News.Astrohobby.PL Blog

Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Spirit Perseveres Struggles, Opportunity Digs Marquette Island and We Look Back (from Planetary News)

NASA has extended a contract with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., to provide science and operational support for the Chandra X-ray Observatory, a powerful tool used to better understand the structure and evolution of the universe.

Mars rover Spirit will mark six years of unprecedented science exploration and inspiration for the American public on Sunday.

The Year in Pictures: 2009 (from Planetary News)

Wishing all a joyful new year, members of the Cassini-Huygens team offer us their views of Saturn and the Cassini spacecraft. Cassini-Huygens, a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, which is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA. The Cassini orbiter (pictured at the top right of this image) and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. Image Credit: NASA/JPL

Gamma Cas and Friends

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last

Wisconsin Rep. Mary Williams will attend a discussion Jan. 6, 2010, among astronauts orbiting 220 miles above Earth and students from two Wisconsin schools.

This astronaut photograph shows the Calabria region of southern Italy--the toe of Italy's "boot"--outlined by the Ionian and Tyrrhenian Seas to the southeast and northwest, respectively. The water appears almost mirror-like due to sunglint. This phenomenon is caused by sunlight reflecting off the water surface directly back towards the observer aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS was located over northwestern Romania, to the northeast of Calabria, when this image was taken. The Calabrian Peninsula appears shortened and distorted due to the extreme sideways viewing angle from the ISS. Such a perspective is termed oblique, as opposed to a nadir view, in which the astronaut is looking directly downwards towards the Earth's surface from the ISS. This highly oblique view also highlights two distinct cloud patterns over the Calabrian interior. Patchy, highly textured cumulus clouds are present at lower altitudes, while grey altostratus clouds are stretched out by prevailing winds at higher altitudes. The Strait of Messina, just visible at image upper right, marks the boundary between the coastline of Italy and the island of Sicily. Image Credit: NASA

The Sun is a

Double, double toil and trouble;