Uncategorized – Page 22

A Four Planet System, Directly Imaged and Remarkable

This is truly remarkable! A four planet system, directly imaged with the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

“This evocative movie of four planets more massive than Jupiter
orbiting the young star HR 8799 is a composite of sorts, including
images taken over seven years at the W.M. Keck observatory in Hawaii.”

“The movie clearly doesn’t show full orbits, which will take many
more years to collect. The closest-in planet circles the star in around
40 years; the furthest takes more than 400 years.”

Link to full NASA Paper:
https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/a-four-planet-system-in-orbit-directly-imaged-and-remarkable/

Link to video of a Four Planet System:
http://i.imgur.com/BVXrHQM.gifv

My #top100 #scifi Num:46 Caves of Steel

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2fYSH7K

Life is cheap on Earth. Overpopulation and fear of attack have forced the population down into subterranean megacities. Elijah Baile and R. Daneel Olivaw (R for Robot) are dispatched to solve the murder of a ‘Spacer’, a person not from Earth, but one the pampered, Elite, K-Selected humans who moved beyond the Solar System with their legions of Robot man servants. Like Monty Python’s British officers, Spacers shouldn’t die. It is simply politically unacceptable.

Continuing the run of Asimov, this is another of his Science Fiction classics, ostensibly a story of robots and spaceships, but with a payload of prejudice and privilege tucked inside.

Isaac Asimov

My #top100 #scifi Num:47 The Naked Sun

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2gZ5pEC

Social commentary masquerading as a Sci-Fi detective story. A planet of people avoiding human contact can only interact with each other via screens and their robots – uncanny and this was first published in 1956

Note: I realise now that the cover looks like a giant porn-star-bot having sex with a spaceship. I had this on my bookshelf for years as a child and it never occurred to me…

Isaac Asimov