The Universe

The Observable Universe
Illustration Credit & Licence: Wikipedia, Pablo Carlos Budassi

Explanation: How far can you see? Everything you can see, and everything you could possibly see, right now, assuming your eyes could detect all types of radiations around you — is the observable universe. In light, the farthest we can see comes from the cosmic microwave background, a time 13.8 billion years ago when the universe was opaque like thick fog. Some neutrinos and gravitational waves that surround us come from even farther out, but humanity does not yet have the technology to detect them. The featured image illustrates the observable universe on an increasingly compact scale, with the Earth and Sun at the center surrounded by our Solar System, nearby stars, nearby galaxies, distant galaxies, filaments of early matter, and the cosmic microwave background. Cosmologists typically assume that our observable universe is just the nearby part of a greater entity known as “the universe” where the same physics applies. However, there are several lines of popular but speculative reasoning that assert that even our universe is part of a greater multiverse where either different physical constants occur, different physical laws apply, higher dimensions operate, or slightly different-by-chance versions of our standard universe exist.

Explore the Observable Universe: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow’s picture: stellar shell game

Some Good Eco News-

Norway Turns Ocean Forests Of Seaweed Into Weapons Against Climate Change

Written by Matthew Russell

Off Trøndelag’s coast, long lines of kelp now do double duty. They grow fast. They also lock away carbon. A new pilot farm near Frøya aims to turn that promise into measurable removal of CO₂ from the air, according to DNV.

The site spans 20 hectares and carries up to 55,000 meters of kelp lines. First seedlings went in last November. The goal is proof of concept, then scale.

How the Pilot Works

The three-year Joint Industry Project, JIP Seaweed Carbon Solutions, brings SINTEF together with DNV, Equinor, Aker BP, Wintershall Dea, and Ocean Rainforest, with a total budget of NOK 50 million, Safety4Sea reports.

Researchers expect an initial harvest of about 150 tons of kelp after 8–10 months at sea. Early estimates suggest that biomass could represent roughly 15 tons of captured CO₂. This is a test bed for methods that can be replicated and expanded, DNV explains.

There’s a second step, as kelp becomes biochar. That process stabilizes carbon for the long term and can improve soils on land, SINTEF’s team told Safety4Sea. The project is designed to test both the removal and the storage.

Serene coastal landscape with rocky shores and calm water under a cloudy sky.

A Long History, A New Mission

Seaweed isn’t new here. Norwegians have cultivated kelp since the 18th and 19th centuries for fertilizer and feed. Scientists advanced modern methods in the 1930s, laying the groundwork for today’s farms, according to SeaweedFarming.com. Cold, nutrient-rich waters support species like Laminaria and Saccharina. They grow quickly and draw down dissolved carbon and nitrogen.

The country’s aquaculture backbone also helps. Norway already runs one of the world’s most advanced seafood sectors. That expertise now extends to macroalgae.

Policy, Permits, and Ecosystems

Commercial cultivation began receiving specific permits in 2014, and activity has expanded across several coastal counties, according to a study in Aquaculture International. Researchers detailed the risks that accompany scale: genetic interaction with wild kelp, habitat impacts, disease, and space conflicts. Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture, where seaweed grows alongside finfish, can recycle nutrients from farms and reduce eutrophication pressures.

Vibrant yellow seaweed covers dark rocky surfaces near shallow water.

Engineering for Open Water

Getting beyond sheltered bays is crucial. One path is the “Seaweed Carrier,” a sheet-like offshore system that lets kelp move with waves in deeper, more exposed water. It supports mechanical harvesting and industrial output without using land, Business Norway explains. The same approach can enhance water quality by absorbing CO₂ and “lost” nutrients.

The Frøya project is small in tonnage but big in intent. It links Norway’s long kelp lineage with new climate tech: fast-growing macroalgae, verified carbon accounting, and durable storage as biochar. If these methods prove reliable at sea and on shore, Norway will have more than a farm. It will have a blueprint for ocean-based carbon removal that others can copy.

More Music: I Read This Yesterday, & Thought You Might Like It, Too

On the world’s coldest stage, a military musician plays with a plastic horn and double gloves

By CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-MCLAY Updated 4:06 AM CST, November 20, 2025

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — On the frozen edge of the world, staying in practice as a professional musician takes ingenuity, grit and a plastic instrument for schoolchildren that’s guaranteed not to freeze to your fingers or face.

Natalie Paine is a French horn player in New Zealand’s navy who since October has been among 21 military members stationed in Antarctica. There, her melodies drift across the frozen Ross Sea from perhaps the most remote practice room on Earth.

“It’s beautiful and very inspiring,” Paine told the Associated Press. “I’ll sit there by the window and I will do my routine and play music in my time off, which is not very often.”

An unlikely journey to the ice

The story of how she arrived in Antarctica is an unlikely one. Paine grew up in the hot, dry climate of Adelaide, Australia, where she dreamed of visiting the frozen continent as a scientist.

She studied music at university instead, putting Antarctica out of her mind. Years later however, as a musician in New Zealand’s navy, Paine learned members of the country’s military were stationed in Antarctica to support the work of scientists.

When she asked, her instructor said any military member could win one of the coveted assignments.

“My eyes lit up and I was like, what? Even a musician?” Paine said. “He’s like, heck yeah, why not?”

The most remote practice room on Earth

Her dream was revived but enacting it wasn’t simple. It took four years of unsuccessful applications before Paine landed a posting as a communications operator.

It’s a consuming job, worked in six-day stretches that leave little time for music. Paine monitors radio, phone, email and other communications traffic at New Zealand’s mission at Scott Base, sometimes speaking to people on the ice who haven’t heard other voices for weeks.

In whatever window she can find, Paine squeezes in scales and mouth exercises, going to great lengths not to disturb others on round-the-clock shifts. That means slipping out of the main base to a hut built in 1957 under the leadership of explorer Sir Edmund Hillary as New Zealand established its presence in Antarctica.

While she plays by the window, watching seals on the ice, Paine finds new musical motifs bubbling up.

“There’s so much beauty and it’s not tame either, it’s this wild, untamed beauty of the land around you and the animals as well,” she said. “It’s just so overwhelming, spiritually, emotionally, physically sometimes as well.”

A hostile climate prompts ingenuity

Her practical dilemmas included finding an instrument suitable for Antarctica — something hardy, lighter than a brass French horn and less likely to freeze to her hands. The winner, called a jHorn, isn’t elegant.

“It was designed to be a beginner brass instrument for children,” said Paine. “So it was like, super compact, super light plastic, very durable, nowhere near as much maintenance required.”

New Zealand’s navy doesn’t have records of another military musician being posted to Antarctica so Paine, who will be there until March, could be the first. Her presence has delighted Scott Base and she has provided live music for ceremonies, such as the changing of the flag, instead of the usual tunes from a speaker.

“I had to have ski gloves on with double layers and hand warmers on the inside to be able to hold the trumpet and still my fingers were freezing,” she said. Paine is, however, likely one of the few musicians to perform a solo Antarctic concert in minus 21 degrees Celsius (minus 6 Fahrenheit).

She said the collective effort between nations to work together on the frozen content had a familiar theme. It reminded her of music.

“Music is the universal language and it’s something that reminds us that we’re all connected,” she said. “It brings that connection back to home, back to land and back to the people you’re with as well.”

From Jenny Lawson-

PROVE ME WRONG by Jenny Lawson (thebloggess)
Read on Substack

Last week when I was flying home I was scanning the ocean because I’m always certain that I’ll see Godzilla or a sea serpent if I look hard enough, but instead I saw a rainbow from the plane window and it was a perfect circle over the ocean. I was so excited I hit my head on the window and scared the person behind me. I didn’t have time to capture it on my phone but I shook Victor awake and was like, “YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW OUTSIDE THE WINDOW” and he said, “Was it a colonial woman churning butter on the wing?” and I was like, “…yep…that’s exactly what it was” because a circular rainbow feels anticlimactic after that guess.

Aaanyway, that leads to this week’s drawing, which I’m fairly certain counts as a scientific illustration:

Sending you love, rainbows and godzilla hugs,

~me

(snip)

From The Marine Detective:

The rarest of the rare? Haliclystus californiensis in British Columbia?

=====

Giant Black Cucumaria – feeding!

Lewis’s Woodpecker

American Bird Conservancy has changed its page. It seems even easier to use. Here are some bits about this week’s bird.

About

Most woodpecker species in the United States and Canada display a mix of black, white, and red plumage, but don’t tell the Lewis’s Woodpecker. Its unusual mix of colors includes a red face, pink belly, glossy green back, crown, and nape, and silver-gray collar. The bird is simply stunning.

Lewis’s Woodpecker also differs from other members of its family in many of its foraging styles and food choices. In the summer, the bird eats mostly insects, catching them in flight by swooping out from a perch like a flycatcher or by foraging in flight like a swallow. Wide, rounded wings give the bird a buoyant, straight-line flight, more like a jay or crow than a woodpecker. The bird seldom excavates for wood-boring insects; unlike other woodpeckers, this species lacks the strong head and neck muscles needed to drill into hard wood.

In the fall, Lewis’s Woodpeckers switch to eating nuts and fruit, chopping up acorns and other nuts and caching them in bark crevices for later consumption. During the winter, they aggressively guard these storage areas against intruders, including other woodpecker species.

Ornithologist Alexander Wilson described the species in 1811 and named it for Meriwether Lewis, who observed the bird in 1805 during the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Threats

Birds around the world are declining, and many of them, like Lewis’s Woodpecker, are facing urgent, acute threats. Moreover, all birds, from the rarest species to familiar backyard birds, are made more vulnerable by the cumulative impacts of threats like habitat loss and invasive species.

Habitat Loss

Surveys indicate that Lewis’s Woodpecker populations may have declined by about 60 percent since the 1960s, and much of the reduction is likely due to loss or alteration of suitable nesting habitat. Like all other woodpeckers, the Lewis’s Woodpecker requires cavities in snags (standing, dead, or partly dead trees) for nesting. Logging, the suppression of wildfires, and grazing have altered many of the western forests where the species is found. The changes to the landscape often result in large areas dominated by trees that are the same age, leaving few dead or decaying trees available for the birds’ nests.

Habitat Loss

Pesticides & Toxins

Pesticides take a heavy toll on birds in a variety of ways. Birds can be harmed by direct poisoning from pesticides, lose insect prey to pesticides sprayed on crops and lawns, or be slowly poisoned by ingesting small mammal prey that have themselves ingested rodenticides. Lewis’s Woodpeckers are likely exposed to pesticides in orchards and other agricultural settings.

Pesticides & Toxins

https://abcbirds.org/birds/lewiss-woodpecker/

For Science, & The Planet!

Norway Turns Ocean Forests Of Seaweed Into Weapons Against Climate Change

Written by Matthew Russell

The site spans 20 hectares and carries up to 55,000 meters of kelp lines. First seedlings went in last November. The goal is proof of concept, then scale.

Underwater view of vibrant seaweed swaying in clear blue water.

How the Pilot Works

A Long History, A New Mission

The country’s aquaculture backbone also helps. Norway already runs one of the world’s most advanced seafood sectors. That expertise now extends to macroalgae.

Policy, Permits, and Ecosystems

Engineering for Open Water

There’s no flash of light at conception

A Date & An SoS That Will Live In Infamy, 1st Airplane Takeoff From A Ship, & 10 Million Did Not Sign, On This Date In Peace & Justice History

Whatever Else May Come

from the end of the shutdown,-and I have huge hope that we the people will continue to stand together to help each other through the days!-we do get the Astronomy Photo of the Day again!

Orion and the Running Man
Image Credit & Copyright:R. Jay Gabany

Explanation: Few cosmic vistas can excite the imagination like The Great Nebula in Orion. Visible as a faint, bland celestial smudge to the naked-eye, the nearest large star-forming region sprawls across this sharp colorful telescopic image. Designated M42 in the Messier Catalog, the Orion Nebula’s glowing gas and dust surrounds hot, young stars. About 40 light-years across, M42 is at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1,500 light-years away that lies within the same spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy as the Sun. Including dusty bluish reflection nebula NGC 1977, also known as the Running Man nebula at left in the frame, the natal nebulae represent only a small fraction of our galactic neighborhood’s wealth of star-forming material. Within the well-studied stellar nursery, astronomers have also identified what appear to be numerous infant solar systems.

Tomorrow’s picture: pixels in space