ISS Astronauts Returned Safely to Earth.

“After inspiring all of us on Earth, Commander Chris Hadfield and crew have finally re-joined us here. The Soyuz space capsule landed safely at 10:31 PM EDT in Kazakhstan. Hadfield had spent 144 days on the ISS, 2,336 orbits around the planet and totaled up around 62 million miles. That’s a lot of miles!

The Soyuz capsule landed vertically, which is the preferred position. The crew, which includes Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield, NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, are back on Earth and reportedly all feeling good as they re-adjust to the gravity. Marshburn was one of the astronauts who performed the awe-inspiring emergency spacewalk to fix the leak of ammonia coolant two days ago.

The landing of the capsule comes a little over three hours since the capsule undocked from the ISS. It marks the end of the ISS’ Expedition 35 Crew in space. The crew will head over to the medical tent to get all properly tested and fixed for normal Earth life. Or as normal life can be in the eyes of men who were in space.” via Gizmodo

“On Sunday, Hadfield handed over command of the space station to Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov.

As part of his personal farewell to the space station, Hadfield released a video of his version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity, which NASA said is the first music video made in space.” via CBC

UPDATE: The International Space Station appears to be fixed!! via From Quarks to Quasars

humansofnewyork:

Morning in NYC from the International Space Station, courtesy of Col. Chris Hadfield. Look at the shadow of Manhattan! 

atomstargazer:

This is What Human Cells Look Like in Space

Astronaut photos of Earth from space are undeniably amazing, but snapshots of inner space — particularly human cells — can be spectacular, too.

A new photo of human cells in space taken on the International Space Station looks more like art than science. The image, titled “Goldfinger” by scientists, reveals a monocyte immune cell as a hauntingly translucent, reddish-orange object tipped with green accents.

The human cell photo in space was taken on the station under “simulated gravity” conditions using the European Space Agency’s Kubik incubator, which includes a centrifuge to mimic gravity in the weightlessness of space, ESA officials said in an image description.

Astronaut vs. Robonaut

Image Credit: NASA

“Following a session of Robonaut 2 operations controlled by ground personnel, Expedition 35 Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy has a few light moments with the robot in the Destiny Laboratory onboard the Earth-orbiting International Space Station. Robonaut 2 is the first humanoid robot to travel to space and the first U.S.-built robot to visit the space station.”

Learn more about Robonaut 2 here.

Moon, Venus, Jupiter and ISS

“I planned to capture the conjunction of Moon and planets with the trail of the International Space Station. I drove my car to a nearby frozen fishpond, set my equipment up and waited for the ISS rising. As I took some images, clouds appeared but fortunately I had success to catch the ISS passing.” — Tamás Ábrahám

(Source: ikenbot)

How to live in zero gravity: Take a tour of the International Space Station

“Sure, we know there’s no screaming in space. But there’s also no flushing. And truly, no hair brushing.

Pay attention, because these are things you too can learn by watching former International Space Station Commander Sunita Williams walk—or should we say, float her way—through a typical morning in space.

Spoiler alert: Zero gravity is a pain in the neck, and other places.

First, Williams is a perfect host for a video tour: She’s a veteran space traveler with 195 days of space flight—the longest time in space for a woman. And she lived on the space station for four months.

As the astronaut explains on the NASA video, sleeping on the space station is very different from snoozing in your comfy bed on planet Earth. Instead, there are sleep pods and sleeping bags—and it doesn’t matter if your bed is located upside down or sideways. Your body won’t know the difference. Each cubby also comes equipped with a docked laptop and personal items, like clothes.”

Read more…

ikenbot:

“Making the invisible visible” - the ISS Image Frontier

This is a tribute to the International Space Station Program as well as Dr. Don Pettit, NASA Astronaut and ISS Astrophotographer.

It can not be emphasized enough, how Dr. Pettits innovative photographic work and his passion has changed the way we see earth from space. Accompanied with great info on the challenges of astrophotography aboard the ISS by Dr. Pettit, the shortfilm features a great compilation of 4 timelapses (“intro”, “startrails”, “fisheye” and “aurorae”).

Now welcome aboard the ISS - enjoy stunning photography and timelapses from the Space Station! — Christoph Malin

Haiti and the Greater Antilles

(Credit: NASA, International Space Station Science, 08/19/08)

“A serene view of a portion of the Greater Antilles islands in the Caribbean Sea. The island of Hispaniola is in the foreground, comprised of the Dominican Republic and Haiti (in the sunglint). Looking toward the horizon, the eastern tip of Cuba is seen through the clouds and thunderstorms that are scattered over the islands. The light blue shallower areas, to the right or north of Hispaniola and extending toward the Earth’s limb, are the Turks and Caicos islands and the Acklins Islands. The Great Inagua island is off the coast of Haiti. These islands are located along the geological border of the North American Plate (to the right) and the Caribbean Plate (to the left). The photo was taken by the Expedition 17 crew onboard the International Space Station on Aug. 19, 2008 with a 28 mm lens.”

ikenbot:

Amazing Views of the World’s Volcanoes From the International Space Station

Head over to the source link and take a look through this awesome gallery of Volcanoes as snapped by the ISS over Earth:

Few people have seen as many volcanoes as the astronauts that inhabit the International Space Station.

Not only does their imaging of the Earth’s surface capture volcanism action, but it can provide remote sensing information on volcanoes that geologists cannot visit with any regularity. In honor of the thousands of volcano images that have been taken from the ISS, I present a gallery of some of the best shots I found, including some volcanoes that most people don’t even know exist!

Continue →

Mindblowing Lego Creations that Inspire Geekery

Image descriptions below from left to right, starting at top:

•”Space Station in Space. Building a straightforward replica of the International Space Station from LEGOs in a couple hours might not seem that impressive here on Earth, but Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa made the model last year while he was actually aboard the International Space Station. A video shows Furukawa fitting the parts together for the meta construction inside a sealed container. When he takes out the completed LEGO model and lets go, it floats in space. ‘I hope this experience inspires [children] to make greater efforts to study science and technology,’ he told CollectSPACE.com in an interview.”

•”Functioning Printer. Fourteen-year-old Leon Overweel produced an impressive working printer last year from LEGO Mindstorms, specialized kits with parts to build custom, programmable robots. Overweel’s PriNXT employed several motors and sensors to control a felt-tip pen. ‘The kid’s age and multi-language computer skills are pretty awesome,’ Webb noted. But other functional LEGO printers exist, including a whimsical one made in 2010 by the user Horseattack. Adorned with LEGO minifigs or minifigures, the ‘Lego felt tip 110’ was built and coded from scratch with a writing demon board along with homemade analog electronics and sensors. It even achieved 75 dots per inch.” More here.

•”Robotic Chess Set. Built by engineer Steve Hassenplug and his friends, Monster Chess is exactly the kind of LEGO creation it sounds like. Measuring 156 square feet, the enormous chess set cost $30,000 used 100,000 elements, 25 NXT intelligent bricks, a laptop, and took a year to construct. The pieces seem like they’re playing on their own, and when it’s one side’s turn, the raised horse legs on the knight pieces move in the air. Webb called the robotic LEGO chess game a regular crowd-pleaser. ‘It’s been at BrickFair AL the past two years and is slated to appear in BrickFair England, too,’ he added.” More here.

•”Rubik’s Cube Solving Machine. LEGO Mindstorms that connect bricks to robotics opened up new possibilities for great geekery. A prime example: Mike Dobson and David Gilday’s CubeStormer II, a LEGO machine designed to solve Rubi’s Cubes that uses a Samsung Galaxy running an Android application. Commisioned by theta British semiconductor company ARM, the machine broke the human world record in 2011 by solving the cube in 5.352 seconds. Webb cautions about relying too much on non-bricks, though. ‘Once you step outside actual LEGO, things get less impressive real fast,’ he said.”

The Lights of London, England

“This nocturnal photo of London, England was downlinked by the Expedition 34 crew from the International Space Station, flying approximately 240 miles above Earth, on Feb. 2, 2013. Expedition 34 Flight Engineer Chris Hadfield, astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency, added this footnote to his downlink: “London, on the Thames, from the city to the encircling motorway. Heathrow very visible on the (west).” North is at the bottom making west on the right in this image. It’s the bright feature with dark parallel lines near the outer looping road.”

ISS and the Summer Milky Way. 

Image Credit & Copyright: Luis Argerich

“Clouds on a summer night frame this sea and skyscape, recorded earlier this month near Buenos Aires, Argentina. But planet Earth’s clouds are not the only clouds on the scene. Starry clouds and nebulae along the southern hemisphere’s summer Milky Way arc above the horizon, including the dark Coal Sack near the Southern Cross and the tantalizing pinkish glow of the Carina Nebula. Both the Large (top center) and Small Magellanic Clouds are also in view, small galaxies in their own right and satellites of the Milky Way up to 200,000 light-years distant. Alpha star of the Carina constellation and second brightest star in Earth’s night, Canopus shines above about 300 light-years away. Still glinting in sunlight at an altitude of 400 kilometers, the orbiting International Space Station traces a long streak through the single, 5 minute, star-tracking exposure.”

colchrishadfield:

Taking the new telescope out of the box - like weightless Christmas!

Pretty spectacular. 

colchrishadfield:

Undoubtedly one of the coolest space sights on Earth, the Richat Structure of Mauritania.