Cassini-Huygens team wishing happy new year

New year wish from Cassini-Huygens team . They offer their views on Saturn and spacecraft Cassini.

You can find the spacecraft Cassini at the top right side of the image .

Airborne telescope

Airborne telescope will unlock secrets of the cosmos
A NASA jumbo jet that will help scientists unlock the origins of the universe with infrared observations reached a milestone December 18 when doors covering the plane's telescope were fully opened in flight.

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, a modified 747 jet known as SOFIA, flew for one hour and 19 minutes, which included 2 minutes with the telescope's doors fully opened. The goal was to allow engineers to understand how air flows in and around the telescope. It was the first time outside air has interacted with the part of the plane that carries the 98-inch (249-centimeter) infrared telescope.

Santa wishing from Lunar North Pole

Two days to go for Christmas . Santa Claus wishing Christmas from Lunar North Pole. Oops....... it is just an imagination!!!!! Have a Great Christmas .

Glint of sunlight confirms liquid in Titan

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn, along with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, is classified as a gas giant. Together, these four planets are sometimes referred to as the Jovian, meaning "Jupiter-like", planets.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured the first flash of sunlight reflected off a lake on Saturn's moon Titan, confirming the presence of liquid on the part of the moon dotted with many large, lake-shaped basins.

This is a guest post by Murali dharan , who is a blogger.

The Face on Mars : a myth

Face on Mars is a myth, although the picture resembles a human head formed by shadows giving the illusion of eyes, nose and mouth.

In 1976, NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft took the photos of Mars and one of the photos shows the resemblance of human face.The head is huge nearly 3 km from the region of planet called Cydonia. Since, then some people think that Mars has life and that NASA is trying to hide the fact from people.

On April 8, 2001 — a cloudless summer day in Cydonia pictures were taken and the pictures were like landforms common in American West and these are known as butte or mesa in Mars.It was found that Cydonia contains many mesas like the Face, but the others don't look like human heads, so they've attracted little attention.

New Year's Eve and "blue moon"

This December 31, 2009 will observe a blue moon. Now, don't think that moon will turn visibly blue.

Blue moon means a full moon that is not timed to regular monthly pattern . Most years have 12 full moons , which appear approximately monthly , but there are are 11 additional days in the year so once in nearly every three years an additional full moon is observed. Now this additional full moon is called "blue moon".

This phenomenon occurs every three years , the last blue moon was on June 30, 2007 and the next will be on August 31, 2012. This year's New Year Eve's Blue moon is special as there will be a partial lunar eclipse which will be seen in countries like Asia , Africa , Australia and Europe.

Gift a "Space beer" this Christmas

This Christmas , gift your friends and loved ones "Sapporo" a beer which is made from space-grown barley . Sapporo will be available till 24th December through online lottery for orders of a six-pack. 250 people will be chosen from the lottery and allowed to purchase the beer. Beer will cost you for a pack of 6 about $110.

The sale from beer will go to Okayama University with the aim of promoting children's education and space science research. The taste of beer won't be different as some people will expect.

A Christmas gift from Hubble Telescope

Hubble Space Telescope has produced a lot of images and hence the The Big Picture at The Boston Globe is doing an advent calender to countdown the days until Christmas.

Until Christmas every day you can see a new image by Hubble Space Telescope . The images are awesome.

Explore Mars from Earth

For everyone who want to explore Mars but scared of going there , you can have your dream realised by going to NASA's Be a Martian website.

The Be a Martian site is a collaboration between NASA and Microsoft that uses the tool of crowsourcing to sift through the hundreds of thousands of photos sent back by Mars rovers and orbiters. The format of the site is much like a game, where you complete tasks to earn points and badges.
There is a forum on the site where one can ask questions, vote on questions and make comments to earn "Curiousity Points". NASA Mars experts will read the questions to see what the virtual Martian community is interested, and will host town hall-type meetings in the future where members can participate.
For games and videos you need to have Microsoft’s Silverlight application to work for this site.