rhamphotheca:

odditiesoflife:

The Fukang Meteorite

Back in the year 2000, an incredible meteorite weighing 2,211 pounds was discovered near Fukang, a city located in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, China. Named the Funkang meteorite, it was identified as a pallasite, a type of stony–iron meteorite. With4.5 billion years in the making, its golden olivine mixed with silvery nickel-iron to create a stunningly beautiful mosaic effect.

Pallasites are extremely rare even among meteorites (only about 1% of all meteorites are this type) and Fukang has been hailed as one of the greatest meteorite discoveries of the 21st century.

It has since been divided into slices which give the effect of stained glass when the sun shines through them. It is so valuable that even tiny chunks sell in the region for $40 to $60 a gram. An anonymous collector holds the largest portion, which weighs 925 pounds.

(via ceyren)

opticoverload:

The Small Solar System In The Vast Of Space

(via ceyren)

scienceyoucanlove:

Contrary to popular belief, meteor showers are not rare. It’s just that most of the time we don’t look up! So mark these dates on your calendar and make sure you don’t miss any more this year.

Meteor Showers Viewing Tips:

To answer the most common question: Yes, you can see these meteor showers from ANYWHERE in the sky, provided it’s clear and dark, away from all the city lights.

- The best times to view meteors or typically predawn and late evening. Partially because this is when it is darkest, but also because this is when Earth turns into the path of meteoroids as they enter the atmosphere.

- Meteors are visible with the naked eye and you don’t need any equipment to view them. Just spread a blanket on the ground and look up!

(via dead-until-dark)

My bedroom.

(via dead-until-dark)

bbook:

itsfullofstars:

Voyager 1 “Blue Movie”

This is the original Voyager “Blue Movie” (so named because it was built from Blue filter images). It records the approach of Voyager 1 during a period of over 60 Jupiter days. Notice the difference in speed and direction of the various zones of the atmosphere. The interaction of the atmospheric clouds and storms shows how dynamic the Jovian atmosphere is.

As Voyager 1 approached Jupiter in 1979, it took images of the planet at regular intervals. This sequence is made from 66 images taken once every Jupiter rotation period (about 10 hours). This time-lapse movie uses images taken every time Jupiter longitude 68W passed under the spacecraft. These images were acquired in the Blue filter from Jan. 6 to Feb. 3 1979. The spacecraft flew from 58 million kilometers to 31 million kilometers from Jupiter during that time.

This time-lapse movie was produced at JPL by the Image Processing Laboratory in 1979.

The Voyager Project is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

(via crookedindifference)

Look and LiISTEN.

vantasticmess:

w-for-wumbo:

I am so glad someone made this cuz I’ve always wondered how the movement of the solar system might look as a whole….

BUT LOOK HOW EPIC THE SOLAR SYSTEM IS GUYS

Earth: [to Sun] “Are we there yet?”

(via neonsnowman)

spaceplasma:

Sarychev Volcano Eruption seen from the ISS

On 12 June 2009, the volcano erupted, sending out ash plumes. As the volcano is near some of the main air routes between East Asia and North America, there was some disruption to air traffic.

During the eruption, the International Space Station passed overhead and astronauts were able to photograph the event. A hole in the overhead clouds, possibly caused by the shock wave from the explosion, allowed a clear view of the plume and pyroclastic flow down the sides of the mountain. A cap-like pileus cloud is visible atop the rising column.

(via warpedpassage)

we-are-star-stuff:

This is how we envisioned spacesuits back in the 1950s

The always interesting and highly entertaining Retronaut has just scanned and published a series of pages from a 1956 article titled, “Here’s What We’ll Wear in Space.” Though it wouldn’t happen for another five years, it was becoming quite obvious that that time had come to prepare for space. Here’s what the experts thought we’d be wearing.

Lloyd Mallan, the author of the original article, noted that these spacesuits were being designed not by stylists, but by “biophysicists, anthropologists, electronic scientists, and doctors of medicine.”

He wrote:

But they have one thing in common: all are willing to risk their own necks to perfect equipment that will make it safe for other men to fly through the alien vacuum of space. Acting as their own guinea pigs, they are locked into altitude chambers, spun wildly on centrifuges, and closed up in insulated rooms. In the process, they discover whether or not their space fashions are practical. And in order to be absolutely certain they plunge needles into their veins and spines, under their skin and over their brains. Wires connected to the needles carry their slightest physical reaction.

Testing the suits to see if they’ll withstand the pressures of explosive decompression. Mallan wrote, “Problems of living in the alien vacuum of space are being solved.”

Much more, including full hi-res scans of pages and text at Retronaut.

I’m all for the divergent creative process (my favorite part) but grateful for the convergence aspect of bringing the best ideas together.

(via dead-until-dark)

(via wanderlustfloopowder)

distant-traveller:

Floating ice on Titan’s lakes?

A new paper by scientists on NASA’s Cassini mission finds that blocks of hydrocarbon ice might decorate the surface of existing lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbon on Saturn’s moon Titan. The presence of ice floes might explain some of the mixed readings Cassini has seen in the reflectivity of the surfaces of lakes on Titan.

Titan is the only other body besides Earth in our solar system with stable bodies of liquid on its surface. But while our planet’s cycle of precipitation and evaporation involves water, Titan’s cycle involves hydrocarbons like ethane and methane. Ethane and methane are organic molecules, which scientists think can be building blocks for the more complex chemistry from which life arose. Cassini has seen a vast network of these hydrocarbon seas cover Titan’s northern hemisphere, while a more sporadic set of lakes bejewels the southern hemisphere.

Up to this point, Cassini scientists assumed that Titan lakes would not have floating ice, because solid methane is denser than liquid methane and would sink. But the new model considers the interaction between the lakes and the atmosphere, resulting in different mixtures of compositions, pockets of nitrogen gas, and changes in temperature. The result, scientists found, is that winter ice will float in Titan’s methane-and-ethane-rich lakes and seas if the temperature is below the freezing point of methane — minus 297 degrees Fahrenheit (90.4 kelvins). The scientists realized all the varieties of ice they considered would float if they were composed of at least 5 percent “air,” which is an average composition for young sea ice on Earth. (“Air” on Titan has significantly more nitrogen than Earth air and almost no oxygen.)

If the temperature drops by just a few degrees, the ice will sink because of the relative proportions of nitrogen gas in the liquid versus the solid. Temperatures close to the freezing point of methane could lead to both floating and sinking ice - that is, a hydrocarbon ice crust above the liquid and blocks of hydrocarbon ice on the bottom of the lake bed. Scientists haven’t entirely figured out what color the ice would be, though they suspect it would be colorless, as it is on Earth, perhaps tinted reddish-brown from Titan’s atmosphere.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS

(via warpedpassage)

abluegirl:

The Milky Way Galaxy Shines Over Long Pond on a Clear September Evening in the Adirondack Mountains.

thesciencellama:

13 Must See Stargazing Events for 2013
— Listed In Chronological Order 

1) January 21 — Very Close Moon/Jupiter Conjunction

A waxing gibbous moon (78% illuminated) will pass within less than a degree to the south of Jupiter high in the evening sky. Your closed fist held out at arms length covers 10 degrees. These two wont get that close again until 2026.

2) February 2-23 — Best Evening View of Mercury

The planet Mercury will be far enough away from the glare of the Sun to be visible in the Western sky after sunset. It will be at its brightest on the 16th and dim quickly afterwards. On the 8th it will skim by the much dimmer planet Mars by about 0.4 degrees.

3) March 10-24 — Comet PANSTARRS at its best

First discovered in 2011, this comet should be coming back around for about 2 weeks. It will be visible low in the northwest sky after sunset. Here are some sources predicting what the comets may look like in the sky; 1, 2

4) April 25 — Partial Lunar Eclipse

A very minor, partial lunar eclipse (not visible in North America) where only about 2 percent of the moon’s diameter will be inside the dark shadow of the Earth.

5) May 9 — Annular Eclipse of the Sun (“Ring of Fire” Eclipse)

It will be visible in Northern Australia and parts of Papua New Guinea but mostly within the Pacific Ocean. See all the solar eclipse paths for 2001-2020 here.

6) May 24-30 — Dance of the Planets

Mercury, Venus and Jupiter will seemingly dance between each other in the twilight sky just after sunset as they will change their positions from one evening to the next. Venus will be the brightest of all, six times brighter than Jupiter.

7) June 23 — Biggest Full Moon of 2013

It will be the biggest full moon because the moon will be the closest to the Earth at this time making it a ‘supermoon’ and the tides will be affected as well creating exceptionally high and low tides for the next few days.

8) August 12 — Perseid Meteor Shower

One of the best and most reliable meteor showers of the year producing upwards of 90 meteors per hour provided the sky is dark. This year the moon won’t be in the way as much as it will set during the evening leaving the rest of the night dark. Here is a useful dark-sky finder tool.

9) October 18 — Penumbral Eclipse of the Moon

Visible mostly in Asia, Europe and Africa, at this time the 76% of the moon will be covered by the penumbral shadow of the Earth.

10) November 3 — Hybrid Eclipse of the Sun

A Hybrid Eclipse meaning, along its path, the eclipse will turn from Annular to Total and in this case most of the path will appear to be Total as there will be a slight ring of sunlight visible near the beginning of the track. This one will begin in the Atlantic (near the East Coast of the U.S.) and travel through Africa. See the path here. The greatest eclipse (with 100 seconds of totality) will appear in Liberia, near the West Coast of Africa.

11) Mid-November through December — Comet ISON

The second comet this year, ISON, could potentially be visible in broad daylight as it reaches its closest point to the Sun. It will reach that point on November 28 and it is close enough to the Sun to be categorized as a ‘Sungrazer’. Afterwards it will travel towards Earth (passing by within 40 million miles) a month later.

12) All of December — Dazzling Venus

The brightest planet of them all will shine a few hours after sundown in the Southwestern sky and for about 1.5 hours approaching New Years Eve. Around December 5th, a crescent moon will pass above the planet and the next night Venus will be at its brightest and wont be again until 2021.

13) December 13-14 — Geminid Meteor Shower

This is another great (if not the best) annual meteor shower. This year put on a show at about 120 meteors per hour and in 2013 it won’t be much different so expect another fantastic show. However, the moon - as it is a few days before full phase - will be in the way for most of the night obscuring some of the fainter meteors. You might have to stay up in the early morning hours (4am) to catch the all the meteors it has to offer. If you missed 2012’s Geminid Meteor Shower, here are some great photo-sets; 1, 2, 3

(via warpedpassage)

moderation:

White House Petition: Could we Build the Starship Enterprise?

—

Earlier this year, an engineer who goes by the name of BTE Dan proposed building a full-sized, ion-powered version of a Constitution-Class Enterprise – from the original Star Trek – saying it could be built with current technology and could be completed within 20 years. Now, BTE Dan has started a White House petition — not to build the Enterprise but to just do a feasibility study and conceptual design of the USS Enterprise interplanetary spaceship. As of this writing, the petition has 1,414 signatures of the 25,000 needed by January 21, 2013 to be considered by the Obama administration.

The petition reads:

We have within our technological reach the ability to build the 1st generation of the USS Enterprise. It ends up that this ship’s inspiring form is quite functional. This will be Earth’s first gigawatt-class interplanetary spaceship with artificial gravity. The ship can serve as a spaceship, space station, and space port all in one. In total, one thousand crew members & visitors can be on board at once. Few things could collectively inspire people on Earth more than seeing the Enterprise being built in space. And the ship could go on amazing missions, like taking the first humans to Mars while taking along a large load of base-building equipment for constructing the first permanent base there.

See the petition and sign it here.

BTE Dan told Universe Today earlier this year that what he really is hoping for is to find a segment of scientists and engineers in the space industry to take an active interest and contribute to the ideas on his website, BuildTheEnterprise.org to help move the concept forward.

(via universetoday)

(via always-have-a-towel)

(via neonsnowman)

earth-song:

by den-sau-pin

(via yanorayanora)