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Neil DeGrasse Tyson

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LMS - HEX // adonihs

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Freakin' AWESOME!

Memorial Observatory Refractor

Credit: Courtesy J. O’Leary (Maryland Science Center)

This gorgeous, completely refurbished 8 inch refractor was originally bought from Alvan Clark and Sons in 1927.

On Thursdays it stargazes from the Crosby Ramsey Memorial Observatory dome atop the Maryland Science Center near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

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Out There by John Colbensen

Taken from a commercial aircraft flying over Denmark. The photographer used a Nikon 10.5mm f/2.8 DX fisheye lens to achieve the illusion of the curvature of Earth.

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One-Minute Physics: How to measure superfast neutrinos (by cattywilde)

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The Poetry of Science: Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson

If you have a spare 1.5 hours, watch of this.

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Neil DeGrasse Tyson Destroys Bill O’Reilly

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The Countdown to Space Shuttle Endeavour's Launch Now is Under Way.

The countdown to space shuttle Endeavour's launch now is under way. The clocks started counting down on time at 7 a.m. EDT.

Launch teams are not working any issues that would delay liftoff on Monday, May 16 at 8:56 a.m.

Technicians at NASA Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A are preparing to load the power reactant storage device (PRSD) and Endeavour's external fuel tank with propellants.

A Countdown Status Briefing will be aired live at 10 a.m. on NASA Television and at http:ww.nasa.gov/ntv.

The STS-134 crew woke up at 1 a.m. to continue launch preparations. Commander Mark Kelly and Pilot Greg H. Johnson performed practice shuttle landings this morning in their Shuttle Training Aircraft. The crew will continue to review its Flight Data File and will review its ingress plan with the Vehicle Integration Test Team. This e-mail update was generated automatically based on your subscriptions. Some updates may belong to more than one category, resulting in duplicate notices.

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The Physics of Superheroes

Season 2, Episode 18

Image credit: Warner Bros. / capedwonder.com

Superheroes in comic books and movies are so popular partly because we dream about what it would be like to have their wide range of amazing powers—super strength, the ability to fly, X-ray vision, the ability to stretch into fantastical shapes. Although they seem impossible, many superhero powers are based on real science. James Kakalios tells us about the physics principles of the caped crusaders, while Lee Silver points out that many animals have super-abilities that could potentially expand the limits of human biology. Eugene Mirman imagines what it would be like to leap tall buildings in a single bound—or at least be able to jump up to the second floor.

Guests:

James Kakalios

Physics professor at the University of Minnesota, and author of the book “The Physics of Superheroes.”

Lee Silver

Molecular biologist, Princeton University

Co-Host:

Eugene Mirman

Comedian

Listen:

Download the MP3

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NASA TV

The STS-134 crew is on their way to Kennedy Space Center. The astronauts are expected to arrive at approximately 9 a.m. EDT and you can watch it live on NASA TV or http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

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Funky N.A.S.A

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N.A.S.A. - Gifted (feat. Kanye West, Santogold, Lykke Li)

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Looks like a human forming in the center.

Hello, here's an image of IC 1396 for your consideratIon for the AAPOD. http://www.astrogades.es/index.php?nodo=3titulo=galeria&level=picture&id=493 If you decide to use it, here's the credit line: Jesús-Astrogades & Maritxu Poyal linking to http://www.astrogades.es/ Thanks! Best regards, and Happy New Year 2011 Jesús & Maritxu

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Sunset Over South America

The Expedition 27 crew photographed this sunset over western South America from aboard the International Space Station. The station crew sees, on average, sixteen sunrises and sunsets during a 24-hour orbital period. Each changeover between day and night on the ground is marked by the terminator, or line separating the sunlit side of Earth from the side in darkness. While the terminator is conceptualized as a hard boundary--and is frequently presented as such in graphics and visualizations--in reality the boundary between light and dark is diffuse due to scattering of light by Earth’s atmosphere. This zone of diffuse lighting is experienced as dusk or twilight on the ground--while the sun is no longer visible, some illumination is still present due to light scattering over the local horizon. The terminator is visible in this photograph trending across the image from lower left to upper right. This panoramic view across central South America, looking towards the northeast, was acquired at approximately 7:37 p.m. local time. Layers of Earth’s atmosphere, colored bright white to deep blue, are visible extending across the horizon. The highest cloud tops have a reddish glow from the direct light of the setting sun while lower clouds are in twilight. The Salar de Coipasa, a large salt lake in Bolivia, is dimly visible on the night side of the terminator. The salar provides a geographic reference point that allows the location and viewing orientation of the image to be determined. Image Credit: NASA