Space and astronomy news
[/caption] Paolo Beltrame from Italy sent us this amazing montage of images he took of space shuttle Discovery docked to the ISS on September 1, 2009. See the incredible details visible of the space station and docked shuttle! Paolo is with the Circolo AStrofili Talmassons (Amateur Astronomers Club in Talmassons, or CAST) who have an …
Continue reading “Great Views of the ISS and Shuttle From Earth and Space”
[/caption] The western United States used to be known as the frontier, and now that region will provide access to the final frontier. On June 19, ground will be broken in New Mexico for Spaceport America, the world’s first commercial spaceport built for launching private citizens into space. Groundbreaking ceremonies will include a flyover by …
Continue reading “World’s First Spaceport Begins Construction”
Hang on and take a bird’s eye look at the four different proposed landing sites for the Mars Science Lab! At a briefing yesterday, Dr. Richard Zurek presented a flyover video of the potential landing sites for the next Mars rover, set to launch in 2011. The video is now available, and Zurek narrates the …
Continue reading “Fly Over the Potential Landing Sites For Next Mars Rover (Video)”
[/caption] Hang on, and enjoy a virtual flyover of Saturn’s moon Titan! Data from Cassini’s radar instrument have been used to create new flyover maps of Saturn’s largest moon. The maps show the topography of Titan in 3-D, and illustrating the height of the 1,200-meter (4,000-foot) mountain tops, the north polar lake country, the vast …
[/caption] Note: This is the first in a series of articles about Citizen Science projects, where science is not just for professional scientists anymore! The desire to seek out others of a like mind must be coded into our DNA. Take any subject — music, literature, art, science, math, sports, animals — you name it, …
Using new high resolution terrain mapping data obtained by the Deep Space Network, NASA has created some new animations that take viewers to the Moon’s south pole. The videos include a flyover of Shackleton Crater and a very nifty animation of descent to the lunar surface of a future human lunar lander. “I have not …
Continue reading “New NASA Animation Lets You Land on the Moon”
Now here’s an interesting alliance. Google and NASA Ames announced today that they’ll be forming a new partnership to work together on several space-related projects.
B-15A is a giant iceberg off the coast of Antarctica, and it’s now on a collision course with a floating pier of ice called the Drygalski ice tongue. Satellite photos showed B-15A rushing towards the tongue, but then it slowed down in the last couple of days. Scientists think that there’s a shallow seabed underneath the Drygalski ice tongue that has protected it from these kinds of collisions for so long – it’s been there for at least 4000 years. B-15A is 120 km (75 miles) long, and contains about 2000 square km (772 sq miles), so it just have the momentum to do the trick.