Oxidants Happen

Per ardua ad astra. Ex astris, scientia. Salve. I'm Aurelia, I like science. Astronomy is my life, but I find many other subjects equally fascinating. Once I graduate from high school, I'd like to major in Physics and eventually work my way up to a PhD. I'm an inquisitive person, and this is a blog consisting of everything that intrigues me. Feel free to ask me any questions you may have; I'm not a hostile person.  cosmic wanderers

[scinewsnetwork-blog]

The Beauty of the Mundane

Forty-five million light years away, toward the constellation of Ursa Major, sits a rather unremarkable galaxy. It is not undergoing huge bursts of star formation. It is not blasting out radiation from its core. It isn’t twisted into bizarre shapes by the gravitational influence of a nearby passing galaxy, nor actively eating any smaller galaxies, nor swaddled in thick layers of dust.

It just is, sitting there, being a spiral galaxy. And that’s what makes it so stunningly gorgeous.

source

[sagansense]

[asapscience]

lol 

[newshour]

For the first time in history, the European Space Agency successfully landed a spacecraft on a comet.

Way to go, science.

[kny111]

Eta Carinae by Francesco Antonucci; Data: WISE IRSA Archive

[spaceplasma]

The Philae lander has separated from the Rosetta orbiter, and is now on its way to becoming the first spacecraft to touch down on a comet.

Watch live coverage of Rosetta mission landing events

[matociquala]

Somebody giffed today’s comet-landing xkcd. Everything is better now.

[tamorapierce]

And we have TOUCHDOWN!!!  On the comet!!!!

[distant-traveller]

Philae attempts comet nucleus Landing

Today humanity will make its first attempt to land a probe on the nucleus of a comet. As the day progresses, the Philae (fee-LAY) lander will separate from the Rosetta spacecraft and head down to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Since the texture of the comet’s surface is unknown and its surface gravity is surely low, Philae will then attempt to harpoon itself down, something that has never been done before. Featured here is an artist’s illustration of dishwasher-sized Philae as it might look on Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko’s surface, along with explanation balloons detailing onboard scientific instruments. Many people on a blue planet across the Solar System will be eagerly awaiting news and updates. Whether Philae actually lands, whether it lands on a smooth patch, whether the harpoons take hold, and how far the robotic lander sinks into the surface should all become known as events unfold today.

Image credit: ESA

[liketheshewolf]

"That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there… on a mote of dust suspended… in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast, cosmic arena." - Carl Sagan [x]

[mindblowingscience]

How Animals Hacked The Rainbow And Got Stumped On Blue

Until about 600 million years ago, seeing colors didn’t matter so much to Earth’s inhabitants — nobody had eyes.

"Before the eye evolved, you just wouldn’t have seen what was there," says Andrew Parker, a biologist at the London’s Natural History Museum who studies the evolution of color.

Simple animals back then just floated around, he says. They were aware of sunlight, but didn’t have any of the biological bits and pieces needed to perceive color. Then, as Parker tells it, something really big happened.

"A predator that could swim quickly, evolved vision," he explains.

That predator probably looked something like a big shrimp, and now it had eyeballs — compound eyes, like the ones that flies have. “That’s when color kicked off,” Parker says.

Continue Reading.

[utcjonesobservatory]

Rosetta’s Philae lander touches down on comet after 10-year quest

After Rosetta’s ten year journey — capped off with the smooth 7 hour descent of its Philae lander — an explosion of elation went up in the European Space Agency’s mission control center in Darmstadt, Germany. At around 11:04AM Eastern Time, humanity has, for the first time in history, carefully coaxed an extension of itself onto the surface of a comet. The first few moments after landing turned tense as the ESA team worked to determine if everything worked, but Philae Lander Manager Stephan Ullamec broke the strained silence. “The harpoons have been fired and the landing gear has been moved inside. We’re on the surface. Philae is talking to us, more data to come,” he said. Spacecraft operations manager Andrea Accomazzo (whom the internet started calling “ESA Hoodie Guy”) couldn’t quite help himself. “We can’t be happier than we are now,” he yelped.

Rosetta’s rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko back in August was a milestone in its own right, as was how the probe slipped right into orbit around it a month later. Now that Philae has cemented itself into the history books, though, it’s time for testing. Lots of it. You see, this isn’t the first time humanity has come into extremely close contact with a comet — NASA used its Deep Impact probe (no relation to the awful movie) to smash what was essentially an 820 lb camera-laden bullet into the nucleus of a comet called Tempel 1 in 2005. With an actual, operational spacecraft on the comet, we have a shot at learning even more about the origins of the solar system… not to mention how we all came to be.

The ESA has been receiving telemetry data from Philae since the moment it touched down, but we’re all waiting for the first round of juicy stuff — especially those initial panoramic and surface images — to start making the rounds. In addition to that spacefaring photography, Philae will also measure the comet’s magnetic field and gas emissions for about 60 hours before its bank of batteries runs down. And after that? It’ll switch to a set of backup batteries that can be recharged by Philae’s solar panels, which ESA engineers hope will last about four to five months before finally giving up the ghost. Once those cells have finally run dry, Philae will then continue to ride 67P as it careens on its six-year orbit around the solar system, another testament to human ingenuity and the curiosity that continually pushes us to cast our eyes toward the heavens.

[penny4nasa]

ESA’s Rosetta Mission Makes Historic Landing On Comet In a journey more than a decade in the making, the European Space Agency has confirmed its Rosetta mission successfully landed its Philae probe on the surface of a comet on Wednesday. The ESA’s Philae probe made touchdown on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko at 11:03 a.m. EST on Wednesday, making history as the first spacecraft to achieve a soft-landing on the surface of a comet. While NASA’s Deep Impact, released a probe to collide with a comet as a part of its scientific observations in 2005, no mission has accomplished a controlled soft-landing on a comet’s nucleus before. “Our ambitious Rosetta mission has secured a place in the history books: not only is it the first to rendezvous with and orbit a comet, but it is now also the first to deliver a lander to a comet’s surface,” ESA’s Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain said. [WATCH LIVE: Webcasts Of The European Space Agency’s Philae Probe Landing On A Comet] The ESA launched its Rosetta spacecraft on March 2, 2004 on an ambitious mission to orbit and then deploy a probe to the surface of a comet, in feats never before accomplished by a spacecraft. Rosetta became the first spacecraft to rendezvous with and orbit a comet on August 6, 2014. The goal of the Rosetta mission is to provide the most detailed observations of a comet to date in order to better understand the composition of a comet’s nucleus and the changes it undergoes as it passes by the sun. Comets, icy remnants left over from the dawn of our solar system, could provide clues as to the conditions that existed 4.6 billion years ago. [WATCH: Game Of Thrones’ Aidan Gillen Appears In Sci-Fi Short Film About ESA’s Rosetta Mission] Read more: http://www.penny4nasa.org/2014/11/12/european-rosetta-mission-makes-historic-comet-landing/

[for-all-mankind]

Just how big is comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, that Philae will land on tomorrow? Here is a nifty infographic comparing the comet of the Rosetta mission with the comet that famously passed by Mars last month. To help bring these sizes into fathomable scales, both celestial bodies are show atop Los Angeles. Cool graphic comparing Rosetta’s comet, 67P with comet Siding Spring atop Los Angeles. 

Graphic Credit: Credit: ESA.

[spacettf]

ROLIS descent image by europeanspaceagency on Flickr.

[neuronsandneutrons]

hey look who decided to come back

[dinosaurchannel-blog]

Carnotaurus skull by Tess Kissinger 

[alphaqueer-blog]

i just need to get my shit together

— me in 2009/2012/this time last year/a minute ago/next year probably (via guy)

[kny111]

IC 342 by Velimir Popov, Emil Ivanov

Lies at low galactic latitude, only 10.5 degrees from the Galactic Equator, or the Milky Way’s disc plane. Therefore, it is heavily obscured by interstellar matter of the Milky Way.