One giant leap for mankind...
It was on this day in 1969 that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to walk on the moon. They were part of the Apollo 11 crew. An estimated 600 million people watched live coverage of the moon landing.
Thus ends the United States' manned space program
With only two missions to go after the last launch, this is the latest shuttle tank ever to be manufactured. Designated E-138, it rolled out NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, to the beat of the Storyville Stompers.
They're in Grand Junction
Like his fellow scientist, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking believes there are aliens in outer space. But, unlike Sagan, Hawking feels it is too risky to try to contact them.
"We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet," Hawking said.
Today is the 20th anniversary of the launching of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Here are some great images taken by Hubble over the years, courtesy of Google Earth.
Send that Valentine into the cosmos
The Cassini probe, which periodically sweeps past the little moon, has returned yet more data to back up the idea of a sub-surface sea.
This time, it is the detection of negatively charged water molecules in the atmosphere of Enceladus.
BBC News: Cassini detection adds to Enceladus liquid water story
Now called a "dwarf planet"
Is Pluto changing colors? New Hubble photos seem to indicate that.
we now have one rover and one wigglable lander on Mars
After six years of unprecedented exploration of the Red Planet, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit no longer will be a fully mobile robot. NASA has designated the once-roving scientific explorer a stationary science platform after efforts during the past several months to free it from a sand trap have been unsuccessful.
Wow! I am very late in finding this site, but check out these amazing pictures in the Hubble Advent Calendar courtesy of The Big Picture.
It was on this day in 1972 that astronauts on Apollo 17 took a famous photograph of the Earth, a photo that came to be known as The Blue Marble. It became a symbol of the environmental movement of the '70's and was put on flags, t-shirts, bumper stickers, and posters.
Images and data taken just before closest approach [of Rosetta] were downloaded this morning, and they show the lights of North America in the night and a glowing Southern Hemisphere
European Space Agency: Rosetta sees a living planet. Incredible pictures of our little world.
Today is Sagan's birthday
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
---Carl Sagan, Astronomer
It was on this day in 1977 that the Voyager 2 spacecraft was launched. Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, set out to explore the giant gaseous planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. They did that, and they are still in space, releasing new data constantly. Voyager 2's newest discovery concerns the bubble around our solar system where the solar wind (a thin gas of charged particles, which come from the sun) meets the space beyond our solar system. Voyager 2 has shown that that bubble is irregular, or squashed, not round.
Just in case the Voyagers make it into another solar system with alien life forms, each Voyager has a record that is three-quarters music and one-quarter greetings in 55 languages and various sounds from nature. The music includes Beethoven, Chuck Berry, Louis Armstrong, and traditional songs from all over the world.
Astronomy Picture of the Day: The Milky Way Over Devils Tower
"That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind."
- Neil Armstrong, July 20, 1969
The Eagle has Landed
On July 20, 1969, at 20:17:40 GMT, human beings landed on an alien world.
That was the moment that the Eagle lander touched down on the surface of the Moon, 40 years ago today. Nearly five hours later, at 02:56:15 GMT on July 21, Neil Armstrong placed his boot in the lunar regolith, planting it firmly into history as well.
You can read all about this event and its global and historical impacts all over the web, so I won’t belabor the point here. But the Apollo missions mean something special to me, so forgive me this small indulgence.
Phil Plait: What Apollo means to me
One small step...
40 years ago, three human beings - with the help of many thousands of others - left our planet on a successful journey to our Moon, setting foot on another world for the first time. [Today] marks the 40th anniversary of the July 16, 1969 launch of Apollo 11, with astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. aboard.
The Big Picture: Remembering Apollo 11.
Kaguya, a Japanese spacecraft orbiting the Moon since October 2007, is equipped with lots of sensors and equipment, including two HD cameras. The footage below is not CGI - it’s a real video of the Moon.
(thanks, Bad Astronomer!
Astronomers choose their favorite Hubble photos for NPR. Hear them explain their choices .
Last mission to Hubble will have a strong Boulder connection.
During their 11-day mission, the astronauts will use more than 1,000 specialized tools and parts made by Ball Aerospace in Boulder to give Hubble a makeover, extending the life of well-loved telescope for at least another four years.
Venetia Phair, who has died aged 90, had the distinction of being the only woman in the world to have named a planet; in 1930, as a girl of 11, she suggested the name Pluto for the enigmatic celestial body that had just been discovered, and which became (albeit only temporarily) the ninth planet in our solar system.Venetia Phair, the girl who named a planet
X-ray picture from space dubbed the Hand of God.
Full Moon Monday Night
Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street.
I took it as a sign to start singing,
falling up into the bowl of sky.
(1207-1273)
Extra-large full moon tonight
The sky is that beautiful old parchment in which the sun and the moon keep their diary.
---Alfred Kreymborg
"The universe is yours to discover."
2009 is the International Year of Astronomy
Pale Blue Dot
"This picture shows our Earth (the tiny speck in upper center) as seen by Hubble from far out in space.
I will finish with the words of astronomer Carl Sagan about this Pale Blue Dot:
"That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."
40 years ago, American astronauts circled the moon on Christmas Eve, and read scriptures to honor the day.
This movie shows Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon, as it ducks behind the giant planet. Astronomers combined a series of images taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to make the 18-second movie. The 540 movie frames were created from Hubble images taken over a two-hour period on April 9, 2007Hubble Catches Jupiter's Largest Moon Going to the 'Dark Side'
The heavens are telling the glory...
The Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar. Check here every day till Christmas for fantastic pictures from space.
Science experiment was sent by Boulder school children
Two new planets have been discovered outside our solar system. They are orbiting the star Fomalhaut.
Sent off in January, today, October 6th, the Messenger spacecraft will make it's closest approach to the planet Mercury.
Messenger is a NASA Discovery mission to conduct the first orbital study of the innermost planet.
The Mission Continues
This 180-degree panorama shows the southward vista from the location where Spirit is spending its third Martian winter inside Mars' Gusev Crater. The rover's overwintering location is on the northern edge of a low plateau informally called "Home Plate," which is about 80 meters or 260 feet in diameter.Southern Half of Spirit's 'Bonestell' Panorama
Scientists confirm-- Water on Mars!
"We have water. We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."
The cause of the Northern Lights has finally been discovered.
THEMIS Satellites discover Northern Lights are powered by magnetic fields snapping like rubber bands.
Houston... Tranquility Base here... the Eagle has landed.
NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft has created a video of the moon transiting (passing in front of) Earth as seen from the spacecraft's point of view 31 million miles away. Scientists are using the video to develop techniques to study alien worlds.NASA's Deep Impact Films Earth as an Alien World
