Hours after its successful flyby of “the jewel of the solar system”, the robotic traveler Rosetta continues to return data from the encounter. From a point of light discovered in 1969 into a world of new vistas, here is Asteroid (2867) Šteins: At a press conference to announce preliminary results and to show the first [...]
Credit: Screenshot of Amazon Video On Demand [REVIEW] — Late last year Adobe released an upgrade to their ubiquitous Flash software that enabled higher quality video. In response, overall video streaming quality on the web has improved as various video services have upgraded their offerings. Amazon is the latest to make the leap, turning their [...]
Rosetta, the European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft on its way to orbit and deploy a lander on a comet, is now approaching Asteroid (2867) Šteins. The flyby will bring the spacecraft within 800 km of Šteins on Friday evening, September 5, 2008. The ESA will provide a webcast about the event beginning on September 06, [...]
Venus is the Earth-that-could-have-been and the Earth-that-still-might-be. Our so called sister planet orbits second from the Sun. Cloudy, hot, and unhospitable to life as we know it, Venus demonstrates as well as Mars why comparative planetary science can greatly improve understanding of our own planet. The greenhouse effect on Venus results in a poorly understood phenomena [...]
Credit: Hermit of the Mountain, LLC – Venus Rises promotional wallpaper: “Mars Warship Wallpaper“ [REVIEW] [SPOILERS] — A new surge in independently-produced online content is almost upon us even as existing media giants like NBC Universal begin to dabble in higher production value content intended for the web. Venus Rises, created by writer/director and Executive [...]
I will be speaking at the Sunday, September 7 meeting of the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix about “Images of Mars and Interplanetary Science.” This series of posts in preparation for the event will explore current spacecraft activities in planetary science. After the astronomy revolt that left the solar system with eight planets, four dwarf [...]
On Friday, June 27, 2008 from 4:00 PM through 8:00 PM PDT at UCLA, scientists and other anti-aging luminaries will discuss “Aging: the Disease, the Cure, the Implications,” a Methuselah Foundation co-sponsored event. The ADCI event is open to the public and presents an opportunity for you to hear about the current state of radical [...]
One of many new Cassini images received after yesterday’s successful Enceladus flyby. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute – “W00043237.jpg“ Slow server speeds mark the arrival of new raw data on the Cassini-Huygens website taken during yesterday’s successful Enceladus flyby. In addition to the images, Cassini sampled the material in Enceladus’ water ice plumes erupting from [...]
Cassini took this image of Enceladus’ water ice plumes on November 27, 2005. New pictures and other data from the most recent flyby on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 are expected on Thursday, March 13, 2008. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute – “Jet Blue“ NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has successfully completed the closest flyby of Saturn’s mysterious [...]
Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington – “MESSENGER’s First Look at Mercury’s Previously Unseen Side“ A heavily cratered side of the planet Mercury never before seen has been revealed by the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft. A single image was released by NASA this evening after [...]