The evolution of Mars imaging from orbit:
Mariner 4 (1964),
Mariner 6 and
Mariner 7 (both 1969),
Mariner 9 (1971) (all NASA),
Mars 5 (1973) (USSR),
Viking 1 (1975),
Viking 2 (1976),
Mars Global Surveyor (1996),
Mars Odyssey (2001) (NASA),
Mars Express (2003) (ESA), up to this spy-quality shot of an
active avalanche taken by NASA's
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2005).
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot
on Mar 5, 2008 -
11 comments
The Envisat ENVIronmental SATellite is on its fifth year in orbit. To celebrate, ESA has assembled four galleries with selected images from the 500 tearabytes of data that has been collected to date.
The pictures are of very different types, covering a wide variety of information, for example clorophyll concentration, global wave height, and an interferogram of the Bam earthquake.
I personally think the ‘maximum water vapour mean’, in the atmosphere gallery is beautiful.
Unfortunately the galleries are in flash so you cannot save the pics directly.
posted by Catfry
on Mar 1, 2007 -
12 comments
On September 2nd at 10:41 p.m. PDT the ESA's
Smart-1 will
crash into the moon. While no one is certain how bright the impact will be, some believe it may be visible to amateur astronomers. We've discussed this
before, but tonight's the night!
posted by quin
on Sep 2, 2006 -
17 comments
The
hunting of American Bison got a renewal today. The first hunt of the buffalo, in 15 years, began with a Belgrade, MT,
boy killing a bull with 4 shots, shortly after the hunt began. The 15 year hiatus on hunting Bison in Montana was contentious,
if not downright nasty, but that's over now. Montana has allowed Bison hunting outside Yellowstone park, and it's
been a media show. Of course, this
really pisses some folks off, to which hunters claim, "
It's like the hunter's become the hunted". The mountain west of the US has become a battle ground of
flowing ideas, with man against nature, and man against man. The Endangered Species Act, the very thing that has lead us to this event,
is under siege. People begin to notice when critters die.
Welcome to
Bison Hunt, 101.
posted by Wulfgar!
on Nov 16, 2005 -
64 comments
Road trip to venus!
The
Venus Express was
launched on Nov. 9th, 2005 from
Baikonur, the
historic spaceport in Kazakhstan. It is the first Venus probe sent by the
ESA , and you can
follow it's progress on the six month journey to the planet.
Exploration of
Venus begin in 1962 with
Mariner 2, the first space probe to fly by another planet and other flights, including the Russian
Venera 7, which was the first probe to land on another planet. The Soviets took quite an interest in Venus and
dominated the exploration of the planet through the '70s and '80s. A lot of the images recorded by those early craft have been
reprocessed with modern technology.
In the early '90s the
Magellan spacecraft spent several years
mapping the surface of Venus, providing us
many,
many,
many images and
3D maps of
the planet.
As for
Venus Express, it's goal is to spend two years making detailed studys of
the planet's clouds and atmosphere.
posted by Brandon Blatcher
on Nov 13, 2005 -
19 comments
Instead of liquid water,
Titan has liquid methane. Instead of silicate rocks, Titan has frozen water ice. Instead of dirt, Titan has hydrocarbon particles settling out of the atmosphere, and instead of lava, Titanian volcanoes spew very cold ice.
posted by Pretty_Generic
on Jan 21, 2005 -
28 comments
Art goes to Mars. This may be the very first art that our species sends into space, unless you count the little naked folks on the Voyager plaque, or broadcast television. In a somewhat bold move, they've chosen shock artist putter-of-sharks-in-formaldehyde
Damien Hirst. Is it me, or would the chosen painting be much dorkier if this were NASA rather than the European Space Agency? Like a duck or something.
posted by condour75
on Nov 30, 2002 -
12 comments
