On this day a half century ago, Mercury Astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. On the morning of February 20, 1962, an anxious nation watched as Glenn climbed into his cramped Friendship 7 space capsule and was propelled by an Atlas 6 rocket high above the atmosphere. He circled the Earth three times before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. As the veteran space program reporter John Noble Wilford wrote last week in The New York Times, “Perhaps no other spaceflight–all 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds of it–has been followed by so many with such paralyzing apprehension.”
From OpenCulture.
Miniature model of the Rila Monastery
Bulgarian artist Plamen Ignatov checks his miniature wooden model of the Rila Monastery, during an exhibition at the Museum of Archaeological in Sofia, Bulgaria, 13 January 2012. The meticulous miniature model of the Rila Monastery in Bulgaria, a UNESCO heritage site, is made of wood, matches and gems. It has taken 16 years and about 6,000,000 matches to make.
A Cosmic Wreath
NASA’s WISE mission presents the “Wreath nebula.” Though this isn’t the nebula’s official name (it’s actually called Barnard 3, or IRAS Ring G159.6-18.5), one might picture a wreath in these bright green and red dust clouds. Interstellar clouds like these are stellar nurseries, places where baby stars are being born.
The green ring is made of tiny particles of warm dust whose composition is very similar to smog found here on Earth. The red cloud in the middle is probably made of dust that is more metallic and cooler than the surrounding regions. The bright greenish-yellow region left of center is similar to the ring, though more dense.
The bright star in the middle of the red cloud, called HD 278942, is so luminous that it is likely what is causing most of the surrounding ring to glow. In fact its powerful stellar winds are what cleared out the surrounding warm dust and created the ring-shaped feature in the first place.
Regions similar to this nebula are found near the band of the Milky Way galaxy in the night sky. The “wreath” is slightly off this band, near the boundary between the constellations of Perseus and Taurus, but at a relatively close distance of only about 1,000 light-years, the cloud is a still part of our Milky Way.
Dust Plume over the Bahia Blanca
Northwestern and central Argentina are subject to frequent dust storms. A combination of late Pleistocene loess and dry westerlies blowing down from the Andes Mountains combine to produce sudden and extensive clouds of the fine soil. The strong winds are known locally as the pampero sucio.
This view from the International Space Station of eastern Argentina and its coastline shows a large plume of dust blowing from the interior to the Atlantic Ocean. This image is centered on Bahia Blanca, which is also highlighted by sun glint—light reflected off the water surface. A docked Russian Progress spacecraft is visible at image upper right.
The dust event spans parts of the province of Rio Negro and southern parts of the provinces of La Pampa and Buenos Aires. The view also includes the coastal terrain between the Gulf of San Matias and Bahia Blanca, which are separated by about 330 kilometers. The area includes the agriculturally productive southern Pampas plain region, where the landscape transitions to the drier, less productive low hills and valleys of northern Patagonia.
