2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

A Mechanical Harmony to NASA’s Webb Telescope Sunshield

NASA’s Webb telescope sunshield, opened for inspection. In this photo, engineers and scientists examine the sunshield layers on this full-sized test unit.    Image courtesy Northrop Grumman and Alex Evers. For a larger version of this image please go here. Watch a video on the research here and here.

Read more ~ SpaceDaily

Station Concept, NASA (1969)

NASA vs Amtrak vs the National Park Service

Space tourism is still a ways off, but NASA, everybody’s favorite government agency, released some pretty sweet posters for destinations you’ll (hopefully!) be able to visit someday. 

Turns out, they’re not the only agency with some pretty rad graphic design. Here’s one of Amtrak’s iconic rail lines. 

And this poster for Yellowstone National Park, from 1938. 

Although NASA claims there might be a few more geysers to see on Enceladus

Or maybe take a trip closer to home.

Or go visit the histroic Sequoia National Park. This poster is from the early 40′s. 

For the history buff, see some of NASA’s historic sites, on Mars!

But even NASA knows, there’s only one Earth, “Your Oasis in Space.” 

See the full NASA collection over at their website. 

-Austin

Gordon C Davies

Pluto’s twilight zone

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft took this stunning image of Pluto only a few minutes after closest approach on July 14, 2015. The image was obtained at a high phase angle –that is, with the sun on the other side of Pluto, as viewed by New Horizons. Seen here, sunlight filters through and illuminates Pluto’s complex atmospheric haze layers. The southern portions of the nitrogen ice plains informally named Sputnik Planum, as well as mountains of the informally named Norgay Montes, can also be seen across Pluto’s crescent at the top of the image.

Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

Milky Way over Mt. Jefferson js

Mercury In the Spotlight

For more than seven hours on Monday, May 9, Mercury will be visible as a tiny black dot crossing the face of the sun. This rare event – which happens only slightly more than once a decade – is called a transit.

Although Mercury whips around the sun every 88 days – over four times faster than Earth – the three bodies rarely align. Because Mercury orbits in a plane 7 degrees tilted from Earth’s orbit, it usually darts above or below our line of sight to the sun. As a result, a Mercury transit happens only about 13 times a century. The last one was in 2006, and the next one isn’t until 2019.

When: On May 9, shortly after 7:00 a.m. EDT, Mercury will appear as a tiny black dot against a blazing backdrop, traversing the sun’s disk over seven and a half hours. Mercury will cross the edge of the sun (ingress) after 7:00 a.m. EDT. The mid-transit point will occur a little after 10:45 a.m. EDT, with egress around 2:30 p.m. EDT.

Where: Skywatchers in Western Europe, South America and eastern North America will be able to see the entirety of the transit. The entire 7.5-hour path across the sun will be visible across the Eastern U.S. – with magnification and proper solar filters – while those in the West can observe the transit in progress at sunrise.

Safety!

Unlike the 2012 Venus transit of the sun, Mercury is too small to be visible without magnification from a telescope or high-powered binoculars. Both must have safe solar filters made of specially-coated glass or Mylar; you can never look directly at the sun. We’re offering several avenues for the public to view the event without specialized and costly equipment, including images on NASA.gov, a one-hour NASA Television special, and social media coverage.

The Science…Why are Planetary Transits Important?

Transits like this allowed scientists in the 17th century to make the first estimates of Earth’s distance from the sun. Transit observations over the past few centuries have also helped scientists study everything from the atmosphere of Venus to the slight shifts in Mercury’s orbit that could only be explained by the theory of general relativity. Because we know Mercury’s size and location precisely, this transit will help scientists calibrate telescopes on solar observatories SDO, SOHO, and Hinode. 

Transits can also teach us more about planets – both in and out of our solar system. The Venus transit in 2012 provided observations of the planet’s atmosphere. Transits are also the main way we find planets outside the solar system, called exoplanets.

The transit method looks for a drop in the brightness of a star when a planet passes in front of it. This method will not find every planet – only those that happen to cross our line of sight from Earth to the star. But with enough sensitivity, the transit method through continuous monitoring is a great way to detect small, Earth-size planets, and has the advantage of giving us both the planet’s size (from the fraction of starlight blocked), as well as its orbit (from the period between transits). Our Kepler/K2 mission uses this method to find exoplanets, as will the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellites, or TESS, following its launch in 2017/2018. 

We will stream a live program on NASA TV and the agency’s Facebook page from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. – an informal roundtable during which experts representing planetary, heliophysics and astrophysics will discuss the science behind the Mercury transit. Viewers can ask questions via Facebook and Twitter using #AskNASA.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

This long-exposure photo shows a meteor streaking across the sky during the Perseid meteor shower in August. Regram @ausyouthspace

NASA’s laser propulsion system could send ships to Mars in just days

It might sound like science fiction, but we already know how to make objects move at near light speed. Physicists do it all the time inside particle accelerators, where they accelerate particles to relativistic speeds just a small fraction below the speed of light (about 186,000 miles per second).

But when we try to reach these speeds on a macro scale, we run into all kinds of problems. Now researchers are saying a new kind of laser-based propulsion would eliminate the need for fuel and could accelerate spacecraft up to 26% of the speed of light. At that blistering pace, a tiny space probe could get to Mars in just 30 minutes. The technology to make it happen already exists.

Follow @the-future-now​

Comet Lovejoy by Gerald Rhemann.

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