Kepler Discovery
There has been some buzz in astronomical news lately about Kepler, which was a program I worked on at SwRI (my last job). Kepler is a space-based telescope whose mission was to search one area of the sky over a long period for rocky, Earth-like planets. I've been very anxious to hear how its mission was going, and today I say this article - which totally made my day. Here's an excerpt that did it for me:"...the results so far of the Kepler mission heralded a Corpernican revolution. Just as Corpernicus revolutionized astronomy by publishing data that the solar system rotated around the sun, rather than the earth, so too the data from the Kepler mission would lead to another scientific revolution. Rather than planets like earth being unique or an uncommon occurrence in the galaxy, they in fact are plentiful."
Posted under News by Joel on July 27, 2010 01:40 PM | Comments (0)
Still Alive
Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Our webhost was migrating to newer servers, and our blog got all screwed up in the migration. It's taken me until just this past weekend to get all of the back-end stuff working again. Don't worry though - the camera is swollen with lots of photographic goodness, and I expect to start putting new posts up again within the next day or so.Posted under News by Joel on April 13, 2009 03:43 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes From Space #45
If any of you have taken a look at the moon in the last week or two, right at sunset, you might have noticed two bright points of light right next to it. Those weren't stars though - that was Venus (the brighter of the two) and Jupiter. How cool is that?
Posted under News by Joel on December 11, 2008 07:31 AM | Comments (0)
Thomas Doyle
This guy does some amazing work. He uses modeling materials meant for building model railroad dioramas, and build amazing little worlds under glass. He has an keen ability to "capture a moment" - even knowing these things are just plastic and foam, some of them seem almost alive.
Posted under News by Joel on December 3, 2008 08:41 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #44
I don't know if any of you have been following all of the data coming from Mars these days, but they are finding lots of interesting new things. The MRO (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) used radar to find something pretty interesting - huge glaciers under the surface. It looks like each of these glaciers might cover an area larger than a city, and be almost a kilometer thick. This discovery could have serious effect on the planning of a future mission to Mars, and could even serve as a drinking water reservoir for a future Martian settlement.
Posted under News by Joel on December 2, 2008 06:11 AM | Comments (0)
42 Words of Wisdom: #11
"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."
- Douglas Adams
In the evenings over the last couple of weeks, I have been doing some research online into how to go about starting a garden. Next year, I would like to start a garden somewhere in our yard with the kids. The goal here is threefold. First, I'll learn something new and have fun doing it. Second, the kids will (hopefully) have fun helping, and (again, hopefully) learn how hard work can pay off in the end. And third (and potentially most importantly), we can save some money on our grocery bills. I'd also love to grow enough to can some of our harvest, so we can enjoy it through the winter. And making some homemade salsa from ingredients that all came from our own garden would be pretty cool, too.
Posted under News by Joel on November 24, 2008 09:05 AM | Comments (0)
Nerdbots
I love these things. The couple that builds these uses items found at antique stores and bits and pieces from the hardware store. I'd love to make one of these myself. They're cute and charming. I showed Sean the website, and he loved looking at the pictures of all the robots.
Posted under News by Joel on November 23, 2008 08:42 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #43
I think it's been almost a year since I last put up a "Scenes from Space" post, but this is a special occasion. On June 13th, at 12:05 PM, GLAST (the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope) was launched into orbit. One of the instruments on that satellite is called the GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM), and I was involved in the software development effort for that instrument. So good luck GLAST! And if anything goes wrong, I swear it wasn't me. :)
Posted under News by Joel on June 22, 2008 02:18 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #42
Check out these beautiful sculptural clouds of dust in the Rosette Nebula (NGC 2244). The Rosette Nebula spans about 50 light-years, and lies about 4,500 light-years away.
Posted under News by Joel on June 8, 2007 10:20 AM | Comments (0)
Ron Mueck
You've got check out the work of Australian sculptor Ron Mueck. His work is amazingly realistic, and sometimes it is only the scale of the piece that gives away its artificial nature. The link above will take you to an article about a exhibition of his work at the Brooklyn Museum, and this link will take you to the Wiki page about him.
Posted under News by Joel on May 26, 2007 10:58 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #41
Check out this amazing shot of Europa (one of Jupiter's moons) rising above the Jovian horizon. This image was taken by the New Horizons spacecraft during its fly-by of Jupiter on its way to Pluto. I did some work on New Horizons, and I'm very proud to have been part of what has so far been a very successful misson.
Posted under News by Joel on May 25, 2007 10:52 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes From Space #40
I know that Mom at least had heard about the newly-discovered (and first) Earth-like planet discovered orbiting another star. For anyone else who hadn't heard, this is pretty exciting. The planet is what is called the "habitable zone" of its parent star. Meaning that the planet is in the zone where liquid water - and therefore life - is possible. The planet is called Gliese 581c, and orbits a red dwarf star that is about 20 light-years away. The picture below is an artist's interpretation of the possible view from the surface of this planet, based on the assumption that the planet may have liquid water oceans on its surface.
Posted under News by Joel on May 4, 2007 04:33 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #39
Dang! I missed the lunar eclipse a few nights ago! But I did catch this great shot of the eclipse on the web.
Posted under News by Joel on March 9, 2007 06:31 PM | Comments (0)
Orbital Express Launch
Orbital Express launched on March 8, 2007. I did a ton of work on Orbital Express - I've got over ten thousand lines of code flying on that mission. And this isn't just a routine satellite mission either. Here's a quote from the DARPA website:
"The goal of the Orbital Express Space Operations Architecture program is to validate the technical feasibility of robotic, autonomous on-orbit refueling and reconfiguration of satellites to support a broad range of future U.S. national security and commercial space programs."
Is that cool, or what?! w00t w00t!
Posted under News by Joel on March 8, 2007 06:17 PM | Comments (0)
Cat and Mouse Armor
I've found another interesting sculptor online. Jeff de Boer creates (among other things) suits of armor for cats and mice. The level of detail in these pieces is amazing. The images speak for themselves - check them out!
Posted under News by Joel on January 6, 2007 07:33 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #38
Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka, are the three brightest blue stars from left to right along the diagonal in this vista. These three stars make up the belt of the the constellation Orion, and are hotter and much more massive than our Sun.
Posted under News by Joel on January 5, 2007 10:16 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #37
This amazing image of swirls of dust surrounding the variable star V838 Monocerotiswas was recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope this past September. V838 Monocerotis is about 20,000 light-years away. In January 2002, a sudden outburst from the star was detected, and the light from the outburst illuminated the shells of dust surrounding the star. Astronomers expect that the outburst will continue to ilight up more and more distant dust shells of V838 Mon for at least the rest of this decade. Amazing, isn't it?
Posted under News by Joel on November 10, 2006 11:29 PM | Comments (0)
Nemomatic
Nemo Gould is another sculptor that I found recently. His work usually mostly 'found' materials, and is even cooler to see in motion than in the photos. His sculptures are kinematic, and he's got a video clip of each of them on his site. Share and enjoy.
Posted under News by Joel on November 10, 2006 09:21 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #36
As much as I love seeing pictures of the International Space Station (ISS), I've got mixed feelings about the station itself. Has anyone ever seen the Tom Hanks movie "The Money Pit"? That's what the ISS is becoming. More and more of NASA's budget is being gobbled up by the station, leaving less and less for research satellites and robotic interplanetary missions. And the biggest problem is that with the budget crunches and shuttle problems of the last several years, we can never afford to put enough people on the ISS to actually do any science, which is the stated purpose for building the station in the first place. Instead, we can only afford to keep people on the station just to maintain it. Which means that it has really just become an example of our technological prowess in space, but does not serve any useful purpose. Which is why I'm torn. I'd love to see us do some science with it, or stop sinking money into it.
Posted under News by Joel on October 27, 2006 05:51 PM | Comments (0)
Shopping Cart Art
Yet more cool sculptures created from junk. These were created by Ptolemy Elrington for a project called RiverCare. I can't seem to find out exactly where they are, but they're near a river in the UK, if that narrows it down at all. heh. The sculptures are created from shopping carts pulled from the river, as part of an awareness campaign to encourage volunteers to adopt sections of the river.
Posted under News by Joel on October 26, 2006 07:23 PM | Comments (1)
Bowlercoasting
I've been reading Shamus Young's blog for over a year now, and it's great for geeks. Lots of programming musings and ideas, sci-fi discussions, Dungeons and Dragons references, and video game analysis. But recently, Shamus created a small video from a session of Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 that has spread his name across the internets and their tubes (heh) like wildfire. Check it out, it's hilarious!Posted under News by Joel on October 22, 2006 06:23 PM | Comments (0)
Edouard Martinet
I seem to have a real knack for coming across these types of artists lately. Edouard Martinet is a French scupltor who has been creating animals from scrap metal for the last ten years. Even more amazing, his pieces are created without welding. Take a lot at his work, it is simply amazing.
Posted under News by Joel on October 21, 2006 09:20 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #35
This amazing image is a composite of many images taken by the Cassini spacecraft from the 'back' side of Saturn. With the planet's rings lit from behind by the sun, they take on an amazing glowing quality. This backlighting actually allowed astronomers to discover new rings. If you look for a small pale blue dot on left side of the image, just above the bright main rings, you can see the Earth!
Posted under News by Joel on October 20, 2006 06:35 PM | Comments (0)
Pumpkin Carving
Found something cool on the web today. Instead of the traditional style of pumpkin carving - where you hollow the pumpkin and cut through the shell - this guy carves three-dimensional faces on the exterior of the pumpkin. Not only is his work amazing, he includes a pretty extensive tutorial on his site explaining how to try this yourself. Dig it!
Posted under News by Joel on October 14, 2006 09:16 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #34
This photo strikes me as very cool. It was taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) last week. In the image, you can see the tracks left by one of the Martian Rovers (Opportunity), and you can even see the rover itself!
Posted under News by Joel on October 13, 2006 10:12 PM | Comments (0)
Pooh Sticks
Don't let the name throw you - this has nothing to do with dung. This guy makes miniature boats out of bits of stuff he finds washed up on the beach. I find them to be very beautiful and whimsical. Check out his Flickr photoset.
Posted under News by Joel on August 5, 2006 10:52 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #33
Check out this beautiful photo of the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy. This long-exposure photo was taken over a rock formation at Capitol Reef National Park, Utah in May 2003.
Posted under News by Joel on August 4, 2006 10:22 AM | Comments (0)
Spoon Sculptures
Another intersting find. This guy makes scupltures of figures out of old silverware and other kitchen implements. Very clever - I Dig them. Check out his work in his Flickr photoset.
Posted under News by Joel on August 3, 2006 11:00 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #32
No big explanation this time - just a very cool picure taken during the most recent Discovery mission to the ISS.
Posted under News by Joel on July 21, 2006 10:25 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #31
This image was captured by the Voyager 2 spacecraft as it flew past Neptune on it's way out of the solar system. It was taken from 'behind' Neptune (the side away from the Sun), and is unique in the sense that it could never have been taken from the Earth. Neptune can never show a crescent phase towards the Earth, as we are on Neptune's sunward side. Another interesting fact is that Neptune does not have it's familiar blue color from behind, as the sunlight passing through it's atmosphere is scattered forward, rather than back, so it is reddened.
Posted under News by Joel on June 30, 2006 09:29 AM | Comments (0)
Paper Sculptures
I came across something cool on flickr this past week. Richard Sweeney creates geometric sculptures out of paper, by scoring and folding. They are pretty amazing, and some of them have a bit of an M.C. Escher feel to them. Check them out.
Posted under News by Joel on May 21, 2006 01:23 PM | Comments (0)
Coverville - Did You Know?
There's a podcast I listen to called Coverville. The host of the show, Brian Ibbot, plays only cover songs - and usually some very interesting or obscure ones at that. Sometimes Brian does a theme show he calls "Originalville", where he plays the original versions of songs that were made much more famous by someone else as a cover. In those cases, most people don't even realize that the version they know is actually a cover of an earlier, less popular artist. The March 31st show was especially cool. Did you know that "Honky Tonk Woman" was not originally performed by the Rolling Stones? Or that "Oops, I Did it Again" was actually originally a 30's jazz song? Check out the March 31st episode of Coverville, and hear the originals!Posted under News by Joel on May 21, 2006 12:06 PM | Comments (1)
Scenes from Space #30
This picture was taken by the fisheye lens camera on the Huygens probe as in descended to the surface of Titan - Saturn's largest moon. Titan is wreathed by a thick layer of clouds, and its suface cannot be seen from the Earth. This probe was released from the Cassini orbiter on a close approach of Titan, and parachuted down through Titan's atmosphere to land on the surface. Even cooler, if you check on NASA's website you can find a time-lapse video of the descent to the surface, as seen by this fisheye lens. Very cool.
Posted under News by Joel on May 19, 2006 07:48 AM | Comments (1)
Seventh Son
I've been listening to an interesting podcast recently - it's called "Seventh Son", and is acutally more of an ameteur audiobook. It's pretty entertaining so far - especially for something that was free. :)Here's the premise, direct from the author's website:
7th Son, Book One: Descent is the story of seven strangers who have been brought together after the recent assassination of the U.S. president. These seven men quickly discover they have one disturbing thing in common: They all appear to be the same man, with the same name ... and the same childhood memories.
Unwitting participants in a human cloning experiment, these "John Michael Smiths" have been gathered by their creators for one reason -- to catch the man who murdered the president.
Their target? The man they were cloned from; the original John Michael Smith, code-named John Alpha.
The author has recorded and posted 13 episodes so far (of a planned 24), and if you've got the time and dig sci-fi, check it out!
Posted under News by Joel on May 16, 2006 07:40 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #29
Skylab was the first space station put into orbit by the United States. The station weighed 75 metric tons, and was in orbit from 1973 until 1979. Unfortunately, the station was only manned for 171 days out of its 2249 days in orbit. One interesting this about Skylab is that it was actually the refitted second stage of a Saturn IB booster rocket, leftover from the Apollo program.
Posted under News by Joel on May 13, 2006 07:41 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #28
I saw this picture (taken by Hubble Space Telescope) sometime last week. Isn't it amazing? It always blows me away to see a picture like this, because it reminds me of just how many other stars are really out there. When you hear the numbers, it sounds like such an abstract concept. But to see a picture of even a small portion of sky - taken by a powerful telescope - you really get a sense of how densly packed with stars the sky really is. This picture is of the stars of open cluster NGC 290, which is a cluster of young stars that lies about 200,000 light-years distant in a neighboring galaxy called the Small Cloud of Magellan (SMC).
Posted under News by Joel on May 5, 2006 11:20 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #27
Is this not one of the coolest things you've even seen? This photo (taken by SOHO, which has a UNH instrument on it) shows an arch of ionized gas floating above the surface of the Sun. The crazy, twisted magnetic fields near the surface of the Sun can trap ionized gases in these huge, looping structures. The arches eventually break free of the Sun, and can lead to communications and power failures here on Earth, 93 million miles away.
Posted under News by Joel on April 14, 2006 10:21 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #26
Astronomers are finding new planets outside of our own solar system all the time. One of the projects I am currently working on is called Kepler, and is a NASA-funded orbiting telescope designed specifically to find extrasolar planets. It's a pretty exciting project to be working on - this stuff is cutting-edge science. Hoepfully I'll get to go to the launch, which should be in a couple of years. This image is an artist's depiction of what an extrasolar planet orbiting a distant red dwarf star might look like, complete with a hypothetical moon.
Posted under News by Joel on April 7, 2006 08:01 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #25
Scientists may have found evidence for another liquid ocean in our solar system. They have long suspected that Jupiter's moon Europa harbors a liquid ocean beneath its icy crust, and recent data from the Cassini spacecraft has given tantalizing hints that a similar ocean might lie beneath the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus.
Posted under News by Joel on March 24, 2006 10:46 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #24
Is the Antartic ice sheet melting? Climatologists think global warming may be melting the ice that encases our southernmost continent. The orbiting GRACE satellite has taken extremely sensitive measurements of the Earth's gravity, and the data suggests that Antartica may have lost a significant amount of ice between 2002 and 2005. While they calculate that this ice would only have raised the world's oceans by a fraction of an inch, that it a LOT more water than it sounds like - almost 40 trillion gallons. In the image below is a picture of one of the icebergs along the Antartic coast.
Posted under News by Joel on March 10, 2006 04:10 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #23
Don't worry - HAL didn't try to cut him loose. What you are seeing was a novel satellite idea. This unneeded Russian Orlan spacesuit was pushed out of the International Space Station earlier this month. Dubbed Suitsat-1, it was filled mostly with old clothes, and a radio transmitter. Suitsat-1 will orbit the Earth once every 90 minutes until it burns up in the Earth's atmosphere - which should happen within a few weeks.
Posted under News by Joel on February 24, 2006 06:22 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #22
These tracks were made by the Apollo 14 crew's two-wheeled Modularized Equipment Transporter (MET) - which the astronauts referred to as the "rickshaw" - which was designed to help the astronauts explore the Moon's surface. It carried lunar handtools, sample containers, spare film and a Lunar Surface Penetrometer. The tracks in the soil show the path of Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell as they explored this lunar landscape.
Posted under News by Joel on February 10, 2006 10:13 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #21
This is an image of Europa, one of the four largest moons of Jupiter. Europa was discovered in 1610 by Galileo, along with Jupiter's three other largest moons - Io, Ganymede, and Callisto. This image was taken by the Galileo spacecraft, which was named for the famous astronomer. The surface of Europa is ice, and the features observed in this (false-color) image are believed to be cracks in the surface ice, which many scientists believe may cover a liquid ocean. This is very exciting, because scientists believe that it may be possible that Europa's subsurface ocean may once - or even may still - harbor life.
Posted under News by Joel on February 3, 2006 08:28 PM | Comments (0)
Diary of a Mad Photojournalist
Those who know me from back in the day probably know Chris Crook. What some of you may not know is that Chris now lives in Ohio, is married, and is a photojournalist - and a damn good one at that. After an on-again, off-again romance with having an internet presence, Chris appears to have buckled down and started a blog. This is cool for me, because I have always wanted to know more about the day-to-day stuff in his work. If you know Chris, check out his blog. And if you don't know Chris, check it out anyway - because he is an interesting and witty guy, and it's a good read.Posted under News by Joel on February 2, 2006 11:21 PM | Comments (0)
Kagen Schaefer
Here's a woodworker that I find inspirational - Kagen Schaefer. He builds puzzle boxes of his own design, and they are quite clever and beautiful. A puzzle box is a small wooden box that is opened using a secret combination of 'moves'. Different types of boxes use different types of moves. Traditional Japanese puzzle boxes often used sliding panels moved in a specific sequence to open the box. Kagen's boxes sometimes use the method, but he has also invented many other opening methods. Aside from the sheer creativity of designing the opening mechanisms, the boxes themselves are quite expertly crafted. Check out his page for examples of his work.I myself would LOVE to build a puzzle box. I think I have come up with a couple of different types of opening mechanisms, but so far I have not had the time (or the accuracy in my tools) to try and build one. Maybe I will try very soon!
Posted under News by Joel on February 2, 2006 10:51 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #20
This image was taken from Cape Canaveral in Florida at the launch of the New Horizons spacecraft last week. New Horizons is a fly-by mission to Pluto, and will take almost 10 years to get there. The craft is one of the fastest spaceships ever launched, and will reach the moon in only nine hours (astronauts typically took 3 days to reach the moon) and will pass Jupiter in early 2007. Even traveling that fast, New Horizons will not reach Pluto until 2015. Pluto is the only remaining planet that has never been visited by a spacecraft or photographed up close. The coolest thing about New Horizions, in my opinion? I did some work on this project. I was actually invited to the launch, but was unable to go.
Posted under News by Joel on January 27, 2006 07:20 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #19
This image is composed of a montage of images taken by SOHO (the SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory) over the 10 years that the satellite has been in orbit. While I personally was not involved with the mission, UNH does have an instrument flying on SOHO. SOHO has provided some very valuable scientific data during its lifetime, including providing detailed data about the Sun's internal structure, solar atmosphere, and solar wind. In addition, SOHO images have been used to discover over 1000 comets as they pass near the Sun.
Posted under News by Joel on January 20, 2006 07:06 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #18
This image of Saturn's moon Dione was taken by the Cassini spacecraft, which arrived at Saturn in July 2004. In this image, you can see Saturn's rings edge-on, and the shadows they cast on the planet itself. Dione is 1,118 kilometers across and lies about 300,000 kilometers from the ring's edge.
Posted under News by Joel on December 30, 2005 01:22 AM | Comments (0)
We Love The Chronic! What?
This has got to be one of the funniest things I've seen in the last few seasons of Saturday Night Live. Chris Parnell is severly under-rated and under-used on the show. That white boy was born to drop rhymes! Check it out, yo!
Posted under News by Joel on December 24, 2005 08:02 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #17
In December 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to visit the Moon. They didn't land on the surface, but paved the way for those who did. They also took the first photographs of the Earth from deep space. This photo of the 'rising' Earth was taken from their orbiter during that mission.
Posted under News by Joel on December 23, 2005 11:16 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #16
Check out this panoramic shot taken by the Spirit rover on Mars! This picture was taken from the top of of a spot called "Husband Hill". It's amazing to think about the fact that you are looking at another planet. Really - aside from the sky color - it doesn't look that different from a few places on this planet.
Posted under News by Joel on December 2, 2005 06:55 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #15
NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this image of the western coast of Mexico on November 19, 2005. The red boxes in the image mark the locations of wildfires in the dry shrub lands of northern Baja California. The Santa Ana winds blow hot, dry air from the deserts to the east, which dris out the plants in this area. Once a fire starts, the winds fan the flames into an uncontrollable wildfire.
Posted under News by Joel on November 25, 2005 09:11 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #14
This image of comet Tempel 1 was taken 67 seconds after Deep Impact crashed into its surface. It taken by the high-resolution camera on the mission's flyby craft. I actually did a little work on the Deep Impact mission, and had a tiny amount of code on both the impactor and the flyby spacecraft. Way cool!
Posted under News by Joel on November 18, 2005 08:10 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #13
Believe it or not, this isn't the Death Star! It is actually Mimas, one of the moons of Saturn. The huge crater on Mimas (known as Herschel) is 80 miles across - almost 1/3 of the diameter of the entire moon. Herschel's walls are 3 miles high, parts of its floor measure 6 miles deep, and the central peak rises 4 miles above the crater floor. The impact that made this crater must have nearly destroyed Mimas. Fractures can be seen on the opposite side of Mimas that may be due to the same impact.
Posted under News by Joel on November 4, 2005 08:47 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #12
The last of the Titan rockets was launched on October 19th, 2005. This launch ends the Titan program, whose first launch was in 1959. Originally designed for carrying nuclear warheads, the Titan evolved into the workhorse rocket that could lift the heaviest payloads. The Titan was the launch vehicle for many well-known missions - including manned Gemini missions, the Viking missions to Mars, the Voyager missions to the outer solar system, and the Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn.
Posted under News by Joel on October 28, 2005 10:31 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #11
On October 19th, 1899, 17-year old Robert Goddard climbed a tree in Worchester, Massachusetts, and inventented modern space flight. He dreamt of a machine that could carry men to Mars. From that young age onward, he dedicated his life to building such a machine. By 1926, he had designed, built, and flown the world's first liquid-fueled rocket.In this picture, Mars is visible in the lower-right hand corner (through the trees), and Venus is just above and to the left of the Moon.
Posted under News by Joel on October 21, 2005 06:13 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #10
This image was taken by the Cassini spacecraft, which is currently in orbit around Saturn. A lot of people know about Jupiter's large storms - including the Great Red Spot - but not so many know that Saturn has lots of huge storms as well. Storms larger than hurricanes continually dot the upper atmosphere of Saturn, and typically last for months! A view of many storms occurring simultaneously was captured in this image.
Posted under News by Joel on October 14, 2005 05:41 PM | Comments (0)
The Dead Hensons
A friend recently turned me on to a cover band called "The Dead Hensons". They cover Jim Henson tunes, mostly from the Muppets and Sesame Street. Very cool. Brings back lots of memories. They used to have more free tracks on their website - including Rainbow Connection, Ladybug Picnic, and Mahna Mahna. I'll scour the web a little harder and see if those are still available anywhere, as those were their best tracks. Check out the link - The Dead Hensons!
Posted under News by Joel on October 8, 2005 07:19 PM | Comments (0)
Virtual Street Reality
This is really cool. This guy does drawings on pavement, which look three-dimensional when viewed from a specific angle. It's hard to explain, but a picture is worth a thousand words. Check the link - Virtual Street Reality!
Posted under News by Joel on October 8, 2005 07:08 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #9
This image was taken by Cassini on a recent fly-by of Saturn's moon Hyperion. It's a false-color image of the moon, in order to bring out more crater detail in the surface. In natural color, Hyperion has more of a reddish tint. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
Posted under News by Joel on October 7, 2005 06:15 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #8
As storms seem to be in the news a lot lately, I thought this image would be appropriate. It is an image of Jupiter's Great Red Spot, as seen by Voyager 1 when it flew by Jupiter in 1979. This storm has been observed from Earth for hundreds of years, and is big enough to fit three Earths inside of it!
Posted under News by Joel on September 30, 2005 06:13 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #7
This image of the Cat's Eye Nebula was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. It's a classic planetary nebula, and shows the final phase of a Sun-like star. Astronomers think that this is what could happen to our Sun... in about 5 billion years.
Posted under News by Joel on September 23, 2005 05:54 PM | Comments (0)
Model Roller Coasters
I stumbled across this link the other day - Working Model Roller Coasters - and just had to share it with everyone. This guy build model roller coasters, and has lots of construction pictures and videos of the coasters in action on his site. Very cool!
Posted under News by Joel on September 22, 2005 10:05 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #6
I've never personally seen the Northern Lights, but I'd love to someday. The Northern Lights - also called the Aurora Borealis - are caused by the interaction of solar flares from the the Sun with the Earth's magnetic field. They look like they are really close, but they actually occur 100 kilometers or more above the Earth's surface. September has been a great month for Northern Lights, because the Sun has been particularly active lately.
Posted under News by Joel on September 16, 2005 08:16 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #5
Of the four major moons of Jupiter, Io is the innermost. The most interesting thing about Io is that it is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. But these aren't Earth-type lava-spewing volcanoes. Volcanoes on Io emit sulfur dioxide and molten sulfur, which is what gives Io it's amazing coloration.
Posted under News by Joel on September 10, 2005 09:59 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #4
This image of the Helix Nebula was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. This image has always freaked me out. It's like a great big scary eyeball staring at us from outer space! In actuality, its just the gaseous envelope ejected by a dying star. This image always reminds me that the universe is a beautiful place, and is always full of surprises.
Posted under News by Joel on September 2, 2005 07:05 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space #3
This image was taken by the Mars robotic rover Opportunity. It was taken two miles south of Endurance Crater, at a site named Rub al Khali. This image is actually nearly 100 individual images stiched together to create a 360 panorama. The coolest part about this image is that you can see the rover's tracks receding off into the distance in the center of the frame.In other Mars news, I may get the opportunity to do some work on an instrument that will be on an upcoming Mars rover. How cool is that?! I'll keep you posted.
Posted under News by Joel on August 26, 2005 05:40 PM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space
Enjoy the second installment of "Scenes from Space"!This image was taken by Hubble in June of this year, when Mars was ~43 million miles from Earth — the closest it's been since 1988. Speaking of Mars being close to the Earth - there is a rumor going around about Mars. There has been an email circulating that on August 27th, 2005, Mars will be so close to the Earth that it will be as big in the sky as the full moon. This is just ridiculous! While Mars will be closer than it has been in a LONG time, The actual difference distance is only about 1%. So Mars will look about 1% bigger in the sky than on a normal approach. If Mars were to actually be close enough to look as big as the full moon, its gravity would throw earth out of its normal orbit and raise huge, terrible tides. So be sure to check out Mars this fall, but don't buy into this hoax!
Posted under News by Joel on August 19, 2005 07:43 PM | Comments (0)
Jowlers.com - Wacky
Check out this site I found on the web today. Basically, it's pictures of people taken while they shake their head fast from side to side with their mouth open. Much funnier to see than to talk about. Check it out!
Posted under News by Joel on August 14, 2005 11:24 AM | Comments (0)
Scenes from Space
Enjoy the first installment of "Scenes from Space". Every Friday, I will post a space-related image and a little description of it. I frequent a lot of space-related websites, and this is a way that I can share some of the neat things I find with you guys!This first image is one taken during the Perseid meteor shower last August. The photographer is the astronomer Fred Bruenjes. He recorded a series of 30 second exposures spanning six hours during the meteor shower. This year, the Perseids meteor shower will peak in the early morning hours on Friday, August 12 - but can also be seen during the wee hours of the morning on Saturday. If you're interested in this meteor shower, be sure to catch it this year. Next year there will be a full moon during the peak of the shower, making it too bright to see any meteors.
Posted under News by Joel on August 12, 2005 06:57 PM | Comments (0)
