Words and pictures

Words
In my opinion, astronomy and phonology have all the best words. If aliens made contact you could combine the two, and have conversations like this:

- I'm sure that little guy said he was from a barred spiral galaxy.

- Yeah, and he used a voiceless postalveolar fricative to say so. That was weird. Do you think he's been drinking?

- I'm sure he has. He laughed at my oscillating universe theory and told me I was approaching critical density. Then he came out with a whole bunch of voiceless glottal fricatives.

But quite aside from all the great words you get to use, there is another very good reason to become an astronomer. Who would have guessed?

(The other maps are interesting, too. If I could figure out a way to print them legibly in black and white, I'd use them in class.)


Pictures
If you would like another way of following the news, try playing with this. If you click a picture a popup window shows you the headlines, and then if you click on a headline a new window opens. It's fun to play with, and decorative.