This is the highest definition video of Earth to date.
A time-lapse of Planet Earth, created from images produced by the geostationary Electro-L Weather Satellite. The images were obtained beginning on May 14th, and end on May 20th. The images are the largest whole disk images of our planet, each image is 121 megapixels, and the resolution is 1 kilometer per pixel. They are taken every half hour, and have been interpolated (smoothed) to create this video. The images are taken in four different wavelengths of light, three visible, and one infrared. The infrared light is reflected by forests and vegetation, which appear orange in these images.
It sounds like a science-fiction fantasy, but the company Mars One says it’s for real—and that it will really establish a settlement on the planet Mars by 2023.
The privately financed Dutch company has a plan. All it needs is a lot of cash, equipment and four Mars-bound astronauts who are willing to take a one-way trip to the red planet.
The idea is to first send rovers, which will stake out a good site for a settlement and then build out living units. In 2022, the crew will take a “transit habitat” for the seven-month trip to Mars and settle in to their new home. The intention is that the crew will live on the planet for the rest of their lives. Every two years after that, another group will join the settlement to populate the colony.
Mars One co-founder Bas Lansdorp has a very modern approach to funding the project: media exposure. “We will finance this mission by creating the biggest media event ever around it.” He said in a company video, adding, “Everybody in the world can see everything that will happen in the preparations and on Mars.”
Think of it as a “Big Brother” for outer space. Lansdorp explained to Yahoo! News, “This would be ‘real’ reality TV — adventure is automatically included, we don’t have to add fake challenges.” He added, “By sending a new crew every two years, Mars will have a real, growing settlement of humans — who would not like to follow that major event in human history?”
Who, indeed? The other-worldly idea has certainly intrigued the Web. The Mars One video has received over 232,000 views on YouTube since it launched less than a week ago. Beyond entertainment, some scientists certainly seem intrigued by the possibility of interplanetary travel. Theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner Gerard ‘t Hooft, a “mission ambassador” for Mars One, endorses the plan. He says, “This project seems to be the only way to fulfill humanity’s dream to explore outer space. It’s going to be an exciting experiment.”
Next year, according to its website, the company will begin an astronaut selection process. Those who have the right stuff will then undergo a decade of preparation. And, we assume, the Mars travelers will be ready for their out-of-this-world close-up.
A large metallic ball has fallen from the heavens and landed in a remote region of Namibia, spurring a lot of speculation about its origins and spurring local authorities to get NASA and the European Space Agency on the horn. No one is sure where the hollow metallic object came from, but it definitely came down hard–it was found 60 feet away from its landing site, a hole more than a foot deep and 12 feet across.
Made of a “metal alloy known to man,” the 13-pound ball is about 43 inches in circumference and landed roughly 480 miles from the Namibian capital of Windhoek. And it turns out it’s not alone. Apparently several similar objects have fallen across the southern hemisphere (in Australia and Latin America as well as elsewhere in Africa) over the past couple of decades.
So far, it has not exploded, hatched, or started to glow with a faint, eerie white light. Nor has anyone descended from the sky looking for it. If that happens, we’ll be sure to post something about it here.
Time lapse sequences of photographs taken with a special low-light 4K-camera by the crew of expedition 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011. All credit goes to them.
Shooting locations in order of appearance:
1. Aurora Borealis Pass over the United States at Night 2. Aurora Borealis and eastern United States at Night 3. Aurora Australis from Madagascar to southwest of Australia 4. Aurora Australis south of Australia 5. Northwest coast of United States to Central South America at Night 6. Aurora Australis from the Southern to the Northern Pacific Ocean 7. Halfway around the World 8. Night Pass over Central Africa and the Middle East 9. Evening Pass over the Sahara Desert and the Middle East 10. Pass over Canada and Central United States at Night 11. Pass over Southern California to Hudson Bay 12. Islands in the Philippine Sea at Night 13. Pass over Eastern Asia to Philippine Sea and Guam 14. Views of the Mideast at Night 15. Night Pass over Mediterranean Sea 16. Aurora Borealis and the United States at Night 17. Aurora Australis over Indian Ocean 18. Eastern Europe to Southeastern Asia at Night
Here’s the famous footage of the Apollo 15 astronaut that dropped a hammer & feather on the moon to prove Galileo’s theory that in the absence of atmosphere, objects will fall at the same rate regardless of mass.
