Spacebuzz astronomy & space news, Shuttle Discovery's last mission, Earliest painting showing Earth's curvature

[Nostromics Newsletter]

Nostromics Newsletter

Nostromics science gifts product news, educational resources & science tidbits

Nostromics Newsletter, 16 March 2011 - You are welcome to share this mail, see newsletter back issues

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Spacebuzz astronomy and space news

What are the latest hot astronomy and space news? Find them with Spacebuzz, an experimental tool that lists the most popular astronomy and space topics covered by astronomy blogs. Visit the site and click a topic to get a list of blog posts about it. A chart at the top shows the topic popularity over time. Further click the post titles you are interested in to get the full text.

Spacebuzz, created by Stuart Lowe, works by processing the posts of a large selection of blogs within the astronomy blogosphere, currently over 220 blogs. The most popular post tags are then "ranked on the basis of how current they are and how frequently they are used".

Space Shuttle Discovery's last mission

On March 9, 2011, Space Shuttle Discovery landed at Kennedy Space Center after its STS-133 mission, its last one. Discovery will never fly again into space. It will be put on display at a museum after an impressive career featuring a full year spent in space during 39 flights over 27 years, from 1984 to 2011.

The NASA Space Shuttle fleet retirement is planned for mid 2011 and Discovery was the first orbiter vehicle to do its last mission. Two more Shuttle flights are planned, one for Endeavour and one for Atlantis.

Our Retired Shuttle Discovery White T-Shirt celebrates the retirement of this spaceship. We have more Shuttle Discovery apparel and gifts in the Space section of Nostromics Store, which includes similar designs for Atlantis and Endeavour. More science gifts and products at Nostromics Store.

The earliest painting showing Earth's curvature

The spherical shape of the Earth has been known since antiquity, as Mauro Arpino of Nostromics tells in his free ebooks Hellenistic Astronomy and Le idee dell'astronomia. And the space age has made us familiar with our planet's curvature seen from space, as our Horn of Africa Mousepad shows. But when was Earth's curvature first artistically depicted?

The earliest known such painting is The Battle of Alexander at Issus, painted in 1529 by German artist Albrecht Altdorfer. It depicts one of the most celebrated victories of Alexander the Great. The horizon on the background of this landscape scene is gently but clearly curved.

-- Paolo Amoroso & Mauro Arpino (Nostromics), science educators - Milan, Italy

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Copyright (C) 2011 by Paolo Amoroso and Mauro Arpino