Shine on, you crazy diamond!

1385 ♥ / 8 July, 2011

CAPE CANAVERAL — The last mission in NASA’s decades-long space shuttle program is now underway.
Atlantis rocketed into orbit today at 11:29 a.m. EDT and is flying at 17,500 mph around the Earth. The mission, STS-135, will catch up with the International Space Station in two days.
The space shuttle launch marks the last in NASA’s history, closing out a government-funded space program that lasted 30 years.
“The shuttle’s always going to be a reflection of what a great nation can do when it commits to be bold and follow through,” said astronaut Chris Ferguson, commander of the mission, from the cockpit of Atlantis just before pushing into space atop a billowing cloud of fumes. “We’re completing a chapter of a journey that will never end. Let’s light this fire one more time, and witness this great nation at its best.”
During their 12-day mission, Ferguson and his three crewmembers — veteran astronauts Doug Hurley, Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim — plan to wrap up construction of the space station. They’ll deliver a new room crammed with a year’s worth of food, water and other supplies and perform suite of experiments in orbit, including the test of a bag able to recycle urine and a space-based iPhone application. The expect to land July 20 at 7:06 a.m. EDT.
NASA’s space shuttle program has encountered both glowing support and heated opposition throughout its history.

Every time a launch happens I experience an incredible sense of wonder and awe. An experience that will surely be missed.

3 ♥ / 8 July, 2011

Eclipse over the Acropolis
The total phase of the June 15 lunar eclipse lasted an impressive 100 minutes. Its entire duration is covered in this composite of a regular sequence of digital camera exposures, tracking the dark lunar disk as it arced above the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. In fact, around 270 BCE Greek astronomer Aristarchus also tracked the duration of lunar eclipses, though without the benefit of digital clocks and cameras. Still, using geometry, he devised a simple and impressively accurate way to calculate the Moon’s distance, in terms of the radius of planet Earth, from the eclipse duration. A more modern Greek astronomer, Elias Politis titled this eclipse duration study and the accompanying youtube timelapse video “Acropoclipse”.

1 ♥ / 6 July, 2011

3920 ♥ / 27 May, 2011

7707 ♥ / 24 May, 2011

On May 19th, 2005, NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this stunning view as the Sun sank below the rim of Gusev crater on Mars. This Panoramic Camera (Pancam) mosaic was taken around 6:07 in the evening of the rover’s 489th martian day, or sol. Spirit was commanded to stay awake briefly after sending that sol’s data to the Mars Odyssey orbiter just before sunset. This small panorama of the western sky was obtained using Pancam’s 753nm, 535nm and 432nm color filters. This filter combination allows false color images to be generated that are similar to what a human would see, but with the colors slightly exaggerated. In this image, the bluish glow in the sky above the Sun would be visible to us if we were there, but an artifact of the Pancam’s infrared imaging capabilities is that with this filter combination the redness of the sky farther from the sunset is exaggerated compared to the daytime colors of the martian sky. Because Mars is farther from the Sun than the Earth is, the Sun appears only about two-thirds the size that it appears in a sunset seen from the Earth. The terrain in the foreground is the rock outcrop “Jibsheet,” a feature that Spirit has been investigating for several weeks (rover tracks are dimly visible leading up to Jibsheet). The floor of Gusev crater is visible in the distance, and the Sun is setting behind the wall of Gusev some 80 km (50 miles) in the distance.
This mosaic is yet another example from MER of a beautiful, sublime martian scene that also captures some important scientific information. Specifically, sunset and twilight images are occasionally acquired by the science team to determine how high into the atmosphere the martian dust extends, and to look for dust or ice clouds. Other images have shown that the twilight glow remains visible, but increasingly fainter, for up to two hours before sunrise or after sunset. The long martian twilight (compared to Earth’s) is caused by sunlight scattered around to the night side of the planet by abundant high altitude dust. Similar long twilights or extra-colorful sunrises and sunsets sometimes occur on Earth when tiny dust grains that are erupted from powerful volcanoes scatter light high in the atmosphere.
Jim Bell Pancam Instrument Lead May 18, 2006

3 ♥ / 12 May, 2011

1886 ♥ / 11 May, 2011

Outside looking in …
Major Winter Storm Takes Aim at Central U.S.
This visible image was captured by the GOES-13 satellite and shows the low pressure area bringing snowfall to the Midwest Jan. 31, 2011. Heavy snow is expected today in portions of northern Iowa, southern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Snowfall from the system extends from Michigan west to Montana, Idaho, Utah and Arizona. A mix of rain and snow also stretches into the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, and it is all moving east. This system appears to be as large as 1/3rd of the Continental U.S. The image was created on Jan. 31 at 12:45 p.m. EST (1745 UTC) by the NASA GOES Project, located at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The GOES series of satellites are operated by NOAA. Image Credit: NOAA/NASA GOES Project Text Credit: Rob Gutro, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

2 ♥ / 2 February, 2011

Twin suns - coming to a planet near you just as soon as Betelgeuse explodes

ONE of the biggest stars in our galactic neighbourhood - Betelgeuse - is expected to go supernova “soon”.

The infamous red super-giant star in Orion’s nebula - Betelgeuse - is predicted to go gangbusters and the impending super-nova may reach Earth before 2012.

The second biggest star in the Orion constellation is losing mass, a typical indication that a gravitation collapse is occurring.

When that happens, we’ll get our second sun, according to Dr Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland.

“This old star is running out of fuel in its centre”, Dr Carter said.

“This fuel keeps Betelgeuse shining and supported. When this fuel runs out the star will literally collapse in upon itself and it will do so very quickly.”

When this happens a giant explosion will occur, tens of millions of times brighter than the sun.

The bad news is, it could also happen in a million years. But who’s counting?

The important thing is, one day, night will become day for several weeks on Earth.

Woah! How fucking cool is this?! *Mind blown*

0 ♥ / 21 January, 2011

1 ♥ / 11 January, 2011

Belcher Islands, Canada
Like sweeping brushstrokes of pink and green, the Belcher Islands meander across the deep blue of Canada’s Hudson Bay. The islands’ only inhabitants live in the small town of Sanikiluaq, near the upper end of the middle island. Despite the green hues in this image, these rocky islands are too cold to sustain more than a smattering of low-growing vegetation.
Image taken by Landsat 5 on Sep. 21, 2001Our planet is so beautiful and we don’t even know it.

0 ♥ / 16 November, 2010

221 ♥ / 7 October, 2010

0 ♥ / 27 August, 2010

19 ♥ / 25 May, 2010

0 ♥ / 21 April, 2010