Venus transit

Unless you haven't been paying attention much recently, you know that Venus transited the sun the other day.
I wasn't going to post anything about it because I totally missed seeing it here, but I saw this picture today and just had to share it with you.

(click to view larger)

Wow, what a picture!! It was taken by a Japanese spacecraft called Hinode, on June 5th. The interesting thing is that this helps us to compare (to some extent) how big the sun is compared to us, because Venus is approximately the same size as the earth. BUT, the sun is quite a lot further away than Venus in this picture, so it's actually even bigger than it appears!

Source

Largest Cave

I just stumbled upon this National Geographic article of a cave in Vietnam. I've never seen or heard of such an incredible cave before! Apparently it is the largest cavern in the world (not longest but biggest) at 2.5 miles long, a sustained 300' wide and 600' high. Don't miss the pictures - they're unbelievable! Many of them have people in them, but you don't always see them at first because they look like ants in the picture!

Update: National Geographic has posted a video in which the photographer narrates and gives a presentation about finding and exploring this cave.