The Earth Story

The previous launch attempt scrubbed after one of the 3 engines reported a thrust out of the range it was supposed to be in at the time of ignition - limits that may simply have been too conservative. SpaceX is currently planning to try one more time today, with a potential launch in about an hour.

Sand Sea This amazing image comes from Namibia’s amazing Namid-Naukluft National Park. In the far distance of this shot, you see the Atlantic Ocean at the edge of these sand dunes. These dunes are found at the edge of the Tsauchab river, which is one of several rivers that flow from the central part of South Africa into the Namib desert. The Tsauchab does not reach the ocean, all the water is lost into the ground and as evaporation before it could do so, but all of the sand and sediment carried by that river is left behind. Over time, the winds of this desert have sculpted that sand into these high dunes.

Timelapse of the sky and night over ancient castles of Spain.

Our galactic neighbour, rising over the Italian Alps The Andromeda galaxy is speeding towards ours at a large rate of knots, and in some 4 billion years the two galaxies will collide in a slow motion minuet that will ignite a huge burst of star formation in both island universes. At the moment it is still some 2.5 million light years away, but it is so bright it is visible to the naked eye as a light smudge if you know where to look and have a reasonably dark sky (in fact its visibility or lack thereof is a good test of what astronomers call 'seeing').

Nebraska Sand Hills Extensive tracts of sand dunes are common throughout the central Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. The greatest among these is the Nebraska Sand Hills, which cover nearly 20,000 square miles (52,000km2) in north-central Nebraska and southernmost South Dakota.

The minerals of the Moon Studying the rocks collected on different lunar missions has revealed a number of surprising results, as well as a great deal of information about the composition of both our planet’s satellite – and the Earth itself.

The Fingerprint of the Giant Impact When the Apollo program returned samples from the Moon, the rocks clearly differed from rocks on Earth. Different minerals, different abundances of minerals, clearly different histories and chemistry, but there were also surprising links between the two bodies.

Here’s video of a remarkable discovery from scientists in Brazil and at the European Southern Observatory - the asteroid Chariklo in the outer solar system has rings around it! 

Video here shows the asteroid passing between the Earth and a star, blocking out its light, but before and after the asteroid blocked out the star, you can see tiny dips in the light as the asteroids rings move across too.

  Comet Ison – something has survived! Comet Ison made its close approach to the sun at just after 1800 UTC today (a little over 3 hours ago). Orbiting observatories and telescopes based on Earth were able to monitor it until about 1800 UTC when most observers lost it. All the eyes of the solar observing fleet were trained on where Ison was supposed to be, including the twin Stereo spacecraft, SOHO, and SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory). The Stereo spacecraft and Soho were able to see Ison until about 1800 UTC, but all of the observatories lost it as it entered. It looked to every observer like it was gone. That was…until a few minutes ago, when Stereo and Soho images started showing quite clearly that “Something has survived!” We can’t tell what exactly has emerged from the sun; something is intact based on the LASCO image (an instrument on Soho). STEREO sees the same thing – its image is on the left. Something continues to produce a tail right now, some remnant of Ison has survived. I can’t tell you how big this chunk is, I can’t tell you what it’s made of, but something is coming out of the sun right now. The reports of Ison’s death may not be entirely exaggerated…this could be but a shard of the original comet…but something is still there. -JBB Image credits: http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/browse/2013/11/28/ahead/cor2/512/20131128_203924_d7c2A.jpg https://twitter.com/CometISONnews/status/406162679657537536/photo/1/large Here's an animated gif from LASCO http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5480/11106507235_ec20b425d7_o.gif