MetaFilter posts tagged with solarsystem

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.

God-like powers, at last

MrMoonPie — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:39:28 -0800

Flash Friday Fun! Excellent, physics-based game wherein you control the sun, trying to grab planets and keep them in orbit. Any game that includes the admonition not to "go hyperbola" is OK by me.

Borealis Basin

Kronos_to_Earth — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:21:07 -0800

Plate tectonics early in its history have been suggested as an explanation of Mars' unsymmetrical shape. Multiple impacts [pdf] have been proposed. Or possibly, it's the result of a single, highly energetic impact....

Mission to Mercury

Artw — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:28:21 -0800

Mercury Messenger, a NASA probe, just performed a fly-by of Mercury at a height of 200 kilometers. It's the first spacecraft to visit Mercury since 1975.

Hot space bot uses stirling engine

Artw — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 12:24:57 -0800

NASA proposes using a Stirling cooler (essentially a Stirling engine in reverse) to keep a probe cool on the surface of Venus, which has had a tendency to melt or smash previous probes. The cooler would maintain a 25cm sphere within the probe at 200°C -- 100°C above the boiling point of water but sufficiently cool for a high-temperature microcontroller to operate. The waste heat radiators on the exterior of the sphere would reach the temperature of 500°C, 40°C above the the normal Venusian surface temperature.

Golden Ratios

digaman — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 08:21:30 -0800

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.]

7 mph would be the equivalent of driving at the speed of light

jessamyn — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 07:23:22 -0800

At forty miles (64.4 km) from Pluto to Sun, the Maine Solar System Model is the largest complete three-dimensional scale model of the solar system in the world. What, you didn't know there was more than one? And yes, Pluto is staying put.

Years of basic science textbooks down the drain...

twiggy — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 06:47:36 -0800

My very elegant mother just sat upon ninjas ... the textbooks, mnemonic devices and more will have to be changed today. Pluto has been demoted from its status as planet to a dwarf planet. We now have 8 in our solar system. The debate is not at all new, and its apparent resolution may not matter to our everyday lives, but it's just a little weird to think of all of the things that will have to be retroactively edited or amended as a result.

Enough speculation Pluto, time to see if you really are a planet.

Phantomx — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 02:53:22 -0800

The New Horizons spacecraft will be the first man-made object to visit our controversial sibling planet. An Atlas V will be used to launch the craft to the fastest speed that man has ever hurled an object to the heavens. Due to this and the small size of Pluto, the probe will only be capable of one flyby. Today is the first day in the launch window that the rocket is hoped to be launched.

road trip, anyone?

dazed_one — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 13:10:41 -0800

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.