A Photo Of S Rings, A Ring Near Saturn. Took By Cassini With COISS On March 04, 2013 At 08:56:39. Detail

In case you missed it earlier in July, here’s a look at how our view of Pluto has changed over the course of several decades. The first frame is a digital zoom-in on Pluto as it appeared upon its discovery by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 (image courtesy Lowell Observatory Archives). The other images show various views of Pluto as seen by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope beginning in the 1990s and NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in 2015. The final sequence zooms in to a close-up frame of Pluto released on July 15, 2015.

This amazing view of details on Pluto came via New Horizons, which launched on Jan. 19, 2006. New Horizons swung past Jupiter for a gravity boost and scientific studies in February 2007, and conducted a reconnaissance flyby study of Pluto and its moons in summer 2015. Pluto closest approach occurred on July 14, 2015. As part of an extended mission, the spacecraft is expected to head farther into the Kuiper Belt to examine one or two of the ancient, icy mini-worlds in that vast region, at least a billion miles beyond Neptune’s orbit.

Image credits available here.

Engineers are preparing to test the parachute system for NASA’s Orion spacecraft at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in Yuma, Arizona. During the test, planned for Wednesday, Aug. 26, a C-17 aircraft will carry a representative Orion capsule to 35,000 feet in altitude and then drop it from its cargo bay. Engineers will test a scenario in which one of Orion’s two drogue parachutes, used to stabilize it in the air, does not deploy, and one of its three main parachutes, used to slow the capsule during the final stage of descent, also does not deploy. The risky test will provide data engineers will use as they gear up to qualify Orion’s parachutes for missions with astronauts. On Aug. 24, a C-17 was loaded with the test version of Orion, which has a similar mass and interfaces with the parachutes as the Orion being developed for deep space missions but is shorter on top to fit inside the aircraft.

You. You. You are alive. And sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the sunlight that came through the shuffling leaves of the summer trees. And sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the light that fell from the crisp night sky of winter, where a fleck of light in the corner of the player’s eye might be a star a million times as massive as the sun, boiling its planets to plasma in order to be visible for a moment to the player, walking home at the far side of the universe, suddenly smelling food, almost at the familiar door, about to dream again. And sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the zeros and ones, through the electricity of the world, through the scrolling words on a screen at the end of a dream. And the universe said I love you. And the universe said you have played the game well. And the universe said everything you need is within you. And the universe said you are stronger than you know. And the universe said you are the daylight. And the universe said you are the night. And the universe said the darkness you fight is within you. And the universe said the light you seek is within you. And the universe said you are not alone. And the universe said you are not separate from every other thing. And the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code. And the universe said I love you because you are love. And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new dream. And the player dreamed again, dreamed better. And the player was the universe. And the player was love. You are the player. Wake up.

♡♡♡ (via escap3real1ty)

White holes

White holes are hypothetically the complete opposite of a black hole; nothing can enter it. They appear in the theory of Eternal Black holes. Einstein field equations would position white holes in the past which is also the opposite of black hole regions placed in the future. The white hole shares the same properties as matter. It has a gravitational pull but objects traveling towards it would never reach the event horizon. The white hole event horizon in the past becomes a black hole event horizon in the future thus any object heading to the event horizon for the white hole will eventually end up on the event horizon on the black hole. Stephen Hawking made the argument that because black holes can be in a time-reversal-invariant state, this would imply that black holes and white holes are the same object. The Hawking radiation from the black hole is identified being emitted from the white hole.

There is much much more to white holes than this and many different theories. I like the idea of a white hole being the output for the black hole forming an Einstein-Rosen bridge. However, there are currently no known processes for how white holes are formed, they are not like a black hole which is formed from the collapse of a very large object.

A great paper to help you understand one of the current white hole theories is found on thins like http://arxiv.org/vc/arxiv/papers/1105/1105.2776v1.pdf

Ten Years After Katrina

As we remember the devastation that Hurricane Katrina caused ten years ago, we also look to the improvements made in the past decade in storm prediction and forecasting.

Hurricane Katrina impacted many people, businesses and communities; and even two NASA facilities were hit by the storm. Marshall Space Flight Center and Michoud Assembly Facility were both hit by the harsh storm (seen below).

During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, our satellites were hard at work monitoring and watching the storm from above. Thanks to the higher resolution models we have today, simulations can recreate historical storms, like the below of Hurricane Katrina. Scientists can then study these and learn about past events.

Surprisingly, the United States hasn’t experienced the landfall of a Category 3 hurricane or lager since 2005. This is the longest period of time that has passed without a major hurricane making landfall in the U.S. since reliable records began in 1850.

Although we don’t know when a severe storm will form, we do know that advancements in technology can help us better prepare and predict its path. So, on this ten year mark of this devastating storm, we look back to remember what we saw: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/sets/72157656646633089

First time shooting the Perseid meteor shower. Definitely doing this again and I’ll try to get the Geminids in December as well. Finally edited and put these pictures together. This one turned out pretty good I think, I also have some more on my flickr account with better quality. There’s about 40 meteors here, captured from both nights and combined into one. Was up on Mt. Lemmon for both nights and started shooting from midnight to about 4am.

May 14, 2009 – A close-up view of astronaut John Grunsfeld performing spacewalk to do some maintenance on the Hubble Space Telescope, photographed by Andrew Feustel, who can be seen in Grunsfeld’s visor. 

(NASA)

Normal Things…Done in a Not So Normal Way

Floating around in zero gravity may sound like a blast, but it can actually present a lot of challenges to things we do everyday here on Earth with little to no thought. Here are a few ways that astronauts on the International Space Station complete normal tasks in orbit:

1) Washing Hair

You can’t just have a shower on the space station because the water would come out of the faucet and float all over the place. In this video, NASA Astronaut Karen Nyberg demonstrates how she uses a bag of water, no rinse shampoo, a towel and her comb to wash her hair.

2) Drinking Coffee

Believe it or not, there are special cups used on the space station to drink coffee from the new ISSpresso machine. I mean, you wouldn’t want hot coffee floating around in the air…would you? Previously, astronauts drank coffee from plastic bags, but let’s face it, that sounds pretty unenjoyable. Now, there are zero Gravity coffee cups, and an Italian espresso machine aboard the International Space Station! These cups were created with the help of capillary flow experiments conducted in space.

3) Sleeping

There’s nothing like crawling into bed after a long day, but astronauts can’t exactly do that while they’re in microgravity. Instead of beds, crew members use sleeping bags attached to the walls of their small crew cabins. They are able to zipper themselves in so that they don’t float around while they’re asleep. This may sound uncomfortable, but some astronauts, like Scott Kelly, say that they sleep better in space than they do on Earth!

4) Exercising 

Exercising in general is an important part of a daily routine. In space, it even helps prevent the effects of bone and muscle loss associated with microgravity. Typically, astronauts exercise two hours per day, but the equipment they use is different than here on Earth. For example, if an astronaut wants to run on the treadmill, they have to wear a harness and bungee cords so that they don’t float away.