Tessera
Folgen

Dr. Caitlin Ahrens

@ahrensscience.bsky.social

Planetary scientist, lunar exploration and sustainability policy. Lunar architecture and risk analysis nerd! UMD-CRESST-II Asst. Research Scientist at NASA GSFC. Science Outreach! Ten Outstanding Young Americans 2018. WVU alum. Views are my own.

329 Posts2101 Follower1092 Folgt
Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans)@iwriteok.bsky.social · last wk.

I'm weirdly happy People decided to publish this article. this lady got very close to the peak and decided to turn back because she wasn't totally confident in her technical ability. That's praiseworthy wisdom, and a good example for others. share.google/d8Xi4aZ8aKkW...

Hiker Forced to Make Impossible Decision Just 405 Feet from Grand Teton’s Summit. Now She’s Issuing a Warning to Fellow Climbers (Exclusive)

After stopping just 405 feet below Grand Teton’s summit, a 25-year-old climber whose emotional TikTok struck a chord with millions tells PEOPLE why she chose safety over the summit and why she’d make ...

share.google

Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · last wk.

Short-sighted, stupid cuts to the UKRI budget include shutting down Jodrell Bank, the icon of British astronomy. (Many other cuts too, including 20% to our brand new @vrubinobs.bsky.social). Interesting politically to shut down a major facility in...um..Manchester 🔭 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Jodrell Bank's Lovell telescope faces axe in science cuts, BBC understands

Astronomers warn it would tear the heart out of UK science, and leave a generation untrained.

bbc.co.uk

Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

When the Viking landing sites were well photographed, maps of the surroundings could be compiled. I made a grayscale overview based on comparisons between the two camera panoramas, and with reference to sample field maps. A color oil painting of the lander was then done incorporating such work.

This vertical view of the Viking 1 landing site is based on the surface panoramas, extrapolated from the cameras views, seeking to place the featured in reasonably proper relative distances from the lander. Such work was of course drafted and executed by hand. After the Viking mission two large format NASA Special Publications were especially valuable in later efforts to portray the Viking landing sites in Perspective. First, of course, was NASA SP-425 The Martian Landscape' with beautiful large reproductions of earlier Viking photos, and NASA CR-3568 'The Viking Lander Atlas of Mars' which displayed the derived locations of landscape features in 3D space, plotted in contour lines defined by the perspective of the two cameras. This is a low resolution view of an artwork done in an odd art medium, scratchboard with a gray dot screen printed on it as a basis for making white or inked marks. Several sheets of this were given to me in the 70s by Chesley Bonestell, encouraging me to play with them. He said they were old, so that could mean WW II or so. I used all but one for such Planetary work. I did maps with them of the sites of Vikings 1 & 2, Venera 9, and Venera 10. All those were published in Sky & Telescope magazine, and in their volume 'The New Solar System', which used my art through out the book. I also made an overview of where they thought Viking 1 was, which turned out to be incorrect. An unfinished one of the Lunar Orientale basin awaits completion, at the time I started it the Western portions of that basin were still poorly photographed and my drawing was going to be an improvement in the available imagery. Now it is quite well known so there is less incentive to finish it. #Sciart Viking 1 on Mars. This oil on illustration board painting incorporated my efforts to plot the lander surroundings in perspective, and of course knowledge of the final actual lander appearance. The nearest footpad is entirely buried in the powdery dust, a sight which would have certainly been alarming if that had happened to the footpad seen in the first photo! The large rock in the right foreground was nicknamed 'Big Joe'. Just to the right of the lander along the horizon is the upraised rim of a distant impact crater. The overall color of the scenery reflects mostly influence from initial contemporary sources. National Geographic published a Viking article which featured the kind of independent first class photo work they used to be known for in the early space age. Their color chart driven version of the Martian scenery tended toward the brick red, reasonably approximating the hues as if lit by a noon time Sun in a Terrestrial sky. This painting was initially done in a similar color balance to what they mostly used, then later I learned of the ambient sky etc contributions and overpainted the scene with an orange tan layer. The result color wise is something in between what it was and what it should be, but the scenery remains valid. The Martian sky was based on Viking camera images, whose truncated brightness near the top of the frame complicated portraying the actual sky brightness range. #Sciart
mrjohnsonstem.bsky.social@mrjohnsonstem.bsky.social · last mo.

Well I survived #ISTELive26 & came away with so many new ideas for my #STEM classroom. One is an @xtool-official.bsky.social engraver! The lady doing the demo was amazing & it would provide my students so many amazing opportunities. www.donorschoose.org/sl/HWFJGjsTDR I @donorschoose.bsky.social

Engraving for STEM Engagement, a project from Mr. Johnson

Help me give my students an Xtool M2 laser engraver and printer to allow us to expand our STEM program in a new direction. I have some of the very best elementary students in the world, yes I might...

donorschoose.org

Vincent Ledvina@vincentledvina.bsky.social · 2w ago

We observed an M1.9 flare around 1720 UT from the growing active region AR 4493. No CME was generated, and so far this region hasn't produced anything too impressive. Over the next few days, aR 4493 will be rotating through the Earth-strike zone, so let's hope for some action!

Jenni Barclay@volcanojenni.bsky.social · 3w ago

link.springer.com/article/10.1... It’s out! We’ve written a paper about volcanoes 🌋 in the movies 🎥! As well as the usual lava-based faux pas we’ve asked how well they do at recreating eruptive cycles, depicting human responses and what volcanologists can learn from compelling storytelling!

Mayhem, magic and dangerous myths? Volcanoes on the big screen - Bulletin of Volcanology

We examine the extent to which movies that prominently feature volcanoes and volcanic eruptions reflect the reality of eruptions and eruptive crises. To do this, we develop an interdisciplinary method...

link.springer.com

c0nc0rdance@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · last yr.

Things that we left on the Moon, from Royal Museum Greenwich: 1. 96 bags of human waste 2. The ashes of geologist Gene Shoemaker 3. A Bible 4. A tiny aluminum sculpture "Fallen Astronaut" 5. A photo of Charles Duke's family (now bleached white) 6. A hammer & falcon's feather 7. Golf balls

The incredible true story of the time an astronaut played golf on the moon | CNN

Pictures of Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard playing golf on the moon have wowed viewers for decades, yet for almost half a century, nobody knew how far his famous second shot actually traveled. That ...

edition.cnn.com

Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

The first glimpse of the Martian surface was long anticipated. Bonestell's art dominated ideas of what Mars was like, basically the desert Southwest with most air absent. The idea of a dark blue sky on Mars persisted in space art until that morning. Here are those first looks at the Martian surface.

Top: the first view of the Martian surface, which appeared in slow steps left to right as the data came in. They wanted first thing to know if the lander was on solid ground and not too buried, sinking etc. The imaging sequence started 25 seconds after landing and continued for 5 minutes as the camera scanned a vertical line at a time moving to the right to scan the next. Having the orbiter relay the data took another 20 minutes. At left a brightening in the image can be seen that intensifies then fades, followed by a darkening that soon goes away. That represents a kind of record of the dust kicked up by the landing that brightened the field of view, then the shadow of the dust cloud briefly darkened the scene. The prominent angular rock near upper center is about 10 cm (4 inches) across. This first peek reassured everyone that the lander was on solid ground. A little dirt kicked up by the lander rockets can be seen pooled in the footpad. Bottom: 6 minutes after landing the second photo was obtained, a lower resolution 300 degree wide panorama of the surroundings taking in the scene in 9 minutes. At once the character of the scenery showed its distinctive nature, rocky and lightly even ground with small drifts and patches of lighter fine dust. The presence of dust in the atmosphere brought a brightness to it that was not anticipated, as an artist that was the major revelation I felt when looking over the scene. The atmospheric density was known to be like Earth's at 40 kilometers or 130,000 feet, so any noticeable blue sky brightness should only be evident near the horizon. In reality, the eternal presence of wind blown dust makes the sky a luminous version of the color of the ubiquitous surface dust, especially in the quarter of the sky near the Sun. Suddenly rendered dated were all those paintings by Bonestell, Pesek and others which were done between the times of the Mariner missions and the Viking landings, showing interpretations of known features but … I had my Polaroid SX-70 camera with me when just after the landing I was suddenly escorted from the press area into into the imaging team room, hastily badged and plopped in front of some of the many monitors in the area which steadily unveiled the first two looks at the Martian surface. No journalists were there dur to JPL PR department policy, but I got a few photos and a sound recording of the excited chatter of the geologists seeing Mars revealed. "Look at the exposure on that S_O_B" I remember hearing when the prominent rock appeared. Then the President called in his congratulations which went over the PA system. A highlight of my life, onr of several instances where I was in the Coolest Place in the world at that moment. My carefully obtained Polaroid from a monitor in the Imaging team area, at the conclusion of the introductory scanning of the first photo obtained of the surface of Mars.
Open Lunar Foundation@openlunar.bsky.social · 2w ago

🌕 Happy Moon Day. On July 20, 1969, humanity looked up — and then, for the first time, looked down at Earth from the surface of the Moon. We asked our community to share what the Moon looks like from where they stand. Different corners of the world. The same light. Keep your eyes on the sky 🌙

BildBildBildBild
c0nc0rdance@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 2w ago

Twice a year, Hawai'i experiences a strange moment where the sun appears to be exactly overhead & anything that is completely vertical casts no shadow. Let's learn about Lāhainā Noon, subsolar points & 'Kau ka lā i ka lolo', meaning "the sun rests on the brains."

From a Reddit forum, a photo of a can of coconut milk with a blue label, papyrus text and a flip-top, on a sidewalk. It seems to hover because there's no visible shadow. The pavement is sort of unevenly colored, with bright spots, and the grass along it is green and lush.
Liam Plybon 🧪🔭@liam-plybon.bsky.social · 4w ago

ASET made the front page of local news once again. The kid in the picture was SUPER excited about space. Kept asking about white dwarfs and was amazed that the telescope could see around his fingers without getting blocked.

Bild