Juno Perijove — Jupiter Flyby

A wonderful video by Seán Doran putting recent imagery from the Juno spacecraft to György Ligeti’s Atmosphères, famously used in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

From the original video: This computer animation uses the JunoCam images of PJ-05 as textures, and SPICE trajectory data in order to reconstruct the flyby as seen from Juno’s perspective.

Above: Edits by Seán Doran // Below: as featured on APOD

On May 19, the Juno spacecraft once again swung by Jupiter in its looping 53 day orbit around the Solar System’s ruling gas giant.

APOD: Beginning at the top, this vertical 14 frame sequence of enhanced-color JunoCam images follows the spacecraft’s rapidly changing perspective during its two hour passage. They look down on Jupiter’s north polar region, equatorial, and south polar region (bottom images). With the field-of-view shrinking, the seventh and eighth images in the sequence are close-up. Taken only 4 minutes apart above Jupiter’s equator they were captured just before the spacecraft reached perijove 6, its closest approach to Jupiter on this orbit. Final images in the sequence pick up white oval storm systems, Jupiter’s “String of Pearls”, and the south polar region from the outward bound spacecraft.

See also

• JunoCam — A part of the Juno payload included by NASA for public outreach, to discuss and decide which points of interest on Jupiter should be photographed.
• The pastel astronomical drawings of Étienne Léopold Trouvelot (1882)
• Chart of human space exploration

Epoch

By Ash Thorp

Epoch is an experimental film intended to take you on a voyage through our solar system and beyond. It is a personal project orchestrated to share our enjoyment and admiration for science fiction films and literature.

To optimize your viewing experience, Epoch is best experienced with a full screen, no artificial light intrusion, ample sound speakers, and an open mind free of predictions or expectations in order to allow the film to guide you on its expedition and take you to another place entirely.

See also: Wanderers — a short film by Erik Wernquist

The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings (1882)

The Public Domain Review: The French artist, astronomer and amateur entomologist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot is noted for ⋮ the 7000 or so illustrations he created from his astronomical observations, the quality of which reached their zenith in the 15 exquisite pastel works which were published as ‘The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings’ in 1882.

As well as his illustrations, Trouvelot also published some 50 scientific papers, and was credited with discovering “veiled spots” on the Sun in 1875.

See also

• The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings: Atlas on The New York Public Library Digital Collections website. Includes high resolution (~70MB TIFF) downloads of all images, free to use without restriction.
• The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings Manual (1882) on the Internet Archive.

See also: Other posts on this blog tagged ‘space’.

Explore the International Space Station in 4K

Space Station Fisheye Fly-Through 4K (Ultra HD)

NASA: Join us for a fly-through of the International Space Station. Produced by Harmonic exclusively for NASA TV UHD, the footage was shot in Ultra High Definition (4K) using a fisheye lens for extreme focus and depth of field.

(via Kottke)

See also: Stunning 4K timelapse of Earth from the ISS

David Braben on the science behind Elite Dangerous

David Braben is one of the most influential computer game programmers of all time thanks to his groundbreaking work with the Elite series in the 80’s. While I haven’t played the new Elite Dangerous yet, I really appreciate the thought that has gone into the designs and the respect for science that is evident.

David Braben interview, part 1 & part 2

See also: Audio design in Elite Dangerous

A Song About Rockets

…to the tune of “I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General”.

See also

The first variant of the patch of the Russian-American-Brazilian crew of the Soyuz TMA-8 spaceship.

Atlas Obscura: These rare Russian insignia are a colorful relic of Soviet space travel

The patch of the Russian-French crew on the Cassiopée program, 1996–1997. On this mission, astronaut Claudie André-Deshays became the first French woman in space.

This patch is a variant used by the Soviet-Czechoslovakian crew, in 1978 for Soyuz-28.

The personal badge of cosmonaut Gennadi Manakov, used in 1996.

Patch for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first joint flight between the Soviets and the U.S.

• The creepy, kitschy and geeky patches of US spy satellite launches — “If anything, it’s an internal gag. Like, how far can you take it without being reprimanded? Or maybe the patches represent jokes that cropped up in the processing of the satellites, which we’ll never know unless they’re declassified—and maybe not even then.”
• The story behind the NRO’s sinister octopus logo — “It’s really neat to me. It’s kind of saying the enemy has nowhere to run.”
• What does the red swoosh in NASA’s ‘meatball’ logo mean? — The distinctive red shape wasn’t just a designerly flourish.
• Trippy retro DEA patches — DEA and other federal agencies created their own patches to identify different units, and they had a particularly definitive flair during the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s.

Competition to map the first human outpost on Mars

National Geographic: Sure, NASA has plenty of scientists hard at work mapping the geology of potential Martian landing sites. But designing maps to help humans navigate, study, and survive in an alien landscape will require an entirely different set of skills—the kinds of skills that cartographers, graphic artists, and people who love maps might have.

One of 47 possible exploration zones on Mars that could be visited by humans.

So, the International Cartographic Association is holding a competition to come up with the best map design for astronauts who would spend about a year on the surface of Mars as part of a mission proposed for the 2030s.

“This project is on the boundary between scifi, game design, graphic arts and science, like cartography is.” Henrik Hargitai, NASA planetary scientist

Mars Exploration Zones: This concept animation shows just one of many potential concepts for how the first human landing site on Mars might evolve throughout the course of multiple human expeditions to the Red Planet over a decade or more.

See also

• ICA Call for maps: Mars Exploration Zone Map Design Competition
• Ordnance Survey map of Mars — “The planet Mars has become the latest subject in our long line of iconic OS paper maps. The one-off map, created using NASA open data and made to a 1:4,000,000 scale, is made to see if our style of mapping has potential for future Mars missions.”
• If the Earth were 100 pixels wide, the Moon would be 3000 pixels away, and Mars… well, you’ll have to see for yourself.
• Canyonlands National Park texture and shaded relief map — National Park Service cartographer Tom Patterson is a master of texture and shaded relief. He’s released this gorgeous map of Canyonlands National to the public domain.
• The first relief map — [Hans Conrad Gyger’s] map of the Zurich area took 38 years to survey and paint, and is considered as one of the most beautiful cartographic works of that time. Because of its high military importance the map was kept secret, and, unfortunately, had no influence on contemporary cartography. Not until 200 years later were shaded relief maps of comparable quality and beauty produced.
• The flag of planet Earth — Oskar Pernefeldt’s graduation project is a flag for our world, “to remind the people of Earth that we share this planet, no matter of national boundaries”.

Death in Space

Thomas Lucas created these two second moments of depicting ways in which we might meet our ends in space. I don’t know how, but I really feel like this should be a series!

See also: The Philosophy of Rick and Morty

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NGC 7635 aka The Bubble Nebula: Although it looks delicate, the 7 light-year diameter bubble offers evidence of violent processes at work. Above and left of the Bubble’s center is a hot, O-type star, several hundred thousand times more luminous and around 45 times more massive than the Sun. A fierce stellar wind and intense radiation from that star has blasted out the structure of glowing gas against denser material in a surrounding molecular cloud.

The Chart of Cosmic Exploration

Probe the solar system from Mercury to Pluto with this stellar schematic of space exploration! From the Luna 2 in 1959 to the DSCOVR in 2015, this color-coded chart traces the trajectories of every orbiter, lander, rover, flyby, and impactor to ever slip the surly bonds of Earth’s orbit and successfully complete its mission—a truly astronomical array of over 100 exploratory instruments in all.

Available as a 39″ × 27″ poster from Pop Chart Lab.

(via Mental Floss)

See also

• What’s up in the Solar System? — A diagram by Olaf Frohn, updated once a month, of active space missions traveling beyond Earth orbit.
• A scale model of the Solar System — On a dry lakebed in Nevada, a group of friends build the first scale model of the solar system with complete planetary orbits: a true illustration of our place in the universe.
• Other posts on this blog tagged ‘space’

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BBC News: Ordnance Survey releases digital map of Mars surface

This is the first time that OS has produced a map of territory from another planet.

Ordnance Survey map of Mars on Flickr (plus a reduced version)

BBC: “It was a little hard at first to actually understand the data itself in terms of things like the elevation and the scale and so on,” said the OS cartographer behind the map, Chris Wesson. “But actually the physical process was almost identical to what was used to make an Earth map, or any OS map.”

The map itself covers roughly 10 million sq km (3.8 million sq miles) – or about 7% of the total Martian surface.

See also: Other posts on this blog tagged ‘maps’

Behind the scenes video…

The Verge

Inspired by this fan’s tribute to Rendezvous with Rama and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Lightfarm Studios in Rio, Brazil created this detailed digital image. (via)

See also: Wanderers — a vision of humanity’s expansion into the Solar System, based on scientific ideas and concepts of what our future in space might look like, if it ever happens.

The story behind the NRO’s sinister octopus logo

MuckRock reports:

When the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) announced the upcoming launch of their NROL-39 mission back in December 2013, they didn’t get quite the response they had hoped. That might have had something to do with the mission logo being a gigantic octopus devouring the Earth.

Privacy and security researcher Runa Sandvik wanted to know who approved this and why, so she filed a FOIA with the NRO for the development materials that went into the logo. A few months later, the NRO delivered. As for the question of “why a giant octopus,” the NRO offers up these two clunky paragraphs…

If that imagery comes off as somewhat forced, there’s a reason for that – an article for what appeared to be the ODNI’s internal magazine reveals the “secret origin” of the octopus…

That article draws from a speech made by the Mission Manager…

“It’s really neat to me. It’s kind of saying the enemy has nowhere to run.”

MuckRock: “A little sinister!!” The story behind National Reconnaissance Office’s octopus logo

See also

• The patches of US spy satellite launches — A purple-haired sorceress holding a fireball. A three-headed dragon wrapping its claws around the world. A great raptor emerging from the flames. No, these are not characters from a Magic: The Gathering deck. They are avatars depicted on the official mission patches made for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
• MuckRock is a collaborative news site that brings together journalists, researchers, activists, and regular citizens to request, analyze, and share government documents, making politics more transparent and democracies more informed.
• What does the red swoosh in NASA’s ‘meatball’ logo mean? — The distinctive red shape wasn’t just a designerly flourish…

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Project Apollo Archive
Thousands of high-resolution (3200DPI) Apollo images scanned by NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

Here (in no particular order) are about sixty of my favourites picked from a quick trip through the 9,200 on offer!

To Scale: The Solar System

On a dry lakebed in Nevada, a group of friends build the first scale model of the solar system with complete planetary orbits: a true illustration of our place in the universe.

See also

• Wikipedia: The overview effect is a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts and cosmonauts during spaceflight, often while viewing the Earth from orbit or from the lunar surface.
• If the Earth were 100 pixels wide, the Moon would be 3000 pixels away, and Mars … well, you’ll have to see for yourself.
• Our solar system turns out to be a bit of a freak
• Planetfall: New Solar System Visions — The startling majesty – and deceptive complexity – of Michael Benson’s space art can be traced back through a process he dubs “true color.”
• What’s Up in the Solar System? — A diagram by Olaf Frohn, updated once a month, of active space missions traveling beyond Earth orbit.

What does the red swoosh in NASA’s ‘meatball’ logo mean?

The distinctive red shape wasn’t just a designerly flourish, it was actually inspired by a model for a supersonic plane being tested in the wind tunnels at NASA’s Ames Research Center.

From Gizmodo:

James J. Modarelli, head of the Research Reports Division at the NASA Lewis Research Center (now the NASA Glenn Research Center), was the chief designer of the NASA seal and meatball insignia. In July 1958, Modarelli attended the triennial inspection of the AAL, during which facilities and research efforts within the NACA were highlighted and discussed for invited guests in the scientific community. […] During the Ames meeting, Modarelli participated in a tour consisting of nine stops for presentations on topical research activities. At the Ames Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel, he viewed an Ames exhibit featuring a discussion by Ames researchers on current advanced supersonic aircraft technology. On display was an Ames wind-tunnel model of a radical supersonic airplane configuration designed for efficient flight at Mach 3. Featuring a cambered and twisted arrow wing with an upturned nose, the sleek model deeply impressed Modarelli as a symbol of the leading-edge aeronautical efforts of the NACA.

See also

• The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) is a project to digitize the original analog data tapes from the five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft that were sent to the Moon in 1966 and 1967
• Penny for NASA
• Stunning 4K timelapse of Earth from the ISS
• The Flag of Planet Earth

…and other posts tagged ‘space’.

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What’s Up in the Solar System?
A diagram by Olaf Frohn, updated once a month, of active space missions traveling beyond Earth orbit.

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Dmitry Pisanko downloaded 95,623 publicly available raw images from taken from the International Space Station – that’s 109 Gigabytes worth – and after some post-production in Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects created this incredible 4K timelapse spectacle.

The part which took the longest was finding the appropriate soundtrack to accompany the video; Dmitry said it took “a long time, prohibitively long, almost three months”, but once he came across ‘Experience’ by Ludovico Einaudi he knew he had finally found what he was looking for.

(via DIY Photography)

The Flag of Planet Earth

Oskar Pernefeldt’s graduation project at Beckmans College of Design is a flag for our world, “to remind the people of Earth that we share this planet, no matter of national boundaries”.

Centered in the flag, seven rings form a flower – a symbol of the life on Earth. The rings are linked to each other, which represents how everything on our planet, directly or indirectly, are linked. The blue field represents water which is essential for life – also as the oceans cover most of our planet’s surface. The flower’s outer rings form a circle which could be seen as a symbol of Earth as a planet and the blue surface could represent the universe.

Construction animation of The International Flag of Planet Earth by Johan Fredriksson

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Inspired by this work, Wired has taken a look at other alternative flags for Earth as designed by visionaries and hippies

James Cadle’s Earth flag

John McConnell’s Earth flag

United Nations flag

International Flag of Planet Earth

I particularly like this design by redditor ‘thefreck’ who designed an extensible flag that can be updated as humans colonise other planets…

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Finally, Roman Mars gave a great TED talk recently based on an episode of his radio show/podcast 99% Invisible about flags: Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you’ve never noticed

In this surprising and hilarious talk about vexillology — the study of flags — Mars reveals the five basic principles of flag design and shows why he believes they can be applied to just about anything.

Give him a few minutes to warm up as it turns into a great talk.

The Fermi Paradox

The Fermi Paradox — Where Are All The Aliens?

The universe is unbelievably big – trillions of stars and even more planets. Soo… there just has to be life out there, right? But where is it? Why don’t we see any aliens? Where are they? And more importantly, what does this tell us about our own fate in this gigantic and scary universe?

Audio design in Elite Dangerous

Matthew Florianz, audio designer for Elite Dangerous

Recorded looking through the roof of a slow spinning Eagle. Highlights dynamic environment ambiences for outpost, star, galaxy background radiation and planet as objects come into view. Additional audio includes ship flyby, gui notifications and ship internal cockpit ambiences.

(Game audio was gained 12db in post-production for this video, recorded in Full Range mode.)

(via Andy Kelly)

Here’s another, less subtle video about the sounds of the Elite Dangerous universe. I particularly like the space station ambience.

See also: Other Places, A series celebrating beautiful video game worlds by Andy kelly.

More

Direct comparison of the original photo to the restored version

The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project

Between 1966 and 1967 NASA sent five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft to the Moon. Images from these spacecraft were used by mission planners to select the Apollo landing sites.

The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) is a project funded by NASA, SkyCorp, SpaceRef Interactive, and private individuals to digitize the original analog data tapes from the five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft that were sent to the Moon in 1966 and 1967

The first image to be successfully recovered by the project was released in November 2008. It was the first photograph of the Earth from the Moon, taken in August 1966.

• Wikipedia: Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project
• Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project on nasa.gov
• Moon Views, the original home of LOIRP.

See also

• Planetfall: New Solar System Visions
• Gordon Ugarkovic’s pictures of Saturn and her moons
• Amateur astro-photographer Alan Friedman’s detailed pictures of our Sun

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Our Pluto

On July 14, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly past Pluto, and we will map that distant world and its moons for the first time.

The New Horizons team plans to assign names to the features on the maps of Pluto and its large moon Charon, once we have seen them in sharp detail this summer.

Before

After?

At the Our Pluto site you can suggest your ideas for names and vote for your favourites. The ballot closes on 7th April 2015, so get in there quickly!

See also

Planetfall: New Solar System Visions by Michael Benson

The startling majesty – and deceptive complexity – of Michael Benson’s space art can be traced back through a process he dubs “true color.”
Time: The Cosmos In Living Color: Michael Benson’s Interstellar Imagery

Benson is a visual stylist with a gift for framing and focus. Apart from cutting-edge high-definition renderings of our solar system’s most familiar objects, he also routinely converts extra-terrestrial terrain into thrilling, abstract landscapes that seem positioned somewhere between the scientific and the avant-garde.

“At least with this particular subject matter, I usually try to give as accurate a representation as possible of what the human eye might see if we could travel to these places ourselves.”
Michael Benson — Slate: Curating the Cosmos

• Gordon Ugarkovic’s spectacular take on NASA’s Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan.
• A Look Behind the Future — This fascinating documentary featurette looks at the production of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and also the Apollo programme, which had yet to put man on the moon.
• Waltz Around Saturn with this video showing highlights from Cassini’s exploration of the giant planet, its magnificent rings, and fascinating family of moons.
• …and other posts tagged ‘space‘

Anomaly

Set against the space-race canvas of the 1960’s, Anomaly is inspired by the traditional Christmas Nativity and explores, through a modern-day lens, the events of two-thousand years ago. It is a story about relationships that intertwine around an unprecedented astronomical event, as a couple navigate life’s realities at a time of unfathomable significance.

• Framestore: The making of Anomaly
• Behind the scenes video

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Smithsonian: The Creepy, Kitschy and Geeky Patches of US Spy Satellite Launches

The bird on this patch for NROL-49 could be an eagle to represent the US, and the flames might stand for the fireball produced by the Delta IV Heavy rocket used for the January 2011 launch. The feathered form could also be a phoenix—there is speculation that this satellite took the place of another that was discontinued. The Latin motto reads: “Better the devil you know.”

Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks broke shortly after the release of the patch for NROL-39, leading many to speculate that the octopus represented the tentacles of the government reaching out to control the world. After using the Freedom of Information Act, however, a journalist found a more mundane explanation: the octopus represents a failed instrument (nicknamed an octopus) that the team had to contend with while preparing the satellite for its December 2013 launch.

The tiger is circling the globe, just like the satellite launched on NROL-9 in May 1999. Why a tiger—or the choice for a mission motto—nobody knows.

The rocket on the patch for NROL-1 represents the Atlas rocket used in the August 2004 launch, and the geometric shape in the middle might represent the Pentagon or the Department of Defense. “I don’t know about the hearts,” Pearlman says.

This patch for NROL-10, launched in December 2000, is a mystery.

Little is known about the patch for NROL-16, launched in April 2005. The pelican could refer to a location where those birds live, and the gorilla could be America asserting its dominance.

A purple-haired sorceress holding a fireball. A three-headed dragon wrapping its claws around the world. A great raptor emerging from the flames.

No, these are not characters from a Magic: The Gathering deck. They are avatars depicted on the official mission patches made for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Just as NASA creates specially designed patches for each mission into space, NRO follows that tradition for its spy satellite launches. But while NASA patches tend to feature space ships and American flags, NRO prefers wizards, Vikings, teddy bears and the all-seeing eye. With these outlandish designs, a civilian would be justified in wondering if NRO is trolling.

Unfortunately, given the agency’s extreme secrecy, it’s impossible to answer that question for sure. But based on information that has been leaked about some of the patches, it seems there may be a method to the artistic madness.

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My picks of the best pics of 2014

The Guardian’s features picture editor Sarah Gilbert selects the most compelling images of 2014:

“I took this picture the day after the violent protest turned into riots in Ferguson, Missouri. The police were trying to disperse a crowd and warning they would arrest anyone gathering on the street. This woman held her hands up and moved into the middle of the street and was detained. I think it is a strong picture because of her emotion and the iconic gesture of the raised hands contrasted with the police lights.” — Jewel Samad

“I was in Ferguson, Missouri, on 24 November waiting for the verdict in the shooting of Michael Brown. It was a chaotic scene as the police had been shooting tear gas into the crowd and there were reports of gunfire. I could see the riot police had blocked off the street. They were lit only by the street and holiday lights and it made it an eerie scene.” — Jim Young

“My son and I spotted smoke, and given California’s extreme drought I knew it was not good. We jumped in the car but had only gone a mile when burning ash rained down like falling snow. The rangers and police were ordering a mandatory evacuation and we had to go home to prepare. Then we returned to the Falls area of Bass Lake and I resumed shooting. The picture combines a beautiful forest reflected in the calm waters, and then slams home the fact that it is being consumed by the fire. It conveys the sense of awe, horror and feeling of loss I felt while standing there watching the forest burn.” — Darvin Atkeson

“I tried for two years to take this picture. I took the same photo the year before, again from a helicopter, of an almost identical boat. But we didn’t manage to get directly above: some of the people in the boat looked one way, others a different way. This year I tried again. I photograph the Italian navy calendar, so we collaborate. I waited 12 days on an ­Italian navy boat for the force seven sea to calm, for this moment. I took the shot ­outside the helicopter, my feet on the skids. The incredible thing is that every single person in the photo looks up.” — Massimo Sestini

“This was taken just after 6am. Ed Miliband was touring Covent Garden market before the local elections and ordered a bacon sandwich. I noticed he was struggling. The bacon sandwich was extremely hot and he didn’t know what to do. It was probably worse than it looks, he just couldn’t cope with it. I didn’t set out to make him look bad. It just happened in front of my face.” — Jeremy Selwyn

A “firenado” tears through a field in Chillicothe, Missouri on 3 May. Part fire, part tornado, this blazing twister was spotted by Missouri native Janae Copelin while she was out driving.

The Atlantic’s 2014: The Year in Photos, part 1, part 2, part 3:

Four out of five Olympic rings are seen lit up during the opening ceremony of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, on February 7, 2014. Photographer David Gray: “This image is a great example of the cliche ‘always expect the unexpected’. Two days before, at the Olympic opening ceremony rehearsal, I had seen that the Olympic rings were supposed to open from a small, flower-shaped ball and then explode in flash of extreme brightness. The massive changes in light required a quick estimation as to how to adjust the exposure, so every photographer was anxious, knowing what was supposed to come next. I had just reduced my ISO and increased my shutter speed when I noticed the top-right ring was not forming like the others. So I took a few photographs, still anticipating the next stage. But no. Nothing. The incomplete Olympic symbol just hung there before disappearing completely. Did I manage to correctly adjust the camera settings for the unpredicted dull Olympic ring? Thankfully, you see the answer before you. Needless to say, it was the talking point of the opening ceremony, and became one of the most memorable images of the Sochi Olympic Games”.

A selfie released by Ellen DeGeneres shows actors, front row from left, Jared Leto, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Ellen DeGeneres, Bradley Cooper, Peter Nyong’o Jr., and, second row, from left, Channing Tatum, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, Brad Pitt, Lupita Nyong’o and Angelina Jolie as they pose for portrait on a cell phone during the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on March 2, 2014, in Los Angeles. The image, distributed on Twitter, quickly broke the record for ‘most-re-tweeted’, and currently has been re-tweeted more than 3.3 million times.

Buzzfeed’s “74 Of The Most Amazing News Photos Of 2014”:

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth looks at the Iron Throne as she meets members of the cast on the set of the television series “Game of Thrones” in the Titanic Quarter of Belfast, Northern Ireland, on June 24, 2014. — Phil Noble

The Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket with the Cygnus spacecraft on board suffers a catastrophic anomaly moments after launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad 0A at NASA Wallops Flight Facility on Oct. 28 on Wallops Island, Virginia.

Smoldering debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in a Ukraine field on July 17. — Pierre Crom

In this picture taken on August 3, 2014 by Rosetta’s OSIRIS narrow-angle camera, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is pictured from a distance of 285 km. A mission to orbit and land the first space probe on a comet reached a major milestone when the unmanned Rosetta spacecraft finally caught up with its quarry on August 6, 2014. Rosetta later successfully landed a probe on the comet’s surface.

Time’s Top 10 Photos of 2014 and Top 100 Photos of 2014:

A man backs away as law enforcement officials close in on him and eventually detain him during protests over the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager killed by a police officer, in Ferguson, Mo., Aug. 11, 2014. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Monday that it had opened an inquiry into the weekend shooting of Brown. — Whitney Curtis

“It took 20 minutes for health workers in protective suits to arrive, spraying the area around the boy. As they deliberated over how best to move James, his father and onlookers frantically yelled at the workers to carry the boy into the ETU. After he was taken to be treated, I waited to speak to Edward to offer my condolences. Days later I learnt that James died soon after being carried inside the ETU. I think about that day a lot. I think about James convulsing and nobody being able to do anything, and then seeing a father experience his son’s death, albeit prematurely. What if they had brought James in sooner? Those memories haunt me to this day.” — Daniel Berehulak

Wired’s The Year’s Most Awesome Photos of Space and NASA’s Best Images of Earth From Space in 2014:

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used the camera at the end of its arm in April and May 2014 to take dozens of component images combined into this self-portrait where the rover drilled into a sandstone target called “Windjana.”

Four-image NAVCAM mosaic of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, using images taken on 24 September 2014 when Rosetta was 28.5 km from the comet.

The sun emitted a significant solar flare, peaking at 7:28 p.m. EST on Dec. 19, 2014. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured an image of the event.

An updated blue marble image

For me some of the most iconic (and depressing) images came from the Mike Brown / Police brutality protests in Ferguson. Of those images, one stands out as particularly memorable:

A demonstrator throws a tear gas container back at police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 13. — Robert Cohen

Perhaps the icon of their fledgling movement is a dreadlocked man identified on Twitter only as @eyeFLOODpanties, who was photographed throwing a tear gas canister while wearing an American flag T-shirt and holding a bag of potato chips. The picture, taken last week by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Robert Cohen, has inspired countless T-shirts and posters. “I didn’t realize how big this was!” he tweeted after his identity was revealed and he gained thousands of Twitter followers.
— Buzzfeed: Ferguson’s Angry Young Men

But the man with the chips, who was photographed during protests in Ferguson on Wednesday night, wants you to know he wasn’t throwing it at police. He was throwing it away.

“I don’t think ‘da man wit the chips’ was throwing it back at police. I think he was throwing it away from him and kids he was standing near,” said the man, who goes by the Twitter name @eyeFLOODpanties.
— Mashable: ‘Da Man Wit the Chips’ in Iconic Ferguson Photo Identified

(PS: Check out the other posts on this blog tagged ‘photography’)

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Gordon Ugarkovic’s spectacular take on NASA’s Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan.

The images you see here are (more or less) calibrated images that were released to the Planetary Data System, they are not raw jpeg processed images that immediately appear on the mission website as they’re downlinked from the spacecraft. The downside of the PDS is the data releases are delayed about 9 months in order to give the imaging team priority over analyzing data (hey, they built the cameras!). Other than that, the PDS data allow more accurate reconstruction of colors and brightnesses over the histogram-stretched jpeg images.

I’ve put up this gallery because I was somewhat underwhelmed by the frequency the Cassini Imaging Team releases color composites. Granted, there isn’t an overwhelming number of color sets available, but even when there is a chance to do color, the team often prefers grayscale. –Gordon Ugarkovic

(via io9)

Wanderers – a short film by Erik Wernquist

Wanderers is a vision of humanity’s expansion into the Solar System, based on scientific ideas and concepts of what our future in space might look like, if it ever happens. The locations depicted in the film are digital recreations of actual places in the Solar System, built from real photos and map data where available.

Without any apparent story, other than what you may fill in by yourself, the idea with the film is primarily to show a glimpse of the fantastic and beautiful nature that surrounds us on our neighboring worlds – and above all, how it might appear to us if we were there.

This is the view from a spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter, looking down at the huge anticyclonic storm known as the Great Red Spot.

This scene shows a group of people hiking across the icy plains of Jupiter’s moon Europa.

This shot follows the cabin of a space elevator descending on a cable towards the northern parts of the Terra Cimmeria highlands on Mars.

What we see here is the inside of a hollowed out asteroid, pressurized and filled with a breathable atmosphere.

(via @neilcocker)