Ellie Arroway :)
The head of Nasa has hailed a “new era” in exploration after the launch of the first cargo delivery to the space station by a private company.
The Falcon rocket, topped by an unmanned Dragon freight capsule, lifted clear of its Florida pad at 03:44 EDT (07:44 GMT; 08:44 BST).
The launch system has been built by California-based firm SpaceX.
The initial climb to an altitude some 340km above the Earth lasted a little under 10 minutes.
Within moments of being ejected, Dragon opened its solar panels.
It also unpacked its navigation equipment.
Nasa’s administrator Charles Bolden said: “Today marks the beginning of a new era in exploration… The significance of this day cannot be overstated; a private company has launched a spacecraft to the International Space Station that will attempt to dock there for the first time.
“And while there is a lot of work ahead to successfully complete this mission, we are certainly off to good start.”
It will take a couple of days to reach the station. The plan currently is for the vessel to demonstrate its guidance, control and communications systems on Thursday, at a distance of 2.5km from the International Space Station (ISS).
[More at the source]
A Gallery Of May 20 Annular Solar Eclipse Images
1. The sun sets behind a barn and windmill on Sunday, May 20, 2012, southwest of Ellis, Kansas, during a partial solar eclipse. Credit: Steven Hausler, The Hays Daily News / AP
2. An annular solar eclipse appears in the sky over Yokohama near Tokyo Monday, May 21, 2012. Credit: AP / SL
3. A view of partial solar eclipse, seen through a black film in Srinagar, India, in January 2011. Credit: Mukhtar Khan/AP/Canadian Press
4. An annular solar eclipse appears during a break in clouds over Taipei, Taiwan, Monday, May 21, 2012. Credit: Wally Santana / AP
5. An annular solar eclipse appears in Fujisawa, near Tokyo, Monday, May 21, 2012. Credit: AP
6. A partial annular solar eclipse appears through construction scaffoldings in Beijing, China, Monday, May 21, 2012. Credit: Ng Han Guan / AP
Earth’s Siblings: Inside The Planets
Click each for a neat and informative view of the neighboring planets in our Solar System.
via SPACE
Did you see it? One of the more common questions during a meteor shower occurs because the time it takes for a meteor to flash is typically less than the time it takes for a head to turn. Possibly, though, the glory of seeing bright meteors shoot across and knowing that they were once small pebbles on another world might make it all worthwhile, even if your observing partner(s) could not share in every particular experience. Peaking over in late April, a dark moonless sky allowed the Lyrids meteor shower to exhibit as many as 30 visible meteors per hour from some locations. A bright Lyrid meteor streaks above picturesque Crater Lake in Oregon, USA, in the above composite of nine exposures taken last week. Snow covers the foreground, while the majestic central band of our home galaxy arches well behind the serene lake. Other meteor showers this year include the Perseids in mid-August and the Leonids in mid-November, both expected to also dodge the glare of a bright Moon in 2012.
cwnl:
The Galactic Center
Pictured above, in greater detail and in more colors than ever seen before, are the combined images of the Hubble Space Telescope in near-infrared light, the Spitzer Space Telescope in infrared light, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory in X-ray light.
A menagerie of vast star fields is visible, along with dense star clusters, long filaments of gas and dust, expanding supernova remnants, and the energetic surroundings of what likely is our Galaxy’s central black hole.
Credit: NASA, ESA, SSC, CXC and STScI
