Jacques of all Trades

inothernews:

FORD OF THE RINGS   The Saturnian moon Daphnis and Pan stir ripples in the giant planet’s rings due to their gravitational effect. Five-mile-wide Daphnis (lower left) is perturbing particles in Saturn’s A ring, while 17-mile-wide Pan (upper right) has kicked up dark wakes in the ring propagating toward the middle of the image. This picture was taken in visible light by the Cassini spacecraft’s narrow-angle camera on June 3, 2010, at a distance of about 329,000 miles from Saturn.  (Photo: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI via MSNBC)

thedailywhat:

Rubber Chicken of the Day: During last month’s solar storm, high school students in California sent a sensor-equipped rubber chicken, “Camilla,” into the stratosphere — ostensibly to study solar radiation. With any luck, Camilla will help the budding scientists learn about space weather, and the effect of solar radiation on life. Regardless of how the experiment turns out, however, the kids will forever be able to start conversations with, “Once, I shot a rubber chicken into space…”

[laughingsquid]

Cool photo of Space Shuttle Discovery, flying over DC (with the National Building Museum in the foreground). 

Photo by Erin O’Brien

Many more photos here: https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23spottheshuttle/grid/photos

imwithkanye:

Plan to watch the Shuttle Discovery’s final flight over D.C.? My friend John made an interactive map based off the information provided by the Smithsonian, NASA and fellow photographers on the best places to watch the shuttle. The flyover is expected to take place between 10 and 11 a.m. today. [map] [flight]

(via kittykittybangbang)

scienceisbeauty:

Part of the Hawaiian Island Chain (7 Oct. 2010)

While on an orbit that took the International Space Station over the Pacific Ocean, one of the Expedition 25 crew members captured this image of part of the Hawaiian Island chain. While most of the islands are covered by clouds, Hawaii, the largest of them, is visible at lower center. A Russian Soyuz (foreground) and a Russian Progress vehicle are docked to the massive space station.

(Source)

guardian:

Photograph: NASA

This image shows ocean surface currents around the world during the period from June 2005 to December 2007. See more satellite images of the earth in our gallery.

(Source: )

newsweek:

A beautiful photograph of Saturn taken by Reddit photographer “PoshNoob” as seen from Horsham in the UK (from a Heritage 130p telescope). You can see the rings.

(via absurdlakefront)

unknownskywalker:

Ganges Delta, Bangladesh

This Envisat image highlights the Ganges Delta, the world’s largest delta, in the south Asia area of Bangladesh (visible) and India. The delta plain, about 350-km wide along the Bay of Bengal, is formed by the confluence of the rivers Ganges, the Brahmaputra and Meghna.

The world’s largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, is located where the land meets the water and it spans Bangladesh and India. The Sundarbans, which translates as ‘beautiful forest’ in Bengali, provide critical habitat for numerous species, including the Bengal tiger and the estuarine crocodile.

Pollution, human encroachment, soil erosion and rising sea levels threaten to submerge large parts of the forest into the sea. In the past two decades, four mangrove islands have sunk and more are threatened. The annual delta flooding leaves behind rich alluvial deposits, which are used to grow jute, the country’s main cash crop.

Willy Wonka was right!

Japanese Company Announces Plans to Build 20,000-Mile-High Space Elevator by 2050

shorterexcerpts:

propagandery:

Scientists have long considered the possibility of creating ultra-tall space elevators that stretch beyond the earth’s atmosphere to transport satellites and shuttles into outer space without the cost and environmental impact of rocket fuels. Now a Japanese company specializing in major infrastructure projects called The Obayashi Corporation has announced plans to build a space elevator by 2050, with the aim of taking tourists 20,000 miles above the planet’s surface.

Cool science/engineering news. Bad news for acrophobes.

Positively Radiant: Amazing Pictures Of Recent Solar Storm

The sun erupted late on Sunday, January 22, causing the strongest solar radiation storm since September 2005. The solar storm has the potential to disrupt some satellite communications and bring some auroras to high-latitude skies, but isn’t a danger to humans on Earth. NASA has more on the solar storm here. This filter shows where cooler dense plumes of plasma are located above the visible surface of the Sun, according to NASA. Many of the following images wouldn’t be visible to the naked or, or even many telescopes. (via Positively Radiant | TPM Media)

discoverynews:

Spectacular Aurorae Erupt Over Norway

Over the weekend, the Earth’s magnetic field was struck by a coronal mass ejection (CME). The CME — a vast bubble of solar plasma that had erupted from the sun on Jan. 19 — took longer than expected to travel through interplanetary space, but on Sunday it made contact.

keep reading

(via cynthiahasatumblr)