What’s new

Astronomy grows an airmass page. Relative air mass is Kasten and Young 1989, m = [sin γ + 0.50572 (γ + 6.07995)^(−1.6364)]^(−1), with the apparent elevation in degrees. Their Table II lists 1.0000 at 90°, 1.9939 at 30°, 5.5841 at 10°, and 38.0868 at the horizon, and prints a relative error of +0.432% on that horizon row. This page evaluates the formula: 0.9997 at 90°, 1.9943 at 30°, 5.5860 at 10°, and 37.92 at 0°. Plane-parallel sec(z) is exactly 2 at 30° and has no finite value at 0°. Extinction in magnitudes is k times that air mass. Krisciunas et al. 1987 summit medians at 4200 m are B 0.19 and V 0.11. Krisciunas 1990, Table 2, a hazy night at Keaau, 75 m, on 19 December 1989, is V 0.341 ± 0.020. Bennett 1982 at apparent altitude 0°, 1010 hPa, and 10°C is 34.5′. NOAA’s sunrise altitude is −0.833°, about 34′ of refraction plus about 16′ of solar semi-diameter. The setting-Sun button puts the lower limb on the apparent horizon, and Bennett’s vertical diameter is shorter than 32′. Not a forecast.

Astronomy grows an asteroid and comet impact page. A sphere’s mass is m = π/6 · ρ · L³. Kinetic energy is E = ½mv², Collins, Melosh, and Marcus 2005 equation 1. One megaton on this page is 4.184 × 10^15 J. The paper prints 4.18 × 10^15 J. Equation 3 is the whole-Earth recurrence, about 109 × E^0.78 years. Equation 21 is the transient crater, constant 1.161 in rock and 1.365 in water, proportional to sin^(1/3) θ, with g_E = 9.81 m/s². Equation 22 multiplies by 1.25 when the transient crater is 2.56 km or smaller. Equation 27 is the complex rim, 1.17 × D_tc^1.13 / 3.2^0.13 km, above that. The two laws do not meet at the join. Water skips the collapse. A Barringer-like case, 42 m of iron at the program’s 8000 kg/m³, 15 km/s, 45°, and sedimentary rock, gives a final rim of 1.46 km. The Earth Impact Database rim is 1.186 km, inside the paper’s 0.8–1.5 constant band. Kring’s table of Collins et al. 2016 is 8.6 Mt at 3.2×10^8 kg. This density is lighter, so the megatons are recomputed. Chelyabinsk uses JPL’s about 18 m and 18.6 km/s. The same page also prints 17 m and nearly 500 kilotons, and Brown et al. 2013 print about 19 m (17–20 m) and 500 ± 100 kilotons. Tunguska uses 50 m, the low end of the NASA workshop abstract’s roughly 50–80 m, at the program’s 17 km/s, which is not a measured Tunguska speed. The abstract’s energy band is 10–20 megatons. Chicxulub’s 14 km is the program template. Morgan et al. 2022 describe an approximately 200 km structure and an energy of about 10^23 J. Entry is a qualitative note under 1 km. No airburst altitude. Not a hazard assessment.

Astronomy grows a meteor-shower page. The observed hourly rate is HR = ZHR × sin(h) / r^(6.5 − LM) × (1 − k). h is the radiant altitude in degrees. k is the obstructed fraction of the field. At or below the horizon the rate is 0. IMO’s major-shower table, ZHR 100 and limiting magnitude 6.5, prints 50 at 30°, 77 at 50°, and 17 at 10°. Those integers are the sine, rounded. A stated 50% cover is IMO’s field correction of 2, so that 50 becomes 25. The population index drops out at magnitude 6.5. One magnitude brighter, with r = 2, halves a zenith rate. Presets are IMO 2026 Table 5, dates for 2026: Quadrantids January 3, ZHR 80, 41 km/s, r 2.1, radiant 230° +49°, λ⊙ 283.15°; Lyrids April 22, ZHR 18, 49 km/s, r 2.1, 271° +34°, λ⊙ 32.32°, parent C/1861 G1 (Thatcher); Eta Aquariids May 6, ZHR 50, 66 km/s, r 2.4, 338° −1°, λ⊙ 45.5°; Perseids August 13, ZHR 100, 59 km/s, r 2.2, 48° +58°, λ⊙ 140.0°, parent 109P/Swift-Tuttle; Orionids October 21, ZHR 20, 66 km/s, r 2.5, 95° +16°, λ⊙ 208°; Leonids November 17, ZHR about 15, 71 km/s, r 2.5, 152° +22°, λ⊙ 235.27°, parent 55P/Tempel-Tuttle; Geminids December 14, ZHR 150, 35 km/s, r 2.6, 112° +33°, λ⊙ 262.2°. Parents the calendar text does not name are the JPL stream table: 196256 (2003 EH1), 1P/Halley, and 3200 Phaethon. Energy per gram is ½v². The Perseids’ 59 km/s is 1,740.5 kJ/g. Sky buttons: 6.5 is the IMO reference, 5.6 is the bright end of Bortle class 5, 4.5 is Bortle class 8 at best. Approximate. Not a forecast.

Astronomy grows an Earth-satellite page. Altitude runs from 160 km to 410,000 km. A circular orbit gives period, speed, orbits per mean solar day and per sidereal day, the westward ground-track step, the fraction of the surface in view, the horizon (line of sight and along the ground), and the nadir light-time round trip. Constants are the Earth Fact Sheet: GM 0.39860 × 10^6 km³/s², equatorial radius 6,378.137 km, sidereal rotation 23.9345 h, length of day 24.0000 h. c is 299,792.458 km/s. Geostationary, the circle whose period equals that sidereal day, is 35,786.05 km and 23 h 56.07 min at 3.075 km/s, and the ground track does not step. A 24-hour circle would sit 76.89 km higher. The Hohmann desk subtracts the volumetric radius from the same circle, a 7.137 km altitude difference. Presets use cited sizes and compute the rest: ISS about 420 km (NASA 2023 lithograph) is 92.97 min, 7.657 km/s, 15.489 orbits per solar day, 23.31° west; Hubble about 483 km (NASA Science) is 94.27 min; Starlink is the FCC-21-48A1 550 km shell; GPS is IS-GPS-200N AREF 26,559.710 km, altitude 20,181.57 km, 2.000 orbits per sidereal day; the Moon uses fact-sheet perigee 363,300 km and apogee 405,500 km. Earth’s GM alone does not reproduce the sheet’s 27.3217-day month. An ellipse is optional, with vis-viva at each end. Drag is named and not timed. Simplified two-body model. Circular unless an ellipse is set. Not for mission planning.

Astronomy grows a cosmology page. A redshift becomes an age, a lookback time, and three distances, from a numerical integral of Hogg’s E(z) with no radiation term. Planck 2018 Table 2, column TT,TE,EE+lowE+lensing: H0 = 67.36 ± 0.54, Ωm = 0.3153 ± 0.0073, ΩΛ = 0.6847 ± 0.0073. The published age for that column is 13.797 ± 0.023 Gyr, radiation included. This integral leaves radiation out and gives 13.801 Gyr. At z = 1: lookback 7.954 Gyr, age then 5.847 Gyr, comoving 3,402.7 Mpc (11.10 Gly), luminosity 6,805.4 Mpc (22.20 Gly), angular diameter 1,701.3 Mpc (5.55 Gly), 8.248 kpc per arcsec. Angular-diameter distance peaks at z = 1.588. SH0ES (Riess et al. 2022) H0 = 73.04 ± 1.04 keeps the Planck densities, because that paper does not publish Ωm, and the age is 12.728 Gyr. Cited objects: Coma, Colless and Dunn 1996, mean cz = 6853 km/s so z = cz/c; 3C 273, SIMBAD z = 0.15756751; GN-z11, Bunker et al. 2023, z = 10.6034; CMB last scattering, Planck z* = 1089.92. The chart runs to z = 20, so the CMB marker is off the chart. r* = 144.43 Mpc is the sound horizon, not the distance to the CMB. Flat is the default. Curvature uses Hogg’s transverse distance. The redshift desk is the shift. The distance ladder stops at cz/H0. Not a fit and not a catalog.

Astronomy grows a distance-ladder page. The modulus is m − M = 5 log10(d / 10 pc) + A. A = 0 is the magnitude desk. m = 10, M = 0, A = 0 gives 1000 pc. A = 1 gives 10 × 10^1.8 pc, about 630.96 pc. The Sun at 10 pc stays at +4.83, and 10 pc is 32.616 ly. Parallax is d(pc) = 1/p(″). The fractional error σ_d/d equals σ_p/p, and the bounds 1/(p±σ) are asymmetric. Sirius is ESA’s worked example, p = 0.37921″, 1/p = 2.637 pc, with no uncertainty on that page. δ Cephei parallax is Benedict et al. 2007 Table 11: 3.66 ± 0.15 mas, so 1000/3.66 pc, near 1000/3.81 pc, far 1000/3.51 pc. Table 11’s (m−M)0 = 7.19 includes an LKH correction of −0.01 mag. Plain inversion is not that modulus, and this page does not apply LKH. The Cepheid line is the same paper, Table 12 column B07, Johnson V: M_V = −4.05 ± 0.02 + (−2.43 ± 0.12)(log10 P − 1). P = 10 d gives −4.05. δ Cephei Table 2 is P = 5.36627 d, ⟨V⟩ = 3.960, A_V = 0.23. The line gives M_V about −3.393. Table 11’s own M_V is −3.47 ± 0.11. The V residual scatter is 0.10 mag, a distance factor 10^0.02, shown as an illustration and not an error bar. Type Ia uses Richardson et al. 2014 Table 1, bias-corrected normal mean M_B = −19.25 ± 0.20, standard deviation 0.50 mag, N = 239. Hillebrandt and Niemeyer’s −19.30 is the H0 = 60 figure and is not the candle. SN 2011fe (Richmond and Smith 2012, Table 5): B max = 10.00 ± 0.02, A_B = 0.11 ± 0.03, so μ = 29.14 and the distance is about 6.730 Mpc. They adopt 29.10 ± 0.15 for M101, about 6.607 Mpc. The two are not forced to agree. Hubble flow is d = cz/H0. Coma (Colless and Dunn 1996) has mean cz = 6853 km/s and σ = 1082 km/s. Planck 67.4 gives about 101.68 Mpc. SH0ES 73.04 gives about 93.83 Mpc. The dispersion scale is larger than that gap. The bars are a sketch: Proxima’s 1.3 pc to 100 pc (NASA’s “a few hundred light-years”; NASA does not print 100 pc), Cepheids to ∼40 Mpc, Hubble flow ∼100–600 Mpc (Scolnic and Vincenzi). Not a catalog.

Astronomy grows a black-hole page for a non-rotating Schwarzschild hole. Mass runs from 1 to 10 billion solar masses on a log slider. r_s = 2GM/c². The photon sphere is 1.5 r_s. The ISCO is 3 r_s. The IAU 2015 nominal solar mass parameter, GM☉ = 1.3271244 × 10^20 m³ s^−2, and c = 299792458 m/s give r_s = 2.953 km. A hovering observer from 1.2 to 30 r_s reads √(1 − r_s/r). At 10 r_s that factor is 0.9487. The horizon tide across a 2 m body is 2GM L/r³, about 2.061×10^10 m/s² at one solar mass. Hawking temperature is ħ c³ / (8 π k GM), 6.170×10^−8 K at one solar mass. The evaporation time is the horizon-area estimate t = 5120 π G² M³ / (ħ c⁴), 2.095×10^67 Julian years at one solar mass, labeled an order of magnitude. Mean density uses the 2022 CODATA G, 6.67430 × 10^−11. Presets: 1 and 10 solar masses, computed; Cygnus X-1, 21.2 ± 2.2 M☉ (Miller-Jones et al. 2021); Sagittarius A*, (4.297 ± 0.012) × 10^6 M☉ statistical, systematics about 40,000 M☉ (GRAVITY Collaboration 2022, A&A 657, L12); M87*, 6.5 ± 0.2 (stat) ± 0.7 (sys) × 10^9 M☉ (EHT 2019, ApJL 875, L6). Real holes spin. Bardeen, Press, and Teukolsky 1972 move the photon orbit and the ISCO with that spin. This page holds them at 1.5 r_s and 3 r_s.

Astronomy grows a stellar-lifetime page. Mass runs from 0.1 to 60 solar masses on a log slider. Inside 0.179 < M ≤ 31, luminosity is the six-piece fit of Eker et al. 2018, Table 4: log10(L/L☉) = a log10(M/M☉) + b. The pieces are separate lines. They are not joined, and they are not used outside that window. At 1 M☉ the low-mass line gives log L = −0.007, about 0.984 L☉, not 1. Main-sequence lifetime is t ≈ 10 Gyr × M/L. With the IAU nominal L = 1 the Sun is exactly 10 Gyr. With the fit it is about 10.16 Gyr. The 10 Gyr zero is the classroom round number beside NASA’s 4.6-billion-year-old Sun plus about 5 billion years still on the main sequence (sum 9.6). It is not a model age. End-state labels follow NASA Science: under 8 M☉ a white dwarf, about 8 to 20 a neutron star, heavier a black hole. Heger et al. 2003 move those edges with metallicity, rotation, and mass loss. The plot marks the Planck 2018 age from Table 2, column TT,TE,EE+lowE+lensing: 13.797 ± 0.023 Gyr. The +BAO column is 13.787 ± 0.020 Gyr. Cited presets: Proxima Centauri 0.120 ± 0.003 M☉ and 0.00151 ± 0.00008 L☉ (Ribas et al. 2017; below the fit; 10 × 0.120 / 0.00151 is about 795 Gyr), Sirius A 2.063 ± 0.023 M☉ and 24.74 ± 0.70 L☉ (Bond et al. 2017; about 834 Myr; YREC age 237 ± 15 Myr), Vega mass 2.15 M☉ with +0.10 and −0.15 (Monnier et al. 2012) and 44 ± 2 L☉ (Hill, Gulliver, and Adelman 2010; about 489 Myr, shorter than the cited 700 Myr age), Rigel log(L/L☉) = 5.08 and a track mass of 23 M☉ (Moravveji et al. 2012). Rigel is a blue supergiant, so the fit at 23 M☉ is not its present luminosity. Formula outputs are approximate scaling estimates. Not a stellar-evolution model.

Astronomy grows a telescope-optics page. Focal ratio is focal length over aperture. Magnification is telescope focal length over eyepiece focal length, and a Barlow multiplies that effective focal length. Exit pupil is aperture over magnification. The rough true field is apparent field divided by magnification. Light grasp compares the aperture with a 7 mm pupil, the traditional maximum Sky & Telescope states. Rayleigh’s criterion is 1.22 λ/D. Dawes’s empirical limit is printed as 116/D in millimetres and as 4.56/D in inches. A classroom 200 mm f/6 with a 25 mm eyepiece and a 50° apparent field is 48×, exit pupil 4.17 mm, true field 1.042° (62.5′), light grasp 816×, Rayleigh 0.692″ at 550 nm, and Dawes 0.580″ (116/D) and 0.579″ (4.56/D). At naked-eye magnitude 6.0 the collecting-area estimate is 13.28. Bowen’s 1947 formula gives 12.94. Hubble uses the STScI primer’s 2.4 m aperture at f/24, focal length 57.6 m. JWST uses NASA’s 6.5 m and 131.4 m, which compute to f/20.22. The 7×50, 80 mm, and 200 mm sets are round classroom numbers, not catalog models. Not a buying guide.

Astronomy grows a habitable-zone page: stellar flux S/S⊕ = (L/L☉)/d², and watts per square metre from the NASA Earth Fact Sheet solar irradiance, 1361.0 W/m². Equilibrium temperature assumes full heat redistribution and emissivity 1: T_eq = [F(1−A)/(4σ)]¼. Earth’s Bond albedo 0.294 at 1 AU gives S/S⊕ = 1.000 and T_eq = 255.1 K. The fact sheet’s average surface temperature is 288 K. The strip is Kopparapu et al. 2014, conservative and optimistic, 1 Earth mass, valid from 2600 K to 7200 K and not drawn outside that range. Presets: Venus, Earth, and Mars from the NASA fact sheets; Proxima Centauri b (Ribas et al. 2017; Anglada-Escudé et al. 2016); TRAPPIST-1 e (Agol et al. 2021), whose 2566 K host is below the polynomial; Kepler-452b (Jenkins et al. 2015). A point in the strip is not a habitability verdict.

Astronomy grows a transit page: depth δ ≈ (Rp/R*)², geometric probability about R*/a, a circular-orbit duration, and radial-velocity semi-amplitude K with m sin i. Masses are fact-sheet GM ratios, so G is not chosen. Earth–Sun, volumetric mean radii and i = 90°, is 83.86 ppm and 8.95 cm/s. Jupiter–Sun is 1.010% and 12.46 m/s. Cited presets: HD 209458 b (Bonomo et al. 2017), 51 Pegasi b (Cont et al. 2026; no planet radius, because the archive flags the composite radius as calculated), TRAPPIST-1 e (Agol et al. 2021), and GJ 1214 b (Mahajan, Eastman, and Kirk 2024). Uniform disk, no limb darkening, no eccentricity. Not a catalog and not a fitted light curve.

Astronomy grows a Hertzsprung–Russell page: effective temperature across, hot on the left, and luminosity L/L☉ up. Radius lines are L = 4πR²σT⁴. σ is the CODATA value 5.670374419… × 10⁻⁸ W m⁻² K⁻⁴. The zero is the IAU 2015 nominal Sun, 5772 K and 1 R☉, and the bolometric magnitude uses M_bol,☉ = 4.74. Cited central values: Proxima 2980 ± 80 K and 0.00151 ± 0.00008 L☉ (Ribas et al. 2017), Vega 9560 ± 30 K and 44 ± 2 L☉ (Hill, Gulliver, and Adelman 2010), Sirius A 9845 ± 64 K and 24.74 ± 0.70 L☉, Sirius B 25,369 ± 46 K and 0.02448 ± 0.00033 L☉ (Bond et al. 2017), Betelgeuse log(L/L☉) = 5.10 ± 0.22 (Dolan et al. 2016), Rigel log(L/L☉) = 5.08 (Moravveji et al. 2012). The Sun’s visual absolute magnitude +4.83 stays the fact-sheet figure, not the bolometric 4.74. Main sequence, giants, and white dwarfs are a classroom cartoon. Not a Gaia catalog and not an ephemeris.

Astronomy grows a redshift page: z = (λ_obs − λ_rest)/λ_rest. At z = 1 the special-relativistic Doppler formula gives β = 0.6, while c·z equals the speed of light and is not a speed. Cosmological redshift is 1+z = a_now/a_then. The nearby Hubble toy is v = H0·d, with Planck 2018 H0 = 67.4 ± 0.5 km/s/Mpc and SH0ES 2022 H0 = 73.04 ± 1.04 km/s/Mpc. At a classroom 10 Mpc those central values are 674 km/s and 730.4 km/s. Cited presets: Andromeda z = −0.001 (SIMBAD), NGC 4258 z = 0.00158 (BASS DR2), 3C 273 z = 0.15756751 (SIMBAD), GN-z11 z = 10.6034 (Bunker et al. 2023). Rest wavelengths are NIST: Lyα 121.567 nm vacuum, Ca II K 393.36614 nm air, Ca II H 396.84673 nm air, Hβ 486.132 nm air, Hα 656.280 nm air. The visible shade is the NASA Imagine classroom window, 400–700 nm. Not a catalog spectrum and not a distance to those objects.

Astronomy grows a blackbody page: Planck’s curve B_λ(T), Wien’s peak λ_max = b/T, and luminosity L = 4πR²σT⁴. b is the CODATA constant 2.897771955… × 10⁻³ m·K. σ is 5.670374419… × 10⁻⁸ W m⁻² K⁻⁴. The comparison Sun is the IAU 2015 nominal effective temperature, 5772 K, and the nominal solar radius. The visible shade is the NASA Imagine classroom window, 400–700 nm. The nominal Sun peaks near 502 nm and the chip is still warm white, not green. Presets use cited central values: Proxima 2980 ± 80 K and 0.146 ± 0.007 R☉ (Ribas et al. 2017), Vega’s mean 9560 ± 30 K and equatorial 2.75 ± 0.01 R☉ (Hill, Gulliver, and Adelman 2010; the star is oblate), Rigel 12,100 ± 150 K and 78.9 ± 7.4 R☉ (Moravveji et al. 2012), Betelgeuse 3500 ± 200 K and 887 ± 203 R☉ (Dolan et al. 2016). The color chip is an sRGB approximation. Real spectra have absorption lines. The science hub also gains cards for the astronomy desks it had been missing.

Astronomy grows a twilight page: sunrise, sunset, and the three twilights, from NOAA’s solar calculator in the browser. Astronomical dawn is the Sun 18° below the horizon, nautical 12°, civil 6°, and sunrise is the standard −0.833° (about 34′ of refraction plus about 16′ of solar semi-diameter). For Campbell on 21 June 2024 the desk reads sunrise 05:48 PDT and sunset 20:32 PDT, matching the U.S. Naval Observatory to the minute. Golden hour and blue hour are approximate altitude bands. Polar day, polar night, and twilight all night are labeled. A year chart shows how day length and twilight change with latitude.

The solar map speed control is a logarithmic slider from 1 hour per second to 10 years per second. The readout is the rate, such as 12.3 days/s. Arrow keys take a fine step; Shift is coarser. Minus, plus, and a number field sit beside it. The 0.5×–10× presets, pause, and Now stay. The same clock drives the 3D orrery and the 2D map.

The solar system map opens in 3D. The eight planets use NASA JPL approximate Keplerian elements, eccentricity and inclination included. Pluto and a few major moons are optional. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom, and switch Compressed or True AU. Sizes stay exaggerated. The flat map, with day, local time, play, and speed, is still the 2D control. Schematic, not a Horizons ephemeris.

Languages gains an ASL trainer: original diagrams for the fingerspelling alphabet, numbers 0–20, and a starter vocabulary. Learn, Leitner flashcards, recognition and recall quizzes, a fingerspelling reader, and a spell-it practice. J and Z, and the signs that move, use arrows or numbered frames. Progress stays in this browser, with save and load to a text file. The drawings are simplified. A beginner aid, not a class, and not a substitute for Deaf instructors.

Astronomy grows a Hohmann page: two circular orbits and the half-ellipse tangent to both, Sun at the focus. Earth to Mars, from the fact-sheet kilometer semimajor axes and the Sun’s GM, takes 258.88 days and 5.594 km/s. Mars must lead by 44.34°. Scrub the coast, or try Venus, Jupiter, or a classroom low orbit around Earth. Circular, coplanar, impulsive. Not a mission.

Astronomy grows an escape-speed page: pick a world and an altitude, and read circular orbital speed and escape speed at that radius. They stay a factor of √2 apart. Earth’s fact-sheet GM and volumetric mean radius, 6,371.000 km, give 11.186 km/s at the surface, the figure the Earth Fact Sheet lists. A sideways launch draws the fall, the circle, the ellipse, and the open escape curve. The Gravity desk names Newton’s cannon and does not compute these speeds. Schematic, no air and no spin, not a trajectory.

Astronomy grows a Kepler page: a top-down Sun and one circular orbit. Drag the semi-major axis from Mercury to Neptune. In classroom units, P² = a³ when P is in years and a is in AU. Presets use each fact sheet’s Semimajor axis (AU) and sidereal orbit period. Earth’s sheet prints 1.00000011 AU and 365.256 days. Play is a time-lapse. Schematic, not an ephemeris and not a trajectory.

Astronomy grows a libration page: a north-up Moon globe with the mean Earth-facing hemisphere marked. The fact sheet’s spin, 655.720 hours, matches the 27.3217-day orbit. Eccentricity 0.0549 peeks past the east and west limbs. The equator is tilted 6.68° to the orbit, so the nod peeks past the poles. A JPL note says geometric libration makes 59% of the surface visible over time. The peek on the drawing is exaggerated. Schematic, not an ephemeris and not tonight’s Moon.

Astronomy grows a precession page: a tilted Earth and a slow circle of the north celestial pole. Polaris now, Thuban in 3000 B.C., Vega in about 13,000 years, on a classroom loop of about 26,000 years. Obliquity stays 23.44°. The tropical year is 365.242 days and the sidereal year is 365.256. Cited NASA. Schematic, not an ephemeris and not astrology.

Astronomy grows a synodic-month page: a top-down Sun, Earth on a short arc, and the Moon. One trip against the stars is 27.3217 days; new Moon to new Moon is 29.53. The Moon is back among the stars and the Sun has moved on, so the same phase is still ahead. Cited NASA. Schematic, not an ephemeris and not a phase calendar.

Astronomy grows a sidereal page: a top-down Sun, a spinning Earth, and a fixed star. One turn against the star is 23.9345 hours; the mean solar day is 24.0000. The mark still has a little farther to turn before the Sun is back, which is why the stars rise about four minutes earlier. Cited NASA. Schematic, not an ephemeris and not a clock for navigation.

A beginner’s bench test with a multimeter: the 24-pin plug from the wire side, the other desktop plugs, and the Intel voltage windows. Colored plugs only. Never open the case.

Chakras gains an Ashtakoota desk: 36 guna points from two birth times and places, or from Moon nakshatras you already know. Lahiri ayanamsa, in the browser. Nothing is uploaded.

A beginner’s introduction to printers and plastics: filament, resin, and powder first, then the everyday materials, with a comparison table. Cited ranges. No brand catalog.

Astronomy adds phase desks for Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, beside Venus. Inferior planets run crescent to full. Superior planets stay gibbous to full — the minimum lit fraction is computed from the fact-sheet orbit ratio. Jupiter adds a spacecraft observer: drag it outside Earth’s wedge and the disk can crescent, the view Voyager, Cassini, and Juno recorded and Earth cannot. Cited NASA. Schematic, not an ephemeris.

Wallpapers reads one manifest. The newest image marked daily is Today's wallpaper — or the newest image, if none is marked. Nature and Sci-fi collections share that list and filter in the archive, newest first, same-day order kept. Drop in a file and one entry. Every image is generated with Grok Imagine.

A history of harvesting ice, from Mari and the Zhou ice pits through Tudor, Norway, and Chimborazo, with a timeline. Commercial ice came from lakes, rivers, and mountain glaciers. People did not mine tons of ice at the poles and ship them. Cited.

Astronomy grows an opposition page: a top-down Sun, Earth, and Mars on circular orbits. Play or scrub one schematic synodic lap — opposition, quadrature, conjunction — and the angle at Earth shows why an outer planet stands opposite the Sun or gets lost near it. Cited NASA. Schematic, not an ephemeris and not a finder chart.

Astronomy grows a Venus page: a top-down Sun, Venus, and Earth on circular orbits. Play or scrub from a schematic inferior conjunction and the disk runs crescent through gibbous — evening star, morning star, and the far-side near-full. Cited NASA. Schematic, not an ephemeris and not a finder chart.

Astronomy grows a retrograde page: a top-down Sun, Earth, and Mars on circular orbits. Play or scrub and Earth laps the outer planet. A line of sight and a longitude strip show the backward loop — prograde, stationary, retrograde — while both orbit arrows keep going the same way. Cited NASA. Schematic, not an ephemeris and not for pointing a telescope.

The material graph is now three desks. The moodboard is a dense grid — minerals, gases, plants, earth, and early components. Click to open, mark several, and star a short list that stays in this browser. Refine stays the edge explorer. The planner is a stub that reads those pins. Craft rows are station inventory. High-speed sublimation is the three-slot path to nitrogen salt, enriched carbon, and thermic condensate. Wiring loom stays buy-only. Community ratios — a patch can change a recipe.

Game guides opens at /game/guides/, separate from the playable /games/ pages. First tool: a No Man's Sky base map. Load exported JSON or a Steam save.hg in the browser, plot planetary bases on a schematic disk, and mark the Euclid Hub capital at Uthmi Beta. Zoom toward the pointer or the selected base; same-system piles spread apart and show their names. Freighter bases stay listed aside. Nothing is uploaded.

Astronomy grows a tides page: a top-down Earth with exaggerated ocean bulges. Slide the Moon from new to full and the label switches from spring to neap. A light spin shows two highs per turn under bulges that stay put. Cited NASA and NOAA. Schematic, not a tide table — and not a Campbell harbor guide.

Astronomy grows an eclipses page: a side-view Sun, Earth, and Moon on a tilted orbit. Toggle solar or lunar, then slide the node offset from aligned to about 5° and watch the shadow miss. Umbra, penumbra, nodes, eclipse seasons. Cited NASA. Schematic, not a prediction.

The seasons desk adds day length by latitude — a slider from pole to pole, tied to the same day-of-year control. Near equinox the strip stays near 12 hours; solstice stretches toward the poles. Classroom hour-angle math, not a sunrise almanac.

Astronomy grows a seasons page: walk the year, keep Earth’s axis parallel at about 23.4°, and see which hemisphere leans into the Sun. Perihelion is early January — Northern winter. Cited NASA. Schematic, not an ephemeris or a forecast.

Science robotics grows a nested 2025–2026 stand: Figure Helix 2.5 in unseen homes, electric Atlas and Digit 5 on industrial floors, Optimus production talk labeled as plans. Cited. Company claims and supply-chain reports can outrun verified deployments.

The weather desk now shows wind direction with speed — compass point and degrees from Open-Meteo (direction the wind blows from).

Science grows a radio-to-gamma literacy page: tap the bands for classroom wavelength and frequency ranges, then slide a Wien’s-law peak (Sun ~5800 K near visible). Cited NASA / Imagine the Universe. Not a lab instrument or medical advice.

Local desk essay: Campbell Union ESD first — enrollment, how California measured quality, CAASPP and SEDA trends — then Santa Clara County gaps. Cited. Not a school ranking.

The weather desk now accepts a city name or a US ZIP in the same box — Open-Meteo geocoding, US-first, and a short picker for Springfields.

The exoplanets desk grows from 18 hand-picked worlds to a curated ~118-world teaching set — search and method filters, still not a NASA Archive dump.

Astronomy grows a worlds-around-other-stars page — discovery-method cartoons, a schematic orbit explorer, and a hand-picked set of confirmed NASA-public examples.

Local desk essay: Brynteson orchards to the shopping center, Union Avenue 1982–1985, historic lead-arsenate literacy, and valley wetland / fill — test, don’t guess. Cited. Not a parcel diagnosis.

Local desk compare/contrast: two California cities, different metros and decades — Census, city ACFR, and histories. Not a dunk. Cited.

This running log — newest first, grouped by day, updated when the site grows.

A Local history desk for the Bay’s big shakes — Loma Prieta notes, USGS photos, and links into liquefaction literacy.

A short motto under the masthead across the photography layout — three words, warm and clear.

Late-summer / early-fall produce notes for Campbell and the South Bay — tomatoes, peppers, grapes, figs, early apples — plus pantry staples.

USGS-cited essay on Bay Area / South Bay liquefaction — what soft ground does in a quake, in plain language.

Local air desk now pairs the live US AQI card with AirNow and the KQED Bay Area air quality map.

A theme-aware live Markdown reader at /reader/ — sticky TOC, progress, font controls — with the dissertation Draft 1.2 on the same UX.

The weather desk grows a 10-day high/low temperature graph with precip bars above the day cards.

Expanded health essay on dye allergies, irritants, IARC/NCI framing, and secondhand honesty — with sources.

Aunt Allison / Philley–Wood family photos on /family/ — sectioned galleries and a short poem excerpt.

Draft a 3F–2D–G line from demo NHL-style stats, simulate a short series vs the CPU, read the box scores.

Interactive lessons desk — trig, calculus, and linear algebra starters under one roof.

Astronomy hub wired to local sky, nearest stars, and galaxy pages — a solar-system map with room to wander.

Form, history, theory, genres, glossary, and watch — plus a shot-scale interactive on the desk.

Live Campbell air quality card on the Local desk — US AQI, PM2.5, ozone via Open-Meteo.

A small Local desk on nuts — varieties, notes, and later a cross-link to seasonal groceries.

Clickable cross-section of Earth’s air — heights, temperature trends, and what’s at stake in each layer.

Public suggestion box that emails Steven, plus a public board of yes/no replies.

Science status hub — astronomy, atmosphere, and related live desks in one place.

Owned Pipelines Draft 1.2 lands on the site (later slimmed to the Markdown reader).

Checkers, Chess, and Tetris open the /games/ desk — later FPS, Maze, and Fantasy Hockey join.

One place for neon, emerald, dusk, sage, tide, and sand — plus scoped Markets, Chakras, and Dial families.

Live Campbell weather via Open-Meteo — current conditions and forecast; ZIP lookup follows soon after.

Campbell-area desk for traffic, safety, and neighborhood notes — the hub that later grows weather, air, quakes, and groceries.

A vision page — if I could do anything — clean air, natural life, and the stakes behind the desks.

Shared public-photo library — earth, places, pets, music, electronics — for reuse across the site.

Circuits, resistor codes, LED ballast, filters, and a growing set of interactive lessons.

Family page opens on the site — later filled with Philley–Wood / Aunt Allison galleries.

News desk and sitemap at /news/ — later a science RSS lane joins.

Interactive chakras page with its own Glow bloom alongside the site-wide themes.

The annual dial — a circular year calendar with its own dial skins.