July 19, 2006

High above the insanity


Astronomy Picture of the Day:

"Reflections on Planet Earth"
Credit: Michael Fossum, STS-121 Mission, NASA

From the site:

"Explanation: Catching sight of your reflection in a store window or shiny hubcap can be entertaining and occasionally even inspire a thoughtful moment. So consider this reflective view from 300 kilometers above planet Earth. The picture is actually a self-portrait taken by astronaut Michael Fossum on July 8 during a space walk or extravehicular activity while the Discovery orbiter was docked with the International Space Station. Turning his camera to snap a picture of his own helmet visor, he also recorded the reflection of his fellow mission specialist, Piers Sellers, near picture center and one of the space station's gold-tinted solar power arrays arcing across the top. Of course, the horizon of our fair planet lies in background."

If you've ever scuba dived, you know that feeling of complete immersion and escape it can provide. Those space walks must be like that to the nth degree.

2 comments:

  1. Wow. That's interesting. You wouldn't think it's that difficult to handle.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, that. It's the "fuzzball containtment option" in the blogger comments settings. I felt it was neccessary. It allows bloggers to set a number of anywhere from 2 to 20 characters anytime fuzzball chooses to leave a comment. I opted to go with the highest security setting. You obviously did piss off someone at Blogger. Not my fault.

    ReplyDelete