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I knew you could

However, what I'm not clear on, is whether the daylight actually shifts earlier and later in the day, in addition to becoming longer and shorter (i.e., does the "median daylight time" or 'middle of the day' actually move, or does it grow shorter and longer at both ends equally?)

I have tried the podcast 'thing' for several months. Using iPodder, searching for podcasts all over the web, and then loading them to my Dell DJ.

Overall if I had to guess, I would say that I sampled over 200 podcast 'shows' over a 6 month period. There are now only two 'subscriptions' left in my iPodder interface: Science@NASA and StarDate. All of the others came and went. I found that I just could not listen to them for multiple reasons.

I am really into amateur astronomy and space science, so the recordings of the same articles that I would read at the Science@NASA and StarDate websites now loaded onto my mp3 player made it even easier to gain timely information about my hobby. I could even sit and listen to the articles via mp3 while at work doing something mindnumbingly repetitive.

Anyhoo, I would summarize by saying that if you find a worthwhile 'podcast' or two that provide a regular source of information in mp3 format instead of print, you will benefit. Otherwise I can't see much utility in just listening to people's podcasts just because the technology is there.

Putting a lander on Phobos should be interesting, since the moonlet is covered by a meter-thick layer of dust. When I imagine a craft making a landing, I picture throwing a rock into a bowl of flour. On the plus side, maybe we'll make the first sizable, intentional man-made crater outside the Earth.

I guess Phobos is better then Deimos... the latter is thought to have a layer of dust several hundred feet thick (or should that be "several dozen meters thick"?

How many volkswagon beatles lined up side by side would be needed to encircle the Earth 12 times as is needed to match the height of stacked A380 planes from here to the moon?

You must not have seen the other article where they gave this number.

Assumptions:
VW Beetle width = 1.6 meters
A380 Height (Tail) = 24.1 meters
Average Moon distance = 384,500,000 meters
Circumference of Earth = 40,075,160 meters

Where:
x = Number of VW Beetles to encircle the Earth 12 times
y = Number of A380s stacked to the Moon

1.6m * x * 12 = 40,075,160 m
x = 40,075,160m / 19.2m
x = 2,087,248 VW Beetles to encircle the Earth 12 times

24.1m * y = 384,500,000m
y = 384,500,000m / 24.1m
y = 15,954,357 A380s stacked to reach the Moon

Therefore, you get these ratios:
x : y = 0.1308262 VW-Twelve-Earth-Circles to A380-Moon-Heights
y : x = 7.6437287 A380-Moon-Heights to VW-Twelve-Earth-Circles

widespread adoption of the second-full-Moon-in-a-month definition followed its use on the popular radio program StarDate on January 31, 1980. We examined this show's script, authored by Deborah Byrd, and found that it contains a footnote not read on the air that cites Pruett's 1946 article as the source for the information. Byrd now writes for the radio program Earth & Sky, whose Web site contains a few short notes giving her perspective on this modern contribution to lunar folklore.

> In my part of the world, Venus is the morning and evening star. Thats probably how it is over at your place to.

"A" instead of "the".

(See Mercury is often visible near the rising or setting Sun as the morning or evening star) But I don't think Venus was ever thought to be two planets, but IIRC, Mercury was.

I'm presuming this "Incan city" is same as the City in Cydonia, near the Face.

No, don't look at my nick.

But seriously folks, I've always found interesting the way we seek anthropomorphic images in almost everything. Not to flame believers out there, but I'd say that there's very little difference between techno-myths such as this and the ancients looking at the sky and believing that, say, a certain group of stars resemble two twins.

(Incidentally, the link on Gemini says that "many" cultures see two humans in those stars; I'm not sure about others, but Arabic and Indic schools of astronomy were greatly influenced by Graeco - Chaldean traditions in the 5th century AD. One of the bigger imports are 12 solar constellations. Does anyone know if Mayan or *real* Incan astronomical traditions have anything similarly anthropomorphic?)