As a PhD student in physics who is hoping to become an astrophysicist it’s never been hard for me to get excited about space. The real trick has always been getting other people as excited about it as I am. This is hard to do when the large potion of the public relations teams in charge of drumming up popular interest fail so utterly at conveying the vast wonder of the cosmos.

But that is not to say science isn’t without a voice. I have known many talented spokesmen for science in my short life, and arguably the best of the last few decades was Carl Sagan. Few have had the poetic flair to so aptly marry the potential of humanity to the grandeur of exploring and understanding the universe in which we live in a manner that is not only comprehensible, but inspiring. His words offer a glimpse at what is best about humanity, by - among other things - showing that we can outgrow what is worst.

And so it’s only appropriate that this NASA enthusiast took it upon himself to show NASA how it’s done. He took as his inspiration this video by Michael Marantz, and put together a promo reel that commends and compels the capacity for exploration that - so far as we know - is uniquely human.

[From Damewse via Reddit via The High Definite via The Huffington Post via Geekologie. Damn, keeping track of where these things comes from is hard.]

Source: youtube.com

This one is from cosmicpower, and it’s so good I just don’t feel right editing the commentary. jipc:dvdp:  When a coronal mass ejection (CME) erupts from the Sun, movies in extreme ultraviolet light often show enormous waves, spreading over a large area on the solar surface, just as tsunamis travel far from the original seismic event. Now STEREO data have been used to show that these waves are the footprints of giant domes that spread upward into the corona as well as outward across the surface.
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This one is from cosmicpower, and it’s so good I just don’t feel right editing the commentary.

jipc:dvdp:

 When a coronal mass ejection (CME) erupts from the Sun, movies in extreme ultraviolet light often show enormous waves, spreading over a large area on the solar surface, just as tsunamis travel far from the original seismic event. Now STEREO data have been used to show that these waves are the footprints of giant domes that spread upward into the corona as well as outward across the surface.

Source: dvdp

Wow. [From Bad Astronomy]
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Wow. [From Bad Astronomy]

I think today will be a day of reblogs, this one from fuckyeahtheuniverse: wildfrost: Andromeda Galaxy (by clownfish33) Space is beautiful, isn’t it?
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I think today will be a day of reblogs, this one from fuckyeahtheuniverse:

wildfrost:

Andromeda Galaxy (by clownfish33)

Space is beautiful, isn’t it?

Source: flickr.com

New Symphony of Science. This one is about the next logical step in local space exploration: Mars. While I have to admit to feeling like a lot of people overlook the value of what I’m going to call “non-exploratory science” (meaning missions that don’t send people to exotic locations - all astrophysics is exploratory in some way), I can’t argue that coming out and saying “we’ll put a man on mars by the end of the decade” would likely have the same invigorating effect on the space program that JFK’s moon-landing speech did. But, it’s a moot point since (for now) the shuttle program has been shut down, and the focus is turning elsewhere. Give it a decade or so, we’ll be back at it. Then maybe we can visit the lonely red planet. [From Symphony of Science]

And you thought Pluto was screwed up. [From Bad Astronomy]
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And you thought Pluto was screwed up. [From Bad Astronomy]

Nested reblog is nested. Also: beautiful. (From fuckyeahnebulas via…) uraniaproject: themarmalade: christopher-walken: astronomie: jesuisperdu: via i12bent: Final Hubble Space Telescope image this time around:Omega Nebula (mosaic edit) Orion Nebula
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Nested reblog is nested. Also: beautiful. (From fuckyeahnebulas via…)

uraniaproject:

themarmalade:

christopher-walken:

astronomie:

jesuisperdu:

via i12bent:

Final Hubble Space Telescope image this time around:
Omega Nebula (mosaic edit)

Orion Nebula

Source: i12bent

Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space. Yet according to deadlyponies (from which this was reblogged) it still isn’t quite big enough.
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Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space. Yet according to deadlyponies (from which this was reblogged) it still isn’t quite big enough.

Source: Flickr / ksouth

This photo of Spiral Galaxy NGC 3190 came up on my wonderful Astronomy Picture of the Day app a few days back. It was so tasty that I just had to share. It’s hard to imagine that all of the diffuse light is coming from millions of stars as big (or bigger) than our sun, and that some of the dust that’s obscuring the light is likely larger than the planet we’re sitting on now.
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This photo of Spiral Galaxy NGC 3190 came up on my wonderful Astronomy Picture of the Day app a few days back. It was so tasty that I just had to share. It’s hard to imagine that all of the diffuse light is coming from millions of stars as big (or bigger) than our sun, and that some of the dust that’s obscuring the light is likely larger than the planet we’re sitting on now.

As I’ve been on a bit of a space binge lately, here’s some slow motion footage of the Apollo 11 lift off with narration by Mark Gray. Tasty! [Source Vimeo]