Self Care – Astronomy [Video] of the Week: Cassini’s Grand Finale

This, to be honest, is really sad for me.

Saturn has always been my favorite planet, so Cassini holds a very special place in my heart. I love Cassini. I follow it on Twitter, and follow updates very closely. Cassini has been in space for 20 years, and at Saturn 13 years. It’s been an amazing run, with so many incredible findings about Saturn and it’s wondrous and fascinating moons.

But time is running out. Cassini is running out of fuel. So NASA has planned a Grand Finale. An epic, bittersweet grand finale.

First, Cassini will dive between Saturn and it’s rings. It’s already done that once, on April 26. And it’s geared up to do it 21 more times.

Then, on September 15, Cassini will… um…

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Well Now I’m Torn

I’ve always been one of those who’s hated that we didn’t take what happened with the moon landings further than we did. I’ve never understood why we didn’t build a base on the moon. I’ve never understood why people aren’t there today. I’ve never understood why we didn’t set a goal for putting humans on Mars back then, as well.

I mean… okay… I do understand. We went to the moon in the first place because of the Cold War. It could be argued that we wouldn’t even have a NASA today if not for the Cold War, so…

But that doesn’t make the fact that we didn’t continue that momentum after the Cold War any less annoying. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s really sad that the Cold War was our only motivation.

But now…

Now, NASA’s new budget has been slightly increased, and they’ve been given a goal of putting people on Mars.

I should be excited by this. It’s something I support.

The problem?

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Self Care: Astronomy Picture(/News) of the Week – NASA Finds a New Solar System with 3 Habitable Planets

Okay okay… potentially habitable planets… the title was already long enough…

(Thanks to Rob Grigjanis for alerting me to this…)

Allowing for the fact that NASA is known for its sensationalism (routinely mocked, actually, by some astronomy podcasts I listen to, like Awesome Astronomy), this is actually really intriguing. From Vox…

TRAPPIST-1 System... planets e, f, and g are the potentially habitable planets

TRAPPIST-1 System… planets e, f, and g are the potentially habitable planets

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Self Care – Astronomy Picture of the Week: The Heart and Soul Nebula

Yeah yeah… I know Valentine’s Day was yesterday… but Astronomy Picture of the Week is on Wednesdays, so get over it.

This is an infrared mosaic known as “Heart and Soul“… two nebulae captured by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. As usual, click on the image for the .tif download…

Heart (right) and Soul (left) Nebulae

Heart (right) and Soul (left) Nebulae

I would say “Happy Valentine’s Day from the Universe!” but… you know… day late, and all…