Category: Technology

Umbraphiles Rejoice!

~ mehopper

umbraphile : One who loves eclipses, often travelling to see them.

You are probably hearing a lot about the August 12th solar eclipse. It’s path of totality will pass over the Arctic Ocean, Greenland, Iceland, Atlantic Ocean, Portugal, and northern Spain.

The National Solar Observatory has created a neat eclipse map that shows the path.

Here’s a trailer from NASA about this eclipse.

NASA (YouTube Channel)
NASA (Official Website)

If you don’t live in the path of totality, then you can still watch it online. NASA will livestream the eclipse starting at 1:15 p.m. EDT.

The Exploratorium in San Francisco will also livestream a telescope view of the eclipse from the path of totality in Villalibado, Spain.

Finally, the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has a page where you can see what the eclipse will look like at any Location.

However, as I pointed out in my post Umbraphiles about the Solar eclipse of April 8, 2024, this event isn’t all that rare.

Here’s a story about just how “unrare” they are.

Total Eclipses Aren’t that Rare — and You’ve Probably Missed a Bunch of Them: They Happen About Once Every 18 Months (Sara Chodosh, Popular Science)

There is one group of people who know this well — they are the Umbraphiles, more commonly known as Eclipse Chasers. They are unique tribe, and their fascination with the celestial event tends to be described in terms outside the realm of science.

Here’s a link to the article about them that actually inspired the title of this post.

Chasing Totality: A Look Into the World of Umbraphiles (Andy Wright, Atlas Obscura)

Better yet, here’s a talk by David Baron that may have single-handedly helped to increase the ranks of Umbraphiles over the last few years.

David Baron’s Talk (TEDxMileHigh)
TEDxMileHigh – July 8, 2017 (YouTube Playlist)
TEDxMileHigh – July 8, 2017 (Official Website)

If you’re inclined to join the ranks of umbraphiles, here’s a handy list that includes when and where future total solar eclipses will occur.

List of Solar Eclipses in the 21st Century (Wikipedia)

If you would like to become an Armchair-Umbraphile, then head on over to YouTube — there are a ton of 360° Videos of Solar Eclipses to enjoy anytime and anywhere.

Here are even more links that might be of interest to Umbraphiles.

History of Eclipses (Objectivity, YouTube)
Eclipses (National Solar Observatory)
Solar Eclipse Resources (National Informal STEM Education Network)
Eclipses (Eric Weisstein’s World of Astronomy)
Eclipses (Wolfram Alpha)

Have a great week, and may your weather be great for viewing the eclipse if you are lucky enough to be in the path!

Find out more about the Sun, Moon, Stars and the Universe in general …

Hike, Wander & Walk-in the Web!

~ mehopper

Welcome to Web Worlds@Cosma!

The pages of Cosma have links to many thousands of the best resources on the Web.

Immersive 3D and 360° experiences are among the most valuable types of resources, and so there are links to thousands of them distributed across the hundreds of pages on the Web site.

The Web Worlds@Cosma are thematic 360° images with visual links to a sample of ten to twenty of the best Immersive 3D and 360° experiences on the Web for a specific subject.

There are many Web Worlds distributed across the pages on the Cosma Web site.

The Web World below is a special one with links to many of the others.

There are hundreds of immersive 3D and 360° experiences to explore!

Click on objects to see 3D and 360° experiences, and click doorways to go to other Web Worlds.

You can also explore it on Kuula.

If you’ve been following Cosma, then you know that Web Worlds have been evolving over the course of the last year. Continue reading below to learn the story behind them.

———————–
New Worlds, Old Ways@MEHopper

The story of Web Worlds began while I was updating my MEHopper Web site last summer.

I had been playing around with virtual home staging software and noticed that some of the spaces looked as if they were generated in the virtual world SecondLife. It was neat to see that “nearly” photorealistic 360° images could be generated and exported from that system.

I’ve used SecondLife to create Knowledge Places for decades, and I knew that it was now possible to take and download 360° photos, but I hadn’t gotten around to trying it yet.

I finally got inspired to do it and started with (re)creating my MEHopper Gallery Toy World. Toy Worlds are dioramas created with dollhouse furniture and other miniature objects that are photographed with a RICOH THETA S 360° Camera. The resulting 360° photos are posted on Kuula to overlay links to the Web.

Sure enough, I was able to take a 360° picture in SecondLife and upload it to Kuula to add links in the same way that I had for the Toy World. The result was this new MEHopper Gallery.

Click on the pictures to read posts about when and where they were taken.

You can also explore it on Kuula.

———————–
Web Worlds@New Media Museum

The experiment was successful enough that I decided to try my hand at another one.

This time it was for a space for my New Media Museum Web site. I had experimented with making virtual museums using my own museum’s content, but this time the goal was to create an interface to other computer museums.

This goal also inspired me to resurect my idea of “Magic Doors” from my work in SecondLife. You can read about the history of them on the Knowledge Objects page.

M.E.Hopper's Magic Window in SecondLife 2006
M.E.Hopper's Magic Window Farm in SecondLife 2006

The result of this experiment was the Computer Museums Lobby below, and you can read the story about why this came about in this post on my New Media Museum Web site.

Touch the 360° image to begin exploring, objects to learn about them, “i”s to learn about the museums, and doors to enter the virtual museums.

You can also explore it on Kuula.

It was around this time that it dawned on me that Web Worlds was a good term for describing the 3D interfaces that I was creating in SecondLife and Kuula to make visual links to other immersive 3D and 360° experiences on the Web. I did some research and found that the term had been used to describe virtual worlds on the Web before, and so I decided that it was the right term to use for what I was doing.

———————–
Web Worlds@Cosma

It wasn’t long after the term Web Worlds stuck that I decided Cosma needed some of them.

One major goal of Cosma is to have 3D interfaces for spatial Knowledge Navigation of the resources on Cosma and other Web sites. The history of this work is on the Worlds page.

There are currently a series of Toy Worlds that serve as 360° visual interfaces for the major content areas of Cosma. There is also a Cosma Welcome Area Toy World on the front page of Cosma that has links to the others.

However, there are some content areas that don’t have Toy Worlds. That’s because I never got around to making them, and this has bugged me for awhile. Web Worlds struck me as a way to remedy the situation.

The idea of “Magic Doors” as links to other immersive 3D and 360° experiences came in handy, too. I’ve been adding links to immersive 3D and 360° experiences on the pages of Cosma for about five years, and there are thousands of them distributed across the Web site. Unfortunately, few people notice them because the links to amazing experiences blend in with more mundane links (Wikipedia, Library of Congress, Open Courseware, JSTOR etc.). I decided that Web Worlds with visual links could be a way to bring more attention the links to immersive 3D and 360° experiences.

I happened to be updating the Transportation pages, and it was one of the content areas with no Toy World. I also happened to have tons of cool objects in SecondLife to use for the job (Cars, Trains, Boats, Planes etc.). It wasn’t long before Transit Paradise was born.

Touch the 360° image to begin exploring, touch the objects and doors to enter virtual 360° experiences, and touch “i”s to learn about the experiences.

You can also explore it on Kuula.

One limitation of my approach to making Web Worlds reared it’s ugly head, though.

You can only cram so many doors and objects into a single 360° photo.

This result was that there wasn’t enough room for all of the Transportation content, and I decided that Space Transportation needed to go into a separate Web World.

I was also updating the Space pages at the time and decided to address another weakness. While the existing Solar Extremes Toy World was a fine interface for the Solar System pages, there were some pages related to Astronomy that weren’t included in it.

Ultimately Space Transportation and Astronomy were combined into Space Depot.

Touch the 360° image to begin exploring, touch the objects and doors to enter virtual 360° experiences, and touch “i”s to learn about the experiences.

You can also explore it on Kuula.

Soon after that I was working on the Library page and saw experiences there begging for attention. The Great Libraries Antechamber resulted, and the post Little, Big, Old, Spooky Libraries explains more about it.

———————–
Hike the Web!

November 17th is National Take a Hike Day, and I planned a post to highlight some virtual hikes on the Web. A Web World with doors to those and some parks seemed like a nice idea, and so Hiking Trails Hall came into being.

I was also updating the pages in the Nature section of Cosma around that time, and I thought it would be good to make Web Worlds to emphasize the links to experiences quietly lurking about on those pages.

For example, there were links to 3D tours of Natural History Museums on the Dinosaur page, and so a Web World for accessing Natural History Museums seemed like a “should do.”

The Plant, Flower and Tree pages had links to some lovely Botanical Gardens, so Botanical Gardens Orangery was an obvious choice for another Web World.

There were many links to fun experiences on the Animal pages that needed attention. I also happened to already have some very cute animals in my inventory in SecondLife, so Critter’s Hollow was a no-brainer.

Finally, I created this Nature Center to integrate and access the four separate Web Worlds and introduced it in the Hike the Web post.

Touch doors and objects to enter 360° virtual experiences, touch “i”s to learn more, and touch arrows to go to other areas of the Nature Center.

You can also explore it on Kuula.

———————–
Beach Bum Break

Then came January, in New England, and this year was worse than usual! 🙁

I’m a hopeless “beach person.” That’s why there’s even a Beach page on Cosma.

I couldn’t go visit beaches with warm weather, so making Enchanted Beach Hut, Enchanted Beach Shack and the Enchanted Beach House below were therapy. You can read about it in My Enchanted Beach Houses post.

Touch doorways to visit 360° experiences, and touch posters and objects to find out more.

You can also explore it on Kuula.

It turned out that my beach adventures weren’t just therapy — they also inspire the design of the largest Web Worlds creation so far …

———————–
Wander the Web@Wanderlust!

Later in January I got busy slogging through updating and expanding the “World” pages (Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, Antarctica and their many children).

Years ago I made an arm-chair Travel Lounge Toy World. It was okay, but it didn’t showcase many immersive experiences.

In fact, there were so many links to fantastic experiences on the pages that I was updating, a single Web World wasn’t going to be enough. There ended up being six Web Worlds (Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania and Antarctica).

Notice that I loved my Enchanted Beach House so much, I repurposed it for all of them. Then, as with the Nature Center, I made a central Web World to access the others. Voila! The result was Wanderlust Travel Villa!

Touch doorways to visit 360° experiences, and touch posters to find out more.

You can also explore it on Kuula.

———————–
Walk-in-Web

Earlier in February, after the extravaganza that was Wanderlust, I wasn’t sure that I would be up to making more Web Worlds any time soon. Then I was updating the Arts & Entertainment pages and realized a few things.

First, I don’t spend nearly enough time on them, and I don’t add that content to the other pages as much as I should either. I need to fix that.

Second, my earlier Walk-in-Art Toy World was kind of pathetic, and it didn’t have links to great art museums that you can visit on the Web.

Of course, that just wouldn’t do at all, so welcome to Walk-in-Art & Museums.

Touch the art and doorways to visit 360° experiences.

You can also explore it on Kuula.

———————–
One World to Rule Them All

After reading the story above, I hope you can see why I needed to make a single Web World to access the others. It became too unwieldy to find all of the Web Worlds distributed across the Cosma Web site, and old fashioned text links to them would be too boring and not in the spirit of why I made them.

I hope you enjoy using Web Worlds@Cosma to Hike, Wander and Walk-in the hundreds of 3D and 360° experiences that you can find through Cosma Web Worlds Welcome Area!

Enjoy!
— M. E. Hopper

Umbraphiles

~ mehopper

umbraphile : One who loves eclipses, often travelling to see them.

You’ve probably heard about the April 8th solar eclipse (Wikipedia), and if you live near the path of totality, then you’ve probably also seen news stories like this one.

Party in the Path of Totality at These Solar Eclipse Getaways Across New England (Kristi Palma, Boston.com)

There are also a ton of stories like this about why this year’s eclipse is a such a big deal.

Why the 2024 Eclipse Will be a Different Experience from 2017 (Ashley Strickland, CNN)

While there are plenty of information sources out there, my favorite one is good ol’ NASA.

They even made a trailer about this year’s event.

NASA (YouTube Channel)
NASA (Official Website)

NASA will be streaming the eclipse live April 8 From 1 to 4 p.m. EDT.

2024 Total Solar Eclipse: Through the Eyes of NASA (Official Broadcast, YouTube)

Here’s a link to their neat interactive website for finding out “where & when” it will happen.

2024 Total Eclipse: Where & When (NASA)

They also have a dedicated webpage for the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse, one for Eclipses in general and one with Safety Guidelines.

Now, you may or may not know, all of the fuss about people in the United States getting to see a total solar eclipse might be just a wee bit overblown. With all the hype about the tourism and special sun glasses, you may have missed a couple of stories pointing out that the event isn’t all that rare. Here’s one of those stories.

Total Eclipses Aren’t that Rare — and You’ve Probably Missed a Bunch of Them: They Happen About Once Every 18 Months (Sara Chodosh, Popular Science)

There is one group of people who know this well — they are the Umbraphiles, more commonly known as Eclipse Chasers. They are unique tribe, and their fascination with the celestial event tends to be described in terms well outside the realm of science.

Here’s a link to the article about them that actually inspired the title of this post.

Chasing Totality: A Look Into the World of Umbraphiles (Andy Wright, Atlas Obscura)

Better yet, here’s a talk by David Baron that may have single-handedly helped to increase the ranks of Umbraphiles over the last few years.

David Baron’s Talk (TEDxMileHigh)
TEDxMileHigh – July 8, 2017 (YouTube Playlist)
TEDxMileHigh – July 8, 2017 (Official Website)

So, one way or another, in real life if you’re lucky enough to be in a good place to see the eclipse, or online with NASA at YouTube, enjoy next Monday’s eclipse with safety and awe.

Then if you’re inclined to join the ranks of umbraphiles after that, here’s a handy list from Wikipedia that includes when and where future total solar eclipses will occur.

List of Solar Eclipses in the 21st Century

If you would like to become an Armchair-Umbraphile, then head on over to YouTube — there are a ton of 360° Videos of Solar Eclipses to enjoy anytime and anywhere.

Here are even more links that might be of interest to Umbraphiles.

History of Eclipses (Objectivity, YouTube)
Eclipses (National Solar Observatory)
Eclipses (Eric Weisstein’s World of Astronomy)
Eclipses (Wolfram Alpha)

Finally, if you’re into really rare celestial events, then keep an eye out for a star to appear sometime between now and September. Here’s a NASA story about it that I tripped over while doing research for this post.

View Nova Explosion, New Star in Northern Crown (Beth Ridgeway, NASA)

Have a great week, and may your weather be great for viewing if you’re in the path!

Find out more about the Sun, Moon, Stars and the Universe in general …

Space Cadet Academy

~ mehopper

Confession — I’m a major space cadet! I mean this in an older, positive sense of the word, which is that I’m a “space enthusiast.”

That’s why I really get into updating the pages on Cosma having to do with space.

Things got a little out of hand this time, though.

I began just like I always do, updating the Mars page, because that’s my favorite one.

Poking around YouTube, looking for new ideas, turned up this 360° video taken by NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover. It is a video with a 2.4 billion-pixel panorama of the Van Zyl Overlook.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (YouTube Channel)
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Official Website)

Better yet, there’s an interactive version online that’s even more impressive.

I also found an entire YouTube Playlist from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory with more than twenty 360° panorama videos of Mars.

Let’s just say all of that exploring Mars took …   a few minutes.

Then I came across this YouTube video about something called Eyes on the Solar System from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that renders scientifically accurate views of the planets and spacecraft from their missions.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (YouTube Channel)
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Official Website)

That video had me at space buff, arm-chair astronaut and 3D, but it was outdated.

It turns out that there is no need to download anything anymore — there’s a newer version of Eyes on the Solar System that is entirely online.

I scrounged around YouTube and found this longer video about a more recent version of Eyes on the Solar System. This video explains that it is actually part of a larger suite of apps called NASA’s Eyes that includes Eyes on Asteroids, Eyes on Earth, Eyes on Exoplanets and Mars 2020.

NASA Scientific Visualization Studio (YouTube Channel)
NASA Scientific Visualization Studio (Official Website)

Okay, neat! Watching that video, and then playing around with all of it (particuarly the Mars area of Eyes on the Solar System and Mars 2020) didn’t take “much” time at all 😉

I was only a “little” behind schedule.

Then I just had to spend a “little more time” playing around with cool things from NASA/JPL (Experience Insight, Experience Curiosity and Explore with Curiosity). There’s more about them and links to them on Cosma’s Mars page along with some other fun stuff.

One problem. I spent all that time on the Mars page, but I hadn’t even touched all of those other pages about space.

Time to get back to work …

… but it wasn’t long before things went awry.

I came across a NASA website called Solar System Treks. It allows you to visualize, explore, and analyze the surfaces of other planets, moons and astroids using real data. You can view the worlds through the eyes of many different instruments, pilot real-time 3D flyovers above mountains and into craters. Here’s a video about it.

NASA Scientific Visualization Studio (YouTube Channel)
NASA Scientific Visualization Studio (Official Website)

The web site opens with a tutorial that takes a few minutes to do, but it is worth it. Of course, I just had to play with that to make sure it worked, right?

So now this was well past when I thought I would have been long done with updating the space related pages on Cosma, but I did eventually get all the way to updating the top Universe page.

While doing research for that, I tripped over the Hubble Skymap (NASA), WorldWide Telescope (American Astronomical Society), and ViewSpace: Discover the Universe Interactives (Space Telescope Science Institute).

Oh noooo …

All in all, updating the space pages ended up taking ten times longer than I had planned.

So there you have it. I spent the better part of this last week being a real space cadet!

The good news is that I put descriptions and links to all the fun stuff that I found on the pages as I updated them, so you can find them and spend a time becoming a space cadet, too.

You can use the Web World called Space Depot and the Toy World below it called Solar Exremes to get started exploring the updated pages as well as a few other fun experiences.

Touch the 360° image to begin exploring, touch the objects and doors to enter virtual 360° experiences, and touch “i”s to learn about the experiences.

You can also explore it on Kuula.

You can also view this Toy World on Kuula.

You can also choose your own adventure by clicking on the links below.

Happy Space Cadeting!

“Space”
Universe (Astronomical Instrument)
Galaxy Milky Way, Andromeda
Planetary System Star, Brown Dwarf, Planet, Moon

Our Neighborhood
Solar System Sun
Terrestrial Planet Mercury, Venus, Earth (Moon), Mars
Asteroid Belt Ceres, Vesta
Jovian Planet Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
Trans-Neptunian Object
Kuiper Belt Pluto, Haumea, Makemake
Scattered Disc Eris, Sedna, Planet X
Oort Cloud Etc. Scholz’s Star
Small Body Comet, Centaur, Asteroid

p.s. I confess that I can be a space cadet in the other sense of the word too. I accidentally “re-posted” TRAPPIST-1 a few days ago. If you subscribe to the Cosma blog, then you probably saw it in your email. However, I have trouble feeling bad about it, because the post is an oldie, but goodie. There’s a companion post called Exoplanet Junket still worth a gander.

Moon’scapes

~ mehopper

There’s no denying that it’s been a rough week for many Earthlings.

On the other hand, it’s been a great week for anyone who spends their time more preoccupied with the Moon than with more earthly concerns.

That’s because there’s a treasure trove of news about our lunar realm.

For example, NASA’s Goddard Media Studios released this stunning 4K video that used data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to generate a visualization of what the Apollo 13 astronauts would have seen between the time that they came around from the dark side of the Moon and when they reestablished radio contact with Mission Control.

NASA Goddard (YouTube Channel)
NASA Goddard (Official Website)

If you have ever seen the movie Apollo 13, then you appreciate why this particular time frame was so poignant. If you have never seen it, then I highly recommend that you do!

Of course, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is no longer our only source of imagery from the far side of the Moon because China landed their Chang’e-4 spacecraft and Yutu-2 rover there last year, and they’re still there working away. The Chang’e-4’s mission team celebrated the anniversary of their success by releasing some data and images to the public.

You can find out more about Chang’e-4’s moonscapes in this article.

The Most Detailed Photos Yet of the Far Side of the Moon (Neel V. Patel, Technology Review)

In addition, hot off the press, the Yutu-2 rover’s radar scanned up to 40 meters below the surface of the Moon, and those findings were just published this week as well.

China’s Moon Rover Takes a Deeper Look at the Far Side (Jonathan O’Callaghan, Scientific American)
Digging into the Far Side of the Moon: Chang’E-4 Probes 40 Meters into Lunar Surface (Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters, AAAS EurekAlert)
The Moon’s Farside Shallow Subsurface Structure Unveiled by Chang’E-4 Lunar Penetrating Radar (Chunlai Li, et al. Science Advances)

So, what a great week for Moon lovers!

Finally, it’s Friday, so a bit of fun is in order — check out this 360° video that shows a “different” way of seeing a (fictional) moonscape.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

VR 360 TV (YouTube Channel)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief stint as a “Moonling.”

If you want more Moon’scapes, then head on over to NASA and Google.

If you want to learn more about space and space travel, explore Space Depot!

Touch the 360° image to begin exploring, touch the objects and doors to enter virtual 360° experiences, and touch “i”s to learn about the experiences.

You can also see it directly on Kuula.

Happy Friday, Stay Healthy & Have a Great Leap Day!

Find out more about the Moon@Cosma …

Touch the Sun

~ mehopper

Remember how Icarus wanted to touch the Sun, but met his demise instead?

Well, scientists at NASA wanted to touch the Sun too, but unlike Icarus, they succeeded!

Better yet, they are beginning to share what they learned by doing it!

Before we get into all of that, let’s go back and start at the beginning.

NASA launched a robotic spacecraft called the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) in 2018, and this video describes the probe’s audacious mission to “touch the Sun.”

NASA Goddard (YouTube Channel)
NASA Goddard (Official Website)

Then NASA posted this 360° video about the probe’s launch that was narrated by Nicola Fox (Project Scientist at that time and now Director of NASA’s Heliophysics Division).

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

NASA (YouTube Channel)
NASA (Official Website)

Since its launch, the probe has done a spectacular job of starting to achieve its scientific goals, and some of the first results were just released this week.

Here’s a quick teaser that NASA posted ahead of a press conference on Wednesday.

ScienceAtNASA (YouTube Channel)
NASA Science (Official Website)

This video summarizes the key discoveries that NASA shared at the press conference.

NASA Goddard (YouTube Channel)
NASA Goddard (Official Website)

Four articles about the results were also posted by the journal Nature ahead of their publication in the print edition on December 12th. This article introduces those articles and has links to them.

A Step Closer to the Sun’s Secrets (Daniel Verscharen, Nature)

It’s awesome to know more about what makes that great glowing ball in the sky tick, but I also found myself a bit sad because the mission’s goals do not include sending back imagery for us Earthlings to enjoy. That means we still don’t know what it looks like to “touch the Sun.”

Perhaps it would look a bit like this 360° video of a simulation of the Sun that was posted by a hearty YouTuber way back in 2016.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Zproxy (YouTube Channel)

That was cathartic to watch, but of course it wouldn’t sound like that because there is no “sound” in space. The actual experience would also be way, way more visually stunning.

We can be certain of that because, while the Parker Solar Probe doesn’t capture imagery, there’s another NASA mission called the Solar Dynamics Observatory that does. It doesn’t capture 360° videos, but what it does capture is far more dynamic than the simulation.

Here’s a video that the Solar Dynamics Observatory captured on June 18, 2015. This isn’t exactly how it would look because it’s been colorized in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths, but it still gives you a sense of the unbelievable majesty of the activity that you would see on the surface of our favorite star if you were able to go there in person.

NASA Goddard (YouTube Channel)
NASA Goddard (Official Website)

How beautiful was that?!?!

Kudos to the scientists and engineers at NASA for having the audacity to find ways to go where no one has gone before and for communicating to us what it’s like there, too!

If you want to learn more about the the rest of the Solar System, explore this Toy World!

Click the 360° image below to explore it, click the menu in the upper right for controls and click “i” buttons on/off for links to experiences. Use “portals” to visit otherToy Worlds.

You can also explore this Toy World on Kuula.

You can also choose your own adventure by clicking on the links below.

“Space”
Universe (Astronomical Instrument)
Galaxy Milky Way, Andromeda
Planetary System Star, Brown Dwarf, Planet, Moon

Our Neighborhood
Solar System Sun
Terrestrial Planet Mercury, Venus, Earth (Moon), Mars
Asteroid Belt Ceres, Vesta
Jovian Planet Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
Trans-Neptunian Object
Kuiper Belt Pluto, Haumea, Makemake
Scattered Disc Eris, Sedna, Planet X
Oort Cloud Etc. Scholz’s Star
Small Body Comet, Centaur, Asteroid

Find out more about the Sun@Cosma …

Zip the World!

~ mehopper

Virtual zipline rides are addictive, and they’re also a neat way to see the world!

I found this out by accident.

While I was planning a trip to Niagara Falls, I stumbled over a 360° video of a zipline ride.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Akron Drone Services (YouTube Channel)
Akron Drone Services (Official Website)

Then I watched it again “just for fun,” and that led to a “side adventure” that grew into this post.

That’s because watching the Niagara Falls video led to YouTube suggesting another minute long 360° video of a zipline ride in Cañon City, Colorado within Royal Gorge Bridge & Park.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Royal Gorge Bridge and Park (YouTube Channel)

Then another 360° video of a zipline ride by Superfly Ziplines in Whistler, British Columbia popped up. Again, only a minute long — innocent enough, why not?

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Superfly Ziplines (YouTube Channel)

How beautiful, not to mention seasonally appropriate, was that!?!? Show me more!

The next 360° video that YouTube suggested was of a ride at Zip World in Wales.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Orchard Immersive Tech (YouTube Channel)

Wahoooo! Notice that the speedometer on the video said 100 MPH!

That ride turns out to have been on the longest zipline in Europe and the fastest in the world. Great to experience virtually, but probably terrifying in real life!

A Google search showed that Zip World is a sort of playground for grown-ups with a number of jungle gym like “destinations.” Here’s a non-360° video about what they offer.

Zip World (YouTube Channel)

After watching ten 360° videos of zipline rides in under 15 minutes, it occurred to me that ziplining is a “thing” at tourist destinations, and taking 360° videos of the rides is too. I couldn’t help but wonder, how many more 360° video clips of rides are there out there?

A YouTube search for zipline+360 turned up hundreds of results from all over the world!

Better yet, the rides themselves are only about a minute’ish long, by definition, and they’ve got great bird’s-eye views of scenery that you wouldn’t see otherwise. If you’re into seeing great places, what a way to do it!

Happy Zipping 🙂

If you enjoy adventures with a side of adrenaline then check out these other posts …

Heights!
Up, Up and Away!
Wingsuit Rush!
Go for a Fly!
NYC Highs
Extreme Biking, Artfully!
Catch Some Waves!

Find out more about travel, the World and adventure in general …

Wacky World

~ mehopper

It’s a weird and wacky world out there, and Guinness World Records (GWR) loves to remind us of that fact from time to time.

Just last week they released their 66th Edition of extreme factoids and an accompanying media blitz to rain outrageous strangeness down upon the media landscape.

It all started with a silly little one minute video. Here’s a link to it.

Guinness World Records 2020 – Out Now (Guinness World Records, YouTube)

Then Guinness World Records followed that up with a two minute video highlighting their hand-picked stars.

Meet The Stars of GWR 2020 (Guinness World Records, YouTube)

Then there was this article on their website with more detail about the “Stars” in the video.

Power your Curiosity: Introducing the Stars of Guinness World Records 2020 (Connie Suggitt, Guinness World Records)

They also have a YouTube Channel where they post separate videos about the Stars.

Finally, they distribute their press release, and voilà, there’s a media frenzy.

The next thing you know, news organizations starved for something to cover besides politics, the weather, the state of the roads and whatnot, latch on to it and print articles like this one.

Pinky Pull Ups, Mayo Eating and Other Weird Feats in the New Guinness World Records book (Scottie Andrew, CNN)

There is a finer point to be made here, though. Guinness World Records is a business, so they tend to delve into a “records for hire” approach sometimes.

That is why I was able to find a 360° video with this description.

Watch the All-New F-PACE defy gravity in a Guinness World Record-breaking 360° loop. As we celebrate our 80th anniversary, our new performance SUV was driven with daring precision by Legendary Stunt Driver Terry Grant, showcasing its lightweight design, agility, sports car speed and performance.

Here is a link to the video.

Jaguar F-PACE 360° Experience of Gravity-Defying World Record Loop (Jaguar, YouTube)

Yes, indeed, for better or worse, profit motive or not, they do a great job of catering to all sorts of interests — they even had a cool 360° video for me to post about here!

Lest you think you’re safe from their hijinks, I highly recommend that you check out their Showcase organized by interests. Better yet, you may wish you’d stuck to cat videos, because the website has a category for animal lovers!

Oh nooo… there you gooo…

Happy Weekend!

Find out more about competitions and the rest of the World in general …

Strange Stays

~ mehopper

I concluded my last post about Sand Art with highlighting how Booking.com offered the chance to stay in a sandcastle as a promotion for Coney Island’s Sand Sculpting Competition. Here’s a link with more on that unusual “opportunity.”

Giant Coney Island Sandcastle Offers Sleepovers (Summer Delaney, WPIX)

That may have sounded like a one-off type of oddity, but in truth, it wasn’t.

Booking.com is known for cooking up some “unique” promotions. For example, here’s a silly clip on what they did for that illustrious holiday, National Avocado Day.

Buzz60 (YouTube Channel)
Buzz60 (Facebook)

The aren’t alone in promoting atypical places to stay. In fact, far from it!

There are also a bevy of travel articles about a broad array of places to stay.

17 Weird and Wacky Hotels Across the United States (Violet Kim, CNN Travel)
22 Weird, Wonderful and Unique Hotels in the World (Stine Gjevnøe Sørensen, momondo)

No matter what your passion happens to be, there’s bound to be a place to stay for it.

The reason that I’m so aware of this is because awhile ago, with amusement, I realized that there’s some sort of lodging related to almost every subject on Cosma. Sometimes those experiences end up as adventures like Sand Art. That’s why I have a huge stash of links to “thematic” lodging that range from mildly amusing to pretty wild.

For example, there’s some kind of place to visit for what ever kind of transportation.

If you like trains, then you might enjoy a say at the Featherbed Railroad (Upper Lake, California). If you’re into cars, then you might want to book a night at V8 Hotel Motorworld (Stuttgart, Germany).

DIRS21 by TourOnline AG (YouTube Channel)

Are planes more your thing? There’s quite a few adventures ranging from sleeping in a Plane Airbnb (St Michel Chef Chef, France) to a 727 Airplane Fuselage (Costa Verde, Costa Rica).

If you’re into boats, then try a stay at The Queen Mary Hotel (Long Beach, California).

If you prefer an even more aquatic experience, then there are undersea hotels like these.

Atlantis – The Palm (Dubai, United Arab Emirates)
The Manata Resort (Psv-zanzibar, Tanzania)
Jules’ Undersea Loadge (Key Largo, Florida)
The Muraka (Rangali Island, Maldives)

Let’s say you are into trees, then how about staying in a tree house? There are many places to consider. Here are links to a few of them.

Out’n’About Treehouses Treesort (Takilma, Oregon)
Azulik Resort (Tulum, Mexico)
Treehouse Lodge Resort (Iquitos, Peru)

Less run-of-the-mill tree houses include Freespirit Spheres (Vancouver Island). Here’s a link to a video about them.

Free Spirit Spheres Ultimate Treehouses (Animal Planet, YouTube)

Trees are nice, but what if you prefer animals?

Dog lovers might get a kick out of cuddling up inside a beagle at Dog Bark Park Inn (Cottonwood Inn, Idaho).

KTVB (YouTube CHannel)
KTVB (Official Website)

If you love giraffes, there’s Giraffe Manor (Nairobi, Kenya). Here’s a virtual 360° visit.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Photos of Africa (YouTube Channel)
Photos of Africa (Official Website)

Do you long to see polar bears in the wild? Then climb on the Tundra Buggy Lodge (Churchill, Manitoba).

Amanda Williams (YouTube Channel)

There are some places where you can take shelter in ice. The two most famous are Hôtel de Glace (Quebec City, Canada) and Icehotel, Sweden (Jukkasjärvi, Sweden).

There’s also a place called Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort in Saariselka, Finland where you can have all sorts of winter fun and then chill in glass igloos and watch the northern lights.

Goway Travel (YouTube Channel)
Goway Travel (Official Website)

So there you have it — there really is a place for about any interest that you can imagine, and also some that you might not expect.

For example, there are places where dyed in the wool Tolkien fans can live like hobbits!

5 Places Where You Can Vacation Like a Hobbit on Hobbit Day (A. Pawlowski, USA Today)

You might think that nobody would want to stay in a jail, voluntarily, but that’s not so.

While people do pay to stay in an ex-jail here in Boston called The Liberty Hotel, that’s a tame example. A far more extreme and bizarre experience can be found at the Karostas Cietums aka Karosta Prison (Liepāja, Latvia)!

Monta Krafte (YouTube Channel)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this adventure in strange places to stay around the world.

Now you know that whatever your passion, there’s bound to be some lodging where you can revel in it.

Here are still more sites where you can find unusual lodging organized into handy categories.

Unusual Places to Stay and Unique Holiday Accommodation (CoolStays)
The Most Unique and Unusual Places to Stay (Host Unusual)

If something isn’t covered in this post or those sites, then you can probably find something with a search for “Your+Interest+Hotel 🙂

That’s how I found a place for my inner librarian called the Library Hotel. It’s on Madison Avenue in New York City, and the rooms are organized by Dewey Decimal! Here’s a link to a video about it.

Library Hotel New York (NY) (HotelReviews, YouTube Channel)

So, next time you are booking lodging, I hope you will consider looking for something a bit less “traditional” that will fit your interests and maybe even become an adventure in its own right!

Find out more about travel, adventure, the World and knowledge in general…

Lunar Landings

~ mehopper

Saturday, July 20th is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, and there’s a massive media blitz surrounding the occasion. Pretty much every major news outlet is covering it in some way, and it’s no surprise that NASA is leading the publicity frenzy.

On Friday at 1 p.m. (EDT) NASA is broadcasting 50 Years Ago Apollo 11 Launches Into History on NASA Live.

NASA (YouTube Channel)
NASA (Official Website)

There are also a ton of related events going on all over the place — there’s bound to be something going on near you!

For example, here are a few links to stories about how the restored Apollo Mission Control Center at NASA Johnson Space Center is opening this weekend.
Restoring Apollo Mission Control Center (NASA)
Apollo Mission Control Reopens in All Its Historic Glory, July 20 (NASA)

In honor of this momentous occasion, and being the total space buff that I am, I couldn’t resist dipping into my personal trove of “Moon Media” and rummaging around to find a few tidbits that might not show up in mainstream news stories.

Let’s start with the Apollo 11 Command Module that \resides at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. A team there did a full 3-D scan of it, so among other things, you can tour it online (Smithsonian fully digitized the Apollo 11 Command Module).

Here’s a link to a trailer about the project.

Smithsonian Gives Virtual Look Inside Apollo 11 (Wall Street Journal, YouTube)

You can explore it here!

Here’s an article some of the neat details that you can see in the module.

Apollo 11: The Writings on the Wall (Allan Needell, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)

If you’re a computer buff, then you might get a kick out of this video.

How Did the Apollo Flight Computers Get Men to the Moon and Back? (Paul Shillito, YouTube).

The website Virtual AGC — AGS — LVDC — Gemini also has tons of information about computer simulations of the guidance computers used in the Apollo lunar missions.

If you want a glimpse into at least part of the calculations that the Apollo computers had to do to get humans to the moon, then try your hand at the game Lunar Lander. There’s an example of it on the Web thanks to the artist Seb Lee-Delisle who created it as part of his Lunar Trails exhibit. His version is called Moon Lander.

Of course, my archive happens to have a few relevant 360° videos 🙂

My favorite one is this two minute simulation of Apollo 11’s landing and the first moonwalk.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Seymour & Lerhn (YouTube Channel)
Seymour & Lerh (Official Website)

That’s great, but it’s a tad short on realism.

Here’s a link to a more realistic 360° video about Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan’s last walk on the moon in 1972 that has a panorama created from photos that he took at the time.

VR Walk on the Moon with Gene Cernan (USA TODAY, YouTube)

Here’s another one minute 360° video of the same stills where you can look around and feel as if you are really standing on the Moon!

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Apollo 360 (YouTube Channel)

If you want to experience some more “real” moon imagery, then try out Google Moon!

Hardcore Apollo 11 fans might also enjoy the two plus hours of NASA’s restored video Moonwalk, and NASA even uploaded all of the 9,000 hours of audio from the Apollo 11 mission to the Internet Archive.

Cool stuff!

However, if you’re only looking for a fun way to kick off the weekend, then take a ride on this Space Mountain-esque 360° video complete with audio from the Apollo 11 Mission!

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

VR 360 TV (YouTube Channel)
VR 360 TV (Discord)

Happy Moon Adventures!

If you want to learn more about space and space travel, explore Space Depot!

Touch the 360° image to begin exploring, touch the objects and doors to enter virtual 360° experiences, and touch “i”s to learn about the experiences.


You can also explore it on Kuula.

Find out more about the Moon and space travel…

Gone Beaching!

~ mehopper

It’s high summer here in North America, and it’s also the time for “official” national holidays, so a lot of people are hanging up their proverbial gone fishing signs.

However, I tend to be more the type to hang up a gone beaching sign.

Since I live in the Boston area, and I’m also a North Shore type, that means that when I’m feeling lazy, I grab the Blue Line (featured in the movie Next Stop Wonderland) and head up to Revere Beach that’s known for being “the first public beach” in the country.

In case you’ve never been, here’s a 360° image I took there with my handy dandy Ricoh Theta S 360° Camera — if you click and look around, you’ll see the iconic Kelly’s Roast Beef.

Here’s a another 360° image that I took with a better view of the beach.

Revere is fun to cruise the first day of Spring, or if you’re into world class sand sculptures.

However, the truth be known, I’m more of a “further up” the North Shore type.

My favorite thing to do is to head up to Nahant Beach.

Here’s a 360° picture that shows where I walk from Nahant Beach to King’s Beach.

Here’s another 360° snap of my favorite place to soak up some sun.

So I hope that this has inspired you to find your inner beach bum, as well as find the best sea, sand and sun near you so that you can kick back, relax and experience some real sand between your toes too 🙂

Find out more about beaches …

Great Eyes o’ the Sea

~ mehopper

The news is full of stories about how a giant squid was filmed in U.S. waters for the first time. Here’s a link to an article by ABC7 that includes a great clip about it.

Wondrous 10-foot Giant Squid Spotted Deep in Gulf of Mexico (Danny Clemens, ABC7 New Orleans)

Here is a link to the web site of the researchers that did the filming.

Here Be Monsters: We Filmed a Giant Squid in America’s Backyard (Sönke Johnsen and Edie Widder, NOAA Ocean Exploration and Research)

The accomplishment was applaudable, but I was a bit disappointed about the clip.

Where were the eyes?

The text in the video said that the giant squid can have eyeballs that measure up to ten inches in diameter — that’s almost a foot! Yet the eyes weren’t actually captured in the video.

Luckily there’s another place where you can see a giant squid’s eyes.

While this was the first time a giant squid was filmed in U.S. waters, it wasn’t the first time that one’s been filmed. That happened back in 2012 when researchers from Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science filmed one in the Ogasawara archipelago, and that time they did get a fleeting shot of the giant squid’s humongous eyes. Here’s a link to a clip that covers that sighting as well as some background like how giant squids have the largest eyes in the animal kingdom and how sightings of them probably led to the legends about kraken.

Giant Squid: King of the Ocean (Seeker)

Giant squids aren’t the only cephalopods with great eyes — octopuses’ eyes are also neat.

Here’s a link to a mesmorizing video that shows a rainbow colored blanket octopus with a closeup of its eye at the end.

Rare ‘Rainbow’ Blanket Octopuses Caught on Camera in the Philippines (USA Today)

When you’re looking eye to eye with a squid or octopus, it’s easy to imagine that they would see you in the same way that you would see them, but that’s not so. Until a couple of years ago, researchers believed that since cephalopods only have a single type of photoreceptor, they would be colorblind. Then in 2016 some researchers suggested that the truth may be more intriguing than that — their eyes may work like a prism. Here’s a video about that and a link to the the research that it was based upon.

Ocean Imaging (YouTube Channel)
Ocean Imaging (Official Website)

Spectral Discrimination in Color Blind Animals via Chromatic Aberration and Pupil Shape (Alexander L. Stubbs and Christopher W. Stubbs, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

Of course, cephalopods aren’t the only creatures in the sea with great eyes. Plenty of marine mammals have wonderful eyes, too. Here’s a lovely video filmed and edited by Sally Bartel for Save The Whales that brings you eye to eye with whales, dolphins and an affectionate manatee who will even come up and give you a smootch!

Sally Bartel (YouTube Channel)

They were all beautiful, but I must confess to being partial to whale’s eyes. In fact, one of my favorite 360° videos of all time is TheBlu because at one point a blue whale comes up and looks you right in the eye for a bit.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Transport by Wevr (YouTube Channel)
Wevr (Official Website)

TheBlu is awesome, but it is just an animation. There’s another non-360° video that was posted by Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris that’s even more impressive — it takes you eyeball to eyeball with a real humpback whale!

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris (YouTube Channel)
Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris (Official Website)

Again, since those huge creatures are also mammals, it’s easy to assume that their eyes would see you in much the same way as you would see them. While that’s more true than it is with the cephalopods, it’s still not really the case. Here is a story that will give you sense of how whales might really see you.

You’re Eye-to-Eye With a Whale in the Ocean—What Does It See? (Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic)

Finally, I’ll leave you with this 360° video from the American Museum of Natural History. It’s a bit slow in the middle but features some nice eye to eye shots near the beginning and end.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

American Museum of Natural History (YouTube Channel)
American Museum of Natural History (Official Website)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this deep dive into seeing eye to eye with some giants of the sea.

Find out more about squids, octopuses, whales and the ocean…

Yellow Submarines

~ mehopper

My last post was about an adventure with seals doing science in Antarctica.

This adventure begins where that one left off, but this is a very different, and fun excursion that happened because Boaty McBoatface surfaced in my news feed.

In case you never heard of him, Boaty’s a submarine that got his name via a publicity stunt by the UK’s National Oceanography Centre that went viral and didn’t turn out like they expected. He turned up in my news feed this week because he’s been doing science similar to the kind that the seals in my last post were doing, and the results have just been published.

Google assumed that if I would want to know what seals with antenna were doing in Antarctica, then I would definitely want to know about Boaty’s activities.

Here’s a video about Boaty’s discoveries as well as the fiasco that led to his name.

Audacy (YouTube Channel)
Audacy (Official Website)

Here are links to some stories about Boaty’s research.

Boaty McBoatface Sheds Light on Warming Ocean Abyss (British Antarctic Survey)
Rapid Mixing and Exchange of Deep-Ocean Waters in an Abyssal Boundary Current (Alberto C. Naveira Garabato, et al., PNAS)

Boaty’s research is important, but seeing him, whose thoughts could help but wander to The Beatles’ song/album/movie Yellow Submarine?

Google/YouTube couldn’t resist helping me along with those musings. Next thing I knew, nostalgia kicked in, and I was watching a trailer for the re-release of the movie in the UK and Ireland that was done for the movie’s 50th Anniversary.

Yellow Submarine UK Theatrical Trailer (Beatles, YouTube)

Then I discovered that The Beatles have official Playlists on YouTube, and there’s even a dedicated Yellow Submarine Playlist that has over twenty videos with all sorts of insider stuff about the movie.

The Internet then led me to scads of ancillary products inspired by the movie. For example, there’s a Yellow Submarine turntable from Pro-Ject (YouTube). Who knew?

LEGO also released a Yellow Submarine Set, and here’s their colorful trailer for it.

The Beatles’ LEGO Yellow Submarine vs. the Sea Monster (LEGO, YouTube)

That’s fun, but there are a number of fan videos that are pretty great, too.

Here’s a lovely stop motion video with a creative take on building the kit.

The Bits Beatles Tribute (YouTube Channel)

Here’s another fan made stop motion video done in the MTV style.

White House Productions (YouTube Channel)

Neat stuff!

Of course, LEGOLAND in California even went so far as to build a ride!

Theme Park Insider (YouTube Channel)

Personally, I prefer the open sea, and it turns out that there’s a ride for that, too.

An outfit called Submarine Safaris operates Yellow Submarine tours out of Tenerife and Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. Here’s a promo video for their tours.

Tenecar Tenerife (YouTube Channel)

If you’re inspired to book a trip on a real Yellow Submarine, then here’s a link to a video with some background on the Canary Islands that you may want to know before you head out on a real-life adventure.

Introducing the Canary Islands (Lonely Planet, YouTube)

There you have it. One minute you’re doing science with seals in Antarctica, and then the next thing you know, you’re exploring the warm waters of the Canary Islands in a Yellow Submarine.

Isn’t the Internet a wonderful place?

Finally, if all this talk about The Beatles has you craving something a bit more psychedelic, or you just want to play a little while longer, then here’s a trippy little 360° video that claims to be “inspired by The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Rock Hy. Zhang (YouTube Channel)

Find out more about music, fun stuff in general and ways of getting around in the water …

Under the Ice

~ mehopper

To paraphrase J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous words in The Lord of the Rings, “It’s a dangerous business, clicking on a link. You glance at a story, and if you don’t watch out, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

This week I innocently clicked on a link to this story from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Mysterious Holes in Antarctic Sea Ice Explained by Years of Robotic Data (University of Washington, AAAS EurekAlert!)

In turn, that link led to this research study that was just published in Nature last week.

Antarctic Offshore Polynyas Linked to Southern Hemisphere Climate Anomalies (Ethan C. Campbell, et al., Nature)

Indeed, the articles provided an interesting explanation for those odd polynya phenomena in Antarctica, but it was actually this intriguing image that really grabbed my attention.

Instrumented Seal, University of Washington. Credit: Dan Costa/University of California, Santa Cruz
Image: Ocean measurements were also collected by seals swimming under the sea ice with temporary satellite tags, showing normal water conditions in the years that did not have large polynyas.
Credit: Dan Costa/University of California, Santa Cruz

Yep, that’s a seal with an antenna on it’s head!

It turns out that the study used data combined from satellite images of sea ice cover, some robotic drifters as well as elephant seals outfitted with sensors.

What’s more, using seals wasn’t a one-off operation. It was part of a program that’s been operating for over a decade according to the Coriolis Operational Oceanography site:

Since 2004, several hundred seals have been equipped with conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) sensors in the Southern Ocean for both biological and physical oceanographic studies. A calibrated collection of seal-derived hydrographic data is now available from Coriolis, currently consisting of more than 300,000 temperature/salinity profiles. — Coriolis


The Coriolis site also has information about a program called Marine Mammals Exploring the Oceans Pole to Pole that provides access to an international database of validated ocean observations collected by marine mammals such as seals, sea lions, and even turtles.

You can find out more about the program here.

MEOP Web Portal: Ocean Observations by Marine Mammals (Argos System)

On my journey to learn how scientists have been strapping sensors to seals to find out about what’s going on under the ice in Antarctica, it was impossible to miss stories about other methods they are using.

For example, here’s a story where an evolutionary biologist named Paul Cziko explains how they setup something called the McMurdo Oceanographic Observatory (MOO).

Spoiler alert. This time it’s humans diving way down under the ice. Burrrr!

KGW News (YouTube Channel)
KGW News (Official Website)

Yes, you really can go to the MOO site and listen in on some seals and ice for yourself.

After all of this stuff about seals, why stop with listening? Aren’t you itching to see some more?

Here’s a link to a short 360° video that takes you under an iceberg to visit with a crabeater seal along with some gentoo penguins before returning to the surface to share some other views and perspectives about Antarctica.

360° Diving Under Icebergs With A Seal In Antarctica (BBC Earth, YouTube)

That video had a nice view of a seal under ice, but now here’s an even better 360° video that get’s you up close and personal with an elephant seal on a beach.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Wildlife Protection Solutions (YouTube Channel)
Wildlife Protection Solutions (Official Website)

So there you have it. The moral of this story is be careful about what you click on, or you might find yourself on an unexpected virtual journey to learn about seals with sensors, and then end up spending an hour or more exploring the frigid waters under Antarctica.

In case you’ve got a few more minutes and the interest, here are links to two more very nice YouTube videos about the amazingly diverse and beautiful life deep under the Antarctic ice.

The Deepest Dive in Antarctica Reveals a Sea Floor Teeming With Life (OceanX, YouTube)
Discovering Life Under Antarctica’s Ice (Great Big Story, YouTube)

Finally, now that I’ve got you down here with me on this unexpected adventure in Antarctica, the trip wouldn’t be complete without some more penguins, right?

Here’s a 360° close-up view of a colony of some Adélies, chinstraps and gentoos — some of them are having a rough time, but nonetheless, they’re all still fun to watch (esp. the chicks).

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

PBS News Hour (YouTube Channel)
PBS News Hour (Official Website)

Have a great weekend!

Find out more about seals, penguins and Antarctica …

Into Van Gogh

~ mehopper

It’s not unusual for one artist’s work to serve as the grist for another artist’s mill. However, few artists have their works “reimagined” as frequently or as creatively as Vincent van Gogh. Artists all over the world are still very much into making works based upon his iconic paintings.

For example, check out this surreal 360° video of a hot air balloon that’s a faithful 3D reproduction of Van Gogh’s famous Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

DiscGolfVR360 (YouTube Channel)

Here’s the article with more background about the ballon.

Giant Hot Air Balloon with the Face of Vincent van Gogh Sails through the Skies of Melbourne (Adam McCleery, Daily Mail Australia)

There is also an exhibit at the Atelier des Lumières in Paris that invites attendees to walk “into” Van Gogh’s Starry Night and other works. Here’s a one minute promo.

France 24 (YouTube Channel)
France 24 (Official Website)

That clip was a good introduction to the exhibit, but it didn’t convey the atmosphere of the experience as well as this next clip featuring Don McLean’s Vincent.

Ine RP Braat (YouTube Channel)

If you’re sad that you can’t step into that Starry Night exhibit, then let me introduce you to some artists that strive to take you “into” Van Gogh’s Starry Night via YouTube videos.

The first one of these types of videos I ever saw was this one by Robbie Dingo from 2007. He used SecondLife to “build” the painting, and then he filmed it.

Share Festival (YouTube Channel)

Here’s a link to Robbie Dingo’s post about the video.

Watch the World(s) (Robbie Dingo, Digital Double)

I also came across this 360° video with a similar mission in 2016.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Motion Magic (YouTube Channel)

Then I found this awesome 360° video in 2018.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Youtube Trendz (YouTube Channel)

The highlight of that clip was going into Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles, which is one of his works that’s been “reimagined” almost as often as Starry Night.

The Art Institute of Chicago had quite a bit of fun with “recreating” that painting when they were promoting their exhibit Van Gogh Bedrooms. They went so far as to create a replica of Van Gogh’s bedroom and then list it on Airbnb. Here’s a story about how thousands of people got into van Gogh’s bedroom.

Art Institute Re-Creates Van Gogh’s Bedroom to Rent on Airbnb (Corilyn Shropshire, Chicago Tribune)

Alas, that opportunity is no longer available, but you can step into this 360° video now.

Rendr (YouTube Channel)
Rendr (Official Website)

That video is actually a recording of a 3D model that Sokolovsky Ruslan posted on Sketchfab.

His model was also used to create a “virtual door” into Van Gogh’s bedroom with the augmented reality app ARLOOPA. Here’s a short clip of users stepping into the painting.

ARLOOPA (YouTube Channel)
ARLOOPA (Official Website)

Finally, the above examples have gone hand-in-hand with some creative uses of technology, but now here’s a fun low-tech take on Starry Night by YouTube sensation FlippyCat.

FlippyCat (YouTube Channel)
FlippyCat (Facebook Page)

Here are links to some other, related posts on Cosma.

Walk-in-Art
Art Revisited
Dive-in-Art
Leonardo Lately
Magical Paintings
Walk-in-Art & Museums!

Enjoy, but beware, it’s easy to get lost in 360° art!

Find out more about visual arts and media …

Musical Mischief

~ mehopper

Serendipity plays a hand in these posts — more often than not one post leads to another.

This is one of those times.

The last post about Furby Hacking left me itching to explore another Road Not Taken.

It turned out that Sam Battle’s odd creation, Furby Organ, led YouTube to suggest all sorts of other intriguing music related mischief to explore. So I took the bait and went surfing.

The first, most insistent suggestion that YouTube made was to take a look at Wintergatan’s unusual Rube Goldberg’esque extravaganza called the Marble Machine!

Wintergatan (YouTube Channel)
Wintergatan (Official Website)

Like many other music hackers, they posted numerous videos about how they did it on their YouTube Channel. That includes “How it Works” Part 1 and Part 2. You can also visit the retired Marble Machine at the Speelklok Museum in Utrecht.

Next YouTube incessantly suggested that videos from Animusic were worth a watch.

AnimusicLLC (YouTube Channel)

Right again!

Animusic also posted a video about making it on their YouTube Channel.

A little less predictable suggestion was a video about how Intel built a physical Pipe Dream demo for a conference. Take a look, but be aware that it’s not until the middle of the video that you can start to get the gist of the demo.

Steven Leibson (YouTube Channel)

Talk about Rube Goldberg’esque!

Next up was another video from Animusic with a distinctly different vibe.

Alexandre Dobruski (YouTube Channel)

A musician on YouTube calling himself SirGagarin just couldn’t resist posting his take on the genre using Hot Butter’s synth-pop instrumental Popcorn!

SirGagarin (YouTube Channel)

All of this couldn’t help but remind me of the Grand Daddy of all musical tech wizardry, Disney’s Fantasia.

In case you’ve never seen it, here’s a link to the Sorcerer’s Apprentice scene from Fantasia

Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Fantasia, Walt Disney Studios)

Of course, Fantasia has been re-imagined many times over the years, and modern digital wizardry has aided and abetted in adding a few honorable mentions to that pantheon.

For example, here is a 360° video of the LA Philharmonic playing the iconic opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, appropriately enough, at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Be sure to stick with it and look around to get the full Fantasia effect.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

LA Phil (YouTube Channel)
LA Phil (Official Website)

Disney also produced a modern take on Fantasia entitled The Sorcerer’s Apprentice that had a fun scene featuring the hit song Secrets by One Republic.

It always struck me as a shame that no 360° version of that scene was ever made. Apparently I wasn’t alone. There are a couple of 360° fan videos by some school kids and a cover band that try to get the job done as best they can.

Perhaps One Republic felt the same way, too.

They never did a 360° video for Secrets, but later on they did make an enchanting 360° video of their hit song Kids. Here’s a link to that awesome video.

Kids 360 version (OneRepublic, YouTube)

It’s worth a watch, or even better, two. It so well done that it takes a few viewings to catch how much is going on in the scene.

Like all great musical tech wizards, they also did a “behind the scenes” and posted it on their YouTube Channel.

Now here’s another inductee into this informal “Musical Tech Wizard Hall of Fame” that’s evolving right here in this post.

If you watch television at all, then you’ve probably seen a commercial for the Elton John biopic Rocketman that’s being released May 30th. It’s timing coincides with his final world tour Farewell Yellow Brick Road that will include more than 300 shows across five continents.

What you may not know is that at the same time as he announced the tour, he also published a lovely 360° video that includes recreations of some of his most iconic performances. Here’s a link to that fun video.

Farewell Yellow Brick Road: The Legacy – VR360 (Elton John, YouTube)

As you watch the video, you can’t help but wonder how it was made. The good news is that you don’t have to guess, because being the great music hacking wizard that he is, Elton John also posted a Making of Farewell Yellow Brick Road that explains the amazing amount of work that went into the clip.

While on the topic of tech wizards of the musical world, it would be remiss to not also include another leader of the pack.

Paul McCartney has never been one to shy away from cutting edge tech, so it’s no surprise that he was one of the first artists to publish a 360° video of a live concert — it was filmed during his historic final show at Candlestick Park. Sadly, that video is not available on YouTube, but a couple of his other forays into 360° video are on his Pure McCartney YouTube Channel.

Here’s one of them that’s an amusing experiment in multimedia and montage.

Paul McCartney ‘Dance Tonight (Pure McCartney, YouTube)

Finally, I can’t resist sharing my own little experiment in music related mischief.

Here’s my Music Heaven Toy World. Click on notes to learn about music.


You can also explore this Toy World on Kuula.

Enjoy & Happy Weekend!

Find out more about music and technology …

Extreme Biking, Artfully!

~ mehopper

This week I came across something that I thought was fairly unique.

There is a Scottish BMX rider by the name of Kriss Kyle that has elevated his extreme biking into an art. Here’s a video published by Red Bull that starts out with a brief introduction to the young man and then transitions into an artistic performance he calls Kaleidoscope. Stick with it — just when it gets a tad tedious, he introduces a new twist.

Red Bull (YouTube Channel)
Red Bull (Official Website)

The way I first found out about Kyle was by stumbling over this 2 minute featurette that is a “behind the scenes” 360° video about the making of Kaleidoscope. Among other things, he mentions that he had to take motion sickness pills to get through one of his stunts.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Red Bull (YouTube Channel)
Red Bull (Official Website)

As if Kaleidoscope wasn’t “artsy” enough, Kyle was later invited to do a demonstration of his riding inside of a new wing of the Tate Modern Museum. Here’s the museums explanation of the literal publicity stunt.

The Tate Modern Museum were launching a new gallery wing and wanted an exciting, immersive experience to help promote the launch. The agency brought Kriss Kyle, the legendary BMX rider on board to perform stunts through the gallery and showcase the space in a fast-moving 360° immersive experience. — Kriss Kyle@The Tate

Here’s the resulting 360° video that has a distinctly different vibe than Kaleidoscope.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

David Betteridge (YouTube Channel)
David Betteridge (Official Website)

Finally, Red Bull sponsored an even more extreme demonstration of Kyle’s talents with Dubai’s major landmarks as a backdrop.

Red Bull (YouTube Channel)
Red Bull (Official Website)

So, Kyle’s work is pretty unique, right?

Well, not so much as you might think.

It turns out that there’s another BMX rider with an artistic bent. His name is Danny MacAskill, his work is also sponsored by Red Bull, and his stunts also tend to fall under the category of “don’t try this at home.” Here’s a video of his entitled Imaginate that is a wonderful example of his creativity at work.

Red Bull (YouTube Channel)
Red Bull (Official Website)

MacAskill has also taken his art to great, adrenaline inducing heights. Here’s a video entitled The Ridge in which he returns to his native Isle of Skye to go on a breathtaking and death-defying ride along the Cuillin Ridgeline.

Cut Media (YouTube Channel)

It’s easy to see why Red Bull loves these guys!

You can watch a ton of other extreme riders on Red Bull’s web site dedicated to Moutainbiking (MTB) as well as their YouTube Channel.

If you happen to be a very adventurous rider, you might also enjoy this article.

Seven of the Scariest Mountain Bike Trails (James Smurthwaite, Mountain Bike Rider)

If you enjoy adventures with a side of adrenaline then check out these other posts …

Heights!
Up, Up and Away!
Wingsuit Rush!
Go for a Fly!
NYC Highs
Catch Some Waves!
Zip the World!

Find out more about cycling, sports and the arts …

NYC Highs

~ mehopper

New York City has a new place with a view.

Two weeks ago Hudson Yards opened to cheers from the developers and some jeers from the community.

The Escheresque whimsy of The Vessel captured the media’s attention at the opening, but the views from the observation deck called Edge is the big draw. Here’s a link to a clip about the views.

Sky-High Observation Deck Being Built in NYC (Associated Press, YouTube)

Seeing the views from Hudson Yards inspired me to open my files and look for my notes about other clips with views of New York City posted online — they’re all 360° videos, so look around!

This first clip takes you on a two minute stroll along the High Line which was mentioned in the Hudson Yards clip above. It’s a 1.45 mile long elevated walk way that ties together Greenwich Village, the Meatpacking District, Chelsea, and Midtown Manhattan. The views are nice, but more down to Earth than those at Hudson Yards.

TXTExploring the High Line, NYC’s Elevated Urban Park (Washington Post)

Of course, no matter how many new views are generated by new developers, there will never be a more iconic vista in New York than the one from the top of the Empire State Building.

Empire State Building 360 4K VR (Thoughtworks Canada)

A more adventuresome 360° experience was posted by the New York Times. It is a two minute clip from the perspective of a guy who climbed the spire of World Trade Center.

Climbing 1 World Trade Center: Man on Spire (The New York Times)

Finally, The New York Times< also published another great view from even greater heights. It's entitled Take Flight, and it was featured in their 2015 edition of Great Performances. The piece lifts you up from a New York City street at night to take you on a mesmerizing flight of fancy towards the Moon.

Take Flight 360 Video (The New York Times)

The soundtrack is fine, but I can’t help hearing Christopher Cross’s Arthur’s Theme when I watch it.

There’s also a non-360° version on The New York Time’s YouTube Channel that shows each of the individual performances up close, and here are some more stories about Take Flight.

Editor’s Letter: Take Flight With Virtual Reality (Jake Silverstein, New York Times Magazine)
Great Performers Take Flight (New York Times Magazine)
Behind the Scenes of ‘Take Flight’ (Kathy Ryan, New York Times Magazine)
The Art of Flying in the Movies: A cinematic history of going airborne (A. O. Scott, New York Times Magazine)

If you enjoy adventures with a tourch of adrenaline then check out these other posts …

Heights!
Up, Up and Away!
Wingsuit Rush!
Go for a Fly!
Extreme Biking, Artfully!
Catch Some Waves!
Zip the World!

Find out more about North America and the World …

Jellyfish Therapy

~ mehopper

Feeling stressed out and need to relax?

How about a nice swim in a swarm of jellyfish?

What, that’s not a remedy for stress, you say!

You mean by using imaginative thinking, right?

Well, no, I do mean it literally.

There’s an actual place called Jellyfish Lake on Eil Malk island in Palau where you can swim with hundreds of thousands of the mesmerizing creatures without fear of being stung. Here’s a video with some calming underwater footage.

Scuba Zoo TV (YouTube Channel)
Scuba Zoo TV (Official Website)

Of course, you may not have time to jump on a plane to Palau right now. Even if you did, perhaps going for a swim in a sea of jellyfish still doesn’t sound all that relaxing to you?

In that case, perhaps a nice, safe one minute 360° virtual dive with a single jellyfish near the Gardens of the Queen off of the coast of Cuba might do the trick.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

AirPano VR (YouTube Channel)
AirPano (Official Website)

Here’s another interesting one minute 360° experience from PBS News Hour filmed inside the jellies exhibit at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

PBS NewsHour (YouTube Channel)
PBS NewsHour (Official Website)

That felt like being in a lava lamp, didn’t it?

Well, it turns out that the National Aquarium also has a live cam of their jellies, and it’s down right hypnotic. Who needs a lava lamp when you can get such awesome, calming nature delivered right to your screen, live!?!

Here’s another great clip from TED-Ed about how jellyfish aren’t just therapeutic to stare at — they also have all sorts of other intriguing properties. Some of them glow, and that helps them contribute to medical research. Others are even “sort of” immortal!

TED-Ed (YouTube Channel)
TED-Ed (Official Webite)

Jellyfish are cool!!!

Find out more about Jellyfish …

Go For a Fly!

~ mehopper

Want a quick pick-me-up?

Why go for a walk or coffee when you go for a fly instead?

Here are links to some short 360° videos that will have you soaring like a bird in a jiffy!

Paraglide Over Peru In 360 (The New York Times)
Paraglide the Pacific Coast in VR (USA TODAY)

Relaxing so far, right?

Here’s a link to a higher energy video that takes you gliding over Yosemite.

Hang Glide Over Yosemite National Park in 360 Degrees (Nature on PBS)

For an even faster paced ride, here’s a link to a video that takes you over Austria’s Paznaun Valley.

Paragliding in the Paznaun Valley, Austria (Garmin)

Curious about how it’s done?

Here’s a link to a five minute hang gliding lesson.

Hang Gliding Above the Ocean in 360º (Seeker VR)

You can find out a lot more about both paragliding and hang gliding from the US Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association.

Finally, here’s a link to a video with the story of how Francis and Gertrude Rogallo invented hang gliding.

Francis Rogallo (1912-2009), Hanglider Pioneer (Steve Close)

If you want more of a break, check out these earlier posts …

Heights!
Up, Up and Away!
Wingsuit Rush!
NYC Highs
Extreme Biking, Artfully!
Catch Some Waves!
Zip the World!

Find out more about flying and adventure in general …

Space Rocks!

~ mehopper

NASA engineers had quite a New Years celebration in 2019 when New Horizons successfully executed a flyby of a tiny object named 2014 MU69 while moving at 32,000 miles per hour.

The planetesimal 2014 MU69 is better known by it’s nickname Ultima Thule, and it’s located way out past Pluto in a region of the Solar System called the Kuiper Belt.

Here’s a link to a video covering the achievement as well as what it has to do with the rock band Queen!

NASA Photographs Most Distant Space Object Ever Reached (CNN, YouTube)

The video explains how Brian May, former lead guitarist for Queen, is an astrophysicist and a team member on the New Horizons Mission.

He wrote and performed this new song entitled New Horizons to celebrate the flyby on New Years day.

NASA Video (YouTube Channel)
NASA (Official Website)

Some scientists may be referred to as “rock stars” from time to time, but it’s seldom literal. It’s also fairly rare for an astrophysicist to be mentioned in Rolling Stone.

Hear Queen Guitarist Brian May’s New Anthem to Space Travel (Kory Grow, Rolling Stone)

Brian May also created a 3D stereoscopic image of Ultima Thule that was released in a NASA news conference.

SciNews (YouTube Channel)
SciNews (Official Website)

Scientists Show Off Space Snowman, Ultima Thule, in 3D (Marcia Dunn, Associated Press)

You can find out more about New Horizons’ flyby of Ultima Thule in these articles.

New Ultima Thule Discoveries from NASA’s New Horizons (New Horizons, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory)

With Ultima Thule Flyby, NASA Probe Helps Unlock Secrets of Planetary Formation (Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com)
NASA’s New Horizons Just Made the Most Distant Flyby in Space History. So, What’s Next? (Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com)

Finally, New Horizons’ First Photos of Ultima Thule (Robbie Gonzalez, Wired)

Most news stories about Ultima Thule mentioned that it’s the furthest object that’s been photographed. However, New Horizons isn’t the spacecraft that’s the furthest away.

That honor belongs to the twin Voyager spacecraft. In fact, months before New Horizon’s encounter with Ultima Thule, Voyager 2 joined Voyager 1 in interstellar space. Here are a couple of stories abou that feat.

NASA’s Voyager 2 Probe Enters Interstellar Space (NASA/JPL)
What’s Next for NASA’s Voyager 2 in Interstellar Space? (Meghan Bartels, Space.com)

Many stories about the Voyagers mention that they both carry special golden records. Here’s a link to a video that explains how the records were designed to communicate with any aliens that might happen upon them in the distant future.

40 Years Ago, NASA Sent a Message to Aliens — Here’s What It Says (Business Insider, YouTube)

Believe it or not, there’s even a tie-in with rock ‘n’ roll here, too. The cool scientists that designed the record included a recording of Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode!

Voyager, What’s on the Golden Record: Music From Earth (NASA/JPL)

Here’s a video from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame of Chuck Berry performing it with Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (YouTube Channel)
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (Official Website)

There was a lot of news about space rocks closer to home around that time as well. That’s because, not just one, but two spacecraft reached milestones in their respective journeys to explore two asteroids.

The biggest news was that NASA’s OSIRIS-REx entered orbit around asteroid 101955 Bennu on New Years Eve. Among other things, this set records for the smallest body ever orbited by a spacecraft and the closest orbit of a planetary body by any spacecraft.

Here’s a video and press release about this milestone that was posted by the OSIRIS-REx Mission on December 31st.

OSIRIS-REx Mission (NASA, YouTube Channel)
OSIRIS-REx Mission (NASA, Official Website)

OSIRIS-REx entered orbit around Bennu on 31 December 2018 (Lonnie Shekhtman, Osiris-Rex Mission)

There are many reasons that Bennu is an interesting object, but one of its biggest claims to fame is that it is a “potentially hazardous object” that is listed on the Sentry Risk Table with the second-highest cumulative rating on the Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale. The only one with a higher rating is asteroid (29075) 1950 DA (JPL/NASA) (Wikipedia). Neither of these asteroids are very likely to hit Earth, but they are the most likely (that we know of, so far).

That holiday season also brought continuing coverage of Japan’s nail-biting Hayabusa2 Mission to asteroid 162173 Ryugu (Wikipedia). The mission is scheduled to collect a sample of Ryugu and return it to Earth in December 2020.

Here’s a fun bit of trivia. Last summer Brian May also created a 3D stereoscopic image of Ryugu using a picture captured by Hayabusa2.

Queen’s Brian May Will Rock You with This Stereo Image of Asteroid Ryugu (Meghan Bartels, Space.com)

Finally, closer to Earth, the most recent development of the season is that China successfully landed the Chang’e 4 rover on the far side of the Moon.

Here’s a link to a video that explains why this is a big deal.

China Is The First To Land On The Dark Side Of The Moon (Tech Insider, YouTube)

Of course, almost every story takes advantage of the teachable moment to clarify that it should be called the “far side” rather than “dark side” of the Moon, because it isn’t dark there. There are also inevitable references to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. In fact, when I went searching on YouTube for videos about China’s landing, it served up this trippy 360° video.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Rexstick (YouTube Channel)

I’m sort of sad that it happens to be Pink Floyd’s album that’s getting a bit of play over this, because the more relevant rock music about the Moon is probably David Bowie’s Space Oddity. Notably, astronaut Chris Hadfield paid homage to this by making a music video of it while living on the International Space Station (ISS).

NOVA’s Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers (YouTube Channel)
NOVA’s Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers (Official Website)

Here’s a fantastic 360° video that frames a trip to the Moon as a tribute to David Bowie.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

NPR’s Skunk Bear (YouTube Channel)
NPR’s Skunk Bear (Official Website)

So that’s a wrap up of that wild holiday season in space exploration, and I hope you enjoyed the detours into rock ‘n’ roll, too.

Space Rocks & Happy New Year!

If you want to learn more about the the Solar System, explore this Toy World!

Click the 360° image below to explore it, click the menu in the upper right for controls and click “i” buttons on/off for links to experiences. Use “portals” to visit otherToy Worlds.

You can also explore this Toy World on Kuula.

Find out more about Solar System, Space, Space Travel and Music …

Odd Jobs

~ mehopper

Still deciding what you want to be when you grow up?

Are you considering a second career?

Before you pick up the want ads or head out to the career center to look for your next career opportunity, how about considering something a little off of the beaten path?

For example, if you love dogs, what about a career in Doggy Daycare?

Scripps News (YouTube Channel)
Scripps News (Official Website)

If caring for puppies is a little too mundane for you, how about becoming a Panda Keeper, Chocolate Maker, Crossword Constructor or even a Trapeze Artist?

If Trapeze Artist is even a bit too down-to-Earth for you, what about becoming a professional Wingwalker? Here’s a 360° video with an inside look at what it entails.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

The Telegraph (YouTube Channel)
The Telegraph (Official Website)

That’s just one of the jobs The Telegraph created as part of their Weird and Wonderful Jobs in 360° YouTube series. Other fun jobs include Penguin Keeper at Sea Life London Aquarium, Professional stunt driver at Mercedes Benz world and Model maker at LEGOLAND.

If you’re in good shape and can hold your breath a really long time, perhaps you might even consider joining a troupe of Merfolk?

Yes, it’s a real career! Here’s a story about it.

Professional Mermaids Work Their Tails Off (CNN, YouTube)

If you’re considering joining the merfolk ranks, you might want to head to Sacramento, CA to attend the California Mermaid Convention.

Here are a few more resources to help get you started on a less “traditional” career path.

20 Of The Most Bizarre Jobs People Have Around The World (LOLWOT)
25 Odd Jobs That Make Good Money (Anthony Dejolde, Lifehack)

Bizarre Jobs (Job Monkey)
Unique Jobs (Job Monkey)

Happy odd job hunting! 🙂

Find out more about careers …

Creepy Old Bots

~ mehopper

Before there were robots, there were automata.

Automata are old-fashioned robot like contraptions, and they tend to make the news from time to time.

The latest example is a 360° video featurette from the BBC about The House of Automata. Here’s a link to that video.

The Strange Dolls That Come to Life (BBC Global)

Personally, I find the creatures like the ones in that video a bit creepy.

It turns out that I’m not alone. Here’s a whole video about creepy automatons.

Slapped Ham (YouTube Channel)

The thing I find even creepier than the bots in the video is what people paid for them!

It must be an acquired taste.

While many automata of a certain age tend to be kind of creepy, some aren’t so bad. In fact, they come in all shapes and sizes, and some of them can be quite pretty as well as fascinating.

A great place to see that as well as to learn about automata is at the Morris Museum in Morristown, NJ. That’s because Murtogh Guinness, of Guinness beer fame, was an avid collector of automata and their close relatives, mechanical musical instruments. He left his entire collection of more than 700 gadgets to the Mooris Museum.

Here’s a video and link about that motherload of automata.

The Midnight Archive (YouTube Channel)
The Midnight Archive (Official Website)

Musical Machines & Living Dolls: Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata from the Murtogh D. Guinness Collection (Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ)

Here’s a link to the history of Pierre Jaquet-Droz’s lovely artists mentioned in the video.

Pierre Jaquet-Droz’s Writer, Lady Musician and Draftsman (History of Computers)

While it doesn’t always make the news, there is a surprisingly large community of fans of both old and new automata. There’s even a yearly AutomataCon at the Morris Museum.

Find out more about automata and bots in general …

Wingsuit Rush!

~ mehopper

Hey, adrenaline junkies, how about a quick fix?

Remember all of those action movies where people jump out of airplanes or off of buildings wearing wingsuits?

Did you ever think it would be cool to do that for real?

Well, now you can get a sense of what it would be like.

Here are some 360° videos that share the experience from the jumper’s point of view. It’s the next best thing to doing it yourself, so don’t forget to look around!

In this first video, Jeb Corlis jumps out of a plane with a group of friends. It starts off as a nice, peaceful experience, but the suspense builds by the end as the ground comes up to greet you.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Jeb Corliss (YouTube Channel)

Of course, the above video was cut so that you didn’t actually get to see the landing. Here’s a short, fast clip of someone wingsuiting over Dubai, and it shows what it’s like to land. You also get to see what it’s like to jump from a plane and then land on the ground in about a minute and a half after visiting some skyscrapers up close and personal in between. Geronimo!

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Dubai360 (YouTube Channel)

As fun as it is to see what it’s like to jump out of a plane and not go splat, the experience of “basejumping” off of stationary things like cliffs can be even more adrenaline inducing. Here’s a dramatic perspective from Jokke Sommer and Halvor Angvik whose basejump takes them up close and personal with the mountains of Stryn, Norway.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Making View AS (YouTube Channel)

Finally, my favorite video of all shows Gabriel Lott jumping off of a mountain, buzzing some traditional skydivers, and then landing near a beautiful beach! 🙂

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

If all of this adventure from the safety of your own screen isn’t enough of an adrenaline rush, and you’re just dying to get out and try it yourself, here’s a few things to consider before you “try it at home.”

First, there’s a lot more to it than just buying a suit from a vendor like Squirrel and jumping off of a cliff or building. Here’s a nice one minute video primer that covers the basics of what you really need to do before you jump.

Rated Red (YouTube Channel)

Here’a a helpful article with even more information published by a place called Jumptown that just happens to be a skydiving center here in Boston.

How to Become a Wingsuit Flyer (Jumptown)

Here’s another nice, honest article about wingsuiting.

10 Things No One Tells You Before You Become a Wingsuit Jumper (Francis Blagburn, The Telegraph)

Of course, it’s one thing to find the obligatory Wingsuit flying article on Wikipedia. It’s another to find their page with the List of fatalities due to wingsuit flying.

Personally, I file this under things that should make sane people just say, no!

Still, I hope you enjoyed this vicarious adrenaline rush compliments of some adventuresome folks who didn’t say no, and then even took 360° cameras along so us landlubbers could experience their rides, too!

If you like adventures like this, then perhaps you will enjoy these other posts …

Heights!
Up, Up and Away!
Go for a Fly!
NYC Highs
Extreme Biking, Artfully!
Catch Some Waves!
Zip the World!

Find out about other ways to get around in the air and adventure in general …

Candy for Nerds

~ mehopper

This is the time of year when people in northern latitudes head out on vacation and look for fun things to do along the way.

How about adding a candy factory tour to the itinerary instead?

Yes indeed, this is a fun, geeky thing you can do in many places. In fact, the Food Network even created a lovely series of four short one’ish minute 360° videos that show tours of candy factories where some of the most popular candies are made.

How M&Ms Are Made Exclusive 360° Candy Factory Tour (Food Network, YouTube)
How Pez Are Made 360° Candy Factory Tour (Food Network, YouTube)
360° Exclusive How Peeps Are Made (Food Network, YouTube)
How Smarties Are Made Exclusive 360° Candy Factory Tour (Food Network, YouTube)

Of course, even smart nerds might like to know how Dum Dums are made. Sadly, I couldn’t find a 360° tour of a Dum Dum factory from the Food Network, but I found another video that does the job nicely.

How Dum Dums Makes 12 Million Lollipops a Day (Food Tech Today)

There’s also an entire Website and YouTube Channel devoted to Dum Dums!

Dum-Dums (Website) and Dum-Dums (YouTube Channel)

I also tried to find a 360° tour of a good old fashioned basic Nerd factory, but I found this one about Nerd Ropes instead. It is a bit silly, but it does also include an explanation of how Nerds are made.

Nerds on Food Networks Unwrapped

If you are in the mood to really geek out and learn a ton of things about candy and its history, then here’s a Mental Floss episode that will certainly add to your candy trivia stash.

38 Sweet Facts About Candy (Mental Floss)

Of course, if that’s a bit too intense for you, then perhaps you would prefer to sit back and enjoy this cute 360° video of a candy coaster ride.

360 Video Roller Coaster VR HD Gummy Bear Candy Coaster Animated (The Official Gummibär Channel)

If you decide that you do want to take a candy factory tour, then here are a few articles to get you started on planning your visit.

10 Best Candy Factory Tours In The World (10 Most Today)
Live Out Your Willy Wonka Fantasies at These 10 Candy-Factory Tours (Kristine Hansen, Fodors)
Chocolate and Candy Factory Tours (Elizabeth LaBau, The Spruce Eats)

Find out more about food …

Exoplanet Junket

~ mehopper

This week NASA released a new project that they’ve dubbed the Exoplanet Travel Bureau.

The core of the project consists of a set of interactive 360° images that show “imagined” surfaces of five exoplanets (TRAPPIST-1e, Kepler-16b, Kepler-186f, PSO J318.5-22 and HD 40307 g). Here are three articles about the experience.

This Brilliant Interactive From NASA Lets You Virtually Explore Planets Far, Far Away (Jacinta Bowler, Science Alert)
Visit Exotic Exoplanets with NASA Visualization Tool (Mike Wall, Space.com)
NASA’s New VR Demo Puts You on Distant Exoplanets (Ryan Whitwam, Extreme Tech)

NASA’s new experience includes a feature that let’s you download snazzy travel posters for each of the planets, and those posters have a backstory of their own. Here’s a Buzz 60 story about three of the posters in the new project.

Buzz60 (YouTube Channel)
Buzz60 (Facebook Page)

Here’s a Slate article with some more background on the Work Projects Administration (WPA) See America poster series that inspired the style of NASA’s travel posters.

See America Through a Nostalgic Lens With These Neo-Vintage Travel Posters (Kristin Hohenadel, Slate)

This isn’t the first time that NASA has dabbled in publishing travel posters. The three exoplanet posters featured in the video are actually a subset of fifteen posters that NASA released in 2016 as a series entitled Visions of the Future.

Here are some links about the posters and where you can still download them for yourself.
Exotic Cosmic Locales Available as Space Tourism Posters (NASA/JPL)
Space Tourism Posters (NASA)
Visions of the Future Posters (NASA/JPL)

NASA also published this special page about the inspiration for the posters.
About Visions of the Future Posters (NASA/JPL)

Of course, the timing of the release of the Exoplanet Travel Bureau is no coincidence — it’s neatly timed to coincide with last month’s launch of NASA’s planet hunting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Here’s a short one minute explanation from NASA Goddard about what TESS will be doing.

NASA Goddard (YouTube Channel)
Goddard Space Flight Center (Official Website)

Find out more about planetary systems and planets near and far …

Octopuses from Space!

~ mehopper

Did you hear the one about the octopuses from space?

It sounds like the title of a cheesy sci-fi movie, doesn’t it?

But it isn’t, this time, or at least, yet. Instead, it’s actually an oddball theory that’s been put forth in a recently published “scientific” article that’s getting quite a lot of buzz in the media lately.

First, let’s start with the particular article about octopuses that is causing all of the fuss.

It appeared in the journal Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, and it was published with a list of an 33 co-authors.

Cause of Cambrian Explosion – Terrestrial or Cosmic? (Edward J.Steele, Et al., Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology)

One can’t help but wonder if there was a share the blame scenario going on. It’s not even the theory that is suspect. The problem is in the scientific aspects of the work. Even the sensationalist article in Newsweek politely described most responses from the scientific community as “critical.”

Are Octopuses From Outer Space? Study Suggests Cephalopod Eggs Traveled to Earth on a Comet (Katherine Hignett, Newsweek)

Here’s a link to a YouTube video that covers the article and also uses the word “critical” to describe the scientific responses.

Is The Octopus An Alien? (Mach NBC News)

Personally, I checked to see if the article was published on April 1st — that would’ve been a bit o’ fun, but it wasn’t. Perhaps they submitted it on April 1st, though?

Anyway, all joking aside, the core of the article is based on an old and relatively well established theory about how life began on Earth. The theory is known as panspermia, and it really has been discussed by serious scientists.

Panspermia is a hypothesis proposing that microscopic life forms that can survive the effects of space, such as extremophiles, become trapped in debris ejected into space after collisions between planets and small Solar System bodies that harbor life. Some organisms may travel dormant for an extended amount of time before colliding randomly with other planets or intermingling with proto-planetary disks. Under certain ideal impact circumstances (into a body of water, for example), and ideal conditions on a new planet’s surfaces, it is possible that the surviving organisms could become active and begin to colonize their new environment. — Wikipedia

Here is a link to a video segment that covers the scientific basis of the panspermia theory relative to Mars, and an article from Scientific American that goes into more depth about various discussions about it among well known scientists.

Panspermia is Theory that Life on Earth Came from Mars (Tech Insider)
The Origins of Directed Panspermia (Christian Orlic, Scientific American)

Of course, the usual biological suspects mentioned are those cute little water bears, but this is not the first time octopuses have been included in the list of suspects.

Given the recent understanding of the necessary conditions for life existing on large ocean moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the theory that octopuses are from elsewhere in our solar system isn’t quite as crazy as it might sound.

Here’s a video about Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

NASA Just Revealed There Could Be Life On Saturn’s Moon, Enceladus (Seeker)

If you listen to the whole story, you will hear that some scientists tend to believe that it is actually Jupiter’s moon Europa that is the older, and thus the more likely candidate to harbor ocean life beyond Earth. This has been reinforced by a study just published in Nature this month that shows reanalysis of old data gathered by NASA’s Galileo probe back in the 1990s provided unexpected evidence of salt water plumes on Europa.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (YouTube Channel)
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Official Website)

Evidence of a Plume on Europa from Galileo Magnetic and Plasma Wave Signatures (Xianzhe Jia, et al. Nature)

Unfortunately, the scientific basis of the particular article in the news about a life form on Earth being from space, while not as nutty as it might sound, has serious flaws. Here are two articles that are far more elaborate about the criticisms being waged against the article.

Octopuses Are Not Aliens, But Boy Are They a Bunch of Beautiful Weirdos (By Sara Chodosh, Popular Science)
No, Octopuses Don’t Come From Outer Space (Brandon Specktor, Live Science)

Still, you can kind of see why they would think that octopuses, in particular, are alien. They are indisputably the weirdest, intelligent life form on Earth. That much is pretty much hard to deny. Here’s a link to a lovely video that goes into just some of the reasons that is the case.

Octopuses 101 (Nattional Geographic Wild)

Here are links to a couple of entertaining videos that show what it’s like to meet octopuses.

My Date With A Giant Pacific Octopus! (Be Smart)
Giant Pacific Octopus (Discovery)

Those where in captivity. Here’s what they look like in the wild, and in a full 360° to boot!

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Laura James (YouTube Channel)
Laura James (Official Website)

Okay, this could go on and on. I’ve got videos of these creatures escaping from a jar, going through holes the size of a quarter, stealing crabs from fisherman, using shells to hide from prey, walking on land to hunt and a ton of other absurd things that they can do that you don’t exactly expect from a lump of flesh with some eyes and suckers. You can see them all on the octopus page if you like.

However, one of the most bizarre things about them turns out to be their DNA. Here are some videos and links that show how Ragsdale Lab at the University of Chicago found out some extremely surprising truths about octopus DNA that explains their amazing powers of camouflage, dexterity and deception.

University of Chicago (YouTube Channel)
University of Chicago (Official Website)

Cliff Ragsdale Lab Leads International Team in Successful Sequencing of Octopus Genome (Department of Neurobiology, University of Chicago)
The Octopus Genome and the Evolution of Cephalopod Neural and Morphological Novelties (Nature)
The Octopus Genome and the Evolution of Cephalopod Neural and Morphological Novelties (Caroline B. Albertin, et al. Nature)

So octopuses are impressively weird, and they are wicked smart too. That doesn’t make them “aliens,” right?

Well, hold on to your brains, because that isn’t even the strangest thing about them. New research has shown that they can even edit their own RNA! Here’s a link to a video about this along with some supporting sources.

Why The Octopus Is The Weirdest Animal On Earth (Insider Science)
Curiouser and Curiouser–Octopus’s Evolution Is Even Stranger Than Thought (Bret Stetka, Scientific American)
How Octopuses, Squid and Cuttlefish Defy Genetics Central Dogma (Eureka Alert, AAAS)
Global Proliferation of Cephalopods (Zoë A. Doubleday et. al., Current Biology)

In the end, octopuses really are relatively alien, whether or not they’re from space. The thing is, even if they are from Earth, which honestly, they probably are, then that means some core things emerge, independently, in entirely different biological milieus.

That’s kind of awesome news, when you think about it!

Who knows? Maybe water bears really are from Mars and octopuses are from Jupiter, or well, Europa specifically. There is also that pesky little problem of that unexplained methane on Mars, so who knows?

We could by now, but we don’t.

Specific theories about octopuses and water bears aside, there are serious scientists that do believe that life on Earth may have come from space in general, and that said life might still be out there elsewhere in our solar system right now. We also have the technology that we need to find out what is, or is not, lurking about on other planets and moons. The real question is whether or not it will happen, soon, perhaps in some of our lifetimes, or at all, in the future history of humanity.

Find out more about octopuses, water bears and life in general …

Great Views of Earth

~ mehopper

April 22nd is Earth Day! In honor of that, here are some great ways to see the honoree.

First, you can get a nice view from this neat 360° video from Seeker. It essentially shows you what it would feel like if you could just fly straight up and see the Earth from space.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Seeker VR (YouTube Channel)

National Geographic also just released a 360° video connected to their documentary series One Strange Rock that lets you see the Earth from the International Space Station (ISS).

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

National Geographic (YouTube Channel)
National Geographic (Official Website)

For a really, really extreme wide shot of Earth, there’s a relatively hot off the press snap from New Horizons. It was taken from about 3.79 billion miles away. Not surprisingly, this is the record for the furthest away a picture of Earth has ever been taken, and this video covers both the shot as well as some interesting context about how it was taken.

STM Daily News (YouTube Channel)
STM Daily News (Official Website)

Here are some more in-depth articles about the shot.

These Record-Breaking Pictures Were Taken by the Farthest Camera from Earth (Ben Guarino, Washington Post)
New Horizons Snaps Farthest Image Ever Taken From Earth (Jason Daley, Smithsonian Magazine)

Of course, the video paid a humble tribute to the iconic Pale Blue Dot (Planetary Society) image taken by Voyager 1 that was then made famous by this commentary by Carl Sagan.

CarlSaganDotCom (YouTube Channel)
Carl Sagan (Official Website)

Those are certainly some awe inspiring views of Earth! Along the way it is hard not to notice that NASA has a lot to do with all of those long shots.

As great as it is to have the pictures and the knowledge from the missions, it turns out that NASA keeps pretty busy taking care of our home planet, too. Here’s a lovely article that Forbes published for Earth Day that highlights the many ways that NASA is working to save the Earth.

The 19 Small Ways That NASA Will Try To Save The Earth (Ethan Siegel, Forbes)

Find out more about our planet Earth, getting to space as well as zooming in and out …

Dinos for Geeks

~ mehopper

There’s been a lot of cool news for dinosaur lovers lately.

The most bizarre story is about an extinct lizard called Saniwa ensidens that had four eyes.

Here’s Why an Ancient Lizard Had 4 Eyes (Laura Geggel, Live Science)

Creative-Tube (YouTube Channel)

There are also some massive 170 million year old dinosaur footprints from the Jurassic period that have been discovered on Scotland’s Isle Of Skye.

Huge Dinosaur Footprints Discovered on Scottish Coast (Michael Greshko, National Geographic)
A sauropod-dominated tracksite from Rubha nam Brathairean, Isle of Skye, Scotland (Paige E. dePolo, et. al., Scotish Journal of Geology)

That’s cool news for dinosaur lovers, but it’s not all that geeky.

Before we dive into the really geeky stuff, check out this 360° video from the American Museum of National History in which Mike Novacek describes how Roy Chapman Andrews led an expedition to the Gobi Desert back in the 1920s.

American Museum of Natural History (YouTube Channel)
American Museum of Natural History (Official Website)

You can find out a ton more about the expeditions and dinosaurs in general on the American Museum of National History YouTube Channel series Dinosaurs Explained.

That’s probably the kind of methodology that you think of when you think about paleontology. Paleontologists do still use those traditional field methods, but they also use some fairly geeky technology these days. Here’s a video in which paleontologist Ken Lacovara explains how his field uses laser scanning and 3D modeling.

Live Science (YouTube Channel)
ive Science (Official Website)

Here’s a link to an even geekier video and related story about how the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is scanning and printing fossils.

How to 3D Print a Dinosaur (Mashable, YouTube)
Hold a T-Rex Bone in Your Bare Hands, Invites Smithsonian (Eric Larson, Mashable)

Doesn’t all that talk about 3D dinosaur parts make you just itch to see a complete one?

Here’s a 360° video in which paleontologist Dr. Ken Lacovara “shows” us a giant dinosaur called Dreadnoughtus while he explains how it was discovered. If you have a powerful computer, change the quality setting on the video to 1080s for a more impressive experience.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Jaunt XR (YouTube Channel)
Jaunt XR (Facebook)

This wasn’t the first neat 360° video about dinosaurs. Over a year ago Sir David Attenborough worked with BBC One to make a 360° video to introduce the biggest dinosaur ever discovered. Here’s a link to that video, and again, increase the video quality for a better experience.

Meet the Largest Dinosaur Ever Discovered – Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur (BBC One, YouTube)

The BBC also published a website with more backstory about the project. If you follow the link, be sure to also click the tabs for more information.

BBC Taster Attenborough 360 (BBC)

Here’s another story about the project.

Sir David Attenborough set to Reveal the Biggest Dinosaur Ever to Walk the Planet in Upcoming BBC Show (Doug Bolton, The Independent)

Finally, I saved the geekiest stuff for last. If you crave realistic extinct creatures, how about some real ones? Impossible, you think? Not necessarily! De-extinction is a real thing that is being actively explored, and while true dinosaurs are still far fetched, species that only went extinct within the last 500 years or so are not all that far out of reach.

Here’s a link to a video and news story about the state of the art in resurrecting extinct species as well as the complex pros and cons of doing so.

How Close Are We to Resurrecting Extinct Species? (Seeker, YouTube)
The Increasingly Realistic Prospect of “Extinct Animal” Zoos (Christine Ro, BBC)

Find out more about dinosaurs …

Space Art & Junk

~ mehopper

In certain circles it is not uncommon to trip across the debate “Is graffiti art?” You can also find scads about it online if you are so inclined (Google). However, the debate doesn’t come up all that often in the context of conversations about satellites or space… until now.

In 2018 a company named Rocket Lab launched some previously announced satellites from New Zealand. They also launched an unannounced satellite, and more notably, one with no explicit scientific or technical purpose. That satellite was The Humanity Star, and it was a carbon fiber geodesic sphere about 3 feet in diameter that is designed to reflect the sun in order to be one of the most visible objects in the night sky from anywhere on Earth for about nine months. Here’s an article about the satellite, its sponsor, Rocket Lab’s CEO Peter Beck, as well as the message that it is intended to convey.

Space-Spotting: How To See Humanity Star and Other Objects in Orbit (Lisa Ruth Rand, Popular Mechanics)

The satellite was intended to be a relatively short-lived statement of inspiration, but it created quite a stir. Here’s a link to a one minute video about the satellite, its creator and the controversy surrounding the whole enterprise.

Rocket Lab NZ Blasted for Sending Giant Disco Ball into Space for No Real Scientific Purpose (1 News, YouTube)

The story behind the controversy is that Caleb A. Scharf, Director of Astrobiology at Columbia, published this scathing rant about the satellite via Scientific American.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Satellite Vermin (Caleb A. Scharf, Scientific American)

Scharf’s post was picked up and echoed by other news outlets. Here are some examples.

Space Gets an Artificial Star. Astronomers Ask: Do We Need More? (Christina Caron, New York Times)
Company Shoots Shiny Orb into Orbit and Angers Astronomers Over Space Graffiti. (Ben Guarino, Washtington Post)

The truth is that if you dig deep enough, there was probably more controversy about this than was warrented. First, while “light pollution” is a serious issue (worthy of an entire post), this particular case of it is a temporary and spurious scapegoat. The same is true about the accusation that it is contributing to the problem of “space junk” since this modest little missionary was designed to follow modern protocols for such things and plunge to its own pre-calculated death upon the conclusion of its short life.

Interestingly, while the satellite probably didn’t deserve the bum rap it got, it did end up serving a higher purpose. It brought attention to the serious, real problem of the massive amount of “space junk” that’s floating around our planet now and the bevy of stuff that is likely to join the ruckus in the near future.

Here’s a two minute visualization generated by Stuart Grey using tracking data from Space-Track.org that shows how space debris has propagated over the last half century.

Stuart Grey (YouTube Channel)
Stuart Grey (Official Website)

Of course, the problem of “space junk” in not a new and shiny problem. It has been a growing concern in scientific and engineering circles for decades. Here’s a link to a PSA from the ESA about it.

Dealing with space debris (ESA, YouTube)

Here’s a link to a related segment from the BBC.

Time to Take Out Space Trash (BBC Newsnight, YouTube)

Here’s a link to a fantastic article from the Washington Post that also provides more specifics about controversial subjects like “collisional cascading impacts” a.k.a. Kessler Syndrome (Wikipedia) and the CubeSats that are especially worrying to some space scientists and engineers.

Thousands of Tiny Satellites are about to go into Space and Possibly Ruin it Forever (Avi Selk, Washington Post)

If you are so inclined, you can track objects yourself at SATFLARE: Online Satellite and Flare Tracking. Space.com also maintains a site where you can track the Latest News About Space Junk and Orbital Debris.

If you think satellites are cool in general, then you might want to check out an app that Google Earth and Analytic Graphics Inc. made to track the positions of satellites around Earth. You can find out about the app on this blog post.

There’s even a whole site dedicated to Satellite News!

Finally, if you want to learn more about space and space travel, explore Space Depot!

Touch the 360° image to begin exploring, touch the objects and doors to enter virtual 360° experiences, and touch “i”s to learn about the experiences.


You can also explore it on Kuula.

You can also choose your own adventure by clicking on the links below.

“Space”
Universe (Astronomical Instrument)
Galaxy Milky Way, Andromeda
Planetary System Star, Brown Dwarf, Planet, Moon

Our Neighborhood
Solar System Sun
Terrestrial Planet Mercury, Venus, Earth (Moon), Mars
Asteroid Belt Ceres, Vesta
Jovian Planet Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
Trans-Neptunian Object
Kuiper Belt Pluto, Haumea, Makemake
Scattered Disc Eris, Sedna, Planet X
Oort Cloud Etc. Scholz’s Star
Small Body Comet, Centaur, Asteroid

Find out more about getting to space, uses for satellites, space and arts in general…

Island Escapes

~ mehopper

One of the more entertaining stories to hit the net recently was a tale of some hearty Kiwis who successfully got away from a local alcohol ban by building their own island in nearby international waters.

New Zealanders Build Island in Bid to Avoid Alcohol Ban (BBC News)
To Avoid New Year’s Drinking Ban, Group Builds Tiny Private Island in New Zealand Waters (Grace Guarnieri, Newsweek)

Fun stuff, but these guys were certainly not the first to cook up a politically motivated scheme to get away from it all at sea. The concept has a long, albeit somewhat dubious, history. Pirates and the whole Water World fiasco aside, way back in 1960s there was a relatively well publicized, but ill-fated experiment dubbed Operation Atlantis.

More recently, there’s the Seasteaders. They periodically provide updates about how their vision of a floating utopia is just around the corner.

TomoNews US (YouTube Channel)

As Climate Change Accelerates, Floating Cities Look Like Less of a Pipe Dream (Mike Ives, New York Times)

Further afield, here’s a TED talk that presents a take on reasons to take to the seas. It does include a few obligatory libertarian cultural allusions to things like Burning Man, but it also covers environmentally responsible reasons for the movement like safety, sustainability as well as much needed new additions for cities and slums.

TEDx Talks (YouTube Channel)
TEDx Talks (Official Website)

If you watch the talk all the way through, you will see that it also covers a few more exotic topics like private floating islands (i.e. really, really huge yachts). If you’ve never come across that concept before, there are hundreds of videos about floating private islands on Youtube.

Now, if you truly love the idea of getting away from it all for libertarian leaning reasons, you could always join the Asgaurdians. Asgardia is Igor Ashurbeyli’s plan for taking the idea of sovereign nation to space. The Asgardians did launch a satellite, but no one is suggesting that if you want to move in with them, you won’t have a long, long wait.

Asgardia, The World’s First ‘Space Nation’, Takes Flight (Andrea Lo, CNN)
Space Nation to Earthlings: Do You Read Us? (Eric Mack, CNET)

Finally, if you are in a position where headlines like this are not terribly relevant, you may be wishing for a good old fashioned, non-politically motivated island escape. If so, then here’s a nice 360° video from Down Under for you.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Australia (YouTube Channel)
Australia (Official Website)

Find out more about sovereign states and government in general…

A Golden Gift

~ mehopper

If you’re looking for a perfect gift for your favorite geek, look no further. Now you can give them a copy of the Voyager Golden Record. Up until 2016, you couldn’t buy a copy, but then Ozma Records ran a brilliant Kickstarter campaign to issue a limited vinyl edition.

Here’s a link to a video about the successful Kickstarter campaign.

NASA’s Golden Records Coming Back To Life, 40 Years Later (NBC Nightly News, YouTube)

The campaign was so successful, they went on to work with Light in the Attic to release a two-disc CD set.

Here’s a link to a one minute video and article about the release.

Soon you can buy NASA’s Earth playlist (Newsy, YouTube)

NASA launched this record into space in 1977. Now, you can own your own copy (Travis M. Andrews, The Washington Post

Finally, here’s a link to a beautfiul 360° video about the Golden Record.

Voyager’s Golden Record Decoded (SciFri, YouTube)

You can find out more about the Voyager Mission on NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Voyager 1 & 2 YouTube Channel

The Voyager spacecraft will continue to send back information, and you can keep track of where they are on this page.

If you want to learn more about the the Solar System, explore this Toy World!

Click the 360° image below to explore it, click the menu in the upper right for controls and click “i” buttons on/off for links to experiences. Use “portals” to visit otherToy Worlds.

You can also explore this Toy World on Kuula.

Perspectives on Earth

~ mehopper

Last week NASA released this fascinating video entitled Our Living Planet based upon 20 years of data from satellites that observe all plant life at the surface of the land and ocean.

NASA Goddard (YouTube Channel)
Goddard Space Flight Center (Official Website)

You can find out more about the video from this article.
The Changing Colors of our Living Planet (NASA)

Of course, releasing fantastic imagery like this is nothing new for NASA — they have a long and illustrious history of sharing iconic imagery to amaze and inspire people around the world.

The most famous image NASA ever shared is the photo known as Earthrise. It was taken by astronaut Bill Anders in 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission, and it was the first time a human ever saw the whole earth from space. Here is a video about the image that was released in 2013 on the image’s 45th anniversary.

NASA Goddard (YouTube Channel)
Goddard Space Flight Center (Official Website)

The next most famous image from NASA is probably The Blue Marble. It was taken from Apollo 17 in 1972. Here is a NASA video from 2015 that discusses the original image as well as newer imagery captured by the Deep Space Climate Observatory.

ScienceAtNASA (YouTube Channel)
NASA Science (Official Website)

These two images may be the most famous, but thanks to Carl Sagan, none has been more inspirational than the Pale Blue Dot. It was captured by Voyager 1, and here is a video of Sagan unveiling the photo in 1990.

The Planetary Society (YouTube Channel)
The Planetary Society (Official Website)

The press conference was inspiring, but it was actually the language that Sagan later used to frame the image that truly captures the imagination.

CarlSaganDotCom (YouTube Channel)
Carl Sagan (Official Website)

Of course, NASA continues to share awesome imagery from time to time. For example, back in 2012 they released Earth at Night. It is also sometimes called “The Black Marble,” and it is an animation of Earth’s city lights assembled from data from the Suomi NPP satellite.

NASA Goddard (YouTube Channel)
Goddard Space Flight Center (Official Website)

NASA also ran a campaign for Earth Day in 2014 that generated the Global Selfie.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (YouTube Channel)
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Official Website)

NASA has already released numerous 360° Videos related to other planets, so it is only a matter of time before they release an explorable 360° image or video of Earth. In the meantime you can enjoy this 360° Video created by the Opaque Media Group to promote their VR application Earthlight.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Opaque Media (YouTube Channel)

Find out more about Earth …

Up, Up and Away

~ mehopper

Want to take a ten minute break and float away from it all?

Here are some nifty 360° videos that will take you on some virtual hot air balloons rides!

This first clip is from the The Golden Ring of Russia Air Balloon Festival.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

AirPano VR (YouTube Channel)
AirPano VR (Official Website)

The next one is a one minute view of a ride in Cappadocia, Turkey.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

VIEMR – Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality (YouTube Channel)

This one takes you on a quick ride over the Theban Mountains in Egypt.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Vocativ (YouTube Channel)
Vocativ (Official Website)

If you’re hooked, there a ton more hot air balloon 360° videos …

Finally, for those who are too young to know or too old to remember, here’s a fifty year old pre-MTV flashback by the The 5th Dimension singing the song that inspired the title of this post.

Groovy!

If you like this adventures then perhaps you will enjoy these other posts …

Heights!
Wingsuit Rush!
Go for a Fly!
NYC Highs
Extreme Biking, Artfully!
Catch Some Waves!
Zip the World!

Find out more about getting around by air, adventure and the World in general …

Heights!

~ mehopper

A Monday morning caffeine fix is nice, but how about a serious adrenaline rush instead?

Nothing will get your pulse going like some good old fashioned adventure at extreme heights. Luckily, there are a ton of 360° videos on YouTube designed to do just that, so pick your poison from these five specially selected experiences, don’t forget to expand the video, turn up the resolution, look around, and especially down! 🙂

Dive from a very tall cliff …

Cliff Diving From a Rocky Ledge in Italy (Red Bull Cliff Diving)

Walk a tightrope over a deep canyon …

Walk The Tight Rope (Discovery)

Take a paramotor flight over some water falls …

Paramotor Flight Above Iguazu Falls Rafael Goberna (Red Bull)

If you haven’t had enough of a rush yet, then check out the Thrillseekers YouTube Channel, and if you’re a real adrenaline junkie, head over to the ExLife YouTube Channel!

Finally, if you enjoy adventures with a side of adrenaline then check out these other posts …

Up, Up and Away!
Wingsuit Rush!
Go for a Fly!
NYC Highs
Extreme Biking, Artfully!
Catch Some Waves!
Zip the World!

Find out more about adventure …

Dive-in-Art

~ mehopper

Check out this video from the Lower Keys Underwater Music Festival.

FloridaKeysTV (YouTube Channel)
FloridaKeysTV (Official Website)

There are a ton of YouTube videos about the annual fest, and here’s an article about it.

Watch An Underwater Music Festival ‘Make Waves’ for Reef Protection (Florida Keys News Bureau)

You might think that this event is fairly unique, but it turns out that there are lots of divers who are also fans of the arts, so “arts under the sea” is not nearly as rare as you might think. For example, underwater art museums are thriving. Here’s an article about where you can find your nearest “dive-in” art museum.

Underwater Museums of the world: Immerse Yourself in Art in the Depths of the Sea (Ukranian Shipping Magazine)

Here is a video about the Museo Subacuático de Arte (MUSA) mentioned in the article.

Dmitriy (YouTube Channel)

There are even some artists who are specifically known for exhibiting underwater. The photographer Andreas Franke once made news by staging an art exhibit on the Vandenberg battleship that was deliberately sunk off the coast of Key West to create the second largest man made reef on the planet (watch the Vanderberg sink). Here’s a 360° video of the exhibit.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Subsurface Media (YouTube Channel)

The pictures from the exhibit were brought up to create a landlubber’s exhibit. Franke moved on to create an exhibit on the SS Stavronikita off of Barbados, and then he went on to create another exhibit on the USS Mohawk CGC off the coast of Sanibel Island.

Barbados Property Search (YouTube Channel)

Ghostly Underwater Art Gallery Breathes New Life to Sunken Ship (Sheena McKenzie, CNN)

Jason deCaires Taylor is another artist who is known for his underwater work, but he specializes in sculpture rather than photography. Here’s a TED talk where Taylor provides insights about what motivates his work.

TED (YouTube Channel)
TED (Official Website)

The eclectic multimedia artist Doug Aitken worked with LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art to construct a large-scale underwater installation entitled Underwater Pavilions off of Catalina Island. Here’s an official video from MOCA about the work.

The Museum of Contemporary Art (YouTube Channel)
The Museum of Contemporary Art (Official Website)

Here’s a cool 360° video that gives a great sense of what it’s like to visit the exhibit.
Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Superswell VR (YouTube Channel)

The current that tends to run through all of the underwater artist’s work is the appreciation and preservation of the Earth’s ocean environments, so please share this to support their work!

Here are links to some other, related posts on Cosma.

Walk-in-Art
Art Revisited
Leonardo Lately
Magical Paintings
Into Van Gogh
Walk-in-Art & Museums!

Enjoy, but beware, it’s easy to get lost in 360° art!

Find out more about the arts and the ocean …

TRAPPIST-1

~ mehopper

You’ve probably heard that NASA has found a trove of “Earth-like” planets circling the TRAPPIST-1 system roughly 40 light years away, but just in case you haven’t, here’s a short video from NASA/JPL about the discovery.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (YouTube Channel)
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Official Website)

Most entertainingly, here’s a 360° YouTube video published by NASA/JPL that let’s you experience an artist’s conception of the view from the 4th planet in the system.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (YouTube Channel)
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Official Website)

Here’s the text posted with the video as context.

This 360-degree panorama depicts the surface of a newly detected planet, TRAPPIST-1d, part of a seven planet system some 40 light years away. You can explore this artist’s rendering of an alien world by moving the view using your mouse or your mobile device. The depiction is based on the latest scientific data about this planetary system, and this world’s sister planets can be seen as bright points of light in a dark sky. Each world is roughly in Earth’s size range, in terms of both mass and diameter. Further observations will be needed to determine whether any or all of these worlds might be habitable.

Find out more about TRAPPIST 1 …

TRAPPIST 1 (NASA Exoplanets)
TRAPPIST 1 (Wikipedia)

Find out more about planetary systems, planets and astronomical instruments …

Molecular Machines

~ mehopper

Molecular machines have been around for a while, but these little wonders are getting the public’s attention today because a trio of scientists were just awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their progress in the area. Here’s a link to a video and other resources about this neat development.

Mini Machines Win 2016 Nobel Prize for Chemistry (Euronews)

World’s Smallest Gadgets Bag Nobel Chemistry Prize (Daniel Clery, AAAS Science Magazine)
Press Release: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 (Official Press Release)
Molecular machine (Wikipedia)

File this one under “insanely cool technology” and “things that will change everything!”

Find out more about Find out more about machines, physics, science and innovation in general … …

RIP Rossetta!

~ mehopper

The “Little Mission that Could” has come to an end, but what a mission it was to watch! In honor of the success, here are some videos and articles about the many, many accomplishments.

Euronews (YouTube Channel)
Euronews (Official Website)

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (YouTube Channel)
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Official Website)

Rosetta Mission Ends With Spacecraft’s Dive Into Comet (Kenneth Chang, New York Times)
Landing on a Comet, 317 Million Miles From Home (Jonathan Corum, New York Times)

Comet Landing: Organic Molecules Detected by Philae (Paul Rincon, BBC News)
Rosetta Comet: More Black Swan than Yellow Duck (Jonathan Amos, BBC News)

A Cosmic First! Rosetta Probe Goes Into Odd-Duck Orbit Around Comet (Alan Boyle, NBC News)
Rosetta Spacecraft’s First Images of Comet (Larisa Epatko, PBS News Hour)

Philae Lander’s Data Reveal Surprising Details About Comet (Reuters)

It may be a superlative that is way, way overused, but sometimes it is just the right word, and in this case it certainly applies.

Awesome!

More information…
Rosetta Spacecraft (Wikipedia)
Rosetta Mission (ESA, Official Site)

Find out more about comets …

Smart Crows

~ mehopper

Note This content is not very elaborate as well as a bit dated, but it is important for historical purposes. It was the first adventure (a.k.a. Post) on this iteration of the Cosma website way back in September 15, 2016.

Sometimes news just catches your eye.

Here’s a video got me today — enjoy!

Nature (YouTube Channel)
Nature (Official Website)

Here are some related news stories I found afterward.

Tool-Using Crow: Rare Bird Joins Clever Animal Elite (Victoria Gill, BBC News)
Scientists Have Found Another Crow That Uses Tools (Ed Yong, The Atlantic)
Discovery of Species-Wide Tool Use in the Hawaiian Crow (Nature)

Find out more about Crows@Cosma …