Picture of the day: Twitter from Space

This picture from the Aurora Australis, or the "Southern Lights" above Antarctica was taken by an astronaut. While aboard the International Space Station, @Astro_Wheels posted it via Twitter on TwitPic.

I guess he was using wireless. :-)

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Picks of the week: From space to Afghanistan and back

Am at home, in bed with a sore back. I have some time to browse the web a bit. If you have five minutes, here are my picks of the week (eh.. day..):

• What are the odds?
  British and French nuclear subs collide in Atlantic (Full).
  Maybe a confusion about the priority rules. Who goes first at crossroads? The one coming from the left or the one from the right?
  
  
• What are the odds? - Part 2
  A Russian and US satellite collide in space (Full).
  Now what would be the "rules of the road" in space, hey?
  
  
• Jean does it again.
  Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe is "a mad dictator" who has lost all sense of reality, according to Jean Ziegler, a UN human rights expert (Full).
  I hope that was not part of his opening speech in a new round of negotiations!
  
  
• Not too embarrassing
  A man walked into the EU parliament building in Brussels. And robs the resident bank (Full).
  He must have been desperate. At the rate the Europeans have been bailing out their banks, who would come to the bank at the EU parliament?
  
  
• The only difference between men and boys
  Combat Outpost, a video from the Afghan frontline (Full)
  It makes me think of the times when we were kids and we were playing 'cowboys and indians'. Sad really.
  
  
• Stephanie in Zambia.
  From Kala is the newest edition to my list of aid workers blogs (check out the full list in the side column). Stephanie just started her assignment in a Zambian refugee camp. It is always fascinating to read how others experience their first aid work assignment.
  
  
• Oh, and..
  In between aaallll the fabulous sites I manage, you might have a stroll through The Signs Along The Road, my random Internet clips. I picked up some nice cool pictures along the way.

More Picks of the Week on The Road.

Picture courtesy Future Perfect

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2009 -- Putting things into perspective

A photograph taken by Voyager 1, at a distance of 4 billion miles, (only) about 6 light-hours, from Earth. Our planet is the tiny pale speck, in the top center of the picture. You have to look carefully to see it.

Astronomer Carl Sagan put things into perspective about "our tiny pale speck":

"That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." (Full)

Happy New Year to all of you. Let's hope 2009 will bring a bit of peace, prosperity and happiness to each one living on this tiny blue speck.



Picture courtesy NASA

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