Helicoprion: What If, Like, Teeth,

M42 by NASA Hubble

Saturn and Dione - October 2 2011

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Kevin M. Gill

Ctenophora, Comb Jellies

neohumanity

Grand Prismatic Spring: The most beautiful and dangerous hot spring in the world. Filmed from a helicopter 🚁  Shot on

@lexarmemory

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Helicoprion: What if, like, teeth,

Mesosaurus: Yeah?

Helicoprion: but WHEEL

Mesosaurus: No don't -

Helicoprion:

(Image by ДиБгд)

“Nightfall”, by Asimov and Silverberg

I haven’t picked a book apart in a while, so have some mildly-disjointed thoughts on Asimov & Silverberg’s 1989 novel, mostly focused on the somewhat-ropey astronomy, but looking at a few other things as well…

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Captain’s Log | September 15, 2017

The end is now upon us. Within hours of the posting of this entry, Cassini will have burned up in the atmosphere of Saturn … a kiloton explosion, spread out against the sky in a pyrrhic display of light and fire, a dazzling flash to signal the dying essence of a lone emissary from another world. As if the myths of old had foretold the future, the great patriarch will consume his child. At that point, that golden machine, so dutiful and strong, will enter the realm of history, and the toils and triumphs of this long march will be done.

For those of us appointed long ago to undertake this journey, it has been a taxing 3 decades, requiring a level of dedication that I could not have predicted, and breathless times when we sprinted for the duration of a marathon. But in return, we were blessed to spend our lives working and playing in that promised land beyond the Sun.

My imaging team members and I were especially blessed to serve as the documentarians of this historic epoch and return a stirring visual record of our travels around Saturn and the glories that we found there. This is our gift to the citizens of planet Earth.

So, it is with both wistful, sentimental reflection and a boundless sense of pride in a commitment met and a job well done that I now turn to face this looming, abrupt finality.

It is doubtful we will soon see a mission as richly suited as Cassini return to this ringed world and shoulder a task as colossal as we have borne over the last 27 years.

To have served on this mission has been to live the rewarding life of an explorer of our time, a surveyor of distant worlds. We wrote our names across the sky. We could not have asked for more.

I sign off now, grateful in knowing that Cassini’s legacy, and ours, will include our mutual roles as authors of a tale that humanity will tell for a very long time to come.

How small we are.

if you think the ocean now is a scary fuck then you haven’t seen the scary fuck that is the prehistoric ocean

so im watching the history channel on youtube (i could tell you so much on short nosed bears rn) but i just finished watching this thing called the mosasaur and its your pretty basic mega water dinosaur, 50 feet long, eel tail, sonar, doesn’t chew its food etc, but then it got dark

these shits were top predators, no competition whatsoever…..except from themselves. the narrator was saying that even though there was nothing to oppose them, they somehow continued to evolve into like fifty 50 different species of this mega predator. And its really cool because it started as a three foot lizard and in just 6 million years it became “the ultimate success story of evolution”. 

they had these weird funky teeth too. not only were they really big and strong like you’d expect but they had teeth in the roof of them mouth cuz they’d slide their dinner down their mouth like a conveyer belt. and since their so big you’d think wow how did no one see them? apparently sea creatures are frickin blind or something bc this megabeasty would just lie on the frickin bottom of the ocean and wait for something to swim up. then it would propel its ass up with this snaky tail and just boosh i ated you

but mosasaurs kept evolving even though they were literally the top predator. why is that?? that doesn’t happen in nature. turns out they were causing themselves to evolve. turns out they’re one of the only species (including humans) that naturally commits murder aka kills their own kind. they’ll bite each others heads until they can get a good grip then one of them snaps the neck. and they didn’t even eat the other guy. they did it. for. fun. (apparently they thrive on violence????)

and im over here going like wtf. but then it got worse. these scary ass motherfuckers began to go anywhere they pleased. they evolved even more and then moved into fresh water. like swamps and rivers. thats terrifying. NOTHING On eARth could stop them. 

Nothing on Earth ;) aka enter the extinction comet

BUT then I learned that even the bigass dino killing comet didn’t even kill the thing. They literally had to starve to death because all of their prey died out. NOPE not them. THey didn’t die out because they’re like dinosaur gods or some shit. EVERYTHING DIED BUT THEM

Hubble Spots Flock of Cosmic Ducks by NASA Goddard Photo and Video