Credit: Sally J. Smith

This beautiful photograph is featured on SpaceWeather.com today — a crescent moon as seen through an ice sculpture by Sally J. Smith:

Yesterday, March 17th, nature artist Sally J. Smith of Wadhams, New York, created her last ice sculpture of the 2009-10 winter season. “I set it up before the sun went down and hoped it would be in good alignment to catch the crescent moon,” she says. Indeed it was [...] “The winds were warm and the sculpture melted faster than I anticipated, but in the end all was well. Even Venus made it into the scene. A few seconds later the top part of the sculpture fell off.” And so winter comes to an end…

Here’s how the sculpture started out:

Credit: Sally J. Smith

Such a creative idea! It reminds me of something in a book I picked up recently, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School — “Frame a view, don’t merely exhibit it.” This is a perfect example of why framing matters. I’m not an architect, nor am I in architecture school — I just love architecture — but I found a surprising amount of tips in that little book, perfectly applicable to web and graphic design. I find it helpful to step outside my own “industry” and get inspiration from other sources. You never know what “unrelated” thing may help you solve a problem or prompt an idea!

Kvaløya, Norway, Mar. 14, 2010 - Credit: Fredrik Broms

It’s St. Patrick’s Day so I’ve found some GREEN for you, courtesy of the SpaceWeather.com Aurora Gallery. (Normally I’d just pick one but, well… I couldn’t decide between these two! So you get both.)

Aurora over Sommarøy, near Tromsø, Mar. 2, 2010 - Credit: Bjørnar G. Hansen

I love the “future that never was” because hey, that future was pretty exciting, and a lot more optimistic than the grim realities of what’s happening right now at NASA. In fact, the “new vision” is so nebulous that one might say we don’t have a future in spaceflight at the moment. That may change, and certainly I hope it does… in the mean time, I have shelves of classic and modern science fiction to keep me dreaming.

Anyway, last week I was pointed to a fantastic upcoming book by two Twitter friends, linking to two separate, high-profile interviews and reviews — this author has a savvy publicist!! — and all I could think was, “at last, someone wrote a book FOR ME!” This book is Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957-1962 by Megan Prelinger. I must own this book, forthwith. Or, well, forthwith upon release.

From “Another Science Fiction”

I missed out on Apollo completely, and even most sci-fi I read was written before I was born. I long for the Space Age, having never experienced it personally. I’m a child of the Space Shuttle, and my era is ending, with nothing to replace it (on NASA’s part; full well I know that the next era will most likely be commercial, and I embrace that future with open arms. Maybe I’ll even get to go somewhere in my lifetime. Viva la space tourist!)

Which is all a really long way of saying, I really look forward to Another Science Fiction, and I can already tell I’ll be loving it from cover to cover. Preorder it on Amazon — it comes out on May 1st!

By purchasing this book through my links, I may possibly get an Amazon Affiliates payout… in another year or two. For more information, click here.

Image Credit & Copyright: Tim Carruthers, astrophoto.com.au

A great APOD from the weekend — follow the link for huge (4000px) version. This will be my desktop momentarily.

Explanation: Only 11 million light-years away, Centaurus A is the closest active galaxy to planet Earth. Spanning over 60,000 light-years, the peculiar elliptical galaxy, also known as NGC 5128, is featured in this sharp color image. Centaurus A is apparently the result of a collision of two otherwise normal galaxies resulting in a fantastic jumble of star clusters and imposing dark dust lanes. Near the galaxy’s center, left over cosmic debris is steadily being consumed by a central black hole with a billion times the mass of the Sun. As in other active galaxies, that process likely generates the radio, X-ray, and gamma-ray energy radiated by Centaurus A.

Anyway, I was sitting here today with my U.S. Space & Rocket Center “Danielle” mug (lovingly carried back from Huntsville and camp in 1995), thinking that it was high time I talked about my camp experience. Space Camp changed my life. Truly! Just now I discovered and filled out the Alumni Survey (because hey, why not?), and the questions prompted me along the same lines as what I hoped to post here. Here are a couple of questions, and my answers.

How did camp affect your life or career choice?

Space Academy II ABSOLUTELY changed my life. I was interested in spaceflight from a very early age, but grew up in a rural area with nobody around that shared my interests.

My first year at camp was just before my junior year of high school. I was in a team of eight (six guys, one other girl), and we INSTANTLY got along: we ALL loved science fiction, ALL wanted to be astronauts, ALL liked the same movies and books and “nerdy” hobbies. For the first time in my life, I felt like I BELONGED somewhere. I fit in. That was mind-boggling for me. I came back a changed person, “flying” my space-nerd colors openly at school, and caring far less about what the “cool” people thought of my interests.

In the end, my career took a different path than my childhood goal of becoming an astronaut, but to this day, Space Camp remains one of the most powerful, wonderful experiences of my life. It gave me a much-needed boost, and I’m very grateful to have gone not once, but twice!

I still have my flight suit (although some of the patches are no longer attached; I have no idea what possessed me to take them off, but at least I know where they are), my team photos, my name tag for the suit and my wings. And my coffee mug. ♥

Tell us your favorite, funniest, and/or most inspiring camp memory, tradition, or activity.

Funny memory: During EDM, a shuttle crew member became “sick” with “constipation”, which we had to diagnose and treat. She acted this out by doubling over and repeatedly moaning “I FEEL the PAIN!!”

[Ed: The above is all I could fit in the survey box. It leaves out the fact that we were DYING of laughter. DYING. The "medical condition" assignments we randomly got were supposed to be Taken Very Seriously. Believe me, nobody could help this sick crew member, NOBODY, because we were collapsed all over the simulator, on both decks, and on the ladder, DYING of laughter. The counselors couldn't even get mad at us for not trying to diagnose the patient; they were laughing too.]

Both times I went, I was assigned to the shuttle pilot position, which is actually (imho) more fun (and intense!) than commander, because you have a LOT more switches to flip and buttons to press. (And procedures, OHHH the procedures.) My first EDM (extended-duration mission, the all-nighter/24-hour simulated mission), I was in Mission Control the whole time which sucked, ahem, which was not nearly as fun. Tiger Team was very frustrating. My second EDM, I was on the shuttle, which was a great experience for the aforementioned pilot-switch-flipping aspect, aforementioned funny story, and I also got to command the space station during the second half, which was cool.

To finish this off and to justify the several “digging” attempts to find this photo, here’s a picture of me and my dad, the day I flew home from Space Camp in 1994. (I wore my flight suit home. In fact, all of us that bought suits wore them flying home. We must have been a sight, running through the Atlanta airport..!!)

I’ve always loved imagery of the Veil Nebula/Cygnus Loop — I guess I’m a sucker for wisps of color. These Hubble images rock my socks off (artistically speaking.)

Credit for both images: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration. Acknowledgment: J. Hester (Arizona State University)

This image shows a small portion of the Veil Nebula – the shattered remains of a supernova that exploded some 5-10,000 years ago. The intertwined rope-like filaments of gas result from the enormous amounts of energy released as the fast-moving debris from the explosion ploughs into its surroundings and creates shock fronts. These shocks, driven by debris moving at 600,000 kilometres per hour, heat the gas to millions of degrees. It is the subsequent cooling of this material that produces the brilliantly coloured glows.

This portion of the Veil Nebula is located in a magnificent part of the Veil known as the Witch’s Broom Nebula to the east (to the right in the overview image). The entire structure spans about 3 degrees, corresponding to about 6 full moons. The bright blue star – dubbed 52 Cygni and unrelated to the supernova explosion – can be observed with the naked eye on a clear summer’s night.

This small portion of the Veil Nebula is located in the larger segment seen in its western part (the top left corner of the large ground-based overview image). The entire structure spans about 3 degrees, corresponding to about 6 full moons.

I’m pretty sure it’s not intentional, but the cropping of this new image of Saturn’s moon Helene makes it really eye-catching. Framing really makes or breaks a photo. I’m in an artsy mood, alright? Also, color images can be gorgeous and breathtaking (and space ones often are), but there’s just something about black and white….

(Somewhere out there, a photographer-reader is nodding. Uh-huh. I see you.)

What’s happening on the surface of Saturn’s moon Helene? The moon was imaged in unprecedented detail last week as the robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn swooped to within two Earth diameters of the diminutive moon. Although conventional craters and hills appear, the above raw and unprocessed image also shows terrain that appears unusually smooth and streaked. Planetary astronomers will be inspecting these detailed images of Helene to glean clues about the origin and evolution of the 30-km across floating iceberg. Helene is also unusual because it circles Saturn just ahead of the large moon Dione, making it one of only four known moons to occupy a gravitational well known as a stable Lagrange point.

I am so amused and charmed by Norio Fujikawa’s Rocket Boy — he gets bonus points for being a fellow northern Californian (albeit, far more southerly than my part of northern California.) Rocket Boy reminds me a bit of the title character in Opoona, an RPG for the Wii (I’ve been watching my husband play it, it’s a really neat game. Great soundtrack!)

Found via Curved White.

Credit: H. Schweiker/NOAO/AURA/NSF and T. A. Rector/University of Alaska Anchorage and NOAO/AURA/NSF

This beautiful image came through my Twitter stream Friday night, so I’m passing the savings onto you! (Thanks @TaviGreiner for retweeting it, and @jimcook310 for finding the larger versions!) Scientifically speaking, this nebula is known as Abell 21, but hey, I can see the “Medusa” bit. I really can. [nod nod]

The Medusa nebula, known scientifically as Abell 21, is an old planetary nebula some 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. It is estimated to be over 4 light-years across. This image was taken on Oct 24th, 2008 at the Mayall telescope with the mosaic camera, with [OIII] (assigned a blue color) and H-alpha (orange) filters

This image was released during the 100 Hours of Astronomy webcast, “Around the World in 80 Telescopes” held from April 3-4, 2009, during the International Year of Astronomy 2009.

Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA

What are these weird streaks on Mars? Anyone’s guess. They’re neat-looking, at any rate!

What creates these picturesque dark streaks on Mars? No one knows for sure. A leading hypothesis is that streaks like these are caused by fine grained sand sliding down the banks of troughs and craters. Pictured above, dark sand appears to have flowed hundreds of meters down the slopes of Acheron Fossae. The sand appears to flow like a liquid around boulders, and, for some reason, lightens significantly over time. This sand flow process is one of several which can rapidly change the surface of Mars, with other processes including dust devils, dust storms, and the freezing and melting of areas of ice. The above image was taken by the HiRise camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which has been orbiting Mars since 2006. Acheron Fossae is a 700 kilometer long trough in the Diacria quadrangle of Mars.