cinnamon thoughts. » Universe

Saturn V Model Rocket (Scale 1:10)

Daniel Gattermann — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 22:01:12 +0000

A cool video on YouTube showing the launch of a Saturn V model rocket. Scale 1:10 might sound small but it’s freaking huge for a model rocket!

Galactic Tour Through the Neighborhood

Daniel Gattermann — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:09:03 +0000

At space.com you can take a tour of our corner of the cosmos. Like the famous National Geographic poster it gives you a good sense of how small our solar system (and every other) really is. Truly fascinating.

Magnificent Mars Surface

Daniel Gattermann — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:04:12 +0000

A collection of stunning pictures of Mars’ surface taken by HiRISE onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment website has high resolution versions of most images and also beautiful wallpapers.
(NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

Saturn at Equinox

Daniel Gattermann — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:53:57 +0000

Fantastic photos of Saturn and its rings and moons at equinox, when the Sun shines directly on the edge of the ten meter thin rings.

Photo: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Water Found on Moon and Mars

Daniel Gattermann — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:01:22 +0000

NASA has released information on water molecules found on our moon and in unexpected places on Mars. Exciting news! I’m looking forward to see whether LCROSS — the Lunar CRater Observing and Sensing Satellite — finds larger quantities of water ice on the Moon. Its impact is on Oct. 9, 2009.

The First Pictures Taken on Other Planets

Daniel Gattermann — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:25:02 +0000

Until recently I didn’t know of the Viking 1 and Venera 13 missions that took the first pictures on the surface of Mars and Venus.

In 1976 NASA’s Viking 1 took the first photos as a lander on Mars. At the moment Spirit and Opportunity are still working and snapping pictures on Mars.

In 1982 the Soviet Venera 13 lander performed a soft landing on Venus’ surface after many failed missions.

The lander survived for 127 minutes (the planned design life was 32 minutes) in an environment with a temperature of 457 °C (855 °F) and a pressure of 89 Earth atmospheres (8.9 MPa) [Wikipedia]

These achievements are quite impressive considering the technology about three decades ago. I wasn’t even born when those probes landed on our neighbor planets.

In 2005 the Huygens probe landed on Saturn’s moon Titan and took a picture after landing.

Star Trek vs. Real Science

Daniel Gattermann — Tue, 12 May 2009 19:25:57 +0000

The widely accepted rule of even numbered Star Trek movies being great and odd ones being crap was disrupted after Nemesis and is officially reversed with the 11th iteration simply named Star Trek.

A large portion of all Star Trek films and TV shows was about science and galactic phenomenons the viewer just had to accept because science can’t explain them or they simply weren’t possible (yet?). So how is the new Star Trek movie holding up? Phil Plait — an astronomer, lecturer, and author who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope for ten years — took a look at the science in Star Trek XI.

I am here to review the science of the movie. I won’t worry about warp drive, transporter tech, or time travel; I’ll concentrate on the real stuff. And never fear: I am not going to reveal the overall plot here. I avoided as many spoilers as I could [...] While I won’t reveal the plot, I have to reveal some details to write a review.

Read the review

Prepping a Space Shuttle for Launch

Daniel Gattermann — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 21:52:15 +0000

Prepping a Space Shuttle for launch is a lot of work. “After looking at the pictures you will know why there’s a good period of time between shuttle launches.” (link)

Some Planets and Stars Compared in Size

Daniel Gattermann — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 05:31:45 +0000

This is a follow-up to my previous post Even Our Sun is Tiny but this time a video (via digg) shows you how small we really are and which monstrously large objects are “floating” around in our galaxy.

A size comparison¹ of the Sun to VV Cephei A (the supergiant of the binary star system VV Cephei) can be found at Wikipedia. VV Cephei A is 1600-1900 times the size of the Sun and 275,000-575,000 times as luminous.

Distance between Earth and Sun: 149,597,870 km²
Max. diameter of VV Cephei A: 2,645,750,000 km³

If you imagine the Sun as a one millimeter dot, VV Cephei A is nearly two meters in diameter.
Earth imagined as a one millimeter dot makes VV Cephei A 207 meters in diameter!

Even more interesting facts.

alternate link; SVG format ↩
149,598,000 km is one astronomical unit ↩
The video states a different size for VV Cephei (which actually is the name of a binary star system). The above value is the best I could calculate for VV Cephei A. ↩

Pluto: A Planet No More

Daniel Gattermann — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:22:38 +0000

Pluto lost its status of being a planet after the definition of planet was changed by the International Astronomical Union. “Pluto was automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune’s” the BBC reports.

Now “the eight planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune,” said the IAU resolution which was passed in the Czech capital by 2,500 astronomers. Pluto now falls into the new category of “dwarf planets”.

Even Our Sun is Tiny

Daniel Gattermann — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 19:50:39 +0000

A month ago I stumbled upon a site entitled The Size Of Our World. It has comparing images of our planet, the Sun and much larger stars like Betelgeuse and Antares (the largest two on those pictures). The brightest star of our nightly sky — Sirius — isn’t left out.

I find it quite impressive to see how small and unimportant we are for the existence of the universe. When mankind screws things up there might always be another civilization to make up for our irrational behavior… consoling thoughts.