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Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found compelling evidence of a planet forming 7.5 billion miles away from its star, a finding that may challenge current theories about planet formation.
Of the almost 900 planets outside our solar system that have been confirmed to date, this is the first to be found at such a great distance from its star. The suspected planet is orbiting the diminutive red dwarf TW Hydrae, a popular astronomy target located 176 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Hydra the Sea Serpent.
Read more: 1.usa.gov/196B6lZ
NASA, ESA, J. Debes (STScI), H. Jang-Condell (University of Wyoming), A. Weinberger (Carnegie Institution of Washington), A. Roberge (Goddard Space Flight Center), G. Schneider (University of Arizona/Steward Observatory), and A. Feild (STScI/AURA)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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The X-ray Telescope on the Japanese/NASA mission Hinode has been observing the full Sun, nearly continuously, for an extended period. In this movie significant small-scale dynamic events can be observed as well as the slow maturation of many active regions now visible on the solar disk.
Hinode is joint JAXA/NASA mission to study the connections of the Sun's surface magnetism, primarily in and around sunspots. Marshall Space Flight Center manages the mission for NASA HQ.
Image credit: JAXA/Hinode
Original image: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hinode/flare_120319.html
Read more about Hinode:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hinode/index.html
p.s. You can see all of our Hinode photos in the Hinode Group in Flickr at: www.flickr.com/photos/28634332@N05/sets/72157606297030945/
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
NASA video acquired August 1 - 2, 2010.
Spectacular aurora lit the night sky from Europe to North America on August 3, 2010, thanks to a 12-hour long geomagnetic storm. The storm occurred as large clouds of charged particles from the Sun interacted with the magnetic field around Earth. As the particles zoomed along the magnetic field, they collided with and energized oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere. When the energized atoms relaxed, they emitted light, providing a brilliant show.
To read more go to: earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=45072
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe.
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NASA images courtesy STEREO. Caption by Holli Riebeek.
Instrument: STEREO
Montebello, CA
Stopped by NASA and met with one of the managers there who was nice enough to show us around real quick. A lot has changed here. From what we were told, almost all the old RLs were retired and replaced. Only one 310 RL remains. Not sure how many new FLs came in - we got mixed numbers but it sounds like the oldies are finally going. They also have a ton of trucks here for parts (assuming that's what the County and LB trucks are).
Thanks to Phillip for the quick tour!
Hi, it's been awhile between uploads. NASA has some mystery news about a discovery they've made on Mars. They're about to reveal it in a few hours (Sept 27th, 2015 at 11:30am EDT).
It's got me excited enough to break out the toys once more!
Canon 5DMKIII 100mm LII @f5.6
At The HSV airport in Huntsville, Alabama. The Aero Spacelines Super Guppy is a large, wide-bodied cargo aircraft that is used for hauling outsize cargo components and is used by NASA to transport large parts of rockets and other space related items. www.nasa.gov/specials/jsc-aircraft-ops/guppy.html
Montebello, CA
The yard looks really clean right now with all the construction done. Some odd and unique sightings include the GMC RL, 2 ex-Ontario Amreps with fire damage, and county trucks. Also didn't know they had 2 WXLL RLs.
The Milky Way is massively bright on this cold, clear, altiplano night. At 4,500 meters its reflection in a river, a volcanic peak on the distant horizon, is captured in this stitched panorama under naturally dark skies of the northern Chilean highlands near San Pedro de Atacama. Along the Solar System's ecliptic plane, the band of Zodiacal light also stands out, extending above the Milky Way toward the upper left. In the scene from late April, brilliant Mars, Saturn, and Antares form a bright celestial triangle where ecliptic meets the center of the Milky Way. Left of the triangle, the large purple-red emission nebula Sharpless 2-27, more than twenty Moon diameters wide is centered around star Zeta Ophiuchi. via NASA ift.tt/29n4bzm
Triggered by the impact of a coronal mass ejection on New Year's eve, a moderate geomagnetic storm brought a celebration of sky lights to planet Earth's high latitudes yesterday. In this New Year's nightscape, the shimmering reddish curtains of aurora australis along a southern horizon are captured over Morgiana, SW Victoria, Australia. Of course, more permanent jewels of the southern skies are on the scene. The southern Milky Way, Alpha and Beta Centauri, and bright stars of the Southern Cross are on the left. In silhouette, branches of the large foreground tree stretch across the Milky Way's satellite galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic clouds. The bright star framed near the tips of tree branches at right is Achernar. Alpha star of the constellation Eridanus, Achernar is sometimes known as the southern end of the river. via NASA ift.tt/1mvpULk
Maryland's Sen. Barbara Mikulski greeted employees at NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, during a packed town hall meeting
Jan. 6. She discussed her history with Goddard and appropriations for NASA
in 2016.
Read more: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/maryland-sen-barbara-mi...
Credit: NASA/Goddard/Rebecca Roth
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Crediti: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS - Processing: Elisabetta Bonora & Marco Faccin / aliveuniverse.today
The two remaining NASA switchers cross the FEC drawbridge in Jacksonville, Fl, before heading further north, no longer under NASA reporting marks or ownership. NASA terminated all rail operations because the railroad was so underused that it became unnecessary.
Caption: The image behind NASA technologist Jacob Englander shows the trajectory to Odysseus, a Trojan asteroid. Englander used his new orbit-determination tool to create the design (not associated with any mission or mission proposal) because a colleague suggested Odysseus was a difficult-to-reach target.
Image
Credit: NASA/Goddard/Pat Izzo
Traveling to remote locations sometimes involves navigating through stop-and-go traffic, traversing long stretches of highway and maneuvering sharp turns and steep hills. The same can be said for guiding spacecraft to far-flung destinations in space. It isn’t always a straight shot.
A NASA technologist has developed a fully automated tool that gives mission planners a preliminary set of detailed directions for efficiently steering a spacecraft to hard-to-reach interplanetary destinations, such as Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, and most comets and asteroids.
The tool, the Evolutionary Mission Trajectory Generator “offers a paradigm shift from what we normally do,” said Jacob Englander, a technologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who devised a concept for his computer-based tool while a doctorate student at the University of Illinois in Champaign. “EMTG will be used, and already is being used, to develop trajectories for proposed Goddard missions that cannot be designed using any other current tool.”
Read more: 1.usa.gov/16EhP9m
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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There are now two active tropical cyclones in the Atlantic and NASA is generating satellite imagery to monitor their march westward. Tropical Storm Issac is already bringing rainfall to the Lesser Antilles today, Aug. 22, Tropical Depression 10 formed in the eastern Atlantic, and another low fizzled in the western Gulf of Mexico.
Tropical Storm Isaac formed late on Aug. 21 from Tropical Depression 9 and immediately caused warnings and watches. Tropical Depression 10 formed during the morning hours on Aug. 22 in the central Atlantic, east of Isaac and appears to be following the tropical storm on NOAA's GOES-13 satellite imagery. NOAA's GOES-13 satellite captured an image of Tropical Storm Isaac over the Lesser Antilles, and newborn Tropical Depression 10 trailing behind on Aug. 22 at 1445 UTC (10:45 a.m. EDT). The image was created by the NASA GOES Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Both storms are showing good circulation.
The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument onboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of Tropical Storm Isaac on Aug. 22 at 2:05 a.m. EDT, as it was bringing heavy rainfall to the Lesser Antilles. Strong thunderstorms appeared in a band of thunderstorms in Isaac's western quadrant that had cloud top temperatures as cold as -63F (-52C).
Watches and Warnings in Effect
The National Hurricane Center has posted Warnings and Watches for Tropical Storm Issac. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Martinique, Dominica, Guadeloupe and the surrounding islands, and St. Martin, St. Kitts, Nevis, Antigua, Barbuda, Montserrat, and Anguilla, Saba, St. Eustatius, and St. Maarten, British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Vieques, Culebra, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
There are also hurricane and tropical storm watches in effect. A Hurricane Watch is in effect for Puerto Rico, Vieques, Culebra, and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands; the south coast of the Dominican Republic from Isla Saona westward to the Haiti-Domenican Republic southern border. A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for the north coast of the Dominican Republic from the Haiti-Dominican Republic northern border eastward to north of Isla Saona.
Tropical Storm Isaac
At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC) on Aug. 22, Tropical Storm Isaac had maximum sustained winds near 45 mph (75 kmh), and the NHC said that strengthening is forecast. Isaac could become a hurricane by Thursday or Thursday night, Aug. 23. The center of Isaac was about 140 miles (230 km) east of Guadaloupe, near latitude 15.9 north and longitude 59.3 west. Isaac is moving westward near 21 mph (33 kmh) is expected to stay on this track over the next couple of days.
The NHC said, "On the forecast track the center of Isaac should move through the Leeward Islands this evening and pass near or south of the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on Thursday (Aug. 23) and approach the Dominican Republic Thursday night and Friday (Aug. 24).
Tropical Depression 10 Forms
The tenth tropical depression seemed to take a cue from Issac, because soon after tropical depression 9 strengthened into Isaac, Tropical Depression 10 (TD10) was born.
The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument onboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of the western half of Tropical Depression 10 on Aug. 22 at 12:23 a.m. EDT, hours before it was named a depression. Scattered strong thunderstorms appeared in the western and northern quadrants of the storm, indicating strong uplift in the storm, that would later lead to its consolidation and strengthening into a depression.
TD10 came into being on Aug. 22 at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC) in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. It was located about 860 miles (1,385 km) west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands, near 12.4 North latitude and 36.3 West longitude. TD10 is moving toward the west-northwest near 16 mph (26 kmh) and this general motion is expected to continue during the next couple of days. TD10 has maximum sustained winds near 35 mph (55 kmh), and the National Hurricane Center expects TD10 to become a tropical storm Joyce.
System 95L Fizzles Out
The third low pressure area that forecasters had been watching for possible development has fizzled out, now that it moved inland in northeastern Mexico. The NHC gives it a "near zero percent" chance of development now.
Rob Gutro
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Credit: NOAA/NASA GOES Project
NASA image use policy.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Is there anything interesting to see in the direction opposite the Sun? One night last month, there were quite a few things. First, the red-glowing orb on the lower right of the featured image is the full moon, darkened and reddened because it has entered Earth's shadow. Beyond Earth's cone of darkness are backscattering dust particles orbiting the Sun that standout with a diffuse glow called the gegenschein, visible as a faint band rising from the central horizon and passing behind the Moon. A nearly horizontal stripe of green airglow is also discernable just above the horizon, partly blocked by blowing orange sand. Visible in the distant sky as the blue dot near the top of the image is the star Sirius, while the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy arches up on the image left and down again on the right. The fuzzy light patches just left of center are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Red emission nebulas too numerous to mention are scattered about the sky, but are labelled in a companion annotated image. In the image foreground is the desolate Deadvlei region of the Namib-Naukluft National Park in Namibia, featuring the astrophotographer himself surveying a land and sky so amazing that he described it as one of the top experiences of his life. via NASA ift.tt/1jod2FX
You don't have to be at Monument Valley to see the Milky Way arch across the sky like this -- but it helps. Only at Monument Valley USA would you see a picturesque foreground that includes these iconic rock peaks called buttes. Buttes are composed of hard rock left behind after water has eroded away the surrounding soft rock. In the featured image taken in 2012, the closest butte on the left and the butte to its right are known as the Mittens, while Merrick Butte can be seen just further to the right. High overhead stretches a band of diffuse light that is the central disk of our spiral Milky Way Galaxy. The band of the Milky Way can be spotted by almost anyone on almost any clear night when far enough from a city and surrounding bright lights. via NASA ift.tt/1RH0yUk
Currently on the opposite side of the pond spending sometime at the Jedi Transition and have been fortunate enough to catch this F-15D of NASA through the Canyon 2 days in a row,seems like this has been the first time this jet has been photographed in the Jedi.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, played a critical role in the test flight of the #Orion spacecraft on Dec. 5, 2014. Goddard's Networks Integration Center, pictured here, coordinated the communications support for both the Orion vehicle and the Delta IV rocket, ensuring complete communications coverage through NASA's Space Network and Tracking and Data Relay Satellite.
The Orion spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 37 in Florida at 7:05 a.m. EST. The Orion capsule splashed down about four and a half hours later, at 11:29 a.m. EST, about 600 miles off the coast of San Diego, California. While no humans were aboard Orion for this test flight, in the future, Orion will allow humans to travel deeper in to space than ever before, including an asteroid and Mars.
Credit: NASA/Goddard/Amber Jacobson
Credit: NASA/Goddard/Amber Jacobson
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Is there anything interesting to see in the direction opposite the Sun? One night last month, there were quite a few things. First, the red-glowing orb on the lower right of the featured image is the full moon, darkened and reddened because it has entered Earth's shadow. Beyond Earth's cone of darkness are backscattering dust particles orbiting the Sun that standout with a diffuse glow called the gegenschein, visible as a faint band rising from the central horizon and passing behind the Moon. A nearly horizontal stripe of green airglow is also discernable just above the horizon, partly blocked by blowing orange sand. Visible in the distant sky as the blue dot near the top of the image is the star Sirius, while the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy arches up on the image left and down again on the right. The fuzzy light patches just left of center are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Red emission nebulas too numerous to mention are scattered about the sky, but are labelled in a companion annotated image. In the image foreground is the desolate Deadvlei region of the Namib-Naukluft National Park in Namibia, featuring the astrophotographer himself surveying a land and sky so amazing that he described it as one of the top experiences of his life. via NASA ift.tt/1jod2FX
NASA image release March 20, 2012
Studies using X-ray and ultraviolet observations from NASA's Swift satellite provide new insights into the elusive origins of an important class of exploding star called Type Ia supernovae.
Three types of systems, illustrated here, may host Type Ia supernovae. The first two panels depict a white dwarf in a binary system accumulating matter transferred from a red supergiant companion many times the sun's mass (left) or similar to the sun (middle). The transferred matter is thought to accumulate on the white dwarf and ultimately cause it to explode. Swift data on dozens of supernovae essentially eliminate the first model. Mounting evidence suggests that some Type Ia supernovae occur when binary white dwarfs (right) merge and collide.
Credit: NASA/Swift/ Aurore Simonnet, Sonoma State Univ.
To read more go to: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/bursts/supernova-narrowi...
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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NASA Unfiltered – Our First Photo NASA Social
Are you instantly on Instagram? A Flickr fanatic? If you know the difference between shutter speed and an f-stop, this NASA Social is for you. NASA is hosting an event for its photo-fanatic social media followers on the morning of Feb. 27, 2014, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
This NASA Social will bring 15 social media photo-gurus together at NASA Goddard to snap and share photos of where NASA's next great Earth science satellite was developed, built and tested. The Global Precipitation Measurement mission Core Observatory is the largest satellite ever built and tested at NASA Goddard.
NASA Social participants and their friends and family are also invited to attend the GPM launch party at NASA Goddard's Visitor Center. We will watch a live NASA Television broadcast of the launch of GPM from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. The Visitor Center will be open from 12:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. EST, with expert presentations and family-friendly hands-on demonstrations. The launch of the GPM Core Observatory is scheduled for no earlier than 1:07 p.m. EST, Feb. 27, 2014.
More details and registration: 1.usa.gov/1fs1sRr
Credit: NASA
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Description: The crewmembers of Skylab 3: astronaut Alan L. Bean, foreground, commander; scientist-astronaut Owen K. Garriott, left, science pilot; and astronaut Jack R. Lousma, pilot. This crew spent 59 days and 11 hours in orbit.
Credit: NASA
Image Number: 72-HC-90
Date: February 2, 1972
33. Twister
That's a photograph project and the idea is to hunt 100 photos and match them for given titles. I'm doing the list in random order.
Here's the project list -> Artistic Temperament Scavenger Hunt.
Twisting with the camera and traffic lights.
I'm nearly end with this project, 3 to go and I'm done.
Caption: This is an image of magnetic loops on the sun, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). It has been processed to highlight the edges of each loop to make the structure more clear. A series of loops such as this is known as a flux rope, and these lie at the heart of eruptions on the sun known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs.) This is the first time scientists were able to discern the timing of a flux rope's formation. (Blended 131 Angstrom and 171 Angstrom images of July 19, 2012 flare and CME.)
Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO
----
On July 18, 2012, a fairly small explosion of light burst off the lower right limb of the sun. Such flares often come with an associated eruption of solar material, known as a coronal mass ejection or CME – but this one did not. Something interesting did happen, however. Magnetic field lines in this area of the sun's atmosphere, the corona, began to twist and kink, generating the hottest solar material – a charged gas called plasma – to trace out the newly-formed slinky shape. The plasma glowed brightly in extreme ultraviolet images from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) aboard NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and scientists were able to watch for the first time the very formation of something they had long theorized was at the heart of many eruptive events on the sun: a flux rope.
Eight hours later, on July 19, the same region flared again. This time the flux rope's connection to the sun was severed, and the magnetic fields escaped into space, dragging billions of tons of solar material along for the ride -- a classic CME.
"Seeing this structure was amazing," says Angelos Vourlidas, a solar scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. "It looks exactly like the cartoon sketches theorists have been drawing of flux ropes since the 1970s. It was a series of figure eights lined up to look like a giant slinky on the sun." To read more about this new discovery go to: 1.usa.gov/14UHsTt
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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The eggs from this gigantic chicken may form into stars. The featured emission nebula, shown in scientifically assigned colors, is cataloged as IC 2944 but known as the Running Chicken Nebula for the shape of its greater appearance. Seen toward the top of the image are small, dark molecular clouds rich in obscuring cosmic dust. Called Thackeray's Globules for their discoverer, these "eggs" are potential sites for the gravitational condensation of new stars, although their fates are uncertain as they are also being rapidly eroded away by the intense radiation from nearby young stars. Together with patchy glowing gas and complex regions of reflecting dust, these massive and energetic stars form the open cluster Collinder 249. This gorgeous skyscape spans about 60 light-years at the nebula's estimated 6,000 light-year distance. via NASA ift.tt/1JY6edP
Like an illustration in a galactic Just So Story, the Elephant's Trunk Nebula winds through the emission nebula and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. Of course, the cosmic elephant's trunk is over 20 light-years long. This composite was recorded through narrow band filters that transmit the light from ionized hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms in the region. The resulting image highlights the bright swept-back ridges that outline pockets of cool interstellar dust and gas. Such embedded, dark, tendril-shaped clouds contain the raw material for star formation and hide protostars within the obscuring cosmic dust. Nearly 3,000 light-years distant, the relatively faint IC 1396 complex covers a large region on the sky, spanning over 5 degrees. via NASA ift.tt/1Moutg5
Like an illustration in a galactic Just So Story, the Elephant's Trunk Nebula winds through the emission nebula and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. Of course, the cosmic elephant's trunk is over 20 light-years long. This composite was recorded through narrow band filters that transmit the light from ionized hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms in the region. The resulting image highlights the bright swept-back ridges that outline pockets of cool interstellar dust and gas. Such embedded, dark, tendril-shaped clouds contain the raw material for star formation and hide protostars within the obscuring cosmic dust. Nearly 3,000 light-years distant, the relatively faint IC 1396 complex covers a large region on the sky, spanning over 5 degrees. via NASA ift.tt/1Moutg5
Big, bright, and beautiful, spiral galaxy M83 lies a mere twelve million light-years away, near the southeastern tip of the very long constellation Hydra. Prominent spiral arms traced by dark dust lanes and blue star clusters lend this galaxy its popular name, The Southern Pinwheel. But reddish star forming regions that dot the sweeping arms highlighted in this sparkling color composite also suggest another nickname, The Thousand-Ruby Galaxy. About 40,000 light-years across, M83 is a member of a group of galaxies that includes active galaxy Centaurus A. In fact, the core of M83 itself is bright at x-ray energies, showing a high concentration of neutron stars and black holes left from an intense burst of star formation. This sharp composite color image also features spiky foreground Milky Way stars and distant background galaxies. The image data was taken from the Subaru Telescope, the European Southern Observatory's Wide Field Imager camera, and the Hubble Legacy Archive. via NASA ift.tt/1WP9hHu
A star cluster around 2 million years young surrounded by natal clouds of dust and glowing gas, M16 is also known as The Eagle Nebula. This beautifully detailed image of the region includes cosmic sculptures made famous in Hubble Space Telescope close-ups of the starforming complex. Described as elephant trunks or Pillars of Creation, dense, dusty columns rising near the center are light-years in length but are gravitationally contracting to form stars. Energetic radiation from the cluster stars erodes material near the tips, eventually exposing the embedded new stars. Extending from the ridge of bright emission left of center is another dusty starforming column known as the Fairy of Eagle Nebula. M16 and the Eagle Nebula lie about 7,000 light-years away, an easy target for binoculars or small telescopes in a nebula rich part of the sky toward the split constellation Serpens Cauda (the tail of the snake). via NASA ift.tt/1OEGdzJ
Happy Birthday @NASA! Today marks the 60th anniversary of its establishment as a U.S. government agency. For six decades, NASA has led the peaceful exploration of space, making discoveries about Earth, our solar system and the entire universe. #NASAMarshall is proud to be part of that legacy. #NASA60th
Video credit: NASA
For the first time in almost 40 years, a NASA human-rated rocket has completed all steps needed to clear a critical design review (CDR). The agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) is the first vehicle designed to meet the challenges of the journey to Mars and the first exploration class rocket since the Saturn V. via NASA ift.tt/1DOoofc
You don't have to be at Monument Valley to see the Milky Way arch across the sky like this -- but it helps. Only at Monument Valley USA would you see a picturesque foreground that includes these iconic rock peaks called buttes. Buttes are composed of hard rock left behind after water has eroded away the surrounding soft rock. In the featured image taken in 2012, the closest butte on the left and the butte to its right are known as the Mittens, while Merrick Butte can be seen just further to the right. High overhead stretches a band of diffuse light that is the central disk of our spiral Milky Way Galaxy. The band of the Milky Way can be spotted by almost anyone on almost any clear night when far enough from a city and surrounding bright lights. via NASA ift.tt/1RH0yUk
NASA, Lockheed Corp, F-104N (F-104G type), construction number: 683C-4045 4045, model 683-10-19
F-104N officially delivered to the NASA on July 19, 1963; flown to NASA FRC August 19, 1963 (by Joe Walker) for high speed chase coded NASA 011. From the beginning it flew with code "011" and very bright NASA color scheme. In 1970 it was resprayed into the well known white-dark blue-light blue scheme which lateron changed into white-blue-white. It got also recoded into N811NA. On October 23, 1987 it made the last official NASA research flight with Bill Dana at the controls; operational storage until at least 1990 Then it was officially phased out with a total of 4370 fights accomplished. In October 1992 it was seen at Edwards Air Base completely cocooned to protect the airframe from the outside environment. Preserved at Prescott, Arizona, with Embry Riddle Aeronautical University; first noted in 1997;