ANGELS & ASTRONAUTS: poetic +practical meditations

Can humans live permanently off Earth?

[streetsamurai]

[onegiantleapformankind]

Falcon 9 Launch

[space-is-stellar]

OVERVIEW

On the 40th anniversary of the famous ‘Blue Marble’ photograph taken of Earth from space, Planetary Collective presents a short film documenting astronauts’ life-changing stories of seeing the Earth from the outside – a perspective-altering experience often described as the Overview Effect.

The Overview Effect, first described by author Frank White in 1987, is an experience that transforms astronauts’ perspective of the planet and mankind’s place upon it. Common features of the experience are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment.

‘Overview’ is a short film that explores this phenomenon through interviews with five astronauts who have experienced the Overview Effect. The film also features insights from commentators and thinkers on the wider implications and importance of this understanding for society, and our relationship to the environment.

[scientificphilosopher]

The first ever picture with the moon and the earth in the same frame. There’s almost 239,000 miles between them!

[synergonomygroup]

Day and night

[astrotastic]

I love seeing the continents as they are - without dividing borders. In this image, North America is just one large piece of land. Seeing the Earth from space makes everything seem so peaceful.

Also, the atmosphere is just visible around the edge. From down here, it seems so vast, expansive, untouchable and permanent.

I wonder where I was when this picture was taken.

[dailyoverview]

In many countries around the world April 22 is recognized as Earth Day and that certainly means a lot to us at Daily Overview. Our project was inspired by and gets its name from an idea known as the Overview Effect. This phrase refers to the profound emotional sensation that astronauts experience when given the opportunity to look down at our Earth from space. From a distant vantage point, they have the chance to appreciate our home as a whole, to reflect on its beauty and its fragility all at once.

This photograph is one of the first to capture a full Overview of Earth, taken by astronaut Bill Anders during NASA’s Apollo 8 mission in December, 1968.

We hope after more than two years of Overview posts we have inspired a similarly powerful perspective of our planet and the impact that we have here. Starting today and throughout the week, we’ll also be doing a takeover on the Greenpeace Instagram feed, providing our unique vantage point to show different examples of what human impact looks like and how important it is to protect our planet. So here’s to a great Earth Day and to the treasure that is our one and only home.

Image courtesy of @NASA

[sci-universe]

“Up there in the cosmos an inescapable perspective awaits. National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.”

― Carl Sagan, Cosmos, episode 13: “Who Speaks for Earth?” image credit: Apollo 8, NASA

[spaceexp]

The Sombrero Galaxy - 28 million light years from Earth - was voted the most beautiful picture taken by Hubble Telescope. The dimensions of the galaxy, are as spectacular as it’s appearance. It has 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light years across.

via reddit

[beautyandtheuniverse]

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope photo of NGC 7714 presents an especially striking view of the galaxy’s smoke-ring-like structure. 

[chibdm-blog]

Andromeda Galaxy,  which is actually hurtling towards us..

[galaxiesoftheuniverse]

NGC 3576

NGC 3576 is a minor nebula in the Sagittarius arm of the galaxy a few thousand light-years away from the Eta Carinae nebula. Eventually this nebula even received six different classification numbers. Currently, astronomers call the entire nebula NGC 3576.

A popular nickname is “The Statue of Liberty Nebula” because of the distinctive shape in the middle of the nebula.

[amazinguniverses]

The Butterfly Nebula from Hubble

[sigmanovus]

Galaxies From The View Of Hubble

[thehikingastronomer]

Orion Nebula

[galaxiesoftheuniverse]

NGC 6357

NGC 6357 is a diffuse nebula near NGC 6334 in the constellation Scorpius. The nebula contains many proto-stars shielded by dark disks of gas, and young stars wrapped in expanding “cocoons” or expanding gases surrounding these small stars.

[ohstarstuff]

Stumbled on this incredible photo. Absolutely stunning.

The nearby dwarf galaxy NGC 1569 is a ‘hotbed’ of vigorous star birth activity which blows huge bubbles and super-bubbles that riddle the main body of the galaxy. The galaxy’s vigorous ‘star factories’ are also manufacturing brilliant blue star clusters. This galaxy had a sudden and relatively recent onset of star birth 25 million years ago, which subsided about the time the very earliest human ancestors appeared on Earth.

In this new image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the bubble structure is sculpted by the galactic super-winds and outflows caused by a colossal input of energy from collective supernova explosions that are linked with a massive episode of star birth.

The bubble-like structures seen in this image are made of hydrogen gas that glows when hit by the fierce winds and radiation from hot young stars and is racked by supernovae shocks. The first supernovae blew up when the most massive stars reached the end of their lifetimes roughly 20-25 million years ago. The environment in NGC 1569 is still turbulent and the supernovae may not only deliver the gaseous raw material needed for the formation of further stars and star clusters, but also actually trigger their birth in the tortured swirls of gas.

Credit: ESA, NASA and Peter Anders (Göttingen University Galaxy Evolution Group, Germany)