Voyager - on the verge of exiting Solar System!

Hello fellow Astro-enthusiasts.. found this interesting enough to put it on my blog.

35 years ago tomorrow, Voyager 1 left our Earth and set out on a mission that very few people are aware of. Apart from the fact that Voyager 1 and 2 will be the only man made objects that will have reached the end of our solar system, there are some other interesting facts.
It is interesting to know the kind of equipment that Voyager carried on board in 1977. It just has 68Kb of computer memory!! An 8 track tape recorder.. (Say whaaat!!). Gold plated discs containing multilingual greetings, music and pictures, in a hope that an intelligent species may come across it and be able to decode.

Today Voyager 1 is 11 billion miles away and Voyager 2 is 9 billion miles from the Sun. It takes 17 hours for a radio signal from Voyager 1 to reach earth and 12 hours (or maybe 15 hrs) from Voyager 2.

The news that Voyager exited our Solar System will sure be something I will look out for and milestone to remember and cherish.

Source: yahoo news

Tragic loss - in memory of Neil Armstrong!

In memory of a legend who passes away today. I decided to write this post for Neil Armstrong (82). For a man who is so famous, that his name is still studied, and will be studied in the future, by children all over the world. A man who in everybody's eyes is a hero and the frontier of space exploration, lived such a normal and simple life. Thought I should share some interesting facts about him (Courtesy:TOI)

1. After flying combat missions during the Korean War, he became a test pilot and joined Nasa's astronaut program in 1962. 

2. As he stepped on the moon's dusty surface, Armstrong said: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." obviously we all knew this about him from our good old text books.

3. Armstrong's pulse was measured at 150 beats per minute as he guided the lunar lander to the moon's surface, Nasa said. Asked about his experience on the moon, he told CBS: "It's an interesting place to be. I recommend it." 

4. In 2005 Armstrong was upset to learn that his barber had sold clippings of his hair to a collector for $3,000. The man who bought the hair refused to return it, saying he was adding it to his collection of locks from Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon, Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein and others. 

5. Despite his quiet nature, Armstrong once appeared in a television commercial for the US automaker Chrysler. He said he made the ad because of Chrysler's engineering history and his desire to help the company out of financial troubles.

I meant to upload this video (http://youtu.be/gkCxJ4hUhv8) on youtube for a very long time, but I lazy'ed it until today. Maybe it was meant to be for this day. I thought I should atleast do this much for a man who did so much for Mankind. RIP Neil Armstrong. You will be remembered.

One crazy fact about Curiosity's landing on Mars!

Definitely a major milestone in Space exploration. Let me start here by congratulating NASA.

Just in case you did not know:
1. It takes 14 minutes for the signal from the Rover to reach Earth.
2. It takes approximately 7 minutes for the Rover to land on Mars after it touches the Mars atmosphere.

Here goes the crazy fact: By the time, we, on Earth, get the signal from the rover that it has touched the Mars atmosphere, the rover has already landed safely or got destructed somewhere!!

Everything was automatic, with no chance for course correction. With more than 500,000 lines of code and Zero margin of error... Absolutely phenomenal !!

Check out some cool videos on the NASA website:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=18895

Credits: www.nasa.gov

Moon, like never seen before

Great to be back to write about one of the most photographed object in the night sky... our good old Moon. This video that I saw on space.com is stunning.. so stunning that I HAD to post it..

Staring at the moon for hours together when I was a kid..beautiful! Looking through my telescope at the craters and the shadow formations, imagining the mountains..awesome! But nothing matches what you will see in this video. The more I look at this video.. the more I want to look at it. Okay, enough said, have at it...

 Now here is the best part.. This is no Artists imagination... its all real, up close videos and images taken by Nasa's LRO. Be on the look out for more of these, astro enthusiasts.

Courtesy: Space.com