Global Consciousness - Edgar Mitchell: Apollo 14 Astronaut - Cartoon

 

 

All credit for the cartoon goes to Zen Pencils

Science off the Sphere: Fun with Antibubbles - YouTube

International Space Station astronaut Don Pettit constructs “anti-bubbles” –  a series of thick-rimmed bubbles inside other bubbles, all of which center themselves, in a kind of Russian nesting doll fashion.

Also see Pettit’s astounding explanation of physics in space and how the aurora borealis works, using knitting needles and water droplets.

Yuri Gagarin's First Orbit of Earth - Video film

The real time recreation of humanity's first human space flight by Russia's Yuri Gagarin in a Soyuz rocket, on 12 April 1961.

This film was created to celebrate our first footsteps into the cosmos.

Click on the Image to visit the First Orbit site and play the whole film.

NASA GRACE Data Visualisation of groundwater Depletion

A new visualization of global groundwater depletion created using data from NASA's GRACE mission has premiered on New York’s Times Square to mark World Water Day 2012. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UC Irvine/USGS/Richard Vijgen/Peggy Weil/Heads Up! 2012

To highlight declines in the world's groundwater supplies, a new visualization of Earth's groundwater reserves, created in part with space data from the joint NASA/German Aerospace Center (DLR) Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, debuted on New York's Times Square on March 22, International World Water Day.

The 30-second animation, titled "Visualizing Seasonal and Long-term Changes in Groundwater Levels," will be on display several times each hour through April 22 on Times Square's massive Thomson Reuters and NASDAQ digital signboards.

Viewers of the interactive animation are invited to use their mobile devices to submit their city and add a graph to the sign. The animation can be viewed at: http://vimeo.com/user10042778 .

Netherlands designer Richard Vijgen developed the animation using GRACE data analyzed by professor Jay Famiglietti, director of the UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling at the University of California, Irvine; and from United States Geological Survey data supplied by Leonard Konikow.

Vijgen was the winning entry in an international design visualization competition sponsored by the organization.

HeadsUP!, in collaboration with Visualizing.org. Founded by digital media artist Peggy Weil, HeadsUp! challenges designers to visualize critical global issues and create a shared sign for the public square.

Groundwater is a critical, but often overlooked, natural resource. According to a U.N. report, more than 1.5 billion people around the world depend on groundwater for their drinking water.

It comes from the natural percolation of precipitation and other surface waters down through Earth's soil and rock, accumulating in cavities and layers of porous rock, gravel, sand or clay.

Groundwater levels respond slowly to changes in weather and can take months or years to replenish once pumped for irrigation or other uses.

Famiglietti's analyses show that groundwater is being depleted at alarming rates in many of the world's major aquifers. "The GRACE data set is exciting, because it gives us the first global pictures of Earth's changing freshwater," he said.

The twin GRACE satellites, which celebrated their 10th year in orbit this week, measure minute changes in Earth's gravity field by measuring micron-scale variations in the separation between the two spacecraft, flying in formation 137 miles (220 kilometers) apart in low Earth orbit.

These variations in gravitational pull are caused by local changes in Earth's mass. Masses of water, ice, air and solid Earth can be moved by weather patterns, seasonal change, climate change and even tectonic events such as large earthquakes. GRACE was developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

The Stars as Viewed from the International Space Station - Video

The Stars as Viewed from the International Space Station. from AJRCLIPS on Vimeo.

The Stars as Viewed from the International Space Station.

Lockheed Martin Space Fence Radar Prototype Tracking Orbiting Objects

A prototype of a new radar system developed by a Lockheed Martin-led team is now tracking orbiting space objects, bringing the U.S. Air Force's Space Fence program one step closer to revolutionizing our nation's space situational awareness.

Utilizing powerful, new ground-based radars, Space Fence will enhance the way the U.S. detects, tracks, measures and catalogs orbiting objects and space debris with improved accuracy, better timeliness and increased surveillance coverage.

Lockheed Martin's prototype radar recently met a key contract requirement during a series of demonstration events by proving it could detect these resident space objects, as they are referred to by the Air Force.

On February 29, the Air Force granted its final approval of Lockheed Martin's preliminary design for the system.

"The successful detection and tracking of resident space objects are important steps in demonstrating technology maturity, cost certainty and low program risk," said Steve Bruce, vice president of the Space Fence program at Lockheed Martin's Mission Systems and Sensors business.

"Our final system design incorporates a scalable, solid-state S-band radar, with a higher wavelength frequency capable of detecting much smaller objects than the Air Force's current system."

Space Fence will enable the decommissioning of the aging U.S.-based Air Force Space Surveillance System (AFSSS), originally installed in 1961.

With more than 60 nations operating in space today, the final frontier is much more complex than when the AFSSS first started tracking a few hundred orbiting objects.

With hundreds of thousands of objects orbiting the earth, space debris and risk of potential collisions now threaten national space assets providing critical services, including the Global Positioning System, banking and telecommunications.

Bruce added, "Space Fence will detect, track and catalogue over 200,000 orbiting objects and help transform space situational awareness from being reactive to predictive. The Air Force will have more time to anticipate events potentially impacting space assets and missions. Our net-centric design approach allows Space Fence to be easily integrated into the broader U.S. Space Surveillance Network of sensors already operated by the Air Force."

Lockheed Martin's Space Fence prototype was developed under an 18-month, $107 million contract awarded by the Air Force in January 2011.

The Air Force has said it plans to award a Space Fence production contract later in 2012. The first of several Space Fence sites is expected to reach initial operational capability in 2017.

Space Elevator Plans Unveiled by Japanese

Getting to space may become be as simple as pressing the "door close" button of an elevator, as imagined by Japanese construction company Obayashi Corp.

The company unveiled plans Wednesday to build a space elevator with a hopeful completion date of 2050.

According to the proposal, 30 passengers at a time would depart from the equator and travel in an enclosure guided by a 60,000 mile (96,000 km) cable that stretches a quarter of the way to the moon.

The final destination would be a spaceport that contains laboratories and living quarters 22,000 miles (35,000 km) above the Earth's surface.

Engineers expect to anchor the cable by a counterweight attached to the space end to help keep the line taut. Solar panels would provide electricity to power the station.

Don't expect a quick ride though. Even travelling at 124 mph (200 km/h) the trip would expect to take a week.

One issue that has plagued space elevator designs is finding the right material to build such a long cable. Engineers from Obayashi Corp. believe carbon nanotubes, super-light and super-strong sheets of carbon rolled into tubes, might be the answer if they can be mass produced cheap enough.

"At this moment, we cannot estimate the cost for the project," an Obayashi official reported. "However, we'll try to make steady progress so that it won't end just up as simply a dream."

Safety would play a large role in the construction of the elevator. Passengers need to be protected from the expected radiation exposure during the trip. In addition, the elevator and spaceport would not orbit around the Earth, which puts it at risk of collision with orbiting satellites.

Space elevators are not a new concept. In 1895, Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was inspired by the Eiffel Tower and conceptually designed a space elevator 22,200 miles (35,800 km) high he called a "celestial castle", according to NASA.

ESA ISS Image: Bonaire, Curacao, Aruba

Bonaire, Curacao, Aruba

Credit: ESA/NASA

Earth's Auroras and Thunderstorms: A Dramatic View from Space

We’ve shown you What a Hurricane Looks Like From Outer Space and NASA’s 7 Minute Tour of the Earth from Space (in HD). Now comes new high resolution footage from the International Space Station that gives you a dramatic view of coastlines and countries around the world.

Produced by Space Rip, this clip will give you an extraordinary view of England, France, Italy, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Greece, the island of Crete, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, the United States, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Cuba.

Find this video housed in our collection of 125 Great Science Videos. If you love space travel, astronomy, physics, neuroscience or technology, then you will definitely want to spend time rummaging through the collection.

Pictures of Earth City Lights at Night: Egypt and The Nile

Earthbound folks rarely get the chance to see how the planet's city lights glow from space.

In 2010, author L. Douglas Keeney noticed pictures being tweeted by astronauts on the International Space Station.

The clear images of Earth's city lights were made possible by new camera technology that was able to shoot high-resolution photos even as the station moved at a rapid 17,500 miles an hour some 240 miles above Earth's surface.

Keeney then got to work, pouring through more than 300,000 unmarked NASA photo, choosing 400 of the best images for his book the Lights of Mankind: The Earth at Night as Seen from Space.

Keeney shared seven of his favorite photos with us, which he dubbed the "Seven Wonder of the Nightime World."

Pictures of Earth City Lights at Night from Space

iPAD Falls from Edge of Space and Survives - Video

Attached to a weather balloon, an Apple iPad was lifted to over 100,000 feet and dropped back down to Earth encased in G-Form Extreme Edge case. It remained on throughout the drop and landed fully functional.

ESA Proba-1 Images of Earth from Space

The Pyramids of Giza, nearby Cairo in Egypt.

The Mysterious and Mystical Uluru or Ayres Rock in Australia.

GPS, relativity, and nuclear detection - YouTube

Thanks to GPS, planes, cars and cellphones can quickly be guided to any destination. The system uses a network of satellites, but how do they relay the correct coordinates from space?

In our latest One-Minute Physics episode, animator Henry Reich explains why GPS is just a big clock in space. By communicating with four time-keeping satellites, a GPS device can determine it's exact position - but that's after it corrects for the effects of general relativity.

If you enjoyed this video, check out the rest of our One-Minute Physics series. You can find out how to break the speed of light in your backyard or see how a particle can also be a wave.

NASA's Astronaut Mike Fossum: Image of Earth's Aurora

Air Force's X-37B Robot Space Plane: Secret Mission may go on longer

After nearly seven months of flight, the U.S. Air Force's latest X-37B robotic space plane is nearing a milestone in its supersonic super-secret mission in Earth orbit as it chalks up air mileage and operational experience.

As of last week, the re-usable X-37B space plane had been in orbit for more than 206 days, two months shy of its 270-day mission design lifetime.

The spacecraft, which looks like a miniature space shuttle, launched on its clandestine mission on March 5 from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The space plane is the second X-37B spacecraft built for the Air Force by Boeing's Phantom Works and carries the name Orbital Test Vehicle 2, or OTV-2.

China prepares to launch first space lab module this week

Engineers are conducting the final preparations before launching China's first space laboratory module at the end of this week at a launch center in northwest China.

The unmanned Tiangong-1 module was originally scheduled to be launched into low Earth orbit between Sept. 27 and 30.

However, a weather forecast showing the arrival of a cold air mass at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center forced the launch to be rescheduled for Sept. 29 or 30, depending on weather and other factors.

"This is a significant test. We've never done such a thing before," said Lu Jinrong, the launch center's chief engineer.

A full ground simulation was conducted on Sunday afternoon to ensure that the module and its Long March 2F carrier rocket are prepared for the actual launch.

Cui Jijun, commander-in-chief of the launch site system and director of Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, told Xinhua that they developed a new target spacecraft for the mission and made more than 170 technical improvements to the Long March 2F, China's manned orbital carrier rocket.

Engineers have also made more than 100 updates at the launch site in order to make it compatible with the Tiangong-1, Cui added.

The module will conduct docking experiments after entering orbit, which is the first step in China's space station program.

Cui said the launch site has an updated computer center and command monitoring system and increased ability to adapt to changes in mission conditions, as well as the resources to handle both the launch and command duties. An integrated simulation training system for space launching has also been developed for the docking mission.

The mission comes just one month after the Long March 2C rocket malfunctioned and failed to send an experimental satellite into orbit. The Tiangong-1 mission was subsequently rescheduled in order to allow engineers to sort out any problems that might occur during the launch.

Carl Sagan and the Blue Dot

Click on the picture to play the GIF!

Soviet Space Secret: Laika the Space dog

3 November 1957: The dog Laika (meaning stray dog), the first living creature ever to orbit the earth, is launched aboard Sputnik II.

Laika dies a few hours after launch, although this is kept secret until 2002.

Instead, the Soviets claim she lived for several days.

A view of the Tropical Cyclone Yasi as it moves over Australia's Queensland.

This picture was taken by ESA's ISS Astronaut Paolo Nespoli through the Cupola window.

Russia to launch half of carrier rockets from Far East space centre by 2020

Russia to launch half of carrier from Far East space centre by 2020. Photo courtesy RIA Novosti.

The space centre is intended as a "new stage in the development of Russian cosmonautics." 

It will host almost 1,500 facilities, including two launch systems, a training centre, and oxygen and hydrogen generation plants, Viktor Remishevsky said during a round table meeting in the Far Eastern Amur Region.

"A new, modern town, comfortable in every respect and intended for specialists in the space sphere and their families will be created here," Remishevsky said.

The new space centre is being created using the most advanced technologies, which minimise environmental damage, said the chief designer of a company involved in the construction of the space centre.

Russia currently uses two launch sites: the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan, which it has leased to ESA and Nasa, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Plesetsk space centre in northwest Russia.

The new space centre, which is forecast to employ 20,000-25,000 people, will ensure Russia's independence in the launch of piloted space vehicles, currently carried out at Baikonur.

The Russian government intends to spend 24.7 billion rubles (around $811,000) on the construction, which is expected to start in 2011.

Vostochny is expected to be put into operation in 2015 and be used for launching cargo spacecraft and satellites at the first stage. It is planned that manned spacecraft will not be launched from the space centre before 2018.