If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel…

Screen shot 2014-04-22 at 1.30.34 PM

I’m back from a week in Louisiana, and will have a school report on my adventures in Baton Rouge soonest.

But first, here’s something pretty mindblowing to share. It’s a scale map of the solar system by Josh Worth, and the starting point is that the Moon is a single pixel.

Give it a try — just scroll to the right. Try not to get impatient and cheat. It’ll take a while, but I think you’ll find it worth it.

I played a little fast and loose with both physics and distances in The Jupiter Pirates, in the service of better (and easier) storytelling. But this is a reminder that the reality of the cosmos is a story far grander and stranger than anything our minds are capable of creating.

Enceladus’s Ocean

Here’s an interesting read from the New York Times about evidence for an ocean beneath the surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, and the prospects for life there.

In Curse of the Iris, Enceladus is the legislative center of the Saturn system, and the Shadow Comet makes a port call there. Fortunately, I didn’t have to change anything — I’d already accounted for the subterranean ocean.

Subterranean oceans, in fact, are a very important plot point in Curse of the Iris, leading to … whoops, sorry, you’ll have to wait!