Of all the animals of prey, man is the only sociable one.
Every one of us preys upon his neighbour, and yet we herd together.
The Beggar's Opera: John Gay

Friday 14 March 2014

Crowded Skies

It's been a busy week but there's still time to raise a glass to the two asteroids that passed by this morning a whisker over a million kilometres away.

Though relative tiddlers on a cosmic scale - 13m and 26m respectively - 2014 EP12 and EB25 surely merit a toast, as does 2014 EX24, which literally slipped under the radar last Sunday and wasn't spotted until two days after its closest approach at around 260,000km.

As an ideal accompaniment to your drink, assuming you are in a reasonably robust frame of mind, you might like to contemplate the work of some some enterprising astronomers who have created, in effect, a prototype Total Perspective Vortex.


(For those unfamiliar with the works of Douglas Adams: The prospective victim of the TPV is placed within a small chamber wherein is displayed a model of the entire universe - together with a microscopic dot bearing the legend "you are here". The sense of perspective thereby conveyed destroys the victim's mind.)

1 comment:

  1. Couldn't use the TPV - it would tell me what a really cool Beeblebrox I was.

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