Today, Hubble released some images of a sequence of four eclipses on Saturn. Technically, we call these "transits", not eclipses, but a headline about "Saturn" and "transit" sounds to many like it refers to an interplanetary travel system in a science fiction story.

The images and a rather cool visualization can be found on the HubbleSite press release page.

While the images are definitely not science fiction, one can argue a bit about the visualization. Hubble is not a movie camera, so it could not have taken the frames necessary for a movie. But it is also not an animation, as it is based directly on astronomical observations. What is it? I prefer to call it a scientific visualization.

Let me explain ...

Asked by: @KrnSidez via twitter to @patricknorton

The quick answer is that the Hubble Space Telescope is about 40 feet long and has an Earth weight of about 12 tons. We often say that it is about the size of a large school bus. See the Hubble Essentials: Quick Facts page at HubbleSite for other basic figures.

The more detailed answer? Well, that involves negotiations with the low Earth orbit delivery service.

What is your favorite number?

Most people, when asked this question, will answer with a single digit number like "7". Some folks will answer with a two digit number that has special meaning, like "13" or an anniversary date. I suppose there are a few who have a three digit favorite numbers, like the so-called devil's number "666". In general, most everyone keeps it pretty simple when it comes to favorite numbers.

I'm an astrophysicist, so I'm definitely not most everyone. That statement extends to favorite numbers as well. You see, I have a six digit favorite number. My favorite number is "142,857".

Really.

One of the common frustrations with open source projects is a lack of dicumentation. Coders love to write code (me included). For a coder, it is often a big task just to add sufficient comments to their computer code. Producing good documentation on how to use the program is yet another level of task. And one of the cool apsects of open source programs is that they can change and improve quickly - which is not so cool for those writing documentation.

While building this website, I encountered a documentation problem in Joomla!, the open source content management system that I'm using. Here, however, it seems that information needs to flow in the opposite direction: from the documentation folks back to the coders. A configuration variable called $live_site is known to the documetation folks to be important, but the coders seem to consider it optional and make it hidden to most users.