Jupiter and its moons; Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
One of the first photos that got me lots of followers was this one right here, of Io. Seriously, I might just need to do a whole week (maybe in the Summer - I’m waaay to busy right now) dedicated to the different moons in our solar system.
I did do a week dedicated to Io in 2010.
:)
(via npr)
The dark, inner shadow of planet Earth is called the umbra. Shaped like a cone extending into space, it has a circular cross section most easily seen during a lunar eclipse. For example, last Saturday the Full Moon slid across the southern half of Earth’s umbral shadow, entertaining moonwatchers around much of the planet. In the total phase of the eclipse, the Moon was completely within the umbra for 51 minutes. Recorded from Beijing, China, this composite eclipse image uses successive pictures from totality (center) and partial phases to trace out a large part of the umbra’s curved edge.
(via guerrillamamamedicine)
Meteor Showers 2012
A calendar of all the major meteor showers taking place in 2012 that I drew up.
Of course, this isn’t all of the meteor events this year. Only the ones with the best chance of being visible. I chose only events with a Zenith Hourly Rate (ZHR, the number of peak events per hour) above 10. You should also consider the moon phase for that date, which I did not include.
How to use this:
- The date on the left is the early morning after midnight on the day it will peak (so “October 7” is between midnight and sunrise on the morning of the 7th).
- The constellation represents the point in the sky that the shower will “originate” from.
- Choose someplace dark, away from city lights, and bring a blanket and a friend.
- Enjoy.
To calculate the sunrise/sunset for your area on a specific date, go here. Many more details about each event can be found in this summary from EarthSky. Some events will favor the North or South Hemispheres, but such is life.
Feel free to distribute freely!
(via itsfullofstars)
What must it feel like to be an astronaut: weightless, rocketing farther and farther from home and country, gazing out your craft’s window at the deepness of space, wondering where you can get a good salad…
As astronauts set their sights on a not-so-distant mission to Mars, scientists are wondering what to put on spacecraft menus. Current packaged meal options, while far more advanced than the nutrition pills and pureed-food tubes of early space travel, aren’t practical for an extended trip, says Alexandra Witze in Science News. “Six astronauts eating 3,000 calories a day for three years, the length of a Mars mission, adds up to 20 tons of prepared food that would need to be launched.”
cwnl:
Quadrantid Meteor Shower, First of 2012, May Dazzle Early Wednesday
Pictured Above: False-color image of a rare early Quadrantid, captured by a NASA meteor camera in 2010. Credit: NASA/MEO/B. Cooke
The first meteor shower of 2012 — the lesser known Quadrantid meteor shower — will kick off a new year of skywatching when it peaks on Wednesday (Jan. 4).
While many meteor displays in 2011 were washed out by a bright moon, the Quadrantid meteor shower is expected to put on a spectacular light show, with no pesky moonlight to interfere. The peak of the Quadrantids will occur at around 2 a.m. EST (0700 GMT) on Jan. 4.
If you’re planning to stay up late to catch the peak, you could be treated to meteors at a rate of 100 per hour, NASA officials said in a statement. Luckily, the waxing gibbous moon will set at around 3 a.m. local time, so as long as there are clear skies, conditions should be ripe for meteor watching into the pre-dawn hours. The sky map available here shows where to look to see the Quadrantid meteors.
Unlike the more well-known Perseid and Geminid meteor showers, the Quadrantids last only a few hours, so skywatchers have a narrower window of opportunity to spot them.
Meteor showers occur when Earth travels through leftover debris from comets or asteroids. They are often known as “shooting stars,” because of the way they streak across the sky.
The Quadrantid meteors originate from an asteroid called 2003 EH1, and were first seen in 1825. According to some studies, this cosmic body could be a piece of a comet that broke apart several centuries ago, and the Quadrantids are the crumbled relics of debris from this fragmentation, NASA officials said.
(via ikenbot)
First Photo of the Sun
This photo was taken by the French physicists Louis Fizeau and Leon Foucault on April 2, 1845, taking advantage of a relatively new technology.
look at dat tonal range.
(Source: National Geographic)
Astrophysicists find biggest black holes yet: Two monsters, one of which may be about 20 billion times the mass of our sun, could provide important clues to the formation of galaxies.
Photo: A graphic conception of the immense size of a newly discovered black hole, shown in the background. Our solar system, shown in the inset, would be dwarfed by it. Credit: Pete Marenfeld / Nature
Dear Black Hole,
Eat me up. Plz.
Truly,
J.
(Source: Los Angeles Times)
Have a mint…
Today’s image from the Hubble Space Telescope: The Sombrero Galaxy in infrared light
NASA wants to send astronauts into space and never bring them back.
In the works is a “Hundred Year Starship” that will be designed to take humans on a one-way trip to other planets, like Mars. “It would really be little different from the first white settlers of the North American continent, who left Europe with little expectation of return.”
Right. No difference at all.
Anyone wanna volunteer for this?
Photo credit: CC BY gnews pics
YES I DO WANT TO VOLUNTEER! Where do I sign up. Do I get to meet aliens?
WHAT WHAT WHAT. Can I go?!
