Why not say “I love you, space nerd” with a set of Rihga Royal Hotel Planetary Chocolates?

Combining astronomy and good eats sounds too good to be true. But in their celestial collection of planetary chocolates, chocolatier L’éclat of the Righa Royal Hotel Japan have done just that. The chocolaty solar system includes Mercury (coconut mango), Venus (cream lemon), Earth (cacao), Mars (orange praline), Jupiter (vanilla), Saturn (rum raisin), Uranus (milk tea) and Neptune (capuccino) – sorry, Pluto is no longer considered a planet.

Each are sold individually (400 yen) but if you order the set (3,800 yen) they’ll throw in the Sun – a flaring delicacy of criollo chocolate and pineapple. You can order online (3,200 yen; Sun not included)or you can use a forwarding service.
— Spoon & Tamago

Aircraft of Uranus, photo by x-ray delta one @ Flickr

Interesting aircraft designs – seems like the gaseous atmosphere of Uranus would clog those engines, but maybe not… as someone on Flickr pointed out, we’ll never know the details without page 238!

And yes, I realize I’m setting myself up for all sorts of tomfoolery in the comments by mentioning this planet.

A farewell shot by Voyager 2, the above image of Uranus hails from January 25, 1986, at a range of 600,000 miles. (Here’s a bit more info for those so inclined.)

My husband pointed out this great blog post, featuring travel posters to other times and places, real and fictional. One of the artists showcased is Steve Thomas, whose solar system travel posters are simply captivating. These are but a few, and you can get them all (plus Rivendell!) in large-format calendar form for 2009! Fantastic stuff, I hope to see more from him soon!