Octillions of Years
Back in 2010, archaeologists from University of Texas at Austin, found literally thousands of buildings over a 12 square mile area in the rain forests around Xultun, Guatemala. The Mayan structures were buried under debris and fauna. While almost all of the structures have yet to be explored, the team found information on the Mayan calendar. You know the one that every cospiracy theorist, nut-job, whack-a-loon, and a lot of christians believe predicts the end of the world in Decemeber 2012.
The archaeologists found chizzeled / carved / painted into the wall of a house what you might call a cheat-sheet or crib-notes on how to read the Mayan lunar calendar. While the end of 2012 is seen as the end of a cycle on their clock, it seems to show the years ahead are are almost uncountable and numbering in the octillians. (Octillion 10^27 or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).
Since the Mayans based a lot of their rituals around the calendar, it makes sense that priests or other important people would have the “formulas” written down for ease of use. These findings will also be published in the June issue of National Geographic. Keep an eye out for it to get more details. And, don’t forget to RSVP for 2013.
121 MegaPixels of Greatness
I found this on Gizmodo a couple days ago and I just needed to share it with you. Russia’s latest weather satellite, the Electro-L is capable of taking extremely massive photos of the earth. It can combine three visible light wavelengths and one infrared to make beautiful and exceptionally detailed photos that you need to look at this second. Why are you still reading this? GO look! Oh, I haven’t given the links yet. My bad. Here is a link to a zoomable photo. If that one doesn’t work, use this link: http://planet–earth.ca.
Penny Arcade
