This morning, at 4:49 a.m. CDT, after 5 days, 16 hours and 5 minutes attached to the International Space Station, SpaceX’s Dragon craft was released and made its return to Earth. It splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 10:42 a.m. CDT, about 530 miles southwest of Los Angeles, off the coast of Baja California….
Month: May 2012
Annular Eclipse Seen From The Moon
The May 20 annular eclipse may have been an awesome sight for skywatchers across many parts of the Earth, but it was also being viewed by a robotic explorer around the Moon! During the event NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter turned its camera to look back home, acquiring several images of the Earth with the Moon’s…
A Dragon Is Berthed!
“Houston, Station — looks like we got us a Dragon by the tail.” NASA Astronaut Don Pettit, Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Space history has been made today! At 11:02 a.m. CDT, NASA’s Houston mission control announced a successful berth of the SpaceX Dragon capsule to the Harmony Node of the International Space Station, making it the…
How a Falcon Carried a Dragon Into the Future
In the dark hours before dawn this morning, Tuesday May 22, 2012, history was once again made along Florida’s warm and humid space coast. After a series of extensions and delays — and even one literal last-second scrub — SpaceX successfully launched its Dragon capsule aboard a Falcon 9 rocket… a trailblazing event that opens…
And The Sun Is Eclipsed By The Moon
If you didn’t get a chance to see the annular eclipse from where you are, either due to weather or location, here’s a shot of it I managed to grab from Dallas, TX just as the Sun emerged from some low clouds and right before it set beyond the trees.It was visible for perhaps five…
Watch Tonight’s Eclipse Live!
If you can’t see the annular eclipse occurring tonight from where you are, you can watch it LIVE here on LITD! The feed above (providing it’s not over capacity) will be aired from Petroglyph National Monument in New Mexico, beginning at 9 pm Eastern time — right in prime U.S. viewing location! You won’t need…
Is Earth Alive?
Proposed by scientists James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the 70s, the Gaia theory suggests Earth is a self-supporting singular life form, similar to a cell. The theory claims that, rather than being merely a stage upon which life exists, life — in all forms — works to actively construct an Earthly environment in which it can…
Three Devils, One Image
The HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Oribiter captured this image of Mars’ surface, showing the presence of three different dust devils in the same region. Dust devils are common during the springtime on Mars’ northern hemisphere, when increased sunlight heats the surface and causes air to rise rapidly in spinning columns. The image was…
The Curious Central Peaks of Iapetus
The curious, 20-km tall central ridge of Iapetus, a.k.a. the Voyager Mountains Saturn’s 914-mile (1471-km) -wide Iapetus (pronounced eye-AH-pe-tus) has a particularly curious feature: a chain of 20-kilometer (12-mile) high mountains encircling the moon’s equator. On the anti-Saturnian side of Iapetus, the ridge appears to break up, forming distinct, partially bright mountains. The Voyager I…
Take a Look at Titan!
Here’s a great shot of Titan and Saturn acquired by Cassini on May 6, 2012 just after a pass by the haze-covered moon. It’s a color-composite made from images taken in Cassini’s red, green and blue color channels, and the resulting image was color adjusted a bit to appear more “Saturny”.
In Which I Ask Conan O’Brien His Thoughts On Space Exploration
Can’t see the video below? Click here. On Monday afternoon, Team Coco — that is, the Google Plus page for comedian and late-night TV host Conan O’Brien — posted a video contest where five lucky “Plussers” would be able to participate in Conan’s first-ever live Google Hangout. All you needed to do was record and post a…
Symphony of Science: “We Are Star Dust”
Can’t see the video below? Click here. The 15th and latest installment of the awesome Symphony of Science videos is out, and like all those before it it’s a fun, inspirational and educational trip through the cosmos with voiceovers by leading astronomers and physicists. These are great, and if you haven’t seen the others be…
Lights in the Dark 