Blog Archives
Have No Fear, Phobos is Here!
Mars and Phobos imaged by Hubble on may 12, 2016. Credits: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levay (STScI), Acknowledgment: J. Bell (ASU) and M. Wolff (Space Science Institute).
On May 12, 2016, the Hubble Space Telescope captured a series of images of Mars and in them the planet’s moon Phobos can be seen appearing from behind the western limb. This was just 10 days before opposition which, in 2016, was the closest Mars had been to Earth since 2005, lending particularly good opportunity for picking out its largest—yet still quite small—moon.
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This Day in Space History: One Small Step
Note: This is an updated article from 2012.
Panorama of the Eagle lunar module by Ed Hengeveld from JSC scans.
“That’s one small step for a man… one giant leap for mankind.”
I’m not sure what else need be said about the significance of what happened on this day in 1969, 48 years ago… it was a shining moment in human history, and will be — should be — remembered forever as an example of what people can achieve when challenged, driven, and inspired.
More giant leaps have been made since then, and undoubtedly more will be made in the future, but this was the first and to this date still very much the biggest.
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Jupiter’s Red Spot Dominates New Juno P7 Pics
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot imaged by Juno on July 10, 2017. Credit: NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Jason Major
They’ve arrived! Images from NASA’s Juno spacecraft P7 pass have landed on Earth (a few days early no less) showing Jupiter’s Great Red Spot from the closest distance that it’s ever been imaged before. Captured on the night of July 10 (early July 11 morning UTC) the closest Junocam images were taken from a distance of only about 5,600 miles from the top of the storm’s clouds—that’s less than an Earth diameter away from a hundreds-year-old hurricane an Earth and a half wide!
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Today Juno Will Get Our Best Look Yet at Jupiter’s Great Red Spot
Image of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot captured by Voyager 1 in 1979. Processed by Björn Jónsson.
Today, July 10 (July 11 UTC) NASA’s Juno spacecraft will make its first targeted flyover of Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot since its arrival in orbit on July 4, 2016, getting our best look yet at the giant anticyclonic storm that’s been churning on the giant planet since at least 1830 (and possibly even since before 1665.)
Previous spacecraft (Voyager, Galileo, Cassini, New Horizons) have imaged the Great Red Spot but none from as close a distance as Juno will tonight. During P7—Juno’s seventh “perijove,” or closest point to Jupiter in its 53-day-long orbital path—Juno will pass over the GRS at an altitude of only about 5,600 miles.
Perijove (the point at which an orbit comes closest to Jupiter’s center) will be on Monday, July 10, at 6:55 p.m. PDT (9:55 p.m. EDT). At the time of perijove, Juno will be about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) above the planet’s cloud tops. Eleven minutes and 33 seconds later, Juno will have covered another 24,713 miles (39,771 kilometers) and will be directly above the coiling crimson cloud tops of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. The spacecraft will pass about 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) above the [Great] Red Spot clouds.
Once the flyover data is transmitted and received on Earth sometime on Friday, July 14 we can expect amateur image processors (myself definitely included!) to feverishly get to work bringing out as many details as possible in the raw data. (You can find raw images from Junocam and processed versions from the public here.) This, as they say, is going to be good!
Source/read more from NASA here: NASA’s Juno Spacecraft to Fly Over Jupiter’s Great Red Spot July 10
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Watch Ed White Perform the First American Spacewalk, 52 Years Ago Today
Today is the the 52nd anniversary of America’s first spacewalk, performed by NASA astronaut Edward H. White II on the afternoon of June 3, 1965 during the four-day Gemini IV mission. In NASA terminology spacewalks are also referred to as extravehicular activities, or EVAs—basically anything done outside the protection of a spacecraft. The video above shows footage of the historic Gemini IV EVA with narration by White himself. (Sound begins about 30 seconds in.)
The photo below was captured on medium-format film by fellow astronaut Jim McDivitt from inside the Gemini IV craft. It shows White free-floating in orbit during his EVA, holding the Hand-held Maneuvering Unit (or “zip gun”) that used canisters of propellant to move the user around. (You can see scans of the original photos from the mission here on ASU’s “March to the Moon” gallery.)
Ed White on the first American spacewalk on June 3, 1965. (NASA)
White was tragically killed just two years later on Jan. 27, 1967 in the fire that claimed his life and those of fellow Apollo 1 astronauts Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee. But his legacy lives on each and every time an American astronaut “suits up” and opens a hatch to venture out into an alien environment, whether it’s in Earth orbit, on the Moon, on Mars…or somewhere we haven’t even thought of visiting yet!
