Now that was badass.
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/4180/img0486.jpg
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/5135/img0483om.jpg
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It's riding piggyback!
I saw the first shuttle launch after the Challenger disaster. Me and some friends ditched school, drove down to Fort Lauderdale, spent the night in some seedy motel, woke up the next morning and drove the rest of the way to Cape Canaveral. As I recall, we were running late and would have missed the whole thing, but luckily the launch was delayed by about an hour or so. It was an amazing sight. One interesting thing: although it seemed like we were fairly close to the pad, we were far enough away that it took more than a few seconds for the sound to reach us. So when the rocket boosters fired up and the whole launching pad seemed like it was engulfed in flame and there's steam and exhaust everywhere, it all happened in silence. Everyone was cheering, momentarily drowning out the countdown that someone was playing on the radio. THEN the sound of the launch hit us, and it was so loud and thunderous you literally couldn't hear the person next to you. Just a complete sonic blast.
Great idea!Quote:
Originally Posted by Lily Adams
We are the astronomical family with a reasonably good telescope. The kids love it!
I've always wanted to see a shuttle launch. The closest I've gotten was heading north on I-75 and seeing the launch way in the distance out the back window. It was too far to even bother to stop, but we could still see the steam and flames.
I'm hoping to catch the departure tomorrow.
Great story Basil, it is still surprising to me when I see kids hitting a baseball maybe a hundred yards or so away, with the (not so loud) sound of the bat arriving maybe a second late. Waiting a number of seconds and then being deafened, wow.Quote:
Originally Posted by Basil
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LC...iew/index.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33226607...science-space/
ack, do you think they'll find brie or camembert??
This is an act of war!
Be warned, it will NOT be tolerated!
You pathetic humans shall soon find out what a full moon really means.
Meteor Shower tonight!!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33891078...ace/?GT1=43001
Big ol' moon tonight.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/201001...nof2010tonight
I'm going to have to look. Hopefully the clouds will hold off and not ruin the view. The moon is always somehow prettier in the fall and winter timeQuote:
Originally Posted by papayahed
Wonderful view of the moon last night, Mars clearly visible as well, high tide in the estuary making a bright 'Dead Man's Candle' - the local name for the path of light from the moon reflected in the water, supposedly presaging a death if you see it, a creepy name for such a beautiful sight. But ten minutes later, the clouds rolled in and later in the evening we had snow - the moonlight over the snowy garden in the small hours was worth getting up to see however.
doh! Cloud cover.
It is isn't it? I think it's a conspiracy that the best time for sky watching is in the coldest part of the year.Quote:
Originally Posted by mkhockenberry
"While we humans carry on with our daily lives down here on Earth, perhaps stuck in traffic or reading blogs, or just enjoying a Springtime stroll, a school-bus-sized spacecraft called Cassini continues to gather data and images for us - 1.4 billion kilometers (870 million miles) away". A friend of mine found this amazing set of pictures, and I just had to share it here:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/201...on_saturn.html
/Claes
Love those close-ups of the moons.
Thanks Claes, those pics are freakin' awesome.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sh...niversary.html
50th anniversary of the first man in space.
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/7...inyurig516.jpg
Visible from China to Texas:
http://www.space.com/15775-solar-ecl...ble-today.html
I'm 20 minutes from Texas, I hope I can see a portion.
I'm on the right side of the planet, but it might be too cloudy today.
I caught about two minutes of it until the sun set.
:( Is it eclipsing right now? Stupid clouds.
I'm in the wrong area, but we did get a full-arc rainbow after a brief shower this evening. And you can look directly at rainbows.
ya.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
s5cr
The view corridor fizzled out somewhere around Lubbock in west Texas, so no luck here on the eastern side.Quote:
Originally Posted by papayahed
10Gbigtex45
NASA’s latest and greatest Mars rover, known as Curiosity, will attempt to land on Mars early Monday morning (or late Sunday night, depending on where you are on Earth). The landing is scheduled for 05:31 (UTC), which is Monday morning at 1:31am Eastern in the US, or 10:31pm Pacific time Sunday night. Because Mars is quite far from us, there will be a 14-minute delay before transmissions related to the landing will reach us — which will make the viewing party that much more of a nail-biter.
Read the full text here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/arc...#ixzz22igsBNjQ
--brought to you by mental_floss!
Thanks for the reminder.
This mission almost got by me due to work deadlines.
Another reminder-August is Perseid Meteor shower month.
http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essent...r-shower-guide
August 11, 12 and 13th are the peak nights.
excerpt
August 11, 12 and 13. The moon will be a waning crescent then, and the meteors should be flying at a rate closer to their peak of 50 or 60 meteors per hour. As an added treat – on August 11, 12 and 13 – the moon will be sweeping past the brightest planets Venus and Jupiter in the eastern predawn sky. You can’t ask for more!
Now about 40 minutes away from entry. After that, there'll be a delay, due to the need to bounce the info off a NASA satellite orbiting Mars (called [strike]Observer[/strike] Odyssey), and then the data travels for 7 minutes through space to Earth. Various unknown factors could make the whole thing a mystery for as long as a few days, but with luck they'll know tonight, before 2AM EST, I guess...Quote:
Originally Posted by papayahed
you can "watch" live here:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/nasatv/
Everything went great, and they even got a little photo of the horizon and sun with a rover wheel in the corner before the relay satellite's orbit went over the horizon and lost contact.
http://twitter.com/NASA/status/23235.../photo/1/large
it's a VERY small thumbnail, but it isn't bad if you expand it.
:banana: Hahaa, they did it! According to reddit there was only a 30% chance of success. More photos + article here. Now let's see if the rock ever supported life, and conceivably could again. :p
It was a pretty intense few minutes, and then a wonderful space-nerd-hugfest!
The only downside to this whole thing is that there will probably be a lot of poor, HG Wells did it better without the technology, sci-fi. Hopefully some good ones, but I see a lot of bad ones coming.