It’s International Dark Sky Week! Please Enjoy This Great Bortle Scale.

How does a microgravity garden grow when there’s no up or down? An advanced chamber, about the size of a mini-fridge, is giving us a clearer perspective of plant growth habits. Without gravity and the addition of a wide variety of light and humidity settings, the plants cultivated on the International Space Station provide a world of opportunity to study space-based agricultural cycles.

Learn more about our space garden HERE.

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Escape velocities for every planet in the solar system

27 of Hubble's Best Photos for Its 27th Birthday

Hubble turns 27 today. Here's a look back at some of its most noteworthy accomplishments.

You may recognize the seventh picture in the slideshow--it’s my profile picture here. Happy birthday Hubble, you’re older than I am!

The orbit of Jupiter protects the Earth from asteroids.

Fibonacci you crazy bastard….

As seen in the solar system (by no ridiculous coincidence), Earth orbits the Sun 8 times in the same period that Venus orbits the Sun 13 times! Drawing a line between Earth & Venus every week results in a spectacular FIVE side symmetry!!

Lets bring up those Fibonacci numbers again: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34..

So if we imagine planets with Fibonacci orbits, do they create Fibonacci symmetries?!

You bet!! Depicted here is a:

2 sided symmetry (5 orbits x 3 orbits)

3 sided symmetry (8 orbits x 5 orbits)

5 sided symmetry (13 orbits x 8 orbits) - like Earth & Venus

8 sided symmetry (21 orbits x 13 orbits)

I wonder if relationships like this exist somewhere in the universe….

Read the Book    |    Follow    |    Hi-Res    -2-    -3-    -5-    -8-

Cassini Just Sent Back Closest Ever Images of Saturn, And They're Incredible

NASA's Cassini probe is plunging to its death. The nuclear-powered spacecraft has orbited Saturn for 13 years, and sent back hundreds of thousands of images. The photos include close-ups of the gaseous giant, its famous rings, and its enigmatic moons - including Titan, which has its own atmosphere, and icy Enceladus, which has a subsurface ocean that could conceivably harbour microbial life.

YO THAT SHIT BALLER AS FUCK HOLY SHIT

“It sounds far fetched even for the plot of a sci-fi film.

NASA scientists have proposed a radical idea to launch a magnetic field around Mars, with hopes it could protect the red planet from intense solar wind and allow humans to explore alongside rovers.

Jim Green, NASA’s Planetary Science Division Director, revealed the idea today at the Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop in Washington DC…

The proposal would create a dipole field –a pair of equal and oppositely charged magnets – in an orbit between Mars and the sun, at a point known as Mars L1.

This ‘artificial magnetic field’ would put Mars inside a ‘magnetotail,’ protecting it from the harsh solar wind.

Without the barrage of high-energy particles, Mars’ atmosphere would begin to rebuild itself over time.

In just a matter of years, the simulations show the planet could achieve an ‘Earth comparable field.’

Increasing the pressure would cause the equator to heat up, leading the polar cap to collapse, Green says…"

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4276210/NASA-unveils-plan-surround-Mars-magnetic-field.html?ITO=applenews

TELLURIAN

[adjective]

1. of or characteristic of the earth or its inhabitants; terrestrial.

[noun]

2. an inhabitant of the earth.

3. Tellurion: an apparatus for showing the manner in which the diurnal rotation and annual revolution of the earth and the obliquity of its axis produce the alternation of day and night and the changes of the seasons.

Etymology: from Latin tellūs, “the earth” + -ian,  "of, relating to, or resembling".

[Frank Moth - We Used To Live There]

Peak Perseid mornings: August 11, 12, 13 | EarthSky.org

When is the peak of the Perseid meteor shower in 2020? The greatest number of meteors is most likely to fall in the predawn hours on August 12, yet under the light of a wide waning crescent moon.

Where to look, and when.

Does space have a standard time or do you rely on the time zones on Earth while you are in space?

Great question.  Really it is up to the particular space agency/mission which time zone they use.  For example, since the International Space Station is a collaboration between NASA, the Russian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, the Japanese Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, we came up with the compromise of operating on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).  So, Space Station time is the same as London time!  The International Space Station orbits our planet every 90 minutes, so of course we’re transiting across multiple time zones constantly.