Every Moon Landing Of The 50s And 60s By Designer Margot Trudell

“Venus at Night in Infrared from Akatsuki” Is the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day of today, January 30, 2018

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Go for Venus! Fifty-five years ago this week, Mariner 2, the first fully successful mission to explore another planet launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Here are 10 things to know about Mariner 2.

1. Interplanetary Cruise 

On August 27, 1962, Mariner 2 launched on a three and a half month journey to Venus. The little spacecraft flew within 22,000 miles (about 35,000 kilometers) of the planet. 

2. Quick Study 

Mariner 2’s scan of Venus lasted only 42 minutes. And, like most of our visits to new places, the mission rewrote the books on what we know about Earth’s sister planet.

3. Hot Planet 

The spacecraft showed that surface temperature on Venus was hot enough to melt lead: at least 797 degrees Fahrenheit (425 degrees Celsius) on both the day and night sides.

4. Continuous Clouds 

The clouds that make Venus shine so bright in Earth’s skies are dozens of miles thick and permanent. It’s always cloudy on Venus, and the thick clouds trap heat - contributing to a runaway “greenhouse effect.”

5. Night Light 

Those clouds are why Venus shines so brightly in Earth’s night sky. The clouds reflect and scatter sunlight, making Venus second only to our Moon in celestial brightness.

6. Under Pressure 

Venus’ clouds also create crushing pressure. Mariner 2’s scan revealed pressure on the surface of Venus is equal to pressure thousands of feet under Earth’s deepest oceans.

7. Slow Turn 

Mariner 2 found Venus rotates very slowly, and in the opposite direction of most planets in our solar system.

8. Space Travel Is Tough 

Mariner 2 was a remarkable accomplishment, considering that in 1962 engineers were still in the very early stages of figuring out how operate spacecraft beyond Earth orbit. The first five interplanetary missions launched - by the U.S. and Soviet Union, the only two spacefaring nations at the time - were unsuccessful.

9. Not Ready for Its Close Up 

Mariner 2 carried no cameras. The first close-up pictures of Venus came from NASA’s Mariner 10 in 1974.  

10. Hot Shot 

The first (and still incredibly rare) photo of the surface of Venus was taken by the Soviet Venera 9 lander, which survived for a little more than a minute under the crushing pressure and intense heat on the ground.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

The sky seemed to smile over much of planet Earth. Visible the world over was an unusual superposition of our Moon and the planets Venus and Jupiter. A crescent Moon over Los Angeles appears to be a smile when paired with the planetary conjunction of seemingly nearby Jupiter and Venus.

Shared from Sky News: Venus has more volcanoes than we thought - and this map shows where they are

Sky News

Venus has more volcanoes than we thought - and this map shows where they are

The findings come ahead of new NASA and European Space Agency missions to uncover more mysteries of a planet described as "Earth's twin". Th

Die Perkins-Stimmen wieder vereint ...

  Die Startfolge der Hörspielserie Mark Brandis, Raumkadett überrascht die Commander-Perkins-Fans mit einer Wiedervereinigung der Stimmen ihrer Helden: Nach 34 Jahren sind Horst Stark, Gabi Libbach und Gernot Endemann erstmals wieder zusammen in einem Science-Fiction-Werk zu hören …

Alle Links in unserer “Ortungsleitzentrale” (olz)…

Emil Ivanov - When Venus Rises with the Sun, 2012. (View across the Black Sea on June 6 finds Venus rising with the Sun)   

This is an image of Venus taken in 1974 by NASA’s Mariner 10 space probe. The planet is blanketed by a thick veil of clouds high in carbon dioxide. 

Fibonacci you crazy bastard….

As seen in the solar system (by no ridiculous coincidence), Earth orbits the Sun 8 times in the same period that Venus orbits the Sun 13 times! Drawing a line between Earth & Venus every week results in a spectacular FIVE side symmetry!!

Lets bring up those Fibonacci numbers again: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34..

So if we imagine planets with Fibonacci orbits, do they create Fibonacci symmetries?!

You bet!! Depicted here is a:

2 sided symmetry (5 orbits x 3 orbits)

3 sided symmetry (8 orbits x 5 orbits)

5 sided symmetry (13 orbits x 8 orbits) - like Earth & Venus

8 sided symmetry (21 orbits x 13 orbits)

I wonder if relationships like this exist somewhere in the universe….

Read the Book    |    Follow    |    Hi-Res    -2-    -3-    -5-    -8-

NASA considers Strandbeest design for the next Venus rover

NASA is investigating ways to keep a Venus rover functioning in the planet's formidable atmosphere, one of which removes all electronics.

NASA is developing a rover for Venus that could survive the planet’s tumultuous atmosphere.

"NASA Langley researchers want to get a better idea about conditions on our nearest planetary neighbor, Venus, so they have come up with HAVOC or a High Altitude Venus Operational Concept – a lighter-than-air rocket ship that would help send two astronauts on a 30-day mission to explore the planet’s atmosphere. Exploration of Venus is a challenge not only because its smog-like sulfuric acid-laced atmosphere, but also its extremely hot surface temperature and extremely high air pressure on the surface."  

"The video shows a human mission that’s part of a multi-phase campaign to explore and potentially settle Venus. Before the mission in the video occurred, there would be similar robotic missions to test the technologies and better understand the atmosphere. Eventually, a short duration human mission would allow us to gain experience having humans live at another world, with the hope that it would someday be possible to live in the atmosphere permanently (hinted at in the closing shot of the video)."