February 11, 2015 marks five years in space for NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which provides incredibly detailed images of the whole sun 24 hours a day. Capturing an image more than once per second, SDO has provided an unprecedentedly clear picture of how massive explosions on the sun grow and erupt ever since its…
Photograph by NASA/Goddard/SDO An instrument on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured its 100 millionth image of the sun. The instrument is the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, or AIA, which uses four telescopes working parallel to gather eight images of the sun—cycling through 10 different wavelengths—every 12 seconds. This is a processed image of SDO…
Photograph by NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team In some areas, winds tend to blow in roughly the same general direction all year. The Grand Erg Oriental, a sprawling sea of sand dunes in the Saharan Desert, is not one of them. The winds in northeastern Algeria tend to be complex and changing.…
Fifteen years ago, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched into space aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. Since its deployment on July 23, 1999, Chandra has helped revolutionize our understanding of the universe through its unrivaled X-ray vision. Chandra, one of NASA’s current “Great Observatories,” along with the Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope,…
Photograph by Apple Maps / Digital Globe In celebration of the Fourth of July (The United States’ Independence Day) we see a satellite view of the iconic Statue of Liberty, a neoclassical sculpture located on Liberty Island in the middle of New York Harbor (40°41’21″N 74°2’40″W). The statue, designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and…
The Overview Effect is a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts and cosmonauts during spaceflight, often while viewing the Earth from orbit or from the lunar surface. From this perspective, pattens in nature and human development emerge and you see the world in an entirely different light. Daily Overview is a new…
A SATELLITE VIEW OF EARTH ON EARTH DAY Satellite Image by NASA NOAA’s GOES-East satellite captured this stunning view of the Americas on Earth Day, April 22, 2014 at 11:45 UTC/7:45 a.m. EDT. The data from GOES-East was made into an image by the NASA/NOAA GOES Project at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight…
Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program. It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photography and geographic information system (GIS) 3D globe. Just like their data-rich Maps and Street View offerings, Google Earth is a treasure trove of oddities. You’ve no doubt already…
Trying to comprehend the expanse of space is a daunting task. Just reading about the distance between Earth and the nearest star/planet/galaxy is enough to boggle most minds. So the thought of miniaturizing something so expansive as the Cosmos is both fascinating and counter-intuitive. Last month reddit user TheScienceLlama used the Tilt-Shift filter in…
The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. An international organisation with 20 Member States, the ESA in its current form was created in 1975. Since then they have shared amazing research and images for the world to learn from. With almost 12,000 high-resolution images available through their website, their extensive archive…
Page 4 of 4
