arpeggia:

Lisa Oppenheim - Lunagrams, 2010

In Lunagrams (1851/2010), a series of photograms, negatives depicting a lunar phase from 1851 are illuminated by moonlight of the same lunar phase in 2010, providing a translation of images of the past into the present. The source images are glass negatives taken by John William Draper, who was the first to photograph the moon. Photography as well as celestial bodies, such as the moon, can be seen as generic markers of the passing of time. The process of making these images is bringing to life which would otherwise be hidden away under a layer of dust in a library or archive - illuminating the past through the light of the present. [klosterfelde]

ikenbot:

1973 Pioneer 11 Image of Saturn and Titan

Image credit: NASA Ames

Saturn and its moon Titan. The irregularities in ring silhouette and shadow are due to technical anomalies in the preliminary data later corrected. At the time this image was taken Pioneer was, at that time, 2,846,000 km (1,768,422 miles) from Saturn.

via (NASA Celebrates Four Decades of Plucky Pioneer 11)

ucresearch:

The first permanent mountaintop observatory was the Lick Observatory.  Built in 1888 by the Warner and Swasey Co., the telescope sits in it’s original spot just east of San Jose and is still operating to this day. 

We recently visited the observatory and talked with Steve Vogt, an astronomy professor at UC Santa Cruz, who used to sneak into the observatory as a kid. 

Watch the video →

hydrogeneportfolio:

Minimal Posters -  Five Great Mathematicians And Their Contributions.

ianbrooks:

Amber Inclusions by Anders Damgaard

With all this discussion recently surrounding the ethics of manipulating DNA in an effort to resurrect lost species, it seems appropriate that we take a look back in time at the vessels for our future T-Rexes and (fingers crossed~!) Giant Ground Sloths. Until that glorious day when we will ride atop the backs of huge beavers (it was a thing! Science up), admire the beauty of these amber-encased insects, forever looking out at us through a layer of several million years.

Photog: Flickr / Website / Blog

nevver:

Covers From The US Space Program

anndruyan:

Hey Science Tumblr! You forgot someone!

Happy Belated International Women’s Day Henrietta Leavitt, you deserve to be among the ranks of fantastically intelligent women who rose above the men and said, “I, too, am smart (and deserve a raise)!”

Henrietta Leavitt | 1868-1921

Miss Leavitt attended Oberlin college in 1892 where she discovered astronomy and her passion for it. After college she continued pursuing her love for the subject, but later went deaf while suffering from an illness. In 1902 she was hired as a staff member at the Harvard College Observatory after volunteering countless hours. Charles Pickering, director of the observatory, appointed her the chief of the photographic photometry department, along with the duty to keep the telescopes in perfect working condition. 

Her $0.30 salary was every dollar shy of her mental capacity when she was given the task of being in charge of the photographic photometry department, which studied the magnitudes of stars through photographs. 

As head of the department she developed a standard for determining the magnitude of stars using the north polar sequence. Her system was later recognized as an important standard in 1913 and was adopted by the International Committee on Photographic Magnitudes.

She also discovered over 2,000 variable stars, which later led her to the period-luminosity relationship. Through observation and complex mathematics, not commonly seen in women’s minds in this period, she discovered a correlation between a star’s magnitude and the time of its luminosity. What she found was that the luminosity of a star did not depend on its distance, but its magnitude.

Her discovery was very important (and very revolutionizing), being recognized and used by Edward Hubble as the “yardstick of the Universe” to find the age of the Universe, and surpassed others’ use of their mathematics to measure magnitudes of stars up to 100 light years; Miss Leavitt’s method could span up to 10 million light years.

She is undoubtedly one of the most unrecognized women in science, and despite her 30 cent wage at the Harvard Observatory even Charles Pickering recognized her as the “most brilliant woman at Harvard”. 

No doubt the field of astronomy would have seen more spectacular findings from Miss Leavitt had she not died of cancer in 1921.