Cosmos

You Are The Sun- Solar System Necklace

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:05:22 -0400

"If you grew up thinking there were nine planets and were shocked when Pluto was demoted five years..."

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 10:05:35 -0500

“If you grew up thinking there were nine planets and were shocked when Pluto was demoted five years ago, get ready for another surprise. There may be nine after all, and Jupiter may not be the largest. The hunt is on for a gas giant up to four times the mass of Jupiter thought to be lurking in the outer Oort Cloud, the most remote region of the solar system. The orbit of Tyche (pronounced ty-kee), would be 15,000 times farther from the Sun than the Earth’s, and 375 times farther than Pluto’s, which is why it hasn’t been seen so far.”

- Up telescope! Search begins for giant new planet - Science, News - The Independent (via robot-heart)

Hi everyone, I apologize for the lack of updates over the past couple months, I’ve been really...

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 00:42:17 -0400

Hi everyone, I apologize for the lack of updates over the past couple months, I’ve been really busy. I start classes at southwest minnesota state university monday, so I still probably will be too busy to post all the time. if you’d like to be post just email me at dear.hannahh@gmail.com and I will be more than happy to invite you. We also accept submissions, there’s a link on the page. All I ask is that everything is linked to it’s original source in some way, and has a description of what it is (just the name is fine obviously)

alright then. to infinity and beyond.

A picture of our home taken from Mercury’s orbit

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:53:04 -0400

A picture of our home taken from Mercury’s orbit

How Big Are You? - Star Size Comparison

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:02:46 -0400

How Big Are You? - Star Size Comparison

trekkim: immrburns: Today, in 1984 Svetlana Savitskaya, the...

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:00:45 -0400

trekkim:

immrburns:

Today, in 1984 Svetlana Savitskaya, the second woman in space, became the first woman to walk in space.

The first woman in space, soviet Valentina Tereshkova, implemented multiple tests on her body in order to collect data on the female body an its reaction to space flight.

macmankev: meredithshizzle: flytags: I ran into this image...

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:06:44 -0400

macmankev:

meredithshizzle:

flytags:

I ran into this image over on the Wikipedia entry for Terraforming of Mars. This is an artistic conceptualization of what Mars might look like over time if we were to attempt terraformation of it’s surface. Pretty darn cool.

jipc: crashinglybeautiful: This black and white image is the...

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:44:19 -0400

jipc:

crashinglybeautiful:

This black and white image is the first photo ever taken from the surface of a planet beyond the Moon. It was taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit one hour before sunrise on the 63rd Martian day, or sol, of its mission. (March 8, 2004)

The image is actually a mosaic of photos taken by the rover’s navigation camera showing a broad view of the sky and an image taken by the rover’s panoramic camera of Earth. The contrast in the panoramic camera image was increased two times to make Earth easier to see. The inset shows a combination of four panoramic camera images zoomed in on Earth. The arrow points to Earth. Earth was too faint to be detected in images taken with the panoramic camera’s color filters.

Photo Credit: © NASA/JPL/Cornell/Texas A&M

[from: liquidnight via Accidental Mysteries]

invaderxan: Internal structure of a red giant star. Increased...

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 15:07:01 -0400

invaderxan:

Internal structure of a red giant star. Increased radiation pressure from that shell around the star’s core is what’s thought to make stars expand into red giants. Red giants have hotter cores which power higher rates of fusion, causing red giants to have hundreds to thousands of times the luminosity they had as main sequence stars.

invaderxan:crookedindifference: SuitSat, one of the strangest...

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:23:50 -0400

invaderxan:crookedindifference:

SuitSat, one of the strangest satellites in the history of the space age, was a retired Russian Orlan spacesuit with a radio transmitter payload mounted on its helmet.

It was ejected from the International Space Station on February 3, 2006. It carried an amateur radio beacon that was activated in the two meter band. Using a simple police scanner or ham radio, you could listen to a disembodied spacesuit circling Earth. On September 7, 2006, at 16:00 GMT, Suitsat re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the Southern Ocean at 110.4° East latitude and 46.3° South longitude.

Photo source

itsfullofstars: ofstars: The Best and Strangest Views of Solar...

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:55:49 -0400

itsfullofstars:

ofstars:

The Best and Strangest Views of Solar Eclipses from Space

[via gizmodo]

itsfullofstars: dvdp: Hayabusa spacecraft entering Earth’s...

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:40:06 -0400

itsfullofstars:

dvdp:

Hayabusa spacecraft entering Earth’s atmosphere
( over an unpopulated area of central Australia on June 12, 2010)

itsfullofstars: Buy your own Apollo 11 Space Suit Replica Have...

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:15:16 -0400

itsfullofstars:

Buy your own Apollo 11 Space Suit Replica

Have you ever wanted to buy or purchase an Apollo 11 Space Suit?

These Apollo 11 Space Suits are hand made per order. Attention is paid to detail from the start with machining of aluminum hose fittings and neck ring to the anodizing of the aluminum fittings. All of the metal parts are hand created. Each suit is hand sewen. Each helmet is also hand made from adding the gold to the visor to adding the cloth wrap cover.

For the low price of $9500.00. Buy here.

Also, while you’re at it, why dont you pick up a FULL SCALE REPLICA of the Space Shuttle for a cool $2.2 million?

(via crookedindifference)

Thrilled astronomers are checking out a new picture of the...

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:30:54 -0400

Thrilled astronomers are checking out a new picture of the entire sky viewed in a whole new light. The stunning image, built up by a European space telescope, reveals vast swathes of dust filling our home galaxy, the Milky Way.

from a vantage point about 350 kilometers above the southern...

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 01:31:59 -0400

from a vantage point about 350 kilometers above the southern Indian Ocean, astronauts onboard the International Space Station watched this enormous, green ribbon shimmering below. Known as aurora australis or southern lights, the shifting, luminous bands are commonly seen at high northern latitudes as well, there known as the aurora borealis or northern lights.North or south their cause is the same though, as energetic charged particles from the magnetosphere pile into the atmosphere near the Earth’s poles. To produce the characteristic greenish glow, the energetic particles excite oxygen atoms at altitudes of 100 kilometers or more. Aurora on May 29 were likely triggered by the interaction of the magnetosphere with a coronal mass ejection erupting from the Sun on May 24.

snuh: A Beautiful Boomerang Nebula Explanation: This symmetric...

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:01:50 -0400

snuh:

A Beautiful Boomerang Nebula

Explanation: This symmetric cloud dubbed the Boomerang Nebula was created by a high-speed wind of gas and dust blowing from an aging central star at speeds of nearly 600,000 kilometers per hour. The rapid expansion has cooled molecules in the nebular gas to about one degree above absolute zero - colder than even the cosmic background radiation - making it the coldest known region in the distant Universe. Shining with light from the central star reflected by dust, the frigid Boomerang Nebula is believed to be a star or stellar system evolving toward the planetary nebula phase. This Hubble image was recorded using polarizing filters (analogous to polaroid sunglasses) and color coded by the angle associated with the polarized light. The gorgeous result traces the small dust particles responsible for polarizing and scattering the light. The Boomerang Nebula spans about one light year and lies about 5,000 light years away toward the constellation Centaurus.

snuh:absolutefucker: (via hatzoffratzofftuesday)

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 01:50:21 -0400

snuh:absolutefucker: (via hatzoffratzofftuesday)

Voyager 2 at 12,000 Days: The Super-Marathon Continues

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 20:04:43 -0400

Voyager 2 at 12,000 Days: The Super-Marathon Continues:

NASA’s plucky Voyager 2 spacecraft has hit a long-haul operations milestone today (June 28) — operating continuously for 12,000 days. For nearly 33 years, the venerable spacecraft has been returning data about the giant outer planets, and the characteristics and interaction of solar wind between and beyond the planets. Among its many findings, Voyager 2 discovered Neptune’s Great Dark Spot and its 450-meter-per-second (1,000-mph) winds.

The two Voyager spacecraft have been the longest continuously operating spacecraft in deep space. Voyager 2 launched on August 20, 1977, when Jimmy Carter was president. Voyager 1 launched about two weeks later on Sept. 5. The two spacecraft are the most distant human-made objects, out at the edge of the heliosphere — the bubble the sun creates around the solar system. Mission managers expect Voyager 1 to leave our solar system and enter interstellar space in the next five years or so, with Voyager 2 on track to enter interstellar space shortly after that.

Having traveled more than 21 billion kilometers (13 billion miles) on its winding path through the planets toward interstellar space, the spacecraft is now nearly 14 billion kilometers (9 billion miles) from the sun. A signal from the ground, traveling at the speed of light, takes about 12.8 hours one-way to reach Voyager 2.

Voyager 1 will reach this 12,000-day milestone on July 13, 2010 after traveling more than 22 billion kilometers (14 billion miles). Voyager 1 is currently more than 17 billion kilometers (11 billion miles) from the sun.

figuremeout: Light for the Ages Today, our sun reaches its...

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 14:17:09 -0400

figuremeout:

Light for the Ages

Today, our sun reaches its northernmost point in planet Earth’s sky. Called a solstice, the date traditionally marks a change of seasons — from spring to summer in Earth’s Northern Hemisphere and from fall to winter in Earth’s Southern Hemisphere.

In this image from 2007, NASA’s Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) satellites provided the first three-dimensional images of the sun. STEREO, a two-year mission that launched October 2006, provided a unique and revolutionary view of the Sun-Earth System.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/NRL/GSFC

snuh:lucyphermann: Aurora Australis From Space. Even for...

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 02:35:32 -0400

snuh:lucyphermann:

Aurora Australis From Space. Even for astronauts, this was a rare sight indeed: an aurora hovering over the southern Indian Ocean. Auroras occur when charged particles from the sun collide with Earth’s upper atmosphere, causing atoms of oxygen and nitrogen to gain energy and then release it in the form of light. Auroras typically are visible only near Earth’s Poles, where magnetic field lines channel charged particles toward the planet. But this aurora australis, photographed in May from the International Space Station, occurred during a geomagnetic storm, which can temporarily shift the planet’s magnetic field—and hence its auroras—closer to the Equator.