The Opportunity rover’s latest accomplishments? Cinematographer. Two new movies created by images taken by the long-lasting rover show a blue-tinted Martian sunset, while another clip shows the Mars’ moon Phobos passing in front of the sun. “These visualizations of an alien sunset show what it must have looked like for Opportunity, in a way we rarely get to see, with motion,” said rover science team member Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University. Dust particles make the Martian sky appear reddish and create a bluish glow around the sun. Continue reading “Rover Captures Sunset, Eclipse on Mars”
NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft is doing some awesome stuff. Stay tuned to NASA’s twitter feed Space Cadets, today should be interesting. I’m Benjamin Higginbotham and this is your SpacePod for November 30th, 2010. Continue reading “Cassini visits Enceladus – SpacePod 2010.11.30”
The Bad Astronomer posted a time-lapse video today which is wonderful, and you should go watch it, but I’m going to counter with another incredible time-lapse that might be even better (in my opinion! — and as suggested by Daniel Fischer on Twitter). This one was created by photographer Dustin Farrell, and shows a year’s compilation of his time lapse work. “All shot on the Canon 5D2 and processed in Adobe After Effects,” Farrell writes on his Vimeo page. “The majority of the shots are in my beautiful home state of Arizona. Goblin Valley State Park and Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah also make an appearance,” — as do NASA’s new electric rovers. Check out Farrell’s company’s website, CrewWest, Inc.
Screen grab of Clarke's zoom in of the Charlie Chaplin film 'The Circus.'
There’s a video making the rounds and creating buzz on the internet and we thought we might as well join in. Filmmaker George Clarke from Ireland is a Charlie Chaplin fan, and saw something unusual in a 1928 Chaplin movie called “The Circus.” In a crowd scene at the opening of the movie there appears to be a woman (or a man in drag) talking on a cell phone as she walks in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. In the video above, Clarke goes on about it for awhile, but at about 2:40 in, you can see the footage. This person has all the mannerisms of someone walking down the street and talking on a cell phone.
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I’ve been checking around the web and no one seems to be able to come up with a good explanation, although there are lots of questions, such as, how could she be using a cell phone in 1928 since there were no cell phone towers or satellites at that time? Across the internet there are discussions of “Back to the Future”- like Walkie Talkies, alien homing devices, and pretty much everything else you can think of. My favorite discussion comes from the Washington Post, which claims this person is the worst time traveler ever, and the only reason no one has noticed this person before is “Because this may be the first time in history that someone has watched the DVD extras of “The Circus.” Forget the DVD extras! People didn’t even watch “The Circus” when it came out!”
It doesn’t appear this is a movie set, just film from taken out front of a real location. Anyway, its a weird video and there’s lots of discussion out there, but what are your thoughts?
Former NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe was on the “Today” show yesterday and recounted how he survived a plane crash in August of this year while others did not, including former US Senator Ted Stevens.
This is a great: amateur rocketeers Luke Geissbuhler and his son Max launched their own DIY satellite via a weather balloon from New York, and using an HD video camera captured some amazing video of the contraption’s rise to near the edge of space (closer than a lot of us will ever get, anyway….) and its plummeting fall. You gotta love their enthusiasm and their “flight tests” at the beginning of the video. It might help that the Dad is a photographer that works in Hollywood films, but then again, I think Max’s countdown and lollipop were the real impetus behind the successful mission. They were able to track the device with GPS, and recover the camera. Lucky for us!
He’s back!!! Our pal Phil Plait the Bad Astronomer is back again on the Discovery Channel with the second episode of his new series, “Bad Universe.” It is on TONIGHT (October 6), so check your local listings here, and you can also find when it will be replayed in case you miss it. Above is a teaser/trailer of the second episode where Phil flies in an F-16 — it’s awesome! Just how much punishment can Phil’s frail, pale, scientist body take? Find out!
You may have noticed a couple of recent posts that included videos from the great folks at Spacevidcast. Universe Today is proud to announce that Spacevidcast will now be a regular feature here on UT, so we hope you’ll enjoy all the additional content and videos you’ll see from Spacevidcast — which has the stated (and honorable!) goals of educating “the planet on the values of space flight” and to “open up the cosmos and truly make space commonplace for everyone on the planet.”
In addition to the features you’ll see on Universe Today, Spacevidcast also does daily on-demand episodes, weekly live shows and live HD coverage of major space events. So check out Spacevidcast’s site for more information. And give Benjamin and Cariann Higginbotham and their team a warm, Universe Today welcome!
