Posts tagged nasa

An epilogue to the Space Shuttle program, in pictures The Space Shuttle Discovery took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this morning (bolted somewhat dramatically on top of a 747)  en route to its final home — the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia. Click the picture above for a small slideshow, provided by the Guardian. Picture originally taken by Jonathan Ernst, Reuters.

An epilogue to the Space Shuttle program, in pictures

The Space Shuttle Discovery took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this morning (bolted somewhat dramatically on top of a 747)  en route to its final home — the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia. Click the picture above for a small slideshow, provided by the Guardian.

Picture originally taken by Jonathan Ernst, Reuters.

NASA Has a Data Problem, And a Contest to Solve It NASA has about 100 terabytes of information gathered from its various space missions. The data sits in various databases created over the years and is difficult to get to and manipulate. So its Tournament Lab is holding a contest make the data more accessible to both scientists and the public. Via the NASA Tournament Lab: [W]hile rich in depth and breath, the [Planetary Data System] databases have developed in a disparate fashion over the years with different architectures and formats for different scientific needs; thereby making acquisition of data problematic! So, NASA is holding a series of Challenges to generate some simply awesome ideas for mobile or web based applications that will appeal to general users, to search and display compelling facts about the data. Instead of just scientists, our audience will be the millions of school age students, their teachers and parents, game designers and general civilians of the world. We want to deliver this incredible data to users in a way that excites them – and thus, to help them understand the value and potential of this data. Contest prizes are up to $10,000 and you can learn about it here. If you want to jump right into the data, you can do so here. Image: Moscow at Night, captured March 28 by the International Space Station. Via NASA.

NASA Has a Data Problem, And a Contest to Solve It

NASA has about 100 terabytes of information gathered from its various space missions. The data sits in various databases created over the years and is difficult to get to and manipulate.

So its Tournament Lab is holding a contest make the data more accessible to both scientists and the public.

Via the NASA Tournament Lab:

[W]hile rich in depth and breath, the [Planetary Data System] databases have developed in a disparate fashion over the years with different architectures and formats for different scientific needs; thereby making acquisition of data problematic!

So, NASA is holding a series of Challenges to generate some simply awesome ideas for mobile or web based applications that will appeal to general users, to search and display compelling facts about the data. Instead of just scientists, our audience will be the millions of school age students, their teachers and parents, game designers and general civilians of the world. We want to deliver this incredible data to users in a way that excites them – and thus, to help them understand the value and potential of this data.

Contest prizes are up to $10,000 and you can learn about it here. If you want to jump right into the data, you can do so here.

Image: Moscow at Night, captured March 28 by the International Space Station. Via NASA.

New York Via.

New York

Via.

BLAST OFF!

NASA releases hi-def footage from cameras mounted on Space Shuttle booster rockets in advance its DVD/Blueray film, Special Edition Ascent: Commemorating Space Shuttle.

This video follows a shuttle as it blasts off, enters space at almost three thousand miles per hour, then releases its booster rockets and follows those rockets’ descent back to a splashy ocean landing.

Sound mixing and enhancement is done by Skywalker Sound.

Run Time - ~8:30 very worthwhile minutes.

crookedindifference:

NASA Launches Comet-Hunting iPhone Game

Ever wanted to steer a robotic spacecraft toward a comet rendezvous in deep space? Now there’s an app for that.

NASA’s new free iPhone game Comet Quest puts players at the controls of the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft, which is slated to arrive at the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.

Comet Quest, which NASA released on Feb. 29,  is meant to be fun, but it strives to teach above all, according to the game’s developers.

“Of course, since it is a NASA-sponsored app, education is its true raison d’être,” Diane Fisher, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., told SPACE.com via email. Fisher is webmaster for The Space Place, a NASA website that aims to engage elementary-school students in science, technology and math.

Fish where the fish are, is what we say.

space.com

Aurora Borealis Taken from the International Space Station as it passed over western Canada. Photo by NASA via the LA Times.

Aurora Borealis

Taken from the International Space Station as it passed over western Canada. Photo by NASA via the LA Times.

Hubble! Via NASA: Most spiral galaxies in the Universe have a bar structure in their centre, and Hubble’s image of NGC 1073 offers a particularly clear view of one of these. Galaxies’ star-filled bars are thought to emerge as gravitational density waves funnel gas toward the galactic centre, supplying the material to create new stars. The transport of gas can also feed the supermassive black holes that lurk in the centres of almost every galaxy… …More intriguing still, three of the bright points of light in this image are neither foreground stars from the Milky Way, nor even distant stars in NGC 1073. In fact they are not stars at all. They are quasars, incredibly bright sources of light caused by matter heating up and falling into supermassive black holes in galaxies literally billions of light-years from us. The chance alignment through NGC 1073, and their incredible brightness, might make them look like they are part of the galaxy, but they are in fact some of the most distant objects observable in the Universe. Image: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073, which is found in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Via NASA. 

Hubble!

Via NASA:

Most spiral galaxies in the Universe have a bar structure in their centre, and Hubble’s image of NGC 1073 offers a particularly clear view of one of these. Galaxies’ star-filled bars are thought to emerge as gravitational density waves funnel gas toward the galactic centre, supplying the material to create new stars. The transport of gas can also feed the supermassive black holes that lurk in the centres of almost every galaxy…

…More intriguing still, three of the bright points of light in this image are neither foreground stars from the Milky Way, nor even distant stars in NGC 1073. In fact they are not stars at all. They are quasars, incredibly bright sources of light caused by matter heating up and falling into supermassive black holes in galaxies literally billions of light-years from us. The chance alignment through NGC 1073, and their incredible brightness, might make them look like they are part of the galaxy, but they are in fact some of the most distant objects observable in the Universe.

Image: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073, which is found in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Via NASA. 

Earth Via NASA: A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite - Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed ‘Suomi NPP’ on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin. Suomi NPP is NASA’s next Earth-observing research satellite. It is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth. Suomi NPP is carrying five instruments on board. The biggest and most important instrument is The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS. Image: Blue Marble 2012 via NASA/Flickr. Select to embiggen.

Earth

Via NASA:

A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite - Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed ‘Suomi NPP’ on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin.

Suomi NPP is NASA’s next Earth-observing research satellite. It is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth.

Suomi NPP is carrying five instruments on board. The biggest and most important instrument is The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS.

Image: Blue Marble 2012 via NASA/Flickr. Select to embiggen.

The Morning Reminder: This is where we Live

Time lapse photos taken from the International Space Station from August to October 2011.

Edited by Michael König. Music by Jan Jelinek. Images by Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center.

Fly Me to the Moon

Or around the Earth as the case may be.

Astronauts on the International Space Station circle the planet every two to three hours. In this time-lapse video, we see what they see. 

The minute-long video starts at night over the northern Pacific and ends at sunrise near Antarctica.

Via NASA.

The Earth and the Moon The NASA space probe JUNO is currently on a 445 million mile journey to explore Jupiter. Now a month into its mission and six million miles away, it’s taken a picture of the Earth and the moon. Feel lonely out there? As Ian O’Neill writes at Discovery: It’s when I see photos like this, everything instantly snaps into perspective. To paraphrase Sagan, everything we’ve ever known and loved exists on that small dot. Everything. Image: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The Earth and the Moon

The NASA space probe JUNO is currently on a 445 million mile journey to explore Jupiter. Now a month into its mission and six million miles away, it’s taken a picture of the Earth and the moon.

Feel lonely out there?

As Ian O’Neill writes at Discovery:

It’s when I see photos like this, everything instantly snaps into perspective. To paraphrase Sagan, everything we’ve ever known and loved exists on that small dot. Everything.

Image: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Irene from the International Space Station Via NASA: An Expedition 28 crew member aboard the International Space Station captured this image of Hurricane Irene off the east coast of the United States on Friday, August 26, 2011, around 4:30 p.m. EDT (8:30 p.m. GMT).

Irene from the International Space Station

Via NASA:

An Expedition 28 crew member aboard the International Space Station captured this image of Hurricane Irene off the east coast of the United States on Friday, August 26, 2011, around 4:30 p.m. EDT (8:30 p.m. GMT).

Irene Makes Landfall in North Carolina Via NASA: The GOES-13 satellite saw Hurricane Irene on August 27, 2011 at 10:10 a.m. EDT after it made landfall at 8 a.m. in Cape Lookout, North Carolina. Irene’s outer bands had already extended into New England. Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project. From 22,300 miles in space, Hurricane Irene looks serene and impressive. That’s how NOAA’s GOES satellite sees Irene today as it batters the eastern U.S. coastline, but it’s quite a different story on the ground.

Irene Makes Landfall in North Carolina

Via NASA:

The GOES-13 satellite saw Hurricane Irene on August 27, 2011 at 10:10 a.m. EDT after it made landfall at 8 a.m. in Cape Lookout, North Carolina. Irene’s outer bands had already extended into New England. Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project.

From 22,300 miles in space, Hurricane Irene looks serene and impressive. That’s how NOAA’s GOES satellite sees Irene today as it batters the eastern U.S. coastline, but it’s quite a different story on the ground.

US National Parks from Space

Wired pulls together a collection of NASA images to show what US national parks look like from space.

Above: Wrangell–St. Elias National Park (Alaska), Death Valley (California/Nevada), Canyonlands National Park (Utah).