Tag archives for Space
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It was on Oct 14, 2012 that Austrian pilot and base jumper, Felix Baumgartner, went to the edge of space and made it back alive. His mission was to embark on a historic journey and complete the highest and fastest free fall ever by man. Felix also became the first person to skydive the sound…
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Yesterday, Felix Baumgartner jumped from the edge of space, breaking the speed of sound and the world record for a free fall jump from higher than 120,000 feet. While many followed this historic event with yesterday’s live-stream, National Geographic Channel and BBC detailed every second with more than 20 cameras. The footage will be combined…
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To everyone’s major disappointment, Felix Baumgartner’s epic spacedive scheduled for today has been aborted due to gusty wind conditions in Roswell, New Mexico. According to mission control, the launch is the second-most dangerous part of this mission (second only to Baumgartner’s actual jump), and even slight winds could be disastrous. The team will try again…
In the wee hours of Tuesday, Felix Baumgartner is predicted to become the world-record holder for the highest free fall. Specifically, he’ll be climbing 23 miles up into the sky—to what is essentially the edge of space—and jumping. While he’s at it, Baumgartner will become the first person to free fall through the sound barrier.…
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For those who never made it to Kennedy Space Center to watch a shuttle launch, the chance to witness one of the now-retired space shuttles in flight was an opportunity not to be missed. Lucky for me, Nat Geo headquarters is conveniently located in Downtown D.C., close to the area where the space shuttle Discovery…
Posted by Inside the Milky Way is about you, me, and the history of two hundred billion stars. Our solar system lies on the outskirts of a vast celestial city, a colossal community of stars, bound together by gravity: the Milky Way Galaxy. Today, astronomers are piecing together evidence, allowing us to see our galaxy in a…
In the California desert, in intense secrecy, the world’s first space tourism program is born. Two visionaries—entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson and legendary aerospace designer Burt Rutan—take on the ultimate challenge: building the craft and infrastructure for the world’s first spaceline. A team of maverick engineers design, build, and test-fly the craft that will one day transport…
Join us on a journey to the edge of the universe, seen through the eyes of the amazing Hubble Space Telescope. Launched in 1990, Hubble has since paved the way for space exploration and understanding. Among numerous other discoveries, Hubble is responsible for helping scientists figure out the age of our universe — between 13 and 14…
The earth 4 billions years ago: Water does not exist — the earth is a gigantic mass of molten rock. Comets formed of ice and dust rain down on the earth. They bring with them water that immediately evaporates. When the projectiles from space become fewer, the earth forms a solid crust as the temperature…
As you may remember, I’ve previously written in this blog about the famous March 13, 1997 “Phoenix lights” UFO sighting, a series of bizarre optical phenomena seen by thousands of people in Arizona, Nevada and parts of Mexico, and the seeming reappearance of the lights almost exactly 10 years later, on February 6, 2007. To recap, the 1997…
By Larry BambrickExecutive Producer Shoot Day 4: Thursday August 13 Just watched some of the rushes from the first two days of shooting. George D’Amato (our director for this episode) and Paul Tolton (our director of photography) have done a great job giving a visual look to this show. Almost every frame looks bleached out…
By Larry BambrickExecutive Producer Day One: Monday, August 10 — It Gets Hot, Hot, Hot It’s the beginning of the end. It’s another big challenge. We’re trying to answer the question — what happens to the Earth, when the sun gets old? Usually… answering questions like that becomes almost entirely theoretical. This is what happens…
What would happen if a Martian-sized dust storm came down to Earth? Dust storms on Mars and Earth are identical, save for the fact that those on Mars are many times larger and more powerful. Now, as human exploration of Mars creeps closer, exhaustive testing is underway to ensure that astronauts are protected from the…
by Coll Metcalfe, Field Producer There’s a place along the coast of Hawaii’s Big Island where a river of lava flowing down from a steep escarpment dumps into the sea. The scene is otherworldly. For miles there’s nothing but hardened black lava flows, steaming fumaroles, and enormous clouds of steam billowing up from the ocean.…
by Wesley Della VollaAssociate Producer The massive 2.5 ton explosion shot chunks of rock and plumes of dirt into the air, raining down around the newly-formed 70 foot crater in the middle of the desert. There were no plants to be seen — just rubble and sand. As I stepped over large rocks, some the…
By Known Universe Production Team Archaeoastronomy is one of those sciences in which there are few true practitioners. They’re about as numerous as paleobotonists and ecophysiologists. Archaeoastronomy is just not one of those sciences people gravitate toward. Have you ever heard a kid, a normal kid, say they want to be an archaeoastronomer when they…
Satellite technology allows us to have a better understanding of our planet. Scientists can follow seasons and climate changes around the globe. These tools help us even save lives by enabling us to predict the path of hurricanes, track bushfires and other dangerous weather patterns and disasters. Video: Satellite imagery confirms the effects of global…
By Katy B. Jones, Field Producer In a one hour program, there is always a lot of great footage that the audience doesn’t get to see. We’ve been working on “Explorer: Journey to an Alien Moon” off and on since 2008, when I was sent to film Stone Aerospace’s first underwater test of the robot…
by Producer, Alien Contact One of the first things I learned in producing this episode is that most everyone involved in planetary science these days is thinking about alien life. It’s the hot topic among space scientists and it’s indicative of just how much has changed in the science of looking up at the stars. It…
by Michael O’Neill, Field Producer A Traveler’s Guide to the Planets continues tonight at 9P et/pt. Until today, whenever I had cause to think of Hawaii, my mind would immediately drift to beautiful aquamarine water, palm trees, high rise resorts and lurid shirts. A 14,000-foot, snow-dusted volcanic peak with limited oxygen certainly wasn’t on my radar.…
A Traveler’s Guide to the Planets continues tonight at 9P et/pt. View Mars in 3-D with the interactive tour of the planets. By Richard SmithDeath Valley, Nevada: July 14, 2009 You could tell the temperature was withering even before stepping out of the air-conditioned truck at Stovepipe Wells. The sun had dropped on the drive…
When I was a ten, my Dad – a veterinarian – kicked-off my lifelong love for science when he brought home a second-hand telescope that he himself had scoped out in the local Pennysaver. That night was the first of many we would spend in the backyard looking up at the stars, marveling at it…
Our moon is truly unique. Unlike other moons in the solar system, ours is large enough and close enough to assume the responsibility of holding its mother planet on its axis. Earth wouldn’t be stable without the protection of the moon. At 250,000 miles away, the moon resides in the perfect spot in relation to…
