Posts tagged space
“Astronauts aboard the International Space Station photographed these striking views of Pavlof Volcano on May 18, 2013. The oblique, ever-changing perspective from the Space Station reveals the three dimensional structure of the ash plume, often obscured by the top-down view of most remote sensing satellites. Pavlof, in the Aleutian Islands about 625 miles (1,000 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage, jetted lava into the air and spewed an ash cloud 20,000 feet (6,000 meters) high.”
(Via NASA)
Before Kepler We Knew Only a Handful of Planets
RIP Kepler, the exoplanet finding telescope satellite:
Very few experiments have changed the way we perceive our Universe, but the Kepler exoplanet survey telescope is one such example. Simply by monitoring a single patch of the sky continuously, it provided a new understanding of how many planets exist in the galaxy. Since its launch in 2009, Kepler identified 115 exoplanets with over 2,700 other potential planet candidates—including a number that are comparable in size to Earth or orbiting within the habitable zone where liquid water might exist.
However, Kepler is an orbiting telescope, unreachable by spacecraft for repairs. Today, NASA announced that a reaction wheel—required to keep the telescope pointed steadily in one direction—ceased functioning. This is the second reaction wheel failure, meaning Kepler can’t continue to monitor the same stars and their exoplanets it has watched since 2009.
(Via Ars)
After lying on the ocean floor for more than 40 years, two Apollo rocket engines that helped deliver astronauts to the moon are once again seeing the light of day.
(Via Wired Science)
(via wired)
Asteroid Discovery from 1980 - 2011, by Scott Manley.
“Space Shuttle Discovery launches on its first mission, flight 41-D, on August 30, 1984. This photograph was taken by astronaut John W. Young in the Shuttle Training Aircraft”
(Via The Smithsonian)
To capture sharp images of the Earth at night, Col. Chris Hadfield uses a mount dubbed the NightPod that mechanically compensates for the International Space Station’s 17,000 MPH speed.
PetaPixel explains, “Using the NightPod does require a bit of fine tuning. Prior to using it for photography, astronauts must enter in details about the space stations orbit and altitude. After that, it’s basically a “set it and forget it” tool — the rig can automatically snap photos for 6 hours at a time.”
Planets discovered, by year, by detection methods. (Via the NASA Exoplanet Archive)
The Bay Area, courtesy of Commander Hadfield
NASA’s Z-1 spacesuit prototype:
With the near future of the space program up in the air, NASA’s building the prototype of its next space outfit to suit a variety extraplanetary missions. One of the key designs of the suit is a large port attached to the back, which astronauts can use to expediently enter and exit the suit. More importantly, the port can be used to dock the suit to the side of a shuttle or space station, bypassing the need for an airlock. It’s efficient.
They’re aiming for the 3rd generation of this design, the Z-3, to be spaceworthy and in use by 2017. (Via Tested)
