This Is Incredible!

NGC 1398 in Fornax.

Source: https://imgur.com/7dzEl2s

The Space Shuttle Columbia

Pause today to remember the Crew of STS-107, who all died on this day 13 years ago, February 1, 2003, when the Space Shuttle Columbia became unstable and disintegrated on re-entry over Texas.  The Crew:

The Flight Commander was Rick D. Husband, a U.S. Air Force colonel and mechanical engineer, who piloted a previous shuttle during the first docking with the International Space Station on STS-96.

The Pilot was William C. McCool, a 1983 graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and U.S. Navy commander.

The Payload Commander was Michael P. Anderson, a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel.  He was also a physicist and mission specialist who was in charge of the science mission.

The Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon was a colonel in the Israeli Air Force and the first Israeli astronaut.

The Mission Specialist was Kalpana Chawla, an Indian-born aerospace engineer who was on her second space mission.  She was the first Indian woman in space.

The Mission Specialist was David M. Brown, a U.S. Navy captain trained as an aviator and flight surgeon. 

The Mission Specialist was Laurel Blair Salton Clark, a U.S. Navy captain and flight surgeon. Clark worked on biological experiments.

The Space Shuttle Columbia was named after the poetic designation for the United States of America.  This poetic name (based on Christopher Columbus, thought then as the sole discoverer of America) was meant to be both inclusive and a little bit nostalgic, in the sense that America could be embodied in a name.  Clearly these seven astronauts and mission specialists embodied the best spirit of America, the inclusion of an Indian and Israeli the strongest symbol yet of what America can accomplish when unified to a common purpose. Special thought to William McCool, graduate of the USNA-I pass almost daily the ‘McCool Marker’, a memorial on the grounds of the USNA golf course to celebrate his achievements both as a Naval Aviator but also his accomplishments as a Midshipman, where he served as Captian of the Cross Country team his senior year.  The marker is placed on the cross country course 16 minutes from the finish line of his fastest run on the Navy course.

Milky Way timelapse taken this morning (06/03/2016) on Osea island. Taken between 4:50 am and 6:10 am, panning is achieved by using my SkyTracker in horizontal mode. 6D Samyang 24mm @f2.8 ISO4000 25 sec exposures.. Please watch in HD!!

The Mystical World Of Mushrooms Captured In Photos

Most people consider mushrooms to be the small, ugly cousins of the plant kingdom, but theirs is  surprisingly beautiful and wonderful world waiting to be explored. These beautiful mushrooms, captured by enthusiastic nature photographers, are a far cry from the ones you find in the woods or your local grocery store.

Most mushrooms, as we know them, are actually just the reproductive structure of the fungus they belong to – their fungal networks expand far further underground, and some fungi don’t even sprout the sort of mushrooms that we’re used to seeing. In fact, depending on your definition of “organism,” the largest living organism in the world is a fungus – there’s a honey mushroom colony in Oregon that occupies about 2,000 acres of land! ( Bored Panda )

Favourite APOD of 2015, #10 (October): A Gegenschein Lunar Eclipse

There’s so much going on in this photo! The Gegenschein is the faint, blueish glow you can see rising from the horizon and going behind the eclipsed Moon.

Runner-ups:

The Witch Head Nebula

Starburst Galaxy Messier 94

NASA created retro travel posters for different locations in our solar system in hopes of inspiring young people to imagine a future where common space travel is a possibility. 

Source

This is a model of how many Earth’s can fit inside the sun. 

Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower : The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower.

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