discovery reaches the international space station!

sunday's successful launch of discovery sent the shuttle sailing towards the international space station (ISS). discovery had to get into orbit with the ISS and catch up to it in order to dock. during the approach, the two flew together thru the night sky very quickly and very closely! just before the docking on tuesday, marco langbroek captured this image as the two objects passed over the netherlands:


the brighter streak on top is the ISS and the fainter one below is discovery. they move quickly across the sky as you can see in this few second exposure.

once the discovery crew assembles the final solar panel on the space station, the ISS will become the second brightest object in the night sky, surpassing venus for the honor! my favorite time to spot the ISS is if it happens to be passing overhead at sunset or sunrise, because it is super bright!

you can figure out when the ISS (or many other orbiting satellits) will pass over your part of the earth at heavens above, or using google earth as described by orbiting frog.

enjoy!

space oddity

sadly, commander chris hadfield is leaving the international space station (ISS) and wont be sending down his regular awe-inspiring images for us to enjoy.  see some of his previous posts: space nacho, nuts in space, space rock damage, or towel-wringing in zero-g.

but the guy sure knows how to go out with style.  he made this video, a space station cover of david bowie's space oddity, and i think it's pretty much the most awesome thing in the universe right now:

NASA and etsy: space craft contest!

NASA and etsy have created a creative contest to commemorate the end of the NASA Space Shuttle Program: the Space Craft Contest. to enter, "share an original handmade item or work of art inspired by the NASA Space Shuttle Program and space exploration at large."

what a great idea!

prizes for the winners include etsy shopping sprees, stuff from nasa and etsy, and a trip to see the final space shuttle launch ever as NASA’s VIP guest!! and if that isnt enough awesome, your artwork might even be flown on the space shuttle.

the final space shuttle mission is currently scheduled for launch in february 2011 and will voyage to the international space station.

what's great about this contest, in my opinion, is that this contest ideally reaches an audience that science organizations like NASA should be making more of an effort to engage. of etsy's 5.9 million members, 96 percent are women, and most are under the age of 35.

no matter who you are**, submit your creative entries by november 2nd, 2010 (and post them here to so we can all see your work!).

i'm finding myself attracted to the wearable art, like the orbital earrings below, but there are many cool entries so far.



** the contest is open to legal US residents only.

the international space station meets jules verne

i hope some of you got to the see spectacular and rare triple flyby tonight! the european space craft, jules verne, came into view first, rising in the southwest and brightly passing almost overhead. (jules verne was a popular author of the 19th century, who pioneered the science-fiction genre with popular novels like journey to the center of the earth and twenty thousand leagues under the sea).

it was difficult to spot jules verne at first because there were scattered clouds overhead which confused us into thinking all the stars were moving! jules verne was bright at about 1st magnitude, but it was nothing compared to the international space station (ISS), which followed about 5 minutes later. the ISS was negative two magnitudes.... which means super-bright! way brighter than anything else in the night sky other than the moon! the shuttle, endeavor, caught our eyes, as it followed the same path across the sky as the ISS, just 40 degrees or so behind it, not as bright, but still bright indeed! it was so cool to see both of them trailing across the sky in tandem!

i excitedly looked thru binoculars to try to find more details of the bright ISS. I could see the brightest central region reflecting the sun's light, then some extended metallic stuff sticking out to the sides... solar panels!



the ISS has been in orbit around earth since 1998. it constantly moves around the earth at 350-460 km (217-286 miles) above the surface, and moves at 27,700 km/hour! that means it makes nearly 16 orbits everyday!! so why is it so rare that we see the super-bright ISS pass overhead? since the ISS doesnt produce light of its own, we rely on reflected sunlight to see it. the ISS is only illuminated when it passes is in sunlight... which means most of the time that it passes overhead, its daytime which prevents us from seeing it, or it's nighttime, which prevents it from being illuminated. we can see the ISS over our heads when it passes near sunrise or sunset. at sunset, we are just barely in the darkness of earth's shadow, but the ISS, still floating above the surface, still receives and reflects the sun's light! the ISS is soooooo bright because its football-field size reflects a lot of light!

what a fun sight tonight!! thanks to my students who came to the roof with me after our lab class to watch the event :)

only 4 space shuttle flights remaining!

on monday, april 5th, the space shuttle discovery is scheduled to launch and take the STS-131 crew to the international space station (ISS). STS-131 is the 33rd shuttle mission to the station and begins the major countdown to the final shuttle launch, currently scheduled for september 2010.


the image above of the ISS was taken from the atlantis space shuttle in 2007.

it's looking less and less likely that i will be able to witness a shuttle launch in person :(

shuttle discovery ready to launch

NASA's STS-119 mission is ready to go! shuttle discovery sits in wait on the launch pad with the currently full moon shining overhead.


the 10 year old international space station (ISS) will benefit from this mission as the crew will install the final truss segment needed for the solar array! the full set of solar arrays will stretch out to 100 meters (the size of a football field) and will increase the energy available to the space station so that starting this year, six people will be able to live on the ISS instead of just three.

launch is set for tonight, 11 march, 2009 at 9:20 pm EDT.

the stars from earth's orbit

here's a fascinating timelapse video of the views from the international space station. the final shot with the milky way is incredible!

sit back and enjoy!

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

cities at night from the space station

this video is just so awesome in so many ways!! folks on the international space station (ISS) managed to rig up a little camera system to track the earth against their orbital motion, in order to get focused nighttime images with resolution of 60 meters! i find that taking digital photos at night is extremely difficult anyway, because i want to expose for a little longer in order to not use the flash that always ruins the mood.... imagine wanting to take an image to share with everyone of the amazing night lights of a city on the surface of the earth from your vantage point... 400 km (250 miles) above the surface, moving at 27,700 km/hour!! a tough task!

aside from the impressive technological innovation of the picture takers on the ISS... the commentary by Don Pettit is quite interesting! this presents a surprisingly cool study of the various types of geographic geometry that cities on different continents maintain. the perspective from above is not one easily gathered or perceived by foot on the earth. how fun would it be to be able to identify exactly where you were above the surface of the earth, from seeing the pattern of lights of the city below you. just wow!



aside from the worrying perspective this video provides regarding light pollution... i think its super cool! thanks skepchicks!

the moon's shadow on earth

i'm off to china this morning - to go stand on the earth where the moon's shadow will quickly pass over on wednesday! i have 15 hours in the air and many more in between to look forward to. i'm excited and nervous... and exhausted! i'll keep you up-to-date as much as i can about the solar eclipse and surrounding events!

here are a few images of what the moon's shadow looks like from above earth's surface! astronauts on the MIR space station captured this photo of the august 11th, 1999 solar eclipse!


the dark spot shows the area on earth where one sees a total solar eclipse. the shadow is only about 100 miles wide and moves across the earth at a few times the speed of sound!

here is an image taken from the international space station on march 29, 2006:


may the clouds not be with us!

triple flyby alert - TONIGHT!!

NASA's space shuttle, endeavor, just undocked with the international space station (ISS) and both are orbiting the earth very close to each other. in addition, the european space agency's cargo carrier, jules verne, is flying just 2000 km ahead of the first two space ships, creating a triple flyby tonight!! you'll see a bright (1st magnitude) jules verne, followed 4 minutes later by an even brighter ISS and space shuttle close together!


this event will be visible from austin, texas at 8:30pm tonight... look to the west! if you live in the US or canada, go to http://spaceweather.com/flybys/ for details. otherwise, you can use heaven's above to find out whether this stunning trio will pas over your head during the next couple days!

astronaut tumblrs from space

did you know that canadian astronaut chris hadfield is on the international space station RIGHT NOW, and is continually posting photos to his tumblr and twitter accounts FROM SPACE, in addition to doing cool science?

in addition to taking photos of earth from space, like images of the australian bushfires:

he recently shared a photo of a space nacho saying "Variety is the Spice - corn chip, salsa, mushroom pate and jalapeno, floating weightless."

fun with technology!

water in space

there are things we take for granted living on earth, where the planet's gravity causes objects to fall toward it, and the effects of surface tension are not often noticed.  these thoughts struck me as i watched an experiment performed on the international space station (ISS) by commander chris hadfield.  

the canadian space agency held a contest last year where they asked students to devise experiments that could be performed in space.    in this experiment, the students asked what would happen in space when one wrings out a water-soaked washcloth?  they guessed that the water would not drip off the washcloth in a microgravity environment, but it would remain on the washcloth instead. 

the result of the experiment on the ISS was really cool and actually not what my earth-based tuition expected!  those young scientists guessed better than i did ;)

what a "shooting star" looks like from space

ever wonder what a meteor might look like from space?

here's the view from the international space station during last night's persied meteor shower, as the earth passed through the space dust left over from comet swift-tuttle.

shuttle to hubble delayed

complications resulting from hurricane ike has delayed the target launch date for space shuttle atlantis' STS-125 mission to work on the hubble space telescope. now we can forward to october 14, 2008 at 10:19 p.m EDT.

in light of the atlantis launch delay, the shuttle endeavour's STS-126 supply mission to the International Space Station has also been delayed a few days. now they will try to lauch endeavor on november 16 at 7:07 p.m. EST.


you can read a bit more from nancy universe today, who also found the wonderful picture above, released by NASA, showing both shuttles on the launch pad: Atlantis and Endeavour on pads 39 A and B.

jules verne's journey to earth

in this case, i'm referring to the european space craft named jules verne, which just descended from orbit. in march of this year, i described the awesome triple flyby that we saw when jules verne approached the international space station (ISS), just after NASA's space shuttle endeavor undocked from the ISS! it's six months later now, jules verne successfully delivered the supplies it needed to deliver to the ISS, and it was time to return to earth's surface. jules verne was sent thru a de-orbit procedure that allowed it to re-enter earths atmosphere, break into several pieces, and crash the remaining pieces into the pacific ocean! you can watch a video of the event: HERE.

flute duet in space

while floating 220 miles above the earth in the international space station, NASA astronaut cady coleman played a flute duet with jethro tull's ian anderson!

according to NASA's site "Coleman and Anderson's performance saluted 50 years of human spaceflight and the anniversary of the first launch of a human to space. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin completed that milestone on April 12, 1961.

a little bit goofy, a whole lotta great!

space debris danger for ISS

the crew of the international space station (ISS) is moving into the Soyuz due to danger of possible space debris impact. follow universe today for regular updates. estimated time of impact is 16:39 GMT - about 30 minutes!

you can follow the NASA live stream

washing hair in space

astronaut karen nyberg is currently living on the international space station.   many people have asked her how she washes her long hair in space, so she made a video!

refraction in space

cool space trick from astronaut leroy chiao on the international space station (ISS) january 15, 2005!


the image comes from the big picture, which has posted a nice set of shots from the ten years of ISS existence!

click to see other refractive photography.

dirty space news: NASA reveals heptane fuel

i'll let the folks at NASA do the explainin' after i show the photo...

credit: NASA (!)

i mean...!?!

"Because of the absence of gravity, fuels burning in space behave very differently than they do on Earth. In this image, a 3-millimeter diameter droplet of heptane fuel burns in microgravity, producing soot. When a bright, uniform backlight is placed behind the droplet and flame and recorded by a video camera, the soot appears as a dark cloud. Image processing techniques can then quantify the soot concentration at each point in the image. On the International Space Station, the Flame Extinguishing Experiment examines the combustion of such liquid fuel droplets.

This colorized gray-scale image is a composite of the individual video frames of the backlit fuel droplet. The bright yellow structure in the middle is the path of the droplet, which becomes smaller as it burns. Initial soot structures (in green) tend to form near the liquid fuel. These come together into larger and larger particles which ultimately spiral out of the flame zone in long, twisting streamers."

i dont really know why there is a mirror-image affect. not really the point though.... ;)