itsfullofstars:

Iran’s Messier Marathon

Red night vision lights, green laser pointers, tripods and telescopes in faint silhouette surround intrepid sky gazers embarked on the 10th annual Iran Messier Marathon. Completing the marathon requires viewing all 110 objects in 18th century French astronomer Charles Messier’s catalog in one glorious dusk-to-dawn observing run. As daunting as it sounds, there are often favorable weekend dates for northern hemisphere marathoners to complete the task that fall on nearly moonless nights near the spring equinox. With the Milky Way as a backdrop, this group of about 150 astronomy enthusiasts conducted their 2011 marathon on such a night in April from the desert area of Seh Qaleh, in eastern Iran.

kateoplis:

Cosmonaut Fedor Yurchikhin

itsfullofstars:

Earth: The Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan

sciencenote:

They found something interesting: what mattered to the babies was if the environment was consistent before and after birth. That is, the babies who did best were those who either had mothers who were healthy both before and after birth, and those whose mothers were depressed before birth and stayed depressed afterward. What slowed the babies’ development was changing conditions — a mother who went from depressed before birth to healthy after or healthy before birth to depressed after. “We must admit, the strength of this finding surprised us,” Sandman says. (via Can fetus sense mother’s psychological state? Study suggests yes)

physicsphysics:

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space | Fly Over | Nasa, ISS (by Michael König)

lowindustrial:

Space Activity Suit

Since the 1960s, NASA has also investigated spacesuits that utilize mechanical pressure rather than pressurized gas to protect an astronaut. Such a “space activity suit” is essentially an allover skin-tight leotard, which would be very lightweight and provide far less impediments to motion than traditional spacesuits. As well, a small tear in the suit would only affect the area exposed by the hole rather than cause a potentially deadly decompression event. The only area of the suit that would need to be pressurized is the astronaut’s helmet.

(Photograph by Douglas Sonders)

ianbrooks:

NPP Delta II Launch

“A Delta II rocket launches with the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) spacecraft payload from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. on Friday, Oct. 28, 2011. NPP is the first NASA satellite mission to address the challenge of acquiring a wide range of land, ocean, and atmospheric measurements for Earth system science while simultaneously preparing to address operational requirements for weather forecasting”.

(via: Bill Ingalls, NASA’s flickr)

moneyisnotimportant:

I wanted to go as Warren Buffett for Halloween, but i couldn’t find a single costume store that would rent out $48,000,000,000.00 to me.

[Thanks to the folks at Column Five for this.]