Remember Dawn, the spacecraft that showed us our first close-up images of asteroid/protoplanet Vesta when it entered orbit back in 2011? Well Dawn is still going strong, having left Vesta behind and now closing in on its next target: Ceres, a full-fledged dwarf planet and, at about 600 miles (965 km) wide, the largest object in the main asteroid belt. Once…
Tag: NASA
Hubble’s Stunning Star-Filled View of the Andromeda Galaxy
It’s Hubble’s 25th anniversary in space this year but it seems like we’re the ones getting all the presents! Yesterday NASA released two new high-def versions of the famous “Pillars of Creation” image, and now today there’s this: Hubble’s most detailed image ever of the Andromeda Galaxy! Containing over 100 million stars it’s not just the…
A Postcard from Mars: Salsberry Peak Panorama
Every now and then I get unexpectedly caught up in a project that I originally intended to be a quick just-for-fun thing and ends up taking an hour and a half of my time (usually long after I should have gone to bed.) This was one of those. Made up of 28 raw images acquired…
The First Christmas From the Moon
“We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.” – Bill Anders, Apollo 8 On Christmas Eve 46 years ago, December 24, 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts entered orbit around the Moon and came upon an amazing sight: a blue Earth “rising*” beyond the…
Watch a Full Year of the Moon in Five Minutes
This is very cool: it’s a visualization of the Moon’s changing phases and libration throughout the year, made by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Visualization Studio. They’ve done these several times in the past and this is the latest one for the upcoming year 2015. For accuracy you just can’t beat it: the global terrain…
Watch This Hauntingly Beautiful Footage From Orion’s Fiery Return to Earth
On December 5, 2014, at 7:05 a.m. EST, an enormous Delta IV Heavy roared into the sky from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, sending a test version of NASA’s Orion spacecraft on a “flawless” four-and-a-half hour, two-orbit voyage which took it 3,604 miles away from Earth – farther than any spacecraft…
NASA Wants to Send Humans to Mars, But What About Venus?
NASA, SpaceX, Mars One… all (and others) are actively working on plans to send humans to the surface of Mars at some time within the next few decades. And while the first human exploration of the Red Planet will be a truly momentous and historic event in whatever fashion it ends up being – it…
Is Mars Alive? Curiosity Uncovers Organics and Methane in Gale Crater
While it’s not quite the “smoking gun” for evidence of life on Mars, the recent announcement of a detection of spiking methane levels by NASA’s Curiosity rover has certainly caught everyone’s attention – especially since the activity of microbes is one possible source for the presence of the compound, which has already been detected by…
Here’s Your Chance to Name a Crater on Mercury!
On March 18, 2011, MESSENGER became the first human-made spacecraft to enter orbit around Mercury. Now almost four years, eight billion miles, and over 260,000 images later, MESSENGER is nearing the end of its operational life. To commemorate the many achievements of the mission, scientists from NASA and the MESSENGER teams at the Johns Hopkins…
Orion to Soar Into Space This Week for a NASA Social
This Thursday, at 7:05 a.m. EST, the launch window for NASA’s Orion will open and – weather permitting – it will lift off aboard an enormous ULA Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral for its maiden voyage into space. The event will be broadcast live on NASA TV starting at 4:30 a.m., and I’ll also be…
An Ocean Beyond Earth: Europa Awaits
It’s no secret that Earth’s ocean is filled with life, much of it still a mystery or totally unknown to science. But what about the ocean on other worlds? I’m not talking about sci-fi planets or suspected alien Earths around other stars, but right here in our own solar system, where an ocean even deeper than ours lies…
Saturn and Titan Show Off Their Crescents
It may not be in color but that doesn’t make it any less beautiful: this stunning image from Cassini shows Saturn and its largest moon Titan – the second-largest moon in our solar system, after Jupiter’s Ganymede – from their night sides, both showing their crescents against the blackness of space. Titan’s crescent nearly wraps all…
Lights in the Dark 