Best Of MetaFilter

Venus' lower clouds, via planetary.org

doctornemo posted a great roundup of true adventures in space, July-August 2024.

Cropped image by Josh Dury

The Perseid meteor shower is back and SPrintF posted about a particularly beautiful image of it!

When you're parked about a million miles from Earth, just observing the planet, there's not a lot going on. But as pointed out in a post by Tell Me No Lies, sometimes you do get Mooned.

Ok NASA, you've sent people into space, landed on the Moon, launched science redefining telescopes, so what's next on your agenda? As Wobbuffet's post points out, creating a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) system is the agency's latest accomplishment.

Let's check in on humanity's solar system exploration before 2024 kicks in: doctornemo has made a fantastic post about the current state of developments in space, including asteroid bits, fast spaceships, JuMBOs, a space battle, and a space cat video .

Apollo 8 Reentry by NASA Goddard Photo and Video (cc by)

Community member 'automatronic' made a great comment about Artemis 1's fiery re-entry to Earth. It's an amazing recounting of a fantastic engineering feat by NASA!

Hubble Marks 30 Years in Space With Tapestry of Blazing Starbirth by NASA Goddard Photo and Video (cc by)

Doctornemo has a fantastic post about what's been going on in the past month of humanity's exploration of space!

Gone by M.P.N.texan (cc by-nc)

I'm a Certified Professional Organizer ... Mefi member The Wrong Kind of Cheese again comes to our aid with great, specific advice, this time in a question about dealing with the unneeded, unused, yet still emotionally meaningful items that sometimes overwhelm our storage areas ... and our feelings.

Pancake Crescent Moon with Earthshine by Dawn Sunrise (cc by-nc-nd)

What would be the logistics of making pancakes on the moon? freethefeet needs to know.

NASA photo of Jupiter moons

doctornemo boldly goes where ... well, it turns out almost everyone has gone before, with an impressive roundup of current space busyness and business in orbit, moon news, ambling among the astroids, snack time with a black hole, and what's stirring re Mars and Jupiter. 🌏🚀🌝🛰💫

✨ As someone who's spent the better part of the last decade working on the camera, NIRCam, that took the picture...tomorrow's images are going to be even more gorgeous, let me tell you. – RubixsQube, speaking in the James Webb Space Telescope first images thread. (!!)

Hands in the sky by ohhhbetty (cc by)

In Ask Metafilter, I'm writing a short story where the main character uses a signed language that developed on a space station: A very interesting question and some great answers on signal's request for cultural and linguistic introduction to signed languages for background.

Discworld by CarbonNYC [in SF!] (cc by)

Black hole time! PhysicsMatt answers why the accretion disk is a disk rather than a sphere, and RedOrGreen explains a bit about interferometry (and other stuff) in the Mefi thread on the reveal of the first black hole image.

Anableps anableps by rubund (cc by-sa)

zamboni with the facts about giant diamonds, the Venus lander, and what this has to do with export taxes.

Can a fish see out of water? Wolfster introduces us to the amazing anablep, the fish whose eyes are bifocals.

Pogo_Fuzzybutt reflects on "one of the better" pizzas he's had -- the day began with a hiker falling off a cliff (Spoiler: don't worry, the hiker lives).

First NBL training run - Getting a feel for the suit. by AstroSamantha (cc by)

Did you enjoy last night's live thread watching the Jupiter mission?

Check out the big auction of space items like navigational globes -- alongside this video from (Mefi's own) engineerguy Bill Hammack on how some of that equipment worked. (Also don't miss his video series recreating Faraday's historical lectures on how a candle works.)

Flight history detectives: Who was the first child to fly in an airplane?

From backseatpilot and Eleven, some expert answers to that age-old question: Which has better aerodynamics, an X-Wing or a TIE fighter?