in our col­lec­tions: Free Online Astron­o­my Cours­es and Free Online Physics Cours­es. Many are taught by lead­ing pro­fes­sors in the field, and they’re part of our larg­er col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intel­li­gent Per­son Should Read

Free Online Physics Cours­es

World Sci­ence U Lets You Take Free Physics Cours­es from Lead­ing Minds in the Field

Free Physics Text­books

Col­in Mar­shall writes on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Italian Astronaut Reads The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on the International Space Station

in Astronomy, Books | May 26th, 2015

On Fri­day, to help cel­e­brate Dan­te’s 750th birth­day, Col­in Mar­shall pre­sent­ed for you Saman­tha Cristo­fore­t­ti, Italy’s first female astro­naut, read­ing lines from The Divine Com­e­dy aboard the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion. Lit­tle did we know that, just a few days lat­er, we could serve up a new video of Cristo­fore­t­ti read­ing lines (this time in Eng­lish) from a much more mod­ern text — Dou­glas Adams’ The Hitch­hik­er’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979). The video was filmed as part of Tow­el Day, a cel­e­bra­tion held every May 25th, where fans across the uni­verse car­ry a tow­el in Adams’ hon­our. Above you can see Cristo­fore­t­ti, float­ing upside down, doing just that, and read­ing the sec­tion of the book that touch­es on tow­els, the “most mas­sive­ly use­ful thing an inter­stel­lar hitch hik­er can have.”

via

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and  share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Astro­naut Reads The Divine Com­e­dy on the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion on Dante’s 750th Birth­day

William Shat­ner Nar­rates Space Shut­tle Doc­u­men­tary

Won­der­ful­ly Kitschy Pro­pa­gan­da Posters Cham­pi­on the Chi­nese Space Pro­gram (1962–2003)

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Stephen Hawking Sings Monty Python’s “Galaxy Song”: Hear the Newly-Released Single

in Astronomy, Comedy, Music, Physics | April 13th, 2015

The “Galaxy Song” first appeared in the 1983 film Mon­ty Python’s The Mean­ing of Life, and it has been revived in lat­er years — on Mon­ty Python albums, and in Mon­ty Python stage plays. Now the song orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten by Eric Idle has been re-record­ed, this time with the lyrics sung by the world-famous physi­cist Stephen Hawk­ing. The lyrics include a lot of astro­nom­i­cal facts, some now con­sid­ered out­dat­ed by schol­ars. But that does­n’t take the fun out of the record­ing.

The song will be avail­able for down­load on iTunes. (If you live in the UK, find it here.) And it will also be released as a 7″ sin­gle. But you can stream it online for free above. Enjoy.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mon­ty Python’s Best Phi­los­o­phy Sketch­es

Ter­ry Gilliam Reveals the Secrets of Mon­ty Python Ani­ma­tions: A 1974 How-To Guide

John Cleese’s Phi­los­o­phy of Cre­ativ­i­ty: Cre­at­ing Oases for Child­like Play

Stephen Hawking’s Big Ideas Explained with Sim­ple Ani­ma­tion

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Download Free NASA Software and Help Protect the Earth from Asteroids!

in Astronomy, Science, Software | March 16th, 2015

NASA’s Asteroid Data Hunter

Yes, you can help save the world. And just by down­load­ing some free soft­ware. Writes NASA:

Pro­tect­ing the Earth from the threat of aster­oid impacts means first know­ing where they are. NASA is har­ness­ing the incred­i­ble poten­tial of inno­va­tors, mak­ers and cit­i­zen sci­en­tists by open­ing up the search. In an increas­ing­ly con­nect­ed world, NASA rec­og­nizes the val­ue of the pub­lic as a part­ner in address­ing some of the country’s most press­ing chal­lenges. We need your help in iden­ti­fy­ing aster­oids – and to help fur­ther this effort, we’ve built an appli­ca­tion that enables every­one, every­where, to help solve this glob­al chal­lenge.

To down­load the app and join the hunt for aster­oids, please click here. To get more infor­ma­tion on the project (in which Har­vard is a strate­gic par­tic­i­pant) click here.

Next up? Hope­ful­ly an app that saves Cal­i­for­nia, which, a NASA offi­cial projects, will run out of water by next year.

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and  share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free NASA eBook The­o­rizes How We Will Com­mu­ni­cate with Aliens

NASA Puts Online a Big Col­lec­tion of Space Sounds, and They’re Free to Down­load and Use

NASA Archive Col­lects Great Time-Lapse Videos of our Plan­et

Ray Brad­bury Reads Mov­ing Poem on the Eve of NASA’s 1971 Mars Mis­sion

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You’ve Never Heard Carl Sagan Say “Billions” Like This Before

in Astronomy, Television | January 9th, 2015

Nobody likes the way an entire human life can get reduced to a sound bite, but even if you know absolute­ly noth­ing else about Carl Sagan, you know that he said the words “bil­lions and bil­lions.” Or rather, you think you know it; in real­i­ty (and in accor­dance with the “Play it again, Sam” prin­ci­ple), the famous astronomer and sci­ence pop­u­lar­iz­er nev­er actu­al­ly said quite those words on tele­vi­sion. A posthu­mous essay col­lec­tion used them as its title, but the pub­lic only latched on to the catch­phrase — or catch half-phrase, any­way — in 1980, when John­ny Car­son used it in a Tonight Show par­o­dy of Sagan’s broad­cast per­sona. But if you want to hear the real Sagan invok­ing very large num­bers in his char­ac­ter­is­tic into­na­tion, have we got the video for you.

At the top of the post, you’ll find a super­cut of each and every one of his uses of “mil­lion,” “bil­lion,” “tril­lion,” and even “quadrillion” dur­ing the entire­ty of his acclaimed tele­vi­sion series Cos­mos — to a beat. Alter­na­tive­ly, using sim­i­lar source mate­r­i­al to an entire­ly dif­fer­ent aes­thet­ic end, the sound clip above con­tains just one instance of Sagan say­ing “bil­lion” — but stretched out to an hour in length, which turns it into a sort of drone­like ambi­ent music. A not just out­ward- but for­ward-think­ing sci­en­tif­ic vision­ary like Sagan sure­ly under­stood more about what lies ahead for human­i­ty than the rest of us do, but could he pos­si­bly have fore­seen us using our tech­nol­o­gy for stuff like this? Still, he prob­a­bly would’ve dug it.

via Kot­tke/io9

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Carl Sagan’s Orig­i­nal Cos­mos Series on YouTube: The 1980 Show That Inspired a Gen­er­a­tion of Sci­en­tists

Carl Sagan Presents Six Lec­tures on Earth, Mars & Our Solar Sys­tem … For Kids (1977)

Carl Sagan Explains Evo­lu­tion in an Eight-Minute Ani­ma­tion

Carl Sagan’s Under­grad Read­ing List: 40 Essen­tial Texts for a Well-Round­ed Thinker

Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawk­ing & Arthur C. Clarke Dis­cuss God, the Uni­verse, and Every­thing Else

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture as well as the video series The City in Cin­e­ma and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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