MetaFilter posts tagged with NASA and earth

Happy 40th anniversary, mankind.

sexyrobot — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:01:13 -0800

Moon Landing Tapes Found! All the videos you've seen of the first moon landing are crap. Remember, back in the day, video cameras and recorders were two different things. So it went like this: camera on moon sends footage to Australia, where it's recorded on tape (and then those tapes were lost), then downsized onto a smaller monitor, which is filmed by another video camera, uploaded to satellite, and disseminated around the world. America watches it on TV, cheers. Some of this footage is filmed off of a television onto 16mm film. This is what goes into the national archives. Crap. So, the original tapes have been found (spoiler: they never left Australia). So what, right? How good could they be, recorded back in the late 60's and all? Pretty darn good, apparently...seems recording heads were much better than the output available at the time (like playing a Blu-Ray disc on a B&W TV), and several recent projects have shown that it's possible to extract very high resolution data from these old analog tapes. How hi-rez? High enough to see Neil Armstrong's nipples get hard. (be sure to click on that picture) So when can we see this amazing footage? Probably soon.

Up, Up, and Away

digaman — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:46:12 -0800

The 56-Euros-and-a-balloon teenage Catalonian space program.

The Solar Connection

digaman — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:01:23 -0800

Rethinking Earthrise. On the 40th anniversary of the NASA's Apollo 8 mission [caution: weird JFK animation], which answered Stewart Brand's epochal, LSD-inspired question "Why haven't we seen a photograph of the whole Earth yet?" with an unforgettable image of a seemingly fragile and isolated blue planet, Nature editor Oliver Morton -- author of a new book on photosynthesis called Eating the Sun -- disputes the notion that the Earth is fragile and isolated. "The fragility is an illusion," he writes. "The planet Earth is a remarkably robust thing, and this strength flows from its ancient and intimate connection to the cosmos beyond. To see the photo this way does not undermine its environmental relevance -- but it does recast it."

The Whole Earth Photolog

Rhaomi — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:34:54 -0800

From grainy stills to gorgeous high-resolution portraits, from intimate pairings to stark contrasts, and from old standbys to little-known surprises, The Planetary Society's Earth galleries offer a rich collection of stunning photography and video footage of our world as seen from both planetary spacecraft and geostationary satellites. It is a vista that has inspired many a deep thought in the lucky few that have seen it firsthand [previously]. Oh, and the rest of the Solar System is pretty neat, too.

Mother Nature is an abstract artist

CunningLinguist — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:48:50 -0800

30 Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of Earth "From 400 miles away, the earth transforms into abstract art. The global landscape is impressionist, cubist and pointillist." Nice NASA images from 2000, downloadable as wallpaper.

"We'd like to confirm, from the crew of Apollo 17, that the world is round."

blahblahblah — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:34:39 -0800

The most widely-distributed photograph in history may be The Blue Marble, a shot taken in 1972 by an unknown crewmember on Apollo 17. In 2002, NASA released a new Blue Marble photograph, familiar to desktops everywhere, using a composite of many photographs. In 2005, Blue Marble: The Next Generation offered even better views and some spectacular animations of the seasons from space. In the same spirit, the Discovery Channel just launched Earth Live, which lets you see the dynamics of weather and climate through a well done interface.

Space shuttle does a back flip

jouke — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 03:15:48 -0800

The space shuttle does a back flip while the earth races by underneath. Shuttle Atlantis has performed a giant back-flip to give NASA a close look at its thermal shield. The footage has been speeded up. At speed it seems a very frivolous manoeuvre. Open Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra in a tab in the background for full effect.

In space, no one can hear you say "cheese".

Gamblor — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 10:17:37 -0800

The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Over half a million photographs of Earth taken from orbit by astronauts, from 1961 through the present. The ability of the astronauts to rapidly identify interesting phenomena allows them to capture events as they occur, like volcanic eruptions, floods, and hurricanes, or take advantage of the angle of the sun to highlight specific features, like the pyramids or Mount Everest.

A very large explosion

C17H19NO3 — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 05:42:30 -0800

NASA scientists say that a large gamma ray explosion within our own galaxy may have triggered a mass extinction hundreds of millions of years ago.

Twinkle, twinkle little GPS BIIA-12...

numlok — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 10:37:01 -0800

J-Track 3D is an interesting JAVA web-app offered by NASA which gives a 3D interactive display of over 500 satellites currently orbiting the Earth.

http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/TPF/tpf_what_is.html

stbalbach — Sun, 17 Aug 2003 21:09:22 -0800

NASA thinks we can find another Earth in another nearby star. When we do, how can we possibly travel light-years to get there? It might not be as hard as you'd think . . .

Big Blue Marble

crunchland — Sat, 19 Jul 2003 09:20:45 -0800

The Blue Marble ... true color global imagery at 1km resolution.

View the Earth from a different perspective

riffola — Wed, 27 Nov 2002 19:27:19 -0800

Shuttle Views the Earth: Geology from Space. Also see the Human Imprints set. [via milov]

thijsk — Mon, 12 Aug 2002 12:43:52 -0800

From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: A capital idea. Why did we not fasten a thread to our projectile, and we could have exchanged telegrams with the earth?. Bad idea, said Jules. Great idea, says NASA.

hob — Fri, 14 Jun 2002 11:16:54 -0800

Solar System Akin to Earth's Is Discovered Any minute now, I imagine somebody at a listening station on a smaller, bluer planet a few in from this one making a minute adjustment to their equipment and promptly spraying warm stimulant-laced beverage over their console...

pedantic — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 13:07:48 -0800

The Blue Marble. Adjust your gamma settings kids. The Earth with true-color imagery at 1-kilometer resolution.

owillis — Fri, 20 Apr 2001 16:44:00 -0800

Zooooom in from space! Very cool views of our planet

lizardboy — Tue, 02 Jan 2001 17:07:00 -0800

This is an amazing photograph of what the world looks like at night, from a low orbit. Although this is found in a subdirectory of NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, I'm not sure how to get to this pic by surfing the site, nor do I have any information on what was used to do the photographing. The link was sent to me in an email.

Anybody know the details on this one?