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Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
August 3, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
August 3, 2014

-This weekend the ESA released a new image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as seen from the Rosetta probe only 1000 km away. It shows the rough surface of the comet's double nucleus in amazing detail:

The photo was taken on Aug. 1st at 02:48 UTC by Rosetta's OSIRIS Narrow Angle Camera. The dark spot near image-center is an artifact from the onboard CCD.

This new view heightens anticipation for August 6th when Rosetta reaches the comet and goes into orbit around it. Then we will see the strange double-core from point-blank range, and researchers can start to pick touchdown sites for Philae, a lander that will descend to the comet's surface in November.

Astro Picture of the Day:
August 3, 2014

Source:
What's that approaching? Astronauts on board the International Space Station first saw it in early 2010 far in the distance. Soon it enlarged to become a dark silhouette. As it came even closer, the silhouette appeared to be a spaceship. Finally, the object revealed itself to be the Space Shuttle Endeavour, and it soon docked as expected with the Earth-orbiting space station. Pictured above, Endeavour was imaged near Earth's horizon as it approached, where several layers of the Earth's atmosphere were visible. Directly behind the shuttle is the mesosphere, which appears blue. The atmospheric layer that appears white is the stratosphere, while the orange layer is Earth's Troposphere. This shuttle mission, began with a dramatic night launch. Tasks completed during this shuttle's visit to the ISS included the delivery of the Tranquility Module which contained a cupola bay window complex that allows even better views of spaceships approaching and leaving the space station.