Star Gazing

A Snake in the Dark

Eileen Collins

Collins was the first female pilot and first female commander of a Space Shuttle.

Vox’s Joss Fong put together a beautiful video pairing the images from the Voyager Golden Records (learn more about them here) with words from Carl Sagan and music from Blind Willie Johnson. The first image was a simple “calibrating circle” used in this post’s title.

There’s something powerful about this collection of images – this small attempt to sum up human existence. Carl Sagan said:

The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this ‘bottle’ into the cosmic ‘ocean’ says something very hopeful about life on this planet.

This is one slice of an incredible high resolution, enhanced color image of Pluto, recently released by NASA. You can see the full, larger version here. 

The last but not least of Assorted Planets Month!

And now to cool you all off with some “refreshing” rain!

This week’s entry: Planetary Rain

http://www.zmescience.com/other/science-abc/rain-titan-earth-neptune/

‘A hallmark moment in human history’ as New Horizons’ epic journey culminates in Pluto flyby

Above is the last and most detailed image of Pluto sent to Earth before the moment of closest approach - 7:49 a.m. EDT. This stunning image of the dwarf planet was captured from New Horizons at about 4 p.m. EDT on July 13, about 16 hours before the moment of closest approach. The spacecraft was 766,000 kilometres from the surface. Members of the New Horizons science team react to the image.

“This is truly a hallmark in human history,” said John Grunsfeld, NASA’s science mission chief.

The United States is now the only nation to visit every single planet in the solar system. Pluto was No. 9 in the lineup when New Horizons departed Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Jan. 19, 2006, but was demoted seven months later to dwarf status. Scientists in charge of the US$720 million mission, as well as NASA officials, hope the new observations will restore Pluto’s honour.

Aside from the TV footage beamed back to earth, the photographic record of the Apollo 11 mission has been lacking, at least that’s what we thought.

Recently, NASA archivists discovered a treasure trove of unseen Kodak photos that are now on display for the first time.

Previously Unseen NASA Photographs From the Apollo 11 Mission