Saturn Equinox Images from Cassini

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The Cassini spacecraft, which entered orbit around Saturn on June 30, 2004 has successfully observed and recorded and sent back all sorts of data about seasonal changes on Saturn, as the planet experienced its equinox. The main NASA / JPL Cassini site is here.

Last month, on August 11, sunlight reaching Saturn hit the planet's rings edge-on, essentially making them disappear in the planet's equinox. Saturn has two equinoxes, much like Earth, during each of its "years" or orbits around the Sun. Each orbit takes 10, 759 Earth days, or 29.7 Earth years, so catching this equinox was a pretty big deal. There's a good video here explaining, exactly, what's happening to cause the equinox.

Hubble Telescope Gets an Upgrade and Captures Butterfly Nebula

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This past May, the Hubble Space Telescope was equipped with a new imaging camera which has recently captured some impressive images including one of a large Butterfly Nebula. The new images are ushering in what many are calling a new beginning for the Hubble.

The Hubble Space Telescope was named for Edwin Hubble, an American astronomer who made significant contributions to the field of astronomy. The Hubble was first put into orbit in April of 1990 after two decades of difficulties and delays. It is unique in many ways including the fact that it is the only telescope ever designed to be completely serviced while in space by astronauts who travel to the telescope to perform needed repairs as they did in May when the Hubble was fitted with new filters and a new camera.

Inner-nauts Explore a New World

Space is an exciting place these days. We've got an International Space Station that is bigger and better than ever before, the Hubble Telescope has been re-vamped and we now have crystal clear photos of galaxies 5 billion light years away, dark matter is on the move, repelling galaxies and solar systems apart at an ever increasing pace to our mystification and concern. Our understanding and exploration of space has been taken to the next level and the discoveries we are on the brink of making are highly thrilling.

Anomaly in Saturn's Rings

In the latest batch of images from the Cassini probe investigating Saturn, one

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of them shows, quite distinctly, a small object piercing the F ring of debris that surrounds Saturn. There's a picture of the bifurcated ring to the left there; click it for a larger image. It looks very much as if something small has cut a path through the dust in Saturn's F ring, moving through the ring from below, and leaving a trail of dust particles in its wake.

Perseids Meteor Shower: Tonight's the Night

Tonight is the "best" night, in terms of sheer numbers of visible meteors per hour,

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to see the Perseids. The Perseids are the dust and debris from the Comet Swift-Tuttle, and an annual August event. The moon will be fairly bright; it's a 55% Gibbous moon, so you'll want to avoid looking directly at the moon, since it's just as much a distracting source of light pollution as city and traffic lights are.

Last Night: Longest Total Solar Eclipse of the Century

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The total solar eclipse July 22, 2009 set a record for the longest and darkest of the 21st century. In eastern China and India today, the eclipse was watched in numbers under its trajectory across Southeast Asia. Reports of the day quickly becoming pitch black also accompanied by a drop in temperature, spooking zoo animals and inspiring reflection in onlookers. The eclipse lasted 6 minutes and 39 seconds and will not be surpassed in length until January 2132.

The stunning spectacle in the sky was 2 of 3 total eclipses happening in a 1-month period. The third will occur August 6th.

More information can be found at NASA's eclipse bulletin board.

 

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEpubs/20090722/rp.html

 

 

Possible Damage to Shuttle After Recent Launch

After more than a month of problems and delays and five previously aborted attempts the shuttle Endeavor finally launched Wednesday evening. The launches had been delayed by an array of problems including hydrogen leaks and bad weather that hindered their launch abilities. During the launch the shuttle was hit by pieces of debris that broke off from the fuel tank as Endeavor took off. Initial observations made by the ground grew when Endeavor made its launch made a quick assessment of the perceived damage which they do not believe is as severe as the damage that occurred during the launch of the last shuttle. However, they will be spending the next day or so going over all of the photographs taking of the launch to get a better idea of the damage that may have been caused to Endeavor and shuttle integrity.

NASA to release polished moonwalk footage

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For those of you who believe that man has walked on the moon, NASA will today unveil enhanced footage of Neil Armstrong’s famous moonwalk where he uttered the famous words “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” before his hair burst into flames on the set of the Pepsi commercial. What? Ohhh, the other moonwalk… Sorry, just not over the King of Pop yet.

NASA Pillownauts

NASA, in an effort to study the long

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term effects of low gravity on humans has been using paid human research volunteer "pillownauts" who spend months, face up, lying in a bed tilted to 9.5 degrees, with their feet placed firmly against a panel. This setup puts roughly the same gravitational stress on the pillownaut's feet as the moon would. Ronita Cromwell, a NASA senior research scientist heading up the project explains that "What we're doing is removing some of the effects of 1 G and achieving one-sixth G along the long axis of the body."

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