Fibonacci You Crazy Bastard….

Can u post pics of earth 🌍

The Blue Marble—Earth as seen by Apollo 17 in 1972

This incredible image of the Earth rise was taken during lunar orbit by the Apollo 11 mission crew in July of 1969. The first manned lunar mission, Apollo 11 launched aboard a Saturn V launch vehicle from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida on July 16, 1969 and safely returned to Earth on July 24, 1969.

This image taken by an astronaut aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-103 shows a panoramic view of Earth at moonrise.

In this rare image taken on July 19, 2013, the wide-angle camera on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has captured Saturn’s rings and our planet Earth and its moon in the same frame.

Earth as seen by Apollo 11 astronauts at the beginning of the third day of TLC

A view of the Apollo 11 lunar module “Eagle” as it returned from the surface of the moon to dock with the command module “Columbia”. A smooth mare area is visible on the Moon below and a half-illuminated Earth hangs over the horizon. The lunar module ascent stage was about 4 meters across. Command module pilot Michael Collins took this picture just before docking at 21:34:00 UT (5:34 p.m. EDT) 21 July 1969.

This panorama featuring Earth’s horizon and clouds over the South Pacific Ocean, complemented with a “tiny” distant moon (upper right), was photographed by one of the Expedition 36 crew members aboard the International Space Station.

The Sun from the Internation Space Station

images: NASA/JPL

To see more images and posts about the Earth click here.

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

Daily Science Dump: Kepler’s First Law Edition

Bonjour my science nerds. I got a question regarding Kepler’s Three Laws because they can be somewhat confusing. And tbh, they really are. Because they can be a bit of a pain, I’ve decided to break this up into 3 sections, one for each law. They generally follow the same idea: planetary orbits are not circular. The difference between each law resides in the minute details. And because they are really detailed, I wanted to make sure I covered everything of each law so they don’t get confused. Let’s get started!

Kepler’s First Law of Planetary Motion

History

Before we get into the actual laws, we need to understand why these laws are so important. During the 1500s and early 1600s, astronomy was starting to become a big deal. We were trying to figure out where we are in the universe. During this time period, the famous geocentric and heliocentric models were stirring up massive controversy in the Catholic Church (for obvious reasons). Ptolemy brought around the geocentric model, which put Earth at the center. This was a natural thought at the time because it was a religious concept that man was God’s greatest creation, so God would want to put man at the center of everything (little presumptuous on our part tbh). Next, Copernicus said that our Sun was in the center, and all the planets orbit around the sun. This clearly didn’t go down well with the Church because it was the first instance of defying the Catholic Church, therefore defying God. In an attempt to settle down the controversy, Brahe brought around a new theory model, putting the Earth at the center, having the Sun and Moon orbiting the Earth, and then the rest of the planets orbiting the Sun. It was a very far reached model but people bought it. All of these models had one thing in common; all the orbits of the planets were circular. But none of none of the actual data fit with perfect circular orbits. This is where our boi Kepler comes in. 

It was long believed that the planets should orbit along circular paths, because a circle is considered an ideal shape. But as I mentioned before, none of the data was fitting the circular shape, particularly Mars. Kepler brought around another shape, the ellipse, to explain the missing pieces of the data. An ellipse is like a flattened circle with some important properties that Kepler used for his laws. His first law focuses more on explaining the patterns of elliptical orbits. The second and third law goes into more detail on the properties of elliptical orbits. 

If you’ve taken a simple geometry class, you know the basic principles of ellipses. We know there’s a major-axis and minor-axis (the diameter horizontally and the diameter vertically), the focal points, and eccentricity. All of these are important for planetary orbits. If we take a trip back to geometry, we know that the positions of the focal points affect the eccentricity, which is basically how much it’s being squished (if e = 0 then it’s a perfect circle and if e = 1 it’s a parabola). 

All of this geometry going on transfers over into planetary motion. In this case, the Sun acts as one of the focal points. The other focal point is merely imaginary. Mathematically it exists but there’s nothing at that point in space that says “Hey! I’m a focal point for Saturn!”. But we know for sure that the Sun is on of the two focal points. This revelation caused a lot of uproar and many refused to believe it. Partly because the orbit of a lot planets are so close to a perfect circle it’s extremely hard to tell it’s elliptical at all. 

Eccentricity has to stay between 0 and 1, like I explained earlier. An eccentricity of 0 is a perfect circle. If it’s 1 or greater, it’s a parabola. For the planetary motion, most of the planets’ eccentricity doesn’t even crack 0.1 (Pluto has a bit over 0.2 but apparently Pluto isn’t a planet #JusticeForPluto). Earth’s eccentricity is currently 0.0167, which means its very very close to a perfect circle. But not quite. To be quite honest, the fact that Kepler was able to figure out that the orbits were not circular is astonishing.

So that’s it for Kepler’s First Law of Planetary Motion! These laws were critical in understanding how our universe works and how our solar system plays out. It opened our eyes to many new ideas and thought processes. This law is just the first step of understanding the orbital tendencies of planets. On Friday, we will dive right into Kepler’s Second Law of Planetary Motion which goes into detail about the speed of the planet due to the elliptical orbit.

Don’t forget, I’m updating the Blog Website everyday with something new because I have no life…. I added cool space music! If you have any cool song recommendations for the playlist definitely shoot me a message!

If you have any questions about today’s Daily Science Dump or any past ones, don’t be afraid to ask!

As always,

Stay Nerdy!

R.L.

Apollo 11 Earthrise

A couple of you have given us great topic ideas for inforgraphics, but if there is anything else that comes to your mind just let us know. Also if you are interested in printing this as a poster for your class send us an email to lthmathematics@gmail.com so we can send you a pdf (easy for print).

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

Meet Bruce McCandless. He was a bit of a bad-ass. In 1984, Bruce was aboard the Challenger Space Shuttle and became the first human to walk in space without a safety line. By utilising a nitrogen propelled Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), he stepped free from Challenger into the blackness of space for a 90-minute space walk and wandered as far as 97 meters from the ship. The result is this amazing image which captures ingenuity, innovation and most certainly bravery.

Bruce McCandless died yesterday at the age of 80.

-Jean Image Credit: NASA

The 4 Terrestrial Planets

Please Build A Cloud City Over Venus 

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” - Albert Einstein