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I just found these pictures from a moon landing on my hard drive, they are fascinating:

After a bit of digging around I discovered that these were the Apollo 17 astronauts: Eugene Cernan, Ronald E. Evans and Harrison H. “Jack” Schmitt. It is really striking how different these pictures are than their professionally shot publicity photos:

We should note that the astronauts aren’t crying, their eyes are red because moon dust is incredibly fine, gets inside of spacesuits and irritates the eyes.

Just read a story about NASA’s newest sun observing satellites, called Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO). There are two of them, one positioned just behind the earth and one just in front. This allows them to probe the properties of the sun in three dimensions, when output images are combined we obtain a spiffy three-dimensional view of our sun:

(requires red-green glasses, click for big version)

I think this is really cool, and the visualization guys have done a really good job with the 3d effect, to the point that they even have instructions for you on how ot make your own 3d glasses!

I give NASA 10/10 on producing awesome images from the sun, but their acronym is desparately strained and earns only 3/10. The page with more pictures is here. We have coloured glasses in our office, so interested parties should feel free to stop by and marvel at the Universe with us

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My mind has been blown today! I learnt about a NASA experiment called GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment). Grace is mapping the gravitational field of the Earth with an unprecedented level of detail.

The experiment operates with the use of two satellites. Each is on exactly the same orbital path but always on opposite sides of the Earth. When they are passing over a region where the gravitational field is strong they are pulled slightly closer together; when the field is weak they move apart. In this way the two satellites have been dancing around the earth, gradually building up a map of its gravity:

Red patches mark out where there is a lot of mass under the Earth’s surface. Grace is sensitive enough to show all sorts of crazy stuff and alongside all the obvious applications like making pretty maps of the earth’s gravitational field and testing relatavistic frame dragging it has:

• found that Antarctica’s ice mass had decreased by 36 cubic miles a year, helping prove that global warming and melting polar ice play a role in rising sea levels.
• discovered the 480 km (300 miles) wide Wilkes Land crater in Antarctica, which probably formed about 250 million years ago
• made maps of how the flooding of the amazon affects gravity!

Grace can supposedly even see ocean currents! On my list of satellites named after ladies it surely sits near the top

I guess this is going to be old news to a lot of the astronomy crowd but I just stumbled over this picture for the first time (via Cosmic Variance)

It is our sun. However, there is something special about this photograph.

It was taken at night. By looking directly through the earth. Using neutrinos (courtesy of Super-Kamiokande).

How awesome is that?

Can anybody take a guess at why there is a massive horizontal band across the picture?