Want To See the Galaxy?

Alchemy - etching on BFK Rives - 4x6”

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:30:00 -0700

Alchemy - etching on BFK Rives - 4x6”

Conjuration - aquatint and drypoint on BFK Rives - 4x6”

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:30:00 -0700

Conjuration - aquatint and drypoint on BFK Rives - 4x6”

Watched Blade Runner tonight.

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 22:38:10 -0700

Watched Blade Runner tonight.

Cyclic Drawing series - Hand-bound Book - 3x4.25x0.375”

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 08:00:33 -0700

Cyclic Drawing series - Hand-bound Book - 3x4.25x0.375”

Bestiary series - Deer - 7 x 10.5”

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 22:39:00 -0700

Bestiary series - Deer - 7 x 10.5”

untitled - 24 x 18”

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 14:18:00 -0700

detail

detail

untitled - 24 x 18”

sciencesoup: Peering into the Heart of Darkness 27,000...

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 16:09:44 -0800

sciencesoup:

Peering into the Heart of Darkness

27,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Sagittarius lies a star called S2. It has an eccentric, high-elliptical orbit around a superdense object that happens to be right in the hot, violent centre of the Milky Way, with the entire spiral galaxy rotating around it. Astronomers have determined that this object is a supermassive black hole, which they call Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A* for short. It’s estimated to be 4.31 million times more massive than our Sun and 15.4 million kilometres wide—and it’s spinning so fast that it travels at 30% of the speed of light. Black holes usually radiate a lot of energy as they guzzle down matter, but ours is strangely quiet at the moment, and astronomers suggest that it is “starved” of matter, and used to be much more active. Although the black hole should be too massive and violent to allow any stars to form near it, observations have shown a cluster of at least 27 young stars orbiting the Sgr A*, called the S-stars. These must have formed further away but were drawn in by Sgr A*’s gravitational pull. The cluster, which includes S2, is currently under half a light-year from the black hole and is slowly being dragged closer with every orbit—and one day, they’ll be swallowed by darkness.

(Image Credit: Chandra X-Ray Observatory)

ikenbot: NASA May Unveil New Manned Moon Missions Soon NASA is...

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 14:01:01 -0800

ikenbot:

NASA May Unveil New Manned Moon Missions Soon

NASA is serious about sending astronauts back to the moon’s neighborhood and will likely unveil its ambitious plans soon now that President Barack Obama has been re-elected, experts say.

Image: Artist’s concept of astronauts in an Orion capsule helping direct robotic teleoperations on the moon’s farside. Credit: Lockheed Martin

The space agency has apparently been thinking about setting up a manned outpost beyond the moon’s far side, both to establish a human presence in deep space and to build momentum toward a planned visit to an asteroid in 2025.

The new plans have probably already been cleared with the Obama Administration but have been kept under wraps in case Republican candidate Mitt Romney won Tuesday night’s (Nov. 6) presidential election, said space policy expert John Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington University.

“NASA has been evolving its thinking, and its latest charts have inserted a new element of cislunar/lunar gateway/Earth-moon L2 sort of stuff into the plan,” Logsdon told SPACE.com. (The Earth-moon L2 is a so-called libration point where the two bodies’ gravitational pulls roughly balance out, allowing spacecraft to essentially park there.)

“They’ve been holding off announcing that until after the election,” Logsdon added, noting that Romney had pledged to reassess and possibly revise NASA’s missions and direction.

A new vision of human space exploration

In 2010, President Obama directed NASA to work toward sending astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s. To reach such deep-space destinations, the agency is developing a huge rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS) and a crew capsule named Orion.

But astronauts likely won’t head straight to a space rock when SLS and Orion are ready to fly together in 2021. In the last year, word has begun leaking out that NASA wants to explore Earth-moon L2, a point in space that lies beyond the moon’s far side, as a precursor.

Rumors currently point toward parking a spacecraft at the Earth-moon L2 gateway, so NASA (and perhaps international partners) can learn more about supporting humans in deep space. Astronauts stationed there could also aid in lunar exploration — by teleoperating rovers on the moon’s surface, for example.

NASA officials think they can pull off such manned missions without busting their budget, which stands at $17.7 billion in the proposed 2013 federal budget.

“They’re not talking about plans that imply significant budget increases,” Logsdon said. “It gives a more focused use for SLS and Orion before an asteroid mission.”

Moon missions coming soon?

Exploration of Earth-moon L2 could get started as early as 2021 with the first manned flight of SLS and Orion, which NASA calls Exploration Mission 2. (Exploration Mission 1 is the initial, unmanned test launch of SLS, slated for late 2017.)

“I’m not privy to the specifics of this, but one could conceive of the second SLS mission being the start of activity in cislunar space, rather than just being a lunar orbit mission,” Logsdon said.

We may know soon enough. NASA higher-ups have dropped hints recently that a big announcement may indeed be in the offing before too much longer.

“We just recently delivered a comprehensive report to Congress outlining our destinations which makes clear that SLS will go way beyond low-Earth orbit to explore the expansive space around the Earth-moon system, near-Earth asteroids, the moon, and ultimately, Mars,” NASA deputy chief Lori Garver said at a conference in September.

“Let me say that again: We’re going back to the moon, attempting a first-ever mission to send humans to an asteroid and actively developing a plan to take Americans to Mars,” Garver added.

discoverynews: Uniting the Planet for a Journey to Another...

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 18:13:32 -0700

discoverynews:

Uniting the Planet for a Journey to Another Star

Former astronaut Mae Jemison (and living legend) will spearhead the audacious 100 Year Starship plan to send mankind on an interstellar adventure.

keep reading

the-star-stuff: There’s more water on Jupiter’s moon Europa...

Thu, 24 May 2012 18:32:32 -0700

the-star-stuff:

There’s more water on Jupiter’s moon Europa than there is on Earth

Based on data acquired by NASA’s Galileo satellite, astronomers think the global oceans sloshing around beneath Europa’s icy exterior are likely 2—3 more voluminous than the oceans here on Earth. Not 2—3 times more proportionally, 2—3 times more in total volume.

Illustration by Kevin Hand (JPL/Caltech), Jack Cook (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), Howard Perlman (USGS); Spotted on NASA APOD

expose-the-light: Sun’s Twin Discovered — the Perfect SETI...

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 09:46:56 -0700

expose-the-light:

Sun’s Twin Discovered — the Perfect SETI Target?

There are 10 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy that are the same size as our sun. Therefore it should come as no surprise that astronomers have identified a clone to our sun lying only 200 light-years away.

Still, it is fascinating to imagine a yellow dwarf that is exactly the same mass, temperature and chemical composition as our nearest star. In a recent paper reporting on observations of the star — called HP 56948 — astronomer Jorge Melendez of the University of San Paulo, Brazil, calls it “the best solar twin known to date.”

Keep on reading

jtotheizzoe: Outer Space. The View From Cassini and Voyager Jaw...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 11:54:18 -0700

jtotheizzoe:

Outer Space. The View From Cassini and Voyager

Jaw ————> Floor.

If Rocky Balboa was an aspiring astronomer, this is what he would watch every morning to get pumped up instead of running up that damned staircase.

Sander van den Berg has assembled a plethora of images from the Cassini and Voyager missions, in their “raw” black and white, to create this simple, awe-inspiring and sometimes haunting tour through near outer space.

I know I’ve been heavy on the space stuff lately, but with videos like these sending my brain flying out the back of my head how can I not post it?!?!? :)

(by Sander van den Berg)

Russia unveils space exploration strategy

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 01:00:43 -0700

itsfullofstars:

Russia plans to regain world leadership in space and remain among the top three space powers, a draft of a space exploration strategy until 2030 submitted to the government by the country’s Federal Space Agency Roscosmos says.

The draft strategy has not been unveiled to the public. Some information has been leaked to the media, allowing us to assume that the new strategy is very ambitious.

Keep reading.

itsfullofstars: Disney’s “Mars and Beyond”

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 16:03:15 -0700

itsfullofstars:

Disney’s “Mars and Beyond”

discoverynews: How to Watch the Mars Close-Up This...

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 19:00:04 -0800

discoverynews:

How to Watch the Mars Close-Up This Weekend

February’s spectacular planetary show continues. After Venus and Jupiter lined up in the night sky last week, the distance between Earth and Mars is now shrinking to its smallest in more than two years.

On March 3 Mars will be in opposition to the sun, providing excellent opportunities for viewing the Red Planet.

The celestial event known as Mars opposition occurs whenever Earth passes between the sun and the Red Planet, approximately once every two years and two months. This makes Mars visible opposite the sun in the Earth’s sky, which is a great time to view the Red planet because the sun’s rays illuminate the full face of Mars. Because the two planets’ orbits regularly bring them close together, it also provides a good time to launch Mars missions such as the recent Mars Science Laboratory.

Mars and Earth will actually be at their closest on March 5, so you have a decent chance to catch the Red Planet anytime in the next few weeks.

How to Watch

To spot Mars with your naked eye, look for a bright orange-red dot in the eastern sky shortly after the sun sets. The planet, which can be distinguished from stars because it doesn’t twinkle, will rise to its highest position in the southern sky around midnight.

Those with a modest-sized telescope should have good views of Mars’ surface features, including its white polar caps.

Anyone without access to a telescope can catch a live feed of the opposition event from the Slooh Space Camera on March 3 starting at 8:00 p.m. PST. Come back tomorrow evening to our site for an embedded video from Slooh. The Slooh show will feature commentary by the organization’s Patrick Paolucci, Astronomy Magazine columnist Bob Berman, and some special guests.

keep reading at Wired

Image: An image of Mars during opposition taken with the world’s best telescope, Hubble, in 2001. NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA

discoverynews: Space Elevator, Going Up A Japanese company...

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 10:58:13 -0800

discoverynews:

Space Elevator, Going Up

A Japanese company plans to build an elevator to outer space by 2050.

keep reading

It's Full of Stars: Voyager 1 reaches "Cosmic Purgatory:

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:07:12 -0800

It's Full of Stars: Voyager 1 reaches "Cosmic Purgatory::

itsfullofstars:

in 1977, NASA launched their Voyager mission. The main objective of the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes was to study Jupiter and Saturn. After each fulfilled their objectives, they kept going, out into the far reaches of our solar system. Voyage 1 is now traversing through the very outside of…

It's Full of Stars: Russia and NASA plan to COLONISE the Moon

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:50:21 -0800

It's Full of Stars: Russia and NASA plan to COLONISE the Moon:

itsfullofstars:

‘We want to do more than just step on it’

Russian, American and European space agencies are in talks to create a human colony on the moon, according to Russian news source Rianovosti.

Russia wants to build either a space base on the surface of the Moon itself or a space station that…

photojojo: Newly restored scans of Hasselblad photos shot on...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:46:02 -0800

photojojo:

Newly restored scans of Hasselblad photos shot on Gemini’s 1965-1966 missions.

These galleries include outtakes, underexposures, overexposures, double exposures, light leaks, etc. Even astronauts make photo mistakes.

Read all about the scans.

Newly Restored Hasselblad Scans from Gemini’s Space Missions

Photos: NASA/JSC/Arizona State University; via BoingBoing

jtotheizzoe: China plans manned moon mission Nearly 40 years...

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:59:56 -0800

jtotheizzoe:

China plans manned moon mission

Nearly 40 years after humans last set foot on the moon, China has announced formal plans to develop a return mission. The most striking part of this announcement is not that they want to go back, but that they plan to do it by developing their own technology and support systems, essentially recreating a half century of NASA’s achievements by themselves.

And all this while the U.S. still has no vessel of its own to get people to space. Will this be the sign of a shift in space power? Or a call to arms to get our manned space program back on track to lead?

(via The Guardian, above: Chinese character for “moon” along with artist’s interpretations)