Space

Have you seen a panorama from another world lately? Assembled from high-resolution scans of the original film frames, this one sweeps across the magnificent desolation of the Apollo 11 landing site on the Moon's Sea of Tranquility. The images were taken by Neil Armstrong looking out his window of the Eagle Lunar Module shortly after the July 20, 1969 landing.

The frame at the far left (AS11-37-5449) is the first picture taken by a person on another world. Toward the south, thruster nozzles can be seen in the foreground on the left, while at the right, the shadow of the Eagle is visible to the west. For scale, the large, shallow crater on the right has a diameter of about 12 meters. Frames taken from the Lunar Module windows about an hour and a half after landing, before walking on the lunar surface, were intended to initially document the landing site in case an early departure was necessary.

In July 2018, an iceberg weighing 11 million tons parked just offshore of Innaarsuit, a small island village in northwestern Greenland. Ground-based photographs show its impressive height as it towered over the small village.

“This is absolutely beautiful,” said Kelly Brunt, a glaciologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “The z dimension (height) is pretty extreme.” When viewed from space, however, the iceberg is like a “Where’s Waldo?” puzzle, becoming lost in a sea of similar looking bergs. On July 5, 2018, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 acquired this natural-color image of the area.
Large icebergs, in terms of width and length, are common in Baffin Bay. And most of them usually move along a path that keeps them out of the harbor. But it is the height and position of the berg that poses potential trouble for Innaarsuit.

“Bergs pose a threat when they sluff off chunks of ice,” Brunt said. “The waves that are created from this process could be quite large and could inundate the inhabited coast.”

“If the iceberg’s z dimension (height) is large relative to the x and y dimension, the ice could roll,” Brunt added. “The sides of tall icebergs like this often have a series of complex water lines, suggesting that they have experienced a complex history of shifting and rolling slightly as they change shape. A big roll could be pretty scary, and could create a substantial wave.”

(May 5, 2018) --- The SpaceX Dragon cargo craft is pictured in the grips of the Canadarm2 robotic arm as the International Space Station was orbiting above northern Africa. Dragon would be released a few hours later for its splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on May 5, 2018 ending the SpaceX CRS-14 mission.

LMNOP55 wrote: »

A hot space nerd as telling me about some launches this week.

Tell her I don't believe her and she will have to prove it.

The longest total lunar eclipse of the century arrives Friday night, showcasing a blood moon for most of the Eastern Hemisphere. Coincidentally, Mars is also at its brightest, putting two bright red objects in our sky.

The lunar eclipse happens during daylight hours for those in the Western Hemisphere, so people in North America will miss it.




This full moon in July is also known as the Full Buck Moon and the Thunder Moon, occurring when a male deer's antlers are in full growth and at a time of frequent thunderstorms, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac.

The Royal Astronomical Society said Mars and the moon will appear low in the sky for everyone in the UK, so a location with an unobstructed southeastern horizon will afford the best view.

Hubble Takes Portrait of Opulent Ring World



Saturn is the solar system’s most photogenic planet, especially in this latest Hubble snapshot with the ring system near its maximum tilt.

The International Space Station soars into a sunrise every 90 minutes, each and every day.