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Photos: ISS Crew Enters The Dragon

keithcowing — Sat, 26 May 2012 04:02:45 -0700

The ISS crew opened the hatchwith Dragon at 5:53 am EDT this morning and are now preparing Dragon to have its cargo unloaded. Watch their activities live More images below.

Photo: Looking Out of the Cupola at a Sunrise

keithcowing — Fri, 25 May 2012 18:04:13 -0700

The International Space Station was over the central South Pacific about 240 miles northeast of the Marshall Islands when one of the Expedition 31 crew members positioned on the station's Cupola captured this image of the sun coming up. ISS031-E-062066 (6 May 2012) --- high res (0.7 M) low res (53 K)

Photo: Controlling Dragon's Final Approach

keithcowing — Fri, 25 May 2012 18:03:10 -0700

The first Dragon commercial space ferry was berthed at the International Space Station today. ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers and his crewmates welcomed the new cargo ship and will start unloading the supplies and scientific experiments tomorrow.

Dragon gave a thorough demonstration of its manoeuvring capabilities before being allowed to approach the Space Station. At a distance of 250 m, ground control gave the go-ahead to approach the Station's safety zone.

Images: Berthing Dragon

keithcowing — Fri, 25 May 2012 08:11:35 -0700

The International Space Station crew manipulates the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft into position for berthing. More photos below

First Images of Dragon Captured by ISS

keithcowing — Fri, 25 May 2012 07:50:36 -0700

The International Space Station crew successfully captured the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft at 9:56 am EDT. More photos below

Landsat Image: Mississippi River Delta

keithcowing — Fri, 25 May 2012 06:54:05 -0700

This Landsat image of 3 October 2011 shows the Mississippi River Delta, where the largest river in the United States empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

In this false-colour image, land vegetation appears pink, while the sediment in the surrounding waters are bright blue and green. The delta is known as the 'bird-foot' delta because of the shape created by the channels extending outward.

NASA MRO HiRISE Image of Mars: Active Dune Gullies in Kaiser Crater

keithcowing — Wed, 23 May 2012 19:02:25 -0700

Gullies remain an interesting feature to study on Mars, especially because we are still learning about their formation and what processes still act on them.

In this observation, we see large gullies on a huge, barchan dune. We've observed these gullies before, seeing that they appear to be active at different times. When we say "active," we mean that we can see changes in their appearance between different HiRISE images of the same area.

NASA SDO Video: Incandescent Sun

keithcowing — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:09:42 -0700

This video takes SDO images and applies additional processing to enhance the structures visible. While there is no scientific value to this processing, it does result in a beautiful, new way of looking at the sun. The original frames are in the 171 Angstrom wavelength of extreme ultraviolet.

The Older We Get, the Less We Know (Cosmologically)

keithcowing — Wed, 23 May 2012 09:14:48 -0700

The universe is a marvelously complex place, filled with galaxies and larger-scale structures that have evolved over its 13.7-billion-year history. Those began as small perturbations of matter that grew over time, like ripples in a pond, as the universe expanded. By observing the large-scale cosmic wrinkles now, we can learn about the initial conditions of the universe. But is now really the best time to look, or would we get better information billions of years into the future -- or the past?

A Deeper Look at Centaurus A

keithcowing — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:58:36 -0700

The strange galaxy Centaurus A is pictured in a new image from the European Southern Observatory. With a total exposure time of more than 50 hours this is probably the deepest view of this peculiar and spectacular object ever created. The image was produced by the Wide Field Imager of the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile.