…and it’s called the Tattered Cover Bookstore
⠀
By sheer coincidence, Patricia Briggs was giving a talk and reading while we were there. About 60 people were crammed into the lower-level meeting space. #MrJennsen whispered sweet nothings in my ear about how that would be me at the podium one day 😉; I pshaw'ed him, went upstairs and bought some sci-fi books with beautiful covers.⠀
It's A Haunting Thing
Space artists weigh in on seeing the first image of a black hole: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2019/04/25/eht-black-hole-picture-space-artists
Originally posted on Twitter.
Solar System Posters
NASA’s artists have outdone themselves yet again. Download the individual posters (or the whole collage) in high resolution here: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/925/solar-system-and-beyond-poster-set.
Originally posted on Twitter.
Hello, Proofreading
A Cosmic Shot
A gloriously cosmic shot of this morning's SpaceX Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral. After separation, the rocket's first stage boosts back toward the 'Of Course I Still Love You' droneship while the second stage pushes Dragon toward the space station. Images from Erik Kuna (@erikkuna).
Originally posted on Twitter.
Hubble Deep-Sky Mosaic
Via NASA: “This might be the most exciting “history book” we’ve ever read. Astronomers have put together the largest and most comprehensive image of the evolving universe — using 16 years’ worth of observations from Hubble. Take a peek at this deep-sky mosaic.” https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/hubble-astronomers-assemble-wide-view-of-the-evolving-universe
Make sure and check out the short video at the link for a mind-boggling sense of scale.
Originally posted on Twitter.
Avengers: Endgame (No Spoilers)
4.5 of 5 Glorious Stars 🌟
The half-star deduction is entirely on the first 1.5 hours, which honestly could have been cut to an hour without losing anything. The second 1.5 hours, though? OMG. 😲 Damn near perfection.
If you are remotely, even casually, invested in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, see this movie. 🤗
Originally posted on Facebook.
Quadrantid Meteor Shower
Meteors, Comet, and Big Dipper over La Palma https://buff.ly/2Zphg5D. Image Credit: Vincent Duparc
Originally posted on Twitter.
A Geek's Guide to THE STARS LIKE GODS
I give you: A Geek's Guide To THE STARS LIKE GODS.🤓
The usual caveats: scenes are not necessarily chapters, the order may (but probably won't) change before release, etc.
For those of you who like to print these out, I’m providing a non-toner-depleting black and white version below as well.
Cover reveal and release date announcement coming next week!🤗
Andromeda Galaxy
The sharpest ever view of the Andromeda Galaxy. This is what a trillion stars look like! (Credit: NASA/ESA) : https://twitter.com/WorldAndScience/status/1119039189939642368
Originally posted on Twitter.
A Little Light Reading
Happy 29th Birthday to Hubble
Hubble Celebrates its 29th Birthday with Unrivaled View of the Southern Crab Nebula: https://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1907/
😲😍💖✨
Starshine Hardbacks
The next-to-last shipment of signed Starshine annotated hardbacks is in the mail! I'll have more in stock next week, if anyone is interested in picking one up. Learn more at https://gsj.space/starshine-hardbacks
Every Sci-Fi Star Map
Ouch. This hits a little close to home, doesn’t it? I don’t think we’ve stumbled onto the Evil Methane Breathers yet, but…give it time. 🙄
https://boingboing.net/2017/04/17/every-sci-fi-star-map.html
Originally posted on Twitter.
Large Magellanic Cloud
A 1,060-hour image of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC): A mind-blowing view which might be the world's longest exposure picture in amateur astronomy. Taken by "Ciel Austral" in Chile. https://astrospace-page.blogspot.com/2019/04/1060-hours-image-of-the-large-magellanic-cloud-chile.html
Originally posted on Twitter.
Trifecta
SpaceX has successfully landed all 3 boosters of its Falcon Heavy rocket at 3 separate locations - and it's only the 2nd flight of the Falcon Heavy.
Space is hard, and in a very busy week for our accelerating journey into the stars, 2 huge success and one near miss isn't too bad. 🤗
Here's some insane footage of the side booster landings from multiple cameras at once: https://twitter.com/DJSnM/status/1116472530531958784
Credit for the images below: Jason Major (https://twitter.com/JPMajor/status/1116471931002400776) and Roman Tkachenko (https://twitter.com/_RomanTkache…/status/1116471879093620736).
For a ton of jaw-dropping images of the launch, including the ones below, check out astrophotographer Trevor Mahlmann’s Twitter feed and website.
Originally posted on Facebook.
Event Horizon
Here you go, space nerds: the first ever image of the event horizon of a black hole! The supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy M87 is 54 million light-years from earth and has a mass of 6.5 billion suns.
The close-up image is from the Event Horizon Telescope, the wide-field view from the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Early analysis suggests the observations are consistent with Einstein's Theory of General Relativity (some were hoping they would conflict, because having to redo all the theories is kind of exciting).
Download a high-res version of the image here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lightsinthedark/47579266551/
Originally posted on Facebook.
Jupiter Spiral
In the arms of the maelstrom: in this view from JunoCam, bright white clouds can be seen popping up in and around the arms of a rotating northern hemisphere storm: https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/news/jupiter-spiral
Originally posted on Twitter.
Artificial
Tigaer-Design (Christian Hecker) is one of the finest artists creating spacescapes and futuristic art today. This piece in particular, "Artificial," served as partial inspiration for the design of the anarchs' Post Epsilon base on Palaemon, which figured prominently in the events of Rubicon and the first half of Requiem.
You know, the post with the floating landing pads, the scene of Alex and Kennedy's first Caeles Prism test and one bar fight. 😝
You can see all his work on Art Station (https://www.artstation.com/tigaer) or Deviant Art (https://www.deviantart.com/tigaer)
Originally posted on Facebook.
The Big 100K
BOO. YAH. 🎉
I can now say with a high degree of confidence that TSLG will be the longest of the Asterion Noir novels. I heard some of you like Moar Words? 😛
Originally posted on Facebook.