Aimless In Space

ikenbot:

Black Hole ‘Bonanza’: Millions Found by NASA Space Telescope

A jackpot of previously unknown black holes across the universe has been discovered by the infrared eyes of a prolific NASA sky-mapping telescope.

The cosmic find comes from data collected by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey (WISE) telescope, which scanned the entire sky in infrared light from December 2009 to February 2011. The full catalog of observations by WISE during its mission was publicly released in March, and astronomers are still poring through this celestrial trove for discoveries.

“WISE has found a bonanza of black holes in the universe,” astronomer Daniel Stern of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., said during a news briefing today (Aug. 29). WISE turned up about three times as many black holes as have been found by comparable surveys in visible light, offering up a total of 2.5 million new sources across the sky.

ikenbot:

Night Side Rings

Saturn casts a wide shadow across its rings in this Cassini spacecraft view which looks toward the darkened southern hemisphere of the night side of the planet.

sklogw:

Cassini Timeline

Credit: JPL

sklogw:

Voyager Mission Timeline

Credit: JPL

astr0naaut:

(via APOD: 2012 June 21 - WR 134 Ring Nebula)

(via apo110)

(via omgcatsinspace)

ikenbot:

Melotte 15

framesandflames:

Image sequence from the Cassini Orbiter

These two .gifs are of the same area on Saturn, at roughly the same time. How does Cassini do this? Two cameras? Nope. The probe snaps many photos in series, with a set interval between series. During each series of shots, as the camera exposes shots one after the other, using a different filter on the lens for each shot. This creates 3-4 “time lapse” videos of the same spot on Saturn, but at different wavelengths. This is useful to scientists studying the workings of Saturn’s atmosphere, since Different filters will highlight different gasses. I took this series of shots, divided them up by filter used, increased contrast and a few other things to highlight the differences. I was able to create a 9-frame time lapse gif of each filter.

Raw Images Credit: NASA/JPL http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm

framesandflames:

Cassini’s Raw Saturn

This Image was taken on August 20, 2012 By the Cassini Spacecraft, and received on Earth August 21, 2012. The camera was pointing toward SATURN at approximately 1,472,632 miles (2,369,971 kilometers) away, and the image was taken using the MT3 and IRP90 filters. This image has not been validated or calibrated. A validated/calibrated image will be archived with the NASA Planetary Data System in 2013.

inquisitormusic:

Viking 1 Launch Anniversary

Viking 1 was the first of two spacecraft sent to Mars as part of NASA’s Viking program. It was the first spacecraft to successfully land on Mars and perform its mission, and held the record for the longest Mars surface mission of 6 years and 116 days (from landing until surface mission termination, Earth time) until that record was broken by the Opportunity Rover on May 19, 2010.

Viking 1 launched aboard a Titan IIIE rocket August 20, 1975 and arrived at Mars on June 19, 1976. The first month was spent in orbit around the martian planet and on July 20, 1976 Viking Lander 1 separated from the Orbiter and touched down at Chryse Planitia.