Videos Archives

January 25, 2013June 5, 2022 by Ken Kremer

NASA: Reaches for New Heights – Greatest Hits Video

Video Caption: At NASA, we’ve been a little busy: landing on Mars, developing new human spacecraft, going to the space station, working with commercial partners, observing the Earth and the Sun, exploring our solar system and understanding our universe. And that’s not even everything.Credit: NASA

Check out this cool action packed video titled “NASA: Reaching for New Heights” – to see NASA’s ‘Greatest Hits’ from the past year

The 4 minute film is a compilation of NASA’s gamut of Robotic Science and Human Spaceflight achievements to explore and understand Planet Earth here at home and the heavens above- ranging from our Solar System and beyond to the Galaxy and the vast expanse of the Universe.

Image caption: Planets and Moons in perspective. Credit: NASA

The missions and programs featured include inspiringly beautiful imagery from : Curiosity, Landsat, Aquarius, GRACE, NuSTAR, GRAIL, Dawn at Asteroid Vesta, SDO, X-48C Amelia, Orion, SLS, Apollo, SpaceX, Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser, Boeing CST-100, Commercial Crew, Hurricane Sandy from the ISS, Robonaut and more !

And even more space exploration thrills are coming in 2013 !

Ken Kremer

Image caption: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasts off on May 22, 2012 with Dragon cargo capsule from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on the first commercial mission to the International Space Station. The next launch is set for March 1, 2013. Credit: Ken Kremer

January 25, 2013December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Dry Ice Drives Dramatic Changes on Mars

Mars may not be tectonically active but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing happening on the Red Planet’s surface. This video from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows the dramatic seasonal changes that take place in Mars’ polar regions when the frozen carbon dioxide — called “dry ice” — coating the basalt sand dunes begins to thaw and cracks, releasing jets of sublimating CO2 gas that carry dark material upwards and outwards, staining the frozen surface of the dunes. Imagine what it would be like to be standing nearby when these jets erupt!

This process occurs around the upper latitudes of Mars every spring and is responsible for the dark (and sometimes light) mottled discolorations observed across sandy and dune-covered terrain.

Bright fans are created when surface conditions cause escaping CO2 gas to condense back onto the surface. (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

If a prevailing wind happens to be blowing when the gases are escaping the cracks in the ice, whatever material they are carrying will be spread by the wind across the dunes in long streaks and fans. Read more about this process here.

“It’s an amazingly dynamic process. We had this old paradigm that all the action on Mars was billions of years ago. Thanks to the ability to monitor changes with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, one of the new paradigms is that Mars has many active processes today.”

– Candice Hansen, Planetary Science Institute

The images in the video were acquired by the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting and observing Mars in unprecedented detail for over six years. See more HiRISE images of the Martian surface here.

Video: NASA/JPL

January 24, 2013December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

27 Years Ago: Voyager 2’s Visit to Uranus

Image of Uranus’ crescent taken by a departing Voyager 2 on January 25, 1986 (NASA/JPL)

27 years ago today, January 24, 1986, NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft sped past Uranus, becoming simultaneously the first and last spacecraft to visit the blue-tinged gas giant, third largest planet in the Solar System.

The image above shows the crescent-lit Uranus as seen by Voyager 2 from a distance of about 965,000 km (600,000 miles.) At the time the spacecraft had already passed Uranus and was looking back at the planet on its way outwards toward Neptune.

Although composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, trace amounts of methane in Uranus’ uppermost atmosphere absorb most of the red wavelengths of light, making the planet appear a pale blue color.

Image of the 1,500-km-wide Oberon acquired by Voyager 2 on Jan. 24, 1986 (NASA/JPL)

The second of NASA’s twin space explorers (although it launched first) Voyager 2 came within 81,800 kilometers (50,600 miles) of Uranus on January 24, 1986, gathering images of the sideways planet, its rings and several of its moons. Voyager 2 also discovered the presence of a magnetic field around Uranus, as well as 10 new small moons.

Three moons discovered by Voyager 2 in 1986 (NASA/JPL)

Data gathered by Voyager 2 revealed that Uranus’ rate of rotation is 17 hours, 14 minutes.

At the time of this writing, Voyager 2 is 15,184,370,900 km from Earth and steadily moving toward the edge of the Solar System at a speed of about 3.3 AU per year. At that distance, signals from Voyager take just over 14 hours and 4 minutes to reach us.

See images from Voyager 2’s visit of Uranus here, and check out a video of the August 20, 1977 launch below along with more images from the historic Voyager mission’s “Grand Tour” of the outer Solar System.

January 21, 2013December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Take a Rollercoaster Ride Around Venus

If you’ve ever wanted to see what it’s like to buzz Venus like only a spacecraft can, here’s your chance: this is a video animation of images taken by ESA’s Venus Express as it makes a pole-to-pole orbit of our neighboring world.

Captured in ultraviolet wavelengths, the images were acquired by the spacecraft’s Venus Monitoring Camera last January over a period of 18 hours. It’s truly a “day in the life” of Venus Express!

From ESA’s description of the video:

We join the spacecraft from a staggering 66,000 km above the south pole, staring down into the swirling south polar vortex. From this bird’s-eye view, half of the planet is in darkness, the ‘terminator’ marking the dividing line between the day and night sides of the planet.

Intricate features on smaller and smaller scales are revealed as Venus Express dives to just 250 km above the north pole and clouds flood the field of view, before regaining a global perspective as it climbs away from the north pole.

The observed pattern of bright and dark markings is caused by variations in an unknown absorbing chemical at the Venus cloud tops.

False-color image of cloud features on Venus. Captured by Venus Express from a distance of 30,000 km (18,640 miles) on December 8, 2011. (ESA/MPS/DLR/IDA)

Source: European Space Agency

January 21, 2013December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Stunning Death Valley ‘Dreamlapse’

Meteor still shot from 'Death Valley Dreamlapse.' Credit: Gavin Heffernan/Sunchaser Pictures.

Here’s yet another gorgeous timelapse from Gavin Heffernan and his team. As we previewed in our Geminid Meteor Shower post, the Sunchaser Pictures team trekked to the world-famous Eureka Dunes in Death Valley National Park to search for some of the darkest skies on Earth during the meteor shower peak on the night of December 13th, 2012. They braved a long journey, a tough climb cold temperatures.

“But it was all worth it when the skies cleared and showed us an incredible galactic palette!” Gavin writes on Vimeo.

In addition to Geminids, there are star trails, planets and a weird spiraling object at about 1:30-1:35. It makes three broad circular sweeps over the desert – although in timelapse it appears to be moving fast, but the 5 seconds of time in timelapse equals about 50 minutes, so it’s actually not moving all that fast. It can also be seen cutting through the circular star trails picture below. There’s another 25-second exposure that of the object moving that makes it look almost like a colored rope.

“I don’t think that ‘rope’ look is unusual for a normal plane etc.,” Gavin told Universe Today via email. “The circular motion, and very slow movement are what really make it interesting/unusual. It’s definitely worth noting that the site is definitely near some kind of military installation or air force base, because we saw the spectacular sight of F-16 fighter planes zooming over the dunes, not too far off the ground. I know for sure it wasn’t a helicopter, because we would have heard it.”

Shots from the timelapse:

Star trails from 'Death Valley Dreamlapse." Credit: Gavin Heffernan/Sunchaser Pictures. — Star trails from 'Death Valley Dreamlapse.

A close-up, 25 second exposure of an object flying through the field of view. Credit: Gavin Heffernan/Sunchaser Pictures. — A 25 second exposure of an object flying through the field of view. Credit: Gavin Heffernan/Sunchaser Pictures.

DEATH VALLEY DREAMLAPSE from Sunchaser Pictures on Vimeo.

January 17, 2013January 4, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Stunning Timelapse of Earth and Sky — Volume 3

I’ve been waiting for this! We’ve featured previous timelapse videos by Dustin Farrell, and here is part three of his “Landscapes” video series showing stunning views of Earth and sky. This is really gorgeous. Watching in HD with a big screen is recommended.

On Vimeo, Dustin writes that this is the final volume in this series, at least for a while. “I hope you have enjoyed my work on this series over the last three years,” he wrote. “It has been an amazing ride full of amazing experiences. I plan to continue shooting landscapes timelapses but putting together videos of this magnitude will be difficult to continue on a regular basis.”

Sounds like maybe he’s moving on to bigger and better things, and he’s also got a new website where his new work will be showcased.
Continue reading “Stunning Timelapse of Earth and Sky — Volume 3”

January 9, 2013January 4, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Walk a Tightrope Across the Moon

A very creative and stunning use of perspective, timing and distance! BASE jumper Dean Potter walks a highline at Cathedral Peak in Yosemite National Park just as the Moon rises. This was shot with a zoom lens from over a mile away, and is part of a bigger project for National Geographic called The Man Who Can Fly.

Moonwalk from Bryan Smith on Vimeo.

January 3, 2013December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

The Face of Creation

The latest autotuned installment in John D. Boswell’s Symphony of Science series waxes melodic about the particle-smashing science being done with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, in particular its search for the Higgs boson, a.k.a. the… ok, ok, I won’t say it…

“We can recreate the conditions that were present just after the beginning of the Universe.”
– Prof. Brian Cox, “The Face of Creation”

John has been entertaining science fans with his Symphony mixes since 2009, when his first video in the series — “A Glorious Dawn” featuring Carl Sagan — was released. Now John’s videos are eagerly anticipated by fans, who follow him on YouTube and on Twitter as @melodysheep.

I’d have to say my all-time favorite is “Onward to the Edge”, featuring astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Professor Brian Cox and Carolyn Porco from the Cassini imaging team.

Thanks to some help from Kickstarter, John has recently released an original album, Terra Lumina, a “collection of folk/rock songs with themes including gravity, geology, photons, and the Doppler effect.” It’s a unique musical take on some of science’s most amazing discoveries, from John D. Boswell and vocalist William Crowley. Check out the video trailer here.

The album can be found on Amazon and on iTunes.

Videos via melodysheep

December 31, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Astrophotos 2012 Year in Review by John Chumack

It’s not many astrophotographers who can put together their own highlight reel, but John Chumack is so prolific and accomplished, he can do just that! From conjunctions and planets to solar activity and Moon closeups; galaxies, comets, nebulae, and meteor showers, John compiles still images and video clips for a look back at the best events of 2012. You can see more of his imagery at his website, Galactic Images or his Flickr page.

Below is one of his latest images of the wintery Milky Way:

Winter Milky Way. Credit: John Chumack

December 28, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

How Long is a Day on Mercury?

1/3 the distance from the Sun than Earth, it should be no surprise that a day on Mercury is a real scorcher with temperatures soaring over 400 ºC. But in addition to its solar proximity it also has an extremely slow rotation: a single day on Mercury is 58.6 Earth days long… and you thought your Mondays lasted forever!

To be even more precise, for every 2 Mercury years, 3 Mercury days pass — a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, caused by the planet’s varying elliptical orbit. (This also makes for some interesting motions of the Sun in Mercury’s sky.)

To illustrate this, UK’s The Open University has published a new video in their 60 Second Adventures in Astronomy series… check it out above (and see more of their excellent and amusing animations here.)

Video: The Open University. Narrated by David Mitchell.