This awesome timelapse (looks mostly shot on SLRs) shows the shuttle move from its storage hanger, through its tank fitting, and onto the launch pad. Very cool.

By Scott Andrews, Stan Jirman, Philip Scott Andrews.

Video @ Air & Space Mag.

A recently released image from Hubble peers into globular cluster M13, resembling some kind of cosmic snowglobe.

IMAGE [full size version of above image, and more info @ HubbleSite]

See also: The State of Centripetal Notion.

Thanks to everyone who is subscribed to Centripetal Notion. Traffic and activity has been higher in the last several months than ever before, yet at the same time I have never posted less often.

That’s not going to change for now. When I started this blog, it was my single channel for sharing ideas with friends and stumbling visitors. But now I do this on other sites as well, including the various social networks.

I won’t stop posting here though, not anytime soon. But what ends up here nowadays are only the things I feel really passionate about sharing. Before I’d often post 2 or 3 times a day, now it’s generally 2 or 3 times a month.

I hope you’ll welcome this in an age of information overload, and appreciate that I’m only sending stuff your way I either think is genuinely important, and/or you won’t find anywhere else.

For a higher volume of miscellaneous artsy/sciencey/techy/sexy stuff like what used to come through here, feel free follow me on Twitter:

FOLLOW ME [@jruckman on Twitter]

Also, you might be interested in my personal blog, where I post about what I’m up to of a more professional nature: web/info design, citizen journalism, etc.:

LINK [my blog and portfolio]

I’m working on a redesign of this site. Nothing major, and it’s not finished, but already I like the change.

Hope this finds all of you well. I leave you with a kickass space picture and some badass music, as is only fair. If nothing else, this site will always have space pictures and music.

IMAGE [1920x1200 version]

AUDIO [Squarepusher - Planet Gear]
AUDIO [Why? - Song of the Sad Assasin]
AUDIO [Hot Chip - And I Was a Boy From School]
AUDIO [Apes & Androids - Imaginary Friends]
AUDIO [Kelley Polar - A Feeling of the All-Thing]
AUDIO [David Fiuczynski & Rufus Cappadocia - Prayer for my Father]

A reversed-polarity sunspot was detected today, marking solar minimum and the beginning of the 24th solar cycle (since humans first recorded the undulating pattern of solar intensity nearly 400 years ago).

Solar cycles appear to last on average about 11 years, taking a few years to rise and fall between the peaks and troughs of solar activity. The next solar maximum is expected around 2011 or 2012, just in time for the beginning of the 14th b’ak’tun cycle, as measured by the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. To add to the synchronicity, David Hathaway (and colleagues) of the Marshall Space Flight Center are predicting this upcoming cycle will be one of the most intense ever measured.

ARTICLE ["Sunspot is Harbinger of New Solar Cycle (...)"] (NOAA)
LINK/IMAGES [solar cycle 24 prediction] (NOAA)
ARTICLE ["Scientists Predict Big Solar Cycle"] (NASA)
IMAGE [graph of sunspot activity since 1870]
ARTICLE [solar cycle] (Wikipedia)

I’m currently sorting through gigabytes of solar satellite footage — sunspots, flares and filaments — with the hopes of rigging up a sort of VJ tool and audio visualizer using video of the sun. I should have a preliminary version ready for this year’s Southeast US regional Burn, Transformus. I posted a very short rendering test a ways back, and am posting now my proposal for an art grant I was awarded just last week, which briefly outlines my ideas for the project.

VIDEO [rendering test using lunar transit footage]
LINK [grant proposal, "Flirting with Blindness"]

Most of my video so far has come from the STEREO and TRACE archives — if anyone knows any other good sources I’m all eyes, and would be more than grateful.

This entry was cross-posted at Space Collective.

Previously: Flirting with Blindness Redux, First 3D Images from STEREO

Full video version below, higher resolution & a lot more frames.

LINK/VIDEOS [by Stéphane Guisard]

artwork credit: Matt Furie

Synopsis: it’s hard. And the recent article that circulated about confidential NASA sex studies on the space shuttles? Definitely a hoax.

That said, sex in space is important to think about (not to mention fun) — put a bunch of humans on a tiny ship on a 6 month trip to Mars and, you can imagine. Astronauts need to do it like anyone else, especially if the mission counts on their mental and physical well-being. Some things to consider:

Sex in space would likely be “hotter and wetter” than on Earth, [Vanna Bonta, writer] said, because in zero-G there is no natural convection to carry away body heat. Also, scientists have found that people tend to perspire more in microgravity. The moisture associated with sexual congress could pool as floating droplets.

The physics of zero-G make the mechanics of sex more complicated. Bonta said it was challenging even to kiss her husband during a zero-G simulation flight they took recently. “You actually have to struggle to connect and stay connected,” she recalled. Partners would have to be anchored to the wall and/or to each other. To address that need, Bonta has come up with her own design for garments equipped with strategically placed Velcro strips and zippers.

Although zero-G could be a boon for saggy body parts, Bonta said males might notice a “slight decrease” in penis size due to the lower blood pressure that humans experience in microgravity.

Romantics will also need to guard against the type of motion sickness that space travelers often encounter, especially if they get too adventurous right off. “Save the acrobatics for post-play vs. foreplay,” Bonta advised.

(MSNBC)

What’s more, we don’t know if traditional mammalian conception is even possible in zero-G, though I imagine the first carnal explorers will find this of little relevance.

ARTICLE/VIDEO ["Outer-space sex carries complications"] (MSNBC)
ARTICLE ["Sex in Space: Imagine the Possibilities"] (Space.com)
ARTICLE ["The Uncomfortable Reality of Sex in Space"] (Regina Lynn, Wired)

This is my first post written in response to votes from Skribit. “Sex in Space” left the other suggestions behind in the polls for dead, go figure. Thanks for your ideas so far, keep them coming!

There’s a high-res version of the above collage that makes the detail in the bottom-most view of Europa really stunning. Images recently reprocessed by Ted Stryk from original Galileo telemetry.

IMAGE [full res] (via APOD)
ARTICLE [Europa] (Wikipedia)

Where forward thinking terrestrials share ideas and information about the state of the species, their planet and the universe, living the lives of science fiction.

Not really sure what this is all about but it looks interesting. Maybe a kind of future-minded think tank slash social network? Definitely a good job done on promoting the website/community, or at least sparking interest. You can apply for access at their website.

LINK/VIDEO [SpaceCollective preview]

VIDEO (via Everyone Forever)

I think the bottom one is more into the top one than vice versa but such is love. The pair is known as Arp 87 and are flirting just 92 million parsecs (300 million light-years) away. Image released today at HubbleSite.

LINK/IMAGE [release w/ full image, more info]