APOD: Approach above Sunset (2017 May 02)

[APOD Robot]

Approach above Sunset

Explanation: There it is! The Cygnus supply ship was a welcome sight to the astronauts on the International Space Station just over a week ago. Launched three days before on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the Orbital ATK's Cygnus spacecraft approached the International Space Station above the backdrop of a picturesque planet Earth. The Sun was setting off the image to the upper left, illuminating clouds well below the approaching vehicle. The robotic Cygnus spacecraft was captured first on camera and later with the space station's Canadarm2 by ESA's Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet and NASA's Expedition-51 Commander Peggy Whitson. Commander Whitson, a biochemist, has now set a new American record for the most total days in space. Besides essentials, the Cygnus carried equipment to bolster over 200 science experiments being conducted on the football-field sized Earth-orbiting outpost.

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[saturno2]

Interesting image

[Ann]

Interesting image

It is - it looks like a kind of ship, sailing, or floating, across a cosmic sea. And that, of course, is exactly what it is!

Good to hear from you, Saturno!

Ann

[ta152h0]

Amazing, zero to 17000 mph plus perfectly tied, over and over again.

[Chris Peterson]

Amazing, zero to 17000 mph plus perfectly tied, over and over again.

And yet, nothing but simple Newtonian and Keplerian math... arithmetic, really... that any 15-year old should be able to work out. (Not to discount the complex engineering problems that needed to be solved, but the Universe really doesn't seem to be all that complicated.)

[MarkBour]

Amazing, zero to 17000 mph plus perfectly tied, over and over again.

I agree, it is amazing. And hopefully we'll never have a serious problem with it.

I guess Peggy Whitson is closing in on 2 years in space (542 days and counting). Based on the other articles I read about unsolved physiological effects, I didn't know that was possible. And she is not particularly young, but she's still going strong. Impressive!

[ta152h0]

politicas and religion is a burensome thing if you aspire to be an engineer scientist. And I know what Frank Borman quoted while flying around the moon on that Christmas day.. A clear mind is an awesome thing.

[JohnD]

Amazing, zero to 17000 mph plus perfectly tied, over and over again.

And yet, nothing but simple Newtonian and Keplerian math... arithmetic, really... that any 15-year old should be able to work out. (Not to discount the complex engineering problems that needed to be solved, but the Universe really doesn't seem to be all that complicated.)

Apart from the clocks!
John

[sillyworm]

somehow this image reminds me of a pop bottle vending machine.....

[brojo]

The blue in the background, behind the clouds. Is that the ocean?
Do we know how far away Cygnus was from the camera at the time of this picture?

[Chris Peterson]

Do we know how far away Cygnus was from the camera at the time of this picture?

Based on the camera (pixel size 7.3 microns) and lens (70 mm focal length), and the size of the Cygnus (3.07 x 6.3 m), I'd put the distance at about 250 meters.

[brojo]

Do we know how far away Cygnus was from the camera at the time of this picture?

Based on the camera (pixel size 7.3 microns) and lens (70 mm focal length), and the size of the Cygnus (3.07 x 6.3 m), I'd put the distance at about 250 meters.

Thank you for the answer!
250 meters is closer than I would've imagined. (I thought maybe it was zoomed)

[warmingwarmingwarming]

Amazing, zero to 17000 mph plus perfectly tied, over and over again.

And yet, nothing but simple Newtonian and Keplerian math... arithmetic, really... that any 15-year old should be able to work out. (Not to discount the complex engineering problems that needed to be solved, but the Universe really doesn't seem to be all that complicated.)

But it took mankind thousands of years of learning to get this far.

[Boomer12k]

Sunset from above is soooooooo romantic too....

:---[===] *

[Chris Peterson]

Amazing, zero to 17000 mph plus perfectly tied, over and over again.

And yet, nothing but simple Newtonian and Keplerian math... arithmetic, really... that any 15-year old should be able to work out. (Not to discount the complex engineering problems that needed to be solved, but the Universe really doesn't seem to be all that complicated.)

But it took mankind thousands of years of learning to get this far.

Not exactly. For most of our existence we learned nearly nothing about the Universe. It took mankind thousands of years to learn how to learn. Once that happened, everything else has come very, very quickly.

[saturno2]

Off topic
Thank you, Ann

[warmingwarmingwarming]

Off topic
Thank you, Ann

It seems (?) Chris and I are being warned we are off topic?? So I sent you a private message, Chris.

[neufer]

Off topic

Thank you, Ann

It seems (?) Chris and I are being warned we are off topic?? So I sent you a private message, Chris.

Is your name Ann

(You'll know when you've been slapped on the hand.
It comes as a private message from one of the moderators.)

[Chris Peterson]

Off topic
Thank you, Ann

It seems (?) Chris and I are being warned we are off topic?? So I sent you a private message, Chris.

No, I don't think so. Topicality isn't a big deal around here, as long as it's sane and civil.

[thayer]

It looks like a copepod, with the antennae, eye and some of the innards. The fact that it is pictured above the ocean is appropriate also!

[neufer]

It looks like a copepod, with the antennae, eye and some of the innards.
The fact that it is pictured above the ocean is appropriate also!

---

<<Copepods (meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in the sea and nearly every freshwater habitat. Some species are planktonic (drifting in sea waters), some are benthic (living on the ocean floor), and some continental species may live in limnoterrestrial habitats and other wet terrestrial places, such as swamps, under leaf fall in wet forests, bogs, springs, ephemeral ponds, and puddles, damp moss, or water-filled recesses (phytotelmata) of plants such as bromeliads and pitcher plants. Many live underground in marine and freshwater caves, sinkholes, or stream beds.

The second pair of cephalic appendages in free-living copepods is usually the main time-averaged source of propulsion, beating like oars to pull the animal through the water. Some copepods have extremely fast escape responses when a predator is sensed and can jump with high speed over a few millimetres. Many species have neurons surrounded by myelin (for increased conduction speed), which is very rare among invertebrates. Even rarer, the myelin is highly organized, resembling the well-organized wrapping found in vertebrates (Gnathostomata). Despite their fast escape response, copepods are successfully hunted by slow-swimming seahorses, which approach their prey so gradually, it senses no turbulence, then suck the copepod into their snout too suddenly for the copepod to escape.

Copepods feed directly on phytoplankton, catching cells singly. Some of the larger species are predators of their smaller relatives. Many benthic copepods eat organic detritus or the bacteria that grow in it, and their mouth parts are adapted for scraping and biting. Herbivorous copepods, particularly those in rich, cold seas, store up energy from their food as oil droplets while they feed in the spring and summer on plankton blooms. These droplets may take up over half of the volume of their bodies in polar species. Many copepods (e.g., fish lice) are parasites, and feed on their host organisms.>>

<<The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program is proud to report that there were a total of 1,466 proposals submitted from student teams participating in Mission 3 to ISS—the greatest number of proposals received for a SSEP flight opportunity to date. On November 27-28, 2012, the Step 2 Review Board met at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, reviewed all 51 finalist proposals, and selected a total of 17 flight experiments. All 51 finalist experiment teams are provided below:

HONORABLE MENTION FINALISTS:
Copepod Growth in Microgravity
Grade 8, Wilde Lake Middle School
Co-Principal Investigators: Cyrus Jenkins and Calvin Kuang
Teacher Facilitators: Damisha Drakes and Douglas Spicher, Science Teachers

Proposal Summary: Our SSEP proposal is to see how copepod growth is affected in micro gravity. We are doing this because copepods are the base of many food chains and if they can survive, then other life may be able to as well. If this works, humanity may be able to create entire ecosystems in space and perhaps retrieve food from fish farms and such. Not to mention we will also be able to possible generate oxygen in the depths of space. Copepods are a type of zooplankton and their diet includes microscopic algae, diatoms, and bacteria. In space, we plan to keep them alive by putting algae in ampoules and having the astronaut break those ampoules in order to feed the copepods. Once the copepods return to Earth, we will analyze their growth as well as how many of them remain. Then, we will compare these test results to those we’ve gathered on Earth.

[warmingwarmingwarming]

Off topic

Thank you, Ann

It seems (?) Chris and I are being warned we are off topic?? So I sent you a private message, Chris.

Is your name Ann

(You'll know when you've been slapped on the hand.
It comes as a private message from one of the moderators.)

Nope, my name is not Ann, though my eldest daughter's middle name is Anne, but I thought someone was thanking Ann for notifying them of off topic. The question marks in my sentence are there to indicate my uncertainness off my understanding of the message.

[warmingwarmingwarming]

Off topic
Thank you, Ann

It seems (?) Chris and I are being warned we are off topic?? So I sent you a private message, Chris.

No, I don't think so. Topicality isn't a big deal around here, as long as it's sane and civil.

'Sane?' 'Sanity.' And who is to define those words? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. (Oops.)