The Curiosity Rover on Mars takes a selfie.
Photo credit: NASA
NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image of the annular eclipse on May 20.
Image credit: NASA
Solar Impulse, the world’s first completely solar-powered aircraft, completed the first leg of its journey from San Francisco to New York today. The aircraft does not carry a single drop of fuel; it supports itself, a pilot, and a copilot entirely through solar power, and is capable of storing enough power during the day to continue flying for 12 hours of darkness.
Air travel accounts for roughly 9% of greenhouse gas emissions in the US (source), so this is a very exciting prototype. We still have a long way to go, but we may someday look back on this as an encouraging first step.
Image credit: Fred Merz, Solar Impulse Project
Captured in the near-infrared spectrum by the Cassini probe, this false-color image shows the hexagonal storm at Saturn’s north pole. The colors represent the altitude of the clouds, with dark red being lower and green being higher. The eye of the storm alone is over 2000 kilometers wide.
Image credit: Cassini Imaging Team, NASA
A crescent moon, the streak of the ISS, and Jupiter are all captured in this picture by amateur astronomer Stephan Seip.
In totally unrelated news, this blog will go dark for a few days while I go camping at a music festival with my wife, thepaisleyelf! If you are of the countercultural persuasion and anywhere close, you should come out to Byrdfest in Ozark, AR this weekend. It’s a beautiful festival in a beautiful place full of beautiful people listening to beautiful music, and if you are a fellow tumblr person thepaisleyelf and I would love to hang out with you! Tickets are only $60. I’m sure our pictures and stories will be on her blog when we get back, so if you are interested in what my life is like outside of my love for science, check it out.
Sorry for the personal post. They will continue to be very rare- regular science posts will resume next week.
Supernova remnant SN 1006 is seen here in an image taken by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. When light from this supernova reached Earth in 1006 CE, it was observed and recorded in many cultures in Asia and the Americas. The light from this “false star” was briefly the brightest object in the night sky- bright enough to cast shadows at midnight.
Ever wondered what it would be like to land on an alien world? The European Space Agency’s Huygens probe landed on Saturn’s moon Titan in January 2005. This video is a time-lapse of images compiled from the probe’s 2.5 hour descent into a smooth video, and it provides an exhilarating view of the plunge. Video credit: ESA
