Author: mustain

  • The Celestia Motherlode

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    Celestia is an explorable, 3D rendering of our universe that allows users to travel vast distances at vast speeds from the comfort of their desktops. The program contains over 100,000 stars and 10,000 galaxies and allows for user modifications and add-ons.

    If you haven’t played around with Celestia, get the free download from their website, and start with the Demo. The Demo takes you on a quick tour of our solar system, zips across the galaxy to a huge red giant, then zooms out for an outside view of the Milky way.

    Ibiblio hosts the Celestia Motherlode, a collection of addons surface textures, models and astronomical data, which enables Celestia users to easily create their own detailed, realistic copies of the known (and imagined) universe. Add atmospheres to planets, chase some well-known spaceships around (USS enterprise, anyone?) and follow realtime orbits of planets, moons, and stars.

    Go to ibiblio’s Celestia page and start exploring!

  • The Snowstorm

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    Writing from Minnesota, this ibiblio staffer is struck by the contrast: Today is grey  and brown, damp, and a balmy 37 degrees. Last year at this time, workers were shoveling out the Metrodome, whose roof collapsed under seventeen inches of snow.

    Despite the costs and inconveniences, most Americans probably look forward to a white Christmas. Join us at ibiblio in welcoming and celebrating the colder months this year with a collection of winter tales and poems from Project Gutenberg. (more…)

  • Dec 7, 1941: A day that will live in Infamy…

    To commemorate the anniversary of one of the most dramatic attacks on American soil, we are reposting a description from earlier this year–one of the more fascinating collections ibiblio has to offer:

    The Pearl Harbor History Associates (PHHA) is a non-profit corporation chartered by the Commonwealth of Virginia on July 2, 1985 for the purposes of education, research, and promulgation of historical data.

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    “To honor the memory, to serve the truth, to protect the heritage, we are happy to host some of the best Pearl Harbor sites on the Web”

    This collection of sites is truly a unique, comprehensive, and valuable resource. (more…)