Discovery's final trip

Discovery first started its space adventures back in 1984 when it became the third operational orbiter^. it made its final landing on 9 March 2011 with a cumulative total of one full year (365 days) in space; the longest of any spaceship in the world. Incredibly it carried out 5,830 orbits during its lifetime and travelled a distance of 238,539,663 km. I look forward to seeing its replacement ! NASA has offered Discovery to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum for public display and preservation as part of the national collection.

An orbital sunrise brightens this view of Discovery's vertical stabiliser, docking mechanism, remote manipulator system orbiter boom sensor system and payload bay. What a sepctacular view ! just noticed you can see the photographer/astronaught's reflection taking the snap.



Astronaut Michael Barratt watches a water bubble float near him on Discovery's mid-deck. Kudos to these guys up in space, lucky bastards but im sure they are the best suited people for the job.

Space

Long time exposure of the milky way over switzerland. Such an impressive shot, look at all those stars !!

I took this photo from a NASA funded website where they post a picture a day.. Since 1995 !

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

Space is cool

sweet.

NASA probe launching, you can see it follow the curvature of the earth as it leaves the atomosphere

This made me laugh, its with reference to NASA saying that pluto isnt big enough to be a planet

Andromeda

This is an infrared view of our closest neighbour (i say closest..its 2.5 million light years away). Andomeda Galaxy. This picture is a composite of two orbiting observatory images: the far infrared using Herschel (colored orange), and the X-ray emission using XMM-Newton (blue).

2.5million light years...that means that we're seeing light thats 2.5 million years old and if you looked back at our galaxy from Andromeda you would be looking at an Earth 2.5million years ago. Mind blowing !

Gif

Illustration by Senor Salme

http://senorgif.memebase.com/2011/01/08/funny-gifs-forgot-about-the-oven/

Oh my god i left the oven on.

Voyager 1

Just spent some time reading up on Voyager 1, a space probe that got sent out in 1977 which has almost left our solarsystem and entered deep space, so awesome. Scientists think it has enough juice to last until 2025 and it will stop transmitting back to earth in 2015 but will continue recording after it stops transmitting. At the moment it is 10.712 billion miles away from our Sun which is 0.002 lightyears, if Voyager was to travel to our nearest star (Proxima Centauri) it would take 4.2 lightyears to get there. This stuff literally blows my mind ! oh yeh and Voyager 1 is travelling at 38,185 mph...but at that speed it would take 73,600 years to reach Proxima Centauri...

Its odd when i think about Voyager 1 out there in deep space, I imagine it with human qualities on its own adventure, further than any man or machine has ever ventured into space.

Picture of Jupiter which Voyager sent back to Earth

What a cool machine

Time lapse video

Lake Tahoe Milky Way Night Time Lapse from Justin Majeczky on Vimeo.

Justin Majeczsky, showing the Milky Way rising over Lake Tahoe in the western US:

Solar Eclipse

Earlier today Europe, Asia, and Africa got to see a nice partial solar eclipse as the Moon passed in front of the Sun, blocking as much as 85% of the solar surface. The extraordinarily talented astrophotographer Thierry Legault traveled from his native France to the Sultanate of Oman to take pictures of the eclipse.



(click for a larger version)

The image shows three planes in space: the Sun at 150 million km, the Moon at about 400000 km and the ISS at 500 km.



http://legault.perso.sfr.fr/eclipse110104_solar_transit.html

What an amazing picture.

Welcome To The Future

Recently there was the first successful launch a privately-owned SpaceX rocket, which marks the beginning of a new era in space travel. Welcome to the age of corporate astronauts, orbital mansions, and Moon holidays for those who can afford it.

Whos going to the first insanely rich person to build a bachelor pad on the moon ?

If i won the lottery id spend my billions on a sustainable space cruzer, sail around our glaxay for a bit. Visit Saturns moons for sure and possibly explore your anus, sorry Uranus