http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-rover-sen...17.html?_esi=1 disappointing that this hasn't been mentioned yet. i stayed up late to wtach the rover land, it was as exciting to me as the moon landings must have been to the people of the 1960's.
I still have a VHS tape stored away somewhere from the original Mars Rover footage from when CNN aired a 360 degree panoramic 3D picture of the Martian surface, with a pair of old red-and-blue 3D glasses in the box with the tape.
I've watched that video so many times now. NASA released an 'official version' that plays back at the actual speed of the descent, with voiceover from mission control, but the quality didn't seem to be as good as what was in that clip you linked.
I'm so thrilled by the Curiosity mission. I have the latest images archive bookmarked and check it at least once a day.
Semi-related, I was very disappointed when I saw the headline "Who knew? Curiosity photos show Mars teeming with UFOs" hit several of my news aggregators. I'd like to shout out a big hearty "fuck you" to MSNBC for muddying the waters with garbage like that.
Sheesh. Sometimes, looking at the media sent back from the rover, I forget just how slowly these things have to happen. Seeing the shadows lengthen while it does something as simple as rotate a wheel back and forth illustrates that pretty well. Even though the thing travels at a maximum of 90 meters an hour (0.0559mph) it supposedly will usually only move at a third of that speed. More! Faster!
well, shit. i started a thread and i didn't even know it. still, i'm pleased to be able to share some of this stuff with you guys. anything involving space exploration i find really exciting. the Mars rover, the search for dark matter, the Higgs Boson (which isn't directly connected to space necessarily, but still a pretty big part of the universe). so many great things between the last few years leading up to this one.
Has anybody watched Discovery Channel's mini-series, When We Left Earth? It's up on netflix instant watch and it's a pretty amazing piece on NASA's space program.
Why the hell was there not a space thread before?!
Whatever, it's here now.
I missed the Perseids, but hoping to visit my folks soon, lay on the grass and just look up. Their place is dark, out in the countryside, but there's SOME light pollution. Not as much as my place, right in town...
I went on a date once with a girl who was amazingly beautiful.... I couldn't believe that she called me back and wanted to hang out. I was just in awe of how hot she was... all that kept going through my mind was that she could be a model (and other stuff).
And then, while we were hanging out, having an awesomely irrelevant conversation at a coffeeshop, she told me that the moon landing was faked, and she had seen videos proving that to be the case, and how it was all part of some conspiracy that all the brainwashed morons believe, and how it was all filmed in a cheap hollywood studio.
She called me the next day... and I didn't call her back.
I liked it when Buzz Aldrin popped that guy in the beak for calling him a liar as to whether he actually landed on the moon. Fuck YEAH he went to the moon! Dear conspiracy theorists, take a look at what the US spent money on to one-up the Soviets during the Cold War and then tell me they faked the moon landing in a shitty MGM studio.
If the moon landing was fake every country would have landed on the moon by now. I would be like that episode of Archer where everyone in the office pays to pretend they had sex with Lana. No country would be able to call the other a liar with out admitting they are lying too. But I guess conspiracy theorist are not very logical people.
I have been following Curiosity on twitter and I read all the tweets in the voice of WALL-E.
That interpolated landing video is great except for the whole 'fucking with the god damn colors' aspect of it. Also, it's upside down, in comparison to what NASA released. Still -- I can't complain. It was nice to watch a realtime video that wasn't a 4fps slideshow.
If anyone ever gets the chance to visit the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, they have a fantastic planetarium show, although I think the current show is about earthquakes. It will probably go back to the regular space show when the earthquake exhibit ends in late summer, I believe.
I've always liked this size comparison video. The track is John Barry's theme for The Black Hole, obviously not Vangelis.
The first time this city/suburbs girl spent the night at a friend's house in the sticks way west of Ann Arbor and I looked up at night and saw ALL THOSE STARS, I damned near had a heart attack. Then I felt really really small, like a speck of dust. Insignificant dust.