Internet-D

Solar images in three different wavelengths in extreme ultraviolet light are combined together to show solar activity over almost three months (June 2 — Aug. 26, 2010). Each wavelength is shown in a different color. The wavelengths are at 211 (red – 2 million degrees), 193 (green – 1.3 million degrees), and 171 Angstroms (blue – 600,000 degrees). The cadence is basically a frame every 45 minutes. The brightest areas are active regions, which have stronger magnetic field than the surrounding area.

Solar Dynamics Observatory

Explanation: Have you ever seen the Milky Way’s glow create shadows? To do so, conditions need to be just right. First and foremost, the sky must be relatively clear of clouds so that the long band of the Milky Way’s central disk can be seen. The surroundings must be very near to completely dark, with no bright artificial lights visible anywhere. Next, the Moon cannot be anywhere above the horizon, or its glow will dominate the landscape. Last, the shadows can best be caught on long camera exposures. In the above image taken in Port Campbell National Park, Victoria, Australia, seven 15-second images of the ground and de-rotated sky were digitally added to bring up the needed light and detail. In the foreground lies Loch Ard Gorge, named after a ship that tragically ran aground in 1878. The two rocks pictured are the remnants of a collapsed arch and are named Tom and Eva after the only two people who survived that Loch Ard ship wreck. A close inspection of the water just before the rocks will show reflections and shadows in light thrown by our Milky Way galaxy. Low clouds are visible moving through the serene scene in this movie.

Lots of cool links, check them out.
APOD

An Australian company Tuesday said it had developed a laser tracking system that will stop chunks of space debris colliding with spacecraft and satellites in the Earth’s orbit.

Sounds like this is the start of a global effort to thwart the Kessler Syndrome from happening.

via Spacemart.

If a human ever sets foot on Mars, will it be a giant step or an exhausted shuffle?  Long-term space flight so weakens fitness that an astronaut heading to the Red Planet may lose up to half the power in key muscles in the course of the mission, scientists have found.The loss — equivalent to a crew member aged between 30 and 50 returning home with the muscles of an 80-year-old — would add a major danger to a trip already laden with peril, they said.

Sounds like they need to keep up the gravity on their trip.

via Mars daily.

Whisky lovers have another excuse to enjoy a dram — scientists in Scotland on Tuesday unveiled a biofuel to help power cars developed from the by-products of the distillation process.Researchers at Edinburgh Napier University have developed the biofuel and filed a patent for the product, which they said could be used to fuel ordinary cars without any special adaptations.The biofuel, which has been developed during a two-year research project, uses the two main by-products from the whisky production process…

I knew all that whiskey I drink would help science!

via Spacemart.

Explanation: What are these strange color bands being seen from the International Space Station? The Sun setting through Earth’s atmosphere. Pictured above, a sunset captured last month by the ISS’s Expedition 23 crew shows in vivid detail many layers of the Earth’s thin atmosphere. Part of the Earth experiencing night crosses the bottom of the image. Above that, appearing in deep orange and yellow, is the Earth’s troposphere, which contains 80 percent of the atmosphere by mass and almost all of the clouds in the sky. Above the troposphere, seen as a light blue band with white clouds, is the stratosphere, part of the Earth’s atmosphere where airplanes fly and some hardy bacteria float. Above the stratosphere, visible as a darker blue bands, are higher and thinner atmospheric levels that gradually fade away into the cold dark vacuum of outer space. Sunset is not an uncommon sight for occupants of the International Space Station, because it can be seen as many as 16 times a day.

APOD: Wallpaper

Researchers at the space agency believe they have discovered vital clues that appeared to indicate that primitive aliens could be living on the planet.

Data from Nasa’s Cassini probe has analysed the complex chemistry on the surface of Titan, which experts say is the only moon around the planet to have a dense atmosphere.

They have discovered that life forms have been breathing in the planet’s atmosphere and also feeding on its surface’s fuel.

Astronomers claim the moon is generally too cold to support even liquid water on its surface.

The research has been detailed in two separate studies.
…

Telegraph.co.uk

Cape Canaveral, Florida (CNN) — Friday’s test launch of the Falcon 9 rocket was “essentially a bullseye,” SpaceX officials said after the rocket successfully pushed past the earth’s atmosphere and deposited a mock-up of its Dragon space capsule in orbit.

The successful launch is the latest step toward commercial space ventures that could eventually ferry astronauts and cargo to the international space station….

CNN

I’m going to buy the shit out of this set.  this looks fucking awesome, and I promise you, when I purchase and build this, I will post images, both here and on MCS.

New Lego Space Shuttle Is the Ultimate Nerdgasm – Nasa – Gizmodo.

YouTube – Shuttle’s Toilet Requires Special Training.

Explanation: As far as pulsars go, PSR B1509-58 appears young. Light from the supernova explosion that gave birth to it would have first reached Earth some 1,700 years ago. The magnetized, 20 kilometer-diameter neutron star spins 7 times per second, a cosmic dynamo that powers a wind of charged particles. The energetic wind creates the surrounding nebula’s X-ray glow in this tantalizing image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Low energy X-rays are in red, medium energies in green, and high energies in blue. The pulsar itself is in the bright central region. Remarkably, the nebula’s tantalizing, complicated structure resembles a hand. PSR B1509-58 is about 17,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Circinus. At that distance the Chandra image spans 100 light-years.

APOD

The prevailing theory is that it s some kind of future weapons platform and or combat spaceship. Such a thought is further cemented by the words of Colonel Andre Lovett vice commander of the Air Force s 45th Space Wing who offered the following in a statement after the launch “This launch helps ensure that our warfighters will be provided the capabilities they need in the future.”

Do you know what he means? ODSTs for real.

via Unmanned robotic space plane today, X-Wing tomorrow? | DVICE.

This breaks my heart, and I wasn’t even there. Imagine all that hard work, sabotaged by stupid wind. WIND.
EPICponyz: NASA Balloon Crashes During Launch.

Explanation: Don’t panic, the Sun has not gone wild. But this wild-looking portrait of the nearest star to planet Earth was made on March 30th by the recently launched Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Shown in false-color, the composite view covers extreme ultraviolet wavelengths and traces hot plasma at temperatures approaching 1 million kelvins. At full resolution, SDO image data is intended to explore solar activity in unprecedented detail. In fact, SDO will send 1.5 terabytes of data back each day, equivalent to a daily download of about half a million MP3 songs. New SDO data releases include a high-resolution movie of the large, eruptive prominence seen along the solar limb at the upper left.

This is stunningly beautiful.

Full size pic @ APOD
Update to the post, The Sun Farts.

Explanation: What’s happened to our Sun? Last week, it produced one of the largest eruptive prominences ever seen. Pictured above, the prominence erupted in only a few hours and was captured in movie form by NASA’s twin Sun-orbiting STEREO satellites. A quiescent solar prominence is a cloud of hot solar gas held above the Sun’s surface by the Sun’s magnetic field. Unpredictably, however, prominences may erupt, expelling hot gas into the Solar System via a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). As pictured above, many Earths would easily fit under the expanding ribbon of hot gas. Although somehow related to the Sun’s changing magnetic field, the energy mechanism that creates and sustains a Solar prominence is still a topic of research.

APOD

Explanation: On the right, surrounded by blue spiral arms, is spiral galaxy M81. On the left, marked by red gas and dust clouds, is irregular galaxy M82. This stunning vista shows these two mammoth galaxies locked in gravitational combat, as they have been for the past billion years. The gravity from each galaxy dramatically affects the other during each hundred million-year pass. Last go-round, M82′s gravity likely raised density waves rippling around M81, resulting in the richness of M81′s spiral arms. But M81 left M82 with violent star forming regions and colliding gas clouds so energetic the galaxy glows in X-rays. In a few billion years only one galaxy will remain.

APOD

Explanation: Dramatic prominences can sometimes be seen looming just beyond the edge of the sun. Such was the case last week as a giant prominence, visible above on the right, highlighted a Sun showing increased activity as it comes off an unusually quiet Solar Minimum. A changing carpet of hot gas is visible in the chromosphere of the Sun in the above image taken in a very specific color of light emitted by hydrogen. A solar prominence is a cloud of solar gas held just above the surface by the Sun’s magnetic field. The Earth would easily fit below the prominence on the right. Although very hot, prominences typically appear dark when viewed against the Sun, since they are slightly cooler than the surface. A quiescent prominence typically lasts about a month, and may erupt in a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) expelling hot gas into the Solar System. The next day, the same prominence looked slightly different.

APOD
I like pretty pictures.

The White Mountain (extended) from charles on Vimeo.

toomanytribbles: the white mountain.

Just two weeks after the arrival of the Internet, the International Space Station is getting an Italian-made observation deck that will offer panoramic views of Earth.

Space shuttle Endeavour will deliver the seven-windowed dome to the International Space Station next week, along with more living space in an chamber called Tranquility.

One of the more striking things that I’ve seen about the ISS is that there’s only a single window on the entire thing, and it’s just a small port hole that has to be covered and uncovered, much like this.  Let’s hope this results in more pictures from the station.

via Observation deck for International Space Station offers panoramic views | Mail Online.

So you undoubtedly know about TED talks, and of TEDx, the independently-organized TED events around the world. We had one recently in Vancouver, where Neill Blomkamp was a speaker. The video of his talk went up a couple of days ago, and regardless of whether it contains the direction of his next/a future film (which I strongly feel it does) that he’s going to do, it’s a pretty captivating, theoretical science-driven vision of our universe, life on other planets, and the future of human civilization in a way that most of us probably haven’t ever thought of. I think you’ll love it.

Amazing. Neill Blomkamp is one smart dude.

Explanation: This tiny ball provides evidence that the universe will expand forever. Measuring slightly over one tenth of a millimeter, the ball moves toward a smooth plate in response to energy fluctuations in the vacuum of empty space. The attraction is known as the Casimir Effect, named for its discoverer, who, 50 years ago, was trying to understand why fluids like mayonnaise move so slowly. Today, evidence is accumulating that most of the energy density in the universe is in an unknown form dubbed dark energy. The form and genesis of dark energy is almost completely unknown, but postulated as related to vacuum fluctuations similar to the Casimir Effect but generated somehow by space itself. This vast and mysterious dark energy appears to gravitationally repel all matter and hence will likely cause the universe to expand forever. Understanding vacuum fluctuations is on the forefront of research not only to better understand our universe but also for stopping micro-mechanical machine parts from sticking together.

APOD

The International Year of Astronomy 2009 ended with a Blue Moon and a partial lunar eclipse, as the second Full Moon of December grazed the Earth’s shadow on December 31st. The New Year’s Eve Blue Moon eclipse was visible throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and parts of Alaska, captured in this two exposure composite in cloudy skies over Saint Bonnet de Mure, France. Playing across the Moon’s southern reaches, the edge of Earth’s umbra, or dark central shadow, appears on the right side along with the prominent ray crater Tycho. At maximum eclipse, the umbra covered only about 8 percent of the diameter of the lunar disk.

APOD

Explanation: How do planets form? To help find out, the Hubble Space Telescope was tasked to take a detailed look at one of the more interesting of all astronomical nebulae, the Great Nebula in Orion. The Orion nebula, visible with the unaided eye near the belt in the constellation of Orion, is an immense nearby starbirth region and probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Insets to the above mosaic show numerous proplyds, many of which are stellar nurseries likely harboring planetary systems in formation. Some proplyds glow as close disks surrounding bright stars light up, while other proplyds contain disks further from their host star, contain cooler dust, and hence appear as dark silhouettes against brighter gas. Studying this dust, in particular, is giving insight for how planets are forming. Many proplyd images also show arcs that are shock waves – fronts where fast moving material encounters slow moving gas. The Orion Nebula lies about 1,500 light years distant and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as our Sun.

APOD

The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. The new film, created by the Museum, is part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan through May 2010.

American Museum of Natural History

We are insignificant.