This image, a color view of the northwestern rim of the 32-mile-wide Degas crater on Mercury, is just one of the most recent images to come in from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft. It has been in orbit around Mercury since March 18 – just under three months – and already its findings have revolutionized what we…
Tag: NASA
The Final Countdown: A #NASATweetup Journal
#1: I made it! On July 8, less than a month from now, the last remaining space shuttle is slated to launch from Cape Canaveral. The STS-135 mission will bring supplies and parts up to the International Space Station and will be the historic conclusion of the 30-year-long shuttle program. Unless otherwise rescheduled, at 11:40am…
One Year of Moon
Can’t see the video below? Click here. This awesome animation by the visualization folks at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center shows the phases and position of the Moon throughout 2011 – a full year of the Moon compressed into 2.5 minutes! What’s really interesting is how you can see the wobble of the Moon in…
When We Left Earth
“It’s tiny out there…it’s inconsequential. It’s ironic that we had come to study the Moon and it was really discovering the Earth.” – Bill Anders, Apollo 8 astronaut When We Left Earth is a fantastic six-part series by Discovery Channel that features hours of new footage from NASA and interviews with many of those personally…
What’s Up for June?
Can’t see the video below? Click here. Jane Houston Jones from JPL tells us What’s Up For June in space exploration! (Hint: it’s solar system collisions!) The early solar system was a messy place and asteroids, moons and planets frequently collided and these collisions and impacts left scars we can see. Credit: NASA / JPL
Bounce and Flow
Dark flows run down the slopes of Stevinus A crater on the Moon in this detail of an image from the LRO’s camera. Large boulders that have rolled downhill appear to have interrupted the flow in at least one spot in this image. It’s still not exactly known whether these features in Stevinus A are…
Crescent Mercury
MESSENGER’s latest image of Mercury!
An Astronaut’s View of Earth
Can’t see the video below? Click here. This really is a must-see… it’s a video by NASA TV showing our planet as it is experienced by the privileged few who have flown in space and spent time aboard the International Space Station. Looking down on the landscapes of our world from orbit, passing 225 miles…
Messages from Mercury
It’s been over two months since the MESSENGER spacecraft successfully entered orbit around Mercury, back on March 18, and it’s been enthusiastically returning image after image of our solar system’s innermost planet at a unprecedented rate. Which, of course, is just fine with me! The image above shows Mercury’s southern hemisphere and the bright rays…
Watching Over Spirit
As a poignant reminder that Spirit is now officially at rest in its permanent position next to Home Plate, the HiRISE team released this image today showing the sun glinting brightly off the rover’s solar panels, visible to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter high above. Even though it may have fallen silent, Spirit will always be…
The Sun Sets on Spirit
After seven years on Mars it is now time to say good night to the rover named Spirit. Since becoming irreparably stuck in the soft Martian soil near a low rise dubbed “Home Plate” nearly two years ago, Spirit has weathered a frigid Martian winter that may have damaged its electronics. Attempts to communicate with…
A Fistful of Moons
This image from Cassini shows no less than five of Saturn’s moons in the same frame: Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across) is largest in the foreground; Dione (1,123 kilometers, or 698 miles across) can be seen just above the rings below Rhea near the center; Prometheus (86 kilometers, or 53 miles across) is just barely…
Lights in the Dark 