Episode 24. Includes: Cool video of new space vehicle tests, Daily Show on NASA boss Charlie Bolden’s Muslim comment, Space Shuttle worker layoffs, last Atlantis shuttle fuel tank, progress we have a problem, and asteroid ready for close up. Provided by SpaceflightNow.com. Can’t view the video above? Watch on YouTube here.
Tag: NASA
Solar Maelstrom
A powerful sunspot creates a spinning whirlpool of magnetic activity around itself in this detail from an SDO image (AIA 304) taken today, June 24. Sunspots are darker areas on the sun’s surface (photosphere) where a “bubble” of magnetic fields have risen from the interior and “pushed aside” the hotter layers at the surface to…
A Picture of Home
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter turned its cameras toward home from a distance of over 231,000 miles away on June 12, 2010. Looking back at Earth in this way helps to calibrate its Wide Angle Camera, and while doing so two images were taken with its Narrow Angle Camera and combined to create this beautiful black-and-white…
You Are Here
Here’s an image that always blows my mind: it’s our planet as seen by the exploration rover Spirit on March 8, 2004, 63 Martian days into its mission. It’s the first image of Earth taken from the surface of another planet. The official description says: The image is a mosaic of images taken by the…
This Week in Space
Season 1, episode 22: Miles is back this week with a new way to track world shipping, Soyuz launch to ISS, former NASA admin Griffin has kind words about SpaceX’s Elon Musk, the results are in from Kepler’s first days of planet hunting, men locked up for 17 months to simulate Mars mission and a…
Ultra Magnetism
Revealed in extreme ultraviolet light, our sun’s looping magnetic field lines are visible (watch in HD!) in this video from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite. The action spans a two-day period from June 6 – 7, 2010, and features two particularly magnetically-active regions on the sun’s surface. Superheated solar material is caught up in…
Hyperion
Here’s a wonderful color mosaic of Saturn’s moon Hyperion, assembled by Gordan Ugarkovic from four Cassini narrow-angle camera images. The moon’s heavily cratered sponge-like surface can be seen in vivid detail due to the high phase angle of sunlight, making its rough texture even more pronounced. At 255 x 163 x 137 miles in diameter,…
Back That Thing Up
For those of you who haven’t seen this yet, it’s a very neat animation made from three days’ worth of images from the Opportunity rover as it climbed away from the rim of Victoria crater in late August 2008. The “shaky cam” look gives it a very you-are-there documentary feeling, especially since the height of…
Journey Into The Sun
Here’s a very informative segment about the Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft (now offering continuously updating views of the Sun!) from KQED, the Northern California Public Broadcasting channel. Enjoy!
Solar Crossing
Another shining example of perfect timing and photographic expertise by Thierry Legault, this image shows the shuttle Atlantis as it somersaults in front of the International Space Station in order to have its underbelly checked out on May 16. Over 200 miles above the Earth, the ISS and Atlantis passed briefly in front of the…
This Week in Space
With Miles O’Brien on vacation, David Waters hosts this episode of This Week in Space highlighting rocket plane racing, the upcoming private-sector SpaceX rocket launch, the Atlantis and Discovery shuttle missions with new antimatter telescope components to be installed aboard the ISS, NASA uses weather satellites to keep an eye on BP’s oily mess in…
Two Decades of Discovery
As this weekend marks the 2oth anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope’s launch, here’s a video from the Hubble team highlighting just a few of the many discoveries the orbiting observatory has made since first opening its – and our – eyes to the universe. Here’s to many more years of Hubble! Read more on…
Lights in the Dark 