The Earliest Days of NASA Maria Popova, at Brain Pickings, happened upon a treasure trove of early NASA (and its airplane-only predecessor NACA) archive photos. They are really something. From biplanes to the Mercury capsule, pre-1950 aeronautics seemed to live by the motto of “If we build it, then we can go there.” That’s a sentiment we could use a bit more of. More here.
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The Earliest Days of NASA Maria Popova, at Brain Pickings, happened upon a treasure trove of early NASA (and its airplane-only predecessor NACA) archive photos. They are really something. From biplanes to the Mercury capsule, pre-1950 aeronautics seemed to live by the motto of “If we build it, then we can go there.” That’s a sentiment we could use a bit more of. More here.
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The Earliest Days of NASA Maria Popova, at Brain Pickings, happened upon a treasure trove of early NASA (and its airplane-only predecessor NACA) archive photos. They are really something. From biplanes to the Mercury capsule, pre-1950 aeronautics seemed to live by the motto of “If we build it, then we can go there.” That’s a sentiment we could use a bit more of. More here.
Zoom Info
The Earliest Days of NASA Maria Popova, at Brain Pickings, happened upon a treasure trove of early NASA (and its airplane-only predecessor NACA) archive photos. They are really something. From biplanes to the Mercury capsule, pre-1950 aeronautics seemed to live by the motto of “If we build it, then we can go there.” That’s a sentiment we could use a bit more of. More here.
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The Earliest Days of NASA

Maria Popova, at Brain Pickings, happened upon a treasure trove of early NASA (and its airplane-only predecessor NACA) archive photos. They are really something. From biplanes to the Mercury capsule, pre-1950 aeronautics seemed to live by the motto of “If we build it, then we can go there.” That’s a sentiment we could use a bit more of.

More here.

The Sun is getting feisty … 

The star at the heart of our solar system has released three X-class solar flares (the most powerful class of flares) and their associated waves of charged particles in the past 24 hours. Luckily for us, they have been pointed away from Earth, as seen in the upper left of the video above from NASA.

NASA’s SDO and SOHO satellites captured the explosive magnetic arcs and bursts of plasma in stunning form in the video, which is full-screen worthy. By viewing the sun through different wavelength filters (the colored angstrom filters you see above) we can zoom in on activity happening at different temperatures and involving different ionized elements from hydrogen to iron. 

This happens as the sun ramps up for its predicted 11-year solar maximum later in 2013. Wear your sun(plasma)block!

Don’t you wish there was sound in space so you could hear these things? Sigh.

edwardspoonhands: Google Earth Engine is a joint project between Google and NASA that allows anyone access to a 30 year time-lapse of the surface of the earth. I made a video about how amazing, terrifying, and important it is. We’ve had an eye on Earth for several decades now, and thanks to the new tool from Google that Hank talks about in his video above, we can see our profound effect on the planet in just a single young lifetime. He notes that we aren’t very good at reconciling data with our own, personal daily existence and the proverbial price of eggs. Maybe that’s why graphs describing the changing climate and numbers such as “400 ppm” aren’t as effective as, say, these images here?
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edwardspoonhands: Google Earth Engine is a joint project between Google and NASA that allows anyone access to a 30 year time-lapse of the surface of the earth. I made a video about how amazing, terrifying, and important it is. We’ve had an eye on Earth for several decades now, and thanks to the new tool from Google that Hank talks about in his video above, we can see our profound effect on the planet in just a single young lifetime. He notes that we aren’t very good at reconciling data with our own, personal daily existence and the proverbial price of eggs. Maybe that’s why graphs describing the changing climate and numbers such as “400 ppm” aren’t as effective as, say, these images here?
Zoom Info
edwardspoonhands: Google Earth Engine is a joint project between Google and NASA that allows anyone access to a 30 year time-lapse of the surface of the earth. I made a video about how amazing, terrifying, and important it is. We’ve had an eye on Earth for several decades now, and thanks to the new tool from Google that Hank talks about in his video above, we can see our profound effect on the planet in just a single young lifetime. He notes that we aren’t very good at reconciling data with our own, personal daily existence and the proverbial price of eggs. Maybe that’s why graphs describing the changing climate and numbers such as “400 ppm” aren’t as effective as, say, these images here?
Zoom Info
edwardspoonhands: Google Earth Engine is a joint project between Google and NASA that allows anyone access to a 30 year time-lapse of the surface of the earth. I made a video about how amazing, terrifying, and important it is. We’ve had an eye on Earth for several decades now, and thanks to the new tool from Google that Hank talks about in his video above, we can see our profound effect on the planet in just a single young lifetime. He notes that we aren’t very good at reconciling data with our own, personal daily existence and the proverbial price of eggs. Maybe that’s why graphs describing the changing climate and numbers such as “400 ppm” aren’t as effective as, say, these images here?
Zoom Info

edwardspoonhands:

Google Earth Engine is a joint project between Google and NASA that allows anyone access to a 30 year time-lapse of the surface of the earth. I made a video about how amazing, terrifying, and important it is.

We’ve had an eye on Earth for several decades now, and thanks to the new tool from Google that Hank talks about in his video above, we can see our profound effect on the planet in just a single young lifetime.

He notes that we aren’t very good at reconciling data with our own, personal daily existence and the proverbial price of eggs. Maybe that’s why graphs describing the changing climate and numbers such as “400 ppm” aren’t as effective as, say, these images here?

NASA’s Solar Fleet: Capturing the Awesome

Here’s a fantastic video showing a May 1, 2013 solar eruption from four different NASA solar observation spacecraft. You can appreciate the different perspectives and filters that are offered by SDO, SOHO and the STEREO twins, and why the big picture is always more informative than any alone.

(More at Bad Astronomy)

Source: Slate

Sounding Off in the Ionosphere Last night, NASA launched a pair of rockets from the Marshall Islands to paint the upper atmosphere red and white. It was part of a project called EVEX designed to observe special “neutral winds” in the ionosphere. The ionosphere extends into what we call “outer space”, and is part of Earth’s electromagnetic shield protecting us from solar sterilization. When low-energy sunlight reacts with the upper atmosphere, we see a phenomenon called “airglow” (which you’ll probably recognize from photos like this). When high-energy particles from the solar wind strike the polar upper atmosphere, we get auroras (click here to learn more about those). Of course, that means that disturbances way up there can block important signals like GPS transmissions, which makes generals and smartphone users rather angry. So to study how odd ionosphere winds can cause glitches, NASA launched two rockets a few minutes apart, each arriving simultaneously at different ionosphere altitudes. They released harmless chemicals that react with the thin air to make brilliant clouds that can be tracked from the ground.  It also kind of looks like a space ghost-baby is about to be made. More info at NASA’s website.
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Sounding Off in the Ionosphere

Last night, NASA launched a pair of rockets from the Marshall Islands to paint the upper atmosphere red and white. It was part of a project called EVEX designed to observe special “neutral winds” in the ionosphere.

The ionosphere extends into what we call “outer space”, and is part of Earth’s electromagnetic shield protecting us from solar sterilization. When low-energy sunlight reacts with the upper atmosphere, we see a phenomenon called “airglow” (which you’ll probably recognize from photos like this). When high-energy particles from the solar wind strike the polar upper atmosphere, we get auroras (click here to learn more about those).

Of course, that means that disturbances way up there can block important signals like GPS transmissions, which makes generals and smartphone users rather angry. So to study how odd ionosphere winds can cause glitches, NASA launched two rockets a few minutes apart, each arriving simultaneously at different ionosphere altitudes. They released harmless chemicals that react with the thin air to make brilliant clouds that can be tracked from the ground. 

It also kind of looks like a space ghost-baby is about to be made.

More info at NASA’s website.

Covering the Space Program NASA doesn’t need much help selling the idea that space is super-awesome, but these covers for manuals and press conference notes from the golden age of spaceflight sure don’t hurt. They are going up for auction later this month. I wouldn’t mind having one or two of those hanging in my house, eh? Check out many more awesome works of vintage NASA PR art here.
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Covering the Space Program NASA doesn’t need much help selling the idea that space is super-awesome, but these covers for manuals and press conference notes from the golden age of spaceflight sure don’t hurt. They are going up for auction later this month. I wouldn’t mind having one or two of those hanging in my house, eh? Check out many more awesome works of vintage NASA PR art here.
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Covering the Space Program NASA doesn’t need much help selling the idea that space is super-awesome, but these covers for manuals and press conference notes from the golden age of spaceflight sure don’t hurt. They are going up for auction later this month. I wouldn’t mind having one or two of those hanging in my house, eh? Check out many more awesome works of vintage NASA PR art here.
Zoom Info
Covering the Space Program NASA doesn’t need much help selling the idea that space is super-awesome, but these covers for manuals and press conference notes from the golden age of spaceflight sure don’t hurt. They are going up for auction later this month. I wouldn’t mind having one or two of those hanging in my house, eh? Check out many more awesome works of vintage NASA PR art here.
Zoom Info
Covering the Space Program NASA doesn’t need much help selling the idea that space is super-awesome, but these covers for manuals and press conference notes from the golden age of spaceflight sure don’t hurt. They are going up for auction later this month. I wouldn’t mind having one or two of those hanging in my house, eh? Check out many more awesome works of vintage NASA PR art here.
Zoom Info

Covering the Space Program

NASA doesn’t need much help selling the idea that space is super-awesome, but these covers for manuals and press conference notes from the golden age of spaceflight sure don’t hurt. They are going up for auction later this month. I wouldn’t mind having one or two of those hanging in my house, eh?

Check out many more awesome works of vintage NASA PR art here.

I hate waking up to bad news. Thanks to Congress and the White House failing to agree on budget cuts, and the subsequent “sequestration” (across-the-board, slash-and-burn, top-to-bottom money-trimming), NASA has announced that they are suspending all education and public outreach activities. It’s a suspension, not a cancellation … but uggghhhh. NASA knows this sucks. But they’ve been put in a place where they have to choose whether they can support their actual missions with the money they have been given, and no matter how much they value the extras (and they do), it’s rock-and-a-hard-place time for space folks. It’s hard to put presents under the tree if you’re struggling to keep the lights on. Projects like the Mars Curiosity Twitter account and NASA’s Twitter socials will continue. So what could we be saying goodbye to? These are the outreach programs that put Mars science in underprivileged classrooms, turning science into smiles. The programs that publish free ebooks of our Earth as art, erasing borders and instilling wonder in one fell swoop. Programs that allow us to travel beyond our planet in a single click. These are programs that plop down space telescope mock-ups in the middle of downtown Austin so the kid in me can do cartwheels with sciencey glee. Today, online, there are so many wonderful places that can take up the slack (blogs and websites like this). But will we be able to do this effectively if NASA can’t even do it themselves? I don’t know. But we will try. Because if we do try, then we can remind people who vote and people who make budgets of what NASA already knows: Whenever we look up, we are inspired to make new things possible, in sciences terrestrial and astronomical. And when we look back down at Earth, and those borders disappear, doesn’t it make you want to make this chart a little more even? More coverage at Universe Today. 
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I hate waking up to bad news. Thanks to Congress and the White House failing to agree on budget cuts, and the subsequent “sequestration” (across-the-board, slash-and-burn, top-to-bottom money-trimming), NASA has announced that they are suspending all education and public outreach activities. It’s a suspension, not a cancellation … but uggghhhh. NASA knows this sucks. But they’ve been put in a place where they have to choose whether they can support their actual missions with the money they have been given, and no matter how much they value the extras (and they do), it’s rock-and-a-hard-place time for space folks. It’s hard to put presents under the tree if you’re struggling to keep the lights on. Projects like the Mars Curiosity Twitter account and NASA’s Twitter socials will continue. So what could we be saying goodbye to? These are the outreach programs that put Mars science in underprivileged classrooms, turning science into smiles. The programs that publish free ebooks of our Earth as art, erasing borders and instilling wonder in one fell swoop. Programs that allow us to travel beyond our planet in a single click. These are programs that plop down space telescope mock-ups in the middle of downtown Austin so the kid in me can do cartwheels with sciencey glee. Today, online, there are so many wonderful places that can take up the slack (blogs and websites like this). But will we be able to do this effectively if NASA can’t even do it themselves? I don’t know. But we will try. Because if we do try, then we can remind people who vote and people who make budgets of what NASA already knows: Whenever we look up, we are inspired to make new things possible, in sciences terrestrial and astronomical. And when we look back down at Earth, and those borders disappear, doesn’t it make you want to make this chart a little more even? More coverage at Universe Today. 
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I hate waking up to bad news.

Thanks to Congress and the White House failing to agree on budget cuts, and the subsequent “sequestration” (across-the-board, slash-and-burn, top-to-bottom money-trimming), NASA has announced that they are suspending all education and public outreach activities. It’s a suspension, not a cancellation … but uggghhhh.

NASA knows this sucks. But they’ve been put in a place where they have to choose whether they can support their actual missions with the money they have been given, and no matter how much they value the extras (and they do), it’s rock-and-a-hard-place time for space folks. It’s hard to put presents under the tree if you’re struggling to keep the lights on.

Projects like the Mars Curiosity Twitter account and NASA’s Twitter socials will continue. So what could we be saying goodbye to? These are the outreach programs that put Mars science in underprivileged classrooms, turning science into smiles. The programs that publish free ebooks of our Earth as art, erasing borders and instilling wonder in one fell swoop. Programs that allow us to travel beyond our planet in a single click. These are programs that plop down space telescope mock-ups in the middle of downtown Austin so the kid in me can do cartwheels with sciencey glee.

Today, online, there are so many wonderful places that can take up the slack (blogs and websites like this). But will we be able to do this effectively if NASA can’t even do it themselves? I don’t know. But we will try.

Because if we do try, then we can remind people who vote and people who make budgets of what NASA already knows: Whenever we look up, we are inspired to make new things possible, in sciences terrestrial and astronomical. And when we look back down at Earth, and those borders disappear, doesn’t it make you want to make this chart a little more even?

More coverage at Universe Today. 

The number of places in our solar system that could have ever supported life now stands at 2! The first, of course, is Earth, because … well, us. According to an awesomely exciting announcement today by NASA and JPL, we can add Gale Crater to that list!  What they found: Curiosity’s rock drill recently uncovered clay-like minerals below Gale Crater’s rusty red surface. These muddy minerals, pictured above, hint at a “Gray Mars” era, when Gale Crater and the ancient stream bed it holds could have been home to intermittent lakes. When the onboard instruments scanned the chemical makeup of the clay, it found carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorous and sulfur compounds, a group of elements known as “CHONPS” that have to exist in order to create life as we know it. Most importantly, the minerals were pretty neutral in pH and were found in forms that point to a possible chemical energy system (another key ingredient for life). What remains unknown: This does NOT mean that anything ever actually lived there. But it is the first time that the ingredients for the evolution of microbial life, and the correct conditions to support it, have been directly observed beyond Earth. Mars still has water frozen at its poles, and once had quite a bit of water above and below the surface. The rover will poke around this site, called Yellowknife Bay, for a while longer before heading toward the mountainous center of Gale Crater. There, it will study the multiple layers of rock present on the hillside in order to piece together an even clearer picture of Gale Crater’s muddy, moist, maybe* microbial Martian past. *Maybe. Just want to emphasize that part.
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The number of places in our solar system that could have ever supported life now stands at 2! The first, of course, is Earth, because … well, us. According to an awesomely exciting announcement today by NASA and JPL, we can add Gale Crater to that list!  What they found: Curiosity’s rock drill recently uncovered clay-like minerals below Gale Crater’s rusty red surface. These muddy minerals, pictured above, hint at a “Gray Mars” era, when Gale Crater and the ancient stream bed it holds could have been home to intermittent lakes. When the onboard instruments scanned the chemical makeup of the clay, it found carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorous and sulfur compounds, a group of elements known as “CHONPS” that have to exist in order to create life as we know it. Most importantly, the minerals were pretty neutral in pH and were found in forms that point to a possible chemical energy system (another key ingredient for life). What remains unknown: This does NOT mean that anything ever actually lived there. But it is the first time that the ingredients for the evolution of microbial life, and the correct conditions to support it, have been directly observed beyond Earth. Mars still has water frozen at its poles, and once had quite a bit of water above and below the surface. The rover will poke around this site, called Yellowknife Bay, for a while longer before heading toward the mountainous center of Gale Crater. There, it will study the multiple layers of rock present on the hillside in order to piece together an even clearer picture of Gale Crater’s muddy, moist, maybe* microbial Martian past. *Maybe. Just want to emphasize that part.
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The number of places in our solar system that could have ever supported life now stands at 2! The first, of course, is Earth, because … well, us. According to an awesomely exciting announcement today by NASA and JPL, we can add Gale Crater to that list!  What they found: Curiosity’s rock drill recently uncovered clay-like minerals below Gale Crater’s rusty red surface. These muddy minerals, pictured above, hint at a “Gray Mars” era, when Gale Crater and the ancient stream bed it holds could have been home to intermittent lakes. When the onboard instruments scanned the chemical makeup of the clay, it found carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorous and sulfur compounds, a group of elements known as “CHONPS” that have to exist in order to create life as we know it. Most importantly, the minerals were pretty neutral in pH and were found in forms that point to a possible chemical energy system (another key ingredient for life). What remains unknown: This does NOT mean that anything ever actually lived there. But it is the first time that the ingredients for the evolution of microbial life, and the correct conditions to support it, have been directly observed beyond Earth. Mars still has water frozen at its poles, and once had quite a bit of water above and below the surface. The rover will poke around this site, called Yellowknife Bay, for a while longer before heading toward the mountainous center of Gale Crater. There, it will study the multiple layers of rock present on the hillside in order to piece together an even clearer picture of Gale Crater’s muddy, moist, maybe* microbial Martian past. *Maybe. Just want to emphasize that part.
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The number of places in our solar system that could have ever supported life now stands at 2!

The first, of course, is Earth, because … well, us. According to an awesomely exciting announcement today by NASA and JPL, we can add Gale Crater to that list! 

What they found: Curiosity’s rock drill recently uncovered clay-like minerals below Gale Crater’s rusty red surface. These muddy minerals, pictured above, hint at a “Gray Mars” era, when Gale Crater and the ancient stream bed it holds could have been home to intermittent lakes. When the onboard instruments scanned the chemical makeup of the clay, it found carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorous and sulfur compounds, a group of elements known as “CHONPS” that have to exist in order to create life as we know it. Most importantly, the minerals were pretty neutral in pH and were found in forms that point to a possible chemical energy system (another key ingredient for life).

What remains unknown: This does NOT mean that anything ever actually lived there. But it is the first time that the ingredients for the evolution of microbial life, and the correct conditions to support it, have been directly observed beyond Earth. Mars still has water frozen at its poles, and once had quite a bit of water above and below the surface. The rover will poke around this site, called Yellowknife Bay, for a while longer before heading toward the mountainous center of Gale Crater. There, it will study the multiple layers of rock present on the hillside in order to piece together an even clearer picture of Gale Crater’s muddy, moist, maybe* microbial Martian past.

*Maybe. Just want to emphasize that part.

via paulhillier: Chris Hadfield: An astronaut’s advice As seen on http://zenpencils.com Art: by Gavin Aung Than Words: by Chris Hadfield Why worry about growing up when there’s so much GOING up to do? Canada, I am officially thanking you for Commander Hadfield. And Commander Hadfield, I’m officially thanking you for beaming the wonder of space back down to Earth on a daily basis.
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via paulhillier: Chris Hadfield: An astronaut’s advice As seen on http://zenpencils.com Art: by Gavin Aung Than Words: by Chris Hadfield Why worry about growing up when there’s so much GOING up to do? Canada, I am officially thanking you for Commander Hadfield. And Commander Hadfield, I’m officially thanking you for beaming the wonder of space back down to Earth on a daily basis.
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via paulhillier: Chris Hadfield: An astronaut’s advice As seen on http://zenpencils.com Art: by Gavin Aung Than Words: by Chris Hadfield Why worry about growing up when there’s so much GOING up to do? Canada, I am officially thanking you for Commander Hadfield. And Commander Hadfield, I’m officially thanking you for beaming the wonder of space back down to Earth on a daily basis.
Zoom Info
via paulhillier: Chris Hadfield: An astronaut’s advice As seen on http://zenpencils.com Art: by Gavin Aung Than Words: by Chris Hadfield Why worry about growing up when there’s so much GOING up to do? Canada, I am officially thanking you for Commander Hadfield. And Commander Hadfield, I’m officially thanking you for beaming the wonder of space back down to Earth on a daily basis.
Zoom Info
via paulhillier: Chris Hadfield: An astronaut’s advice As seen on http://zenpencils.com Art: by Gavin Aung Than Words: by Chris Hadfield Why worry about growing up when there’s so much GOING up to do? Canada, I am officially thanking you for Commander Hadfield. And Commander Hadfield, I’m officially thanking you for beaming the wonder of space back down to Earth on a daily basis.
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via paulhillier:

Chris Hadfield: An astronaut’s advice

As seen on http://zenpencils.com
Art: by Gavin Aung Than
Words: by Chris Hadfield

Why worry about growing up when there’s so much GOING up to do? Canada, I am officially thanking you for Commander Hadfield.

And Commander Hadfield, I’m officially thanking you for beaming the wonder of space back down to Earth on a daily basis.