Space and astronomy news
Saturn’s moons as you’ve never seen them before! By day, Dr. Paul Schenk works at the Lunar and Planetary Institute mapping the topography and geology of the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, as well as the icy bodies of the outer solar system. But because “it’s just plain cool,” he has created some flyover videos …
Continue reading “Stunning Flyover Videos of Saturn’s Moons”
How do the folks from UnmannedSpaceflight do it?!! They keep surpassing themselves with every new flyover video! We’ve posted some Mars flyover videos before, created by UMSF founder Doug Ellison. Now, colleague Adrian Lark — who has been working on creating animations and enhanced images with data from the Mars missions for several years — …
Continue reading “Amazing Mars Flyover Videos Keep Getting Better and Better”
Doug Ellison from UnmannedSpaceflight.com has done it again… and again… and again. Here are new Mars flyover videos Doug has created from data from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Using DEM (Digital Elevation Model)– (also known as DTM Digital Terrain Model) files provided by the HiRISE team, Doug is able to render …
About 18 months ago Doug Ellison from UnmannedSpaceflight.com created a flyover of the Columbia Hills on Mars using data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Spirit, the Mars rover. He’s now done a 2.0 version to mark Spirit’s recent birthday — she’s been on Mars for 3 Martian years. Ellison made the skies a little …
Continue reading “Columbia Hills Flyover 2.0; Awesome Meridiani Mosaics”
The folks at Goddard Space Flight Center working on the the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission have put together a flyover video from the first images taken by LRO’s cameras. Just a little appetite whetter for all the good things to come from LRO. Enjoy!
Jupiter is well known for its Great Red Spot, a feature that was discovered by Galileo over 400 years ago! Astronomers have been tracking the size and shape of it for over a century but the most accurate measurements have come from the Hubble Space Telescope. Every time Earth and Jupiter are at their closest, …
Many of us have dreamed about flying over the surface of Mars—someday. The planet offers so many cool places to study, and doing it in person is something for future Marsnauts to consider. The Mars Express spacecraft has been mapping the Red Planet for years. It now gives us an up-close look now, through an …
Continue reading “This is What it Would Be Like to Fly Across Mars”
ESA’s BepiColumbo continues its journey to Mercury by making another flyby … of Mercury! This is the third of six planned flybys of its destination planet, each of which gives the spacecraft a gravitational deceleration. Eventually, it’ll slow down enough to go into its final operational orbit. In the most recent flyby on June 19, …
Continue reading “BepiColumbo Makes its Third Flyby of Mercury, Seeing the Planet's Night Side”
In January 2004, NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity (aka “Oppy”) landed in two completely different locations on Mars. Their missions were only designed to last 90 sols (approximately 90 Earth days), but they exceeded these parameters, and then some. While Spirit lasted until 2010, Opportunity lasted another astonishing eight years, when it sent its last …
We want to send humans to Mars eventually, and while this will be both a historic and exciting journey, it could also be tragic and terrible, and we must also address the potential pitfalls and risks of such an adventure. The intent behind this is to allow fans of space exploration to consider the full …