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I do know when I'll be back again. I'm off to Tokyo, Kyoto, and a brief stop in Osaka over the next two weeks. I plan to spend a lot of time w/the fam, eat box lunches on the shinkansen, slurp watermelons and white peaches, attempt to save all of the goldfish from the festival stalls, take some pictures, roam the muggy streets, sing a song or two, and wag my tail a lot.
Not much to report from Lunamania. My Gracious Host Monkey and I had a costco size, non-4th of July BBQ this weekend. I lost count at some point, but was happy to have our house packed with friends enjoying the sun and company. Being an Asian lady, I was neurotic about having enough food. So I grilled for about 5 hours straight. I hope that by this weekend, I will stop smelling like charcoal chicken.
I blame the Cassini spacecraft for not being able to concentrate on work today.
The scale of this space mission is short circuiting my earth bound brain. Cassini blasted out of the stratosphere, navigated 2.2 billion(!!!) miles while avoiding extra-terrestial debris, carefully settled into Saturn's orbit, and is now transmitting photos? Those pictures are incredible. How is it that my digital prints come out fuzzy, but photos from 7 light years away can be so beautiful? Are they for real?
Ever wondered what creates those gaps between the rings of Saturn? I hadn't really, but now I know. The rings are made of a parade of space-matter and Mini-moons/Moonlets orbiting Saturn. The gravitational force of the Moonlets draws the space-matter towards the little moons. Gaps appear as the matter is marshaled into the Moonlet's orbit. As the Moonlet and sheparded space-matter continue their parade around Saturn, a swath is cleared between the rings. Not the best explanation, but a neat phenomena that makes for a jaw dropping photo-op.
If this was a NYC parade of space-matter, in addition to the Moonlet Parade Marshals, there would be Moonlet Demonstrators, Moonlet Legal Observers, and Big Baton Wielding Moonlets on horses.
Happy long weekend everyone!