Having now traversed 34 kilometres (21 miles) across the surface of Mars and exceeding it's 90-day mission to explore Mars by 2,830 days, NASA's Opportunity rover
turned 8 years old today. So what's the feisty martian robot been up to lately? It's now exploring the rim of the 14-mile-wide
Endeavor crater, discovering
"slam-dunk" evidence that water once flowed through underground fractures, and is being strategically positioned at a 15-degree angle for a
long winter suntan.
posted by joinks
on Jan 24, 2012 -
29 comments
At one point, Stafford recognized a landmark crater, Censorinus A. He was momentarily distracted by the dramatic shadows and giant boulders surrounding the crater. “I’ve got Censorinus A right here,” he said out loud to the world, “bigger than shit!” A shocked reporter listening to the transmission in mission control turned to astronaut Jack Schmitt. “What did Colonel Stafford just say?” Thinking quickly, Schmitt covered for his colleague and replied “He said, ‘Oh, there’s Censorinus… bigger than Schmitt!’”
How not to swear on the moon, and other fun facts from
Vintage Space.
posted by Horace Rumpole
on Jan 6, 2012 -
21 comments
Click the photo at the top of the linked page to view
The Voyagers, a rumination on the universe, love, a golden record and two small space probes.
posted by Brandon Blatcher
on Dec 26, 2011 -
4 comments
There's Hard Rock, Soft Rock, Punk Rock, Folk Rock, Progressive Rock, Alt Rock, Art Rock, Acid Rock, Indie Rock, Grunge Rock, Schoolhouse Rock, 30 Rock, and now there's
Third Rock, an internet radio station "powered by NASA", yes, NASA. (Think of it as 'New Music' with commercials for something you already like)
posted by oneswellfoop
on Dec 16, 2011 -
20 comments
One of my favorite
blogs happens to be local to me. Eric Berger, the Houston Chronicle's "SciGuy" usually reports on the
weather. But he also posts entertaining and serious stuff as well.
[more inside]
posted by PapaLobo
on Nov 22, 2011 -
3 comments
August and September 2011 mark 34 years in
the journeys of
Voyager 1 and 2. The two scientific probes, progeny of the
Mariner program, were sent out to survey this solar system and beyond.
Voyager 2 completed the
Grand Tour in 2009 (excluding Pluto), and
Voyager 1 is getting closer to interstellar space (
previously). Both scientific probes were sent out in with
a time capsule from 1977,
golden records secured in plain view on the outside of the Voyager Spacecraft. These
greetings from earth (alt links: Coral Cache, Archive.org) were recorded in the form of 116 images,
a collection of sounds of this planet,
greetings in
55 languages (
YT),
27 songs from around the world, and
brain waves of Ann Druyan, then recently
engaged to Carl Sagan. For all that work, the
"Mix Tape of the Gods" almost didn't get sent into space because of some last-minute writing in the run-outs.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Aug 5, 2011 -
26 comments
NASA May Have Discovered Flowing Water on Mars 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.
posted by modernnomad
on Aug 4, 2011 -
65 comments
Initially the conventional wisdom was that spacesuits “would be like rockets: adamantine, metallic, armored and smooth.” But in practice, rigid spacesuits repeatedly failed under testing. So when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon they were protected from the vacuum of space by flexible spacesuits crafted from twenty-one layers of fabric, “each with a distinct yet interrelated function, custom-sewn for them by seamstresses whose usual work was fashioning bras and girdles” for the Playtex Corporation.
The Spirit of the Spacesuit ,
Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo [more inside]
posted by Herodios
on Jul 21, 2011 -
25 comments
The Space Shuttle Atlantis, STS-135, is scheduled to lift off this morning from Kennedy Space Center. The time was originally scheduled for 11:26 AM EDT, but that has been
pushed back, despite
"no technical concerns and... weather is a 'go'." Astronauts aboard are Commander
Chris Ferguson, Pilot
Doug Hurley, and Mission Specialists
Sandy Magnus and
Rex Walheim.
Watch live coverage, with some archival footage,
on NASA's Ustream or
on NASA.gov. NASA has provided
countdown highlights of the day to get you up to speed.
Read NASA's feed on Twitter. At the time of this post's writing, the countdown clock is on a scheduled hold with 9 minutes to go.
Previously,
STS-134, on the Blue.
posted by knile
on Jul 8, 2011 -
200 comments
Sunspots, first observed by Galileo, normally follow an 11-year cycle. We are into a few years into (recorded) cycle number 24 but according to NASA it's looking rather
underpowered. Nobody is certain exactly what the consequences will be, but one distinct possibility is a
cold period; a previous low in solar activity, the
Maunder minimum, is correlated with a brief
Little Ice Age. Nobody really knows how this unusual solar weather pattern might interact with human-caused climate change.
Previously, albeit somewhat controversially.
posted by anigbrowl
on Jun 14, 2011 -
28 comments
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
has announced:
NASA has ended operational planning activities for the Mars rover Spirit and transitioned the Mars Exploration Rover Project to a single-rover operation focused on Spirit's still-active twin, Opportunity. New Scientist has
a quality obituary for the little Mars Rover that could.
posted by hippybear
on May 28, 2011 -
44 comments
On May 16, 2011, after one scrubbed attempt, the space shuttle Endeavour set off on her final mission, STS-134. Shuttle commander
Mark Kelly had this to say after receiving a "go" from the launch poll:
On this final flight of space shuttle Endeavour, we want to thank all the tens of thousands of dedicated employees that have put their hands on this incredible ship and dedicated their lives to the space shuttle program. As Americans, we Endeavour to build a better life than the generation before, and we Endeavour to be a united nation. In these efforts, we are often tested. This mission represents the power of teamwork, commitment, and exploration. It is in the DNA of our great country to reach for the stars and explore; we must not stop. To all the millions watching today, including our spouses, children, family, and friends, we thank you for your support.
You've seen launches before, but NASA has uploaded a whole slew of angles that will truly amaze:
Witness 4.4 million pounds of shuttle, fuel, and rocket boosters "twang" a full 18 inches as the main engines ignite. 1.2 million pounds of thrust push against a locked down stack, waiting for the solid rocket boosters to ignite. (The SRBs bring the total to 7 million lbs of thrust, enough to break all that binds her to the pad.)
OTV Camera 71, a fantastic, short close-up.
UCS-15 (TV-21A) provides a dead-on, close up shot of the launch. The
South Beach Tracker shot offers a fantastic view as well. From 3.1 miles away at the
Press Site, note the ~11 second delay before the piercing sound of the SRBs hits. And just released today,
fantastic footage from the solid rocket boosters, including their trip to splashdown in the Atlantic ocean from 30 miles up. And finally,
the classic NASA view, with some great data overlays by
Spacevidcast.
[more inside]
posted by disillusioned
on May 26, 2011 -
40 comments
Croatian software developer and amateur image processor
Gordan Ugarković takes images from NASA's unmanned space probes released to the
Planetary Data System, splices them together and tweaks the colors, sometimes combining higher resolution black and white images with color images, sometimes recreating what the object would look like in natural color (ie, in visible wavelengths, from images taken in multiple wavelengths), sometimes heightening the contrast to bring out detail. (
via)
[more inside]
posted by nangar
on May 20, 2011 -
7 comments
We tend to think of blogs that showcase large images as a phenomenon of the past few years. But NASA's Earth Observatory has been posting its
Image of the Day since April 1999 (when its first "large" image available for download was
a 214 KB jpeg of the North Pole). Now, Image of the Day has downloads of images in multiple formats, most of which measure in megabytes, not kilobytes, and these stunning images of the earth's surface give context to the human activity down below:
a toxic spill in Hungary,
wildfires in Mexico, the growth of
a coal mine in West Virginia,
agriculture in Brazil,
snowmelt flooding in Fargo, North Dakota,
last year's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico,
artificial islands in Dubai,
the aftermath of Japan's recent tsunami.
posted by ocherdraco
on Apr 16, 2011 -
4 comments
Following on the heels of NASA's
announcement of the final resting places of the various space shuttles, NASA, in conjunction with William Shatner, released a final
video commemorating the program. (SLYT)
posted by Heliochrome85
on Apr 12, 2011 -
25 comments
After completing it's
final mission in March, Space Shuttle Discovery has been returned to the Kennedy Space Center's Orbiter Processing Facility, where it is being dissembled for cleaning and decommissioning. Spaceflight Now has
pictures of the process.
posted by helloknitty
on Apr 11, 2011 -
49 comments
For All Mankind "Al Reinert’s documentary For All Mankind is the story of the twenty-four men who traveled to the moon, told in their words, in their voices, using the images of their experiences. Forty years after the first moon landing, it remains the most radical, visually dazzling work of cinema yet made about this earthshaking event." "For All Mankind is irreplaceable: one of a kind and likely to remain so. It is, formally, among the most radical American films of the past quarter century and, emotionally, among the most powerfully affecting. It makes its impossible title stick. In For All Mankind, we all lift off together, and we all come home the same way, and few movies have captured so well the rhapsodic absurdity of our common voyage."
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posted by puny human
on Apr 7, 2011 -
35 comments
The Women@NASA website was developed to encourage more young women to pursue careers in math, science, and technology. Through a collection of videos and articles, the Women@NASA project shares the stories of 32 women across the agency who contribute to NASA’s mission in many ways.
posted by Horace Rumpole
on Mar 27, 2011 -
31 comments
