On the left, you can see the destruction of Praxis, the moon of the Klingon homeworld. It blows up in the beginning of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. On the right, you can see the end Death Star from the 1997 re-release Star Wars: A New Hope. One astronomer, Phil Plait, argues that the rings appearing in both explosions show a poor understanding of physics, but the one appearing in Star Wars is somewhat more plausible.

In his 2002 book Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions And Misuses Revealed, From Astrology To The Moon Landing 'Hoax', Plait casts doubt on the verisimilitude of (Lucasfilm effects house) Industrial Light And Magic's seminal CGI effect depicting the explosion of the Klingon moon Praxis in Undiscovered Country. Since explosions in space tend toward spherical shape unless impeded, Plait concludes that the blast pattern resulting from the explosion of the Klingon mining operation has no credible reason to resolve into a ring form, even if everyone thinks the effect is far cooler here than in 1997's revised New Hope.

Conversely, the surface integrity of the Death Star hull is interrupted by a perfect ring in the form of the gargantuan maintenance trench which encircles it, meaning that at this point of interrupted stress, a growing explosion would find the least resistance. This makes the highly criticised 'ring effect' far more plausible in New Hope [V.2.0] than its predecessor in Star Trek VI.

Link via slashdot | Images: Paramount and Lucasfilm, respectively, modified by Shadowlocked

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This time-lapse video by YouTube user szyzyg shows asteroids in our solar system as they have been discovered since 1980:

Notice now the pattern of discovery follows the Earth around its orbit, most discoveries are made in the region directly opposite the Sun. You'll also notice some clusters of discoveries on the line between Earth and Jupiter, these are the result of surveys looking for Jovian moons. Similar clusters of discoveries can be tied to the other outer planets, but those are not visible in this video.

As the video moves into the mid 1990's we see much higher discovery rates as automated sky scanning systems come online. Most of the surveys are imaging the sky directly opposite the sun and you'll see a region of high discovery rates aligned in this manner.

At the beginning of 2010 a new discovery pattern becomes evident, with discovery zones in a line perpendicular to the Sun-Earth vector. These new observations are the result of the WISE (Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer) which is a space mission that's tasked with imaging the entire sky in infrared wavelengths.

Astronomers have so far found about half a million minor planets in our solar system.

via Popular Science

Comic book artists Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo honored the great cartoon Calvin & Hobbes with a comic showing Lex Luthor as Calvin and the Joker as Hobbes plotting to kill Superman. Click on the link to see the rest.

Link via Popped Culture

Perhaps, like flight attendant Steven Slater, you need to escape from a bad job or social situation. Slater had an inflatable emergency slide handy, but until now, few of us had this option. Pictured above is an advertisement for a fake product called Slip Quit -- a portable slide for those desperate situations.

http://www.dialhouse.org/ via Ace of Spades HQ

Previously:
8 Creative Tributes to Steven Slater
Flight Attendant Steven Slater Song

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This video shows a man stripping of his clothes and jumping into a hay baler. A few seconds later, the baler spits him out in the middle of a bale of hay.

This is either footage of an idiot, a viral advertising stunt, or both. What do you think?

Content warning: as I said, the guy gets naked. The video doesn't show anything -- at least not up close. But, you know: fat, middle-aged naked man warning.

via Urlesque

The excellent humor site Bite made an eye chart using the typography from many different science fiction movies and television shows. Pictured above is a small selection from a total of 36. How many can you guess correctly?

Link via blastr | Previously: I337 Eye Chart

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Remember the woman who found a cat on a sidewalk, stroked it, and then tossed it in a garbage bin? One cat recently retaliated against an innocent woman, as you can see from the above security camera footage.

via Geekosystem

Michael Wiles of Melbourne, Australia was riding his motorcycle when he found a grill by the side of the road. He decided to take it home and so placed it over his body and started riding. Police investigated the incident after the above photo of him began circulating the Internet:

Paul McClure, his defence lawyer, said Mr Wiles's excuse was "lack of thought processes" at the time and poverty.

"It turned out the barbecue was a dud and did not work, and that's probably why it was at the side of the road," Mr McClure said.

"This is stupid behaviour and nobody should do it."

Link | Photo: unknown, via Daily Telegraph

A new road near Pontypridd, UK obstructs the travels of dormice -- a mouse species that lives in the area. So to accommodate the dormice, the local government built wire mesh bridges that the rodents can use over the road:

The bridges consist of wire mesh tubes suspended between trees and tall poles.[...]

When completed, the tubes will be solid mesh to stop the dormice falling out.

As dormice live in trees as opposed to on the ground, their routes have to stretch between trees instead of along underpasses used by, for example, hedgehogs and badgers.

Link via DVICE | Photo: Wales Online

The View-Master, a classic American toy since 1939, uses stereoscopy to present 3D images. Hacker Consortium user tuttle thought that he could do the same thing with modern technology, and so replaced the internal components of one with tiny digital screens:

Long gone are the days of light shining through celluloid images on a disk… Long gone! Why this little feller here has Two, count them, 2 Colby 1.5 inch digital key chain picture frames lined up with each lens to create a digital stereoscope. Wait there’s more don’t go. What more you ask? Well this little device actually comes pretty damn close to doing stereoscope really well. It even surprised me!

At the link, you can view more images of the mod. tuttle promises to provide instructions at Instructables soon.

http://www.hackerconsortium.com/blog/?p=427 via technabob

Previously: Making View-Master Scenes

Jackie was moving away to Oregon. So her cousin, reddit user thetwaddler, made this cake in reference to the classic computer game The Oregon Trail.

Link via Kotaku

Previously:
Oregon Trail: The Movie
The Alderaan Trail

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Otis the cat is overweight, so his human put him on an elliptical trainer. The cat was fascinated with it. As Otis explored the machine, he hopped from step to step, operating it.

via Urlesque

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It's a rare weather event, but a fire tornado was recently caught on camera in a drought-stricken region of Brazil. The tornado started fires in nearby fields, which were contained overnight.

The vortex of fire resulted from months of drought in the region, combined with brush fires and strong, dry winds.

Though a rare phenomenon, the formation of a fire tornado, or fire whirl, is quite simple.

When there is a warm updraft of air and convergence of fire, say from a wildfire, a vortex of flame can occur. As the heated air from the fire rises, strong air currents cause flame to spin, shaping it into a tornado.

At the link, you can read about how to make your own fire tornado at home.

Link via Sci Fi Wire

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CERN -- the European Center for Nuclear Research -- has a choir. Here's their performance of "The Particle Physicists' Song", set to the tune of a Flanders and Swann song.

via GearFuse | Flanders and Swann Information

A man who wanted to renew his driver's license crashed into the Department of Licensing office in Spokane Valley, Washington on July 1:

The crash happened around 1:00 p.m. Authorities say the driver was arriving at the DOL to renew his license. While pulling into a parking spot his foot slipped off the brake and onto the gas. Authorities say that's when the driver jumped the curb and went about 3/4 of the way through the building.

Link via Lowering the Bar | Photo: KREM