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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

Sometimes, a total eclipse is a good time to eye the Sun. Taking advantage of an unusual juxtaposition of Earth, Moon and Sun, the featured image depicts the total solar eclipse that occurred last month as it appeared -- nearly simultaneously -- from both Earth and space. The innermost image shows the total eclipse from the ground, with the central pupil created by the bright Sun covered by a comparatively dark Moon. Surrounding the blocked solar disk is the tenuous corona of Sun imaged in white light, easily visible from the ground only during an eclipse. Normally, this corona is hard to track far from the Sun, but the featured montage matches it to false-colored observations of the Sun from NASA and ESA's space-based, Sun-orbiting, Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Observations like this allow the study of the constantly changing magnetic activity both near and far from the Sun, the same activity that ultimately drives Earth's auroras. via NASA ift.tt/1N6evht

The famous NASA hanger where all th espace mission launch vehicle get assembled. The flag is huge like football fields huge.

NASA satellites have watched as wind shear has torn Cyclone Iggy apart over the last day. NASA infrared satellite imagery showed that Iggy's strongest thunderstorms have been pushed away from the storm's center and visible imagery shows the storm is being stretched out. Iggy is weakening and heading for a landfall between Geraldton and Perth.

 

When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone Iggy on Feb. 1 at 1805 UTC (1:05 p.m. EST), the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard captured an infrared look at the cyclone. AIRS data showed that the strongest thunderstorms (with the coldest cloud top temperatures) had been pushed to the southeast of Iggy's center. That convection was pushed by vertical wind shear from the northwest. Once convection is pushed away from a tropical cyclone's center, the storm begins to fall apart. Tropical cyclones must be stacked in the atmosphere like a haystack. If the middle (convection in this case) gets pushed out, then the storm collapses.

 

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a true color image of Iggy when it passed overhead on Feb. 2, 2012 at 0615 UTC (1:15 a.m. EST). The MODIS image clearly shows how the wind shear is affecting the tropical depression because Iggy appears elongated from northwest to southeast, which is the direction of the wind shear.

 

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (ABM) issued severe weather warnings for residents from Kalbarri to Morawa, and from Morawa to Wongan Hills; and Wongan to Narrogin and Harvey. The ABM website noted that the warning includes people in, near or between the following towns: Geraldton, Jurien Bay, Perth, Mandurah, York and Narrogin. Those areas can expect thunderstorms with heavy rainfall, and gusty winds as Iggy continues moving east. Flash flooding is also a possibility from the heavy rainfall.

 

On February 2, 2012, Tropical Depression Iggy had maximum sustained winds near 30 knots (~35 mph/~56 kph). It was located about 170 nautical miles (~196 miles/~315 km) northwest of Perth, Western Australia, and its center was near 29.9 South latitude and 114.2 East longitude. Iggy was moving to the east at 14 knots (16 mph/~26 kph) and is expected to continue in that direction making landfall before 0300 UTC on February 3, 2012 (or before 10 p.m. EST, Feb. 3). Iggy is expected to quickly weaken to a remnant low as it moves further inland in Western Australia.

 

Credit: NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team

 

Text Credit: Rob Gutro

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

 

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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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Have you ever seen the Southern Cross? This famous constellation is best seen from Earth's Southern Hemisphere. Captured from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the four bright stars that mark the Southern Cross are visible just above the horizon in the featured image. On the left of this constellation, also known as The Crux, is the orange star Gamma Crucis. The band of stars, dust, and gas rising through the middle of the image mosaic is part our Milky Way Galaxy. Just to the right of the Southern Cross is the dark Coal Sack Nebula, and the bright nebula at the top of the image is the Carina Nebula. The Southern Cross is such a famous constellation that it is depicted on the national flags of Australia and New Zealand. via NASA ift.tt/1XeQ2Y5

The Henbury craters in the Northern Territory, Australia, planet Earth, are the scars of an impact over 4,000 years old. When an ancient meteorite fragmented into dozens of pieces, the largest made the 180 meter diameter crater whose weathered walls and floor are lit in the foreground of this southern hemisphere nightscape. The vertical panoramic view follows our magnificent Milky Way galaxy stretching above horizon, its rich central starfields cut by obscuring dust clouds. A glance along the galactic plane also reveals Alpha and Beta Centauri and the stars of the Southern Cross. Captured in the region's spectacular, dark skies, the Small Magellanic Cloud, satellite of the Milky Way, is the bright galaxy to the left. Not the lights of a nearby town, the visible glow on the horizon below it is the Large Magellanic Cloud rising. via NASA go.nasa.gov/1YFowY1

My collection of pictures from various internet sources of the Space Shuttle

Catnap at Sea

Ali Chase of the University of Maine, and Courtney Kearney of the Naval Research Laboratory, caught a quick nap on July 24, 2014, while between successive stops at sea to make measurements from the R/V Endeavor.

 

NASA's Ship-Aircraft Bio-Optical Research (SABOR) experiment is a coordinated ship and aircraft observation campaign off the Atlantic coast of the United States, an effort to advance space-based capabilities for monitoring microscopic plants that form the base of the marine food chain.

 

Read more: 1.usa.gov/WWRVzj

 

Credit: NASA/SABOR/Wayne Slade, Sequoia Scientific..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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February 2, 2012

 

The doors are open on NASA's Suomi NPP satellite and the newest version of the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument is scanning Earth for the first time, helping to assure continued availability of measurements of the energy leaving the Earth-atmosphere system.

 

The CERES results help scientists to determine the Earth's energy balance, providing a long-term record of this crucial environmental parameter that will be consistent with those of its predecessors.

 

In the longwave image, heat energy radiated from Earth (in watts per square meter) is shown in shades of yellow, red, blue and white. The brightest-yellow areas are the hottest and are emitting the most energy out to space, while the dark blue areas and the bright white clouds are much colder, emitting the least energy. Increasing temperature, decreasing water vapor, and decreasing clouds will all tend to increase the ability of Earth to shed heat out to space.

 

To read more go to: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/NPP/news/npp-ceres-firstlight....

 

Credit: NASA/NOAA/CERES Team

 

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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My collection of pictures from various internet sources of the Space Shuttle

Massive stars lie within NGC 6357, an expansive emission nebula complex some 6,500 light-years away toward the tail of the constellation Scorpius. In fact, positioned near center in this ground-based close-up of NGC 6357, star cluster Pismis 24 includes some of the most massive stars known in the galaxy, stars with nearly 100 times the mass of the Sun. The nebula's bright central region also contains dusty pillars of molecular gas, likely hiding massive protostars from the prying eyes of optical instruments. Intricate shapes in the nebula are carved as interstellar winds and energetic radiation from the young and newly forming massive stars clear out the natal gas and dust and power the nebular glow. Enhancing the nebula's cavernous appearance, narrowband image data was included in this composite color image in a Hubble palette scheme. Emission from sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms is shown in red green and blue hues. The alluring telescopic view spans about 50 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 6357. via NASA ift.tt/1R9z4d3

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Orbital ATK's Cygnus cargo spacecraft aboard stands at the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida on Dec. 3, 2015. via NASA go.nasa.gov/1HIkCWT

NASA B747SP N747NA "SOFIA"

Today I rode around in the woods taking analog photos with a Yahsica 124 Mat G. Now I'm lost in the a digital collage. Digital & Analog, I'm a man of two words. what medium do I prefer? I can not say.

 

Flowers by Batabidd

Textures from my personal collection, and I think one by Skeletal Mess

Other photos courtesy of NASA.

 

Created for the "Special Contest on ART TREASURES SHOWROOM: Flower"

Credits:

NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration

These cosmic clouds have blossomed 1,300 light-years away, in the fertile starfields of the constellation Cepheus. Called the Iris Nebula, NGC 7023 is not the only nebula to evoke the imagery of flowers, though. Still, this deep telescopic image shows off the Iris Nebula's range of colors and symmetries, embedded in surrounding fields of interstellar dust. Within the Iris itself, dusty nebular material surrounds a hot, young star. The dominant color of the brighter reflection nebula is blue, characteristic of dust grains reflecting starlight. Central filaments of the reflection nebula glow with a faint reddish photoluminesence as some dust grains effectively convert the star's invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Infrared observations indicate that this nebula contains complex carbon molecules known as PAHs. The pretty blue petals of the Iris Nebula span about six light-years. The colorful field-of-view stretches almost five Full Moons across the sky. via NASA ift.tt/1YcJWY8

This schlieren image of a T-38C aircraft was captured using the patent-pending BOSCO technique and then processed with NASA-developed code to reveal shock wave structures. Researchers at Armstrong and NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California, have developed new schlieren techniques based on modern image processing methods. via NASA ift.tt/1KPgwer

Have you ever seen the Southern Cross? This famous constellation is best seen from Earth's Southern Hemisphere. Captured from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the four bright stars that mark the Southern Cross are visible just above the horizon in the featured image. On the left of this constellation, also known as The Crux, is the orange star Gamma Crucis. The band of stars, dust, and gas rising through the middle of the image mosaic is part our Milky Way Galaxy. Just to the right of the Southern Cross is the dark Coal Sack Nebula, and the bright nebula at the top of the image is the Carina Nebula. The Southern Cross is such a famous constellation that it is depicted on the national flags of Australia and New Zealand. via NASA ift.tt/1XeQ2Y5

My collection of pictures from various internet sources of the Space Shuttle

NASA launched a rocket from the Wallops Island facility early in the morning on June 29, 2017 that made artificial clouds in space. I was lucky enough to have clear skies for viewing it. Very cool!

 

More information on the experiment: www.nasa.gov/feature/wallops/2017/nasa-sounding-rocket-wi...

 

Location: Corolla, North Carolina

Body: Hasselblad 500 C/M

Lens: Zeiss 50mm Distagon f/4 T*

Film: Fujichrome T64 (expired 2012)

Exposure: f/4 (unrecorded exposure length)

Developed & Scanned by NCPS

Have you ever seen the Southern Cross? This famous constellation is best seen from Earth's Southern Hemisphere. Captured from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the four bright stars that mark the Southern Cross are visible just above the horizon in the featured image. On the left of this constellation, also known as The Crux, is the orange star Gamma Crucis. The band of stars, dust, and gas rising through the middle of the image mosaic is part our Milky Way Galaxy. Just to the right of the Southern Cross is the dark Coal Sack Nebula, and the bright nebula at the top of the image is the Carina Nebula. The Southern Cross is such a famous constellation that it is depicted on the national flags of Australia and New Zealand. via NASA go.nasa.gov/1W1Yt6E

Apollo 9 Hasselblad image from film magazine 24/F - Earth orbit

It is a candidate for the brightest and most powerful explosion ever seen -- what is it? The flaring spot of light was found by the All Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASASSN) in June of last year and labelled ASASSN-15lh. Located about three billion light years distant, the source appears tremendously bright for anything so far away: roughly 200 times brighter than an average supernova, and temporarily 20 times brighter than all of the stars in our Milky Way Galaxy combined. Were light emitted by ASASSN-15lh at this rate in all directions at once, it would be the most powerful explosion yet recorded. No known stellar object was thought to create an explosion this powerful, although pushing the theoretical limits for the spin-down of highly-magnetized neutron star -- a magnetar -- gets close. Assuming the flare fades as expected later this year, astronomers are planning to use telescopes including Hubble to zoom in on the region to gain more clues. The above-featured artist's illustration depicts a hypothetical night sky of a planet located across the host galaxy from the outburst. via NASA ift.tt/1QyMpv7

Have you ever seen the Southern Cross? This famous constellation is best seen from Earth's Southern Hemisphere. Captured from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the four bright stars that mark the Southern Cross are visible just above the horizon in the featured image. On the left of this constellation, also known as The Crux, is the orange star Gamma Crucis. The band of stars, dust, and gas rising through the middle of the image mosaic is part our Milky Way Galaxy. Just to the right of the Southern Cross is the dark Coal Sack Nebula, and the bright nebula at the top of the image is the Carina Nebula. The Southern Cross is such a famous constellation that it is depicted on the national flags of Australia and New Zealand. via NASA ift.tt/1XeQ2Y5

What's that next to the Moon? Jupiter -- and its four largest moons. Skygazers around planet Earth enjoyed the close encounter of planets and Moon in 2012 July 15's predawn skies. And while many saw bright Jupiter next to the slender, waning crescent, Europeans also had the opportunity to watch the ruling gas giant pass behind the lunar disk, occulted by the Moon as it slid through the night. Clouds threaten in this telescopic view from Montecassiano, Italy, but the frame still captures Jupiter after it emerged from the occultation along with all four of its large Galilean moons. The sunlit crescent is overexposed with the Moon's night side faintly illuminated by Earthshine. Lined up left to right beyond the dark lunar limb are Callisto, Ganymede, Jupiter, Io, and Europa. In fact, Callisto, Ganymede, and Io are larger than Earth's Moon, while Europa is only slightly smaller. Last week, NASA's Juno became the second spacecraft ever to orbit Jupiter. via NASA ift.tt/29vKbjy

NASA space shuttle

GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The Core Observatory will link data from a constellation of current and planned satellites to produce next-generation global measurements of rainfall and snowfall from space.

 

On Feb. 11, the Core Observatory was moved into the spacecraft fairing assembly building and into the Encapsulation Hall. Final inspections and preparations were completed for the installation into the fairing, which began on Feb 13. The fairing is the part of the rocket that will contain the spacecraft at the top of the H-IIA rocket.

 

The encapsulation process for the H-IIA is very different than for most U.S. rockets. For U.S. rockets, the fairing is usually in two pieces that close around the payload like a clamshell. To install the GPM Core Observatory into the fairing of the H-IIA rocket, first the Core Observatory and the Payload Attach Fitting (PAF) are set up in scaffolding in the Encapsulation Hall. Then, the fairing is lifted above and lowered onto the fitting. When only a few feet remain above the final position, stanchions support the fairing while technicians go inside to complete the electrical connections. When this is completed, they remove the stanchions and lower the fairing to its final position, where it is bolted in place.

 

The GPM mission is the first coordinated international satellite network to provide near real-time observations of rain and snow every three hours anywhere on the globe. The GPM Core Observatory anchors this network by providing observations on all types of precipitation. The observatory's data acts as the measuring stick by which partner observations can be combined into a unified data set. The data will be used by scientists to study climate change, freshwater resources, floods and droughts, and hurricane formation and tracking.

 

Credit: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

 

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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Apollo 15 Hasselblad image from film magazine 93/P - lunar orbit view

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS - Processing: Elisabetta Bonora & Marco Faccin / aliveuniverse.today

Get out your red/blue glasses and gaze across Ceres at mysterious mountain Ahuna Mons. Shown in a 3D anaglyph perspective view, the mosaicked image data was captured in December of 2015, taken from the Dawn spacecraft's low-altitude mapping orbit about 385 kilometers above the surface of the dwarf planet. A remarkable dome-shaped feature on Ceres, with steep, smooth sides Ahuna Mons is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) in diameter at its base, rising on average 4 kilometers to a flattened summit. Similar in size to mountains found on planet Earth, no other Cerean surface feature is so tall and well-defined. It is not known what process shaped the lonely Ahuna Mons, or if the bright material streaking its steepest side is the same material responsible for Ceres' famous bright spots. via NASA ift.tt/1Mtn6oM

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 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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This visualization uses specific colors to describe which areas on the sun cooled or heated over a 12-hour period. The use of reds and yellows imply that higher temperatures dominated earlier in the time period, while lower temperatures dominated later, meaning that the area showed steady cooling over time, but any heating happened too quickly and impulsively to be measured. The image compares wavelength 211 (which shows material in the 2 million K range) to wavelength 171 (which shows material about ten times cooler).

 

Credit: NASA/Viall

 

To read more go to: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/colorful-science...

 

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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What are those colorful rings around the Sun? A corona visible only to Earth observers in the right place at the right time. Rings like this will sometimes appear when the Sun or Moon is seen through thin clouds. The effect is created by the quantum mechanical diffraction of light around individual, similarly-sized water droplets in an intervening but mostly-transparent cloud. Since light of different colors has different wavelengths, each color diffracts differently. Solar Coronae are one of the few quantum color effects that can be easily seen with the unaided eye. This type of solar corona is a visual effect due to water in Earth's atmosphere and is altogether different from the solar corona that exists continually around the Sun -- and stands out during a total solar eclipse. In the foreground is the famous Himalayan mountain peak Ama Dablam (Mother's Necklace), via NASA ift.tt/1IYFPwq

European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut and Expedition 46 Flight Engineer Tim Peake (@astro_timpeake) photographed the Alps from orbit on Dec. 27, 2015 and later shared the image with his social media followers, writing, "There may not be much snow in the Alps this winter but they still look stunning from here! #Principia" via NASA ift.tt/1miLof5

NASA space shuttle

Pluto gets into the holiday spirit, decked out in red and green using a pair of Ralph/LEISA instrument scans. via NASA ift.tt/22quRWL

Apollo 11 Hasselblad image from film magazine 44/V - LM inspection, rendezvous

Description: Marjorie Townsend discusses the X-ray Explorer Satellite's performance with a colleague during preflight tests at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Townsend, a Washington, DC native, was the first woman to receive an engineering degree from The George Washington University. She joined NASA in 1959 and later advanced to become the project manager of the Small Astronomy Satellite (SAS) Program.

 

The satellite shown in the picture, SAS-1, was the 42nd in NASA's Explorer series, a family of small, simple satellites sent to perform important scientific missions for minimal cost. The first Explorer satellite launched in 1958, months prior to the formation of NASA, initiating a program of exploration that has continued into the twenty-first century. SAS-1 continued the tradition of crucial science projects by carrying the first set of sensitive instruments designed to map X-ray sources both within and beyond our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Also known as Explorer 42 and the X-ray Explorer, it became the first American spacecraft launched by another country when an Italian space team launched it on December 12, 1970, from a mobile launch platform located in international waters off the coast of East Africa. It mapped the universe in X-ray wavelengths and discovered X-ray pulsars and evidence of black holes. The satellite was named Uhuru, which means freedom in Swahili, because it was launched from San Marco off the coast of Kenya on Kenya's Independence Day.

 

In the 1970's the Italian Government made Townsend a Knight of the Italian Republic Order for her contributions to the United States-Italian space efforts. In 1990, Townsend joined BDM International Inc., as the director of Space Systems Engineering with the Space Science and Applications Division.

 

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Credit: NASA

Image Number: 70-H-1489

Date: December 2, 1970

This schlieren image of a T-38C aircraft was captured using the patent-pending BOSCO technique and then processed with NASA-developed code to reveal shock wave structures. Researchers at Armstrong and NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California, have developed new schlieren techniques based on modern image processing methods. via NASA ift.tt/1KPgwer

"Imagem composta a partir de registros de três postos de observação da Nasa, com cores falsas, exibe várias facetas da supernova Cassiopéia A "

NASA B747SP N747NA "SOFIA"

GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The Core Observatory will link data from a constellation of current and planned satellites to produce next-generation global measurements of rainfall and snowfall from space.

 

On Feb. 11, the Core Observatory was moved into the spacecraft fairing assembly building and into the Encapsulation Hall. Final inspections and preparations were completed for the installation into the fairing, which began on Feb 13. The fairing is the part of the rocket that will contain the spacecraft at the top of the H-IIA rocket.

 

The encapsulation process for the H-IIA is very different than for most U.S. rockets. For U.S. rockets, the fairing is usually in two pieces that close around the payload like a clamshell. To install the GPM Core Observatory into the fairing of the H-IIA rocket, first the Core Observatory and the Payload Attach Fitting (PAF) are set up in scaffolding in the Encapsulation Hall. Then, the fairing is lifted above and lowered onto the fitting. When only a few feet remain above the final position, stanchions support the fairing while technicians go inside to complete the electrical connections. When this is completed, they remove the stanchions and lower the fairing to its final position, where it is bolted in place.

 

The GPM mission is the first coordinated international satellite network to provide near real-time observations of rain and snow every three hours anywhere on the globe. The GPM Core Observatory anchors this network by providing observations on all types of precipitation. The observatory's data acts as the measuring stick by which partner observations can be combined into a unified data set. The data will be used by scientists to study climate change, freshwater resources, floods and droughts, and hurricane formation and tracking.

 

Credit: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

 

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.

 

Follow us on Twitter

 

Like us on Facebook

 

Find us on Instagram

GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The Core Observatory will link data from a constellation of current and planned satellites to produce next-generation global measurements of rainfall and snowfall from space.

 

On Feb. 11, the Core Observatory was moved into the spacecraft fairing assembly building and into the Encapsulation Hall. Final inspections and preparations were completed for the installation into the fairing, which began on Feb 13. The fairing is the part of the rocket that will contain the spacecraft at the top of the H-IIA rocket.

 

The encapsulation process for the H-IIA is very different than for most U.S. rockets. For U.S. rockets, the fairing is usually in two pieces that close around the payload like a clamshell. To install the GPM Core Observatory into the fairing of the H-IIA rocket, first the Core Observatory and the Payload Attach Fitting (PAF) are set up in scaffolding in the Encapsulation Hall. Then, the fairing is lifted above and lowered onto the fitting. When only a few feet remain above the final position, stanchions support the fairing while technicians go inside to complete the electrical connections. When this is completed, they remove the stanchions and lower the fairing to its final position, where it is bolted in place.

 

The GPM mission is the first coordinated international satellite network to provide near real-time observations of rain and snow every three hours anywhere on the globe. The GPM Core Observatory anchors this network by providing observations on all types of precipitation. The observatory's data acts as the measuring stick by which partner observations can be combined into a unified data set. The data will be used by scientists to study climate change, freshwater resources, floods and droughts, and hurricane formation and tracking.

 

Credit: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

 

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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