#PPOD: in 1965, Mariner 4 captured the first photos of Mars from space using a "real-time data translator" machine to convert digital image data into numbers. Employees at NASA hand-colored the numbers on paper strips to create the first image of Mars, revealing lunar-type craters on a desert-like surface. Credit: NASA/JPL/Dan Goods
#PPOD: Enjoy one of the greatest images ever taken by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, from very early in her exploration of Yellowknife Bay at Gale Crater. The rover is now far away from this location, conquering the summit of Mount Sharp. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#PPOD: NASA's Perseverance rover stumbled into this very cool rock at Jezero crater. Hopefully, the instrument analysis will tell us more soon. Some mineralization and cementation are visible, in what look to be cycles in lake sediment deposition. As for what almost looks like micro-prisms, they could possibly be an ancient network of desiccation cracks. Share your thoughts in the comments! Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/S Atkinson
#PPOD: The Apollo 11 landing site is pictured here with the lunar module descent stage casting a shadow toward Little West crater, as imaged with the Orbiter High-Resolution Camera on India's Chandrayaan-2 from an altitude of 100 km on April 2, 2021. Credit: ISRO / Chandrayaan-2 / OHRC / JPMajor
Looking forward to imagining aliens at the Montreal Planetarium this weekend!
SETI Artist-in-Residence Director Bettina Forget is offering her Imagine Aliens workshop on Saturday afternoon as part of the 2024 AstroFest. This family-friendly activity invites participants to design aliens that live on speculative (but scientifically accurate!) exoplanets.
#PPOD: This detailed image came from Cassini's close encounter with Mimas, one of Saturn's moons. Mimas is less than 400 kilometers in diameter, creating ripples in Saturn's rings with its gravity. This disruption separates the A and B rings with the Cassini Division. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/ @kevinmgill
https://www.space.com/ai-may-be-to-blame-failure-to-contact-alien-civilizations Artificial intelligence (AI) has progressed at an astounding pace over the last few years. Some scientists are now looking towards the development of artificial superintelligence (ASI) — a form of AI that would not only surpass human intelligence but would not be bound by the learning speeds of humans.
But what if this milestone isn't just a remarkable achievement? What if it also represents a formidable bottleneck in the development of all civilizations?
#PPOD: Mimas drifts along in its orbit against the azure backdrop of Saturn's northern latitudes in this true-color view. The long, dark lines on the atmosphere are shadows cast by the planet's rings. At the bottom, craters on icy Mimas (398 kilometers) give the moon a dimpled appearance. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/CICLOPS
#PPOD: This stunning photo was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. Phobos is the larger and closer of Mars's two moons, the other being Deimos. One hypothesis of their origin involves the possible capture of primitive asteroids. Unfortunately, Phobos is being pulled apart and closer by Mars's tidal forces and gravity. Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/ @andrealuck CC BY (https://www.flickr.com/photos/192271236@N03/53635851891/)
What’s the big deal about tiny devices like springs and screws? This week, Roma Agrawal shows us how the world as we know it couldn’t function without these simple, but ingenious, objects. It’s “Nuts and Bolts” on Big Picture Science.
#PPOD: This is actually a mud volcano in eastern Russia, named Pugachevskiy. It is located on the Sakhalin island. The mud volcanoes are formations generated by the release of gases and liquids. The mud is pushed to the surface as the pressure builds up beneath the Earth, creating an unusual pattern. We could not find a precise measurement of its size, but judging from other photographs, it is likely around 100 m in diameter. Credit: Mikhail Mikhailov/Caters News Agency
#PPOD: What may look like a strangely nearby galaxy is actually a normal rocket's exhaust plume -- but unusually backlit. Like noctilucent clouds, the plume's brightness is caused by the Twilight Effect, where an object is high enough to be illuminated by the twilight Sun, even when the observer on the ground experiences the darkness of night. The spiral shape is caused by the Falcon rocket reorienting to release satellites in different directions. Credit: Seung Hye Yang
A deeply eroded giant volcano, active from ancient through recent times and with possible remnants of glacier ice near its base, had been hiding near Mars’ equator in plain sight. Its discovery points to an exciting new place to search for life, and a potential destination for future robotic and human exploration.
The spread of disinformation has created competing experiences of reality. In this episode, author Naomi Klein and science philosopher Lee McIntyre discuss how we might find our way back to a shared objective truth. It's Skeptic Check this week on Big Picture Science.
#PPOD: This infrared view of Jupiter was created from data captured on 11 January 2017 with the Near-InfraRed Imager instrument at Gemini North in Hawaiʻi. In the image, warmer areas appear bright, including four large hot spots that appear in a row just north of the equator. South of the equator, the oval-shaped and cloud-covered Great Red Spot appears dark.
Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, M.H. Wong (UC Berkeley) et al.; Acknowledgments: M. Zamani
#PPOD: Olympus Mons, the largest known volcano in the Solar System, as captured by ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. The volcano is about 620 km across and 21 km tall. The textured landscape at the bottom is made up of giant landslide deposits.
Credit: ESA/Mars Express; Processing: Jacint Roger Perez
For the past century, we’ve inadvertently broadcast our presence to an estimated 75 nearby star systems. About a quarter of those stars have confirmed exoplanets orbiting in the habitable zone. But what kind of emissions are seeping into space now? Could extraterrestrials detect our satellite pings around the globe, and could they be listening in on our cellphone conversations?
#PPOD: Pictured, behind this darker cloud, is a pileus iridescent cloud, a group of water droplets that have a uniformly similar size and so together diffract different colors of sunlight by different amounts. T Also captured were unusual cloud ripples above the pileus cloud. The formation of a rare pileus cloud capping a common cumulus cloud is an indication that the lower cloud is expanding upward and might well develop into a storm. Credit: Jiaqi Sun
Our mission is to lead humanity's quest to understand the origins and prevalence of life and intelligence in the universe and share that knowledge. #SETI #arewealone