this is not just "a picture", it's Pale Blue Dot, one of the most famous works of astrophotography ever made public. and it was not just "a dying spacecraft", it was Voyager 1, a probe launched in 1977 to study the atmosphere and moons of Jupiter and Saturn, among other things. both Voyager probes carried on them a golden record meant as an introduction to humanity for any alien species that might discover them (if you saw Kane Parsons' Backrooms, you've heard the contents of that record coming out of a cardboard caveman standee). they did this because NASA planned to sundown these probes by letting them drift out of the solar system to parts unknown. Voyager 1 is currently 16 billion miles away, the farthest any manmade object has ever traveled from earth.

AND it's not even dead! despite supposedly being a "dying spacecraft" all the way back in 1990, Voyager 1 is not expected to be fully out of commission until 2036. to keep the probe alive they've switched off unneeded tools, adjusted its trajectory, even essentially updated the firmware, and through all that time it's basically never stopped sending back priceless data for scientists to analyze.

this is the original Pale Blue Dot, by the way:

it's relevant because "a single point of light smaller than one pixel" makes a lot more sense in the context of the original than it does in the heavily corrected version up top, where our pale blue dot looks more like a vibrant dwarf star. the difficulty of spotting earth in these waving curtains of space IS the entire impact of the picture! the blue dot is "pale" because it's hard to see! by making earth stand out so brilliantly, Terribly Interesting have inadvertently created the impression that earth is this vibrant glowing pearl, bright for all to see for billions of miles around. and it just isn't! the point is not that we can see earth from far away, but that we almost can't, because we aren't the center of the universe! when science educators past have used this image they often referred to one where the earth is circled in bright red, which only further emphasizes how small and fragile our home really is.

but hey, if you DO want an improved version of Pale Blue Dot you don't even need photoshop:

this is Pale Blue Dot Revisited, released by NASA in 2020. this is a reinterpretation of the original data using modern image processing techniques to create a more realistic or at least more high-definition rendering of the scene. it's important to understand that this is not the original image dropped into photoshop and airbrushed. strictly speaking, there isn't an "original" Pale Blue Dot the way there are negatives of traditional photography. astrophotography is almost always the product of raw data being deliberately interpreted by scientists, so the same data can produce many different images (ie if they want to emphasize the infrared spectrum vs visible light). similar work was done by Don P. Mitchell in ~2005 to enhance images taken by Soviet Venera probes of the surface of Venus to be less noisy.

here's an original:

and here's Mitchell's version:

i'm not here to argue which is "better" (and i highly recommend you read the source for this one because it's quite fascinating), just to give another example of the process in action and hopefully clarify how it's distinct from editing a jpeg in photoshop. also i just think it's neat!

which is the real reason i went to the trouble of making this post. Terribly Interesting may indeed find all of this to be terribly interesting, but it appears to be interest for the sake of a vague transient feeling of having been interested and little else. it doesn't name the probe, the photo in question, nor does it give historical context for the mission it was part of. the only substantial thing it says about the probe, that Voyager 1 is a "dying spacecraft", is so frustratingly oversimplified it may as well just be a lie.

so what's actually learned here, if you're someone who knows none of this history? that one time there was a thing and it did a thing? earth tiny from far away?? obviously it's just one image macro but i see this kind of thing making the rounds SO often, a screenshot with like two sentences on it explaining the image with as little descriptive text as possible. it's like there's a space-themed inspiration-posting rulebook that says you can't imply the existence of information not contained within the image. mention NASA? mention Voyager 1? mention Pale Blue Dot? nope! "a dying spacecraft" took "one last photograph", and here's a photoshopped version to make earth more visible.

and it might not even get to me nearly as much if this was any other space photo. i could accept that space stuff is complicated and this kind of fast-food image can only say so much if we were talking about Cassini or JWST's role in helping us find exoplanets. but this is Pale Blue Dot, the brainchild of arguably THE science communicator Carl Sagan! he wrote a book about Pale Blue Dot, he was on TV to announce the image personally! it's arguable that no astrophotograph exists whose context has been more digestibly packaged for laymen than Pale Blue Dot, which just makes it that much more egregious when someone doesn't go to the trouble.

so much of what i love about astronomy and studying the past & future of space travel is that everything you can learn is a doorway to learning more. you can't earnestly read about Voyager or Cassini or Venera or any other mission without finding some odd searchable detail and going "wait, what is that" and immediately falling down an hourslong rabbit hole to find an answer. and you'll never reach the bottom! i love reading articles about cutting edge astrophysics written for people in, like, early grad school, because i fully comprehend maybe 10% of it, vaguely understand 20% (on a good day), can kind of wrap my head around 30%, and find the rest totally inscrutable... but that's still a solid 60% scrutability rating even at the lowest-quality end of the spectrum! i'm no expert and i never will be, but in scouring the written expertise of others i almost always find one or two ideas that end up sticking with me forever. and it starts, every time, from questions about a photograph.

the sin of the above image is that it's solipsistic. it doesn't give you anywhere to put your curiosity or interest, doesn't invite you to leave their website and learn more than they have space to share, it doesn't even tell you anything useful about its subject! it reduces the entire history of Pale Blue Dot down to a vague and nondescript wonder that's just a pale imitation of the highly specific and ideologically driven wonder that Carl Sagan wanted us to feel.

here, feel it for yourself:

----

She was a 50 y.o. Siberian woman from 2500 years ago, living a nomadic lifestyle, and look at her tattoos...

Look...

apparently, cats' kidneys tend to be the thing that takes them down, something about their bodies being unable to self-clean their kidneys, and the vaccine is supposed revitalize the body's ability to do just that. It would be very VERY fucking cool to have cats suddenly reaching 30 years of age be the normal thing.

dude cracked the case about WHY kidneys fail, across the board as far as i can tell. turns out there's a specific molecule whose job it is to attach to waste and signal macrophages to come eat it. it remains inactive in cats for some reason, but the molecule is still there. basically what he's done is found the switch to activate them. this will be profound not only for our domestic babies, but for big cats too - especially cheetahs!

although his research was focused on cats, it's already being used to develop drugs for humans too!

on top of that, since these molecules are tags for waste, this could also dramatically lower the rate of fatty liver disease, liver cancer, urinary crystals, rheumatoid arthritis, and even some neurological cases! like, they're hoping it may have an impact on parkinson's and alzheimers, but it DOES have an impact on stroke recovery. like. holy shit.

furthermore, he's insisting that the feline drug be affordable if and when it rolls out onto the market. he wants this to be something anyone can get for their cat!! idk how much sway he'll have over the human drug, but hopefully enough that it, too, won't be that expensive.

annnnnd in his research that he's still doing for the human side of things, he's found a potential link between this molecule and estrogen. in the 20,000 samples he's tested, women between ages 10 and 29 had the highest amount of this molecule present in their blood (a higher amount means Something Fucky is going on, essentially. There's a higher amount of waste the body is trying to clean out) but it drops down to be almost equal amongst men and women after menopause. it hasn't been looked into yet, but fuck, just the fact it's noted and known and probably WILL be looked into soon??? imagine if this is what leads to figuring out all the various ways the ovaries and uterus fucks with people and how to fix it. or even like, maybe there's something about estrogen that makes it work better. who knows! but it's rad the link is there to be researched :D

As for the study itself, the 360 day follow up on stage 3 kidney failure kitties showed that the control had a survival rate of about 20%, while the test group had a survival rate of 80%

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Season 5 Episode 06: “Trials and Tribble-ations”

This might genuinely be the most endearingly self-indulgent episode of television in history.

🍁🍃 Hello and welcome to our sixth annual Flufftober 🍃🍁

Every year, we're so excited to share our prompts with you and look forward to all your beautiful creations that will fill the month of October with all the fluff 🥰 also, we're trying something new this year, so make sure to scroll all the way down and don't stop at the main list of 31 prompts or the usual list of alt prompts...😏

But first things first 😊

🍁 As with all our events, our standard blog rules apply, and you'll find answers to most questions on our FAQ post.

🍁 Below the cut, you'll find the necessary posting info, all the prompts in writing, and explanations for some prompts.

🍁 Please make sure to read the entire post! If you have any questions after that, feel free to send us an ask.

So many Prompt Extras 😍

🍁Yes, we heard your plea for more alternative prompts 😉

🍁 We also heard the tears of our friends in the Southern Hemisphere...

🍁 As always, you're welcome to replace prompts from the original list for whatever reason - no explanation needed.

Remember, you can use the Prompt Extras however you like:

💜 to replace a prompt from the original list 💜 to create even more content aside from the original prompts 💜 mixed together to enhance one or more of the other prompts

Whichever way you use them, have fun and go wild 🍃

You promised us something new 👀

Yes, we did - so welcome to the 2026 Flufftober Challenge Tasks 😁

We hope you like these prompts, and now

Happy Creating 🥳

I WILL calmly and kindly try to help anyone who is afraid of bugs. I will show them my finds, i will explain their importance, i will tell them just how sweet and gentle and friendly they are. And I WILL shoot down any immature loser who believes senseless killing is the only possible response to not liking something.

Get woke. Love bugs.

-Dinner is important! -We'll go out. STAR TREK: STARFLEET ACADEMY (2026–) 1.03

‘I worked 20-hour days to make Naomi Osaka’s Wimbledon dress’

The Japanese designer Hana Yagi created the striking all-white bridal-inspired kimono that drew cheers from the crowd at the All England Club

The Japanese kimono and the traditional western wedding dress are difficult enough to walk in, let alone play tennis. But Naomi Osaka did so anyway, emerging on to Wimbledon’s Court 3 in a gown that was a hybrid of both garments to play a round of practice shots.

The dress, which drew cheers and wolf whistles from the crowd, was the Japanese player’s latest fashion display, following the gold sequinned outfit that she wore at the French Open and her extravagant turquoise and green dress at the Australian Open in January. Her Wimbledon effort was the work of Hana Yagi, a 26-year old Japanese designer, who created it alone in ten days in her studio in Tokyo.

2026 French open, designed by Kevin Germanier in collaboration with Nike:

Yagi was asked to create an outfit for the “walk on”, when players enter the court before the beginning of a match, a well-established opportunity for fashion statements. At the French Open, Osaka compared her sparkling dress to the illuminations of the Eiffel Tower. Her extraordinary Australian Open outfit was inspired by jellyfish.

Australian Open 2026, designed by Robert Wun for Nike:

But Wimbledon imposes strict rules — above all that all clothes must be completely white (Roger Federer once got a telling-off for wearing shoes with orange soles). “First, it had to be all white,” says Yagi. “Visually, [Harper] gave me the image of a kimono or junihitoe [a traditional 12-layered kimono of the Japanese imperial court]. As a part of the concept, they wanted to reinterpret the tradition in the context of sport.”

The vintage wedding dresses she had in her own stock were cream and ivory — shades unacceptable at Wimbledon. She went to shops in Tokyo and bought the pure white western style wedding dress that forms the lower part of the Osaka gown, and a shiromuku, the traditional nuptial kimono in which brides are wrapped for delivery to their new husbands.

It is this, embroidered with brocade images of cranes and cherry blossoms, that forms the upper part of the dress, but drastically restructured to allow freedom of movement. “I didn’t want her to walk with small steps — in this she won’t have any difficulty walking,” Yagi says. “And it’s not like a tight corset, but a dress that Naomi herself can adjust.” Osaka wore her playing dress, created by her sponsor Nike, below Yagi’s creation, so it had to be lighter than a conventional kimono. The other condition was that the player had to be able to put on and remove the dress quickly.

“It was my first experience of that, because all my past works were art pieces, and not really aiming to be functional,” she says. “But this has to come on and off in three minutes. I kept it putting it on myself over and over again to confirm that it worked.” The secret ingredient? Extensive strips of Velcro.

Some more of Naomi Osaka's show-stoppers:

US Open 2024. Designed by Yoon Ahn for Nike:

US Open 2025. Designed by Osaka herself: