Cosmic Friday: Luna Impact Edition.

Hello everyone, it's time again for another edition of Cosmic Friday. This week, in memory of the recently deceased LCROSS satellite (who's impact was both scientifically interesting and visually anticlimactic) I have another image of a man made impact on the moon, This one from the sister spacecraft to LCROSS, The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has a image of the Apollo 14 booster crash site. The booster rocket, like LCROSS, was intentionally dropped on the moon to study the effects of the impact. The Apollo 14 booster caused a 'moonquake' that was analyzed by seismometers put on the lunar surface by the Apollo 12 astronauts.

Universe Today has a great post on it if you are interested in learning more about these awesome lunar impacts.

Cosmic Friday: Message from Machaut

I was tempted to do a image of mars for this weeks Cosmic Friday, but then, just today, some images of NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft were released from its third flyby of mercury, and there was an awesome (in the filled with awe sense) image of Machaut Crater that made me re-evaluate my decision and give this weeks honors to that oft forgotten messenger to the gods, and the closest and mysterious planet of Mercury. 

I'm very intregued to find out why the crater has these beautiful criss-crossing patters throughtout the lava flows. also I would love to see a more detailed image of the smaller shadowed crater in the center of Machaut. 

Cosmic Friday: Saturnal Equinox

I had a bit of trouble deciding on which image to use for this weeks Cosmic Friday, I saw many beautiful pictures of nebula's and galaxies, but, well, we have had a bunch  images in those scales recently, and bodies of  the smaller solar scale have been missing from our sojourns into the greater cosmos, and then I saw a beautiful image of Saturn at Equinox, and well, I think it speaks for itself.

Cosmic Friday: Andromeda in Ultraviolet

there has been a lot of interesting astronomy news this week, the first rocky exoplanet was found, Saturn had a lightning storm that broke solar system records (at least, as far as we humans know), and the first geological survey of my favorite Jovian moon, Ganymede was completed, but really when it comes to stunning images for this weeks 'Cosmic Friday' nothing jumped out at me so much as NASA's SWIFT satellite's image of the Andromeda Galaxy that was released this week.

Credit: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP)

 Yet another reason why we arent funding nasa nearly enough. This is, I think, The most beautiful image of any galaxy ever captured. Images like this really do call us out to reach for the stars.

Cosmic Friday: HST Edition

This week, the Hubble Space Telescope unveiled its new imaging camera to give us even better access to the beautiful vistas that the universe has in store. I was about to post about it on Wednesday when I first heard about it, but I figured, this would make a perfect edition of Cosmic Friday. NASA press release



In the upper left shows a butterfly emerging from stellar demise in a nebula, the upper right displays a clash of galaxies known as "Stephens Quintet", The bottom left is an image taken of the center of the great globular cluster Omega Centauri, and finally, our old friend from last weeks Cosmic Friday, the last image is a pillar of star birth in the Carina Nebula.

Images like these are why I can never understand when people are against space flight and space exploration. how can you see images as beautiful as these and of such cosmic significance and not want to be there to see it with your own eyes? I understand all the problems, the Light Speed barrier, but still, we cannot help but yearn to break free of this gravity well.

Cosmic Fridays

Planetary features were cool and all, but we need a larger scope so I can use images like
Source: Hubblesite.org

The Carina Nebula as caught by the HST. although it should be called the cephalopod nebula amirite

Big version

Friday Planetary Feature

To make blogging a more regular exercise for me, I present the "Friday Planetary Feature" feature

Every friday a cool picture of some planetary feature. and today, what better way to start than with a great image of Victoria Crater that I snagged from Greg Laden


Now just think about what a beautiful hike that ridge would be...