Metallic photos of the sun by renowned photographer Greg Piepol bring together the best of art and science. Buy one or a whole set. They make a stellar gift. | | |
SPACESHIPS IN THE SUN: Space shuttle Atlantis undocked and backed away from the International Space Station this morning at 4:18 am EDT. Less than an hour later, the two spacecraft flew directly in front of the sun over the Czech Republic in Europe. Astrophotographer Thierry Legault traveled 1300 km from Paris to catch the last double transit of NASA's 30-year shuttle program. Native Czech photographer Martin Gembec caught it too. "Farewell, Atlantis!" says Legault.
FIRST CLOSE-UP OF VESTA: Mission scientists have confirmed that Dawn is indeed in orbit around Vesta. The giant asteroid's gravity captured the spaceship during the early hours of July 16th. In return, Dawn's cameras captured the first close-up image of Vesta, just released by NASA:
The image taken for navigation purposes shows Vesta in greater detail than ever before. For comparison, take a look at previous best images of Vesta taken by the Hubble telescope in 1996.
Vesta is 530 kilometers in diameter and the second most massive object in the asteroid belt. Ground- and space-based telescopes have been photographing the ancient asteroid for more than a century, but they have not been able to see much detail on its surface. Dawn will change all that as it orbits Vesta for a full year, taking increasingly close pictures of "arguably the oldest extant primordial surface in the solar system," says Dawn principal investigator Christopher Russell of UCLA.
Would you like to own a piece of Vesta? It's possible. Authentic Vesta meteorites are now available in the Space Weather Store.
HOT DINNER: Paleontologist and amateur astronomer Wienie van der Oord lives in the Arava desert in Israel, close to the Jordanian and Egyptian border. "A friend and I were hiking in the area before sunset on July 16th when I realized we hadn't eaten since breakfast," says van der Oord. It was time for a hot dinner:
"Anna tried to prevent me from burning my mouth as I took a bite out of the sun," continues van der Oord. "The meal was not as filling as I expected, so later I had the Moon for desert."
Other photographers are also finding the sun to be an appetizing target. Click on the links for more snapshots: from Tom of Derby, Western Australia; from Matthias Juergens of Gnevsdorf, Germany; from Peter Desypris of Island of Syros, Greece; from Michael Borman of Evansville, Indiana;
2011 Noctilucent Cloud Gallery
[previous years: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009]
June 2011 Aurora Gallery
[Aurora alerts: text, voice] [previous Junes: 2010, 2008, 2001]