My Brain!

From an excellent post by Jason Davis

From Washington, D.C., the rings would only fill a portion of the sky, but appear striking nonetheless. Here, we see them at sunrise.

From Guatemala, only 14 degrees above the equator, the rings would begin to stretch across the horizon. Their reflected light would make the moon much brighter.

From Earth’s equator, Saturn’s rings would be viewed edge-on, appearing as a thin, bright line bisecting the sky.

At the March and September equinoxes, the Sun would be positioned directly over the rings, casting a dramatic shadow at the equator.

At midnight at the Tropic of Capricorn, which sits at 23 degrees south latitude, the Earth casts a shadow over the middle of the rings, while the outer portions remain lit.

Zenobia: Syria’s Rebel Queen

This is an abbreviated version. For the information-seekers (and pedants) out there, I put more information on the main site right here. 

Not Zenobia. She was out there, kicking ass and taking names, and generally being the most beautiful of badasses to ever irk the Roman Empire. She even commissioned her likeness to be circulated on a series of coins as a direct middle finger to Rome (remember how she had seized control of multiple Roman trade routes? These coins were taking the hostile takeover of Rome’s economic might one step further). Unfortunately, Roman officials viewed this bold attempt to undermine their monetary power as no small threat, which is part of the reason they finally decided to get their shit together long enough to organize and pit their armies against Zenobia’s own.  Here’s what one of Zenobia’s coins looked like: