Annular Eclipse Seen From The Moon
Animation of four LROC images of the annular eclipse (CLICK TO PLAY) NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
The May 20 annular eclipse may have been an awesome sight for skywatchers across many parts of the Earth, but it was also being viewed by a robotic explorer around the Moon!
During the event NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter turned its camera to look back home, acquiring several images of the Earth with the Moon’s fuzzy shadow cast onto different regions during the course of the eclipse. The image above is a 4-panel zoom into one particular NAC image showing the Moon’s shadow over the Aleutian Islands.
A Dragon Is Berthed!
“Houston, Station — looks like we got us a Dragon by the tail.” NASA Astronaut Don Pettit, Expedition 31 Flight Engineer
The SpaceX Dragon capsule is now a part of the ISS (NASA TV)
Space history has been made today! At 11:02 a.m. CDT, NASA’s Houston mission control announced a successful berth of the SpaceX Dragon capsule to the Harmony Node of the International Space Station, making it the first commercial vehicle to ever dock with the ISS, as well as the first U.S. spacecraft to dock since the STS-135 Atlantis shuttle in July 2011.
Total mission time since launch: 3 days, 11 hours and 18 minutes.
A great day in space!
Videos of the official berthing time and earlier capture by the Canadarm 2 are below:
How a Falcon Carried a Dragon Into the Future
In the dark hours before dawn this morning, Tuesday May 22, 2012, history was once again made along Florida’s warm and humid space coast. After a series of extensions and delays — and even one literal last-second scrub — SpaceX successfully launched its Dragon capsule aboard a Falcon 9 rocket… a trailblazing event that opens the doors of our nation’s future in space!
And The Sun Is Eclipsed By The Moon
May 20, 2012 annular eclipse seen from Dallas, TX USA. © Jason Major
If you didn’t get a chance to see the annular eclipse from where you are, either due to weather or location, here’s a shot of it I managed to grab from Dallas, TX just as the Sun emerged from some low clouds and right before it set beyond the trees.It was visible for perhaps five minutes, but what a great view!
See another shot below:
Watch Tonight’s Eclipse Live!
If you can’t see the annular eclipse occurring tonight from where you are, you can watch it LIVE here on LITD! The feed above (providing it’s not over capacity) will be aired from Petroglyph National Monument in New Mexico, beginning at 9 pm Eastern time — right in prime U.S. viewing location! You won’t need to purchase plane tickets or any special eyewear to watch the eclipse safely from your own computer. 
The National Park Service will feature a live feed of the May 20 eclipse from Petroglyph National Monument in NM. (NPS)
Viewable from the western US, the Pacific and eastern Asia, the eclipse will feature a “ring of fire” at totality created by the Moon passing in front of the Sun — but at a distance where the Sun is not completely covered. (As a result there’s still a lot of UV radiation coming from the Sun, so as always don’t observe the Sun directly without adequate protection.. find out how to safely view eclipses here.)
The video is provided by LiveStream, the National Park Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Find more links to live eclipse feeds on Universe Today here.
Is Earth Alive?
Image of Earth as seen by ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft in 2009.
Proposed by scientists James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the 70s, the Gaia theory suggests Earth is a self-supporting singular life form, similar to a cell. The theory claims that, rather than being merely a stage upon which life exists, life — in all forms — works to actively construct an Earthly environment in which it can thrive.
Researchers at the University of Maryland have discovered a way to identify and track sulfuric compounds in Earth’s marine environment, opening a path to either refute or support a this decades-old hypothesis.
Sulfur is a key element in both organic and inorganic compounds. The tenth most abundant element in the Universe, sulfur is crucial to climate regulation — as well as life as we know it. If these organisms are creating sulfuric compounds that can affect their environment, and it can be tracked, it may indicate how much control life has over its own external living conditions… and show how interconnected everything is.
Three Devils, One Image
HiRISE image showing three dust devils on Mars
The HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Oribiter captured this image of Mars’ surface, showing the presence of three different dust devils in the same region.
Dust devils are common during the springtime on Mars’ northern hemisphere, when increased sunlight heats the surface and causes air to rise rapidly in spinning columns.
The image was captured on February 11, 2012.
Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
The Curious Central Peaks of Iapetus
The curious, 20-km tall central ridge of Iapetus, a.k.a. the Voyager Mountains
Saturn’s 914-mile (1471-km) -wide Iapetus (pronounced eye-AH-pe-tus) has a particularly curious feature: a chain of 20-kilometer (12-mile) high mountains encircling the moon’s equator. On the anti-Saturnian side of Iapetus, the ridge appears to break up, forming distinct, partially bright mountains. The Voyager I and Voyager II spacecraft provided the first knowledge of the peaks, and they are informally referred to as the Voyager Mountains.
Take a Look at Titan!
Color-composite image of Saturn and Titan from Cassini data (NASA/JPL/SSI)
Here’s a great shot of Titan and Saturn acquired by Cassini on May 6, 2012 just after a pass by the haze-covered moon. It’s a color-composite made from images taken in Cassini’s red, green and blue color channels, and the resulting image was color adjusted a bit to appear more “Saturny”.
