smiling for cassini

Remember when we all smiled and waved at Saturn back in July, while the Cassini spacecraft snapped our photo? Well, the full mosaic from that magical day has finally been processed by Cassini's imaging team, and boy, is it a stunner. I'm not at all embarrassed to admit that it brought a tear to my eye the moment I saw it in full size...

Like a lens that might be utilized to view either the incredibly small or the incredibly distant, this mosaic compels us both to look inward, at how we might improve ourselves and the health of our only home, and to keep dreaming, about what else awaits us so long as we continue on in our quest to explore the solar system and beyond. (Indeed, if ever an image were appropriate to use as a call to action for those deciding the budgetary fates of our national space program, this one would be it.)

The timing of today's release coincides with the ceremonial hand-off of the late Carl Sagan's papers to the Library of Congress, where they have recently been archived for future generations to examine. We can all be sure that Sagan would have been quite pleased with this most magnificent interplanetary portrait... It is, of course, not only a thing of beauty, perfectly planned to take advantage of a breathtaking alignment of the sun, Saturn, and Earth. The image also reminds us just how tiny we are in the grand scheme of the cosmos—and how important it is to connect regularly with our fellow human beings so that we may reflect on our shared place in the universe.

I'm proud to have played a minor role in the planning of the #DayEarthSmiled and will remember these past months, and those 15 peaceful minutes in July, for many moons to come. For further insight, I highly recommend the latest Captain's Log from Cassini's imaging leader, Carolyn Porco, which beautifully summarizes her intent for the project and describes the many hidden treats you'll find if you take a closer look at the final mosaic.

Even if you missed the big event this past summer, take heart in knowing that your essence was captured in time and in space in this spectacular image in the year 2013. ∞

remembering columbia

Ten years ago today, I was at home, still half asleep, when I received word of the space shuttle Columbia tragedy. My mom rang, but as I was wont to do in those days, I let the machine pick up. Clearly upset, she began to leave a message explaining the heartbreaking news. I eventually picked up and turned on the television... I could never bring myself to erase that message; it died along with my phone system in 2011.

In the years since then, there have been plenty of remembrances, many of them artistic in nature. I remember walking in Brooklyn past a street mural, painted by school children, depicting the Columbia crew. There is, of course, a memorial at the Kennedy Space Center, which I visited a few years ago. More recently, I discovered a lovely, if haunting, song called "The Commander Thinks Aloud," by the Long Winters...

Just three days before the accident, John Lennon's "Imagine" was the wake-up song for the Columbia crew. I recommend you listen to the clip in its entirety, as it includes not only the song as it was played in low earth orbit that day, but the inspirational, timeless, and, at least to me, tear-inducing comments of astronauts Willie McCool and Ilan Ramon.

RIP to the Columbia seven. You will not be forgotten. ∞

where no toy has gone before

The folks at NASA threw a cute little curveball at the pre-launch briefing for the Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft today: They announced that three specially made LEGO minifigures would be flying to the outer solar system along with the spacecraft, which is scheduled to lift off Friday from the Kennedy Space Center. The three figures represent Galileo Galilei, who used his early telescopes to study Jupiter and its moons some four centuries ago; the Roman goddess Juno, namesake of the Juno craft; and the Roman god Jupiter. (In case you've forgotten your ancient mythology, Juno is the equivalent of the Greek Hera, and Jupiter is the same as Zeus.) Unlike normal plastic LEGOs, these figs were molded out of a special aluminum blend that should withstand the harsh launch and interplanetary environments the figs will experience in the upcoming days and years on their journey to the Jovian system.

If you follow along with my blog or Twitter feed, you know that I'm a big LEGO fan, especially when brick creations help folks get excited about science and technology. It's heartening to know that LEGO and NASA have made a strong commitment to one another within the past year, since our nation's future rests on our inspiring today's children to become tomorrow's mathematicians, scientists, and engineers. Can't wait to see what's next! ∞

up up and away

last one by shlomi yoav

And so it is time for me to bid adieu to the space shuttle. The very last mission is set to begin this week with the launch of the Atlantis orbiter from the Kennedy Space Center on the Florida coast. This particular launch is a gift from the American people, whose representatives voted last year to tack on one last go before the entire shuttle fleet is permanently grounded and the orbiters put on their pedestals for future generations to ooh and ahh at. Yet those same politicians are also now looking to drastically defund NASA in what amounts to a serious rethinking of whether or not America has a real future in space. Will the U.S. forever take a back seat to the Russians or Chinese or anyone else in our quest to land humans on Mars? It could very well happen. In the U.S. we certainly like to talk the talk when it comes to being innovators, in space development and otherwise, but so often in the past decades, walking the walk has proven to be another story altogether.

Millions of words will be spoken, penned, blogged, and microblogged about this final countdown, so I won't clog the fiber optic cables with too many thoughts on this bittersweet occasion. But I will say that in the end I choose to believe that the American people will keep outer space in mind when they fill out their ballots of the future. And how, you ask, will we do this in the face of economic uncertainty, declining political will and an ever-straining space budget? By reaching out to each other. In the past couple of years I've met, virtually and in real life, more folks than I'd ever known existed who consider space exploration—both robotic and human-based—one of the most important endeavors humanity can undertake. And these folks have passion. If we can group together, to share our excitement with those unaware of what our space program actually does, to get our representatives to think beyond the next election and out toward the stars, to teach our little ones about what they might one day discover beyond our blue planet, we'll have a force to be reckoned with when it comes to our future in the cosmos.

A friend of mine is still hoping to be an astronaut someday. Despite NASA's uncertain future, he and others like him are keeping the dream alive by continuing to do what astronauts and all scientists do: constantly asking questions. What a stupendous waste it will be if we let this collective bundle of energy and human spirit go for naught.

And with that, I'll leave you with this brilliant 45-minute visual feast of the space shuttle on its way off the pad. I dare you not to marvel as you sit and watch, agog and wide-eyed, at the ingenuity it took to make this peculiar bird fly up, up, and away. &infin

remembering challenger

I was only eight when the Challenger disaster occurred on that icy January morning in 1986. I distinctly remember perching on my chair in Mrs. M's third grade class, eager to watch the launch on the bulky brown television that had been wheeled in so that my fellow classmates and I could feel like we were a part of the action. At the time, it seemed a matter of course—at least to us kids—that people could routinely travel to space and to the moon. Even girls could be shuttle explorers after Sally Ride had flown on the Challenger three years earlier! We were encouraged to include 'astronaut' among our future career choices anytime a grown-up asked. And we did.

Third grade happened to coincide with my first real exposure to astronomy, too. It was the first time, for instance, that I learned about my very eager mother . . . not to mention the pizzas she'd just served us—though there are plenty of folks today who'd urge us to skip the pizza. As a child of the 80s, imagining that someday I, too, might fly through the asteroid belt or make a quick trip to the canyons of Mars seemed a perfectly reasonable ambition. I was ready to sign up.

To add to the excitement of the day, we'd been told that Christa McAuliffe was going to become the first schoolteacher ever, in the history of the world, to travel into space. We knew about this not just because it was all over the news, but because our school's phys ed teacher had also applied for the Teacher in Space program. And boy, did he get us excited about it! I don't recall whether Mr. W ever disclosed how far along in the process he'd reached before being cut, but he'd clearly felt that doing experiments to gauge how microgravity affected physical fitness would have been one of the greatest gifts he could give to students at our elementary school and around the country.

And then . . . the forked puffy cloud. The confusion. The silence.

It's clear to me now that I was too young to truly understand death. I had actually lost a grandmother just a month before, but my still-developing brain prevented me from grasping the enormity of her passing until much later. Obviously it was the same for these seven people I'd never even met. Yet my classmates and I knew right away that something terrible had just happened. And we were all a little scared.

The Challenger incident has stayed with me over the past quarter-century, well into my adult life. My love of all things space grew as time marched on, and when the shuttle program resumed, I once again looked forward to watching launches on the news, and later, on NASA TV. But to this day, there's a palpable anxiousness in the last hour or so before liftoff. And until I hear the "main engine cutoff" call from mission control, my heart remains firmly embedded in my throat. Sadly, ever since the Columbia breakup in 2003, shuttle landings have become equally nerve-wracking for the same grim reasons.

To be sure, I recognize that many of us put our lives on the line every single day. I think of miners and factory workers who endure precarious and downright dangerous conditions on a daily basis. And there are the firefighters, police officers, and other civil servants who purposely risk bodily harm for the sake of the common good. Heck, every time we get behind the wheel we put ourselves at the mercy of road conditions and other drivers. And yet I can't help but get verklempt when I think of the men and women who voluntarily strap themselves to the back of a rocket and hope that a million things go right on their way out to the stars and back. One of my longtime dreams of attending a shuttle launch finally came true last May, and I can assure you that there were tears streaming down my cheeks as I watched that plume reach deep into the brilliant Florida sky. As with every mission since STS-51-L, I was thinking of Challenger that afternoon—and yes, Columbia, too.

So today marks 25 years since that fateful morning back in 1986. I'm now 33, and sad to say I haven't yet booked my flight to the asteroid belt. In 2007, though, Christa McAuliffe's alternate, fellow teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan, did eventually carry the torch for educators when she flew aboard the shuttle Endeavor and visited the International Space Station.

The legacies of those lost with the Challenger—Jarvis, McAuliffe, McNair, Onizuka, Resnik, Smith, and Scobee—live on in all of us who were watching that day. I, for one, will never forget. ∞

Lego photo courtesy of BriXwerX on Flickr

postcards from an alien world

Most of the time if you hear me gushing about planetary vistas, it's about Saturn, its rings, or its lovely moons. But let's not forget about Mars! This week, scientists working with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been circling our ruddy neighbor since 2006, released a series of exquisitely detailed and hauntingly moody images of the Martian surface. Wired offers an informative write-up with long captions for a few of them, but I'm posting my favorites here. I encourage you to browse through all 236 of the latest shots on the web portal for HiRISE, the camera system in charge of these amazing views. I'm telling you, each page is better than the next! ∞

space coast adventures

Last week I had the privilege of being a guest for the final launch of the space shuttle Atlantis from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL. The launch itself was magical, a once-in-a-lifetime event that certainly lived up to the hype of being way better in person than on TV. But I also took an extra day to explore the KSC grounds since I'd never visited before, and I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of the offerings, both for children and adults alike.

As of this writing, there are only two planned shuttle missions to go before the entire space program ceases. Naturally, there is quite a bit of concern about lost jobs and a decline in tourism on the Space Coast following the STS-134 mission, which is currently slated to launch in November. But I'd argue that KSC can remain a tourist destination for some time, with or without shuttle launches, if NASA can step up its game and do a little more to draw people in. Aside from the main visitor center, which caters more to children, I was particularly impressed with the newer Saturn V Center, which houses not only an entire full-scale Saturn V rocket but a wonderful museum dedicated to the history and science behind the Apollo program. After this year it might be quite a while before we see piloted missions launching from the Cape again, so I'd suggest NASA would be wise to hurry up and build a similar annex dedicated to the shuttle program to help sustain tourism in the area.

In the meantime, I still think KSC is well worth a visit for anyone interested in space exploration. And of course, if you have the chance to attend one of the two remaining shuttle launches, by all means do it! Just know that there will be lines, and lots of them, if you happen to stop by around launch time. Anyway, here are some pics from my recent adventures on the Space Coast! ∞

2009 cassini all-stars

2009 was a spectacular year for the Cassini spacecraft, which in July celebrated five years in orbit around Saturn. I've been following the mission pretty closely since then, and the results cease to amaze me. So to wrap up the year, I decided to join in on all the "best-of-09" blog action with my very own 2009 Cassini All-Star Team! The following are, in my mind, the 12 most captivating images to have hurdled a billion miles through space this year, from the eyes of Cassini's cameras to a few desktops in Colorado, and then out onto the World Wide Web for all to enjoy. Kudos to Carolyn Porco and the rest of her CICLOPS team for a job well done. Can't wait to see what's in store for 2010! &infin

12. View From Down Under
A lovely natural-color view taken from roughly 48 degrees below the plane of Saturn's rings. The dark stripe across Saturn is actually the shadow created by the sun shining on the rings edge-on.

11. Ring Around Titan
Not the most detailed image ever taken of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, but this eerie view won me over nevertheless. Look closely and you'll see a very thin ring around the moon's outer edge, demarcating the boundary of Titan's thick atmosphere. This shot is best viewed enlarged.

10. Slopes of Enceladus
In November, Cassini performed two flybys of Saturn's sixth-largest moon, Enceladus. One of the most intriguing moons in the entire solar system, Enceladus features rare geological activity at its southern pole. This close-up of the "tiger stripe" region, taken from only about 1,000 miles above the surface, highlights icy ridges that seem ripe for ripping up on skis or snowboard!

9. Shades of Gray
While I of course enjoy the color views that Cassini's cameras occasionally capture, there's something stark and haunting about a scene like this one, with the planet's rings shown in various shades of gray. Simply stunning.

8. Prometheus Streaming
This one really surprised me. On the lower left you'll notice the 53-mile-wide potato-shaped moon Prometheus making its way through Saturn's ribbony F ring. But also cool are the dark trails to the right, which Prometheus left previously on the ring!

7. Into the Darkness
Taken as the coming winter approached Saturn's southern pole and prepared to cloak it in darkness, this image bespoke to me the enormity of the jeweled planet; the stormy vortex seen here is roughly as large as the Earth! Looking closely at the whorls and eddys within, you can't help but be humbled by the scale of it all.

6. Spouting Plumes
Down is up in this shot of Enceladus, taken during one of the November flybys. Spouting from the moon's active southern pole are jets of water and other volatiles, which are believed to spew out like water geysers here on Earth. I love that the image is so off-center; though likely done to make sure Cassini captured the full extent of the plumes, to me it just makes the composition that much more compelling.

5. ...Now You Don't
I love, love, love this image...so much going on! For one thing, you have Saturn's shadow making the rings seem to disappear, which is spooky and awesome. The fact that Saturn's night side is visible at all here is a result of "ringshine," an effect in which the light bouncing off the lit part of the rings scatters and hits the planet's surface, faintly illuminating it. You'll also notice the long shadow of Saturn's moon Tethys on the rings at the upper right. And last but not least, the small moon Janus can be seen hovering above the top ring. Amazing!

4. Pock-marked Moon
Sure, Saturn has many small, cratered moons, and yes, a lot of them look alike. But in my mind, this shot of the 660-mile-wide Tethys belongs in an art gallery. Gouging the surface at right is the large crater Penelope.

3. Titanic Shadow
What a beautiful shot of Saturn, its thin ring plane, and that ginormous shadow cast by the Saturnian system's largest moon, Titan. Wow.

2. Akimbo
I don't even want to spoil this one with words. If it weren't for the next shot, this would be my winner for 2009. Don't miss the closeup.

1. The Rite of Spring
I have to say, it was pretty difficult to sort through Cassini's cache of images to pick my favorite dozen from this year. But there was never any doubt as to which one would top the list. My photographic Cassini All-Star of 2009 is this truly mesmerizing view of Saturn during the planet's equinox this past August. In the interest of keeping this post to a manageable length, I'll say no more, but I urge you to visit the image's description page to read about how the shot was taken and what, exactly, is going on. You can also check out this brief summary from Time Magazine, which named the photo to its 2009 Year In Pictures.

Honorable Mention: The Seven Sisters
Okay, I had to add one more to the list, for personal reasons! This photo of the Pleiades cluster was actually taken in 2008, but it was released to the public back in April. As you might have noticed, these familiar stars (especially one in particular) are near to my heart, so it was wonderful for me to find out that Cassini would take a moment give them a look-see :)

to the moon(s)

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the first human steps on the giant orb that lights our skies at night and captivates our collective imagination. And of course, in this instant news age of Twitter and blog reporting (ahem), it's no surprise that pretty much every media outlet is covering the event—and that businesses are using any angle they can to cash in.

But what was surprising to me about the day in question, July 20, 1969 (N.B. it was already July 21st in the U.K. and points east when Neil Armstrong put his boot down), was that the only way people could really follow along was via radio. I'd heard stories of people watching the news on television that night and of feeling glued to the set as the reports came in. Yet until yesterday, when, prompted by the death of newscaster Walter Cronkite I watched the CBS broadcast (see below) for the first time, I had never realized just how in-the-dark the country and the world really was about what was happening. And frankly, it starts to make sense why all these conspiracy theorists might have been so skeptical!

As you can see for yourself, the broadcast included a crude animation of what was supposedly happening as the Eagle landed. And that was it, folks! The only other clue people had that this was actually taking place was the rather anticlimactic radio broadcast between the Eagle astronauts and NASA's Houston command center. Today, of course, we take for granted that it's standard operating procedure for space agencies to provide live video feeds from high-resolution cameras flanking rockets and other spacecraft as they're flung through the atmosphere, into space, and onto the surfaces of other worlds. So it really makes me appreciate just how far we've come since then.


As for our future on the moon, much has been discussed about the next couple of decades of human spaceflight, and I'm somewhat ambivalent about our current direction. Certainly I'd love to see humans achieve ever-more impressive feats and conquer the cosmos one planet at a time. But I'm not sure that setting up a base on the moon is going to be our best way to make that happen. I would definitely want to make sure that programs like Cassini and New Horizons, which are doing advanced scouting to help us figure out which are really the most interesting and worthwhile places to send humans, get properly funded before we start sending people to hang out on the rather dull and relatively uninteresting moon. (Sorry, moon; nothing personal.) Either way, the leaders at NASA and the other space agencies will have a lot of hard questions to answer in the coming years, and I don't envy their difficult task.

For today, though, I think we can all agree that taking a look back at what we've achieved so far makes a lot of sense, especially when old-school science fiction is so much fun! Among other things, this little media frenzy might very well be a career-changing inspiration to a future planetary scientist or astronaut-in-waiting. And who knows? Perhaps that young girl watching a moon special on TV this evening will grow up to be the first person to walk on Enceladus or Titan or Europa—all moons with a lot more promise of life than our cold, yet ever-enchanting, Luna.

channeling ada: carolyn porco rules the solar system

Today marks the beginning of a new holiday called Ada Lovelace Day. For those of you not up on your 19th century scientists, Ada Lovelace was the only legitimate daughter of British poet Lord Byron and a contemporary of inventor Charles Babbage, who is famous for having invented an early computing machine, his so-called Analytical Engine. Lovelace became a correspondent with Babbage, and many historians hold that she wrote several programs that would have helped the Analytical Engine run had it been built. For her contributions, Lovelace is often considered the world's first computer programmer.

A few months ago, I learned that an online petition was going around asking bloggers to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day by writing a post, to be published on or before March 24th, that told about any woman who had contributed in some way to the field of technology. Since I regularly read up on, and often write about, women in science and technology in my professional life, I figured this assignment would be a no-brainer. And while I am aware of quite a few women who have in one way or another made significant contributions to technology, there was really no woman that I wanted to write about more than Dr. Carolyn Porco.

Even if you've never heard of Dr. Porco, you've undoubtedly seen her work. She is the lead imaging scientist for one of the most successful—and sexy—planetary space missions of all time: Cassini-Huygens. She also participated in the Voyager missions and is currently on the imaging team for the New Horizons mission, which is on its way to the outer solar system to photograph and study Pluto and its three known moons (among other things) for the first time.

Born in New York City, Porco was drawn to astronomy as part of a spiritual quest, after her explorations of various religions proved unfulfilling. "But it was the sight of Saturn with a telescope from a New York rooftop that clinched it," she admitted to me the last time I spoke with her at length about her career. Today, Porco works out of the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS) in Colorado. She's become an expert in imaging Saturn, its rings, and especially its moons, and in coaxing secrets of these bodies from mere pixels of light sent back to planet Earth. She's also been a NASA advisor on numerous occasions, and she has experience as a university professor, teaching both undergraduates and grad students.

In speaking to Porco, she quickly betrays her roots with her Yankee accent, her persuasive New York style, and her cutting humor. Undoubtedly shaped by her early quest to understand our origins, Porco is passionate about human destiny in the cosmos. And like another famous New Yorker, the late Richard Feynman, she's adept at explaining complex scientific principles so that even the most elementary learner can catch her meaning. She has the tendency to comport herself as a young girl for whom the realization that stars aren't just pinpricks of light but giant balls of superhot gas millions of miles away is, like, the coolest thing ever. Of course, the best thing about this excitement is that it's as infectious as an office cold in mid-February. To see what I mean, I urge you to check out the talk that she gave, entitled "Fly me to the moons of Saturn," as part of the TED lecture series in 2007.

Last, but certainly not least, Porco has become an ambassador for women and young girls who so desperately need exemplars to look up to in technology and the physical sciences. When I asked her about her role as an accomplished woman in a field dominated by men, Porco didn't shy away from the issue but rather acknowledged that the glass ceiling is a shifty thing: "Women have won the strategic battles; all the laws are in place to make sure that we don't get abused with gender bias and so on," she said. "But it's the tactical battles that are difficult for women. The way science is conducted is very combative...If a man behaves aggressively, he's a stud, he's admired. If a woman behaves that way, people are shocked. It turns people off. It's different cultural expectations that we are up against."

And so, on this Ada Lovelace Day, I salute Dr. Carolyn Porco for her perseverance and her enthusiasm; for her insight and her curiosity. Let us hope that more women like her will read this and some of the other 1,600+ blog posts pledged for this event and be inspired to do great things. ∞