2MB picture taken with one of the mast cams. Color corrected to make it appear more like Earth.

Speaking of space exploration the Voyager 2 team tweeted me this update:

Quote:NASAVoyager2 ‏@NASAVoyager2
Adjusting my sun sensor bias to better point my High Gain Antenna at Earth: SS BIAS CONTROL YAW 4+163 (AACS:AC7SSB) http://ow.ly/i/1iWLy

Voyager 2 is currently more that 15 billion kilometers from earth (voyager 1 more than 18 billion).


In this video Voyager 2 is the object that stays in the plan of the plans and comes toward you. It did the Uranus and Neptune flyby.
Animation: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/a...SELECT.mov



Impressive that these gizmos are still working after more that 35 years in space.

Cool John...I'm a space geek too. I can name most of the astronauts, rockets, programs, etc. I've witnessed 2 space shuttle launches live, 2 others I was there at the cape but the launch got scrubbed. Been to the Kennedy Space Center at least a dozen times and Huntsville & Houston Space centers.

(02-23-2013, 08:50 PM)Himm2 Wrote: Cool John...I'm a space geek too. I can name most of the astronauts, rockets, programs, etc. I've witnessed 2 space shuttle launches live, 2 others I was there at the cape but the launch got scrubbed. Been to the Kennedy Space Center at least a dozen times and Huntsville & Houston Space centers.

Never saw a launch but would love to have done so. As a kid in the 60s I followed the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollos missions closely. Looking back it was truly an amazing accomplishment to send people to the moon in such a short time period. And aside from the Grissom, White, Chaffee tragedy they did so with an admirable safety record.

The state of the American manned space program is rather sad, now that we have to hitch rides from the Russians. Part of the problem has been the absence of a goal or mission that captures people's imaginations. Of course, the unmanned missions have been incredible.