Archive for May, 2009
Shuttle in a Sling
Going out of town this weekend (writing this late Thursday evening) and I don’t have the energy for a full-on Friday Picspam this week… so here, have a shuttle in a sling. This is shuttle Atlantis at Dryden Flight Research Center, preparing to be ferried back to Florida on the back of a 747.
Fascinated by Outer Space
Posted by Danielle in Fashion & Accessories on May 28, 2009
The Tarantula Nebula
This is one from further back in the APOD archives, the Tarantula Nebula:
Explanation: The Tarantula Nebula is a giant emission nebula within our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud. Inside this cosmic arachnid lies a huge central young cluster of massive stars, cataloged as R136 and partially visible on the upper right. The energetic light and winds from this cluster light up the nebula and sculpt the surrounding gas and dust into vast complex filaments. These “tentacles” give the Tarantula Nebula its name. In this impressive color image from the Wide-Field Imager camera on ESO’s 2.2-meter telescope at La Silla Observatory, intricacies of the nebula’s complex array of dust and gas are visible. A 300 light-year portion of the Tarantula Nebula is imaged. The Tarantula Nebula, also dubbed 30 Doradus, lies 170,000 light years away toward the constellation of Dorado.
Star Trek
Posted by Danielle in Computer & Internet on May 26, 2009
The Iconfactory has long been one of my favorite haunts, and yet again they’ve delivered, with official desktop wallpapers and icons from the new Star Trek movie. I mean… really, who wouldn’t want these on their desktop??
Happy Landing
STS-125 landed safely yesterday at Edwards Air Force Base — congratulations to the successful conclusion of the last Hubble servicing mission!
Friday Picspam, part 7
Above, yesterday’s APOD in beautiful shades of blue; below, today’s NASA Image of the Day in beautiful shades of trippy-reflection-of-shuttle-controls.
Hyperion looks like a sponge. If they sold Hyperion-brand dish sponges, I’d buy ‘em. I admit it.
Colors in image below are less visible than they appear. Still, I like it:
Finally, if you haven’t seen Lunch Bag Art, you’re really missing out; he featured the new Star Trek movie on May 11:
Kern in Space
Posted by Danielle in Entertainment on May 21, 2009
Kern in Space is a funny little game: deceptively simple, frustratingly difficult. I never knew fonts and rocket engines could collide… there ya go. What is this mysterious “kerning”? Find out.
Apollo 11 Transcript
Posted by Danielle in Advertising & Media on May 20, 2009
I can’t recall who posted this on my Twitter feed, but Baekdal.com featured this unusual poster back in March, which was commissioned by Motorola in 2002. The poster is simple: the entire Apollo 11 moon landing transcript, with Neil Armstrong’s famous words printed in red:
Central Milky Way
I usually avoid reposting APOD pictures on the day they appear, but today’s image by Robert Gendler is just too pretty not to repost.
Explanation: What does the center of our Milky Way Galaxy look like? In visible light, no one knows! It is not possible to see the Galactic center in light our eyes are sensitive to because the thick dust in the plane of our Galaxy obscures it. If one looks in the direction of our Galaxy’s center – which is toward the constellation of Sagittarius – many beautiful wonders become apparent, though. Large dust lanes and star clouds dominate the picture. As many as 30 Messier Objects are visible in the above spectacular image mosaic, including all types of nebulas and star clusters. Two notable nebula include the Lagoon Nebula (M8), a red patch just above and to the right of center, and slightly to its right is the red and blue Trifid Nebula (M20).
More transits
Another amazing solar transit image of Atlantis, taken by the formidable Thierry Legault (via Flight Plan):
The following transit has been taken from the vicinity of the Kennedy Space Center on May 12th, only 24 hours after the launch of Atlantis as it was halfway to Hubble, at a distance of only 260 km. Duration of the transit: only 0.3 second. The thin silhouette confirms that the cargo bay doors were opened.
Looking at this crisp transit image, I found myself scratching my head, wondering where I’d seen Legault’s name before. It seemed awfully familiar… maybe from a few years back? And then I remembered THIS:
Far and away, one of the best space images of 2006, and one that fascinated me from the moment I first beheld it!
Image of the solar transit of the International Space Station (ISS) and Space Shuttle Atlantis (50 minutes after undocking from the ISS, before return to Earth), taken from the area of Mamers (Normandie, France) on september 17th 2006 at 13h 38min 50s UT
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