What Is the Same

...in these two photos?This was yesterday's APOD... click over for the answer and glorious full-size; scroll your cursor over the picture for the answer, or click the picture to enormify.

Another bit of space news I read earlier is “We’ve learned a lot more about urine than we ever needed or wanted to know.” According to The NYT, "Russia has offered its astronauts’ help in unclogging a high-tech toilet on the International Space Station that is reportedly backed up because of excess calcium in astronauts’ urine." I find this interesting because while it is common knowledge that calcium is lost from bones during extended "zero-g" space flight, I had never considered where that element went. For example,

It was noted on the Skylab missions of the 1970s and by the crews of the Russian space station Mir that calcium loss begins about ten days into the flight. The loss was slow to start, about 140 mg per day, but increased to approximately 250 to 300 mg per day by 84 days into the flight.

About the only place it could go is urine. Logical consequences. As much as I like the lead quote, it seems pretty clear that even if they didn't want to know that much about urine, they do need to know about it. Perhaps even more than they already do.