Today is the autumnal equinox, when the Earth receives sunlight at its most direct angle relative to its equator and poles. As Earth orbits around the Sun over the course of a year, its axial tilt causes the angle of solar illumination to change – a predictable and regular change, but a change nonetheless. This…
Tag: space
Around the World in 60 Seconds
Want to blow your mind? Watch this: Now watch it 14 more times for an idea of what the astronauts aboard the ISS get to see every day. No wonder after five months up there they still don’t want to come down! This gorgeous video was made by science teacher James Drake using images downloaded from…
Space Mountain
Colombia’s Pico de Cristobal Colon rises into the sky in this beautiful photo taken on July 9 by Ron Garan, a NASA astronaut and Expedition 27 flight engineer aboard the International Space Station. Pico de Cristobal Colon (Spanish for “Christopher Columbus’ Peak) is the highest mountain in Colombia and the fifth most prominent in the…
Reflections on a Tweetup
It’s been over a week since the NASA Tweetup (note: these are now called “NASA Socials”) and I’m still thinking about it. For good reason, of course… it was awesome. Over the course of two days I saw a capsule that had been to space and back, talked with five astronauts (one currently in orbit!),…
A Close Pass of Helene
On June 18, 2011, the Cassini spacecraft performed a flyby of Saturn’s moon Helene. Passing at a distance of 4,330 miles, it was its second-closest pass of the icy little moon.
Look on the Bright Side
Here’s a color-composite image of Saturn’s two-toned moon Iapetus; its Saturn-facing light side is seen here facing to the lower left. Iapetus is 1,471 km (914 miles) wide. The raw images were taken by the Cassini spacecraft on June 6, 2011 and received on Earth June 8, 2011. The camera was pointing toward Iapetus from…
Take a Spin Around the Station
Awesome new images of the Space Station and Endeavour taken from orbit!
A New Look at Neptune
Ok, ok… it’s not “new” (it’s from a HubbleNews article released in 2005) but since I just came across it myself, it’s new to me! So maybe it’s new to you too. 🙂 The video above was created from images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, showing distant Neptune (we’re talking four and a half…
Afternoon Delight
I spotted this on the SDO site late this afternoon…it shows an eruption of plasma from the Sun’s photosphere that stretches out many tens of thousands of miles…the Earth could easily fit many times over beneath the looping structure! This image is from about 5pm EDT (21:59 UT), and shows the eastern limb of the Sun,…
There Goes The Sun
The Sun was briefly slashed in half diagonally when Earth’s atmosphere hid it from the view of NASA’s SDO spacecraft on April 1, 2011. (No foolin’!) SDO is currently in an orbit that puts the Earth between it and the Sun momentarily each day. When this happens, SDO’s view is blocked completely for several minutes…
Is Mercury Hiding Water Ice?
A new image from MESSENGER showing craters amidst smooth plains. Acquired March 29, 2011. A new image from MESSENGER, released today March 30, 2011, shows relatively smooth plains near Mercury’s north pole dotted by some relatively large craters. Seen at an oblique angle, the low angle of sunlight emphasizes the relief of the…
Dock of the Day
At 2:14pm EST today the space shuttle Discovery successfully docked with the International Space Station, 220 miles above Australia. This will be the last time Discovery will visit the space station, indeed the last time it will fly at all in its long and illustrious career. The image above was pulled from live video feed…
Lights in the Dark 