MetaFilter posts tagged with space and earth

Flying to the Edge of Space

Effigy2000 — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 02:31:47 -0800

James Mays flies to the edge of space in a U2 spy plane.

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.

Keep an eye in the sky

CaptKyle — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:53:21 -0800

Go buy a helmet because Astronomers calculate there is a tiny chance that Mars or Venus could collide with Earth. Though it's likely to now happen for billions of years, maybe you should think about buying a helmet, putting a little post-it note on it, and burying it for your future relatives.

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."

Portals Between Earth and Sun Open Every Eight Minutes

homunculus — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:55:11 -0800

Magnetic Portals Connect Sun and Earth. "Like giant, cosmic chutes between the Earth and sun, magnetic portals open up every eight minutes or so to connect our planet with its host star. Once the portals open, loads of high-energy particles can travel the 93 million miles (150 million km) through the conduit during its brief opening, space scientists say." [Via]

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.

"Cities in Japan have a distinct blue-green cast."

Dave Faris — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:55:42 -0800

Cities at Night, an Orbital Tour Around the World was made when astronauts added stabilizers to the cameras on the orbital space station, allowing them to get sharp, crisp nighttime images.

"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.

Who Speaks for Earth?

homunculus — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:36:24 -0800

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?"

A Pale Blue Dot

empath — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:43:11 -0800

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"

Cameras....In.....SPAAAAAAAACE

DU — Fri, 04 May 2007 10:13:07 -0800

Knowing that Sputnick went up in 1957, when would you guess the first photo from space was taken? If your answer is "more than 10 years earlier", you'd be right. (Previously 1 and 2)

Earth 1977, explained to an alien

Bravocharlie — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 12:32:56 -0800

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!

Balloon In Space (Nearly)

jack_mo — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 17:50:27 -0800

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.

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.

Homemade Earth

elgilito — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 04:16:20 -0800

Artificial images of our real planet : computer-generated Earth views and panoramas, all created using various free tools and resources, including the Blue Marble and USGS datasets, POV-Ray and the Gimp. CGI Mount Saint Helens vs the real thing. For truly artificial landscapes, see also the randomly-generated Landscape of week from the same author.

I can see my house from here

jonson — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 16:55:51 -0800

Hi-res satellite photos of Earth Four pages worth, desktop wallpaper sized.

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.

Lovely

Mwongozi — Fri, 12 Mar 2004 08:46:17 -0800

A beautiful photograph of Earth Some eye candy to cheer up your Friday

Top 10 satellite images

mr_crash_davis — Tue, 02 Mar 2004 21:10:46 -0800

The top 10 IKONOS satellite images of 2003

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 . . .

Earth as Art

dejah420 — Wed, 02 Apr 2003 22:02:56 -0800

Step above it all for a moment, and take a look at stunning images of the planet as seen through the eyes of the Landsat-7 satellite. Select an area of the globe, or view an index of the images.

tankboy — Tue, 23 Jul 2002 19:25:24 -0800

Gotterdammerung. It's big, it's bad, and it's due in 2019. Dammit, who's going to rock me to sleep tonight? [via /.]

Tarrama — Sat, 23 Feb 2002 19:53:23 -0800

Keo Satellite to Carry Messages to Earth's Future A nonprofit French group hopes to launch a satellite on a 50,000-year spin around Earth next year, loading it with as many as 6 billion messages from humans eager to give the far-flung future a glimpse of the present.