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Una nasa es un arte de pesca tradicional que consiste en un cesto de forma cilíndrica hecho de red y un esqueleto de madera con una especie de embudo dirigido hacia dentro en su base.
Se utiliza para la pesca de mariscos (centollo, nécora, bogavante...) y de cefalópodos (pulpo).
Telling NASA's Tales With Hollywood's Tools
Space Center Uses Pixar's Palette To Artfully Explain Scientific Data
By Michael S. Rosenwald
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 21, 2006; D01
[We are lucky to be working with world class data visualizers and animators. This article in the Washington Post is one of the best print stories I've seen on the folks who are on the front lines of translating our science and making it accessible to our many audiences.]
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/20/...
Every once in a while when a new movie with mind-blowing special effects or oh-my-gosh-it-looked-so-real animation opens, a nondescript office at NASA Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt will mysteriously empty of employees during matinee hours.
Before an investigation is launched into the whereabouts of these workers -- particularly, say, around last year's opening of "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" -- understand that they are not blowing off work. The absentee employees are animators, NASA staffers and contractors who use the same software Pixar Animation Studios uses to tell stories about talking cars to instead tell stories about the Earth. They just want to see what their counterparts in Hollywood have been up to.
There is the occasional did-you-see-that elbow nudge, but in their case it's about craft, not cinematic delight, said Horace Mitchell, project manager at the space center's scientific visualization studio. Mitchell is a NASA employee, but the studio is staffed primarily by animators working for Global Science & Technology Inc., a government contractor in Greenbelt. The company uses the Hollywood software, including Pixar's RenderMan and Autodesk Inc.'s Maya, to translate complicated data into animated movies that illustrate what is happening in and around Earth. The videos often end up on the evening news.
The crucial difference in NASA's use of the software is that Hollywood uses it to spin inspiring, happy-ending stories about love and courage and friendship and hope, while the animators in Greenbelt are often telling stories about bad things happening in the atmosphere, such as last year's hurricane season. In their chilling short film "27 Storms: Arlene to Zeta," set to Vincenzo Bellini's eerie music, viewers can watch the ocean heat up, helping fuel one storm after another -- thanks to the same Pixar software used in the upcoming version of "Charlotte's Web."
NASA oceanographer Gene Carl Feldman frequently collaborates with the Global Science studio. He studies the ocean from space.
"Visualization is that link between the flood of data coming down from space and the ability of the human mind to interpret it," Feldman said. "That's the crux of the story. Better than most other groups in the world, they are able to take this fire hose of data coming down and turn it into images -- visual animation -- that then allows the general public to see this data in ways their brains can interpret and study."
The Hollywoodization of NASA data is in part the result of Pixar's success in creating real-life worlds from fantasy stories. People have come to expect that even the most fantastical of ideas -- a talking, curmudgeonly Mr. Potato Head -- can look and feel exceedingly real. "They don't expect to see crudity," Mitchell said. "They expect to see sophistication because they see it everywhere. In order for us to tell the story, we have to be sophisticated about telling stories and we have to use sophisticated technology to tell them."
Pixar was spun off from George Lucas's film company, and its early days were spent selling animation software and hardware -- a way to pay the bills until computer technology caught up with the firm's vision of making the incredibly life-like films that it produces today.
Today, anyone can purchase versions of RenderMan online, for $995 to $3,500.
Global Science, a private company that employs about 250 people, is definitely not a movie studio. It was founded in 1991 by Chieh-san Cheng, a former employee of an aerospace and technology company with advanced degrees in technical management and meteorology. Global Science provides services in applied science and research, geospatial standards, engineering services, and information technology. The firm's contract with NASA is a small part of its business, contributing about $650,000 a year to about $45 million in revenue.
Global Science and Pixar know about each other, but interaction between the staffs is generally limited to animation conferences and trade shows. But the Global Science staff does feel a strong bond with Pixar, particularly when watching one of its movies.
Jim Williams, a Global Science animator, said, "I'll go into it thinking I'm going to look at the technical stuff and then I'll get completely sucked into the story."
This happened during Pixar's recent hit, "Cars."
"I'm watching it, I'm totally into the story, and they get to the end and they go into that stadium, and there's tens of thousands of cars in there and I drop out of the story and think, 'Wow, that must have been a pain in the butt to get that right.' And then I'm back into the story," he said.
The difference between the storylines is that Pixar is trying to get laughing cars right and Global Science is trying to get the atmosphere right. The way in which Global Science uses RenderMan is not easy. Here's one way of looking at it: This article has been typed on a word processor. The computer received the data -- in this case, they looked like letters -- and displayed them on a screen. The lines were long, containing dozens of words. Those words needed to appear in the newspaper, and to do that a graphic designer used another program to render and squeeze the words into narrow columns of newsprint, with black type, a font, and italics , and so forth so the words appear in the paper as they do now. That's essentially what RenderMan does for data -- whether it be information about Buzz Lightyear's appearance or atmospheric models of hurricanes. RenderMan is the mechanism by which data are translated. Another program, Maya, acts as the word processor.
Global Science translates scientific data this way. Recently, one of its animators sat behind a computer monitor in a dark room with an image that could have appeared as a backdrop in a Van Gogh painting. But it was a depiction of aerosols moving across the atmosphere, a way of illustrating air quality. Yellow represented dust, the green was sulfates produced by humans, the blue was sea salt. Altogether, it was sort of beautiful but apparently not good news for the atmosphere.
Like their Hollywood counterparts, the Global Science animators typically refer to their finished products as releases, but the scripts are composed of data and the script writers are some of the world's most brilliant scientists. The creative process generally works like this: A scientist or a public affairs officer will ask the animators to illustrate a concept or data set. It can be as simple as ocean temperatures or as complicated as a collection of satellite images. A discussion with the scientific team and public affairs officer ensues over the best way to illustrate the data, and the animators get to work.
Feldman, the NASA oceanographer, studies oceans from space because, as he said: "Oceans are really, really, really big and they change very, very quickly. You can't track that from a ship. What a satellite sees in a minute would take a ship a decade." Feldman is particularly interested in the relationship between the changing environment and ocean life, which he pursues by studying the first level of life in the ocean, or microscopic plants, through ocean color.
The only problem is that satellites collect a very large amount of complicated data. The visualization studio helps him make sense of it. Feldman has made animations of what happened to the ocean during the transition between El Niño and La Niña -- "it was the biggest phytoplankton bloom in the world ever observed," he said. He has animated Lake Michigan's microscopic plant blooms and a dust storm the size of Spain that blew across the ocean in the past few years. He has animated autumn in Boston, which roughly translates into, as he put it, "how life follows the sun."
If Cheng, chief executive of Global Science, has his way, NASA scientists wouldn't be the only people relying on his firm's handling of Hollywood software to explain complicated subjects. Cheng would like to use the software to better explain the human body to doctors. He said the company is finalizing plans for a medical-imaging division and is exploring the possibility of a partnership with Maryland universities.
"What we could do is use movie techniques to give the doctor and medical staff more dynamic and accurate images to make a diagnosis," he said.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
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A 1997 image of the planet Mars.
This is a supporting image for the "Sailing With NASA" blog, which is documenting space shuttle external tank ET-134's sea voyage from Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Credit: NASA
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for some reason or another NASA is prepared to spend billions hoping to find some signs of life far away, but no need to go far to find some life where you don't expect it.....NASA would be ecstatic with such a MARS shot....
NASA Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy | Boeing 747SP-21 | N747NA | cn: 21441 | "Clipper Lindbergh" | Hannover Langenhagen Airport (HAJ/EDDV)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center! The CRS-10 mission was the companies tenth commercial resupply service mission to the International Space Station.
Phone died before I got a chance to take pictures of what I think are their best trucks in the fleet, the older of the front loaders and every one of their rear loaders.
"The signal."
"...El espacio, la última frontera. Estos son los descubrimientos de Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex . Su continua misión, explorar extraños nuevos mundos. Buscar nuevas formas de vida y nuevas civilizaciones. Ir arriesgadamente donde nadie ha ido antes..."
Con la compañia de mis amigos Fran Ros y Alejandro Rodriguez juntos formamos lafphotography, agradeceriamos un me gusta en la pagina de facebook del mismo nombre y que os pasarais por la pagina web lafphotography.es, es para nosotros un aliciente y una manera de seguir haciendo lo que hacemos, muchas gracias de antemano...
Sony alpha 77 + tokina 11-16 f2,8
Portafiltros Lucroit + polarizador lucroit + degradado haida 3 pasos
What's happening to this spiral galaxy? Just a few hundred million years ago, NGC 2936, the upper of the two large galaxies shown, was likely a normal spiral galaxy -- spinning, creating stars -- and minding its own business. But then it got too close to the massive elliptical galaxy NGC 2937 below and took a dive. Dubbed the Porpoise Galaxy for its iconic shape, NGC 2936 is not only being deflected but also being distorted by the close gravitational interaction. A burst of young blue stars forms the nose of the porpoise toward the right of the upper galaxy, while the center of the spiral appears as an eye. Alternatively, the galaxy pair, together known as Arp 142, look to some like a penguin protecting an egg. Either way, intricate dark dust lanes and bright blue star streams trail the troubled galaxy to the lower right. The featured re-processed image showing Arp 142 in unprecedented detail was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope last year. Arp 142 lies about 300 million light years away toward the constellation, coincidently, of the Water Snake (Hydra). In a billion years or so the two galaxies will likely merge into one larger galaxy.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA
I did not take these photos which came from the NASA website from Mexico during the eclipse April 8/24 . I stitched them together in Photoshop to demonstrate this magnificent event. I just wish I could have been there to see it. The next eclipses in North America are in 2044 and 2045 when I will be in my mid-nineties!!!
Listen to Bonny Tyler's song: Total Eclipse of the Heart
Norfolk Southern train #052 eases through Dallas, GA with 12 rocket booster sections bound for NASA at Cape Canaveral for use on the Artemis Program. The longest days of the year may be hot but they sure are great for times like these.
Where do most of the elements essential for life on Earth come from? The answer: inside the furnaces of stars and the explosions that mark the end of some stars’ lives.
Astronomers have long studied exploded stars and their remains – known as “supernova remnants” – to better understand exactly how stars produce and then disseminate many of the elements observed on Earth, and in the cosmos at large.
Due to its unique evolutionary status, Cassiopeia A (Cas A) is one of the most intensely studied of these supernova remnants. A new image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the location of different elements in the remains of the explosion: silicon (red), sulfur (yellow), calcium (green) and iron (purple). Each of these elements produces X-rays within narrow energy ranges, allowing maps of their location to be created. The blast wave from the explosion is seen as the blue outer ring.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
Gulfstream G-III N992NA
Touching down at Prestwick Airport
'Tis the season for holiday decorating and tree-trimming. Not to be left out, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have photographed a festive-looking nearby planetary nebula called NGC 5189. The intricate structure of this bright gaseous nebula resembles a glass-blown holiday ornament with a glowing ribbon entwined.
Planetary nebulae represent the final brief stage in the life of a medium-sized star like our sun. While consuming the last of the fuel in its core, the dying star expels a large portion of its outer envelope. This material then becomes heated by the radiation from the stellar remnant and radiates, producing glowing clouds of gas that can show complex structures, as the ejection of mass from the star is uneven in both time and direction. To read more go to: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/ngc5189.html
Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Went over to the coast to watch the shuttle go up. The photos did not come out very well, but the launch was pretty cool being there. Next time We are getting alot closer!!
This image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), shows a patch of space filled with galaxies of all shapes, colors and sizes, many of which belong to the galaxy cluster SDSS J0952+3434.
Just below center is a formation of galaxies akin to a smiling face. Two yellow-hued blobs hang atop a sweeping arc of light. The lower, arc-shaped galaxy has the characteristic shape of a galaxy that has been gravitationally lensed — its light has passed near a massive object en route to us, causing it to become distorted and stretched out of shape.
Hubble captured this image in an effort to understand how new stars spring to life throughout the cosmos. WFC3 is able to view distant galaxies at an unprecedented resolution — high enough to locate and study regions of star formation within them.
Stars are born within giant clouds of gas. These massive clouds, or stellar nurseries, grow unstable and begin to collapse under gravity, becoming the seeds that will grow into new stars. By analyzing the luminosity, size and formation rate of different stellar nurseries, scientists hope to learn more about the processes that can lead to the formation of a newborn star. Studying nurseries within different galaxies will provide information about star formation at different points in time and space throughout the universe.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt (geckzilla)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Thanks to Jesssica Truscott for this image:
faestock.deviantart.com/art/Sophia-Female-Stock-Reference...
Thanks to NASA for elements of this image.
All eyes are on south Mississippi with this month’s delivery and installation of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket’s first core stage to Stennis Space Center for a milestone Green Run test series prior to its Artemis I flight.
Core stage installation
The Green Run testing will be the first top-to-bottom integrated testing of the stage’s systems prior to its maiden flight. The testing will be conducted on the B-2 Test Stand at Stennis, located near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and the nation’s largest rocket propulsion test site. Green Run testing will take place over several months and culminates with an eight-minute, full-duration hot fire of the stage’s four RS-25 engines to generate 2 million pounds of thrust, as during an actual launch.
Image credit: NASA/SSC
The easternmost edge of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and surrounding south tropical disturbance are captured in this image from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. At left, wispy tendrils from the Red Spot give the atmosphere a layered appearance as they partially obscure cloud features below.
Jupiter's appearance is a tapestry of vivid colors and swirling atmospheric vortices. Many aspects of the planet’s atmosphere are still a mystery. For example, the origin of individual storms or churning cloud features is unknown. By studying Jupiter’s weather up close for the first time, Juno is helping researchers better understand how atmospheres work in general – including our own. What we learn about Jupiter’s atmosphere will also help scientists understand how gas-giant planets work in general, including those now being discovered beyond our solar system.
This color-enhanced image was taken at 3:01 a.m. PDT on April 1, 2018 (6:01 a.m. EDT), as the spacecraft performed its 12th close flyby of Jupiter. At the time, Juno was about 7,900 miles (12,750 kilometers) from the planet's cloud tops, above a southern latitude of approximately 26 degrees.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Brian Swift/Kevin M. Gill
Manufacturer: McDonnell Douglas (Now Boeing)
Operator: NASA Flight Test Research Center
Type: F-15D two seater Eagle (N836NA)
Event/Location: 2022 Aerospace Airshow/ Edwards AF base
Comment: Aircraft normally used for photo or video support as well as routine flight training required for all NASA pilots.
N5NA - Convair T-29B (CV-240) - ex NASA
at Davis–Monthan Air Force Base (DMA) in 1996
c/n 321 - built in 1953 for the USAF -
to NASA-National Aeronautics & Space Administration in 1959 - 1977 -
final owner from 1991 was Starship Inc. as N64755 - used for spares at Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center (AMARC). later scrapped
scanned from Kodachrome-slide
Newly released images showcase the incredible closeness with which NASA's Cassini spacecraft, now in its "Ring-Grazing" orbits phase, is observing Saturn's dazzling rings of icy debris.
The views are some of the closest-ever images of the outer parts of the main rings, giving scientists an eagerly awaited opportunity to observe features with names like "straw" and "propellers." Although Cassini saw these features earlier in the mission, the spacecraft’s current, special orbits are now providing opportunities to see them in greater detail. The new images resolve details as small as 0.3 miles (550 meters), which is on the scale of Earth's tallest buildings.
Cassini is now about halfway through its penultimate mission phase -- 20 orbits that dive past the outer edge of the main ring system. The ring-grazing orbits began last November, and will continue until late April, when Cassini begins its grand finale. During the 22 finale orbits, Cassini will repeatedly plunge through the gap between the rings and Saturn. The first finale plunge is scheduled for April 26.
For now, the veteran spacecraft is shooting past the outer edges of the rings every week, gathering some of its best images of the rings and moons. Already Cassini has sent back the closest-ever views of small moons Daphnis and Pandora.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, click here.