Neither man nor machine

[apo110]

I wonder how many users are active on tumblr - feels like things have died down 

[matialonsorphoto]

un espejismo, una rebelión

by matialonsor

[curiositymarsrover]

Mars Pathfinder & Sojourner Rover (360 View) Explained

Thanks to new technology, we can take a 360-degree tour of the 1997 Pathfinder mission landing site, including Sojourner, the first Mars rover. Check out this interactive YouTube panorama, and then…

…keep scrolling to find out more about each point of interest, how the Pathfinder mission compares to “The Martian” and NASA’s real Journey to Mars.

Yogi

“Yogi” is a meter-size rock about 5 meters northwest of the Mars Pathfinder lander and the second rock visited by the Sojourner Rover’s alpha proton X-ray spectrometer (APXS) instrument. This mosaic shows super resolution techniques applied to help to address questions about the texture of this rock and what it might tell us about how it came to be.

Twin Peaks

The Twin Peaks are modest-size hills to the southwest of the Mars Pathfinder landing site. They were discovered on the first panoramas taken by the IMP camera on the July 4, 1997, and subsequently identified in Viking Orbiter images taken over 20 years ago. They’re about 30-35 meters tall.

Barnacle Bill

“Barnacle Bill” is a small rock immediately west-northwest of the Mars Pathfinder lander and was the first rock visited by the Sojourner Rover’s alpha proton X-ray spectrometer (APXS) instrument. If you have some old-school red-cyan glasses, put them on and see this pic in eye-popping 3-D.

Rock Garden

The Rock Garden is a cluster of large, angular rocks tilted in a downstream direction from ancient floods on Mars. The rocky surface is comprised of materials washed down from the highlands and deposited in this ancient outflow channel.

MOAR INFO

Pathfinder Lander & Sojourner Rover 

Mission Facts [PDF]

Science Results

Rock & Soil Types

This vista was stitched together from many images taken in 1997 by Pathfinder.

Pathfinder and Sojourner figure into Mark Watney’s quest for survival on the Red Planet in the book and movie, “The Martian.” See JPL’s role in making “The Martian” a reality: http://go.nasa.gov/1McRrXw and discover nine real NASA technologies depicted in “The Martian”: http://go.nasa.gov/1QiyUiC.

So what about the real-life “Journey to Mars”? NASA is developing the capabilities needed to send humans to Mars in the 2030s. Discover more at http://nasa.gov/journeytomars and don’t forget to visit me when you make it to the Red Planet. Until then, stay curious and I’ll see you online.

[astronomicalwonders]

The Center of a Rose - Stellar Winds in NGC 2237

This image detects the center of a Nebula commonly known as the Rose Nebula. The stars of this Nebula were born out of its dust and are closely associated with the Nebula’s features. The Open Star Cluster in the center (also known as NGC 2244) has several O-type stars (Those are super hot) that generate large amounts of radiation and send Stellar Winds into the Nebula. NASA’s Chandra space observatory was able to observe colliding Stellar Winds that reach temperatures of over 6 million kelvin, that’s more than 10 million degrees fahrenheit!

Credit: Planetario/NASA/NOAO/Chandra

[for-all-mankind]

With the days rapidly dwindling until New Horizons makes humanity’s first reconnaissance of Pluto, a stunning new video was released showing the mission’s planetary predecessors. Paying homage to over 50 years of planetary exploration, the National Space Society’s video shows the groundbreaking missions which opened up the solar system to all of us back here on Earth. Through the Pioneer, Mariner, and Voyager missions, the worlds of the solar system were no longer mysterious to scientists and astronomers on Earth. The years of the planet’s first reconnaissance and spacecraft are shown in a fitting tribute to New Horizon’s foundations. Now, 53 years after our initial visits to other worlds, our exploration of the solar system’s major celestial bodies draws to a close. We’ve spent half a century broadening our cosmic horizons; what new horizons will be found at, and beyond, Pluto?

[ginge-r]

[cotille]

SPACE FUCKS ME UP

[inklie]

[discoserpent]

Yeah theres no life out there at all

[mossrockk]

An existential crisis is a good way to start the day, thanks

[larrybraverywontstop]

THIS RUINED MY DAY…..no, THIS RUINED MY WHOLE LIFE

[wassup-its-sophia]

shit like this fucks with my head so bad

[thegeekbrew]

NGC 2170 

[apo110]

[morphoaurora]

[sagansense]

It’s never over. Our curiosity and collective consciousness of us, “the wanderers” continue.

And still they - we - move…around the planet, the planet around the sun, the sun around our galaxy, our galaxy across the cosmic shore, with the Voyager spacecraft sailing those same seas like a message in a bottle.

The last episode of COSMOS on television it may be, …for now. I expect many re-runs ahead. Riding the digital waves of broadcasting, and still they move.

And we can influence this as well, personally, all of us, when we obtain our own copies of COSMOS.

[apo110]

In the past 15 years, we've sent rovers to mars and learned so much about our neighboring brother. In the next 15 years, we'll have a permanent human colony established on mars. Let that sink in for a moment.

[thetruthisvital]

Hubble has spotted an ancient galaxy that shouldn’t exist

This galaxy is so large, so fully-formed, astronomers say it shouldn’t exist at all. It’s called a “grand-design” spiral galaxy, and unlike most galaxies of its kind, this one is old. Like, really, really old. According to a new study conducted by researchers using NASA’s Hubble Telescope, it dates back roughly 10.7-billion years — and that makes it the most ancient spiral galaxy we’ve ever discovered.

"The vast majority of old galaxies look like train wrecks," said UCLA astrophysicist Alice Shapley in a press release. "Our first thought was, why is this one so different, and so beautiful?"

Read more: here

[spacettf]

iris nebula by Graham M Green on Flickr.

Tramite Flickr: The Iris Nebula, also known as LBN 487 or Caldwell 4, is a bright reflection nebula that lies 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus.

[apo110]

Tracy Caldwell  in the ISS

[apo110]

Apollo 11 Crew (From top to bottom) : 

Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr (Buzz Aldrin)

Neil Armstrong

Michael Collins

[txchnologist]

Revolutionary Telescope Gets Green Light

An 82-foot telescope boasting ten times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope has successfully passed design reviews and is ready to be constructed.

The Giant Magellan Telescope will use a light-collecting mirror surface more than six times the area of current instruments to hunt for distant, potentially habitable planets and let astronomers time travel back to a billion years after the Big Bang.

Read More

[apo110]

That feeling when you got the highest score on a programming exam and the score was an 80.