NASA is considering a trip to the moon, and this time, the destination would be the scenic South Polar Region. Pursuant to this, they have compiled a set of more detailed than ever high-resolution radar maps of the Man in the Moon’s chin.
Continue reading NASA Makes New Moon Triptick and Movie
Tag Archives: Cosmos
Steve Jurvetson: The joy of rockets
Investor Steve Jurvetson talks about his awesome hobby — shooting off model rockets. With gorgeous photos, infectious glee and just a whiff of danger.
Roy Gould: WorldWide Telescope
Science educator Roy Gould and Microsoft’s Curtis Wong give an astonishing sneak preview of Microsoft’s new WorldWide Telescope — a technology that combines feeds from satellites and telescopes all over the world and the heavens, and weaves them together holistically to build a comprehensive view of our universe. (Yes, it’s the technology that made Robert Scoble cry.)
(A microsoft project. So this is probably gonna cost ya, somehow) Continue reading Roy Gould: WorldWide Telescope
Space, the Final (political) Frontier…
According to the New York Times, “An
Errant Satellite Is Gone, but Questions Linger” …Should the people of the world be breathing a sigh of relief that the risk of a half-ton of frozen, toxic rocket fuel landing who knows where has passed? Or should they be worried about the latest display of the United States’ technical prowess, and see it as a thinly veiled test for a shadow antisatellite program?
Our Galaxy is Fatter Than Previously Thought
“We were tossing around ideas about the size of the Galaxy, and thought we had better check the standard numbers that everyone uses. It took us just a few hours to calculate this for ourselves. We thought we had to be wrong, so we checked and rechecked and couldn’t find any mistakes.”
Continue reading Our Galaxy is Fatter Than Previously Thought
George Dyson: Let’s take a nuclear-powered rocket to Saturn
George Dyson tells the amazing story of Project Orion, a massive, nuclear-powered spacecraft that could have taken us to Saturn in five years. With a priceless insider’s perspective and a cache of documents, photos and film, Dyson brings this dusty Atomic Age dream to vivid life. Continue reading George Dyson: Let’s take a nuclear-powered rocket to Saturn
Navy Will Shoot Down Satellite
Some time in the next few days the US navy will fire a rocket in order to shoot down a satellite carrying 454 kilograms of the very poisonous substance hydrazine. By blowing the satellite up, the hydrazine tank will explode dispersing the gas to a low concentration level If the tank is not blown up, it would likely survive re-entry. If it burst on contact with the earth, several city blocks could be covered with deadly gas. Continue reading Navy Will Shoot Down Satellite
Get a Satellite Named After your Cat!
Or your dog, or favorite house plant, or whatever.Via Bad Astronomy, we have learned of the Name That Satellite Project at NASA. NASA is trying to reverse the mistake of naming a sattelite “GLAST.”This appears to be the beginning of a new policy of satellite naming.Go here to name the satellite.
Star Burps
In the classic science fiction novel, Venus on the Half Shell by Kilgore Trout, the question of how intelligent life evolved (at many different locations) in The Universe is raised, and pursued by the novel’s protagonist. As the novel ends, it turns out that the origin of intelligent life across the universe is …SPOILER WARNING … END OF THE BOOK IS BELOW THE FOLD
Robots Send Expedition to Antarctica
A robotic observatory installed at a high-altitude site in Antarctica will search for planets orbiting other stars and test the site’s potential for more ambitious observatories that could follow. The site may offer the best astronomical sky conditions in the world….During the uninterrupted darkness of winter near the South Pole, CSTAR will be able to monitor a 20-square-degree patch of sky – about 100 times the area of the Full Moon – for four months straight. It will look for the dimming of a star’s light caused by a planet passing in front of it as seen from Earth.Astronomers involved in the PLATO project believe Dome A may be the best site in the world for astronomy, and PLATO is designed primarily to measure key characteristics like the amount of turbulence in the air, which can distort astronomical images, and the amount of water vapour, which blocks out light in the infrared and radio parts of the spectrum.[source]
Giant Spider Found on Planet Mercury
This looks like a photograph of a mountain, possibly a volcano, with natural drainage systems emanating from it. But it is not. Continue reading Giant Spider Found on Planet Mercury
Happy Birthday The Space Age
or at least, the US Space Age. And belated (sorry, The Space Age, please don’t get mad at me!)
Continue reading Happy Birthday The Space Age
Mercury Has been Copyrighted
NASA will no longer be making photographs from its latest Mercury probe available on the internet. Recent evidence from the nearest planet to the sun (that we know about) clearly indicates that the planet has been copyrighted. Legal experts are working on the case now, but feel that a resolution is unlikely.Even stranger evidence has come from Mars, where it has been discovered that Martian Sentient Beings are very, very silly. See this new evidence here at Bad Astronomy.[source of Mercury Photograph]
Free Ticket to Saturn and Titan
You can fly, without leaving the comfort of your own computer, to Saturn and its moon Titan. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and CIT have a bit of software and data that lets you climb on board the Cassini Huygens mission. Continue reading Free Ticket to Saturn and Titan
Satellite may hit earth
You’ve probably already heard that a US spy satellite known as USA-193 is no longer able to keep itself up because the software on board has failed. This is a secret spy satellite so we don’t at present know what the software was (any guesses?). It is big enough to not totally burn up in the atmosphere, and there are concerns that the satellite has nasty toxins on board. But again, since it is a secret spy satellite we can’t know this either.The expected date of entry is late February or early March.Here is a source of info and a picture of the satellite.