Blog de Ciencia Ficcion: 3D imagines

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Wandering Stars: a tour of the planets

Based on the Science on a Sphere program "The Wanderers." In ancient times, humans watched the skies looking for clues to their future and to aid in their very survival. They soon observed that some stars were not fixed, but moved in the sky from night to night. They called these stars the wanderers.

At the center of our solar system is the sun, binding the planets with its gravitational pull. From our viewpoint on earth, the sun appears small in the sky, but in reality it dwarfs even Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system.

The distance from the sun to the small worlds traveling it are vast. Light takes eight minutes to reach earth, and nearly a day to reach the farthest known bodies. Join us now as we tour our solar system, starting with sun-baked mercury and traveling to the remotest outskirts, where small, icy bodies move with only the faintest connection to our sun.

Mercury
Mercury, the closest planet to Sun is also the smallest terrestrial planet. It o... more

What sets Curiosity apart from other Mars Rovers?

The Mars Science Lab was launched November 26, 2011, and is scheduled to land on Mars at Gale Crater on August 6, 2012. The rover Curiosity, after completing a more precise landing than ever attempted previously, is intended to help assess Mars' habitability for future human missions. Its primary mission objective is to determine whether Mars is or has ever been an environment able to support life.

Curiosity is five times as large as either of the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit or Opportunity and carries more than ten times the mass of scientific instruments present on the older vehicles. The rover is expected to operate for at least 686 days as it explores with greater range than any previous Mars rover. Here are some of the specs that help set Curiosity apart from the other rovers:

The rover Curiosity is 3 meters in length, and weighs 900 kg, including 80 kg worth of scientific instruments. It is approximately the size of a Mini Cooper automobile.

Once on the surface, Cu... more

The Violent End Stage of Star Formation

EsoCast showcases a new Hubble image of a giant cloud of hydrogen gas illuminated by a bright young star. The image shows how violent the end stages of the star formation process can be, with the young object shaking up its stellar nursery.

A few thousand light-years away, in the constellation of Cygnus, lies the compact star-forming region Sh 2-106, or S106 for short. Despite the celestial colors of this picture, there is nothing peaceful about this scene. A young star, named S106 IR, is being born at the heart of the nebula. In the violent final stages of its formation, the star is ejecting material at high speed, violently disrupting the gas and dust. 3D visualizations show the extent to which the star has carved its surroundings into a complex shape. In particular, the hourglass-like structure of the nebula is a result of jets from the star slamming into the cloud of hydrogen it is forming from.

At the outer edges of these cavities, the gas has been compressed into shock f... more

Tour of the Moon (Our One and Only)

A beautiful 1080p tour of our moon. It's so clear and beautiful you'll want to go there yourself. This virtual tour is based on data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Enjoy this "new" Moon and its noteworthy destinations.

Ancient peoples looked at the moon and saw in its patterns of shadow and light the figures of deities or animals.

The Italian scientist, Galileo Galilei, trained his telescope on our celestial companion and saw mountains and valleys much like those on Earth.

Scientists today, operating a fleet of spacecraft, are seeing evidence of past events that shaped the lunar landscape, and traces of water and minerals that may one day support a human presence.

Here's the Mare Orientale, an impact crater nearly 4 billion years old. The color, coded for elevation, highlights a bulls-eye pattern of concentric rings.

Now, let's go down under to the South Pole.

The pole sits within the wide rim of the famed Shackleton Crater. Direct sunlight never reach... more