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Sky enthusiasts, start off summer by witnessing two extraordinary celestial events in June – the Full Strawberry Moon and the summer solstice. These events hold both historical and cultural significance.
The Full Strawberry Moon, depending on one’s time zone, will illuminate the night sky on June 3. Although the exact moment of full moon occurs when the Moon is opposite the Earth from the Sun, its full appearance will extend for about a day before and after the event. Remember to bring binoculars or a telescope to see all of the details of the Moon’s craters and other lunar features.
The name “Full Strawberry Moon” originated from the Algonquin tribes in the northeastern United States. This full moon occurred during the month of June when strawberries were ripening and ready to be harvested. The name “Strawberry Moon” has been passed down through generations and continues to be used by many today.
In this image, the Moon rises as a Metrorail car crosses the Potomac river in Washington 50 years to the day after astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin launched on Apollo 11, the first mission to land astronauts on the Moon, Tuesday, July 16, 2019.
Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
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The International Space Station orbits into a dawn 261 miles above a cloudy Pacific Ocean in this image from April 2022.
Not only does the station crew snap beauty shots of the planet we call home, the crew also conducts a variety of Earth and space science, including observations of the world's oceans.
NASA also has a variety of Earth-observing missions and even studies ocean worlds throughout our solar system.
Image Credit: NASA
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NASA will hold a media teleconference at 6 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Aug. 30, to discuss the flight test of the agency’s mega Moon rocket and uncrewed Orion spacecraft, currently at Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, ahead of the #Artemis I lunar mission.
NASA’s Artemis I flight test is the first integrated test of the agency’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and supporting ground systems. In this image, the SLS rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard is seen atop the mobile launcher at Launch Pad 39B on Monday, Aug. 29, 2022.
Image credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
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Astronomers have detected X-rays from Uranus for the first time, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This result may help scientists learn more about this enigmatic ice giant planet in our solar system.
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and has two sets of rings around its equator. The planet, which has four times the diameter of Earth, rotates on its side, making it different from all other planets in the solar system. Since Voyager 2 was the only spacecraft to ever fly by Uranus, astronomers currently rely on telescopes much closer to Earth, like Chandra and the Hubble Space Telescope, to learn about this distant and cold planet that is made up almost entirely of hydrogen and helium.
In the new study, researchers used Chandra observations taken in Uranus in 2002 and then again in 2017. They saw a clear detection of X-rays from the first observation, just analyzed recently, and a possible flare of X-rays in those obtained fifteen years later. The main graphic shows a Chandra X-ray image of Uranus from 2002 (in pink) superimposed on an optical image from the Keck-I Telescope obtained in a separate study in 2004. The latter shows the planet at approximately the same orientation as it was during the 2002 Chandra observations.
What could cause Uranus to emit X-rays? The answer: mainly the Sun. Astronomers have observed that both Jupiter and Saturn scatter X-ray light given off by the Sun, similar to how Earth’s atmosphere scatters the Sun’s light. While the authors of the new Uranus study initially expected that most of the X-rays detected would also be from scattering, there are tantalizing hints that at least one other source of X-rays is present. If further observations confirm this, it could have intriguing implications for understanding Uranus.
One possibility is that the rings of Uranus are producing X-rays themselves, which is the case for Saturn’s rings. Uranus is surrounded by charged particles such as electrons and protons in its nearby space environment. If these energetic particles collide with the rings, they could cause the rings to glow in X-rays. Another possibility is that at least some of the X-rays come from auroras on Uranus, a phenomenon that has previously been observed on this planet at other wavelengths.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXO/University College London/W. Dunn et al; Optical: W.M. Keck Observatory
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This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the spectacular galaxy NGC 2442, nicknamed the Meathook galaxy owing to its extremely asymmetrical and irregular shape.
This galaxy was host to a supernova explosion spotted in March 2015, known as SN 2015F, that was created by a white dwarf star. The white dwarf was part of a binary star system and siphoned mass from its companion, eventually becoming too greedy and taking on more than it could handle. This unbalanced the star and triggered runaway nuclear fusion that eventually led to an intensely violent supernova explosion. The supernova shone brightly for quite some time and was easily visible from Earth through even a small telescope until months later.
Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. Smartt et al.
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency #galaxy #supernova #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc
This week is the 50th anniversary of Apollo 15, which launched in 1971 from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center carrying astronauts David Scott, Alfred Worden, and James Irwin. The mission objectives were to explore the Hadley-Apennine region of the Moon, set up and activate lunar surface scientific experiments, make engineering evaluations of new Apollo equipment, conduct lunar orbital experiments, and photographic tasks. This was the first of three missions to employ use of the Lunar Roving Vehicle – which designed and developed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center – to enhance exploration and geological investigations on the Moon. In a series of special events beginning in July 2019, NASA began marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Program -- the historic effort that sent the first U.S. astronauts into orbit around the Moon in 1968, and landed a dozen astronauts on the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972. Today, Marshall is playing a vital role in the Artemis program by developing the Space Launch System, the backbone of NASA’s exploration plans and the only rocket capable of sending humans to the Moon and Mars. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating, and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological, and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage.
Image credit: NASA
#tbt #nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #marshall #space #history #marshallhistory #KSC #KennedySpaceCenter #nasamarshall #nasahistory #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #Apollo #Apollo15
This week in 1993, the space shuttle Endeavour, mission STS-61, landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center following a successful 10-day mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Here, astronauts Story Musgrave and Jeffrey Hoffman wrap up the final of five spacewalks to perform a variety of servicing tasks. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center was responsible for the overall design, development, and construction of the observatory. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating, and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological, and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage.
Image credit: NASA
#tbt #nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #marshall #space #history #marshallhistory #nasamarshall #nasahistory #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #spaceshuttle #spaceshuttleendeavour #endeavour #Hubble #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST
The Sun's rays begin to illuminate the Earth's atmosphere as the International Space Station flew into an orbital sunrise 261 miles above Texas, as seen in this image taken by astronaut Bob Hines.
Image Credit: NASA
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This image features the spiral galaxy NGC 691, imaged in fantastic detail using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). This galaxy is a member of the NGC 691 galaxy group named after it, which features a group of gravitationally bound galaxies that lie about 120 million light-years from Earth.
Hubble observes objects such as NGC 691 using a range of filters. Each filter only allows certain wavelengths of light to reach Hubble’s WFC3. The resulting filtered images are colored by specialists who make informed choices about which color best corresponds to the wavelengths of light from the astronomical object that are transmitted by each filter. Combining the colored images from individual filters creates a full-color image. This detailed process provides us with remarkably good insight into the nature and appearance of these objects.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Riess et al.; Acknowledgment: M. Zamani
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Located in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin), around 50 million light-years from Earth, the galaxy NGC 4535 is truly a stunning sight to behold. Despite the incredible quality of this image, taken from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, NGC 4535 has a hazy, somewhat ghostly, appearance when viewed from a smaller telescope. This led amateur astronomer Leland S. Copeland to nickname NGC 4535 the “Lost Galaxy” in the 1950s.
The bright colors in this image aren’t just beautiful to look at, as they actually tell us about the population of stars within this barred spiral galaxy. The bright blue-ish colors, seen nestled amongst NGC 4535’s long, spiral arms, indicate the presence of a greater number of younger and hotter stars. In contrast, the yellower tones of this galaxy’s bulge suggest that this central area is home to stars which are older and cooler.
This galaxy was studied as part of the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) survey, which aims to clarify many of the links between cold gas clouds, star formation, and the overall shape and other properties of galaxies. On January 11, 2021 the first release of the PHANGS-HST Collection was made publicly available.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team
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This is the first high-resolution, color image to be sent back by the Hazard Cameras on the underside of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover after its landing on Feb. 18, 2021.
Video from landing chronicles major milestones during the final minutes of its entry, descent, and landing on the Red Planet, as the spacecraft plummeted, parachuted, and rocketed toward the surface of Mars. A microphone on the rover also has provided the first audio recording of sounds from Mars.
From the moment of parachute inflation, the camera system covers the entirety of the descent process, showing some of the rover’s intense ride to Mars’ Jezero Crater. The footage from high-definition cameras aboard the spacecraft starts 7 miles (11 kilometers) above the surface, showing the supersonic deployment of the most massive parachute ever sent to another world, and ends with the rover’s touchdown in the crater.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#NASA #jpl #jetpropulsionlaboratory #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #mars #moontomars #planet #space #CountdownToMars
Galaxy clusters are the largest objects in the universe held together by gravity. They contain enormous amounts of superheated gas, with temperatures of tens of millions of degrees, which glows brightly in X-rays, and can be observed across millions of light years between the galaxies. This image of the Abell 2744 galaxy cluster combines X-rays from Chandra (diffuse blue emission) with optical light data from Hubble (red, green, and blue).
Image credit: NASA/CXC; Optical: NASA/STScI
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #chandraxrayobservatory #ChandraXRay #cxo #chandra #astronomy #space #astrophysics #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #solarsystemandbeyond #galaxy #galaxycluster #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #GSFC #Hubble #HST #HubbleSpaceTelescope
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter captured this shot as it hovered over the Martian surface on April 19, 2021, during the first instance of powered, controlled flight on another planet. It used its navigation camera, which autonomously tracks the ground during flight.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #rocket space #KSC #KennedySpaceCenter #Perserverance #Mars2020Rover #Mars #Ingenuity #planet #MarsHelicopter #CountdownToMars #RedPlanet
New findings from NASA’s Juno probe orbiting Jupiter provide a fuller picture of how the planet’s distinctive and colorful atmospheric features offer clues about the unseen processes below its clouds. The results highlight the inner workings of the belts and zones of clouds encircling Jupiter, as well as its polar cyclones and even the Great Red Spot.
Jupiter's banded appearance is created by the cloud-forming weather layer. This composite image shows views of Jupiter in infrared and visible light taken by the Gemini North telescope and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
Credits: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/NASA/ESA, M.H. Wong and I. de Pater (UC Berkeley) et al.
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #jpl #jetpropulsionlaboratory #nasamarshall #MSFC #solarsystem #juno #jupiter #space #astronomy #nasajuno #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency
The Moon begins setting below Earth's horizon the atmosphere refracting, or bending, its light making it appear flatter in this photograph taken from the International Space Station as it orbited 262 miles above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Namibia.
Image Credit: NASA
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Every winter, a layer of carbon dioxide frost (dry ice) forms on the surface of Mars. At its greatest extent in mid-winter, this frost reaches from the poles down to the middle latitudes, until it is too warm and sunny to persist. In most places this is around 50 degrees latitude, similar to the latitude of southern Canada on Earth.
However, small patches of dry ice are found closer to the equator on pole-facing slopes, which are colder because they receive less sunlight. This image was taken in the middle of winter in Mars' Southern Hemisphere, and shows a crater near 37 degrees south latitude. The south-facing slope has patchy bright frost, blue in enhanced color. This frost occurs in and around the many gullies on the slope, and in other images, has caused flows in the gullies.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
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The history-making rotorcraft has recently been negotiating some of the most hazardous terrain it’s encountered on the Red Planet.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has completed its 50th flight on Mars. The first aircraft on another world reached the half-century mark on April 13, traveling over 1,057.09 feet (322.2 meters) in 145.7 seconds. The helicopter also achieved a new altitude record of 59 feet (18 meters) before alighting near the half-mile-wide (800-meter-wide) “Belva Crater.”
This image of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was taken at “Airfield D” by the Mastcam-Z instrument on the Perseverance rover on June 15, 2021, the 114th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The rotorcraft completed its 50th flight on April 13, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #rocket space #KSC #KennedySpaceCenter #Perserverance #Mars2020Rover #Mars #Ingenuity #planet #MarsHelicopter #CountdownToMars #RedPlanet
This week in 1993, space shuttle Endeavour, mission STS-57, launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on a nine-day mission. STS-57 marked the first flight of Spacehab, a pressurized laboratory designed to more than double pressurized workspace for crew-tended experiments. Twenty-two experiments were flown, covering materials and life sciences and wastewater recycling experiments for space stations. Today, the Payload Operations Integration Center at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center serves as “science central” for the International Space Station, working 24/7, 365 days a year in support of the orbiting laboratory’s science experiments. After 20 years of continuous human presence, the space station remains the sole space-based proving ground and stepping stone toward achieving the goals of the Artemis program. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating, and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological, and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage.
Image credit: NASA
#tbt #nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #marshall #space #history #marshallhistory #STS57 #SpaceShuttleEndeavour #endeavour #nasamarshall #nasahistory #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #ISS
During its 40th close pass by Jupiter, our Juno spacecraft saw Ganymede cast a large, dark spot on the planet on Feb. 25, 2022.
JunoCam captured this image from very close to Jupiter, making Ganymede’s shadow appear especially large. At the time the raw image was taken, the Juno spacecraft was about 44,000 miles (71,000 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops and 15 times closer to the planet than Ganymede.
An observer at Jupiter’s cloud tops within the oval shadow would experience a total eclipse of the Sun. Total eclipses are more common on Jupiter than Earth for several reasons: Jupiter has four major moons (Ganymede, Io, Callisto, and Europa) that often pass between Jupiter and the Sun, and since Jupiter’s moons orbit in a plane close to Jupiter’s orbital plane, the moon shadows are often cast upon the planet.
Image Credit: Data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; Image processing: Thomas Thomopoulos © CC BY
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #jpl #jetpropulsionlaboratory #nasamarshall #juno #nasajuno #ganymede
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope imaged these two overlapping spiral galaxies named SDSS J115331 and LEDA 2073461, which lie more than a billion light-years from Earth. Despite appearing to collide in this image, the alignment of the two galaxies is likely just by chance – the two are not actually interacting. While these two galaxies might simply be ships that pass in the night, Hubble has captured a dazzling array of other, truly interacting galaxies.
This image is one of many Hubble observations delving into highlights of the Galaxy Zoo project. Originally established in 2007, Galaxy Zoo and its successors are massive citizen science projects that crowdsource galaxy classifications from a pool of hundreds of thousands of volunteers. These volunteers classify galaxies imaged by robotic telescopes and are often the first to ever set eyes on an astronomical object.
Over the course of the original Galaxy Zoo project, volunteers discovered a menagerie of weird and wonderful galaxies such as unusual three-armed spiral galaxies and colliding ring galaxies. The astronomers coordinating the project applied for Hubble time to observe the most unusual inhabitants of the Galaxy Zoo – but true to the project’s crowdsourced roots, the list of targets was chosen by a public vote.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Keel
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This picture of the waning gibbous Moon was taken on Jan 29, 2021, the day after its full Moon phase as the International Space Station orbited 264 miles above China near the Mongolian border. Humanity's only orbital laboratory, the space station, orbits the Earth about 90 minutes or about 16 times every 24 hours.
Image Credit: NASA
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At around 60 million light-years from Earth, the Great Barred Spiral Galaxy, NGC 1365, is captured beautifully in this image by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Located in the constellation of Fornax (the Furnace), the blue and fiery orange swirls show us where stars have just formed and the dusty sites of future stellar nurseries.
At the outer edges of the image, enormous star-forming regions within NGC 1365 can be seen. The bright, light-blue regions indicate the presence of hundreds of baby stars that formed from coalescing gas and dust within the galaxy's outer arms.
This Hubble image was captured as part of a joint survey with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. The survey will help scientists understand how the diversity of galaxy environments observed in the nearby universe, including NGC 1365 and other galaxies such as NGC 2835 and NGC 2775, influence the formation of stars and star clusters. Expected to image over 100,000 gas clouds and star-forming regions beyond our Milky Way, the PHANGS survey is expected to uncover and clarify many of the links between cold gas clouds, star formation, and the overall shape and morphology of galaxies.
Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team; Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency #galaxy
The Full Moon is pictured setting below Earth's horizon from the International Space Station as it orbited 262 miles above the Pacific Ocean. At the time of this photograph the Orion vehicle on the Artemis I mission was about 207,200 miles from Earth and 180,400 miles from the Moon, cruising at 1,415 mph.
Image Credit: NASA
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This week in 1961, NASA launched the first test flight of the Saturn I rocket. The uncrewed suborbital flight carried a dummy upper stage filled with water to an altitude of 84.8 mi. The flight accomplished its objective of verifying the aerodynamical and structural design of the Saturn I booster. The rocket stood 162 feet tall, weighed 460 tons, and employed eight H-1 engines. Today, Marshall is playing a vital role in the Artemis program by developing the Space Launch System, the backbone of NASA’s exploration plans and the only rocket capable of sending humans to the Moon and Mars. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating, and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological, and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage.
Image credit: NASA
#tbt #nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #marshall #space #history #marshallhistory #nasamarshall #nasahistory #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #Apollo #SaturnI #Saturnrocket #Saturn #SA-1
Two 2004 Chandra observations of the giant elliptical galaxy M87 were combined to make this long exposure image. A central jet is surrounded by nearby bright arcs and dark cavities in the multimillion degree Celsius atmosphere of M87. Much further out, at a distance of about fifty thousand light years from the galaxy's center, faint rings can be seen and two spectacular plumes extend beyond the rings. These features, together with radio observations, are dramatic evidence that repetitive outbursts from the central supermassive black hole have been affecting the entire galaxy for a hundred million years or more. The faint horizontal streaks are instrumental artifacts that occur for bright sources.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/W. Forman et al.
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #ChandraX-RayObservatory #cxo #galaxy
In an enormous new image, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals never-before-seen details of galaxy group “Stephan’s Quintet.” The close proximity of Stephan’s Quintet gives astronomers a ringside seat to galactic mergers, interactions. Webb’s new image shows in rare detail how interacting galaxies trigger star formation in each other and how gas in galaxies is being disturbed. The image also shows outflows driven by a black hole in Stephan’s Quintet in a level of detail never seen before. Tight galaxy groups like this may have been more common in the early universe when superheated, infalling material may have fueled very energetic black holes.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
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This image shows two of Jupiter's large rotating storms, captured by Juno’s visible-light imager, JunoCam, on Juno’s 38th perijove pass, on Nov. 29, 2021.
This image was acquired at 50 degrees 5 minutes north latitude, at an altitude of 3,815 miles (6,140 kilometers). Atmospheric details as small as 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) can be discerned in the image. Bright “pop-up” clouds are visible above the lower storm, casting shadows on the cloud bank below. Although the pop-up clouds appear small in comparison to the large storm below, such clouds are typically 31 miles (50 kilometers) across.
Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill processed the image to enhance the color and contrast, using raw JunoCam data
JunoCam's raw images are available for the public to peruse and process into image products at missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing. More information about NASA citizen science can be found at science.nasa.gov/citizenscience and www.nasa.gov/solve/opportunities/citizenscience.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; Image processing: Kevin M. Gill CC BY--
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This image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope features the Grand Design Spiral, NGC 3631, located some 53 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major. The “arms” of grand design spirals appear to wind around and into the galaxy’s nucleus.
Close inspection of NGC 3631’s grand spiral arms reveals dark dust lanes and bright star-forming regions along the inner part of the spiral arms. Star formation in spirals is similar to a traffic jam on the interstate. Like cars on the highway, slower moving matter in the spiral’s disk creates a bottleneck, concentrating star-forming gas and dust along the inner part of their spiral arms. This traffic jam of matter can get so dense that it gravitationally collapses, creating new stars (here seen in bright blue-white).
The image uses data collected from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. The color blue represents visible wavelengths of blue light, and the color orange represents infrared light.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Filippenko (University of California - Berkeley), and D. Sand (University of Arizona); Image Processing: G. Kober (NASA Goddard/Catholic University of America)
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The Parinacota and Pomerape stratovolcanoes (top to bottom) are pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited 263 miles above the South American nation of Chile. Parinacota is a dormant volcano on the Chile-Bolivia border and its peak is about 20,800 feet. Pomerape, last active over 100,000 years ago, is also on the Chile- Bolivia border with an elevation of about 20,600 feet. At top left, is Chungará Lake in northern Chile which rests about 14,800 feet above sea level.
Image credit: NASA
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Christmas Eve, 1968. As one of the most turbulent, tragic years in American history drew to a close, millions around the world were watching and listening as the Apollo 8 astronauts - Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders - became the first humans to orbit another world. As their command module floated above the lunar surface, the astronauts beamed back images of the moon and Earth and took turns reading from the book of Genesis, closing with a wish for everyone "on the good Earth."
Image credit: NASA
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During its 36th low pass over Jupiter, NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured this view of striking cloud bands and swirls in the giant planet’s mid-southern latitudes. The dark, circular vortex near the center of the image is a cyclone that spans roughly 250 miles (about 400 kilometers). The color at its center is likely to be the result of descending winds that cleared out upper-level clouds, revealing darker material below.
Citizen scientist Brian Swift used a raw JunoCam image digitally projected onto a sphere to create this view. It has been rotated so that north is up. The original image was taken on Sept. 2, 2021, at 4:09 p.m. PDT (7:09 p.m. EDT). At the time, the spacecraft was about 16,800 miles (about 27,000 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops, at a latitude of about 31 degrees south.
JunoCam's raw images are available for the public to peruse and process into image products at missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing. More information about NASA citizen science can be found a science.nasa.gov/citizenscience and www.nasa.gov/solve/opportunities/citizenscience.
More information about Juno is at www.nasa.gov/juno and missionjuno.swri.edu/. For more about this finding and other science results, see www.missionjuno.swri.edu/science-findings/.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; Image processing by Brian Swift © CC BY--
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Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's longest-reigning monarch, died on Sept. 8, 2022 at age 96. Her reign spanned all of spaceflight, predating both Sputnik and Explorer 1.
As NASA joins the planet in marking her passing, we are moved by the curiosity The Queen showed our explorers over the years.
In this photo, Queen Elizabeth II greets employees on her walk from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center mission control to a reception in the center’s main auditorium, Tuesday, May 8, 2007, in Greenbelt, Md. Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, visited the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center as one of the last stops on their six-day United States visit.
Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
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This week in 1995, space shuttle Atlantis, mission STS-71, launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on the first space shuttle-Mir docking. STS-71 also marked the 100th U.S. human space launch conducted from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Here, Atlantis prepares to dock with Russia’s Mir space station. Today, the Payload Operations Integration Center at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center serves as “science central” for the International Space Station, working 24/7, 365 days a year in support of the orbiting laboratory’s science experiments. After 20 years of continuous human presence, the space station remains the sole space-based proving ground and stepping stone toward achieving the goals of the Artemis program. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating, and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological, and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage.
Image credit: NASA
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The gas giant orbiter has flown over 510 million miles and also documented close encounters with three of Jupiter’s four largest moons.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft will fly past Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io on Tuesday, May 16, and then the gas giant itself soon after. The flyby of the Jovian moon will be the closest to date, at an altitude of about 22,060 miles (35,500 kilometers). Now in the third year of its extended mission to investigate the interior of Jupiter, the solar-powered spacecraft will also explore the ring system where some of the gas giant’s inner moons reside.
To date, Juno has performed 50 flybys of Jupiter and also collected data during close encounters with three of the four Galilean moons – the icy worlds Europa and Ganymede, and fiery Io.
This JunoCam image of the Jovian moon Io was collected during Juno’s flyby of the moon on March 1, 2023. At the time of closest approach, Juno was about 32,000 miles (51,500 kilometers) away from Io.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Image processing: Kevin M. Gill (CC BY)
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Part of Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins’ triumphant return to his adopted hometown of New Orleans included a visit to the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF). He is seen here at MAF, possibly in a cafeteria, employee lounge or something similar, either passing or serving a steaming cup of coffee to a patron, employee or local VIP.
Note the preponderance of Boeing-related photographs on the walls, documenting the assembly of the Saturn V S-IC (first) stage. At the time, Boeing, the manufacturer of the S-IC stage; and Chrysler, manufacturer of the S-IB first stage, jointly occupied the MAF. Even the MSFC model shop-produced Saturn V on the counter bears the Boeing name/logo. However, the team spirit of the Apollo endeavor is reflected in the diversity of locations/sites on the placards associated with the time zones, to include Ogden, UT & Bethpage, NY…even Cocoa Beach.
Additionally, the ever-popular General Electric Apollo mission profile poster can be seen on the wall to the far right, partially obscured by the dapper gentleman sporting a “Blue Ribbon”? Committee ribbon on his jacket. Note that it’s the 1966 “APOLLO DESIGN REFERENCE MISSION IIA” version, not to be confused with the original? 1965 “APOLLO DESIGN REFERENCE MISSION” version, nor that year’s “APOLLO INITIAL LUNAR LANDING MISSION” release. There are subtle variations in the graphics between the latter two, both substantially different from the 1965 printing. I wonder if there was a version prior to 1965?
Finally, the expression on the lady’s face leads me to believe she’s providing security, her handbag/purse possibly concealing a bunch of rolled coins.
Was Collins left-handed? Mr. Internet says ‘yes’. I did not know.
An excellent & pertinent read:
www.wwltv.com/article/news/local/apollo-11-astronaut-mich...
Credit: WWLTV (4WWL) online website
“Poster” reading:
www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum27/HTML/004328.html
Credit: collectSPACE website
This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of IC 4271, also known as Arp 40, is a curious pair of spiral galaxies some 800 million light-years away. The smaller galaxy is superimposed on the larger one, which is a type of active galaxy called a Seyfert galaxy. Seyfert galaxies are named for astronomer Carl K. Seyfert who, in 1943, published a paper about spiral galaxies with very bright emission lines. Today we know that about 10% of all galaxies may be Seyfert galaxies. They belong to the class of “active galaxies” – galaxies that have supermassive black holes at their centers accreting material, which releases vast amounts of radiation. The active cores of Seyfert galaxies are at their brightest when observed in light outside the visible spectrum.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and B. Holwerda (University of Louisville Research Foundation, Inc.); Image processing: G. Kober (NASA Goddard/Catholic University of America)
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JunoCam took this image of Jupiter’s northernmost cyclone (visible to the right along the bottom edge of image) on Sept. 29, 2022.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Image processing: Navaneeth Krishnan S CC BY 3.0
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In this image taken on Oct. 30, 2021, an aurora dimly intersected with Earth's airglow as the International Space Station flew into an orbital sunrise 264 miles above the Pacific Ocean before crossing over Canada.
Image Credit: NASA
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In honor of Memorial Day, we honor all the brave men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country. Here Astronaut David R. Scott, commander, gives a military salute while standing beside the deployed United States flag during the Apollo 15 lunar surface extravehicular activity (EVA).
Image credit: NASA
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The waxing gibbous Moon is pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited 260 miles above the Pacific Ocean south of Alaska's Aleutian Islands.
Image Credit: NASA
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The first picture NASA's Juno spacecraft took as it flew by Jupiter's ice-encrusted moon Europa has arrived on Earth. Revealing surface features in a region near the moon's equator called Annwn Regio, the image was captured during the solar-powered spacecraft's closest approach, on Thursday, Sept. 29, at 2:36 a.m. PDT (5:36 a.m. EDT), at a distance of about 219 miles (352 kilometers).
Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SWRI/MSSS
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(From left) Culmer's Cay, Glass Cay, Tommy Young's Cay, Davy Cay, Hog Cay, and Green Turtle Cay—islands off the mainland Great Abaco in the Bahamas— appear like jigsaw puzzle pieces as the bright teals and blues of the Atlantic Ocean flow and swirl between the land. The International Space Station orbited 259 miles above as this photograph was taken.
Image Credit: NASA
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A sea of dark dunes, sculpted by the wind into long lines, surrounds Mars' northern polar cap and covers an area as big as Texas. In this false-color image, areas with cooler temperatures are recorded in bluer tints, while warmer features are depicted in yellows and oranges. Thus, the dark, sun-warmed dunes glow with a golden color. This image covers an area 19 miles (30 kilometers) wide.
This scene combines images taken during the period from December 2002 to November 2004 by the Thermal Emission Imaging System instrument on the Mars Odyssey orbiter. It is part of a special set of images marking the 20th anniversary of Odyssey, the longest-working Mars spacecraft in history. The pictured location on Mars is 80.3 degrees north latitude, 172.1 degrees east longitude.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
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The interaction of two doomed stars has created this spectacular ring adorned with bright clumps of gas -– a diamond necklace of cosmic proportions. Fittingly known as the “Necklace Nebula,” this planetary nebula is located 15,000 light-years away from Earth in the small, dim constellation of Sagitta (the Arrow).
A pair of tightly orbiting Sun-like stars produced the Necklace Nebula, which also goes by the less glamorous name of PN G054.203.4. Roughly 10,000 years ago, one of the aging stars expanded and engulfed its smaller companion, creating something astronomers call a “common envelope.” The smaller star continued to orbit inside its larger companion, increasing the bloated giant’s rotation rate until large parts of it spun outwards into space. This escaping ring of debris formed the Necklace Nebula, with particularly dense clumps of gas forming the bright “diamonds” around the ring.
The pair of stars which created the Necklace Nebula remain so close together – separated by only several million miles – that they appear as a single bright dot in the center of this image. Despite their close encounter, the stars are still furiously whirling around each other, completing an orbit in just over a day.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, K. Noll
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency
The waxing gibbous Moon is pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited 271 miles above the Indian Ocean southwest of Australia's island state of Tasmania.
Image Credit: NASA
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This week in 1973, the uncrewed Skylab was launched aboard a modified Saturn V rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The initial concept for the orbital workshop was devised at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. The center also managed the development of Skylab hardware and experiments. Over the course of its human occupation from May 25, 1973 to February 8, 1974, three crews visited Skylab and carried out 270 scientific and technical investigations and logged a combined 171 days in orbit. Today, the Payload Operations Integration Center at Marshall serves as "science central" for the International Space Station, working 24/7, 365 days a year in support of the orbiting laboratory's science experiments. After 20 years of continuous human presence, the space station remains the sole space-based proving ground and stepping stone toward achieving the goals of the Artemis program. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating, and preserving NASA's remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological, and scientific aspects of NASA's activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA's history, visit the Marshall History Program's webpage.
Image credit: NASA
#tbt #nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #marshall #space #history #marshallhistory #nasamarshall #nasahistory #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #Skylab #SaturnV
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter can be seen on Mars as viewed by the Perseverance rover’s rear Hazard Camera on April 4, 2021, the 44th Martian day, or sol of the mission.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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How massive can a normal star be? Estimates made from distance, brightness and standard solar models had given one star in the open cluster Pismis 24 over 200 times the mass of our Sun, making it one of the most massive stars known. This star is the brightest object located just above the gas front in the featured image. Close inspection of images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, however, have shown that Pismis 24-1 derives its brilliant luminosity not from a single star but from three at least. Component stars would still remain near 100 solar masses, making them among the more massive stars currently on record. Toward the bottom of the image, stars are still forming in the associated emission nebula NGC 6357. Appearing perhaps like a Gothic cathedral, energetic stars near the center appear to be breaking out and illuminating a spectacular cocoon.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA and Jesús Maíz Apellániz (IAA, Spain); Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)
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