The Furthest Mankind Has Ever Seen In Space And Time

The Hubble Deep Field blew my mind 23 years ago. This is no less impressive. Mankind now sees black holes 12.5 Billion years in the past. And we still have the Webb telescope to look forward to. 

So my question is, can cosmologists really maintain their sanity? How can anyone contemplate facts like these, and not go stark raving mad? Where, exactly, does our piss ant planet fit in a universe as immense and mysterious as this? 

JPL Captures Image Of Avalanche On Mars

And no, not evidence of an avalanche, or the aftermath of an avalanche, but an avalanche that was happening as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passed over it on February 19th. The image shows dust and ice sliding down a 2,000-foot high cliff. Pretty darn cool. When a JPL probe captures a current event in our solar system, it is usually an active volcano (Io), or a giant storm (Saturn, Jupiter). But this image is a dramatic surprise, instantly recognizable as a quick event.

A Risky Plan

This seems like a crazy idea, but then again, it is the solution "preferred by the Bush administration." The Pentagon is going to attempt to 'shoot down' its disabled, experimental spy sattelite, which is due to re-enter Earth's atmosphere in March. Rather than let the odds play out and let it come down to an unpopulated area or ocean, we're going to blow it up into fragments of dangerous orbital debris / space junk. Bravo!

China proved that it can be done in January 2007, and they successfully made a lot of dangerous orbital debris, which of course, can damage other satellites, spacecraft, and possibly the International Space Station.

I'd love to see the missle miss its target. Let's see how this clever idea plays out...