The Continuing Adventures of Starstuff

Here are the latest supplemental readings for the Cosmos reboot (as usual, cross-posted to Tumbld Thoughts). This post covers episodes 8 ("Sisters of the Sun", I) and 9 ("The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth", II). 

I. The Incredible Shape of Sunspots 

Here are the supplemental readings for the eighth installment of the Cosmos reboot ("Sisters of the Sun"). Readings are loosely organized by topic.

Observing the Night Sky:
Plait, P.   Black Skies, Smiling At Me. Bad Astronomy blog, April 23 (2014).

Klinkenborg, V.   Light Pollution. National Geographic, November (2008).

How to see the Big Dipper, and the famous stars Mizar and Alcor. EarthSky blog, March 24 (2013).

Emergence of a scientific field, in ways that were ahead of its time:
International Year of Astronomy - Annie Jump Cannon. The Museum of Flight.

Stellar Classification System. HyperPhysics.

Payne, C.   Stellar Atmospherics. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 38(221), 33. SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS).

Biba, E.   Why the government should fund unpopular science. Popular Science, October 4 (2013).

Incredible Dynamics, Incredible Universe:
Mann, A.   Tatooine Times Two: Amateur Astronomers Find Planet in Four-Star System. Wired Science, October 15 (2012).

Planets with Two Suns Could Grow Black Trees. Space.com, April 18 (2011).

VLT Captures Stunning Stellar Explosion In 3D. RedOrbit, August 4 (2010).

The Great Eruption of Eta Carinae -- One of the Most Massive Stars in the Milky Way. Daily Galaxy blog, February 15 (2012).

But wait, there's more!
Steffens, M.   Australia's First Astronomers. Astronomy Basics, ABC Science.

Fuller, R.   The Kamilaroi and Euahalayi Emu in the Sky. Australian Indigenous Astronomy blog, March 31 (2014).

Ecology/Energy in Ecosystems. Chapter 14, Ecology. Wikibooks, October 22 (2013).

II. The More Things Change, the More They Are Subject to Uniformitarianism

Here are the supplemental readings for the ninth installment of the Cosmos reboot ("The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth"). A highly-selective (but still excellent) guided tour of the history of life on Earth. Readings are organized by theme.

Hundreds of Billions of _________ (your favorite noun here):

Carboniferous Period. National Geographic.

The Carboniferous. Palaeos.com.

Castro, J.   How do fossils form? LiveScience, June 26 (2013).

Permian-Triassic Extinction. PBS Evolution Library (2001).

How the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event Affected Land-Based Animals. The Epoch Times, October 25 (2011).

The Great Dying. Science@NASA (2002).

Oskin, B.   Earth's Greatest Killer Finally Caught. LiveScience, December 12 (2013).

Plates, Oceans, and Deep Sea Surprises:

Plate Tectonics: Historical Perspective. USGS. 

Mars Surface Made of Shifting Plates Like Earth, Study Suggests. Space.com, August 14 (2012). 

Oceans Atlas. HRW World Atlas (2006).

Atlantic Ocean Geophysical Map. National Geographic.

Pastore, R.   10 GIFs of Deep-Sea Creatures Encountering a Sub. Popular Science, May 2 (2014).

Villanueva, J.C.   Milankovitch Cycle. Universe Today, September 9 (2009).

Starstuff Squared

This post presents the supplemental readings for the fourth (I) and fifth (II) episodes of the Cosmos reboot. These materials are cross-posted to Tumbld Thoughts.

I. Stellar Evolution is Six Points the Natural Law

Here are the supplemental readings for Cosmos, episode IV: "A Sky Full of Ghosts". The readings are organized by theme, and relate to scenes in the episode.

1. The Speed of Light is Not Attainable:
Life's Little Mysteries Staff   Can Matter Travel at Light Speed? LiveScience, September 27 (2012).

Variable Speed of Light: Einstein's theory of General Relativity. Speed of Light in Gravity blog.

2. Relativity Is Not Rocket Science -- it's much harder:
Minute Physics   Relativity Isn't Relative. YouTube, March 28 (2013).

Wolfson, R.   Simply Einstein: Relativity Demystified. W.W. Norton (2003).

3. The Earth is Not a Sphere (and the horizon is an illusion):
Choi, C.Q.   Strange but true: Earth is not a sphere. Scientific American, April 12 (2007).

Tyson, N.D.   On Being Round. Natural History Magazine, March (1997).

4. The Universe is Not Flat:
Archive of images from the Hubble telescope (Hubblesite).

Weiss, M.   What Causes the Hubble Redshift? Original Usenet Physics FAQ (1994).

5. Life in Space is Not Easy to Understand:
Loftin, R.B. and Kenney, P.   Training the Hubble space telescope flight team. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 15(5), 31-37 (1995).

COURTESY: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Halpern, P.   How large is the observable universe? The Nature of Reality blog, October 10 (2012).

Ceurstemont, S.   What a trip through a wormhole would look like. New Scientist TV, March 13 (2012).

6. Other Things that are Not Well-known:

History of Cyanotype. COURTESY: Alternative Photography and John Herschel.

II. The Lightness of Starstuff

Here are the supplementary readings for the fifth episode of the Cosmos reboot. The readings are organized by theme and observation. These relate loosely to scene and observation.

This Style of Popularization is Frustrating:

Orzel, C.   Cosmos F*$&ing Loves Science. Uncertain Principles blog, March 31 (2014).

Camera Obscura:

How to Make a Pinhole Camera, Instructables.

Mo Tse and Questioning Cultural Convention:

Fraser, C.   Mohism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2010).

Chinese Tradition of Legalism. Wikipedia.

Chinese Culture, Strategy, and Innovation. Chapter 2 of "Innovative China", T.C.R. van Someren and S. van Someren-Wang. Springer-Verlag (2013).

Al-Hazen's Book of Optics.

Replacing the Extramission Theory of Vision:

Madan, U.   The Beginnings of Sight. The Weekend Historian blog, May 26 (2009).

Graziano, M.   How Consciousness Works. Aeon Magazine, August 23 (2013).

The Strange World of Light:

Dzierba, A.   QCD with a light touch. American Scientist, April (2009). Book Review of "The Lightness of Being" by Frank Wilczek.

The Standard Model, Part 2: QCD. Spontaneous Symmetry blog, June 27 (2009).

Electromagnetic Spectrum. xkcd blog.

Electromagnetic Spectrum Introduction and Electromagnetic Spectrum Tour. NASA's Imagine the Universe!

Siegel, E.   The Cosmic Speed Limit. Starts with a Bang! blog, April 26 (2013).