A stunning photo of Endeavor, over downtown LA, on its way to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in Los Angeles. The old girl looks a bit beat up and is that rust discoloring here once pristine body? Can hardly believe this shuttle was flying in space just a few short months ago. Hope they doll her up before putting her on display.
This past weekend, NASA launched the Mars Science Laboratory from Cape Canaveral, Fla. carrying the new Mars rover Curiosity. Curiosity will be looking for signs of whether Mars ever harbored life, among other things, and will be the third robotic rover to be placed on our nearest planetary neighbor. Rovers Opportunity and Spirit have been on Mars since 2004, though Spirit got stuck in a deep pit of sand and, sadly, ceased communication in 2010. Opportunity remains mobile and transmits data to Earth regularly. This little engine that could has outlasted its planned 3 month mission 30 times over, despite the harsh Martian winters and its frequent dust storms that obscure the Sun, the tiny rover’s only source of power. Let’s hope that Curiosity can live up to so grand a benchmark of performance as set by Opportunity.
Our Sun as it reaches solar maximum, taken earlier this week. Kind of makes me hungry. We can expect to see a great deal more activity on our home star in the months to come.
Here’s an article that was put out by the White House addressing all the concern people have been showing over the matter of whether or not our government has been in contact with extraterrestrials. The fact that so many folks are making a noise over this issue is more remarkable than whether or not there are aliens flying about. It seems it is no longer just for kooks and conspiracy nuts. Personally, I believe. There’s simply no reason not to.
In this stunning photo, we see Mars in awesome definition, with its GRAND canyon, Valles Marineris, in full view. This canyon is a bit bigger than ours by several hundred kilometers. The Grand Canyon on Earth is about a kilometer deep at its deepest, while the big one on Mars is 8 km. at its deepest. But no matter how you compare the two, it is still a wonderful picture. Be sure to click on the photo to see the whole planet.
Here’s a awesome video of a trip through Saturn’s rings made entirely of photos from the Cassini spacecraft. Be sure to click the full frame icon to get the best view.
If you recall, a few months back, I did a little post about the neat new window that was installed in the International Space Station, the cupola as it is called. I kind of thought that it would face away from Earth so that astronauts could star gaze and such. But I must admit, this view is so much more comforting and satisfying. Home, with all its warmth and nourishment, not to mention the trials and tribulations, appears to be little more than a breath away.
Remember: For those of you that are new to this, be sure to left click your mouse on the photo, then click again on the photo that appears in order to get the best view. File this under the column marked “Duh”.
Here is the highest detail photo ever taken of those boiling waves on the Sun. Called spicules, they are huge electromagnetic tubes that spew super heated matter to the surface of the Sun at 50,000 kilometers per hour. And strangely beautiful, they are.
The photo below was released last week in commemoration of the Hubble Space Telescope’s 20th year of operation. So many grand and wonderful images have come from this great space veteran that it’s hard to believe that just a few years ago, NASA was thinking about scraping the Hubble. Thank goodness for the ingenuity of the technicians at the space agency and that we had the faithful shuttle to effect repairs on the telescope and give it a few more years of watching the skies.
With the proposed Obama NASA budget, the International Space Station will become an extremely lonely place. Having to hitch a ride with the Russians every time we want to put someone on the station, or get them down, will make this place even more difficult to maintain. Though I don’t totally agree with the new direction the space agency is headed, I must say, that I was never a very big fan of the Ares and Orion projects. Not enough imagination, I thought. It seemed a bit cobbled together and much too expensive for the proposed outcome.
This is not the future.
