NASA's Blue Marble

So NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (the NASA facility where I worked this past Fall) released it's 2012 version of the Blue Marble which is of the Eastern Hemisphere.

Basically, it went viral. Check it out here.

It's interesting to note that the Blue Marble from 2002 is the most used on the iPhone. Food for thought.

KickSat

Yesterday, I saw a fantastic talk at NASA GSFC.  It was about creating Miniature Spacecraft.  Being honest, my first thought panned over to Cloverfield when those spiders were crawling off of the monster....which would go crawl on other planets, preparing the way.  Talk about a SciFi Movie...

So, I was initially skeptical.  However, these small circuits can be spread across space! Let Zachary talk about it...

How cool is this project?! You can have your name on a chip in space?! Sign me up!

Here, he basically talks about the scientific data you can collect within the higher atmosphere or even for other types of signals.  It's definitely in the development stage, but I think there are great possibilities.  

For instance: you could prototype your own circuit board, like you do with SparkFun (it's easy/cheap circuits for you less-geeky peeps ;-) ), and have it transmit a message back to you with, oh-I-don't-know, it's GPS coordinates, the acceleration of the planet it's near, or potentially get atmospheric data from the debris it's flying through.  

I can see myself now...throwing* my mini-chip to the sun to evaluate temperatures there...all by myself...

Think of the possibilities....

*BTW I know this it totally unrealistic, but HEY! I can dream...