ancient eye

When 17th-century astronomers first turned their telescopes to Jupiter, they noted a conspicuous reddish spot on the giant planet. This Great Red Spot is still present in Jupiter's atmosphere, more than 300 years later. It is now known that it is a vast storm, spinning like a cyclone. Unlike a low-pressure hurricane in the Caribbean Sea, however, the Red Spot rotates in a counterclockwise direction in the southern hemisphere, showing that it is a high-pressure system. Winds inside this Jovian storm reach speeds of about 270 mph. The Red Spot is the largest known storm in the Solar System. With a diameter of 15,400 miles, it is almost twice the size of the entire Earth and one-sixth the diameter of Jupiter itself.
The long lifetime of the Red Spot may be due to the fact that Jupiter is mainly a gaseous planet. It possibly has liquid layers, but lacks a solid surface, which would dissipate the storm's energy, much as happens when a hurricane makes landfall on the Earth. However, the Red Spot does change its shape, size, and color. Such changes are demonstrated in high-resolution Wide Field and Planetary Cameras 1 & 2 images of Jupiter obtained by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, and presented here by the Hubble Heritage Project team.
The Hubble images were originally collected by Amy Simon (Cornell U.), Reta Beebe (NMSU), Heidi Hammel (Space Science Institute, MIT), and their collaborators, and have been prepared for presentation by the Hubble Heritage Team.

jupiter variation

Why does Jupiter have rings? Jupiter's rings were discovered in 1979 by the passing Voyager 1 spacecraft, but their origin was a mystery. Data from the Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003 later confirmed that these rings were created by meteoroid impacts on small nearby moons. As a small meteoroid strikes tiny Adrastea, for example, it will bore into the moon, vaporize, and explode dirt and dust off into a Jovian orbit.

Pictured above is an eclipse of the Sun by Jupiter, as viewed from Galileo. Small dust particles high in Jupiter's atmosphere, as well as the dust particles that compose the rings, can be seen by reflected sunlight.

we're sustained by the corpse of a fallen constellation

Messier 74 (also known as NGC 628) is a face-on spiral galaxy in the constellation Pisces. The galaxy contains two clearly-defined spiral arms and is therefore used as an archetypal example of a Grand Design Spiral Galaxy. The galaxy's low surface brightness makes it the most difficult Messier object for amateur astronomers to observe. However, the relatively large angular size of the galaxy and the galaxy's face-on orientation make it an ideal object for professional astronomers who want to study spiral arm structure and spiral density waves.

mother's belly

1st Lt. Jason Edwards checks the bomb load of a B-1B Lancer Dec. 29 as he and the rest of the aircrew preflight check the bomber prior to a mission. Lieutenant Edwards is with the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron at an air base in Southwest Asia.

U. S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Douglas Olsen

Sir Arthur C Clarke

Arthur Charles Clarke, mais conhecido como Arthur C. Clarke (Minehead, Somerset, 16 de dezembro de 1917) é um escritor e inventor britânico, autor de obras de divulgação científica e de ficção científica, como por exemplo os contos The Sentinel, A Estrela, A muralha das Trevas, As Canções da Terra Distante e os romances 2001: Uma Odisséia no Espaço, 2010: Uma Odisséia no Espaço 2, 2061: Uma Odisséia no Espaço 3, 3001: A Odisséia Final, Encontro com Rama, O Enigma de Rama, O Jardim de Rama, A Revelação de Rama, As Fontes do Paraíso, O Berço dos Super-Humanos, A Cidade e as Estrelas.

Desde pequeno mostrou sua fascinação pela astronomia, a ponto de, utilizando um telescópio caseiro, desenhar um mapa da Lua. Durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, serviu na Royal Air Force (Força Aérea Real britânica) como especialista em radares, envolvendo-se no desenvolvimento de um sistema de defesa por radar, sendo uma peça importante do êxito na batalha da Inglaterra. Depois, estudou Física e Matemática no King's College de Londres.
Talvez sua contribuição de maior importância seja o conceito de satélite geoestacionário como futura ferramenta para desenvolver as telecomunicações. Ele propôs essa idéia em um artigo científico intitulado "Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?", publicado na revista Wireless World em Outubro de 1945. A órbita geoestacionária também é conhecida, desde então, como órbita Clarke.
Desde 1956 vive em Colombo, no Sri Lanka , em parte devido a seu interesse pela fotografia e exploração submarina.

Teve dois de seus romances levados ao cinema, 2001: Uma Odisseia no Espaço dirigido por Stanley Kubrick (1968) e 2010: O ano do contacto dirigido por Peter Hyams (1984), sendo o primeiro considerado um ícone tão importante da ficção científica mundial que especialistas lhe atribuem forte influência sobre a maioria dos filmes do gênero que lhe sucederam.

Também em reconhecimento a Clarke, o asteróide 4923 foi batizado com seu nome, assim como uma espécie de dinossauro Ceratopsian, o Serendipaceratops Arthurcclarkei, descoberto em Inverloch, Austrália.

photo session: combat airwaves

B-2 Spirit refuels from a KC-135 Stratotanker

F/A-18 Super Hornet


The 64th Aggressor Squadron's F-15 Eagles and F-16 Fighting Falcon

B-52

B-1B Lancer

the 12 chosen ones

and here are the 12 astronomic pictures of the year by APOD site!
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the eye of the storm

This spectacular, low-oblique photograph shows the bowl-shaped eye (center of photograph) of Typhoon Yuri in the western Pacific Ocean just west of the Northern Mariana Islands. The eye wall descends almost to the sea surface, a distance of nearly 45,000 feet (13,800 meters). In this case the eye is filled with clouds, but in many cases the sea surface can be seen through the eye. Yuri grew to super typhoon status, packing maximum sustained winds estimated at 165 miles (270 kilometers) per hour, with gusts reaching an estimated 200 miles (320 kilometers) per hour. The storm moved west toward the Philippine Islands before turning northeast into the north Pacific Ocean, thus avoiding any major landmass.

intimate moon

sorce: photonhunter

with full glory, we shine!

Very delicate foggy solar coronae (+) is seen over the statue of Ruy Diaz de Vivar in San Francisco, USA.

Author: Mila Zinkova

photo session: the tools of space exploration

saturn V (+)

soyuz (+)

space shuttle (+)

ariane 5 (+)

zenit 3SL (+)

europa

Although the phase of this moon might appear familiar, the moon itself might not. In fact, this gibbous phase shows part of Jupiter's moon Europa. The robot spacecraft Galileo captured this image mosaic during its mission orbiting Jupiter from 1995 - 2003. Visible are plains of bright ice, cracks that run to the horizon, and dark patches that likely contain both ice and dirt. Raised terrain is particularly apparent near the terminator, where it casts shadows.
Europa is nearly the same size as Earth's Moon, but much smoother, showing few highlands or large impact craters. Evidence and images from the Galileo spacecraft, indicated that liquid oceans might exist below the icy surface. To test speculation that these seas hold life, ESA has started preliminary development of the Jovian Europa Orbiter, a spacecraft proposed to orbit Europa. If the surface ice is thin enough, a future mission might drop hydrobots to burrow into the oceans and search for life.