Stan's List

Apollo, Hubble, space station and Earth, part of 21 marvelous NASA collections, has been made available. In partnership with the non-profit Internet Archive, all the images are accessed by either a search, time line or general categories, like space, planets and astronauts.

Just made available, the server(s) are being overwhelmed, and following message appears:

NASA Images is experiencing high load, please wait 30 seconds and reload.

In fact, other than the main page, that is all I am viewing. Don’t give up, just come back in a few days.

Using the first powered landing since Viking, Phoenix as landed safely on the North pole of Mars. Space.com has excellent information and some photos from the surface.

Bob Shaylerr suggests another link to more images by the University of Arizona:

NASA reports that this will be the last lunar eclipse till 2010. The Moon will endure Earth’s shadow starting at 8:43 p.m. EST (5:43 WST)

Transiting the shadow’s core takes about an hour. The first hints of red appear around 10 pm EST (7 pm PST), heralding a profusion of coppery hues that roll across the Moon’s surface enveloping every crater, mountain and moon rock, only to fade away again after 11 pm EST (8 pm PST). No special filter or telescope is required to see this spectacular event. It is a bright and leisurely display visible from cities and countryside alike. While you’re watching, be alert for another color: turquoise. Observers of several recent lunar eclipses have reported a flash of turquoise bracketing the red of totality … The source of the turquoise is ozone.

More …

Weather report in the East Bay is rain for Wednesday. Clouds at least.

The Shuttle Atlantis is at the space station with the much delayed lab in its cargo bay. Watch the installation on NASA TV? What channel?

NASA live TV is available for viewing by RealPlayer or by QuickTime via the Flip4Mac plugin (Media Player format) or of course, the poorly reviewed MS Media Player.

The RealPlayer url is http://www.nasa.ram/35037main_portal.ram. In RealPlayer “Open Location…” under the file menu. Once loaded in the viewer, save to favorites. The advantage of RealPlayer is you can watch and/or listen and continue browsing the internet.

If you go to the NASA TV web page and have Flip4Mac, the video will be displayed in the browser window with QuickTime.

Cosmos details how the full range of satellite technology is used to locate ruins not seen for thousands of years. Most of the clues are in visible light and therefore seen from any source, Including the pictures used by Google Earth. Google Earth’s satellite pics are up to 2 years old and normally considered a weakness as nothing recent is viewed. This weakness disappears when trying to find ruins that may have been built 2000 BC, well within Google Earth’s capability. A very interesting article. More …

The Voyager pair have been in space for 30 years, and their signal is but a whisper. The Tidbinbilla tracking station in Australia maintains contact. The communication protocol used by the Voyagers requires the computers from that era, as modern computers would ignore the signal. The FairfaxDigital reports on what is necessary to “talk” to our most distance man made objects. More …

After Battery Update has been installed, each battery you insert into your MacBook or MacBook Pro will be updated automatically. Your computer’s power cord must be connected and plugged into a working power source. Download page.

Yesterday, Voyager 1 passed 100 astronomical units (one AU equals the distance from the Earth to the Sun) from the sun as it continues operating after nearly 30 years in space. That is about 15 billion kilometers or 9.3 billion miles as it travels about 1 million miles per day. Scientists still hope it will find the edge of the solar system and get into interstellar space. More …

The Globe and Mail reports “Dugway Proving Ground, Utah — A space capsule ferrying the first comet dust samples to Earth parachuted onto a remote stretch of desert before dawn Sunday, drawing cheers from elated scientists. The touchdown capped a seven-year journey by NASA’s Stardust spacecraft, which zipped past a comet in 2004 to capture minute dust particles and store them in the capsule.”

Failed stars, baby stars and vast cosmic canyons of dust and gas were on display in a new Hubble Space Telescope image of the Orion Nebula released on Wednesday.