Friday, October 23, 2009

Slick NASA iPhone App Puts Space in Your Pocket by Betsy Mason

Can there ever be too many space photos? Here at Wired Science, we believe the answer is no, there can never be too many, or even enough, space photos. And now NASA is aiding our addiction by putting its huge collection of mind-blowing space photos in our pockets.

The new NASA iPhone app means that even when you are away from your computer (or telescope), you can gawk at nebulas and sunspots. NASA’s image-of-the-day and astronomy-photo-of-the-day collections are right there in searchable thumbnail grids. (We like the “nebula” and “mass ejection” searches.) Plus, you can e-mail or save them to your phone. It’s hard to think of a better way to get nerdy/sublime backgrounds than this app.

You can also watch videos from NASA TV of science updates, mission activity, rocket launches and other events. Another fun option is checking in on NASA’s various missions with status updates and live countdowns clocks. And if you need to know exactly where the International Space Station or space shuttle is right now, NASA has you covered with their orbit tracks overlain on Google Earth or a map with political boundaries, or both.

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