One year ago (and two days), the family of Neil Armstrong announced that this navy fighter pilot, test pilot, and astronaut passed away at the age of 82. Making known that Armstrong was a “reluctant American hero”, his family said that he “always believed he was just doing his job.” Neil Armstrong became the first […]
The image above is assembled from 1400 people waving at the Cassini spacecraft, which has been in orbit around Saturn since 2004. On July 19th, the orbiter turned back and snapped a photo of the home planet it would never see again. NASA thought it was only fair that we wave back. (See the full image below)
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The shuttle program is dead
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It’s not quite Armageddon but NASA revealed a concept video animation detailing how NASA would find, capture, re-direct and study a near-Earth asteroid. In the animation by NASA, you can see a crew of astronauts taking off on the Orion spacecraft and using the Moon to swing onto the captured asteroid.
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For nearly three years, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite was one of our most potent tools in the search for asteroids, discovering 33,500 of them (more than a dozen of which are potential impact threats) before being placed into hibernation in 2011. But with a new-found interest in asteroid mining
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Give a national museum a 3D scanner and it’ll archive its entire collection. Give it an X-ray machine though, and it’ll show you the innards of a space suit. As part of its Suited for Space exhibit, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum ran a series of astronauts’ work-wear through a CT scanner. The results (above and below) are more than a little haunting, with all manner of hidden buckles, straps and sensors exposed against ghostly transparent fabrics. Why X-rays? Because according to Wired, the Smithsonian wanted to see how the suits were put together, but deconstructing them without damage wasn’t exactly feasible. Seeing the level of detail required to keep our spacewalkers safe on the job via online pictures is one thing, but scoping it out in person is likely much cooler. If you want an up-close look for yourself, you have until December 1st to make the trip to Washington, D.C.
Via: The Verge
Source: Wired, Smithsonian
At this very moment, NASA’s Fermi space telescope is up in the sky, zooming around Earth, and doing space stuff like sidestepping Soviet space junk
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Not content on landing several rovers on the surface of Mars, NASA’s JPL team’s been working on more earthly projects. RoboSimian is an ape-like robot designed for search-and-rescue missions that’s expected to compete in the DARPA Robotics Challenge. It features four multi-jointed limbs with unique hands and no defined front or back — allowing it to always face the right way. Thanks to its primate-like movement and posture, the robot will be able to navigate over difficult terrain, climb ladders and even drive vehicles (one of the DRC’s requirements). While the project itself isn’t new, JPL recently published an interesting video that shows RoboSimian gripping tools, lifting its own weight and balancing delicate objects. This means, of course, that robot monkeys will soon join spiders, cats and dogs in your dystopian nightmares. Video after the break.
Filed under: Robots
Source: JPL
Bloomberg Businessweek has a neat little video about the moon photo digitization efforts over at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Oddly enough, this project is currently taking place in an abandoned McDonald’s. McMoon’s, if you will.
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Collisions happen on different scales. Particles collide. Squirrels accidentally run into each other. Rams butt heads. Tectonic plates shift against each other. There’s a lot going on. But in this photo a dwarf galaxy and spiral galaxy are smooshing into each other. And galaxies are kind of huge.
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