Click here to view the embedded video.
Busy day for me sadly not around a computer or the internet, enjoy the video!
Picture of Rhea and Rumors of the ISS
Cassini's close up of the surface of the Saturn moon Rhea. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
A combo post of sorts because one thing has nothing to do with the other . . .
I was going to post about the ISS essentially being abandoned, but I’m not sure that’s really the case. Three of the staff aboard are coming home tomorrow and there have been rumors of the remainder returning in a couple of months if the space station cannot be resupplied by the end of November. Then I hear the Russians have scheduled manned flights for November 12th and December 20th with an unmanned cargo ship on October 30th. So I’m not totally sure of what is happening.
All the speculation stems from the loss of a unmanned Soyuz carrying cargo to the ISS prompting Russia to cancel all manned flights pending an investigation in to the mishap. Can’t find fault with that decision and with the demise of the shuttle program, well there you go, the whole thing isn’t too far a field from being halted.
So the image, well that’s a good close shot of a battered Rhea taken by Cassini from 12,000 miles (20,000 km).
From the Cassini website:
In this image obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on its closest flyby of Saturn’s moon Rhea, the heavily cratered surface of the moon appears in great detail. Just to the bottom right of the center of this image, a bright area appears to indicate a freshly excavated double crater. Double craters can appear when two gravitationally linked asteroids crash into a surface. This image was obtained by Cassini’s narrow-angle camera on Jan. 11, 2011, from a distance of about 20,000 kilometers (12,000 miles) away.
Oppy’s Tribute to Sept. 11
Mars Rover Opportunity does a self portrait on Sept. 11. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University
The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity took this self portrait on September 11, 2011 while exploring in the region of Endeavour crater called Cape York.
As of September 7, 2011 solar array energy production was 336 watt-hours, so it’s still pretty good. The rover has traveled 20.86 miles on Mars so far.
The image is significant not because the ground it’s on, but that little American flag. That flag is mounted on a piece of metal taken from the Twin Towers. Sort of Oppy’s tribute.
The Latest Vesta Pic
Dawn's cameras show steep slopes on Vesta. Click for larger. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
Nice picture of a big crater. If this is the southern pole region and it appears to be, the crater could be that 460 km job that it’s thought escavated almost 1 percent of Vesta.
Want a bigger image? See the image at the Dawn webpage.
PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Dawn spacecraft obtained this image with its framing camera on Aug. 26, 2011. This image was taken through the camera’s clear filter. The image has a resolution of about 260 meters per pixel.
Whoa, Puppy
Take a look at this:
NASA
Unbelievable. Here’s what NASA says about it:
New Supernova Remnant Lights Up
Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers are witnessing the unprecedented transition of a supernova to a supernova remnant, where light from an exploding star in a neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, reached Earth in February 1987. Named Supernova 1987A, it was the closest supernova explosion witnessed in almost 400 years. The supernova’s close proximity to Earth allows astronomers to study it in detail as it evolves. Now, the supernova debris, which has faded over the years, is brightening. This means that a different power source has begun to light the debris. The debris of SN 1987A is beginning to impact the surrounding ring, creating powerful shock waves that generate X-rays observed with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Those X-rays are illuminating the supernova debris and shock heating is making it glow in visible light. Since its launch in 1990, the Hubble telescope has provided a continuous record of the changes in SN 1987A.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and P. Challis (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
I’m seriously impressed.
GRAIL Launched!
Click here to view the embedded video.
Ha! You knew I was going to put this up. There’s some great footage too.
PopMech: How to Become a Backyard Astronomer | Bad Astronomy
The magazine Popular Mechanics has a pretty good article up about how to get started in backyard astronomy. I know it’s good, because they interviewed me for it! Actually, it does have some solid advice, like starting off with binoculars, and joining an astronomy club before buying a telescope. I get a ton of email [...]
New Atlas Makes It Official: Greenland is a Different Color Now, Thanks to Warming | 80beats
On the left, in the 1999 edition; on the right, in 2011. Click to embiggenate. Greenland glaciers have had a hard time of it lately, what with all the warming and disintegrating, and in their latest edition, the folks at the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World have decided to illustrate the island’s new look: [...]
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Last night, a Soyuz TMA-21 capsule carrying three members of the space station’s Expedition 28 crew landed safely in Kazakhstan: Among them was American Ron Garan, who has been taking devastating pictures of the Earth from the station. I mentioned this in an earlier post, but it bears repeating: the Russian space agency says they [...]
Boom in Prescription Drugs Makes Its Way to Young Children; Accidental Poisonings Way Up | 80beats
Between 2001 and 2008, the number of children 5 years old or younger admitted to the emergency room due to poisoning from pharmaceuticals increased 36 percent, according to a new study [PDF]. This pales in comparison to the 8 percent increase in population of the age group. Ingestion of drugs during this period caused 43 percent [...]
Saturn gets edgy | Bad Astronomy
Observing Saturn through even a small telescope is amazing. The rings are so obvious and clear that sometimes, when I would show people the planet through my own ‘scope, they thought I was faking the view! But it really is that easy to see them. Well, usually. Saturn, like the Earth, is tilted. That is, [...]
Eye Versus Camera | The Loom
Metaphors are essential to writing about science. Even scientists themselves use metaphors all the time, drawing from their familiar experiences to describe the unfamiliar. Building proteins is known as translation, for example, because the sequences of DNA and proteins are akin to words written in different languages. The cell has to translate one language into [...]
Michele Bachmann needles Perry on vaccinations | Bad Astronomy
The antiscience stance of the Republican candidates for President is getting so chaotic I swear I need a scorecard to keep it all straight. The latest: Michele Bachmann goes antivax. No, seriously. Generally associated with the far left, antivaccination rhetoric reared its head at the latest Republican candidate debate. In 2007, Governor Rick Perry of [...]
The Hunter, the station, and the southern lights | Bad Astronomy
Astronaut Ron Garan has been on board the International Space Station since April 2011. Tonight, at midnight Eastern (US) time, he will land back on Earth with two of his crewmates. While on the ISS he took a huge number of breath-taking photos of the Earth. One of the very last he shot was this [...]
Shades of 2050 | Gene Expression
I have long had a problem with projections of the racial makeup of the USA which implicitly neglect the complexities inherent in the identity of someone of mixed origin. A new study analyzing Census data on interracial marriages between 1980 and 2008 highlights some of the subtleties: The study also examined trends in biracial and [...]
Not the great stagnation | Gene Expression
Dan MacArthur points me to this story on the sequencing of the West family. You can read the full paper in PLoS Genetics. When the price point for a full genome comes down to $1,000 or so I plan on getting the code for everyone in my immediate family, just like I got everyone genotyped [...]
Astronomers discover a wretched hive of scum and villainy | Bad Astronomy
If there’s a bright center to the Universe, astronomers have found the planet it’s farthest from. Called Kepler-16b, it’s a Saturn-like world which has the distinction of being the first discovered to orbit both Sun-like stars in a binary system. OK, Star Wars references aside, this is pretty cool. Most of the planets being found [...]
Google+, very different from Facebook | Gene Expression
TechCrunch has a post up on the declining public usage of Google+. It’s been several months since I’ve been “using” Google+. I put usage in quotes because I am not a big active poster on twitter, Facebook, or Google+. But I do participate passively a fair amount. At this point for me I can say [...]
“Beyond Frugality”: Senate Panel Cuts NSF Budget by $162 Million | 80beats
Yesterday, the Senate subcommittee that funds the NSF, NASA, and research agencies in the Department of Commerce announced that they could see no way out of startlingly drastic budget cuts. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, which develops and curates technical standards for science and industry, will see a 10% drop in its budget, [...]
Tiny Head-Mounted Microscope Rides Along As Mice Go About Their Business | 80beats
What’s the News: A new thumbnail-sized microscope will give researchers a way to see what’s happening in the brain of a mouse as it moves around and goes about its business. The microscope, described earlier this week in Nature Methods, weighs less than 2 grams—little enough that it can be fitted atop a rodent’s head—and tracks [...]
