Tag: NASA
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Explore the World with Google Earth Engine
Last week marked the 40th anniversary of the Landsat satellite program (http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/) —now the longest-running continuous acquisition of satellite images of the Earth’s surface. The entire Landsat7 imagery archives are publicly accessible through Google Earth Engine (http://goo.gl/fjTZL), with a new and improved featured gallery, which includes zoomable time-lapse videos and a beautiful new interface: http://earthengine.google.org/#intro!…
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Is there life on Mars? Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity go roving
The NASA rover Curiosity is expected to be landing on Mars at 3:31 am August 6, 2012 (AEST). It’s mission, lasting one Martian-year (98 Earth weeks), is of scientific significance and perhaps even of human significance. Curiosity will be fulfilling the prospecting stage of a step-by-step program of exploration, reconnaissance, prospecting and mining evidence for…
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In the year 2023, and humans are on Mars for all to see
Do you wish to become a Martizen, a citizen of Mars, anytime in the near future? If you are serious about this then Dutchman, Bas Lansdorp is your man. Bas Lansdorp is a person with an audacious ambition. Through his company, Mars One, he plans to establish the first human settlement on Mars by April…
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Networking the Solar System
When the human race inevitably expands off planet Earth, we’ll naturally want to take our internet with us – over the past 15 years or so, the internet really has become an integral part of our lives! In fact, even as you’re reading this, 300 gigawatts of electricity worldwide will have been used to transfer…
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Dragon’s Rendez-Vous Day
For those who may not be familiar, The SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft is developed, and built by the American company Space Exploration Technologies, SpaceX, as it is more commonly known. You may find very informative and interesting article on SpaceX Dragon written by Kevin Orrman-Rossiter. Today SpaceX #Dragon is proceeding toward rendezvous with #ISS. The International Space Station mission management team completed a…
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Here be Dragons
On May 11, a Dragon will mate with the International Space station. Rather than some mythical creature, this Dragon is of human artifice. The Dragon’s rendezvous and berthing with the International Space Station presages a new chapter in human exploration of space. The significance of this event is Dragon is a reusable spacecraft, developed, and…
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Who found the water on the Moon?
At just over two tonnes, the second stage of an Atlas V rocket, makes for an unusual ‘kinetic probe’. Nonetheless on October 9, 2009 NASA deliberately impacted a spent Centaur rocket into the lunar south polar crater Cabeus. The target area was a permanently shadowed region within this crater. The impact, not surprisingly, ejected a…
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Earth’s City Lights
This image of Earth’s city lights was created with data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS). Originally designed to view clouds by moonlight, the OLS is also used to map the locations of permanent lights on the Earth’s surface. The brightest areas of the Earth are the most urbanized, but…