(via Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIKxdRFx2Wo)

TESS Shares 1st Science Image in Hunt to Find New Worlds

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which began science operations in July, has released its first full frame image using all four of its cameras.

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which began science operations in July, has released its first full frame image using all four of its cameras.

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKI2InhHDcM)

#AltadenaLive!

What’s Up for December?

View Mars right now, and prepare for 2016, the best Mars viewing year since 2005! Last month early risers watched small, reddish Mars dance with brighter Jupiter and Venus just before sunrise. 

This month Mars rises earlier-by about 2 a.m. local time. Its reddish color is unmistakable, even without a telescope. It’s easy to see below the Moon and Jupiter on December 4. You won’t see many features this month, because the planet is almost 10 times smaller than nearby Jupiter appears and 350 times smaller than the Moon appears to us on Earth.

You should also be able to see Mars’ north polar region this month, because it’s currently tilted towards Earth. 

You’ll be amazed at the changes you’ll see during 2016. January through December are all prime Mars observing months. Between January and May next year, Mars triples in apparent diameter as its orbit around the sun brings it closer to Earth. You’ll even be able to see the areas on Mars where NASA’s Mars landers are located.

By October, Mars shrinks in apparent size to less than half its May diameter as it speeds away from Earth. Mars shrinks even further from October through December, returning to the same size we saw in January 2016 by year’s end.

So put Mars viewing on your calendar for 2016. You won’t see Mars this size again until 2018, when Mars will put on an even better show.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAVJrLRBRPY)

91001.tv Freestyle

91001tv

"WHITEWASH" a Documentary On The Black Experience In Surfing

Whitewash explores the African-American experience and race in surfing. It touches on some pertinent issues about how the history of surfing was detached from it’s indigenous Hawaiian origins and largely regarded as having it’s founding or “discovery” with European settlers. It also focuses on the issues of segregation and racism at beaches in California and of how the belief that “black people can’t swim” was passed down from generation to generation. 

I’m so glad this documentary exists. There is also great evidence of sea culture in West Africa which after the slave trade forced the people to move inland. Surfing has never been a white-trait.