Tuesday night, the skies over Huntsville were filled with images of the Perseids meteor shower. This year, the Perseids shower will peak on August 12 and, weather permitting, it will be a sight you won’t want to miss. Join NASA astronomer Bill Cooke and his team of experts at Marshall Space Flight Center on August 12 for an …
Every visualization blog on the planet has already posted one or two of these, but they’re awesome, so here is what Washington, DC looks like via Tweets (blue) and photos posted to Flickr (orange). White areas have both tweets and photos. Unsurprisingly, tourist areas are dominated by photos, residential areas by tweets. More here: See […]
We had fun with last month’s “Where on Earth” mystery, so we thought we’d throw a new image out for your guessing pleasure. A few hints… + German U-boats sank a tug nearby in 1918… + The ponds in the image were formed by retreating glaciers… + The main waterway in the image is […]
On July 29, the Earth Observatory posted an image (above) from the MISR Mystery Image contest. How did you do? Did you guess South Africa? The image is rotated so that north is in the lower right. Visible as a cement-colored grid at this distance, Cape Town sits at the head of the U-shaped bay, […]
The dark side of the moon has captured imaginations since we first stepped foot there over 40 years ago. From Pink Floyd to the recent Transformers movie, popular culture has theorized what is on the side of the moon that is in perpetual darkness. So, what is the dark side of the moon? Are there …
On the night of July 26, allsky cameras of the NASA fireball network detected three Perseid meteors in the skies above Tennessee and Alabama. The first seen by the cameras this year, these meteors are the “advance guard” of the Perseid meteor shower, which will peak on the night of Aug. 12. A bright Perseid meteor …
There’s an interesting article in today’s New York Times about mapping historical landscapes: Digital Maps Are Giving Scholars the Historical Lay of the Land. Few battles in history have been more scrutinized than Gettysburg’s three blood-soaked days in July 1863, the turning point in the Civil War. Still, there were questions that all the diaries, […]
NASA has released a new book for visually impaired people to experience the wonders of the moon. Called “Getting a Feel for Lunar Craters,” the 17-page book features Braille and tactile diagrams of the lunar surface, craters and peaks. The book was created and funded by NASA’s Lunar Science Institute, or NLSI, at Moffett Field, …
Although I got back from the 2011 GRC Visualization in Science and Education conference Friday night, my brain still hurts (in a good way). Thanks to Liz and Ghislain for their superb job as conference chairs. To me, the theme of this year’s conference was salience (more precisely, perceptual salience)–the ability of our visual system […]
Arctic Ice Update It’s good fun to follow the progress of our ship full of scientists cruising the Arctic Ocean and scrutinizing the health of marine ecosystems, but what do satellites show is happening to the central part of that ecosystem – the sea ice? The National Snow and Ice Data Center released an update noting that Arctic sea […]
