Digital Terrain Models created from dual images produced by the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provide elevation data for the surface of the Red Planet. And they are very pretty as well : The most beautiful images of Mars you’ve ever seen – io9.com.
Here are a couple of samples.
HiRise | DTM: East Coprates Chasma Dune Fields and Wall Rock (Stereo view):
The IMAX film project In Saturn’s Rings employes new techniques with high-resolution still photos from space, probes like the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn, to give viewers a vivid authentic sense of flying through the scene. Below is a new trailer that gives a taste of how the IMAX film, set to be released in 2014, will take the audience into space with photos from 26 different missions: New trailer for In Saturn’s Rings is guaranteed to give you goosebumps
From the website:
In Saturn’s Rings is a non-profit giant-screen art film that takes audiences on a journey of the mind, heart and spirit from the big bang to the near future via the Cassini-Huygens Mission at Saturn. Currently in production after years of development, In Saturn’s Rings aims for global release late next year.
Composed entirely of still photographs using innovative visual techniques developed by the filmmaker, In Saturn’s Rings stretches the boundaries of the motion picture form. The film will feature powerful music by Ferry Corsten, William Orbit, Samuel Barber and melds non-narrative visual poetry & science documentary into a rich experience for audiences.
In Saturn’s Rings is a film that’s both personal and universal, experimental and sincere, science and spirit , non-narrative and documentary. The goal is to use large screen imagery, synchronized to powerful but moving music, to create an experience for those who see it, hear it and feel it.
Using hundreds of thousands of still images manipulated to create full motion, using “2.75D” photographic fly-through technology. The film will be presented in IMAX® quality 6K resolution on massive screens and concert-level surround systems to audiences in giant screen institutions, IMAX® theaters, fulldome planetariums, museums and select 4k digital cinemas.
Copenhagen Suborbitals successfully launched their actively guided rocket Sapphire on June 23rd. (See Launch Success of Active Guided Rocket Sapphire – Next Stop Space – Wired Science/Wired.com).
They have released the video shown below of an animation of the rocket during the flight based on the telemetry that it transmitted: Re-animated Flight Event of the Sapphire Rocket – Wired Science/Wired.com
Bas Lansdorp, co-founder and CEO of Mars One, discusses radiation exposure Mars settlers and how they plan to deal with radiation shielding for their Mars base: Radiation Fears Should Not Hold Back Mars One Mission – Space.com.
Robert Zubrin, president of Pioneer Astronautics and the Mars Society, gives his analysis of a recent NASA report on radiation dosages for a Mars trip: Curiosity’s Radiation Results – Robert Zubrin/SpaceNews.com.
ESA assists an artist in sending her recast meteorite back to space:
Meteorite science meets an artist’s dream of spaceflight
28 June 2013: Inspired by the dream of space exploration, artist Katie Paterson imagined sending a piece of her meteorite artwork back to space in a celebration of science, art and human technology. Her vision may just become reality, with a little help from ESA’s can-do cargo vessel.
Campo del Cielo, Field of the Sky
Paterson’s installation, Campo del Cielo, Field of the Sky, is on display at the UK’s prestigious Turner Contemporary gallery this summer, and features a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite that has been cast, melted and recast as a model of itself, retaining its original form.
Katie describes Campo del Cielo, Field of the Sky as presenting curious visitors with a newly formed yet still ancient meteorite, imbued with cosmic history.
“The iron, metal and dust inside have been reformed, and the layers of its cosmic lifespan – the intermixing of space and time, the billions of years of pressure and change – have become collapsed, transformed and then, by the hand of human technology, renewed,” she says.
Back to where it came from
While developing the concept for the installation, Katie was struck by an idea: would it be possible to ‘close the story’ of her Campo del Cielo meteorite by returning it back to space?
“By sending it ‘back to space’, I hope to fire the imaginations of students, youth – anyone, really – and foster a discussion on our relation with the wider universe,” she explains.
Seminal fragments of our cosmic origins
For ESA, meteors, meteorites and asteroids are crucial to the scientific understanding of our Solar System, and they are central to numerous Agency activities such as the Rosetta comet mission, future robotic missions to asteroids, near-Earth object studies, Space Situational Awareness and even potential human missions beyond the Earth, Moon and Mars.
“Scientists recognise comets, meteorites and asteroids as the debris left over from the formation of our Solar System,” says Dr Detlef Koschny, responsible for near-Earth object activities at ESA’s Space Situational Awareness office.
“As such, studying them up close, if they fall to Earth, or deep in space, via telescopes or with spacecraft – like ESA’s Rosetta – is vital to understanding how planets and our Solar System emerged.
So, really, objects like this bit of meteorite symbolise a lot of what we are trying to achieve.”
Earlier this year, Katie contacted ESA to enquire if it would be possible to send a symbolic piece of her meteorite to the International Space Station as a way to support public outreach and awareness of the intersection between science and art.
ESA agreed, and has provisionally allocated space on the next Automated Transfer Vehicle, Georges Lemaître, due to voyage to the orbital outpost in 2014. A small sample of the meteorite will be carefully assessed for flight qualification, and if it passes, can be delivered ‘back to space’ to the Station.
“I hope this helps inspire people everywhere to think about the really big questions: the origin of life, the natural history of our Solar System and home planet, and our relationship with time, both geological and cosmic,” says Detlef.
“These are important questions, and space exploration together with art are helping us answer them.”
ATV Albert Einstein arrives at the ISS
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Updates on this project will be posted at Albert Einstein | Follow ESA’s Automated Transfer Vehicle missions to the ISS – Blog/ESA.