“Measuring the Universe” is a fascinating animation that explains some of the ingenious ways scientists measure the universe. It is part of the ongoing exhibition Measuring the Universe: from the transit of Venus to the edge of the cosmos, on display at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in the UK. The exhibition ends September 2, 2012.

via Geeks are Sexy

Videographer Mark Day created this short video showing the beautiful crescent-shaped partial shadows that were created during the annular solar eclipse of May 20, 2012.

Photographer Cory Poole created this time-lapse of Sunday’s annular solar eclipse.

Thanks to Cory Poole for the tip!

In late April, the Space Shuttle Enterprise flew for the last time, passing over New York City enroute to JFK airport. This time-lapse shows Enterprise being painstakingly removed from a 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft at JFK early Sunday morning. In June Enterprise will depart via barge for the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in Manhattan, where it will be displayed permanently.

via Geekosystem & Universe Today

In this animated explanation of exponential growth from TED-Ed, educator Adrian Paenza show us how we can reach the moon by folding a piece of paper 45 times.

via Neatorama

SETIcon II, a conference on space as seen through art, literature, and science, takes place June 22-24, at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, California. SETIcon II is hosted by the SETI Institute.

SETIcon, envisioned and organized by the SETI Institute, is a unique, entertaining and enlightening public event where science and imagination meet. SETIcon brings together innovative scientists, science fiction authors, space and science artists, space lovers, and the curious and adventurous everywhere for a 3-day public celebration and exploration of space, real science, technology, imagination, and science education.

While aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Don Pettit recently demonstrated the curious properties of the antibubble, a droplet of liquid surrounded by a thin film of gas (essentially, the opposite of your average gas bubble). The demonstration is part of an ongoing series of physics demos by Pettit, in collaboration with Physics Central.

via Neatorama & The Huffington Post

photo by Jesse Chan-Norris

photo by serenitbee

photo by Douglas Palmer

photo by Vorago Joe

photo by serenitbee

photo by serenitbee

photo by Lori Dorn

Here are some photos of the Space Shuttle Enterprise ridding piggy-back on a Boeing 747 as it passed over New York City this morning on its way to JFK International Airport.

It will eventually make its way to it’s permanent home at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

UPDATE 1: Gothamist has also posted some great photos of the Space Shuttle flying over NYC.

UPDATE 2: Pete Pachal has some photos of the Space Shuttle Enterprise arrival event at JFK, including a couple of Leonard Nimoy who was in attendance.

photo by Pete Pachal

photo by Pete Pachal

“Afronauts” by Spanish photographer Cristina De Middel is a fictional photo essay inspired by the true story of Zambian school teacher and eccentric Edward Makuka Nkoloso, who started an unofficial amateur space program in his home country in 1964, during the height of the Space Race. Here’s a short clip on Nkoloso’s program via British TV channel Sky1:

via Wired

During last month’s solar storm, Bishop Union High School students from Bishop, CA sent a sensor-equipped rubber chicken into the stratosphere to study solar radiation. They hope to gain insight to the effect of solar radiation on life and promote conversations about space weather. The rubber chicken in question is “Camilla”, the official mascot of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (@Camilla_SDO on Twitter).

Video of the launch:

Camilla weightless:

Space, the final frontier. A feline starship embarks on a mission to boldly go where no cat has gone before.

Cats in Space is a short film created by Dastoli Digital that boldly takes cats on a Star Trek-like mission.

via Nerdcore

A year ago, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos hired a team of experts to find the discarded F-1 rocket engines from the Apollo 11 moon landing mission. On Wednesday, Bezos announced that the team has found the engines 14,000 feet underneath the Atlantic Ocean. Bezos is now launching a mission to recover the engines so they can be displayed in a museum.

I’m excited to report that, using state-of-the-art deep sea sonar, the team has found the Apollo 11 engines lying 14,000 feet below the surface, and we’re making plans to attempt to raise one or more of them from the ocean floor. We don’t know yet what condition these engines might be in – they hit the ocean at high velocity and have been in salt water for more than 40 years. On the other hand, they’re made of tough stuff, so we’ll see.

photo via NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

We recently posted about Bible Storyland, a documentary film about the failed 1960s biblical theme park of the same name designed by Disney creatives. We have now learned about Space City USA, a never-completed 1960s space theme park in Huntsville, Alabama. According to The Huntsville Times, construction of the park was announced in 1964 to the thrill of locals and by 1967, the site was shutdown and the project declared an expensive failure.

Space City would have a skyway ride, a glass-bottom boat, a lunar restaurant shaped like a giant mushroom, a jet car ride, a flying saucer, futuristic “time machines,” a simulated colony on the moon and even a miniature volcano.

Guests would enter through a “time machine” into various themed areas, like the Lost World with dinosaur models, a simulated moon colony, a “Land of Oz” and an Old South section.

The Huntsville Times recently ran a history of Space City USA along with a gallery of then and now images including ones from longtime Huntsville resident Toni Reynolds whose husband invested in the project.

The Huntsville Times original news story on Space City USA

Space City USA photograph by Dr. William S. Reynolds taken May 1965. Photo shows construction of volcano in “Lost World.”

Space City USA stock certificate. 100 shares at $2.00/ share.

Photo shows grading work at northeast edge of lake. Space City USA aerial photograph taken by Dr. William S. Reynolds approx. fall 1963 – spring 1964.

images via Bob Gathany of The Huntsville Times

The Huntsville Times news story image via Scribd

Space City brochure images via Adam Campbell

Thanks to Mark Johnson for the tip!

The NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio has created this wonderful short video on the evolution of the moon. The video was created using data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

via io9

As a tribute to the now defunct Space Shuttle program, Romanian student Raul Oaida tethered a LEGO Space Shuttle model to a weather balloon and launched it from a field in Central Germany to an altitude of 114,000 feet (video). Unable to finance the project himself, Oaida convinced Australian Internet entrepreneur Steve Sammartino to invest in the endeavor after pitching it to Sammartino on Skype.

via The Mary Sue

“Temporal Distortion” by Randy Halverson is a beautiful time-lapse video of the Milky Way, aurora borealis, and meteors in night skies over the Western United States.

via PetaPixel

Angry Birds leave planet Earth in completely new version of the game Angry Birds Space, coming out on March 22.

via VentureBeat

“Keck in Motion” by Andrew Cooper is a fascinating behind the scenes video of the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii.

via Geekosystem & Universe Today

John F. Kennedy Alien Hunter, the latest bad-ass president tribute by Jason Heuser. Prints are available through Etsy.

In 1963 after the alleged JFK assassination John F Kennedy was sent the moon to be the first man to walk on the moon. This was kept secret to us and we were made to believe he was assassinated on November 22nd 1963.

Upon arrival his mission was to clear the moon of any alien life to make future moon landings easy and safe. He lived on the moon for 26 years hunting and slaying aliens until NASA lost communication….his death has still not been confirmed however and many believe hes still murdering aliens today.

“Signal To Noise” is a motion graphics-enhanced time-lapse of the Very Large Array observatory in New Mexico. The time-lapse is by Douglas Koke.

via Nerdcore

Toronto high school students Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad tethered a LEGO figurine to a weather balloon and sent it 80,000 feet above the Earth (to be fair, still within Earth’s atmosphere). The cameras in their homebuilt craft captured the remarkable view from the stratosphere.

via Geekosystem & The Gaurdian

“Astronomical” is a representation of the Solar System across 6000 pages of a 12 volume set (video). Each page represents one million kilometers of distance from the Sun—for example, Earth shows up on page 155 of volume 1. The “Astronomical” set is by UK-based artist Mishka Henner. It can be ordered from his website.

via io9 & NewScientist CultureLab

This beautiful high resolution composite image of Earth was taken on January 4 by NASA’s recently launched Suomi NPP Earth-observing satellite.

via Flickr Blog

photo via NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

Lightning storms flash across Africa while the Milky Way is visible beyond Earth’s horizon in this beautiful time-lapse video recorded by the crew of the International Space Station on December 29, 2011. See more info over at Lights in the Dark.

via Rob Sheridan

video via the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center

The trailer has been released for Prometheus directed by Ridley Scott, a prequel to his 1979 sci-fi horror film Alien.

Visionary filmmaker Ridley Scott returns to the genre he helped define, creating an original science fiction epic set in the most dangerous corners of the universe. The film takes a team of scientists and explorers on a thrilling journey that will test their physical and mental limits and strand them on a distant world, where they will discover the answers to our most profound questions and to life’s ultimate mystery.

Prometheus scheduled for release on June 8, 2012.