In a
recent episode of
Mad Men titled "
Lady Lazarus," Pete Campbell has an existential crisis when he sees a picture of the Earth from space, but were there color pictures of the whole Earth in October 1966? First some background...
[more inside]
posted by quartzcity
on May 10, 2012 -
87 comments
On July 17th, NASA's
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite
completed its first survey of the entire sky viewable from Earth. After just seven months in orbit, WISE -- a precursor to the planned
James Webb Space Telescope -- has returned more than a million images that provide a close look at
celestial objects ranging from
distant galaxies to
asteroids. The first release of WISE data, covering about 80 percent of the sky,
will be delivered to the astronomical community in May of next year, but in the meantime we can see some of the images and animations that NASA has released to date: Galleries
(containing just a small selection of images):
1,
2,
3,
4. Videos and Animations:
1,
2 [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jul 24, 2010 -
11 comments
Who Speaks for Earth? "After decades of searching, scientists have found no trace of extraterrestrial intelligence. Now, some of them hope to make contact by broadcasting messages to the stars. Are we prepared for an answer?"
posted by homunculus
on Jan 1, 2008 -
63 comments
A Pale Blue Dot - An Unauthorized view. Some time before he died in 1996, Carl Sagan recorded a partial audio version of his 1994 book "Pale Blue Dot". Often described as the "sequel" to Cosmos, the audio version of Pale Blue Dot is, at this moment, regrettably out of print.
This video is "episode one" of an unauthorized attempt at producing a series of videos based on Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" audio book combined with a soundtrack and appropriate video and still images intended to recall the feel of the classic documentary series "Ascent of Man" and "Cosmos"
posted by empath
on Jul 9, 2007 -
8 comments
Voyager's Golden Record This is life on earth 1977 as it will appear when Voyager 1 meets life (ETA 40.000 years from now)... and finds a turntable.
Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager, both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future. With this example before them, NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2-a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a
phonograph record-a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing
sounds and images selected to portray the
diversity of
life and
culture on
Earth.
Hello, ET!
posted by Bravocharlie
on Dec 13, 2006 -
35 comments
Project Nova: on the 9th of September three Cambridge engineering students
launched a balloon equipped with a camera and tracking devices. It reached a height of 32km and took
857 photographs during its three hour flight,
some showing the curvature of the earth. You can also download
a KML file to follow the balloon's flight path in Google Earth.
posted by jack_mo
on Sep 23, 2006 -
24 comments
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.
posted by numlok
on Feb 16, 2005 -
8 comments
Reflections on a Mote of Dust "We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam."
Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"
posted by crasspastor
on Sep 11, 2001 -
15 comments
Hey, Baby -- did you feel that? The sun, someday, will envelope the Earth and all life as we know it will die. Can we prevent this? Some wacky scientists think that the best thing to do would be to up and move the whole damn planet.
posted by amanda
on Feb 22, 2001 -
16 comments
We are not alone.... a new planet outside of our solar system was found today. It's only a matter of time before the little green men come down to greet us.
posted by mathowie
on Nov 13, 1999 -
0 comments
