OMG only three years left!

The Y2K era represents the high-water mark of American science, technology, and culture. I mean, yeah, every computer on earth imploded and hundreds of airliners fell from the sky, but eventually we were able to rebuild our civilization by fusing together the scraps of fallen communications satellites.

Wait, hang on.

I just did an Internet search, and apparently none of that stuff happened. Which would make me a lot happier if I didn’t know we only had three more years on this earth!! !11!!!!OMGOMG

I’m referring, of course, to the Mayan doomsday calendar that everyone’s talking about. Apparently, some ancient Mayan calendars run out of their normal cycles in 2012. This definitely means the world is going to end, because it’s not like the Mayans were ever wrong about anything. Except about how not to die off as a civilization.

Anyway, there are still Mayans out there. And guess what? Even they think it’s totally full of shit.

Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly “running out” on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it’s not the end of the world.

Or is it?

Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. “I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff.”

Historians point out that 2012 — the end of the supposed calendar cycle — is one of many that Mayans left behind in inscriptions. The year 2012 has a tendentious relationship with a certain astronomical phenomenon, but then again I just learned what “tendentious” means and it’s 2009. OMG WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE TOMORROW OH NOESZZ!!!!!!!!

2012 isn’t the end of the world, Mayans insist [AP]

Neil Armstrong dropped the kids off on the moon

Pax Arcana

Boing Boing guest blogger Dylan Thuras had an interesting post yesterday on a subject that should resonate with everyone who wants to preserve the legacy of America’s space program:

Neil Armstrong’s dookie is still up there on the moon — dangling precipitously on the inner cheek walls of our scientific heritage.

The issue, according to Thuras, is that while rocks and other artifacts gathered from the moon are treated with reverence here on earth, the stuff we left behind (like four defecation collection devices) is just sitting up there, waiting to be ransacked by space vandals or something:

While bags of frozen astronaut poop may sound unimportant, even a little gross, some “extreme heritage” conservationists are very concerned about their protection–as well as the other detritus left behind by humanity’s first moonwalkers. For now, Tranquility Base is still tranquil (there is no wind or rain up there to damage things), but preservationists worry that private space enterprises will one day endanger the Apollo landing site, as well as other important landmarks on the moon.

Some preservationists are getting pretty frustrated with NASA’s refusal to protect the original lunar landing site. Luckily, I have a proposal that should satisfy both parties: NASA should rent out a studio in Burbank and film a bunch of actors dressed like astronauts “landing” on the “moon” and roping off the “landing site” with a bunch of yellow tape.

If anyone spots the ruse, we’ll just have Buzz Aldrin punch them in the face.

Poop on the moon, and how to protect it [Boing Boing]

The space blob will burn you with the heat of 40 billion suns

Pax Arcana

Astronomers say they have located a so-called “space blob” they call Himiko that is 12.9 billion light years from Earth and possesses characteristics that confuse their ideas of the big bang and stuff.

Yes, this story is only interesting because they call it a “space blob.” That’s funny.

Anyway, the space blob is confounding because scientists would expect an object that large (it’s about the size of a galaxy) to be much older than the blob appears to be:

A range of possibilities could explain the massive nature of Himiko: it could have a supermassive black hole at its centre, or perhaps it is a single giant galaxy with a large mass of about 40 billion Suns.

So this thing is the size of an entire galaxy and is 12.9 billion light years away and has the mass of about 40 billion Suns? Boy that makes me feel insignificant. But then I remember that one time that Citibank told me I was a valued customer and that my call was important to them, and suddenly I feel much better.

‘Space blob’ baffles astronomers [BBC]

OH HELL NO!

Pax Arcana

Despite the best efforts of our best minds over thousands of years, we still know almost nothing about outer space. I guess that’s why space is so captivating. It’s not just the mysteries of space — it’s the expansiveness of a realm so replete with puzzles that the act of constructing a foundation from which to observe the smallest corner of it requires the herculean efforts of thousands of humans over thousands of years.

Or at least that’s what I used to think. Now that astronomers are reporting a “loud roar” from a distant and unknown end of the cosmos, my attitude is this:

OH HELL NO

OK, so clearly vicious space tiger is approaching us at supersonic speeds. I presume space scientists are also in a blind crazy panic over this:

“The universe really threw us a curve,” Kogut said. “Instead of the faint signal we hoped to find, here was this booming noise six times louder than anyone had predicted.”

Detailed analysis of the signal ruled out primordial stars or any known radio sources, including gas in the outermost halo of our own galaxy.

Sweet — so at least we know it’s not martian farts. Now about that vicious space tiger…

Mystery Roar from Faraway Space Detected [Space.com]

And now it’s a plutoid

Pax Arcana

A few years ago, the Grand Council of the Great and Serious Men of Science assembled in their mountain lair and declared by fiat that Pluto was no longer a planet. The decree, which was read from a sheepskin scroll from atop Mount Gravitas, induced a deafening wail from middle school science teachers and rendered inaccurate my prize-winning 5th grade diorama of the solar system.

Now — because no dying embers of controversy should go unstoked no matter how boring the subject — the Grand Council of the Great and Serious Men of Science has decided that the appropriate category into which Pluto fits is that of the “plutoid.”

What is a plutoid, you ask? According to the Times, a plutoid is a “dwarf planet beyond the orbit of Neptune.”

Despite the specificity of the name, there is another planet that fits the description:

There is only one plutoid other than Pluto: Eris, the sphere of rock and ice formerly nicknamed Xena that is slightly larger than Pluto.

…And somewhere in New Jersey, a 14-year-old boy writes “eris” on the insole of his sneaker, next to “goffrey chaucer” and “aron burr kill alx hamilton dool.”

Not a Planet, but a Plutoid [New York Times]