So did you get out and Wave at Saturn on The Day the Earth Smiled? If you did (and even if you didn’t) here’s how you — and everyone else on Earth — looked to the Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn, 898.4 million miles away.* As Carl Sagan famously said, “That’s here, that’s home,…
Author: Jason Major
Jason is a Rhode Island-based graphic designer, photographer, nature lover, and space exploration fanatic.
This Day in Space History: One Small Step
Note: Reposted/updated article from 2012. “That’s one small step for a man… one giant leap for mankind.” I’m not sure what else need be said about the significance of what happened on this day in 1969, 44 years ago… it was a shining moment in human history, and will be — should be — remembered…
Smile, Earth!
Hey everyone! Today, THIS is happening: That’s right — the entire planet will be photographed from Saturn by Cassini, 900 million miles away. So whatever you’re doing at that particular time, take a moment to look up, smile and wave! This will be one for the history books. Read more here.
A New Moon for Neptune!
Big, blue, and blustery, distant Neptune is the outermost “real” planet in our solar system — a frigid gas giant nearly 3 billion miles from Earth orbiting the Sun with a handful of faint ring segments and a retinue of 13 moons… um, on second thought, better make that 14.
Ring Shadows Surround Saturn’s South
Cassini gets a great look at Saturn’s southern half in this color-composite, assembled from raw images acquired on July 13, 2013. Click for a larger view in my Flickr stream (the original raw images were only 1024 px, so it’s still a little grainy.) I adjusted the channel histograms quite a bit to achieve a…
New Horizons’ First Look at Pluto’s Big Moon
The two bright clusters of pixels in the image above might not seem like much of a big deal, but they are… those two blocky blobs are the dwarf planet Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, as seen by the rapidly-approaching New Horizons spacecraft, destined for its ultimate close encounter in July 2015! This represents…
Book Giveaway Contest!
Hey there LITD subscribers — just a reminder that Dave Goldberg’s excellent new book The Universe in the Rearview Mirror is available for purchase today, and I’m now running a contest where three lucky winners* will receive a free copy! Find out how you can enter here. *US addresses only, I’m afraid. Apologies to my…
NASA Announces Goals for Next Mars Rover
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” — that seems to be the idea behind the designs for NASA’s next Mars mission, which will put yet another rover on the Red Planet in 2020. Drawing on the developments from previous rovers — Spirit, Opportunity, and especially Curiosity — the next robotic explorer will feature a…
Book Review: The Universe in the Rearview Mirror
Physics is hard. I’m sorry, let me elaborate: physics is really hard. The sharpest minds of our entire species have been hammering away at the fundamental rules of our Universe for the past several hundred years, and while they’ve discovered an incredible lot about the tiniest bits of things that make up… well, everything… it’s…
On July 19, Smile and Wave at Saturn
…because Cassini will be watching — and taking pictures! In three weeks, on Friday, July 19, the Cassini spacecraft will be taking pictures from orbit around Saturn, capturing the ringed planet in eclipse against the Sun. This will not only provide fantastic views of the planet’s rings and atmosphere, but will also include another treat:…
Supermoon Returns!
If you haven’t heard, tomorrow (June 23) will bring the closest full Moon of the year, which will make it appear big and bright in the night sky — a so-called “Supermoon.” But what does this really mean and how does it happen? Dr. Michelle Thaller of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center explains: While a…
Want to see a BILLION-pixel view of Mars from Curiosity?
Well, here you go. Don’t say I never gave you nothin’. 😉 Actually this is a NASA-produced image made of 850 frames taken by Curiosity’s MastCam, showing the view from the rover as of late October/early November 2012. Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons) rises in the distance, and the mountainous rim of Gale Crater can be…
Lights in the Dark 