Planetary nebula called NGC 5189 that looks a lot like a glass-blown holiday ornament.
Do they celebrate the holidays in space? Looks like they might. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured a nearby planetary nebula called NGC 5189 that looks a lot like a glass-blown holiday ornament with a glowing ribbon entwined.
This weekend's biggest show is in the sky.
Earlier this week, the big news was on Mars as the world watched the Curiosity Mars rover speed through that planet’s thin atmosphere at 13,000 mph, before being lowered down to Red Planet's surface. This weekend, the show is in our very own sky. The Perseid Meteor Shower 2012 hits its stride this weekend, late Saturday night and early Sunday morning. And what stride it will be: according to NASA, expect up to 100 meteors per hour. As an extra bonus, a waning crescent moon means that moonlight won’t completely overwhelm the meteors as they shoot across the sky. Where do you plan to go to watch the Perseids? Let us know in the comments. Like all meteor showers, the Perseid shower is named after the constellation that the meteors appear to…
Mountains on Mars.
NASA recently released the first high resolution photos from the Mars rover Curiosity. In the caption NASA reported: These are the first two full-resolution images of the Martian surface from the Navigation cameras on NASA's Curiosity rover, which are located on the rover's "head" or mast. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen in the distance beyond the pebbly ground. The topography of the rim is very mountainous due to erosion. The ground seen in the middle shows low-relief scarps and plains. The foreground shows two distinct zones of excavation likely carved out by blasts from the rover's descent stage thrusters. It's one small turn of the wheel for Curiosity, one giant leap for curious people in the United states.
NASA's Mars rover, Curiosity, landed on the surface of the Red Planet early Monday morning—here's one of its first pictures.
Are you wondering why this picture shot from NASA's recently landed Mars rover isn't exactly impressive? You'd think they'd put a high resolution camera on an expensive robot like this, right? Well, the reason is because it was taken with a fisheye lens from one of the rover's hazard-avoidance cameras, according to NASA. That's why you can see the rover's wheel in the shot, in the background is light from the sun saturating the image. The high res cameras built onto the rover won't start shooting pictures until later in the week, according to NASA. So stay tuned for the dramatic shots, but for now, we'll have to make due with the grainy black and white photos from the rover's 'back-up camera.' For more photos and information see NASA's …
NASA is hosting several public viewings of Curiosity as it touches down on the Red Planet.
Want to touch down on Mars? Well, you can't. Not yet But early Monday morning you can get a feel for what it might look like to land on the Red Planet when NASA broadcasts the landing of the Curiosity Mars Rover across the country. A lot of people are holding their breath. Curiosity has been on its way to Mars since Nov. 26, 2011 when it launched from Cape Canaveral. It will begin to descend into the thin Martian atmosphere Saturday, Aug. 6. About 1:30 a.m. Curiosity will use a new landing method consisting rocket guided entry, parachute descent, more rockets and a “sky crane,” which is as fantastic as it sounds. The shell of the rover will use its rockets to hover above the surface as the science lab is lowered down the surface by an “…
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Michaelwritescode
2:06 pm on Friday, August 10, 2012
NASA's budget for the curiosity rover was $2.5b. It has provided unprecedented experience in the use of nuclear energy and air crane landing in space to our scientists. It has advanced the field of robotics by being the most nimble and feature rich remote vehicle ever places on another planet. The importance of putting this rover on Mars cannot be understated for various fields of science. For … more ›