Something great, something big, something very special that’s never happened before is about to happen!

On July 19, 2013, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will be turned to image Saturn and its entire ring system during a total eclipse of the sun, as it has done twice before during its previous 9 years in orbit. But this time will be very different. This time, the images to be collected will capture, in natural color, a glimpse of our own planet next to Saturn and its rings on a day that will be the first time Earthlings know in advance their picture will be taken from a billion miles away. A full end-to-end mosaic of images of the ring system will be acquired over 4 hours on July 19. The Earth will be captured in a series of images taken between 21:27 to 21:42 UTC on that day, or 14:27 and 14:42 Pacific Daylight Time.

It will be a day for people all over the globe to celebrate together the extraordinary achievements that have made such an interplanetary photo session possible. And it will be a day to celebrate life on the Pale Blue Dot. Read the press release via CICLOPS.ORG.

The graphics shown below illustrate the position of our planet relative to Saturn, and the portion of Earth that will be illuminated at the time its pictures are captured.

Illuminated View: This graphic shows the view of Earth and the portion of its surface that will be illuminated during the Earth imaging event on July 19, 2013.

Taking Earth’s Picture from Nearly 900 Million Miles Away: This simulated view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on July 19, 2013, shows the expected positions of Saturn and Earth around the time Cassini is taking Earth’s picture.

via carolynporco

Carolyn Porco: This is Saturn | TED

Carolyn Porco: Could a Saturn moon harbor life? | TED

Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco studies and interprets the photos from the Cassini-Huygens mission, orbiting Saturn and its largest moon, Titan. She and a team of scientists from NASA and the European Space Agency have been analyzing the images that Cassini has been sending back since it left Earth in 1999. They’ve found many new rings and four new moons (so far). And they’ve produced breathtaking images and animations of the stormy face of Saturn, its busy rings, and its jumble of moons and moonlets.

Back in the mid-1980s, while still working on her doctorate, Porco was drafted onto a team at JPL that was crunching the mountains of data coming back from the Voyager fly-by of Saturn. Her work on the planet’s “ringlets,” and on a spoke pattern noticed in the rings, made an important connection between Saturn’s rings and its magnetic field — and cemented her connection with Saturn.

Her ongoing work at the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPs) has two goals: to process and interpret the Cassini images for other scientists, and to make sure the images — in all their breathtaking poetry and mystery and sheer Save-Image-As-Desktop awesomeness — connect with the general public. She is an advocate for the exploration and understanding of planetary space, and her frequent talks (as well as her “Captain’s Log” memos on the CICLOPS website) speak to everyone, scientist and nonscientist alike.

Still Curious? Watch Carolyn again, this time, LEGO-fied! and watch a conversation with Carolyn, as she discusses the Saturn and Cassini Mission with astrophysicist and curator, Mike Shara of the American Museum of Natural History during the 217th American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle, Washington

“Imagine the day when we might journey to the Saturnine system, and visit the Enceladus interplanetary geyser park, just because we can.”

I love this woman.

Porthole Perspectives

via kateoplis

Abandoned Milky Way by Aaron Groen

via seafarers

Avenue of the Giants by Justin Jones

via seafarers

“Contrary to the fantasies of the fundamentalists, there was no deathbed conversion, no last minute refuge taken in a comforting vision of a heaven or an afterlife. For Carl, what mattered most was what was true, not merely what would make us feel better. Even at this moment when anyone would be forgiven for turning away from the reality of our situation, Carl was unflinching. As we looked deeply into each other’s eyes, it was with a shared conviction that our wondrous life together was ending forever.”

Ann Druyan, Epilogue to Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium

Underwater explosions are, in general, much more dangerous than those in air. This video shows an underwater blast at 30,000 fps. During the initial blast, a hot sphere of gas expands outward in a shock wave. In air, some of the energy of this pressure wave would be dissipated by compressing the air. Since water is incompressible, however, the blast instead moves water aside as the bubble expands. Eventually, the bubble expands to the point where its pressure is less than that of the water around it, which causes the bubble to collapse. But the collapse increases the gas pressure once more, kicking off a series of expansions and collapses. Each bubble contains less energy than the previous, thanks to the loss of pushing the water aside. (Video credit: K. Kitagawa)

If you needed something to make a science GIF out of this weekend, here’s a good subject.

Whoa.

via jtotheizzoe, fuckyeahfluiddynamics

What Makes Tattoos Permanent?

It’s all about the particles in the tattoo ink’s pigment says Dr. Anne Laumann, MBChB, a professor of dermatology at Northwestern University.

Tattoo application uses a mechanized needle to puncture the skin and inject ink into the dermis or second layer of skin just below the epidermis. Since the process involves damaging the skin, the body responds with white blood cells which attempt to absorb the foreign particles and dispose of them in the blood stream.

“The reason pigment stays there is because the pigment particles are too big to be eaten by the white cells, so they just sit there,” Laumann says.

Tattoos have become increasingly popular in recent years. According to a 2010 Pew Research Report, approximately 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 have at least one tattoo.

The problem with tattoos is exactly what makes them so appealing—their permanency. “If you have the name of your boyfriend on there and then you marry somebody else, that’s a problem,” Laumann says.

Tattoos also tend to become problematic with age. Ink can become blurred if injected too deeply into the skin, causing the pigment to migrate beyond the intended area. Fading and distortion due to changes in body shape are also common problems with tattoos. Permanent makeup—or tattoos that resemble eyeliner or other makeup—is a prime example of how these problems can lead to dissatisfaction years after the ink is applied because skin sags and changes shape with age.

“The problem with that is as you get older the shape of the fold of the skin changes,” Laumann says. “So not only does it bleed a bit because the pigment moves gradually over time and so those will tend to become sort of smoky edges, but also the whole line might become a little distorted over the years.”

When a tattoo is no longer desirable, whether it’s faded or causing a bad case of buyer’s regret, you can burn it or cut it out—but the safest and most effective method is a laser treatment.

via kenobi-wan-obi

Thought I’d contribute by throwing my science tattoos into the archive…..

A bit of sun for Father’s Day.

via Alan Friedman

This guy. I learned of him over 2 years ago and I’ve been consistently amazed at his spectacular astrophotography views and concentrations of the sun in particular.

Cheshire Moon by Chepar

via kenobi-wan-obi

Time Magazine celebrates 50 yrs of women in space

There was less global hoopla when Yang flew than when Ride did, and much less than when Tereshkova did. The fact that human beings travel in space continues to be—and should be—something that delights and even surprises us. The fact that women are among those explorers is, at last, becoming routine.

See the complete gallery and read the complete article

via womeninspace

(via asonlynasacan)

APOD Turns Eighteen 
Image Credit & Copyright: Wang Letian

Explanation: The first APOD appeared eighteen years ago today, on 1995 June 16. Although garnering only 14 pageviews on that day, we are proud to estimate that APOD has now served over one billion space-related images over the past eighteen years. That early beginning, along with a nearly unchanging format, has allowed APOD to be a consistent and familiar site on a web frequently filled with change. Many people don’t know, though, that APOD is now translated daily into many major languages. We again thank our readers, astrophotographers, and NASA for their continued support, but ask that any potentially congratulatory e-mail go this year to the volunteers all around the world who translate APOD’s captions daily, many times with considerable effort. Some APOD images are featured in the above spectacular collage visualizing APOD as a classic film reel, submitted by an APOD enthusiast skilled in digital image manipulation. How many APOD images can you identify?

APOD is also available in: Arabic, Bahasa Indonesian, Catalan, Chinese, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, Farsi, Farsi, Galego, German, French, Hebrew, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish,Thai, or Turkish 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY APOD! WE LOVE YOU!

via imagineatoms

Peer into the center of the Milky Way with this stunning time-lapse video from Chile’s Paranal Observatory, by photographer Stéphane Guisard. Pretty perfect for a Friday, eh?

The bright streak that traverses our sky is the actual disk of our galaxy, the “milk” in our “way” is from the density of stars along the disk-like plane of our spiral home. You can also see a couple of our neighboring galaxies in there, dusty splotches against the inky dome.

Rebecca Rosen has more, with a nice reminder that any picture of a galaxy showing an arrow that says “you are here” is lying to you :) A Whole-Sky Time-Lapse of the Galactic Center - The Atlantic

Bonus: Take a look at this mind-bogglingly big snapshot of the Milky Way, a nine-gigapixel image containing more than 84 million stars. Think that’s a lot? It’s just 1% of the sky, and just this galaxy. It’s also my desktop background image!

via jtotheizzoe

Brian Cox | The Universe (Crab Nebula/Supernova @ 17:00)

Chaco Canyon | Crab Nebula/Supernova (original post)

Retro Space Images: Deke!

via asonlynasacan

Photo: Donald K “Deke” Slayton suits up for an altitude test of the Apollo command module in an altitude chamber of KSC’s Manned Spacecraft Operations Building

What is a Moon tree?

Apollo 14 was the eighth manned mission in the United States Apollo program, and the third to land on the Moon. On January 31, 1971 commander Alan Shepard, Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa, and Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell launched on their nine-day mission.

While Shepard and Mitchell were on the surface, Roosa remained in lunar orbit aboard the Command/Service Module, performing scientific experiments and photographing the Moon. Ed Cliff, who was the Chief of the Forest Service at the time, proposed an idea to Roosa. This lead to taking about 500 seeds on the mission, many of which were germinated on return, resulting in the so-called Moon trees.

via KTS

(via knowledgethroughscience)