On July 29, the Earth Observatory posted an image (above) from the MISR Mystery Image contest. How did you do? Did you guess South Africa? The image is rotated so that north is in the lower right. Visible as a cement-colored grid at this distance, Cape Town sits at the head of the U-shaped bay, […]
The dark side of the moon has captured imaginations since we first stepped foot there over 40 years ago. From Pink Floyd to the recent Transformers movie, popular culture has theorized what is on the side of the moon that is in perpetual darkness. So, what is the dark side of the moon? Are there …
On the night of July 26, allsky cameras of the NASA fireball network detected three Perseid meteors in the skies above Tennessee and Alabama. The first seen by the cameras this year, these meteors are the “advance guard” of the Perseid meteor shower, which will peak on the night of Aug. 12. A bright Perseid meteor …
There’s an interesting article in today’s New York Times about mapping historical landscapes: Digital Maps Are Giving Scholars the Historical Lay of the Land. Few battles in history have been more scrutinized than Gettysburg’s three blood-soaked days in July 1863, the turning point in the Civil War. Still, there were questions that all the diaries, […]
NASA has released a new book for visually impaired people to experience the wonders of the moon. Called “Getting a Feel for Lunar Craters,” the 17-page book features Braille and tactile diagrams of the lunar surface, craters and peaks. The book was created and funded by NASA’s Lunar Science Institute, or NLSI, at Moffett Field, …
Although I got back from the 2011 GRC Visualization in Science and Education conference Friday night, my brain still hurts (in a good way). Thanks to Liz and Ghislain for their superb job as conference chairs. To me, the theme of this year’s conference was salience (more precisely, perceptual salience)–the ability of our visual system […]
Arctic Ice Update It’s good fun to follow the progress of our ship full of scientists cruising the Arctic Ocean and scrutinizing the health of marine ecosystems, but what do satellites show is happening to the central part of that ecosystem – the sea ice? The National Snow and Ice Data Center released an update noting that Arctic sea […]
Guest blogger Katie Bethea chimes in from NASA’s Langley Research Center… To call it a “bird’s eye view” is, in this case, not an exaggeration. The bumpy video above was captured by a camera mounted to the belly of a plane that was rising, falling, and pirouetting about 1,000 feet above the roadways and suburbs between […]
Take a break Friday night, step outside and gaze up at the full moon. July 15 is the full moon for this month — perhaps most commonly nicknamed the Buck Moon. Image credit/copyright to Synapped. Used with permission, all rights reserved.View large image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotomakr/960009806/ According to many Native American traditions, July is normally the month when the …
Satellite sensors provide an unprecedented perspective on our planet. Some zoom in for spectacular detail, while others take the wide view. But while our eyes in the sky give us encyclopedias full of information, they can give us something else: optical illusions. Many of us have an unconscious expectation to see objects illuminated from above. When […]
