Craters On Venus.

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

"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)."

Venera

The Venera series space probes were developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather data from Venus, Venera being the Russian name for Venus. As with some of the Soviet Union’s other planetary probes, the later versions were launched in pairs with a second vehicle being launched soon after the first of the pair.

Ten probes from the Venera series successfully landed on Venus and transmitted data from the surface of Venus, including the two Vega program and Venera-Halley probes. In addition, thirteen Venera probes successfully transmitted data from the atmosphere of Venus.

Among the other results, probes of the series became the first human-made devices to enter the atmosphere of another planet (Venera 4 on October 18, 1967), to make a soft landing on another planet (Venera 7 on December 15, 1970), to return images from the planetary surface (Venera 9 on June 8, 1975), and to perform high-resolution radar mapping studies of Venus (Venera 15 on June 2, 1983). The later probes in the Venera series successfully carried out their mission, providing the first direct observations of the surface of Venus. Since the surface conditions on Venus are extreme, the probes only survived on the surface for durations varying between 23 minutes (initial probes) up to.

source

Night sky just after sunset on March 24, 2012 with crescent moon and backlight, Jupiter, Venus and the Pleiades.

by Ritzelmut

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-

Moon - Venus - Mars

by Neil A.D. Taylor

Clearest image ever taken of Venus. Photo by JAXA.

So NASA won the internet today…

Venus, viewed through violet and near-infrared filters.

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