Matt Jones observes that modern trends have already made the future according to Gene Rodenberry obsolete: Grid-distribute the experiences and associated tasks [ of space exploration ] to the millions of CosmoBloggers or the equivalent telepresent hordes, a la Patrick Farley’s Spiders. Let First Contact be with kids, goat herds and losers rather than uptight [...]
And it’s so hot on the Venusian surface (how hot?) that lead vaporizes, and condenses as a metallic frost in the highlands.
Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI The Cassini spacecraft hasn’t reached Saturn, but it still does great work. In late 2000, it swung by Jupiter. It took a series of natural color photos of the largest planet, and the Cassini imaging team assembled them into a portrait. The Cassini also took a time-lapse movie of the Jovian cloud tops [...]
Mars24 is a Martian Sunclock, displaying what parts of the planet are in light, and what’s in shadow.
The BBC has a clip of a video Blur made for the call sign they composed for the UK’s Beagle 2 Mars lander. The band puts in an appearance at the end (in CGI space suits) to sing Far Out from Parklife. [ Real Player ] Meanwhile, you must listen to There’s No Other Way [...]
Update: It launched. If systems problems can be solved, the last of the Titan II boosters will launch from Vandenberg AFB this weekend. My Dad worked on the Titan II, and my eldest sister’s late husband built them at Martin’s plant in Denver. My sister has a photo of her husband standing on a platform [...]
Again, congrats to Yang Liwei, and the PRC on his safe return from orbit.
Three cheers for Yang Liwei, and the women and men of China’s space program! I’m crossing my fingers for his safe return from orbit. Yang Liwei joins a very short list: Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepherd. And China’s joined the equally short list of space-fairing nations. Good job.
Andy Partridge and XTC sang, “All the world is football shaped, just for me to kick in space.” Try a few orders of magnitude larger. How about the universe? (See also a report from Nature) This is wonderful stuff. And you should read Janna Levin’s How the Universe Got Its Spots for the details. Suppose [...]
A photo of the Moon and Mars taken from the International Space Station: without the distortion from the atmosphere, you can see Mars as a small, but distinct disk.
Paul Riddell, who suffers no fool or media fan gladly, relates a breathless press release from a prophesy-obsessed outfit who claims the upcoming stage dive of the Galileo spacecraft into Jupiter is a nefarious plot to initiate the ignition of the gas giant as a second sun. No, the reason Galileo will burn up in [...]
The BBC reports that The Peoples’ Republic of China plans to put a human in space by the end of the year. Is this a boast, or the real thing? The article mentions sources in Hong Kong who say that the first Taikonaut may launch by mid-October. If so, then I wish them hot jets [...]
When the Cassini spacecraft swung past Jupiter on its way to Saturn, it took series of photos. The Cassini team took them, rescaled them, and turned them into a time-lapsed movie of Jupiter’s cloud tops.
Suppose you were dropped off at the core of the Milky Way, some 30,000 light years from our Sun. How do you find your way home? Start by looking for M31.
Best comment on yesterday’s asteroid threat story: I propose that the USA invade and force the asteroid to leave its insane practices. And then a Marine captain could wrap a flag around its head. Or maybe Billy Bob Thorton could launch Ben Afflick and Bruce Willis at it… it’d go aways towards paying that karmic [...]