man in the moon

wonkypop:

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 10:34:59 +0100

wonkypop:

I made a pretty science plot today… the development of our...

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 18:17:43 +0100

I made a pretty science plot today… the development of our understanding of the molecular complexity of the universe.

Dawn Mission: News & Events Vesta Full Rotation Movie

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 15:27:32 +0100

Dawn Mission: News & Events Vesta Full Rotation Movie:

You know how I love my space rocks… This is a movie of the asteroid Vesta rotating, taken from NASA’s spacecraft, Dawn. Dawn will move off towards another asteroid, Ceres, later this year. Vesta is one of the largest asteroids in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and measures 330 miles in diameter. It takes about 5h20m to rotate fully.

(skip to 3m50s for the best view) I have to come out of...

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 11:36:00 +0100

(skip to 3m50s for the best view)

I have to come out of semi-retirement to bring you the last moments of the US Space Flight Program. This program saw humans landing on the moon in 1969, but sadly it declined shortly afterwards, and the last time we went to the moon was in 1972. Almost 40 years later the STS-135 Atlantis takes off from Cape Canaveral on its last mission to the International Space Station. After it lands, the shuttle will be retired, and there is no replacement. A sad day for space science.

http://abstrusegoose.com/377

Photo

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 06:10:15 +0000

Enceladus spews out water in a geyser from its south pole....

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 13:09:23 +0100

Enceladus spews out water in a geyser from its south pole. Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, responsible for creating one of the rings around the planet, has an active surface which ejects material into space. The bright crescent on the left side of the icy moon is sunlight, whilst the right side of Enceladus in this picture is lit by Saturn-shine. Another amazing image from Cassini.

Image credit: NASA

Rock on! This bunch of rocks comprises the nine asteroids and...

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:53:43 +0100

Rock on! This bunch of rocks comprises the nine asteroids and four comets we’ve launched spacecraft towards. The next close encounter will be in four years’ time, when Rosetta rendez-vous with and lands on comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. What a beautiful bunch of space rocks.

Image credit: Emily Lakdawalla

A few days late for 4th July, but here is massive star cluster...

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:32:04 +0100

A few days late for 4th July, but here is massive star cluster NGC 3603, courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Image credit: NASA

Triton is Neptune’s largest moon, but only three-quarters...

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:53:58 +0100

Triton is Neptune’s largest moon, but only three-quarters the size of the Earth’s moon. Its surface is covered with ice, with the different colours in this three-colour image indicating different compositions: the pinkish colour towards the south pole is due to frozen methane and its derivatives, whilst the blue and green colours around the equator are thought to be due to nitrogenous ices. This photograph was taken by Voyager 2 on its way past Nepture, over 20 years ago.

Image credit: NASA

Released today, this image is of the entire galaxy in...

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 13:01:14 +0100

Released today, this image is of the entire galaxy in far-infrared and millimetre-wave emission, taken with ESA’s Planck satellite. This composite image is so sensitive that it shows the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at the top and bottom, and the rich dust emission which comes from the Galactic Plane is shown in purple. In the centre of the image is the Galactic Centre, where a huge black hole resides. Along the plane to the left is Perseus, to the right is Orion. And through our galaxy, other galaxies can be seen - the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are bottom-right, M31 is centre-left, below the plane, and Centaurus A is centre-right, above the plane.

Image credit: ESA/Planck

This is the all-seeing eye of Sauron. I’m just kidding,...

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:01:00 +0100

This is the all-seeing eye of Sauron. I’m just kidding, this is Fomalhaut, a young stellar system characterised by a huge disc of rocky debris. This image has become famous, not only for its striking visuals, but also because it is the first image of a planet around another star. The planet, Fomalhaut b, is visible above Sauron’s lower eyelid, just to the right of his iris. It is a few times bigger than Jupiter. A debris disk like this was present in our own early Solar system, and the planets that we know well coagulated out of a similar rubble-pile.

Image credit: NASA/Hubble

In addition to providing great images for science purposes, the...

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:26:45 +0100

In addition to providing great images for science purposes, the Cassini spacecraft also produces some amazing photography, as we see here in this image of Dione, one of the 62+ moons of Saturn. Dione is one of the mid-sized Saturnine moons, but even so is the 15th biggest moon in the Solar System. This image shows the cratered surface, thought to be mainly composed of water ice.

Image credit: Cassini/NASA

Remember a while ago, I posted a picture of asteroid Itokawa?...

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 12:17:31 +0100

Remember a while ago, I posted a picture of asteroid Itokawa? Well now this is it in 3D! Interestingly, the Japanese mission to go to this asteroid, scrape off some of the surface and securely return it to Earth touched down in the middle of the Australian desert last week. We’re still waiting to hear whether the sample collected survived intact, although pictures of the capsule showed that it was looking really good. The Hayabusa craft burnt up in the atmosphere during re-entry, and was seen as a large fireball over the Australian outback.

Image credit: JAXA/Patrick Vantuyne

The patterns on Jupiter’s visible surface often change...

Thu, 27 May 2010 22:46:40 +0100

The patterns on Jupiter’s visible surface often change over time, because we’re seeing the very top of the clouds and weather patterns in Jupiter’s atmosphere. These can change due to temperature fluctuations, chemical differences or external influences. This case, however, is a little unusual since Jupiter’s southern belt has completely disappeared in the space of a year. It may be that the reddish clouds have sunk to a deeper layer in the atmosphere and will reappear… but no-one really knows! It’s hard enough to model the weather systems on Earth, let alone another planet.

Image credit: Planetary Society

IC443 is the remnant of a supernova, an ejected bubble of gas...

Thu, 27 May 2010 22:21:00 +0100

IC443 is the remnant of a supernova, an ejected bubble of gas (and probably dust) that sweeps up the interstellar medium before it. Due to its appearance, it is often known as the Jellyfish Nebula, and in this image the (false) orange/red colour is from emitting sulphur atoms. The supernova itself exploded around 35,000 years ago, and somewhere in the middle of the Jellyfish itself is the neutron star left over from that explosion.

Image credit: Bob Franke

Another overwhelmingly-beautiful image from Cassini, showing...

Fri, 21 May 2010 14:56:17 +0100

Another overwhelmingly-beautiful image from Cassini, showing Saturn’s moon Rhea and its smaller co-orbitter Epimetheus. Despite the appearances here, these two are actually 150,000 miles apart, and have been captured against the backdrop of Saturn’s rings.

Image credit: NASA

This awesome three-in-one has us peeking over the horizon of...

Thu, 20 May 2010 01:33:00 +0100

This awesome three-in-one has us peeking over the horizon of Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons famous for the huge jets of ice spewing from its south pole. Just above the dark horizon at the bottom of this image, we see the rings of Saturn, and then, in the hazy distance is the epic Titan, Saturn’s largest natural satellite. This amazing image comes from the Cassini probe, as it swooped around Enceladus to measure its plumes for traces of nitrogen.

Image credit: NASA

Another new image from the Herschel Space Observatory, this...

Tue, 11 May 2010 18:19:03 +0100

Another new image from the Herschel Space Observatory, this shows the region of space around NGC 1999, the green-looking cloud in the top left of the frame. The dark diamond to the right of NGC 1999 was always thought to be a dense, dusty cloud which blocked out the light from behind it; however, Herschel has shown that there is no dust there, and this is a void excavated by the energetic jets and winds from the young stars in the local environment. It is highly unusual for such a complete patch of emptiness to exist.

Image credit: ESA

Cosmic bubbles, Batman! This is RCW120, a bubble of ionised...

Fri, 07 May 2010 22:04:00 +0100

Cosmic bubbles, Batman! This is RCW120, a bubble of ionised hydrogen cleared out by a hot, massive star at the centre. However, the interesting thing about this newly-released Herschel Space Observatory image is that there’s a young star forming in that glowing pearl at the bottom edge of the bubble, and it’s big. It’s not fully understood how massive stars form (this one is about ten times the mass of the Sun), but in this case the expansion of the bubble seems to have swept up the material in front of it like a snowplough, and some of that material has become so dense that clumps are collapsing and forming stars.

Image credit: ESA

This weird-looking thing is Itokawa, an asteroid floating around...

Fri, 07 May 2010 21:50:13 +0100

This weird-looking thing is Itokawa, an asteroid floating around in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It looks like an ordinary space rock, something you’d see in Star Wars, perhaps… but in actual fact this is a floating rubble-pile. It barely holds together under its own gravity. Interestingly, and relevantly, it has just been swooped down upon by a Japanese space mission called Hayabusa (Falcon), which scraped along the surface (it was meant to land, but LOTS of things went wrong) and is due to return to Earth with samples next month! This will give us an unprecedented opportunity to study space rocks which haven’t been contaminated by the atmosphere.

Image credit: JAXA