A few weeks ago the Soyuz capsule departed from the International Space Station and European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli took flyabout images of the station with the space shuttle Endeavour “docked at the gate.” Today, those images started showing up on the NASA Spaceflight Gallery. Take a look at just one of these beauties!
This image of the International Space Station and the docked Space Shuttle Endeavour, flying at an altitude of approximately 220 miles, was taken by Expedition 27 crew member Paolo Nespoli from the Soyuz TMA-20 following its undocking on May 23, 2011 (USA time). It is the first-ever image of a space shuttle docked to the International Space Station. Onboard the Soyuz were Russian cosmonaut and Expedition 27 commander Dmitry Kondratyev; Nespoli, a European Space Agency astronaut; and NASA astronaut Cady Coleman. Coleman and Nespoli were both flight engineers. The three landed in Kazakhstan later that day, completing 159 days in space. Courtesy NASA/ESA. Click to enlarge.
There are several more images at the link above, and (I hope) more to come. It was an ideal chance to get a full view of the space station and Endeavour’s last visit. Enjoy!
It has been my pleasure to be a frequent contributor to a couple of Web-based outreach projects. One is the Carnival of Space, which is a virtual gathering of science writers who focus on astronomy and space science subjects. We all take turns hosting the Carnival, which is essentially a big collection of links to the past week’s blog entries on the topics. This week, Carnival #200 is hosted at The Next Big Future, a blog that focuses on many fascinating technologies that we hope to see in the future. It’s well worth surfing over and reading — you never know what you’ll find.
The other project I’ve been involved in is 365 Days of Astronomy — a daily podcast featuring contributions from people like me… and you… and others who love the starry skies. I’ve done a number of these (I’ve linked to them up there on the tab that says “365 Days of Astronomy”), and I happen to know that the organizers are looking for volunteers to do some more podcasts. They’re easy to do and you get the satisfaction of having your name (and podcast) up there in lights on their page. If you’re interested, email the good folks at 365 Days of Astronomy at: info@365daysofastronomy.org — they’ll get you slotted into a date and help you get started. Won’t you join me and the many others who have contributed our views of the cosmos to the world?
