In honor of International Observe the Moon Night (InOMN) I invite you to see the Moon like never before, with this beautiful HD tour that takes you around our natural satellite as it’s seen by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. According to the Lunar and Planetary Institute’s David R. Kring, “The scenes in the video are…
Author: Jason Major
Jason is a Rhode Island-based graphic designer, photographer, nature lover, and space exploration fanatic.
Dawn Makes an Elemental Discovery on Vesta
In what could be called a “eureka” moment for Dawn researchers and planetary scientists alike, hydrogen has been found on the surface of Vesta, a 550-km (340-mile) -wide protoplanet and the second most massive world in our Solar System’s main asteroid belt. The elemental discovery was made with the Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector (GRaND)…
Farewell, Endeavour: The Last Shuttle’s Final Flight from Florida’s Space Coast
The space shuttle Endeavour, mounted atop NASA’s Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), is seen shortly after takeoff from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012 in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The SCA, a modified 747 jetliner, is flying Endeavour to Los Angeles where it will be placed on public display at the California Science Center….
Blue Marble, Pale Blue Dot…whatever you call it, it’s Home
35 years ago today, September 18, 1977, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft turned its camera homeward just about two weeks after its launch, capturing the image above from a distance of 7.25 million miles (11.66 million km). It was the first time an image of its kind had ever been taken, showing the entire Earth and Moon together…
Rhapsody on an Impact Event: Mercury’s Rachmaninoff Crater
Rachmaninoff is a spectacular double-ring basin on Mercury, and this color view is one of the highest resolution color image sets acquired of the basin’s floor. Visible around the edges of the frame is a circle of mountains that make up Rachmaninoff’s peak ring structure. The color of the basin’s floor inside the peak-ring differs…
A Frightful Eclipse Seen From Mars
Yes, Mars gets eclipses too! This brief animation, made from ten raw subframe images acquired with Curiosity’s Mastcam show the silhouette of Mars’ moon Phobos (named after the Greek god of fear) as it slipped in front of the Sun’s limb on September 13 — aka the 37th “Sol” of the mission. The animation spans…
Neil Armstrong Buried at Sea
Earlier today, Friday, September 14, 2012, Neil A. Armstrong’s burial at sea service was held aboard the USS Philippine Sea in the Atlantic. The first man to walk on the Moon during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, Armstrong passed away on Saturday, August 25. He was 82. An icon of exploration for all of humanity, he will…
Three Wheels and a Mountain
NASA’s Curiosity rover takes a peek at a peak — the central peak of Gale Crater, that is! — as well as three of its Morse-code etched wheels in this picture, made from two images acquired with its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) instrument on September 9.
Once you realize what this Cassini image is showing, you’ll love it.
Go ahead, take a look. Let it sink in…..waaaait for it…… there. I told you. Still wondering what it is you’re looking at? That’s ok, you’ll love it even after I tell you.
Cassini Peeks at Titan’s Southern Vortex
A color-composite image of Titan shows Saturn’s largest moon in true color, including its recently-discovered southern vortex forming above its south pole. The image was assembled from three raw images acquired on August 28 by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in red, green and blue visible light color channels. The background was extended in size to better…
What We’ve Learned From The Kuiper Belt
Today marks the 20th anniversary of the discovery of the first Kuiper Belt Object, 1992QB1. Called KBOs for short, these are distant and mostly tiny worlds made up of ice and rock that orbit the Sun at incredible distances, yet are still very much members of our Solar System. Since 1992 over 1,300 KBOs have been found,…
Curiosity’s Camera Reveals “Southwestern” Landscape on Mars
Wow — what a view! This is a high-resolution shot of the Curiosity rover’s ultimate goal: the stratified flanks of Gale Crater’s 3.4-mile (5.5-km) high central peak, Mount Sharp. The image was taken with Curiosity’s 34mm Mastcam as a calibration test… if views like this are what we can expect from the MSL mission, all I can…
Lights in the Dark 