An Exercise in Scale: VY Canis Majoris

Here’s your mind boggling moment of the day.


The pictures here depict a star (the bright dot in the middle) and it’s solar ejecta.

This is no ordinary star.

The star, VY Canis Majoris, is 1800 to 2100 times the size of our sun. It is the largest known star in the galaxy, and if placed in our solar system, would extend to Saturn’s orbit. If for some mentally deranged reason you wanted to walk the circumference of VY Canis Majoris, assuming a walking speed of 3 mph/8 hours a day and a suit somehow capable of protecting you from temperatures reaching five goddamn thousand degrees Fahrenheit, it would take you approximately six hundred and fifty thousand years to get back to where you started. Compare that to the paltry 310 years required to walk around Sol, our sun, or the downright pedestrian and very reasonable 2 years 7 months to complete a circuit around the Earth.

So, now we that we have a better idea of how fucking gigantic this combusting ball of flammable gasses is, consider its solar ejecta. It easily extends at least ten times the diameter of the sun itself, which is, well, beyond any sane person’s ability to comprehend. I give up.

Arecibo Observatory: Listening to the heavens

"Listening to the heavens"?! What the Fuck kind of shit title is that?! What ever happened to cynicism? Hubris?! Cowering under your monotonously gray cubicle in the face of an existential-crisis-inducing MegaCreation of God Almighty?!


"Listening to the Heavens".......

Sounds like some humanist Jodi Foster Bullshit to me.

How about: "HOLY THIRD-WORLD APPROPRIATING SHIT! That's a big goddamned upside-down nipple dish."

The Burning Gates

In this week's Soviet Disaster Corner, I humbly present the Burning Crater of Darvaza.



(Note the tourists for scale) Located in the middle of a Turkmenistan desert, this giant burning hole is the result of natural gas prospecting undertaken by the Soviets in 1971. When they accidentally stumbled across a huge pocket of natural gas, their drilling rig collapsed creating the crater in the process. To avoid the gas killing everyone/everything around, they set the hole on fire. It has been continuously alight for almost 37 years with no signs of burning out.



The locals like to call this "The Burning Gates" and "The Door to Hell." Suuuure the Soviets were drilling for natural gas, instead of OPENING A LINK TO HELL AND CALLING FORTH THE DEMONS OF THE APOCALYPSE TO END THE COLD WAR WITH THEIR SOUL-CONSUMING FIRES OF DOOM.

Fuck-it Bucket

Hugeawseomethings often trigger a crisis of values on an existential level. "Holy shit, that's sweet!" you may say when gazing upon the Hugeawesome power and pathos of an excellently large missile-rocket. "But," you may continue, "this Hugeawesome missile-rocket is designed to deliver a cluster of thermonuclear warheads to multiple civilian targets..." Enter Dilemma at stage left (or right, depending on your political philosophy).

A case-in-point for the environmentally conscious: the MAN Takraf RB293 Bucket Excavator, the largest terrestrial vehicle in human history.

This Hugeawesomething is 95 meters tall and 215 meters long. It can dig 10 meters per minute and is capable of moving more than 76,000 cubic meters of coal, rock and earth per day.

Translation: Hugeawesome strip-miner.
















How is one to reconcile this Bucket Excavator's Hugeawesomeness with its blatantly destructive habits?!

Hello, Missile

“Hello, I am the YAL-1 Airborne Laser--a megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser mounted inside a modified Boeing 747-400F. My design directive is to destroy tactical ballistic missiles and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles while in boost phase. From 300 to 600km away, I can target a climbing missile and fire my laser for up to 5 seconds, weakening the missile and causing failure from high speed flight stress. Air turbulence deflects and distorts the laser beam, so I use adaptive optics to compensate for atmospheric errors."

"Also, I am a talking laser airplane."

Soviet Engineering Project of the Week

Like with endless tundra, vodka, and socialist dictatorships, Russia does huge cargo planes better. This is the Antonov 225. Built in 1988, it is the largest plane in the world, at 276 feet long and weighing nearly 1.5 million pounds. As you can see, it carries SPACE SHUTTLES. Shuttles. That go to space.

Take that, puny American c-5 Galaxy!


Of course, like most Soviet Engineering Projects, the AN-225 was left to languish after the collapse of the USSR along with the defunct Buran space shuttle program. Unlike the Buran, however, the remaining An-225 was not destroyed in the collapse of an abandoned airplane hanger (another post). A test flight was conducted in May 2001, and the An-225 might yet grace the Russian skies again.

Space: The Most Hugest of Awesome Things

So, while the following link contains pictures not of some testament to the hubris of mankind (hubris of the universe, perhaps), it was certainly made possible by our orbiting satellites.



Views of Jupiter

Now, pick your jaw up off the floor and continue about your day.