Makemake and the Funky Dwarf Planets Bunch

Hurrah! They've named a fourth dwarf planet! Last week Makemake (mah-keh mah-keh) was named a dwarf planet, joining that funky little bunch including Pluto, Eris and Ceres. This brings us to eight planets and four dwarf planets.

A dwarf planet is an object that orbits the Sun (that is not itself a satellite of another object), is large enough in mass to form a sphere, but has not cleared its orbit/neighbouring space of other object.

Makemake is out in the Kuiper Belt (with Pluto and Eris) with lots of other icy objects and was previously known as 2005FY9 and was nicknamed Easterbunny. It is slightly smaller that Pluto and is a reddish colour (apparently frozen methane).

News item here.

Moon Halo

This past week there have been some pretty impressive halos around the Moon down here in chilly Melbs. Unfortunately I don't own a good camera so wasn't able to photograph it myself. I did, however, drag several relatives out into the cold and forced them to appreciate the sight. In this pic (from here) you can see Jupiter near the edge of the halo.

Moon halos are made up by light from the Moon being broken up into the colour spectrum by ice crystals in a cirrus cloud (in a similar way to how rainbows are formed by light refracting through water droplets). You can also get them around the Sun and apparently around street lights too (if the ice crystals are low enough).

In other astronomical news, there will be a full solar eclipse over China on 1 August (so not visible from here) and a partial lunar eclipse at about 6am on the morning of 16 August (visible in Australia at moonset).

Giant Squid Dissection

There was a live dissection of a 245kg giant squid at Melbourne Museum yesterday. We managed to take a break from a half day meeting to watch the start and went down to catch the end as well. It was only smelly at the end after they had emptied her stomach contents.

Have been waiting for the cafe to announce that today's special is giant calamari...

There are some piccies below (also on facebook) but aren't great quality as they are taken on my moby. Also they are mostly of the giant screen that was broadcasting it to the hundreds of people watching on site (not to mention the 1000-odd who streamed it live).

Check out the video of the giant squid dissection held at Melbs Museum here.

Big squidy tentacles

Rasp-like teeth were on her suckers

The two super long tentacles that this squid would have had if she were intact can join together like a zip. You can see the bumps and indents where they join up.

" Oh grandma, what a nice big beak you have! "

"All the better to chomp my food up with so that I don't get a headache (because my food tube goes through the middle of my donut shaped brain) my dear!"

And this is why I would be crap at being homeless

I always notice people asleep on the tram or train and can't figure it out. I would never feel safe or comfortable enough to sleep on public transport - especially by myself. If I were homeless I'd never sleep (which I assume is actually the case for some people, with good reason).

Husband is one of these people - happy to sleep anywhere if he's comfortable and a wee bit tired. So much is the case that several years ago siblings and I had joked about taking photos of him asleep to assemble a photo album for him for his birthday. I guess the rumblings of the train might lull one to sleep, and can understand that after a lovely Sunday dinner one might have a little kip on the in-laws couch, but recently husband gave cause for me to really be surprised.

Bra shopping is no mans favourite pass time (I'm tahking about buying functional bras, not the type that only need to look good on the floor) but needs must and he kindly followed me into the underwear section of Myers. I left him sitting on what I always think of as the 'Man Chair' outside the changing rooms and went in to, well, change. A few minutes later I emerged, with the winning bra in hand.

What greeted me was quite a funny sight. Husband was totally and utterly asleep in the Man Chair with two little children peering at him, trying to work out if he was a) a mannequin or b) real but asleep. I seriously expected one of them to poke him. Several women were walking past giving me looks of 'aww, isn't he cute, poor little tired husband'. As much as I would have liked to leave him having a nap (he obviously needed it) I thought it was probably not appropriate so I woke him up.

The man can sleep anywhere. I on the other hand seem to take at least half an hour to sleep even when I'm really tired. Woe is me.