a very special Mercury conjunction

on January 14th, MESSENGER, the NASA Mercury probe, will make its first closest approach to Mercury; the last time anything constructed by humans was anywhere near that planet was in March 1975, when Mariner 10 made its final flyby.

But MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) is so much cooler! Of course, the technology now was probably little dreamed of more than 30 years ago, but MESSENGER will also, after a series of three flybys, will enter, on October 18 2001, into orbit around Mercury! Keep your eyes on the news; the official MESSENGER site is excellent; make sure you check it out.

This is cool science, indeed.

last Week's eye candy

This week we've had a chance to see some awesome visuary: first, the Rosetta flyby of Mars which produced some absolutely gorgeous images, like this one; then new shots from Cassini, which is orbiting Saturn at high inclination and is able to take pictures of its poles from the perspectives inaccessible from Earth, such as this gorgeous shot, or this one; and also New Horizons Jupiter flyby: that bloody thing is damn fast: at Jupiter already, and launched only a little over a year ago! Bloody eye candy! Feast your eyes before someone else feasts on them, I say.

On the more troubling front, the question of the week seems to be, Are Christians Unamerican? ;)
No need to add anything to aforelinked analysis; pretty scary.

Speaking of eye candy, my 'hawk has gotten very long and very thin after being whittled away for the last 2.5 years, and I finally decided to take it off this Sunday. Hair-off day! I shall drink and run around my house with clippers, making some kind of a fucked-up ritual of it.