Explanation: With parachute deployed and retro-rockets blazing, this spacecraft landed on planet Earth on September 11 (UT) in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. Seen in silhouette against the rockets' glare, the spacecraft is a Soyuz TMA-08M. Its crew, Expedition 36 Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Alexander Misurkin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), and Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy of NASA were returning after five and half months aboard the International Space Station. The Soyuz retro-rockets fire very quickly and for an extremely short duration near touchdown. Capturing the moment, the well-timed photograph was taken from a helicopter flying over the landing site.
Kazakhstan. It's that giant country I didn't know existed until finally taking long a look at a map outside the context of an American education. "Wait a minute. That country is huge. I know absolutely nothing about it. I thought there was just Russia in that spot."
Re: APOD: A Landing on Planet Earth (2013 Sep 14)
Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 5:04 am
by Chris Peterson
geckzilla wrote:Kazakhstan. It's that giant country I didn't know existed until finally taking long a look at a map outside the context of an American education. "Wait a minute. That country is huge. I know absolutely nothing about it. I thought there was just Russia in that spot."
Never saw Borat, I guess?
Re: APOD: A Landing on Planet Earth (2013 Sep 14)
Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 5:43 am
by Boomer12k
Wow, five and a half months in space. And the journey ends with a JOLT...
Welcome back!
:---[===] *
Re: APOD: A Landing on Planet Earth (2013 Sep 14)
Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 5:45 am
by metamorphmuses
What a great shot. As much as I love all things Russian in the arena of space travel, all too often I think of the Soyuz descent module as a lump of metal falling unceremoniously to the ground with only the parachutes to keep the ride survivable. This image reminds me that, small as it is, it still packs a real punch in rocket technology all the way to the end.
Re: APOD: A Landing on Planet Earth (2013 Sep 14)
Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 5:51 am
by owlice
Kazakhstan has the most northerly nesting place for flamingos in the world. The name of its capital, Astana, means "capital." The capital used to be Almaty (formerly known as Alma-Ata), the name of which comes from something to do with apples. And somewhere, I have a sound file of the country's national anthem, but I recall nothing about the music or text.
This information courtesy of a holiday competition at work a few years ago that required us to decorate wreathes for our manager's door with items representing the country assigned to each team (I am not making this up); mine got Kazakhstan. We won the award for "Best use of technology" because we had lights and sound (this is where the sound file comes in) on our wreath. Also flamingos, horses, and apples; Kazakhstan has a great reputation for horsemanship. At the division holiday party, we had a quiz-show type game which featured geography questions for the countries assigned to the different teams; I drew a complete blank on the question "What is the capital of Kazakhstan?," being able to come up only with the old names (the capital was moved to Astana in the late 1990s), but not Astana. I was not one of the contestants; I don't know whether this is fortunate or not, as I did know the answers to nearly all the other questions.
(I never saw Borat.)
But what I really stopped by to say is... What a great photo this is! Kudos to Bill Ingalls for capturing the moment so well! It's a beautifully composed shot.
Re: APOD: A Landing on Planet Earth (2013 Sep 14)
Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 6:03 am
by Case
APOD Robot wrote:the well-timed photograph
Just wondering how it was done: how does one make such a photo at that exact moment? Is it one in a series in burst mode, or could there be electronics that detect the firing of the engines?
Re: APOD: A Landing on Planet Earth (2013 Sep 14)
Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 7:14 am
by Galaxian
owlice wrote:Kazakhstan has the most northerly nesting place for flamingos in the world. The name of its capital, Astana, means "capital." The capital used to be Almaty (formerly known as Alma-Ata), the name of which comes from something to do with apples. And somewhere, I have a sound file of the country's national anthem, but I recall nothing about the music or text.
This information courtesy of a holiday competition at work a few years ago that required us to decorate wreathes for our manager's door with items representing the country assigned to each team (I am not making this up); mine got Kazakhstan. We won the award for "Best use of technology" because we had lights and sound (this is where the sound file comes in) on our wreath. Also flamingos, horses, and apples; Kazakhstan has a great reputation for horsemanship. At the division holiday party, we had a quiz-show type game which featured geography questions for the countries assigned to the different teams; I drew a complete blank on the question "What is the capital of Kazakhstan?," being able to come up only with the old names (the capital was moved to Astana in the late 1990s), but not Astana. I was not one of the contestants; I don't know whether this is fortunate or not, as I did know the answers to nearly all the other questions.
(I never saw Borat.)
But what I really stopped by to say is... What a great photo this is! Kudos to Bill Ingalls for capturing the moment so well! It's a beautifully composed shot.
Brilliant image. I saw a news report of the astro/cosmonauts being helped out of the machine but I don't think I saw the actual landing.
Re: APOD: A Landing on Planet Earth (2013 Sep 14)
Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 9:10 am
by APODFORIST
Case wrote:
APOD Robot wrote:the well-timed photograph
Just wondering how it was done: how does one make such a photo at that exact moment? Is it one in a series in burst mode, or could there be electronics that detect the firing of the engines?
The russian helicopter pilot used the new iPhone 5s feature of filming HD in slow motion. After he selected the best frame.
Re: APOD: A Landing on Planet Earth (2013 Sep 14)
Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 12:24 pm
by neufer
owlice wrote:
Kazakhstan has the most northerly nesting place for flamingos in the world.
Kudos to Bill Ingalls for capturing the moment so well!
Everyone go have a Krispy Kreme with Kathy & Kiselyov on Nikolskaya Street near the Kremlin:
Krispy Kreme opens first Russia store
by Kathy Lally, The Washington Post, Sept. 12, 2013
MOSCOW — Here on Nikolskaya Street, in the shadow of the Kremlin, Russia’s first book was printed in 1564, its first college was opened in 1685 and its first newspaper was published in 1703. The Krispy Kreme doughnut arrived Thursday.
The line for doughnuts began forming at 11 a.m. Wednesday, 22 hours before the historic moment when Krispy Kreme opened for business in Russia. By 9 a.m. Thursday, 200 people were waiting. First inside would win doughnuts for a year.
“They put something in it,” Susanna Agababyan, 21, mused, wondering why she so savored the doughnut she had just eaten. “I had the original. It’s really tasty.”
Agababyan, a translator of Italian, had a box with a dozen doughnuts in her lap. She sat at an outdoor table with a friend, Mikhail Kiselyov, a 22-year-old accounting student. “Today I tasted this for the first time,” Kiselyov said, “and I decided maybe it was worth it.”
That would be chocolate with sprinkles.
Nikolskaya lies in the heart of 866-year-old Moscow. The dreaded Lubyanka, home of the security police, looms above one end of the street. At the other end lies the imposing Kremlin, where dark theories regularly emerge about the United States and its eagerness to interfere in Russian affairs. On Thursday, in an opinion article published in the New York Times, President Vladimir Putin scolded the United States for considering itself exceptional. Off in America, President Obama was being criticized by some for handling Russia badly.
Has no one told them that here in Great Russia American calories rule? A Subway sandwich shop operates at the other end of lovely old Nikolskaya Street, which also has a Beverly Hills Diner tucked in among expensive Italian clothing stores and elegant restaurants. A nearby McDonald’s dishes out one Big Mac after another to a stream of customers. Dunkin’ Donuts dot the city.
“Russians are not opposed to what America produces,” Agababyan said.
The store was brought here by Arkady Novikov, a Russian restaurant magnate who specializes in buzz. An original Krispy Kreme doughnut was about $1.60 Thursday. That’s about a third of the price of a small eclair at one of the city’s big coffee house chains.>>
Re: APOD: A Landing on Planet Earth (2013 Sep 14)
Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 12:30 pm
by SebastienP
If you want to see it land in video (after 1:00):
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
Re: APOD: A Landing on Planet Earth (2013 Sep 14)
Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 2:40 pm
by geckzilla
Chris Peterson wrote:
geckzilla wrote:Kazakhstan. It's that giant country I didn't know existed until finally taking long a look at a map outside the context of an American education. "Wait a minute. That country is huge. I know absolutely nothing about it. I thought there was just Russia in that spot."
Never saw Borat, I guess?
That was an old memory. Borat came out sometime later.
Re: APOD: A Landing on Planet Earth (2013 Sep 14)
Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 7:06 pm
by Cousin Ricky
geckzilla wrote:"...I thought there was just Russia in that spot."
In a sense, it was. Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet Union, which was the successor to the Russian Empire.
Re: APOD: A Landing on Planet Earth (2013 Sep 14)
Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 7:28 pm
by geckzilla
Cousin Ricky wrote:
geckzilla wrote:"...I thought there was just Russia in that spot."
In a sense, it was. Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet Union, which was the successor to the Russian Empire.
But it became independent in 1991, before I even entered middle school age. The Cold War ended before having any effect on me, which is that I mean it is something I would have to study in a history book rather than understanding personally like an individual even a few years older than me might. I feel let down by my education as far as world history goes. I learned a lot more after moving to NYC since there's a lot of different people here and it's helpful to know at least a little about them. I remember learning very little about the two World Wars and what I did learn was an American-centric point of view. Pearl Harbor, the atomic bombs, Hitler==evil, those things. Heck, I've probably learned more history playing video games like Civilization than I did in school. I could probably list eight different kinds of Christianity but if you asked me what a Shiite or a Sunni was I'd be clueless. Other countries, religions, and cultures exist only as vague stereotypes to many rural Americans, I think. The Internet is changing that, though.
Re: APOD: A Landing on Planet Earth (2013 Sep 14)
Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 4:22 pm
by Mr. D
neufer wrote:
Everyone go have a Krispy Kreme with Kathy & Kiselyov on Nikolskaya Street near the Kremlin:
Krispy Kreme opens first Russia store
by Kathy Lally, The Washington Post, Sept. 12, 2013
MOSCOW — Here on Nikolskaya Street, in the shadow of the Kremlin, Russia’s first book was printed in 1564, its first college was opened in 1685 and its first newspaper was published in 1703. The Krispy Kreme doughnut arrived Thursday.
The line for doughnuts began forming at 11 a.m. Wednesday, 22 hours before the historic moment when Krispy Kreme opened for business in Russia. By 9 a.m. Thursday, 200 people were waiting. First inside would win doughnuts for a year.
“They put something in it,” Susanna Agababyan, 21, mused, wondering why she so savored the doughnut she had just eaten. “I had the original. It’s really tasty.”
Agababyan, a translator of Italian, had a box with a dozen doughnuts in her lap. She sat at an outdoor table with a friend, Mikhail Kiselyov, a 22-year-old accounting student. “Today I tasted this for the first time,” Kiselyov said, “and I decided maybe it was worth it.”
That would be chocolate with sprinkles.
Nikolskaya lies in the heart of 866-year-old Moscow. The dreaded Lubyanka, home of the security police, looms above one end of the street. At the other end lies the imposing Kremlin, where dark theories regularly emerge about the United States and its eagerness to interfere in Russian affairs. On Thursday, in an opinion article published in the New York Times, President Vladimir Putin scolded the United States for considering itself exceptional. Off in America, President Obama was being criticized by some for handling Russia badly.
Has no one told them that here in Great Russia American calories rule? A Subway sandwich shop operates at the other end of lovely old Nikolskaya Street, which also has a Beverly Hills Diner tucked in among expensive Italian clothing stores and elegant restaurants. A nearby McDonald’s dishes out one Big Mac after another to a stream of customers. Dunkin’ Donuts dot the city.
“Russians are not opposed to what America produces,” Agababyan said.
The store was brought here by Arkady Novikov, a Russian restaurant magnate who specializes in buzz. An original Krispy Kreme doughnut was about $1.60 Thursday. That’s about a third of the price of a small eclair at one of the city’s big coffee house chains.>>
That was the exact website that caused me to realize exactly when the Cold War ended and how unaware of it I was. I was too busy harassing the pinacate beetles, catching lizards and worrying about getting rocks for Christmas.
A Landing on Planet Earth
