Ad Astra Per Alas Anser

"To the stars by the wings of a goose." I use no conventional means, but I'm headed somewhere.

Currently a college student, I devote a lot of my time to educational outreach. My long term goal is to have a career in public outreach (involving social media) promoting—of course—the space sciences!

Here is a kind of diary for my experiences as an aspiring space sciences outreach professional, and as practice for a better blog someday.

Twitter

Teach Astronomy

University of Arizona Astronomy Club

blua:

What the city is missing: Thierry Cohen photographs cityscapes and then photographs deserts at night, combing the two to show us what our cities would look like with the lights off. The stars are not enhanced, they are actual photos from relative latitudes that would expose the same starry sky view if it weren’t for light pollution. Click on each photo to see which city it is.

Light pollution and pollution in general

(via n-a-s-a)

Get it?

ALMA antennas performing observations. (ESO)

(Source: ruit-hora, via calvindidwhat)

Last week we held elections for UASEDS officers. I was elected outreach officer! I have a lot of ideas and plans and and am really, really thrilled about this!

thedemon-hauntedworld:

Under Stars by Karezoid Michal Karcz

(via andromeda1023)

theswinginsixties:

‘Off into Space’ - 1966 book cover design.

(Source: pinterest.com, via wilwheaton)

It takes the entire planet Earth to attract a feather to the floor, but we can counteract Earth’s gravity by lifting the feather with a finger. The action of our finger can counteract the gravity of an entire planet that weight over six trillion trillion kilograms.

— Michio Kaku (in his book Physics of the Impossible)

(Source: space-tart, via andromeda1023)

From The First World Atlas of the Artificial Night Sky Brightness, Cinzano, P., F. Falchi, and C.D. Elvidge.

Next stop on Spring Break was NASA Johnson Space Center, which was a particularly special stop for me, since I am originally from Houston. Here are some pictures from JSC.

This is the ISS Cupola, where the astronauts take those awesome pictures of the Earth. Well, it’s not the real cupola, clearly.

Here are the astronauts that were on the station at the time we were visiting JSC. You might notice Chris Hadfield, first Canadian to walk in space and social media champion!

Here I am taking a selfie in the Deep Space Habitat bathroom.

Deep Space Habitat was pretty cool. It’s a little 3 story building, where a crew has actually practiced living in for weeks, as if they were on the moon or Mars or something.

Here’s one of the little bed chambers on the top floor of the habitat.

That was about all we saw this tour of Johnson—the practice ISS and the Deep Space Habitat. Well, we did see Apollo mission control from the viewing room. I didn’t take any pictures, cause 4 years ago we had a tour of Johnson that let us in Apollo mission control, and I have pictures from that.

Here’s one last picture. We took a group photo at the rocket park. It’s vereh nice!

Alright I really need to go write a huge paper. No more spring break posts for awhile. Maybe in a couple weeks I’ll get to Lockheed Martin.