Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only whales regularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present the two extremes of all the known varieties of the whale. As the external difference between them is mainly observable in their heads; and as a head of each is this moment hanging from the Pequod's side.
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Exploring the Universe
with Andrew Fraknoi
By a cosmic coincidence, the first day of 2018 will have a nice full Moon in the evening. And the full Moon occurs just when the Moon is closest to the Earth in its monthly orbit, so it will look a little bigger to us in the sky. Since 2011, the media have followed a suggestion by an astrologer (!) and started calling these slightly …
December 30, 2017
Astronomers around the world have been observing a small but fast object that gives every indication of coming from some other star system. It’s the first such “interstellar” visitor we have ever observed. And it’s characteristics are quite unexpected. Most astronomers expected the first such deep-space visitor to be a comet — a chunk of icy material (which our solar system has in great abundance outside the orbits of the …
December 6, 2017
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