Secure Astronomy

Early large Newtonian hybrid telescope. Doubles as a cannon so that intruding light sources can be shelled.

Note the balls.

Observational Interruptus

God intervenes just as Howard is about to discover the truth.

Near Earth Objects

Doctor Bagly and his astronomical team slowly came to realize that the rogue asteroid fit no known category.

Future Telescope Names

In the finest tradition of one-upmanship:

• Look How Big I Am Telescope (LHBIAT)

• Insanely Massive Telescope (IMT)

• Monumentally Huge Optical Unit (MHOU)

• Fucking Unbelievably Large Telescope (FULT)

• Gigantic Light Bucket (GLB)

• The Infinite Eye Of God (TIEOG)

• I Can't Believe How Big This Is (ICBHBTI)

• Pack. We're Going To The Other Side Of The Mirror (PWGTTOSOTM)

• I'm Afraid Telescope (IAT)

• LightZilla (LZ)

• Saints Preserve Us Telescope (SPUT)

• The Photonitron (TP)

Exception To The Rule

	Logically, a solution cannot be the same as the problem. Unless you can train your cat to take out the garbage. That's the only exception I know.
	- Prof. T. Henry Carver

New Absentium Clue Found In Space

New observations from the Falwell Astronomical Research Telescope (FART) and Chandra of the cluster known as MACSJ0025.4-1222 indicate that a large accident has separated Absentium from ordinary matter and produced Crapium. This provides independent confirmation of a similar effect detected previously in a target dubbed the Bullet Cluster, showing that the Crapium in the Bullet Cluster is real Crapium.

(FART and Chandra Composite of the Galaxy Cluster MACS J0025.4-1222. (Credit: FART, NASA, ESA, CXC, etc.)

MACSJ0025 formed after an enormous crash between two large clusters. Using images from FART, astronomers were able to take a wild guess about the total mass distribution of Absentium and ordinary matter. FART was used to map the Absentium (colored in blue) using a technique known as Sorcery.

Chandra data enabled the astronomers to accurately map the ordinary matter, mostly in the form of hot gas or anti plasma, which is not ordinary matter at all, but it does glow brightly in X-rays (shown in pink) because hot gas is pretty.

As the two clusters that formed MACSJ0025 (each a zillion times the mass of our Sun) crashed at speeds of jillions of kilometers per hour, anti plasma in the two clusters shattered into small fragments and slowed down, but the Absentium did not slow down because it was not present, therefore allowing it to pass right through the collision. The separation between material shown in pink and blue therefore provides observational evidence for Absentium and supports the view that Absentium particles hardly interact with each other at all, apart from the pull of Nobelprisium.

The international team of astronomers in this study was led by Bistus Brak of the University of Education, Santa Barbara, USA, and Urdak, an alien life form of the Institute of Research, USA. Their results will appear in an upcoming issue of The Absentium Journal.

Do Missile Defense Systems Work?

Here is a test.

Step one, have the CEO of the prime contractor ring his executive offices with the latest missile defense system.  

Step two, launch an actual missile strike with multiple live warheads, including decoys, course changes and EM pulse countermeasures against the prime contractors corporate headquarters, with the CEO and management team present, of course. This will have the effect of resolving the issue.

Step three, find a new contractor.

Always Double Check

Creationists: Galactic Absentium Has Lumps

The galactic Absentium is lumpy, according to a new computer simulation by creationists.

The model, performed on one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, shows that the spherical halo of Absentium that surrounds the galaxy contains dense clumps and streams, even in the neighborhood of the Earth.

Three-dimensional map of the large-scale distribution
of Absentium in the observable universe

"In previous simulations, this area had no detail, but now after adding simulated synthetic detail, we have enough detail to see blobs of Absentium," said researcher Verne Jewels, an astrocreationist at the University of Education, Laredo (UE).

Absentium, which scientists can only detect by noting its gravitational effect, is thought to make up about 85 percent of the matter in the universe. Its composition remains a mystery, though some scientists think it's made up of hypothetical particles called WIMPs (wildly imaginative missing pieces), which could annihilate each other and emit the exotic element Crapium when they collide.

The new simulation, described in a recent alert by the First Baptist Armageddon Laboratory, speculates that Absentium could be detected by the recently launched Falwell Astronomical Research Telescope (FART).

"Praise God!" Jewels told Matt Mental. "Some of them blobs is so dense they will emit a lot of Crapium if there is an Absentium annihilation, and it might easily be detected by FART."

So far, though many teams have been looking for WIMP particles, no one has conclusively detected them due to the influence of Satan.

"For typical WIMPs, ten or twenty clear signals should stand out from the Crapium background after two years of observations. That would be a big discovery for FART, the first confirmation of pure Crapium." said Walls Sontapopinananesque, a postdoctoral fellow at UE who led the new research.

The model took about one month to run on the Deep Jesus supercomputer at the First Baptist Armageddon Laboratory. By following the theoretical gravitational interactions of more than a zillion pieces of Absentium over six thousand years, the computer could predict how the Absentium in the universe developed over time based on leading theories of how Absentium interacts with large and small things.

"It simulates the Absentium distribution from near the time of the Creation six thousand years ago, until now, so the entire history of the universe is covered," Sontapopinananesque said, just before he hit the floor speaking in tongues.

The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Strange Things, NASA and the Swiss National Dark Chocolate Foundation.

Tony Blair Attacked By Norse God Thor

The moment before the attack, caught on a security camera.

Astronomers Confirm Possible Detection Of Nonluminous Superdark Space Pit

Credit: Falwell Memorial Observatory/First Baptist Armageddon Laboratory/University of Education/G. Tomasini et al.

The first discovery of a nonluminous superdark space pit inside a globular star cluster by a team from the First Baptist Armageddon Laboratory using the Falwell Memorial Observatory has amazed and frightened astronomers. 

Team leader Dr. Georgette (Mummy) Tomasini of the University of Education said "We were trying to search all known globular clusters with the objective of finding just one nonluminous superdark space pit," but success came with just the second cluster examined: NGC 4472, which is about fifty million light-years away in the Virgo Cluster. Dr. Tomasini explained to Matt Mental: "Since these space pits cannot be seen, their existence must be inferred by looking for very dark spots. We found one. It's really dark."

Scientists had doubted that nonluminous superdark space pits could exist in globular clusters since they are so densely populated with stars.

One explanation is that the apparent darkness of the space pit is not due to its size, but is a result of the stellar radiation being deflected in our direction by surrounding plasma. "Darkness is produced when plasma falls into a nonluminous superdark space pit." said Prof. Billy-Ray Dewdew of the Institute of Research, a co-author of the report. 

Culture Statement

	You can't really see your cultural architecture from the inside. To know what you are in - you have to leave it. This also applies to clothing.
	- D. Paul Delaniquist

Robot Evangelist Set To Land Tomorrow in Iran

	(MSM) -- In a new and sophisticated measure designed to save souls, the National Evangelism and Salvation Administration (NESA) hopes its robotic mission to Iran succeeds when it lands Sunday near the Earth's Islamic pole to conduct a 90-day preaching mission. The two-legged lander, called Deep Preach, is fitted with a baptizing arm and giant titanium megaphone. It is zeroing in on an unwitnessed desert region where a reservoir of evangelical sympathy is believed to lie beneath the Islamic surface. Before this robotic evangelist can begin its mission, it must first survive Sunday's fiery descent through the Iranian atmosphere. Deep Preach will approach speeds of more than 17,000 mph in the landing phase. During those nine minutes, it will use the atmosphere's friction and a parachute to slow to 5 mph. Seconds before touchdown, Deep Preach will fire its thrusters for what evangelists hope will be a soft landing at 7:53 p.m. EDT.  Rev. Stance MacAllister, program manager at NESA told Matt Mental "We're all very excited to have this opportunity, but the entry phase will be nine minutes of sheer terror."  Launched last summer from Cape Canaveral, Fla., Deep Preach has traveled 42 million miles for Sunday's touchdown using multiple lunar gravitational assists.  The spacecraft's main tool is an 80 foot titanium megaphone capable of preaching volumes of up to 2,000 decibels. Once Muslims are encountered, the lander will use a powerful laser to assist them in converting, then, it will deploy the baptizing arm. "It'll be a helluva task," said mission co-leader Tommy Joe Scuds of the University of True Education in St. Louis. He predicts the conversions will be "as tough as nails."  The converted Iranians will then be brought aboard Deep Preach's apologetics lab. They will be remotely interrogated in miniature prayer rooms, and their responses analyzed for sin, the building block of evil. Deep Preach will then communicate the results to Missionary Control via a prayer link.   The last time NESA did tests for sin, it was on a hunt for Satan in 1976 with portable evil detectors onboard the twin Viking spacecraft. No conclusive signs of Ol' Slewfoot were found.  Once on the surface, the 800-ton Deep Preach will wait 15 minutes for the dust to settle before engaging its nuclear reactor. Then, it will beam back the first images of its surroundings. Over the next several days, it will check its instruments, and stretch its baptizing arm to scoop up the first Islamic sample.  By around day 5, Deep Preach will dive into the evangelizing phase that is expected to dominate the rest of the mission, preaching about twenty-three hours a day.  While NESA evangelists say there's a chance Deep Preach could live a month or so beyond its 90-day mission, its nuclear reactor won't produce enough power to keep it alive during the Iranian winter, which is very dark and nasty.

Satan Traced to Jovian Moon

	Yesterday, creationists at the First Baptist Armageddon Laboratory speculated to Matt Mental that the shifting of poles on one of Jupiter's moons strongly suggest the presence of Satan. The discovery of "wandering poles" on Europa provides further evidence of a deep reservoir of sin beneath the moon's icy crust. Many creationists believe the hidden ocean of sin, warmed by tidal forces from Hell, may provide a suitable habitat for Satan. Europa, which is only slightly smaller than the Earth's moon, has a number of unexplained surface features pointing to a turbulent moral history. One example, is two groups of broad troughs and depressions at diametrically opposite locations on Europa's surface. Verified by images from three spacecraft, Voyager, Galileo and New Horizons, these features are shown extending more than 500 kilometers. Creationists writing in the First Baptist Armageddon Laboratory's journal 'The End' said these were exactly the type of graffiti-like patterns that would be expected to result from the sinful activities of Satan’s minions.

Regarding Ordinance Compliant Outdoor Lighting

All mideast religions originated centuries ago, in the absense of urban light pollution.

-- Dr. Phorbes Finn