Space – Page 3 – half-girl, half-robot

Here are a couple of the less well-known pieces of astrophotography.

These two images were originally sent back to Earth from the Soviet Venera program probes (I believe these specific two came from Venera 13, though I don’t have the citation to hand).

That’s right – that barren rocky wasteland is Venus.

These images are particularly notable because Venus has a surface temperature of over 460 Celsius and a pressure of around 90 bars. That atmosphere is also pure poison. The clouds you can see aren’t water vapour; they’re composed of droplets of sulphuric acid. The ‘air’ itself is 94% carbon dioxide, with most of the rest being nitrogen and a lot of weird nasties.

None of the Venera landers remained operational for more than a couple of hours once on Venus’s surface. But frankly, given how unbelievably hostile the surface conditions are there, it’s a miracle they were able to function at all.

warrenellis:

Sharpless 249 and the Jellyfish Nebula via NASA http://ift.tt/1BbYPSn

asttra:

ajroozer:

awfulashley:

sizvideos:

Video

This is what we pay taxes for. Underwater videos. In space.

exactly what I would do if i was in space*

0.48% of one penny of your tax dollars. In addition, the ISS is an internationally funded project (although the US pays for most of it). You should be proud that NASA can accomplish so much with such little support.

openupyourhands:

no but really, imagine natasha during the space race. not from where we are sitting, decades on, but living through it. her country put a satellite IN ORBIT. they put people IN ORBIT AROUND THE PLANET. first time ever.

she could have watched people landing on the moon. and then she lives long enough to have an alien on her team.

i mean, yes, espionage angst blood woe cold war, but there was so much more going on in the world and you can’t tell me natasha never cared.

jammygummy:

“Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.”

-Douglas Adams

hatcadet:

Space: Above and Beyond.

“Before Apollo and Starbuck began frakking and fighting in Battlestar Galactica, the Wildcards of Space: Above and Beyond were dogfighting in their Hammerheads, bar-brawling with in-vitro hating racists, and elbow-deep in martian mud as alien artillery screamed from the sky.”