Here’s a gorgeous view from the International Space Station, taken by the Expedition 30 crew on Feb. 4, 2012 as the station passed into orbital dawn. The greens and reds of the aurora borealis shimmer above Earth’s limb beyond the Station’s solar panels as city lights shine beneath a layer of clouds. Read the rest…
Author: Jason Major
Jason is a Rhode Island-based graphic designer, photographer, nature lover, and space exploration fanatic.
Sun, Moon and Spots
The Moon snuck in front of the Sun this morning from the perspective of NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (Little SDO), sliding past the sunspots of active region 1422. For a sense of scale, those sunspots are easily several times larger than Earth! Read the rest of the story here. And check out a video of the…
“Zero G and I feel fine… Man, the view is tremendous!”
Those were the words enthusiastically said by astronaut John Glenn as he became the first American to orbit the Earth on Feb. 20, 1962. The photo above was taken by Glenn through the window of the Friendship 7 spacecraft, in which he completed three orbits before splashing down in the Atlantic. Much has changed in…
One Very Attractive Simulation
Here’s a fascinating physics model by computer artist Mark J. Stock, showing the 3-dimensional movements of 1 million bodies, each given their own gravity: One can easily imagine witnessing the birth of galaxies after the Big Bang, millions — even billions — of years passing before your eyes in seconds! It’s amazing how quickly a…
More ISS Awesomeness!
This just in: new time-lapses from the ISS, by way of the Image Science & Analysis Lab at Johnson Space Center and The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Enjoy! (Descriptions from JSC.)
An Artistic Array of Rays
Named after a 12th century Chinese artist, Xiao Zhao is a young 15-mile (24-kilometer) wide crater on Mercury. Its broad, bright rays indicate its youthfulness, as the lighter material ejected by the initial impact has not yet had enough time to grow dark. “Young” is a relative term, of course. On Mercury that can still mean…
A Little Lunar Levity
Sometimes astronauts just wanna have fun! The video above was taken during the Apollo 17 mission on December 11, 1972, when astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt went off in search of lunar samples during an EVA (short for Extra-Vehicular Activity.) Enjoying the 1/6 gravity, Jack felt the urge to break into song. And can…
Temporal Distortion: A Stunning New Time-Lapse by Randy Halverson
Here’s a gorgeous new time-lapse video created by the talented Randy Halverson and featuring a dramatic score by composer Bear McCreary, recently of Battlestar Galactica and The Walking Dead fame. (Can’t see the video above? Watch in HD on Vimeo here.) Breathtaking! Read more about this video below:
A Growing Sunspot: AR1416
This animation, made from images taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, shows active region 1416 as it rotated into view over the past week, doubling in size as it approached the center of the Sun’s disk. According to SpaceWeather.com’s Dr. Tony Phillips, AR1416 is magnetically charged in such a way as to be ready to…
Hubble Spots Jupiter’s Spooky Northern Lights
Acquired in March 2007, this eerie image from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys’s ultraviolet camera show glowing auroral emissions, always present in Jupiter’s polar regions. The aurora is hundreds of kilometers wide and about 250 kilometers above the planet. It is caused by electrically charged particles striking atoms in the upper atmosphere from above, the…
The Town That Billy Sunday Couldn’t Shut Down
Here’s a view from the ISS, looking down at the brightly-lit Chicago metropolitan area on February 2, 2012. Lake Michigan is the dark expanse seen below the clouds — perhaps a dense fog bank — at bottom center. According to NASA, fog is not common in the Great Lakes area this time of the year…
Titan. In color.
On Jan. 30, the Cassini spacecraft executed a flyby maneuver of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, passing within 19,340 miles (31,130 km) of its surface. This color composite image of the cloud-covered moon was created by combining raw data acquired with Cassini’s Imaging Science System (ISS) in red, green, blue and clear color channels. The result…
Lights in the Dark 