Aurora Borealis (and Aurora Australis, for that matter)

In addition to sending out heat and light, the sun also emits a constant stream of charged particles, known as the solar wind. These particles are largely deflected away by the earth's magnetic field, except near the poles, where the lines of the magnetic force form a funnel, leading these particles down towards the upper atmosphere. When these particles encounter molecules such as nitrogen and oxygen gas in the upper atmosphere, some of their energy is transferred, leading to excited state forms of these atmospheric gases. When the excited state forms relax back down to the ground state, that excess energy is given off in the form of light. The result is the light show known as the aurora borealis in the north and the aurora australis in the south. Dave and John from briXwerX made this great northern lights scene. Be sure to watch the video to see the light flickering. BTW, they also dedicated this as a tribute to Heather Braaten and her children.

The last Space Shuttle launch

I previously noted two Canadian teens who sent a minifig into near space using a weather balloon. Well, a few months ago, Romanian teen Raul Oaidia did much the same thing, sending a LEGO Space Shuttle into the stratosphere.

Figs in space

Canadian high school students Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad had an idea. They'd seen that some MIT students had sent a balloon into space, and they wanted to try it themselves. The purchased a balloon, and created a payload that involved cameras, a video camera, and a smart phone with GPS tracking. They sent this up about 80,000 feet about the earth's surface, and were able to take amazing photos. What's more, they were able to retrieve the payload and get this data. The reason it's hitting this blog is that they had a passenger. Watch the video to see an accelerated view of a minifig going where no fig has gone before (well, there are actually some LEGO pieces on the International Space Station, and images of figs were on a Mars probe).

Saturn V

Check out this amazing detailed and massive Saturn V by LEGO Professional Ryan McNaught. This is surely the MOC by which we will judge all future NASA MOCs. You can read some details in this article. BTW, if you're down under, get yourself to Melbourne next week for the Brickvention gathering, where you'll be able to see this in person.



Oh, can I say it again, this is massive. 5.6 meters tall, to be precise. That makes it, I believe, true to minifig scale. See here with Ryan for scale:

Farewell, Voyager

If you're my age, and in any way interested in science, you probably remember being inspired by all of the great images of Jupiter and Saturn that came out when I was in about fifth or sixth grade as the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes flew past our Solar System's biggest planets. You may even remember watching Carl Sagan tell us all about them on TV. Anyway, Voyager 1 (here in LEGO form by Shane Larson) is at the very edge of the Solar System. At about 11 billion miles away from the Sun, the probe has entered a region where the effect of the solar wind, energy and particles being pushed out from our sun, is all but gone, and it is starting to feel the currents of interstellar space. The batteries will last until the year 2025, so as the probe goes further, scientists are looking forward to learning more about what it's really like out there beyond the edge of our chunk of the galaxy.

Gagarin

Lego Monster Ed Diment and members of the Brickish Association helped coordinate a massive group build where members of the public put together this mosaic at the Lego Space show at the National Space Centre Leicester, UK, this past July.

Yuri Gagarin

Fifty years ago this year, Yuri Gagarin climbed into the Vostok 3KA capsule and was launched atop a Vostok 8K72K rocket into space. 108 minutes later he had made a complete orbit of the Earth and returned to earth via parachute. Apparently he landed near a farmer and daughter, and he later recalled "When they saw me in my space suit and the parachute dragging alongside as I walked, they started to back away in fear. I told them, don't be afraid, I am a Soviet like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow!" Gary Davis made this amazing bust.



Bono1900 made Gagarin and his rocket.



Morgan190 put together this minifig.

Hayabusa

I've previously noted the Japanese Hayabusa probe that was sent out to retrieve samples from an asteroid. It turns out LEGO is going to be making an official set (available in Japan only, though, I believe) of this probe.



This is part of the LEGO Cuusoo project, that was piloted in Japan but is now coming to the internet near you. People can submit ideas and then vote on what they'd like to see LEGO produce as a set. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that LEGO designers take the original idea and rework it into a set, rather than simply taking submitted designs. Anyway, the previously noted Shinkai 6500 ocean probe was also produced via LEGO Cuusoo. Interesting that the first two projects that came through this program were science themed. I believe that these may have been prototype designs.

Bye-bye, figs!

Pcdos61 was there to watch the launch of the Juno probe (the one that is carrying three minifigs to Jupiter).

More on Juno

The Brothers Brick had some additional links on the figs going to Jupiter - the press releases are available from NASA and LEGO.

LEGO writes that "The LEGO crew’s mission is part of the LEGO Bricks in Space project, the joint outreach and educational programme developed as part of the partnership between NASA and the LEGO Group to inspire children to explore science, technology, engineering, and mathematics." and that information and activities will be found at LEGOspace.com.



BTW, looking closely at the figs, I notice that Galileo isn't just holding a simple ball, but instead it's engraved to look like Jupiter (you can see the swirling clouds and the great red spot).

Minifigs headed to Jupiter

Three minifigs are headed for Jupiter! These three stowaways, representing Jupiter, Juno and Galileo, are affixed to the Juno space probe, which is launching in two days. The probe will arrive near Jupiter in July 2016. LEGO carved these out of solid aluminum to include in the probe. They only revealed this little detail at the last minute - I hope they actually make something out of this and produce these as plastic figs. I'd love to own an official Galileo fig.

Shuttle set rerelease

As part of a tribute to the end of the Space Shuttle program, LEGO is rereleasing set 10231, Shuttle Expedition. This is a fairly minor reworking of last year's set 10213, Shuttle Adventure. It's supposed to be a more sturdy design to be more play-able for younger kids.

Curiosity

Just because the Space Shuttle program is over doesn't mean NASA is shutting down. Our astronauts will continue to visit the International Space Station using other rockets, and a future manned program is in the works. More immediately, though, is the Curiosity (here built by Tim Goddard), an unmanned probe that will launch for Mars later this year. The Mars Space Laboratory's mission is to collect and analyze samples to see if Mars can, or has in the past, support any form of life.

Welcome home, Atlantis

With the landing of the Atlantis, three decades of the Space Shuttle program draws to a close. It feels like I've been watching these things go up in the air for most of my life, so it's kind of a sad moment. Whither now, NASA? Remember when George Bush announced the next step for NASA was a trip to Mars? The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 provides for development of a new launch system, to ultimately move beyond Earth orbit in five years, but in the meantime our Astronauts will be riding Russian rockets up to the ISS, or else fly on commercial carriers. This Shuttle sculpture is from Legoland Windsor.

Building in space

The other day I mentioned the LEGO sets sent to the International Space Station. While some of them are more fun, like a model of the ISS, some of them will be physics experiments. LEGO hasn't posted lesson plans yet, but students here on earth will build models to do simple experiments, like compare mass using a balance, and their results will compare to those performed in orbit, under conditions of microgravity.

STS-134

STS-134, which landed recently, was the next to last Space Shuttle mission. One fun aspect of this mission was the launch (literally) of a partnership between LEGO and NASA. A set of LEGO models was brought up on the Shuttle to the International Space Station as part of an interactive project to get grade school kids excited about science. This actually isn't the first such partnership, but more on that at another time.

Saturn V

Matt Wagner rendered this great version of the Saturn V, the rocket that sent the Apollo missions to the moon, based on set 7468, Saturn Moon Mission.

Arecibo message

On November 16, 1974, a 1679 digit message was broadcast into space from the Arecibo Telescope. The stream of 0's and 1's was created by shifting the frequencies, or, here in LEGO form by Chris Doyle.



1679 is the product of 23 x 73. If some alien race receives the signal, and then breaks it down into 79 separate sets of 23, then can then assemble these into a picture.



The result would give them information about us - an indication of the elements used in our DNA makeup, an image of the double helix, an image of a human, and the composition of our Solar System.



This was really more of a proof of concept experiment than an actual attempt at communication with others in our universe. Given that the globular star cluster targeted by this message is 25000 light years away, any response would come in about the year 52000 AD.

BTW, Carl Sagan, who was a proponent of the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI), was a part of the composition of the message. If you read Contact (again, please, don't watch the horrible movie), he spends a great deal of time discussing how messages could be transmitted across the stars and subsequently decoded.

Freedom 7

Fifty years ago today, Alan Shepard became the first American (and the second person, after Yuri Gargarin) to enter space. The Mercury program was the first step (followed by the Gemini and Apollo programs) towards the moon landing. Those 16 minutes of going up and coming back down again are commemorated in this model by Dave and John Xandegar of briXwerX Studio.

Bricks in Space

Today's launch was postponed, but part of the payload on this mission is a set of LEGO blocks. This is part of the Bricks in Space program, that has put together a number of lesson plans using LEGO on the International Space Station to get kids interested in science. It looks like astronauts on the ISS will be building simple machines out of LEGO to demonstrate principles of physics in zero gravity, and then kids in class can build the same machines and compare the results in normal gravity. I believe this mosaic was part of a LEGO display at Cape Canaveral for people who came to watch the launch. It looks like both President Obama and the recovering Representative Giffords (whose husband is a Shuttle astronaut) were on hand, despite the cancellation of the launch. Well, maybe they at least got to check out the LEGO display. :)