danse-de-macabre

[danse-de-macabre]

"well youve had it 6 years that's a good amount of time for that kind of thing to work"

"you should be grateful you got 3 years of use out of that thing, I'm lucky if mine last a year haha"

listen, in 1977 nasa launched the voyager spacecrafts to take advantage of a planetary alignment that takes place every 175 years. These 2 crafts were planned to flyby the outer planets of our solar system and gather data on them to send back to us. Voyager 2 launched first on the 20th of August despite its name because it was planned to reach our gas giants after its counterpart voyager 1, which launched a little later on the 5th of September.

The voyager mission was planned to end 12 years later in 1989. In that time, voyager 1 and 2 passed by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. They discovered new moons, confirmed theories about Saturn's rings, found the first active volcanoes found outside the earth, and they take close-up images of planets only seen at that point from telescopes.

On the 25th of August 1989, voyager 2 encounters Neptune, the last planet in our solar system the voyagers will meet. And that was that. End of mission. Now obsolete.

~

Less than 1 year later on valentine's day in 1990 voyager 1 looked back on the planet that had built it and sent with it a world's worth of hopes and dreams and took a picture. We called it the solar system family portrait and in it, we see ourselves. The pale blue dot nestled in the darkness of space

And then commands were sent to shut down their cameras. Preserve fuel.

35 years after launch, in 2012 voyager 1 sent back to us data about interstellar space. The very first manmade object to enter it.

41 years after launch voyager 2 did the same. Still operational, still going. Still sending back to us invaluable data, teaching us about our own solar system and the suns influence in our local bubble of space.

They are expected to continue to operate until the year 2025 - almost 50 whole years after they were launched and 36 years after their mission was supposed to have ended.

48 years of harsh space travel, battered by solar winds, pulled by gravity but fast enough just to escape, pelted by who knows how much space dust and radiation.

And even after that, they still have a purpose. Each craft was given a golden record. A disc filled with human knowledge and knowledge of humans and the planet they live on. Greetings and well-wishes to any prospective extraterrestrial life that could potentially pick it up. Co-ordinates, an invite. Samples of our music, the things we love, sounds of the earth, a story of our world. The surf, the wind, birds and whales, images of a mother, our moon, a sunset. Long after the voyager spacecrafts go dark, probably long after we are gone, they will still be doing their job; educating a species about our very tiny corner of the galaxy.

They are nasa's longest-running operation.

And it was all done using 70s technology.

So excuse me if I want a phone that lasts more than 2 years or a vacuum cleaner that doesn't break down after 6, or god fucking forbid, a refrigerator that will keep my food cold my entire fucking lifetime.

[danse-de-macabre]

people are always like “i have face blindness but i’m good with names” or “im terrible with names but i never forget a face” well baby idk how to tell u this but i am . bad at both.

[danse-de-macabre]

going to start a "good plants for people with ADHD" masterpost based on what's survived me

[danse-de-macabre]

you ever feel like you were born with something rotten inside you and if people get close enough they’re gonna find out

[danse-de-macabre]

am always obsessed when someone says to a character “call off your dog” about another character.

[danse-de-macabre]

you ever catch a glimpse of a cloud passing in front of a full moon and you’re suddenly a highwayman in an 18th century ghost story who just left a tavern on a chilly october night to ride horseback through the woods till you reach the next town over

[danse-de-macabre]

at work: i could be cooking and cleaning and coding and reading and working out and weaving tapestries and playing video games and climbing a mountain and having sex and filming a movie right now yet they keep me trapped in this prison. idle hands are the devils plaything and i am being forcibly molded into his perfect conduit. i must break free, seize the day and waste not the beauty inherent to finite mortal life

at home: my one true passion upon this pointless earth is bog mummy imitation

[danse-de-macabre]

noncon friendship

[danse-de-macabre]

I mean you've threatened to kill me a bunch of times. You once told me you were gonna drown me in a river like a kangaroo.

[warm laugh of fond reminiscence] I did do that

[danse-de-macabre]

death in art

the death of chatteron by henry wallis (1856) ophelia by john everett millais (1851-52) the execution of marshal ney by jean-leon gerome (1868) requiescat by briton riviere (1888) yellow fever in buenos aires by juan manuel blanes elaine by edward rosenthal (1874) the doctor by luke fildes (1891) ivan the terrible and his son by Ilya repin (1885) the bride of death by thomas barker (1839) lord byron on his death-bed by joseph denis odevaere (1826) recognition: north and south by constant mayer (1865) the lament for icarus by herbert james draper (1898) death of seneca by dominguez sanchez manuel (1871)

[danse-de-macabre]

On this day in 1851, Moby-Dick, or, The Whale was first published in the United States.

Enjoy an illustration from the 1892 edition! (x)

[danse-de-macabre]

me trying to explain the plot of phantom of the opera

[danse-de-macabre]

historical fiction is such a funny genre like dammit i spoiled the ending of les mis for myself by reading the wikipedia page for the paris uprising of 1832

[danse-de-macabre]

hey boy don't kill yourself. green's dictionary of slang is available online and allows you to explore 500 years of english vulgarity. you can search by part of speech, source, time period, etymology, and usage. there's a whole category for gay slang. they even have specific citations listed so you can see the exact context for yourself. boy did you know that in 1927 "to kneel at the altar" was slang for "to sodomize"

[danse-de-macabre]

we were meant to live slowly!!!! we were meant to savor moments and feel unabashedly lazy and frolic and smell the flowers and laugh with our entire hearts and love with our entire souls!!!!! don’t ever feel guilty for resting!!!!!! don’t ever feel guilty for slowing down!!!!!! enjoying life shouldn’t be something you’re ashamed of

[danse-de-macabre]

"derivative and masturbatory"...? Hell yeah i love maths and jacking it

[danse-de-macabre]

he would not fucking say that but it’s he would not fucking talk about his queer identity like he was reading out of a college campus lgbt center brochure