Tag: NASA

The Transit of Venus

I’m writing this on June 4, the eve of one of the rarest events in the solar system: the transit of Venus. In astronomical jargon, a “transit” is what happens when a smaller body passes in front of a larger one relative to an observer…in this case, us. The Sun, Venus and Earth actually line …

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Atomic-oxygen art restoration

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2011/02/Atomic-Oxygen-Art-Restoration.mp3[/podcast] Whenever you visit an art museum that houses really old paintings, you may find yourself underwhelmed by their appearance. Case in point: the Mona Lisa. Although I haven’t seen it recently, when I did see it, back in the 1980s…well. It was small, dark, and hard to see inside its climate-controlled compartment. That darkness …

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A Canadian satellite proves small is beautiful

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/canx-2.mp3[/podcast] Space satellites, typically, are big, expensive beasts, which is one reason we all cringe when one fails to achieve orbit, as happened on February 24 with NASA’s $280 million Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO). Complex satellites like the OCO, which was intended to monitor atmospheric carbon dioxide, are of course absolutely necessary for some tasks. …

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The 1960s moon in high-def

Download larger version. A little over 40 years ago, to help it select potential landing sites for its Apollo lunar missions, NASA sent five unmanned spacecraft over two years to orbit the moon and photograph pretty much every inch of its surface. The images sent back were amazing, especially one of the Earth rising over …

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Paging all those "Face on Mars" believers…

…there’s a new formation for you to sink your conspiritorially minded teeth into: a “doorway” in an unusually shaped mountain on the Red Planet. (That’s it at left.) (Via Futurismic.)

Paging all those "Face on Mars" believers…

…there’s a new formation for you to sink your conspiritorially minded teeth into: a “doorway” in an unusually shaped mountain on the Red Planet. (That’s it at left.) (Via Futurismic.)

Maps on the Web

This week’s CBC Web column… Download an audio version. *** Jokes about how hard it is to fold a highway map use to be a staple of slice-of-life comedians. Well, highway maps are probably just as hard to fold as they ever were—but you don’t have to fold them, or even use them, if you …

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Apollo photo archive coming online!

This is exciting:Nearly 40 years after man first walked on the moon, the complete lunar photographic record from the Apollo project will be accessible to both researchers and the general public on the Internet. A new digital archive – created through a collaboration between Arizona State University and NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston – …

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More on Heinlein

Still more remark on Robert A. Heinlein, this time by NASA’s head of legislative affairs, Bill Brunner: The first real novel I ever read was Rocketship Galileo. After that, I read as much Heinlein as I could find. I can honestly say that, as a young black male raised by a single mom, RAH shaped …

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No puddles on Mars

That story I blogged about postulating possible puddles on Mars? Fuhgeddaboutit. Turns out the photo in question comes from the side of a crater–on terrain too steeply sloped for puddles to be possible. So neither the depressions in the photo, nor the startling hypothesis put forward concerning them, hold water. Too bad!

Puddles on Mars?

Is this a picture of puddles on Mars? UPDATE: No, it isn’t. Turns out the terrain in question is on a slope too steep to hold water…something the researchers somehow failed to notice.

Mars…

…as art. Gorgeous! (Via Instapundit.)

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