Added 1 new A* comic:In the ancientest Greek mythology, the Gorgon was a humanoid monster with a horrific face--goggle eyes, protruding tongue, fangs, and snakes for hair--whose visage was used to ward off evil. Later when the Greeks got into inventing sexy stories to explain everything, it turned out there were three Gorgons, beautiful daughters of a sea god and a sea monster. The lovely golden hair of one of the daughters, Medusa, attracted Poseidon while they were in a temple of Athena, and when the two started getting it on, Athena showed up, kinda mad, and cursed Medusa by turning her lovely hair into snakes. Later, when Perseus chopped of Medusa's head, her child by Poseidon leapt out of her neck: Pegasus! (I am not making this up.) Other stories say that Medusa's sisters, Stheno and Euryale, also had snakes for hair because they were standing nearby when Athena laid the curse on Medusa. Bummer! But for some reason they were immortal, while Medusa was not. Oh and the gaze of the three--or even just a single snake hair, in some stories--could turn people into stone.
Also! On the forum I posted groovy photos of black holes, or at least the areas around them. For instance, here's Cygnus X-1 in X-rays:
image from NASA (source)
Cygnus X-1 is thought to be a binary system consisting of a blue supergiant and a black hole; the explanation for its intense X-ray emissions is that they're given off by gas and other solar wind stuff from the supergiant, which, spiraling into the black hole, goes faster and faster and heats up to millions of degrees due to friction, at which temperature it emits X-rays. Cygnus X-1 is one of the most studied black hole candidates, and the one that Stephen Hawking lost a bet over, and had to buy another scientist a subscription to Penthouse. Not making that up, either! You can hear Hawking talking about it here.
Gosh I am full of sexy stories today!
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