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Do you share a birthday with an astronaut? 20 – 26 November (no.13)
Follow for a weekly list of forthcoming astronaut* birthdays. Maybe you share a birthday?! If not, perhaps it will be you who adds your name to the list?! If you do share a birthday, what does it mean to you? Do you feel a connection, pride? They take to the skies (on controlled explosions) to…
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“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the drug store, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
– Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is one of the classic science fiction novels. Its the original book, BBC radio and then TV series and an average movie version. I’ll leave you to discover the joy … ____________________________________________________________________ PS: I love coffee. BuyMeACoffee, leave a message with…
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Atom puns & jokes no.18
Everyone loves a pune (or pun) or joke. Here follows more ‘atom’ puns/jokes – enjoy or groan or meh. More to follow! ____________________________________________________________________ You know who repairs atoms? Quantum mechanics. ____________________________________________________________________ PS: I love coffee. BuyMeACoffee, leave a message with a date and time and we can share it, remotely, at the same time, and think…
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Do you share a birthday with an astronaut? 13 – 19 November (no.12)
Follow for a weekly list of forthcoming astronaut* birthdays. Maybe you share a birthday?! If not, perhaps it will be you who adds your name to the list?! If you do share a birthday, what does it mean to you? Do you feel a connection, pride? They take to the skies (on controlled explosions) to…
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“Glance at the night sky and what you see is history and lots of it – not the stars as they are now but as they were when their light left them.”
― Bill Bryson, A Really Short History of Nearly Everything This quote was taken from Chapter 3, of A Really Short History of Nearly Everything, The Reverend Evans’s Universe, which tells us, in Bryson’s usual chummy way about the unassuming Bob Evans, who he describes as a titan of the skies. For the Reverand Evans…
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Atom puns & jokes no.17
Everyone loves a pune (or pun) or joke. Here follows more ‘atom’ puns/jokes – enjoy or groan or meh. More to follow! ____________________________________________________________________ The barkeeper replies: “Sorry but we don’t serve particles faster than the speed of light.”A tachyon walks into a bar. ____________________________________________________________________ PS: I love coffee. BuyMeACoffee, leave a message with a date and…
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Do you share a birthday with an astronaut? 6 – 12 November (no.11)
Follow for a weekly list of forthcoming astronaut* birthdays. Maybe you share a birthday?! If not, perhaps it will be you who adds your name to the list?! If you do share a birthday, what does it mean to you? Do you feel a connection, pride? They take to the skies (on controlled explosions) to…
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“Space, let me repeat, is enormous.”
― Bill Bryson, A Really Short History of Nearly Everything The full quote is as follows: “Space, let me repeat, is enormous. The average distance between stars out there is 20 million million miles. Even at speeds approaching those of light, these are fantastically challenging distances for any traveling individual.” ____________________________________________________________________ PS: I love coffee. BuyMeACoffee,…
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Atom puns & jokes no.16
Everyone loves a pune (or pun) or joke. Here follows more ‘atom’ puns/jokes – enjoy or groan or meh. More to follow! ____________________________________________________________________ What do we call a group of 12 atoms?Dozen matter. ____________________________________________________________________ PS: I love coffee. BuyMeACoffee, leave a message with a date and time and we can share it, remotely, at the same…
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Do you share a birthday with an astronaut? 30 October – 6 November (no.10)
Follow for a weekly list of forthcoming astronaut* birthdays. Maybe you share a birthday?! If not, perhaps it will be you who adds your name to the list?! If you do share a birthday, what does it mean to you? Do you feel a connection, pride? They take to the skies (on controlled explosions) to…
Stargazing Guy
Connecting people to the Stars
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“Science Fiction Is a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.”
– Peter H. Diamandis, Metatrends substack, 17 July 2026 Why are people so pessimistic about the future – and view the past as some form of pastoral utopia? On these pages we promote hope – not cope or mope. Hope lives here. An interesting insight is from Peter H. Diamandis in his substack, where he…
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“I believe in evidence.”
– Isaac Asimov, The Roving Mind (1997), (2 January 2 1920 – 6 April 1992) Scientist and science fiction author Asimov’s output of novels and books popularising and explaining science was prodigious. As a rationalist he often railed against superstitious and pseudoscientific beliefs that tried to pass themselves off as genuine science and had this…
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What is a light-year?
A light-year is a measure of distance – not time (or anything to do with Disney’s Toy Story). It’s used to indicate the distance to stars and galaxies. It’s the distance light travels in one year in a vacuum, which is about: – 4.2465 light-years OR 5.88 trillion miles OR 9.46 trillion kilometres Light travels…
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How far is that star?
Basically, far! The Sun is the closest (and brightest) star. It is about: – 93 million miles – 150 million kilometres The next closest star (Proxima Centauri) is invisible to the unaided human eye and you need to be in the Southern Hemisphere to see it with a telescope (it’s too dim to see with…
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Death rates from disasters have fallen over the last century.
Good news. Recent data indicates that natural disasters are NOT going to kill us all. The global death rate from all natural disasters (drought, floods, storms, earthquakes, wildfires, extreme temperatures, etc.) has fallen by more than 90% over the last century. The total number of deaths has fallen substantially, despite there being four times as…
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“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”
– Maria Salomea Skłodowska Curie (Marie Curie) (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) She was a was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist. The first woman to win a Nobel Prize. The first person to win a Nobel Prize twice. The only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different scientific fields.…
Stargazing Guy 