I got to moderate a lively conversation at the Asia Society with two heroes of mine, Reshma Saujani and Nina Davuluri. Each has a remarkable personal story, an inspiring record of activism and achievement, and an active commitment to advancing equity and opportunity in science/tech/engineering/math. (There’s so much fantastic programming at the Asia Society — if you live in NYC, you should keep it on your radar screen.)
Time-lapse videos of the night sky are mind-blowing: they convey the motion of the earth against the vast and distant firmament in which we live. Here's one of the most spectacular I've seen, filmed by twoastronomers at the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in the Atacama Desert of Chile.
(OK, ignore the cheezy music, but marvel at how the observatory's laser guide, which creates an artificial star 90km above the surface of the earth that helps the telescopes correct for the blurring effect of our atmosphere, follows the movement of the stars).
Update
on 2011-06-13 02:55 by Andrew McLaughlin
And here is what's described as a "minor edit", in which the stars are fixed in place, and the rotation of the earth becomes evident. The effect is dramatic and astounding.
