Close-up (rear) view of Astronaut White as he floats in zero gravity of space over Gulf of Mexico. White is attached to the spacecraft by a 25-ft. umbilical line and a 23-ft. tether line, both wrapped in gold tape to form one cord. In his right hand White carries a Hand-Held Self-Maneuvering Unit (HHSMU). The visor of his helmet is gold plated to protect him from the unfiltered rays of the sun. Click for larger. Image and caption: Project Gemini

First off, gee there was no post yesterday, I’m afraid I’ve made a mistake, oh well too late now.  I do have one today though and I think it’s pretty cool.

Project Gemini, the second US human spaceflight program got under way in 1964 following the Mercury program. The Gemini program was kind of a baby step on the road to putting a man on the moon. The overall goal with the Gemini was to test systems and other operations instrumental to the Apollo program.  The reality is that Gemini program provided a basis for all US space missions to follow.

The cool bit is NASA’s Johnson Space Center and the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University just today put the Project Gemini Online Digital Archive online.  The archive contains the first high-resolution digital scans of the original Gemini flight films, now available in several formats.  It also has Mercury mission images too. Be sure to check it out!

A volcano in the Red Sea. Click for larger. NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team.

This look at a volcanic eruption in the Red Sea in December 2011 comes to us from the Earth Observatory.

Fountains of lava reaching 90 feet (30 meters) in the air according to fisherman are helping form what could be a new island.  The before and after pictures can be seen at the NASA Earth Observatory site and in their full context as I zoomed in on the volcano.  The region is part of the Red Sea Rift, the area where the African and Arabian tectonic plates pull apart.

The image was taken by the Advanced Land Imager on NASA’s Earth Observing satellite on December 23, 2011.

SOFIA looks deep into M42. Click for larger. Image: NASA / SOFIA

SOFIA short for Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, is an observatory that is mounted into the rear fuselage of a 747. The 2.5-meter (that’s about 100 inches!) reflecting telescope works in the visible, infrared and sub-millimeter ranges and flying at between 39,000 and 45,000 feet is above 99 percent of the water vapor in the atmosphere that really goobers up the infrared and sub-millimeter observations.

While it (for me) lacks the pizzazz of balloon mission it more than makes up for it with the ability to “go now”.

Want to learn more about SOFIA?  Go here.

Check out the press release below for a great description of the image, including the colors:

A new image from NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) shows a complex distribution of interstellar dust and stars in the Orion nebula. Interstellar dust, composed mostly of silicon, carbon and other heavy elements astronomers refer to generically as “metals,” plus some ice and organic molecules, is part of the raw material from which new stars and planets are forming.

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Brand new radar image of 2005 YU55. Click for larger. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Here’s about the newest image of 2005 YU55 there is.  It is a radar image obtained at 11:45 a.m. PST at a distance of about 860,000 miles (1.38 million km) from Earth.

Larger versions available here at NASA.

Crepusular Rays as seen from the ISS. Image credit: NASA / JSC / ISS Crew

Ever seen these? I’m sure you have and now you know what to call them.

These were seen from the above by crew members aboard the ISS and the photo was taken on October 18^th as the ISS was passing over India.

You can get a larger version of the image here (links to the Earth Observatory page) or you can go to the main Earth Observatory page with the image and caption. I’ve included the caption (by William L. Stefanov, Jacobs/ESCG at NASA-JSC) below:

The sight of shafts of light streaming down from the heavens through a layer of clouds has provided many an artist, scientist, and philosopher with inspiration. Atmospheric scientists refer to this phenomenon as “crepuscular rays,” referring to the typical observation times at either sunrise or sunset.
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