The Encyclopedia of Life recently celebrated the creation of its one millionth species page with the addition of hundreds of thousands of new images and specimen data from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History.
The Encyclopedia of Life is building the largest online collection of biological descriptions, multimedia, and links about biological diversity on our planet. Anybody can join the community of scientists, learners, and citizens that are discussing, adding to, rating, organizing, and freely re-using the information.
Image description: A student participating in the CanSat competition goes through a pre-flight safety check of her satellite.
The CanSat competition, sponsored by the Navy Research Laboratory and NASA, challenged teams of college students to develop a satellite in a can with a special deployable part that would land safely and protect a raw egg inside.
The satellites were launched about 2001 feet in the air by rockets.
Twenty-six team entered the competition, held in Texas, and earned points based on design, pre-flight inspections and post-flight reviews.
Learn more about the CanSat competition.
Photo from the Navy Research Laboratory.
Image description: At the end of August, a filament from the sun suddenly erupted into space. The filament had been held up for days by the Sun’s ever changing magnetic field and the timing of the eruption was unexpected. Learn more about the eruption.
Image from the Solar Dynamics Observatory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Multiple Views of the Solar Flare on July 12, 2012
Video description
This video from NASA shows a recent solar flare in a variety of wavelengths. There is a combined wavelength view at the end.
Learn about the solar flare and view photos of it.
Video from the Solar Dynamic Observatory’s (SDO) AIA instrument.
Image description: NASA’s Cassini spacecraft resumed the kind of orbits that allow for spectacular views of Saturn’s rings. This view, from Cassini’s imaging camera, shows the outer A ring and the F ring. Learn more about Cassini’s new view of Saturn.
Image from NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
