Discoveries in the Physics & Astronomy shop | Science, curiosities, and surprises
Size descriptions for popular media: either described in terms of fruit or of sporting goods.
Ballpark identification of a rock at 4.6 billion years old – approximately the age of the solar system – is pretty darn cool. Even if there’s nothing lemony about it.
From the days before planetarium software was readily available, we have an intense glut of celestial globes, which show the positions of the stars and constellations on the night sky. Also the day sky, of course, but unless you’re watching a total solar eclipse they get lost in the bright blue light scattered by our atmosphere. They get little use except as office decorations.
We have two Earth globes – one is a giant, inflatable beach ball – which still get regular use in Astronomy classes. Unsurprisingly, visualizing the movement of an Earthbound observer on a tilted, rotating, orbiting planet around the sun isn’t always intuitive. Having a mini-Earth to look at helps immensely.
We also have a very nice lunar globe, which really should see more use. It’s highly detailed, including on the side of the moon that only a handful of humans have ever seen. (More craters, fewer mare.) If you dig maps, it’s a very cool map.
And when did this charming item come into being? 1969, of course.