Everything Under The Sun Is In Tune

Via the Guardian:

In an unusual treat for astronomers, and perhaps Pink Floyd fans, what is often known as the dark side of the moon has been captured, fully illuminated, by a camera aboard a NASA satellite. The series of images taken from NASA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory show a view of the far side of the moon, as it is more formally known, as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth. The images, taken on 16 July, show the moon moving across the Pacific Ocean towards North America. Its far side is shown in detail owing to sunlight hitting it, revealing a crater and a large plain called the Mare Moscoviense. Earth-bound observers see only one side of the moon because it is tidally locked to our planet, meaning its orbital period is the same as its rotation around its axis. The images of the far side of the moon, which wasn’t seen by humankind until a Soviet mission in 1959, will be captured about twice a year by NASA’s observatory, which is primarily monitoring solar winds.

(Tipped by JMG reader Smith)

More About Pluto

New Horizons Reaches Pluto

Via the New York Times:

It was like New Year’s Eve in Times Square as the countdown clock ticked down to zero. “We’re going to do our 10-9-8 thing and you can get your flags out,” S. Alan Stern, the principal investigator for NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto told the people gathered here at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which is operating the mission. “We’re going to go absolutely ape.” About 7:50 a.m. Tuesday, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made its closest pass by Pluto, coming within 7,800 miles of the surface. The crowd, which included the children of Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930, cheered.

As soon as it arrived, New Horizons was leaving, speeding along its trajectory at 31,000 miles per hour. For now, no one knows how the spacecraft is faring. NASA released the newest color picture of Pluto, which was sent down on Monday and offers the clearest view yet. Among the science findings so far: a precise measurement of Pluto’s diameter; greater than expected amounts of nitrogen leaking from the atmosphere into space; confirmation of nitrogen and methane ices at the polar region; and images that show strange, and different, landscapes on Pluto and Charon, its largest moon. On Monday, Paul Schenk, a co-investigator on the science team, said, “It looks like somebody painted it for a ‘Star Trek’ episode.”

Earth From The Space Station

NASA Mission Nears Pluto

Clip recap:

The New Horizons mission will help us understand worlds at the edge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissance of the dwarf planet Pluto and by venturing deeper into the distant, mysterious Kuiper Belt – a relic of solar system formation. Following a January 2006 launch, New Horizons is currently about 2.95 billion miles from home; the spacecraft is healthy and all systems are operating normally.

The flyby takes place on July 14th.

Hubble Telescope Celebrates 25 Years

From NASA:

The brilliant tapestry of young stars flaring to life resemble a glittering fireworks display in the 25th anniversary NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, released to commemorate a quarter century of exploring the solar system and beyond since its launch on April 24, 1990. “Hubble has completely transformed our view of the universe, revealing the true beauty and richness of the cosmos” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “This vista of starry fireworks and glowing gas is a fitting image for our celebration of 25 years of amazing Hubble science.” The sparkling centerpiece of Hubble’s anniversary fireworks is a giant cluster of about 3,000 stars called Westerlund 2, named for Swedish astronomer Bengt Westerlund who discovered the grouping in the 1960s. The cluster resides in a raucous stellar breeding ground known as Gum 29, located 20,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Carina.

NASA Craft Orbits Dwarf Planet

Via IFL Science:

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft made history at 4:39 a.m. PST Friday morning when it reached Ceres and became the first man-made object to orbit a dwarf planet. According to NASA, the objective of the Dawn mission is to “study the asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres, celestial bodies believed to have accreted early in the history of the solar system. The mission will characterize the early solar system and the processes that dominated its formation.” Dawn was launched from Cape Canaveral in September 2007, with an ultimate destination of the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter. Dawn’s first target in the asteroid belt was Vesta. Dawn arrived there in 2011 and spent 14 months studying the protoplanet. Since leaving Vesta, Dawn has had a trajectory for its second and final destination: Ceres. No other spacecraft has ever orbited two separate targets.

Sen. Ted Cruz To Oversee NASA

Via UPI:

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has been made the chair for the Senate subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, which oversees NASA. Cruz said in 2013 it is "critical" the United States show continued leadership in space exploration and development. However, his opinion on climate change, which NASA is heavily involved in studying, has been a skeptical one. "The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming," Cruz told CNN in 2014. "Contrary to all the theories that – that they are expounding, there should have been warming over the last 15 years. It hasn't happened," he said. Cruz is also a politician who believes in reducing government spending, so it is unclear how he will view NASA's budget.

In other scary climate change news, Sen. Marco Rubio will chair the subcommittee that oversees NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (Tipped by JMG reader Paul)

Mixed Result For Today's SpaceX Launch

Via Reuters:

An unmanned Space Exploration Technologies mission blasted off on Saturday carrying cargo for the International Space Station, but efforts to reland the rocket on a sea platform failed, the firm said. The Dragon cargo capsule itself was successfully launched into space and is expected to dock with the space station on Monday. Seeking to cut the cost of space launches, SpaceX hoped to bring the rocket back to Earth, aiming to land it on a floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean some 200 miles (322 km) off Jacksonville, Fla., north of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch site. A ship stationed near the platform tried to capture the touchdown on video, but it was too dark and foggy, Musk said. Engineers will look to work out what went wrong by studying data relayed during the descent, as well as pieces of the rocket itself, he added. "Ship itself is fine. Some of the support equipment on the deck will need to be replaced," said Musk, who prior to the launch had put the odds of a successful touchdown on the first attempt at just 50 percent.

Happy New Year From The ISS

Orion Launches Successfully

Via the Guardian:

Friday’s launch went smoothly, and cameras mounted on the rocket beamed back stunning pictures of the Earth as Orion blasted into the sky. The mission could have huge implications, despite its brief four-and-a-half-hour duration. Orion will fly farther than any spacecraft made for astronauts has in decades, about 3,600 miles (5,800km) above the Earth’s surface, and is a test case for a capsule that NASA hopes will one day land on Mars. As its second orbit comes closer to the planet, the Orion capsule will separate and re-enter the atmosphere, eventually splashing down into the Pacific off the coast of southern California, from where it will be recovered.

The View On Comet 67P

Spacecraft Lands Safely On Comet 67P

NASA Rocket Expodes On Launch

The unmanned rocket carried supplies for the ISS. The evening launch from Virginia was to have been visible to millions on the East Coast and many media outlets hyped the viewing today to their readers.

Buzz Aldrin: Get Your Ass To Mars

Yesterday Buzz Aldrin, the lunar module pilot of Apollo 11 and the second person to walk on the moon, held a Q&A on Twitter about his time as an astronaut. Aldrin closed the session with the above question. See the responses. Some of those viewing the video feed were curious about Aldrin's t-shirt, which he's selling on his website. The slogan is a quote from the original Total Recall.

NASA Spacecraft Orbits Mars

Via the New York Times:

NASA’s latest Mars spacecraft, Maven, arrived Sunday evening to study the mystery of what happened to the planet’s air. After a 33-minute engine firing, mission controllers received acknowledgment at about 10:25 p.m. Eastern time that Maven was in orbit around Mars. After a six-week period to turn on and check systems on the spacecraft and to move it to its final orbit, Maven — the name is short for Martian Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution — is to take detailed measurements of the dynamics of Mars’s upper atmosphere. But first, it will have a sideshow, taking observations of a comet that, by rare happenstance, will make a close flyby of Mars on Oct. 19, passing within 82,000 miles. Mission managers have arranged to activate Maven’s eight scientific sensors by then.

Ken Ham: NASA Is Wasting Taxpayers' Money Because God Only Made Humans

"I’m shocked at the countless hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent over the years in the desperate and fruitless search for extraterrestrial life. Of course, secularists are desperate to find life in outer space, as they believe that would provide evidence that life can evolve in different locations and given the supposed right conditions! The search for extraterrestrial life is really driven by man’s rebellion against God in a desperate attempt to supposedly prove evolution! Secularists cannot allow earth to be special or unique—that’s a biblical idea (Isaiah 45:18). If life evolved here, it simply must have evolved elsewhere they believe. The Bible, in sharp contrast to the secular worldview, teaches that earth was specially created, that it is unique and the focus of God’s attention (Isaiah 66:1 and Psalm 115:16). Life did not evolve but was specially created by God, as Genesis clearly teaches. Christians certainly shouldn’t expect alien life to be cropping up across the universe. The answers to life’s questions will not be found in imaginary aliens but in the revelation of the Creator through the Bible and His Son, Jesus Christ, who came to die on a Cross to redeem mankind from sin and death that our ancestor, Adam, introduced." - Creation Museum head Ken Ham, writing for Answers In Genesis.

NASA Celebrates LGBT Pride Month

UPDATED: Sally Ride & Bayard Rustin Get Presidential Medal Of Freedom

Accepting the medals on behalf of their late partners were Tam O'Shaughnessy (Sally Ride) and Walter Naegle (Bayard Rustin). Both presentations were preceded by the off-stage announcer recounting the contributions made by Ride and Rustin to the history of the LGBT movement. The live stream has now concluded.

HomoQuotable - Tam O'Shaughnessy

"It’s scary to be open because you don’t realized the impact that it might have on so many aspects of your life. You worry about grants, about whether you’ll be able to continue writing children’s textbooks; we were scared that if sponsors knew the founders of Sally Ride Science were two lesbians, if that would affect our organization. I wanted to ensure Sally’s legacy reflected the integrity in which she lived her life. For her not to be open in this one way felt wrong." - Tam O'Shaughnessy [background in photo], on the decision to out Ride in her obituary. O'Shaughnessy says Ride left it up to her. "‘You decide,’ she said and that shocked me. That girl was great about surprises."

Today Sally Ride and Bayard Rustin, the gay black man who organized the 1963 March On Washington, will posthumously receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.