Category Archives: Space participation

Astronomy, Space participation, Space Science

Wave at Saturn for your picture

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About time to go outside and wave at Saturn. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will be taking a picture of earth today between 2:27 and 2:42 PDT (5:27 and 5:42 p.m. EDT, or 21:27 and 21:47 UTC).

NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft in orbit around Mercury will take images with earth in the picture at 4:49 a.m., 5:38 a.m. and 6:41 a.m. PDT (7:49 a.m., 8:38 a.m. and 9:41 a.m. EDT, or 11:49, 12:38, and 13:41 UTC) on Saturday.

NASA Interplanetary Probes to Take Pictures of Earth From Space

This simulated view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the expected positions of Saturn and Earth on July 19, 2013, around the time Cassini will take Earth's picture
This simulated view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows the expected positions of Saturn and Earth on July 19, 2013, around the time Cassini will take Earth’s picture. Cassini will be about 898 million miles (1.44 billion kilometers) away from Earth at the time. That distance is nearly 10 times the distance from the sun to Earth. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

PASADENA, Calif. — Two NASA spacecraft, one studying the Saturn system, the other observing Mercury, are maneuvering into place to take pictures of Earth on July 19 and 20.

The image taken from the Saturn system by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will occur between 2:27 and 2:42 PDT (5:27 and 5:42 p.m. EDT, or 21:27 and 21:47 UTC) Friday, July 19. Cassini will be nearly 900 million miles (nearly 1.5 billion kilometers) away from Earth. NASA is encouraging the public to look and wave in the direction of Saturn at the time of the portrait and share their pictures via the Internet.

The Cassini Earth portrait is part of a more extensive mosaic — or multi-image picture — of the Saturn system as it is backlit by the sun. The viewing geometry highlights the tiniest of ring particles and will allow scientists to see patterns within Saturn’s dusty rings. Processing of the Earth images is expected to take a few days, and processing of the full Saturn system mosaic will likely take several weeks.

Inspired in part by the Cassini team’s plans to obtain a picture of Earth, scientists reexamined the planned observations of NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft in orbit around Mercury. They realized Earth is coincidentally expected to appear in some images taken in a search for natural satellites around Mercury on July 19 and 20. Those images will be taken at 4:49 a.m., 5:38 a.m. and 6:41 a.m. PDT (7:49 a.m., 8:38 a.m. and 9:41 a.m. EDT, or 11:49, 12:38, and 13:41 UTC) on both days. Parts of Earth not illuminated in the Cassini images, including all of Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, will appear illuminated in the MESSENGER images. MESSENGER’s images also will take a few days to process prior to release.

Details on how to find Saturn in the sky and participate in the event are available at: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/waveatsaturn .

The public can share pictures by using the hashtag #waveatsaturn on Twitter, or uploading pictures to the event’s Flickr page at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/wave_at_saturn/ .

The event’s Facebook page is: http://bit.ly/waveatsaturn .

Cassini mission scientists also will be participating in a live Ustream show on Friday from 2 to 2:30 p.m. PDT (5 to 5:30 p.m. EDT): http://www.ustream.com/nasajpl2 .

For more information about the two NASA spacecraft, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini , http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/messenger .

Astronomy, Space participation

Amateur astronomer spots comet during star party in Ukraine

Ukrainian amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov discovered a comet while participating in a star party: Amateur Astronomer Discovers Comet C/2013 N4 (Borisov) During a Star Party – universetoday.com.

Animation of Comet Borisov compiled from multiple images. Credit: http://astronomamator.narod.ru/cometes/comet_anim.gif

Animation of Comet Borisov compiled from multiple images.
Credit: astronomamator.narod.ru/cometes/comet_anim.gif

More info and images at Leonid Elenin’s Photos | Facebook.
Contests and Games, Space participation

SpaceKate competes in the Lynx Space Academy competition

SpaceKate is competing this weekend in the Lynx LSA Live at Westfield White City, London.  Those who pass this level will go to Florida to compete at the  Axe Apollo Space Academy.

Earlier this year she won a campaign to convince Unilever to let women compete equally in the Axe Lynx contest:

(You may remember all those Axe Apollo commercials where the girl rescued by a firefighter,  lifeguard, etc goes instead for the guy in the spacesuit.)

SpaceKate was one of the 250 people out of a many thousands of entries selected in The National Challenge.

She is reporting on her experiences at the Lynx LSA Live event:

The competition is being live webcast:

Update: The latest from Kate: The Lynx Effect? – On a Mission.

Education, Space Arts, Space participation

Video: Youth art displayed in space

Here is a very nicely done video made on the International Space Station showing the wonderful artworks of the winners and finalists in the Humans in Space Youth Art Contest displayed on a tablet with the station’s Cupola module windows in the background. Astronaut Chris Hadfield gives an introduction. The soundtrack music is also from one of the entrants.

Caption:

The international Humans in Space Youth Art Competition calls for youth 10-18 years old to “be inspired, creative and heard.” We invite them to learn about space and communicate their visions of the future of space travel and exploration through visual, literary, video, and musical artwork.

This years theme addresses the question, “How will humans use science and technology to explore space in the future, and what mysteries will we uncover?”

For more information, please visit www.humansinspaceart.org