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Category Archives: space (not spatial)

NASA’s Messenger gives us the first ever image from orbit above Mercury

NASA’s Messenger (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) spacecraft is already sending us amazing imagery of the surface of Mercury as it orbits the planet on a mission to obtain information about Mercury and what it’s made of. This image, released by NASA yesterday, is the first image of Mercury taken from orbit:

Messenger is the first man-made satellite to orbit Mercury, although Mariner 10 sent back images during a flyby in the mid-1970s. Check out NASA’s Messenger mission page for lots more information and images as the mission progresses.

Via Gizmodo

Welcome Home, Discovery, and Thanks for the Memories…

We’ve had more space posts than usual in the last week or so, but I wanted to give a shoutout to the Space Shuttle Discovery and its crew, for the safe landing and the successful completion of its final mission. I’m one of over 80,000 viewers watching the post-landing video stream on NASA TV over at uStream, and I think that the approaching end of the shuttle program has really reminded everyone of its amazing achievements over the past 30 years.

To Space and Beyond

Several recent requests for proposals (RFPs) by NASA go along with this weeks theme. They are NASA’s 2011 Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) goals and most of them are spatially related. They include not only Earth surface observations and Earth systems modeling but data analysis and research related to space and MARS missions. According to the ROSES RFP, the NASA Strategic Plan is being revised. Some of these revisions are in keeping with what you hear from other agencies to meet the challenges of climate and environmental change but others are the stuff of kid’s (and adults) dreams. NASA wants to “understand the Sun and its interactions with the Earth and the solar system” is a given but how about search for Earth-like planets and the potential for life elsewhere. NASA is ready to go where no man has gone before and that is definantly a geo-spatial goal worth pursuing.

Shuttle Discovery set for its final launch today

It’s the beginning of the end of an era for NASA’s shuttle program, as Discovery is set for its final launch at 4:50pm EST today, with Endeavor’s final mission currently scheduled for April, and Atlantis’ possibly the summer. I have always been a huge fan of the shuttle program, and can remember when I got special permission to get out of class and go to the school library to watch the very first shuttle, Columbia, launch on its maiden voyage.

The shuttle program accomplished so many milestones, and there have been reports that the shuttle fleet may be sold for private use after their missions for NASA and the US government are complete. Other private initiatives for space flight are pretty exciting as well, so hopefully we will see more amazing innovations in the next few years.

To commemorate Discovery’s last mission and the shuttle program, CNN put together this great compilation of 132 seconds of shuttle launches – enjoy!

Cheese! In! Space!

I love anything space travel related.  I love Monty Python.  And anyone who’s seen me should find it self evident that I love cheese.  This little news item about cheese in space naturally caught my eye and had to be passed on to our good readers.  This week’s podcast features a news item concerning the recent wonderful accomplishment of SpaceX and their successful launch and return of a payload into space.  What was that payload, you might ask?  One wheel of cheese.  Why a wheel of cheese?  Because of Monty Python’s famous (and delightfully hilarious) The Cheese Shop sketch.  Space Travel + Cheese + Monty Python = EPIC WIN!

Pluto, revisited

The news that NASA discovered a new type of microorganism has overshadowed new findings on Pluto. The Christian Science Monitor presents both sides of the debate, “Should Pluto be Restored as a Planet?” According to Mike Wall from Space.com, Pluto was found to be slightly larger than Eris, the entity that supplanted it, re-opening the debate if it should be restored as a full-fledged planet. Discovery News details the method used to compare the size of Eris and Pluto. In several articles Mike Brown, who discovered Eris and wrote the appropriately titled book, “How I Killed Pluto and Why it Had it Coming” states that the most important part of the discovery isn’t about size but the fact that Eris is much denser than Pluto and thus a totally different composition and origin. In his posts on Mike Brown’s Planets he describes the Skymapper project to survey the whole southern skies by Australian National University.

NASA and Gowalla team up for a nationwide scavenger hunt

For all of you out there who use Gowalla as your mobile location-based social sharing app, you’ll want to check out the new partnership between NASA and Gowalla that includes a fun virtual scavenger hunt called “Search for Moon Rocks.” Any time you visit a museum, science center, or planetarium that has a real moon rock on display, you can check in and get a virtual moon rock for your Gowalla account. Since NASA astronauts successfully brought lunar samples back to Earth during the Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 missions, there are plenty of places where you can find them. To help you out, NASA has posted a fun map visualization of the places where you can find lunar samples on display.

The NASA-Gowalla partnership also allows users to collect 3 other virtual items – a NASA patch, a spacesuit, and a space shuttle – when they check in at NASA visitor centers and other museums and facilities that are part of the NASA Museum Alliance. And, as if that weren’t exciting enough, the 100 Gowalla users to collect 3 out of the 4 NASA patches will receive a copy of the Search for the Moon Rocks map in the mail!

Via GeekSugar

A Bittersweet Last Goodbye for the Mars Phoenix Lander

Today would have been the 2-year anniversary of the Mars Phoenix lander’s touchdown on Mars and, although it was a longshot that the lander would have survived the harsh Martian winter, numerous listening attempts have been made since January in hopes of hearing a signal from the craft. Efforts have finally ended this past week, as a failure to hear anything, combined with an image of the lander taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on May 7th showed strong evidence of fatal damage to the lander’s solar panels.

The Phoenix lander’s mission, though, was a great success, and I think it was also a great demonstration of how NASA could leverage social media, by utilizing a Twitter feed in Phoenix’s name to offer updates on the mission and the data and analysis it has provided. Phoenix verified that water exists in the Martian soil, and even observed what may have been snow falling on Mars:

All in all, another amazing scientific mission to explore our solar system, and hopefully we will be able to continue to build on the knowledge gained from our exploration of Mars. For a University of Arizona video of the Mars Phoenix lander’s mission highlights, click here.

Via National Geographic News

Cool views of the International Space Station with Photosynth

Two things that are definitely high on my cool list – space stuff and Photosynth – have come together to allow you to take a virtual tour – inside and out – of the International Space Station. Microsoft and NASA have partnered on the synths of the space station on NASA’s website. It’s a great way to get to explore the space station’s modules using the Photosynth viewer, and you can even see the 3D point cloud of the station. There are also synths available for the Mars Rover and the Hubble telescope.

The only downside is that these synths aren’t embeddable, so I can’t give you a preview here. But definitely head over to the NASA ISS Photosynth page and check it out!