HOME |
RSS | 
Photo: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera captured a boulder on the Moon that decided to go on a little journey. Looking at the track, you'd think that this happened recently. Well, in geologic times perhaps:
The lonely journey of this large boulder is apparent from its track in a sloping regolith surface. A casual glance might suggest that it happened last week, or even that its rolling might resume at any moment. However, closer inspection will detect a few craters that clearly superpose and therefore post-date the track, showing that this 9-meter diameter boulder stopped rolling some time ago. Impacts are used in this way to provide a relative sense for the timing of events on planetary surfaces across the solar system. The procedure assumes a steady flux of impacting bodies in each size range, with smaller impacts being much more frequent than large impacts.
Though long ago to humans, however, this boulder's journey was made in geologically recent times. Studies suggest that regolith development from micrometeorite impacts will erase tracks like these over time intervals of tens of millions of years. If rate estimates are accurate, this boulder track might not be older than 50-100 million years. Eventually its track will be erased completely.
That's how a lunar rock roll, dudes: Link
One of NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar spacecraft has finally captured the far side (or the dark side, if you're poetically inclined) of the Moon on video. So far, no Cybertronian spacecraft was found.
In the video, the north pole of the moon is visible at the top of the screen as the spacecraft flies toward the lunar south pole. One of the first prominent geological features seen on the lower third of the moon is the Mare Orientale, a 560-mile-wide (900 kilometer) impact basin that straddles both the moon's near and far side.
The clip ends with rugged terrain just short of the lunar south pole. To the left of center, near the bottom of the screen, is the 93-mile-wide (149 kilometer) Drygalski crater with a distinctive star-shaped formation in the middle. The formation is a central peak, created many billions of years ago by a comet or asteroid impact.
National Geographic has a gallery of really neat rare photos from the Project Gemini Online Digital Archive. This one above is of astronaut Buzz Aldrin (the first man who peed on the moon, btw), who took this self-portrait while spacewalking during NASA's Gemini XII mission in 1966.
Can't beat that background: Link
NASA has released a high-definition image of the Earth it calls Blue Marble 2012.
A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite – Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed ‘Suomi NPP’ on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin.
The original Blue Marble image was taken in 1972 by astronauts aboard Apollo 17. Until today, it was my desktop image. NASA has made the new image available for download in several sizes. Link to story. Link to image. -via Buzzfeed
(Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring)
Before construction on the International Space Station began, a flood of conceptual designs passed across the drawing board, an Wired has gathered a gallery of designs that didn’t make the cut.
From far out, scifi influenced designs to more mundane designs that missed the mark by a hair, these concept drawings are fun to peruse and take us back to a simpler time in space design, a time when landing a space shuttle on a runway atop the space station actually made a lot of sense. Check them all out at the link below, and see what space looked like back in the day.
Cloudy skies over Beijing? Actually, no - the gray haze you see above is pollution.
NASA's Aqua satellite captured the patch of winter haze over the mega cities of Beijing and Tianjin on January 10, 2012:
One major constituent of haze is particle pollution, such as dust, liquid drops, and soot from burning fuel or coal. Particles smaller than 10 micrometers (called PM 10) are small enough to enter the lungs, where they can cause respiratory problems. The density of PM10 reached 560 micrograms per cubic meter of air on January 10, said the Beijing Environment Protection Bureau. By contrast, U.S. cities exceed air quality standards when PM10 concentrations reach 150 micrograms per cubic meter.
But most of the pollution that makes up haze isn’t PM10; it’s finer particles, smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM2.5). These particles can embed themselves deep in the lungs and occasionally enter the blood stream. The fine particles are highly reflective, sending sunlight back into space. The Chinese government does not currently measure PM2.5, but the U.S. Embassy in Beijing reports their measurements hourly in a Twitter feed. On the morning of January 10, PM2.5 measurements were off the scale, though by afternoon they had dropped to moderate levels. The Beijing Environmental Bureau will start releasing PM2.5 measurements sometime before January 23, the Chinese New Year.
You lungs thank you for not living there: Link
Six daleks, labeled as “Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne engines” from the space shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis are invading being shipped to Stennis Space Center in Mississippi to be refurbished for use in NASA’s new project, the Space Launch System (SLS). Link -via io9
(Image credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis)
What’s more awesome than move special effects? The real thing! This footage of Earthrise over the moon was taken from the Apollo X mission in 1969. All it needed was the proper soundtrack. -via Boing Boing
If the day after Christmas strikes you as a letdown, make a note to yourself now to get outside on Monday evening. NASA tells us there’s going to be a conjunction of heavenly bodies.
The action begins shortly before sunset. Around 4:30 pm to 5:00 pm local time, just as the sky is assuming its evening hue, Venus will pop into view, glistening bright in the deepening twilight. No more than 6 degrees to the right lies the crescent Moon, exquisitely slender, grinning like the Cheshire cat with his head cocked at humorous attention. This is a wonderful time to look; there are very few sights in the heavens as splendid as Venus and the Moon gathered close and surrounded by twilight blue.
But don’t go inside yet, because the view is about to improve. As the sky fades to black, a ghostly image of the full Moon materializes within the horns of the lunar crescent. This is caused by Earthshine, a delicate veil of sunlight reflected from our own blue planet onto the dusty-dark lunar terrain. Also known as “the Da Vinci glow,” after Leonardo da Vinci who first understood it 500 years ago, Earthshine pushes the beauty of the conjunction over the top.
Meanwhile, Jupiter will be looking down on it all from a perch overhead in the constellation Pisces. In ascending order, Jupiter, Venus and the Moon are the three brightest objects in the night sky, able to pierce city lights and even thin clouds. Almost everyone, everywhere will be able to see them.
(Image credit: Flickr user ozgurmulazimoglu)
Apollo 8 wasn’t just a NASA mission; it was the biggest, coolest, most mind-blowing Christmas special of all time.
The men of Apollo 8 -Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders- had their work cut out for them. They were slated to become the first humans ever to leave the Earth’s orbit, enter lunar orbit, and see the far side of the Moon. But as their launch date approached in December 1968, NASA added an even more terrifying task to the crew’s to-do list: public speaking. The agency wanted the astronauts to host a live broadcast from the spacecraft on Christmas Eve. Worse still, the men were given only one cryptic instruction: “Say something appropriate.”
The astronauts were in a tough spot. When millions of people of different faiths and backgrounds are listening, what exactly constitutes appropriate? To make matters trickier, 1968 had been a grim year for Americans -the Vietnam War was raging, and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. had both been assassinated. How could the astronauts simultaneously orbit the Moon, introduce millions to outer space on TV, and buoy the American spirit?
The men were stumped. They began enlisting the help of media experts, who were mostly just as clueless as they were. The answer finally came from the wife of Joe Laitin, a former reporter who’d worked as a public affairs officer under five presidents. She made an elegant, simple suggestion: Why not just read from the book of Genesis?
The astronauts jumped at the idea. They reasoned that genesis had a broad enough appeal across religions to add a hint of spirituality without ostracizing non-Christians. Borman, the mission’s commander, had the first ten verses typed onto fireproof paper and tucked the sheet into his flight plan. The astronauts had their script.
The broadcast began with the crew showing some of the first images of Earth ever seen from space. Lovell remarked, “The vast loneliness up here of the Moon is awe-inspiring, and it makes you realize just what you have back there in Earth.”
Viewers were captivated. But as airtime dwindled, Anders revealed that the crew had a special message for all the people of the planet. He started with the familiar “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth…”
He read the first four verses; Lovell read four more. Borman recited the last two and ended the show, saying, “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with a good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you -all of you on the good Earth.”
In the end, the crew’s effort paid off. Half a billion people tuned in, making it the largest TV event in history at the time, and the reception was overwhelmingly positive; even Walter Cronkite admitted that he had tears in his eyes. Of course, not everyone on Earth was thrilled; one atheist activist sued NASA for interjecting religion into a government project, but the Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit. Enough nitpicking! The Christmas Eve special won an Emmy, and Time made the crew the magazine’s “Men of the Year” for 1968. The broadcast was truly out of this world.
_______________________
The article above, written by Ethan Trex, is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the November-December 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!
Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ website and blog for more fun stuff!
Astronauts
aboard the International Space Station will soon get a respite from having
to wear stinky clothes: NASA is commissioning a
washer-dryer combo:
Imagine putting dirty clothes into a washing machine, leaving, and only coming back once the freshly cleaned clothes have been dried out by microwaves. That out-of-this-world-laundry concept could someday become a reality for astronauts and space explorers headed for the moon, asteroids or Mars.
Such a washing machine is designed to clean dirty astronaut clothing inside a sealed plastic bag that can also receive a drying blast of microwaves. The simple one-step process represents an energy- and water-efficient solution that spares space travelers from hauling a water-intensive washing machine up into space or bringing along disposable clothing.
Which brings the obvious question to mind: what have they been doing with their clothes?
The Daily Mail has the answer:
Brave - and strong-stomached - astronauts usually wear underwear for three or four days before putting them in a capsule that is ejected and burns up in the atmosphere. Other clothes are worn 'for months'.
So if you saw a streak of light in the sky, and you thought you've been wishing upon a falling star, think again. That may just be some astronaut's underwear. Thanks Tiffany!
Dr. Phil Plait selects his favorite space pictures every year, but this year he had a lot to sift through. The top 16 pictures taken from the viewpoint of space include volcanoes, hurricanes, earth formations, the moon, eclipses, and spacecraft, including the final space shuttle missions. Astronaut Ron Garan took this photograph of the moon from the International Space Station. See the rest at Bad Astronomy Blog. Link
On July 14, 2015, the spacecraft New Horizons will come within 7,767 miles of (former planet) Pluto. The probe has been traveling for six years already, covering a million kilometers every day, and broke a record on Friday by becoming the closet spacecraft to Pluto ever. The previous record was 1.58 billion kilometers, when Voyager I came its closest to Pluto in 1986.
“We’ve come a long way across the solar system,” says Glen Fountain, New Horizons project manager at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. “When we launched [on Jan. 19, 2006] it seemed like our 10-year journey would take forever, but those years have been passing us quickly. We’re almost six years in flight, and it’s just about three years until our encounter begins.”
From New Horizons’ current distance to Pluto – about as far as Earth is from Saturn – Pluto remains just a faint point of light. But by the time New Horizons sails through the Pluto system in mid-2015, the planet and its moons will be so close that the spacecraft’s cameras will spot features as small as a football field.
Get ready for your closeups, Pluto! Link
The most detailed moon map yet has been constructed from images by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Technicians from Arizona State University compiled the map which shows elevation changes as small as 100 meters.
The near-global topographic map was constructed from 69,000 WAC stereo models and covers the latitude range 79°S to 79°N, 98.2% of the entire lunar surface. Due to persistent shadows near the poles it is not possible to create a complete stereo based map at the highest latitudes. However, another instrument onboard LRO called LOLA excels at mapping topography at the poles. Since LOLA ranges to the surface with its own lasers, and the LRO orbits converge at the poles, a very high resolution topographic model is possible, and can be used to fill in the WAC “hole at the pole.” The WAC topography was produced by LROC team members at the German Aerospace Center.
Read more about the map at NASA. Link -via Laughing Squid
Michael König edited a sequence of photographs taken from the International Space Station (ISS) between August and October into a time-lapse video of an orbit over the earth. The altitude is approximately 350 kilometers. The music is “Do Dekor” by Jan Jelinek. -Thanks özi!
The job pays well, but the minimum education and work experience requirements are pretty stiff and you’ll have to relocate to Houston. Also, you must be small enough to fit into a Soyuz spacecraft.
NASA, the world’s leader in space and aeronautics is always seeking outstanding scientists, engineers, and other talented professionals to carry forward the great discovery process that its mission demands. Creativity. Ambition. Teamwork. A sense of daring. And a probing mind. That’s what it takes to join NASA, one of the best places to work in the Federal Government.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has a need for Astronaut Candidates to support the International Space Station (ISS) Program and future deep space exploration activities.
Applications will be taken until January 27th. Link -via Metafilter
Seven farms across the country are sporting NASA-themed corn mazes this year, as part of NASA’s Space Farm 7 project. It’s an educational project, as these farms host fall festivals open to the public, and a celebration of NASA’s achievements over the past 50 years. You can even vote on your favorite maze, and be entered to win lunch with an astronaut. The maze shown is at Dewberry Farm in Brookshire, Texas. See them all at Universe Today. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: The MAIZE Inc.)
NASA has confirmed that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins went through customs upon their return to Earth and the United States. They filled out the above form, declaring their travel itinerary and that they had brought back moon rocks, dust, and samples through the US border. They did not mention the whiskey smuggled inside Aldrin’s suitcase.
Link -via Geekosystem
Astronomers have completed the Bolshoi simulations - the aptly named supercomputer simulations of the cosmos (bolshoi means "great" in Russian), and the result is fantastic.
Here's a video clip of the Bolshoi Fly-Through by Anatoly Klypin and Joel Primack, visualized by Chris Henze at NASA Ames Research Center. I gather there's a Pale Blue Dot somewhere in there ...
More at the website of the Bolshoi Cosmological Simulations - via Science Daily
Comments Off
Image: NASA/JPL-CalTech/Space Science Institute
Look closely at the photo above and you can pick out 5 of Saturn's 60 natural satellites (Janus, Pandora, Enceladus, Mimas, and Rhea) as well as the planet's iconic rings:
A quintet of Saturn's moons come together in the Cassini spacecraft's field of view for this portrait.
Janus (179 kilometers, or 111 miles across) is on the far left. Pandora (81 kilometers, or 50 miles across) orbits between the A ring and the thin F ring near the middle of the image. Brightly reflective Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles across) appears above the center of the image. Saturn's second largest moon, Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across), is bisected by the right edge of the image. The smaller moon Mimas (396 kilometers, or 246 miles across) can be seen beyond Rhea also on the right side of the image.
This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane. Rhea is closest to Cassini here. The rings are beyond Rhea and Mimas. Enceladus is beyond the rings.
The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 29, 2011. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.1 million kilometers (684,000 miles) from Rhea and 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) from Enceladus. Image scale is 7 kilometers (4 miles) per pixel on Rhea and 11 kilometers (7 miles) per pixel on Enceladus.
Comments Off 
NASA has released some cool audio files free to the public!
Here’s a collection of NASA sounds from historic spaceflights and current missions. You can hear the roar of a space shuttle launch or Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind” every time you get a phone call. Or, you can hear the memorable words “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” every time you make an error on your computer. We have included both MP3 and M4R (iPhone) sound files to download.
Now, if I only had a smart phone. Link -via mental_floss
No,
that's not a meteor or an alien spaceship - that's an image of the falling
NASA satellite UARS, captured by amateur astronomer Thierry Legault:
The six-tonne, 20-year-old spacecraft has fallen out of orbit and is expected to crash somewhere on Earth on or around 24 September.
The US space agency says the risk to life from the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) is 1 in 3,200. [...] Nasa says that most of the satellite will break or burn up before reaching Earth.
But scientists have identified 26 separate pieces that could survive the fall through the atmosphere. This debris could rain across an area 400-500km (250-310 miles) wide.
Link | Thierry's webpage (Image: Thierry Legault)
This image of Manhattan was taken by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) aboard the Landsat 7 satellite, about 27 hours after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. It was uploaded to Flickr only a couple of hours ago. Link -via Gizmodo
(Image credit: Flickr user NASA Goddard Photo and Video)
Comments Off 
This image was selected as the Astronomy Picture of the Day last weekend. It was taken by the Cassini probe in 2006 from the shadow of Saturn.
First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn, slightly scattering sunlight, in this exaggerated color image. Saturn’s rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the image. Seen in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn’s E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus and the outermost ring visible above. Far in the distance, at the left, just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of Earth.
You should take a look at the larger version at NASA. Link -via Laughing Squid
(Image credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA)
Comments Off
NASA has just released new images of the Apollo landing sites on the Moon (or Burbank sound studio, to all you conspiracy theorists):
The twists and turns of the last tracks left by humans on the moon crisscross the surface in this LRO image of the Apollo 17 site. In the thin lunar soil, the trails made by astronauts on foot can be easily distinguished from the dual tracks left by the lunar roving vehicle, or LRV. Also seen in this image are the descent stage of the Challenger lunar module and the LRV, parked to the east.
Comments Off 
The Opportunity rover sent back a few “postcards” from The Red Planet this weekend. The photos which were taken using the rover’s panoramic camera show the edge of the Endeavor crater. Amazing that these photos are from another planet, look as though they could be taken somewhere in the western US. See more great photos from mars at the link.
Comments Off 
In what could be considered a mock protest to the end of the Space Shuttle program photographer Neil DaCosta and art director Sara Philips have posted a gallery of astronauts suicide photos. Apparently this is the only thing an astronaut has to look forward to these days. Dubbed the Dark Comedy Project the photos depict a person in a full astronaut suit posing in different positions as if they have just committed suicide . Some of these photos some people may find grotesque, inappropriate and offensive, and some people may find them darkly humorous. You be the judge.
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is sending back data that may indicate that the red planet has some flowing water during part of the Martian year. The streams are small, short-lived, and must be salty -if it is what they think it is.
Dark, finger-like features appear and extend down some Martian slopes during late spring through summer, fade in winter, and return during the next spring. Repeated observations have tracked the seasonal changes in these recurring features on several steep slopes in the middle latitudes of Mars’ southern hemisphere.
“The best explanation for these observations so far is the flow of briny water,” said Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson. McEwen is the principal investigator for the orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) and lead author of a report about the recurring flows published in Thursday’s edition of the journal Science.
Some aspects of the observations still puzzle researchers, but flows of liquid brine fit the features’ characteristics better than alternate hypotheses. Saltiness lowers the freezing temperature of water. Sites with active flows get warm enough, even in the shallow subsurface, to sustain liquid water that is about as salty as Earth’s oceans, while pure water would freeze at the observed temperatures.
“These dark lineations are different from other types of features on Martian slopes,” said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Scientist Richard Zurek of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Repeated observations show they extend ever farther downhill with time during the warm season.”
NASA has a multimedia presentation in which you can see how the images change over time. Link
In 2003 in the wake of the tragic Shuttle Columbia disaster many pieces of the shuttle were recovered in Texas. Now eight years later due to the intense drought in that state, one more piece of debris has been found in in four feet of lake water.
The recent drought in Texas has caused water levels to drop across the state, which has revealed a piece of American history resting on the bottom of lake. In the East Texas city of Nacogdoches, NASA has confirmed that a part of Columbia has been discovered. The piece of debris is a power reactant storage and distribution system (PRSD), which looks like a badly battered disco ball.
According to Lisa Malone, a NASA spokeswoman the PRSD is four feet in diameter, and was used on the Space Shuttle as a tank to provide power and water during missions. NASA is looking into how to recover the object.
Just as when you board an airplane and aren’t allowed to bring certain items like liquids and guns on board, the Apollo astronauts flying to the moon were restricted on what items they could bring as well. Well just like that extra large tube of toothpaste, 40 years ago a few of the Apollo crew brought some contraband as well.
Worden, now 79, and his Apollo 15 crewmates David Scott and James Irwin suffered stinging NASA reprimands for bringing with them into space about 400 unauthorized postage-stamped envelopes (called first-day covers) with the intention of selling them later as souvenirs.
“It wasn’t as bad as people thought. We didn’t violate any regulations, we broke no rules,” Worden said Tuesday from his home in Vero Beach, Florida.
An investigation into the incident revealed that previous Apollo astronauts had carried unauthorized memorabilia on board. But Worden and his fellow crew members bore the brunt of the backlash.
