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)
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posted by nangar
on May 20, 2011 -
7 comments
Where's Tyche, the 10th 9th planet? Getting the full story. John Matese and Daniel Whitmire of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette recently made the news when they announced the possible discovery of a gas giant planet they named
Tyche in the Oort Cloud, at the extreme edge of the Solar System (
previously). Now ars electronica breaks down the evidence behind the announcement, what can be done to confirm or disprove its existence & how long it could take.
posted by scalefree
on Mar 3, 2011 -
17 comments
People have been
upset about Pluto's demotion for some time now. (While
classical music fans have just had a love/hate relationship with this whole process.) But
astronomical hate mail has never been as cute as the missives Neil deGrasse Tyson has received over the years from tots upset at poor Pluto's ouster.
posted by greekphilosophy
on Mar 15, 2010 -
46 comments
Blood Falls - The iron rich red liquid gushing from a buried Antarctica lake shows how life may have existed on a snowball Earth, or on Europa.
posted by Artw
on Apr 18, 2009 -
52 comments
Tonight NASA is scheduled to launch the
Kepler Mission (named after planetary legislator
Johannes Kepler) with the goal of finding Earth size planets in orbit around stars in the
Cygnus-Lyra region of the sky. Over the next 3 and a half years it will maintain a nearly unblinking gaze on the approximately 100 thousand stars in the region. NASA expects it to find about
50 Earth size planets, as well as hundreds that are larger. You can watch the launch live on
NASA TV.
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posted by borkencode
on Mar 6, 2009 -
42 comments
Mars and Beyond - 50 years ago, this animated episode of Tomorrowland aired on Disneyland a few months after the launch of Sputnik - an entertaining melange of astronomy, sci-fi, pop culture, science, speculation, and surreality. Walt himself and Wernher von Braun make guest appearances and clip 5 is particularly trippy. (Parts
2,
3,
4,
5,
6)
posted by madamjujujive
on Jun 10, 2007 -
9 comments
Scientists have discovered a planet composed of
scorching hot ice. Originally thought to be a gas giant due to its mass, its actually only four times the size of Earth and most likely composed of exotic forms of ice, such as
Ice VII and Ice X with s surface temperature of 300° C.
posted by Artw
on May 16, 2007 -
30 comments
Did the roof of the Pantheon influence Copernicus? Are the planets of the solar system aligned in accordance with a nearly-forgotten hypothesis known (unfairly) as
Bode's Law? A fascinating wide-ranging discussion on BLDGBLOG with
Walter Murch, the visionary editor and sound designer for such films as
The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, THX1138, and many others. [Murch's film work has previously been discussed
here and
here.]
posted by digaman
on Apr 7, 2007 -
20 comments
Explore our local chunk of space.
Here is a scale view of the Solar System, and
here one can take a quick trip around it. Use the
guidebook to plan your trip (but beware the pop-up ads). Don't forget to bring a
camera and snap some
photos.
posted by dazed_one
on Nov 12, 2005 -
12 comments
Hubble harvests 100 new planets during a 7-day sweep of the bulge of the Milky Way.. If confirmed it would almost double the number of known planets to about 230. "I think this work has the potential to be
the most significant advance in discovering extra-solar planetary systems since the first planets were discovered in the mid-1990s."
posted by stbalbach
on Jul 1, 2004 -
17 comments
