In honor of Earth Day, enjoy this beautiful timelapse compiled by science educator James Drake, who put together one of the first ISS flyover videos. This video was created from images produced by the Russian geostationary Electro-L Weather Satellite, and the images are some of the largest whole disk images of our planet, as the satellite is orbiting at about 40,000 km. Each image is 121 megapixels, and the resolution is 1 kilometer per pixel. They are taken every half hour in four different wavelengths of light — three visible, and one infrared. The infrared light is reflected by forests and vegetation, which appear orange in these images. Enjoy!
See more at Drake’s Planet Earth web page, including a zoomable, full resolution image of Earth, as well as other image downloads.
Space Shuttle Enterprise mounted atop NASA 747 Carrier Jet at Dulles Airport - Commercial TaxiBy. The public can easily see NASA’s 1st orbiter bolted on top of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) from the upper levels of a Daily Parking Garage at Dulles Airport. On April 19, 2012, Enterprise was towed out of the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, April 19, 2012, in Chantilly, Va. and swapped for shuttle Discovery. Enterprise will be flown to New York City sometime this week. Credit: Ken Kremer
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Space Shuttle Enterprise has been strapped atop the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) that will soon fly NASA’s path finding orbiter from Dulles Airport to her new and final home in the Big Apple – and to the delight of Dulles Airport flyers and visitors she’s all primed at a spot offering a fantastic public glimpse of the historic last flight ever of NASA’s 1st space shuttle vehicle.
Have you ever dreamed of seeing the magnificent sight of a NASA space shuttle on top of a 747 Jumbo Jet up close with your own eyes ?
Imagine this view on take off !
Space Shuttle Enterprise mounted atop NASA 747 Carrier Jet at Dulles Airport - Commercial Jets Fly By. Credit: Ken Kremer
Well, right now anyone can get that superb glance of the mated duo quite simply from one of the upper level parking decks at Dulles Airport. And you don’t need a press pass, plane ticket, intrusive TSA pat down or a secret service security clearance.
And because of inclement weather, you will have a few extras days to catch history in the making of a sight that will soon evaporate into the ether of time. Only a Stak Trek era holodeck with bring it back.
After setting up to photograph Enterprise from the parking deck, I was joined within minutes by more than a dozen enthusiastic folks and kids !
NASA has postponed the planned Monday, April 23, departure of Enterprise from Dulles for New York City and touchdown at JFK Airport because of expected bad weather at both ends of the Washington to New York itinerary.
Universe Today has been told that NASA is now aiming for a Wednesday departure, weather permitting.
A whirlwind of Flyers buzz by Enterprise at Dulles Airport prior to NYC departure. Credit: Ken Kremer
Right now and continuing over the next few days, supremely lucky passengers seated aboard arriving and departing jets at Dulles are enjoying a truly stupendous bird’s-eye view of the winged NASA orbiter that most aerospace fans can only dream of. Just be sure to sit on the correct side on the plane.
Check out the photos herein taken from the Dulles Daily Parking Garages taken by myself and fellow space photographer Brent Houston with invaluable assistance from space photographer Walter Scriptunis II.
In a first-of-its-kind “Shuttle Shuffle”, shuttles Enterprise and Discovery swapped spots at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, April 19, 2012, in Chantilly, Va.
Enterprise was first towed out of the Smithsonian’s museum display hanger in the early morning. The pair of shuttles then met for a historic nose to nose rendezvous – lasting just 4 hours. Finally, Space Shuttle Discovery was hauled inside to the prestigious spot formerly occupied by Enterprise.
Space Shuttle Enterprise sits on top of NASA 747 Carrier Jet at Dulles Airport. A pair of cranes was used to hoist Enterprise onto the back of the 747. Credit: Brent Houston
Since 2003, Enterprise has been the centerpiece at the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum Annex in Virginia.
Enterprise is named in honor of the fictional Starship of galactic exploration from the immensly popular “Star Trek” science fiction television series of the 1960’s.
The Shuttle Enterprise rolled out in 1976 with the cast of Star Trek !
In 1976, NASA's space shuttle Enterprise rolled out of the Palmdale manufacturing facilities and was greeted by NASA officials and cast members from the 'Star Trek' television series. From left to right they are: NASA Administrator Dr. James D. Fletcher; DeForest Kelley, who portrayed Dr. "Bones" McCoy on the series; George Takei (Mr. Sulu); James Doohan (Chief Engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott); Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura); Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock); series creator Gene Rodenberry; an unnamed NASA official; and, Walter Koenig (Ensign Pavel Chekov). Credit: NASA
After landing at JFK Airport, Enterprise will be moved to a barge for a seagoing journey to her permanent new home at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum in Manhattan.
Read more about Enterprise in Ken’s earlier story here and watch for more articles
France's Pleiades Earth observation satellite captured this image of the silent Envisat satellite on April 15, 2012, from a distance of about 100 km. Credit: CNES
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ESA’s mysteriously silent Envisat Earth observing satellite has been observed and imaged by another satellite in space. France’s space agency (CNES) pulled off an on-orbit coup, using their high-resolution Pleiades satellite to take a picture of Envisat from about 100 km. The good news is that engineers were able to determine Envisat is fully intact and has not been obviously damaged by impacts by space debris or meteoroids. The massive Envisat fell silent on April 8 after 10 years of service – twice its designed lifetime — providing high quality images and data of our changing Earth.
“We are really grateful to CNES for offering to acquire images of Envisat using their Pleiades and Spot satellites,” said Volker Liebig, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programs. “Additional observations being acquired across the globe show how the international space community has come together to track this veteran satellite.”
Previous optical, radar and laser observations of Envisat show it is still in a stable orbit. However, engineers have not even been able to determine if the satellite is in ‘safe mode’ or if it has just gone dead. They say knowing this would be a starting point for revival and the recovery team is drawing on every information source available. If it is in safe mode, it may be possible to re-establish communications.
CNES was able to rotate the Pleiades satellite to capture images of Envisat. These images are being used to determine the orientation of Envisat’s solar panel – the satellite’s power source – to see if it is in a good position to generate power.
Envisat has been helping researchers examine our planet, completing more than 50,000 orbits and returned thousands of images, as well as a wealth of data about the land, oceans and atmosphere.
MESSENGER image of Mercury, acquired with its Wide Angle Camera on March 21, 2012.
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The subtle yet surprisingly varied colors of Mercury are revealed in the latest images from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, now in its extended mission and second year in orbit.
The image above, a composite of Wide Angle Camera images acquired in 996, 748 and 433 nanometers for red, green and blue, shows a semi-lit limb of Mercury with the bright rayed crater Debussy visible at left. (The image has been rotated 180 degrees from the original, and color saturation was boosted by 25%.)
Named for the French composer Claude Debussy of “Claire de Lune” fame, the crater itself is approximately 50 miles (80 km) wide. It was first detected by ground-based radar telescopes in 1969 as a bright spot.
Now, 43 years later, we have a spacecraft in orbit sending back images like this. Amazing.
The various colors seen across Mercury are due to different mineral compositions of the geologic regions. The exact compositions are not yet known, and the current puzzle that researchers are trying to solve with MESSENGER is to figure out what materials make up Mercury’s complex, multi-hued surface. That will also give a clue as to what’s inside the planet and how it evolved… as well as how it is currently evolving today.
The image below is from MESSENGER’s Visual and Infrared Spectrograph (VIRS) and shows a map of Mercury’s surface, with RGB colors corresponding to different mineralogical compositions.
Sinusoidal equal area projection map of Mercury from MESSENGER's VIRS instrument.
Younger surface materials that are brighter at visible wavelengths and less affected by space weathering show up in reds, yellows and greens. Materials that may have relatively higher iron contents show up in blue.
These are Mercury’s “other colors”… maybe not what we would see with our own eyes, but beautiful nonetheless to planetary scientists!
See the above image on the MESSENGER website here.
Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
[/caption] You can take some meteor showers to the bank, like the Leonids, Perseids and Geminids. Other showers are more spikey; they can underperform one year, with just a few dozen meteors an hour, or boost up to hundreds in an hour – a full on meteor storm! Our next meteor shower, the Lyrids, is one of those examples, especially when the peak night coincides with a new Moon: April 21/22, 2012. Is it going to be amazing this year? There’s only one way to find out – get outside, and look up.
The meteors come from Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1); the trail of debris left behind as it makes a 415-year highly elliptical journey around the Sun. And each year the Earth passes through this trail, scooping up the the tiny particles of ice and dust and annihilating them in the atmosphere. Thatcher’s loss is our gain.
They’re named for the constellation Lyra, since the meteors appear to emanate from a region just off to the side of the familiar constellation – the bright star Vega is part of Lyra. Don’t just look at that one spot, though, meteors can be seen anywhere in the sky.
Each year the Lyrids start to build around April 16, peaking on April 21/22, and then fade away by April 26. At the peak, the Lyrids can deliver 10-20 meteors per hour. But there can also be spikes of activity, with more than 100 meteors per hour, as the Earth passes through clumps in the dust trail.
It’s almost impossible to know, in advance, if it’s going to be a great year for any specific meteor shower. But this year’s Lyrids Meteor Shower coincides with a new Moon on April 21. Without the glare of a bright Moon, the meteors are easier to spot.
You can see the shower from any spot on Earth, just head outside on the evening of April 21, and give your eyes time to adjust to the dark skies. Get out of the glare of a city if you can, to a dark enough location that you can see the Milky Way once the skies have fully darkened. Here’s a handy map you can use to find dark sky locations in the US.
Of course, meteor showers are best shared with friends. Gather together some fellow astro-enthusiasts, pack some warm clothing, and enjoy the sky show. If you can, try to time your viewing as late as possible, or even in the early morning, when the sky has fully darkened and the stars are really bright.
And be patient. It might take a few hours, but you could be lucky enough to see a Lyrid fireball blaze across the sky, burning a trail into the night sky for a few moments. Just one fireball will make your whole evening worth while.
Space Shuttles Enterprise and Discovery Nose to Nose at Smithsonian Annex. Enterprise (left) and Discovery (right) sit nose to nose for deed transfer ceremony at the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, April 19, 2012, in Chantilly, Va. Credit: Ken Kremer
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Two NASA Space Shuttles – Enterprise and Discovery – sit nose to nose in a historic, once in a lifetime meet up at the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum Annex in Virginia on April 19, 2012 for the official transfer of ownership from NASA to the Smithsonian.
Space Shuttle Discovery was the first orbiter retired from NASA’s fleet of three space flying shuttles. It completed 39 missions, spent 365 days in space, orbited the Earth 5,830 times, and traveled 148,221,675 miles.
Discovery was ferried to the museum on April 17 after arriving atop a 747 Jumbo jet and a series of triumphant fly arounds of the US Capitol region.
Discovery takes the place of Enterprise. NASA says Discovery will commemorate past achievements in space and serve to educate and inspire future generations of explorers at the Smithsonian center.
Discovery is now open for public viewing.
Enterprise is being flown to New York City on April 23.
Photo gallery to follow.
Discovery and Enterprise rest nose-to-nose at ceremony transferring ownership of Discovery from NASA to the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum on April 19, 2012. The official deed transfer ceremony took place at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. Credit: Ken Kremer
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Space Shuttle Discovery, the longest serving and most flown spaceship in human history, entered her eternal home today, Thursday, April 19, at the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum Annex in Virginia.
Discovery thereby assumed her new status as a museum relic and monument to the promise and glorious dreams of space exploration, inspiring future generations of explorers to reach far beyond their grasp and accomplish the unthinkable. That’s what space and science are all about.
The space shuttle program and all three of NASA’s winged spaceships were forcibly retired by politicians at the conclusion of the final shuttle mission, STS-135, in July 2011 which left America with no means to launch our own astronauts into space and to the International Space Station.
Shuttle astronauts march with Discovery being towed from Dulles to the Smithsonian’s Udvar Hazy Center on April 19, 2012. Credit: Ken Kremer
Discovery officially became the property of the Smithsonian Museum when NASA Administrator Charles Bolden signed the title of ownership over from NASA to the world renowned museum at a public ceremony held today at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.
“Today, while we look back at Discovery’s amazing legacy, I also want to look forward to what she and the shuttle fleet helped to make possible,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “As NASA transfers the shuttle orbiters to museums across the country, we are embarked on an exciting new space exploration journey. Relying on American ingenuity and know-how, NASA is partnering with private industry to provide crew and cargo transportation to the International Space Station, while developing the most powerful rocket ever built to take the nation farther than ever before into the solar system.”
National Air and Space Museum Director, General John “Jack” Dailey said, “Discovery has distinguished itself as the champion of America’s shuttle fleet. In its new home, it will shine as an American icon, educating and inspiring people of all ages for generations to come. The Museum is committed to teaching and inspiring youngsters, so that they will climb the ladder of academic success and choose professions that will help America be competitive and successful in the world of tomorrow.”
Bolden and Dailey signed the transfer documents in front of the huge crowd who came to celebrate Discovery’s arrival.
Shuttle astronauts march with Discovery being towed from Dulles to the Smithsonian’s Udvar Hazy Center on April 19, 2012. Credit: Ken Kremer
The official handover ceremony was witnessed by a prestigious gathering of some three dozen astronauts including more than a dozen men and women who served as Commanders of Space Shuttle Discovery and Senator and Astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth 50 years ago in 1962.
Glenn flew to space for the 2nd time aboard Discovery as a payload specialist in 1998 at the age of 77. He is the oldest person to fly in space.
Shuttle astronauts march with Discovery being towed to the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center and official Welcome ceremony on April 19, 2012. Credit: Ken Kremer
And the general public showed their enthusiastic support for NASA and space exploration by attending in the thousands and staying all day for the dozens of activity stations, presentations and displays organized by NASA and the Smithsonian and its donors.
Glenn made clear his disagreement with the end of NASA’s shuttle program.
Discovery arrives at her final resting place in the Smithsonian on April 19, 2012. Credit: Ken Kremer
To make way for Discovery, Space Shuttle Enterprise was first towed out a huge rear door of the museum early this morning. Discovery and Enterprise then met nose to nose as the dramatic backdrop for the official welcoming ceremony.
Late this afternoon, Discovery was towed to her final resting place into the museum to the exact spot formerly held by Enterprise, which had been on display at the Virginia facility since 2003.
Altogether, Discovery flew 39 missions and spent a full year (365 days) in space, orbited Earth 5,830 times and traveled 148,221,675 miles during a space flight career spanning 27 years.
Discovery flew its maiden voyage on Aug. 30, 1984 and blasted off on her final voyage on Feb. 24, 2011. The STS-133 mission was the final flight for the illustrious orbiter which landed at the Kennedy Space Center on March 9, 2012.
Discovery deployed the iconic Hubble Space Telescope to orbit, one of the premier science instruments built by humankind. Discovery delivered many other science payloads to orbit and also to explore the solar system, including the Ulysses solar probe.
The winged spaceship was NASA’s fleet leading orbiter and played a significant role in building the International Space Station and visiting the Russian Mir Space Station.
The Apollo Light Flash Moving Emulsion Detector (ALFMED), an experiment to record of incidents cosmic ray particles hitting astronauts. Credit: NASA
Astronauts have long reported the experience of seeing flashes while they are in space, even when their eyes are closed. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin both reported these flashes during the Apollo 11 mission, and similar reports during the Apollo 12 and 13 missions led to subsequent Apollo missions including experiments specifically looking at this strange phenomenon. These experiments involved blindfolding crewmembers and recording their comments during designated observation sessions, and later missions had a special device, the Apollo Light Flash Moving Emulsion Detector (ALFMED), which was worn by the astronauts during dark periods to record of incidents of cosmic ray hits.
It was determined the astronauts were ‘seeing’ cosmic rays zipping through their eyeballs. Cosmic rays are high-energy charged subatomic particles whose origins are not yet known. Fortunately, cosmic rays passing through Earth are usually absorbed by our atmosphere. But astronauts outside the atmosphere can find themselves “seeing things that aren’t there,” wrote current International Space Station astronaut Don Pettit, who told about his experience of seeing these flashes on his blog:
“In space I see things that are not there. Flashes in my eyes, like luminous dancing fairies, give a subtle display of light that is easy to overlook when I’m consumed by normal tasks. But in the dark confines of my sleep station, with the droopy eyelids of pending sleep, I see the flashing fairies. As I drift off, I wonder how many can dance on the head of an orbital pin.”
In a report on the Apollo experiment, astronauts described the types of flashes they saw in three ways: the ‘spot’, the ‘streak’, and the ‘cloud’; and all but one described the flashes as ‘white’ or ‘colorless.’ One crewmember, Apollo 15 Commander David Scott, described one flash as “blue with a white cast, like a blue diamond.”
Pettit described the physics/biology of what takes place:
“When a cosmic ray happens to pass through the retina it causes the rods and cones to fire, and you perceive a flash of light that is really not there. The triggered cells are localized around the spot where the cosmic ray passes, so the flash has some structure. A perpendicular ray appears as a fuzzy dot. A ray at an angle appears as a segmented line. Sometimes the tracks have side branches, giving the impression of an electric spark. The retina functions as a miniature Wilson cloud chamber where the recording of a cosmic ray is displayed by a trail left in its wake.”
Pettit said that the rate or frequency at which these flashes are seen varies with orbital position.
“There is a radiation hot spot in orbit, a place where the flux of cosmic rays is 10 to 100 times greater than the rest of the orbital path. Situated southeast of Argentina, this region (called the South Atlantic Anomaly) extends about halfway across the Atlantic Ocean. As we pass through this region, eye flashes will increase from one or two every 10 minutes to several per minute.
A cosmic ray hit on a camera appears as a segmented line in the image. Credit: NASA/Don Pettit..
During the Apollo missions, astronauts saw these flashes after their eyes had become dark-adapted. When it was dark, they reported a flash every 2.9 minutes on average. Only one Apollo crewmember involved in the experiments did not report seeing the phenomenon, Apollo 16’s Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly, who stated that he had poor night vision.
These cosmic rays don’t just hit people, but things in space, too, and sometimes cause problems. Pettit wrote:
“Free from the protection offered by the atmosphere, cosmic rays bombard us within Space Station, penetrating the hull almost as if it was not there. They zap everything inside, causing such mischief as locking up our laptop computers and knocking pixels out of whack in our cameras. The computers recover with a reboot; the cameras suffer permanent damage. After about a year, the images they produce look like they are covered with electronic snow. Cosmic rays contribute most of the radiation dose received by Space Station crews. We have defined lifetime limits, after which you fly a desk for the rest of your career. No one has reached that dose level yet.”
The Phantom Torso experiment, AKA, Fred. Credit: NASA
There are experiments on board the ISS to monitor how much radiation the crew is receiving. One experiment is the Phantom Torso, a mummy-looking mock-up of the human body which determines the distribution of radiation doses inside the human body at various tissues and organs.
There’s also the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment, a particle physics experiment module that is mounted on the ISS. It is designed to search for various types of unusual matter by measuring cosmic rays, and hopefully will also tell us more about the origins of both those crazy flashes seen in space, and also the origins of the Universe.
Proof that Mars is an ever-changing world: a view from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2010 showed tracks from a rolling boulder; in an image of the same region 1 Mars year later the tracks have dissapeared. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
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More proof that Mars is an ever-changing world: In 2010, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera spotted evidence that a boulder had rolled down an incline in a crater. The boulder left a visible track in the Martian regolith big enough to be spotted by MRO. But just one Martian year later, the tracks are gone, erased from existence.
“This is most likely due to the fine bright dust that is transported in the atmosphere falling down and re-covering the dark markings,” wrote Ross A. Beyer on the HiRISE site.
Beyer said the boulder tracks are much darker because as the boulders roll “they set off miniature dust avalanches. The bright, fine dust slides away, leaving a darker, larger grained dust underneath.”
How do boulders start moving on Mars? The boulders were disturbed in some way, breaking them loose from the crater edge, and there are two different possibilities. One, is that a meteorite impact or other tremor shook the boulder loose. Another possibility, as in the case of avalanches MRO has seen on Mars, the spring thawing of frozen carbon dioxide which forms during the Martian winter can cause rocks and debris to break loose from a cliff or incline.
Mars is certainly not the dead world we once thought it was, and the power of HiRISE keeps revealing a changing, unpredicatable landscape.
Titan's Ontario Lacus is found to bear a striking resemblance to Namibia's Etosha Pan. (NASA/JPL/ESA)
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A large lake on Saturn’s cloud-covered Titan seems very similar to the Etosha Pan, a salt-encrusted dry lakebed in northern Namibia that periodically fills with water. As it turns out, Titan’s “great lake” may also be temporary.
Ontario Lacus, so named because of its similarity both in shape and size to Lake Ontario here on Earth, was first discovered near the south pole of Titan by the Cassini spacecraft in 2009. Its smooth, dark appearance in radar images indicated a uniform and reflective surface, implying a large — although likely shallow — body of liquid.
Of course, on Titan the liquid isn’t water — it’s methane, which is the main ingredient of the hydrologic cycle found on the giant moon. That far from the Sun the temperatures at Titan’s poles fall to a frigid -300ºF (-185ºC), much too cold for water to exist as a liquid and so, on this world, methane has taken its place.
A research team led by Thomas Cornet of the Université de Nantes, France has taken a closer look at Cassini’s radar data of Ontario Lacus and found evidence of channels carved into the southern portion. According to the team, this likely indicates that the lakebed surface is exposed.
Cassini image of Ontario Lacus. (NASA/JPL/SSI)
“We conclude that the solid floor of Ontario Lacus is most probably exposed in those areas,” said Cornet.
In addition, sediment layers surrounding the lake suggest that the liquid level has varied.
All in all, this reveals a striking resemblance between Ontario Lacus and Namibia’s Etosha Pan — an “ephemeral lake” that is dry for much of the year, occasionally filling with a shallow layer of water which evaporates, leaving salty rings of sediment.
The inherent otherworldly nature of Etosha Pan is further underlined — and perhaps foreshadowed! — by its use as a backdrop in the 1968 sci-fi film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Although Ontario Lacus was initially thought to be permanently filled with liquid hydrocarbons, the team’s findings draw a strong correlation with this well-known Earthly environment, suggesting a much more temporary nature and showing the value of comparative research.
Satellite image of Etosha Pan, acquired on April 28, 2012. (Chelys/EOSnap)
“These results emphasise the importance of comparative planetology in modern planetary sciences,” said Nicolas Altobelli, Cassini project scientist for ESA.”Finding familiar geological features on alien worlds like Titan allows us to test the theories explaining their formation.”
