The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DISCOVR) was launched back in February of this year. Although its goal is to measure solar wind particles from the Sun as a space weather predictor, DISCOVR passes the orbit plane of the Earth and the Moon twice per year. In its first pass, it snapped an amazing series of frames of the Moon passing in front of the Earth. The images show the dark side of the Moon, as well as the stark contrast between the darker lunar surface and the bright Earth. The camera that took the shots, the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera...
With all the news of the past year in the Astronomy world, Rosetta on 67P, Dawn on Ceres, New Horizons on Pluto, our old friend the Curiosity rover hasn’t had time to watch the news. Curiosity has been working hard, ‘rocking out’ (pun intended) on the red planet. Tomorrow, August 6th, marks its third anniversary since touching down on Mars and beginning science operations that would forever change our understanding of our next-door neighbor. To mark the occasion, the Mars Science Laboratory team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has released an anniversary video. For its third anniversary, Curiosity has found...
A few weeks back, the Philae lander woke up and began transmitting the coveted science data it had been holding on to for the better part of 2015, waiting for the Sun to shine bright enough to wake it from its deep slumber. As soon as it was able, it transmitted data back to the Rosetta orbiter, which then sent it on its long journey back home to Earth. Now that a few weeks have passed, we can finally see what the first science from the surface of 67P looks like, and determine its true fate. We can clearly see a...
With more than a decade of observations, the Cassini spacecraft has redefined our understanding of the ringed giant Saturn and its diverse moons. Continually working and returning new data, it has achieved significant scientific milestones, along with it’s partner probe Huygens, which dropped down through the thick clouds of mighty moon Titan’s atmosphere in early 2005. Along with a new scientific understanding comes views never-before-seen by human eyes, revealing the artful dance between the gas giant, its moons, and its incredible ring system. One of my favourite photos shows the incredibly beautiful symmetry of the rings. The rotational symmetry in...
Think about Earth and its population of over 7 Billion people. That’s 7 Billion people who wake up, breathe, live, think, experience, and interact with each other. The sheer volume of interactions and variation in the human experience is staggering. Every second you are alive these interactions are happening all around you, and far from you in any corner of the planet. Millions of people right now feel sad, happy, ecstatic, broken, angry, tired, energetic, and everything in between. Now if we go beyond to the Milky Way, where there are more than 50 stars for each and every homo sapiens on...
Hey hey! It’s a blue moon today! For all those people who have used the phrase ‘Once in a blue moon,’ it finally happened. Turns out that phrase means ‘about once every 2-3 years.’ A blue moon doesn’t mean the moon is changing colour anytime soon, just like a supermoon doesn’t mean the moon actually gains superpowers or gets noticeably bigger. A blue moon is simply the second full moon in a calendar month. The moon orbits the Earth in approximately 29.5 days. This was how months were originally formed. But 12 months x 29.5 days means that we are...
Categorizing objects in the universe can be difficult. The fiasco with Pluto over the last decade is more than proof of that. We generally look to location and then to size as the two main methods for classifying the stuff that permeates the cosmos. Galaxies contain stars, which host orbiting planets, which host orbiting moons; While asteroids fly in between planets and icy comets are wander through the outskirts of star systems. But what about the in-between objects? Often we find strange things in strange places. There are moons in our solar system that are larger than planets. What would...
Since the Dawn spacecraft arrived at Ceres in March of this year, it has slowly been taking high resolution maps of the surface from several different altitudes. After each successive mapping run it moves into a closer orbit of the icy world for a higher resolution glimpse. After two successful mapping runs, we finally have a full high resolution topographic map of Ceres, revealing its cratered surface in unprecedented detail. With a quick look at the map, a couple of things become apparent immediately. For one, the surface craters are quite deep, and consistent with an icy crust. The size...
I just discovered a new YouTube channel that has been running for awhile. It has astronomers from all over the world who talk about their work on the biggest and most intense pieces of telescope technology that we have on this Earth. If you have a bit of time, a bit being about 15 minutes, you’ll want to check it out!
Looking at the universe in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum can reveal features and structures that are invisible to human eyes. The vast black emptiness of space explodes into a sea of colour when we use cameras to expand our vision. Looking at a galaxy through human eyes can be a simple and seemingly uninteresting view, but in infrared, microwave, or ultraviolet wavelengths we see the deeper layers of the vast array of stars. The closest large spiral galaxy and a cousin of our own Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy, is revealed in ultraviolet. The Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX)...
