TARJETA VISA ORO PARA TU FOTOGRAFÍA
View allAll Photos Tagged NASAMarshall
Sun Erupts With Significant Flare
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare – as seen in the bright flash on the right side – on Sept. 10, 2017. The image shows a combination of wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares, which has then been colorized.
Image credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO
The original with tons of information is here:
www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/37090540916/in/feed
NASA Media Usage Guidelines
We have compiled an album of our most viewed images of 2016. It was a great year at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, we appreciate all of your support and we look forward to all the great things to come in 2017.
To view the Most Viewed Images of 2016, click here.
Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
This week in 1973, the second crewed Skylab crew splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, after a successful 59-day mission.
Here, astronaut Jack R. Lousma participates in extravehicular activity during which he and astronaut Owen K. Garriott deployed a twin pole solar shield, developed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. The shield was needed after the original panel to protect the orbital workshop was ripped off during launch in May 1973.
The solution was delivered to the space station just over two months after the first launch, with much of the development and testing performed at Marshall. In addition to solving the solar shield issue, Marshall provided the Saturn launch vehicles for the four Skylab missions and directed many of the station's experiments.
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 scientific experiments on the orbiting laboratory.
For more fun throwbacks, check out Marshall's History Album by clicking here.
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
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #Moon
This classic photograph of the Earth was taken on Dec. 7, 1972, by the crew of the final Apollo mission, Apollo 17, as they traveled toward the moon on their lunar landing mission. For the first time, the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap, shown here along with heavy cloud cover in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Apollo 17 crew consisted of astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, mission commander; Ronald E. Evans, command module pilot; and Harrison H. Schmitt, lunar module pilot. While astronauts Cernan and Schmitt descended in the lunar module to explore the moon, astronaut Evans remained with the command and service modules in lunar orbit.
Image credit: NASA
#NASA #NASAMarshall #Apollo #Apollo17 #exploration #rocket #history
MULEs were multi-use, light, EVA spacecraft. They were found at space stations across the galactic disc. MULEs were often painted in bright, eye-catching colours to make them more visible to mega-tankers and hyper-freighters that might crush them in the space docks.
I built this because I'd been playing with arrowhead stripes with numbers inside. I also wanted to experiment with the cockpit shape.
More images on Instagram.
Background photo from NASA.
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
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #space #earth #hurricane #HurricaneSam #iss #InternationalSpaceStation
More about the International Space Station
To follow NASA astronauts on twitter, click here.
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
#MoontoMars #NASAMarshall #nasasls #artemis #NASA #NASAMarshall #MSFC #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #SpaceLaunchSystem #ArtemisI #KSC #NASAKennedy
Against an inky black backdrop, the blue swirls of spiral galaxy NGC 6956 stand out radiantly. NGC 6956 is a barred spiral galaxy, a common type of spiral galaxy with a bar-shaped structure of stars in its center. This galaxy exists 214 million light-years away in the constellation Delphinus.
Scientists used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to image NGC 6956 to study its Cepheid variable stars, which are stars that brighten and dim at regular periods. Since the period of Cepheid variable stars is a function of their brightness, scientists can measure how bright these stars appear from Earth and compare it to their actual brightness to calculate their distance. As a result, these stars are extremely useful in determining the distance of cosmic objects, which is one of the hardest pieces of information to measure for extragalactic objects.
This galaxy also contains a Type Ia supernova, which is the explosion of a white dwarf star that was gradually accreting matter from a companion star. Like Cepheid variable stars, the brightness of these types of supernovae and how fast they dim over time enables scientists to calculate their distance. Scientists can use the measurements gleaned from Cepheid variable stars and Type Ia supernovae to refine our understanding of the rate of expansion of the universe, also known as the Hubble Constant.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Jones (University of California – Santa Cruz); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAGoddard #ESA #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astrophysics #galaxy
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
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #chandraxrayobservatory #ChandraXRay #cxo #chandra #astronomy #space #astrophysics #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #solarsystemandbeyond #planet #uranus
How about a little something green for St. Patrick's Day?
"St. Patrick's Aurora" was taken at Donnelly Creek, Alaska at 1:30 am, March 17, 2015 by a NASA friend.
Greatest light show on Earth!!
View "Auroras Over Earth" Flickr album:
www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/sets/72157645507761848/
________________________________
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...
The last rays of an orbital sunset illuminate the Earth's atmosphere in this Feb. 17, 2023, photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited 269 miles above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Argentina. Astronauts aboard the space station see 16 sunrises and sunsets per day.
Image Credit: NASA
#NASA #NASAMarshall #ISS #InternationalSpaceStation #Earth
This unusual lenticular galaxy, which is between a spiral and elliptical shape, has lost almost all the gas and dust from its signature spiral arms, which used to orbit around its center. Known as NGC 1947, this galaxy was discovered almost 200 years ago by James Dunlop, a Scottish-born astronomer who later studied the sky from Australia. NGC 1947 can only be seen from the southern hemisphere, in the constellation Dorado (the Dolphinfish).
Residing around 40 million light-years away from Earth, this galaxy shows off its structure by backlighting its remaining faint gas and dust disk with millions of stars. In this picture, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the faint remnants of the galaxy’s spiral arms can still be made out in the stretched thin threads of dark gas encircling it. Without most of its star-forming material, it is unlikely that many new stars will be born within NGC 1947, leaving this galaxy to continue fading with time.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Rosario; Acknowledgment: L. Shatz
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency #galaxy
The largest and brightest region of star formation in the Local Group of galaxies, including the Milky Way, is called 30 Doradus (or, informally, the Tarantula Nebula). Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small neighbor galaxy to the Milky Way, 30 Doradus has long been studied by astronomers who want to better understand how stars like the Sun are born and evolve.
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has frequently looked at 30 Doradus over the lifetime of the mission, often under the direction of Dr. Leisa Townsley who passed away in the summer of 2022. These data will continue to be collected and analyzed, providing opportunities for scientists both now and in the future to learn more about star formation and its related processes.
This new composite image combines the X-ray data from Chandra observations of 30 Doradus with an infrared image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope that was released in the fall of 2022. The X-rays (royal blue and purple) reveal gas that has been heated to millions of degrees by shock waves — similar to sonic booms from airplanes — generated by the winds from massive stars. The Chandra data also identify the remains of supernova explosions, which will ultimately send important elements such as oxygen and carbon into space where they will become part of the next generation of stars.
The infrared data from JWST (red, orange, green, and light blue) show spectacular canvases of cooler gas that provide the raw ingredients for future stars. JWST’s view also reveals “protostars,” that is, stars in their infancy, just igniting their stellar engines. The chemical composition of 30 Doradus is different from most of the nebulas found in the Milky Way. Instead it represents the conditions in our galaxy that existed several billion years ago when stars were forming at a much faster pace than astronomers see today. This, combined with its relative proximity and brightness, means that 30 Doradus provides scientists with an opportunity to learn more about how stars formed in our galaxy in the distant past.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State Univ./L. Townsley et al.; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/JWST ERO Production Team
#NASAMarshall #Chandra #NASAChandra #ChandraXrayObservatory #STScI #ESA #jwst #jameswebbspacetelescope #NASAGoddard #nebula #TarantulaNebula
Read more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory
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
Looking deep into the universe, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope catches a passing glimpse of the numerous arm-like structures that sweep around this barred spiral galaxy, known as NGC 2608. Appearing as a slightly stretched, smaller version of our Milky Way, the peppered blue and red spiral arms are anchored together by the prominent horizontal central bar of the galaxy.
In Hubble photos like this, bright foreground stars in the Milky Way will sometimes appear as pinpoints of light with prominent light flares known as diffraction spikes, an effect of the telescope optics. A star with these features is seen in the lower right corner of the image, and another can be spotted just above the pale center of the galaxy. The majority of the fainter points around NGC 2608, however, lack these features, and upon closer inspection they are revealed to be thousands of distant galaxies. NGC 2608 is just one among an uncountable number of kindred structures.
Similar expanses of galaxies can be observed in other Hubble images such as the Hubble Deep Field, which recorded over 3,000 galaxies in one field of view.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Riess et al.
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
On January 12, 1997, the space shuttle Atlantis STS-81 launched from Kennedy Space Center. Atlantis returned carrying the first plants to complete a life cycle in space, a crop of wheat grown from seed to seed.
For more fun throwbacks, check out Marshall's History Album by clicking here.
The muted red tones of the globular cluster Liller 1 are partially obscured in this image by a dense scattering of piercingly blue stars. In fact, it is thanks to Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) that we are able to see Liller 1 so clearly in this image, because the WFC3 is sensitive to wavelengths of light that the human eye can’t detect. Liller 1 is only 30,000 light-years from Earth – relatively neighborly in astronomical terms – but it lies within the Milky Way’s ‘bulge’, the dense and dusty region at our galaxy’s center. Because of that, Liller 1 is heavily obscured from view by interstellar dust, which scatters visible light (particularly blue light) very effectively. Fortunately, some infrared and red visible light can pass through these dusty regions. WFC3 is sensitive to both visible and near-infrared (infrared that is close to the visible) wavelengths, allowing us to see through the obscuring clouds of dust, and providing this spectacular view of Liller 1.
Liller 1 is a particularly interesting globular cluster, because unlike most of its kind, it contains a mix of very young and very old stars. Globular clusters typically house only old stars, some nearly as old as the universe itself. Liller 1 instead contains at least two distinct stellar populations with remarkably different ages: the oldest one is 12 billion years old, and the youngest component is just 1-2 billion years old. This led astronomers to conclude that this stellar system was able to form stars over an extraordinarily long period of time.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Ferraro
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astrophysics #gsfc #starcluster
NGC 6891 is a bright, asymmetrical planetary nebula in the constellation Delphinus, the Dolphin. This Hubble image reveals a wealth of structure, including a spherical outer halo that is expanding faster than the inner nebula, and at least two ellipsoidal shells that are orientated differently. The image also reveals filaments and knots in the nebula’s interior, surrounding the central white dwarf star. From their motions, astronomers estimate that one of the shells is 4,800 years old while the outer halo is some 28,000 years old, indicating a series of outbursts from the dying star at different times.
Hubble studied NGC 6891 as part of efforts to gauge the distances to nebulae, and to learn more about how their structures formed and evolved. NGC 6891 is made up of gas that’s been ionized by the central white dwarf star, which stripped electrons from the nebula’s hydrogen atoms. As the energized electrons revert from their higher-energy state to a lower-energy state by recombining with the hydrogen nuclei, they emit energy in the form of light, causing the nebula’s gas to glow.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Hajian (University of Waterloo), H. Bond (Pennsylvania State University), and B. Balick (University of Washington); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency #nebula #absorptionnebula
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
#nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #space #nasamarshall #ISS #InternationalSpaceStation #Earth
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features two interacting galaxies that are so intertwined, they have a collective name – Arp 91. Their delicate galactic dance takes place more than 100 million light-years from Earth. The two galaxies comprising Arp 91 have their own names: the lower galaxy, which looks like a bright spot, is NGC 5953, and the oval-shaped galaxy to the upper right is NGC 5954. In reality, both of them are spiral galaxies, but their shapes appear very different because of their orientation with respect to Earth.
Arp 91 provides a particularly vivid example of galactic interaction. NGC 5953 is clearly tugging at NGC 5954, which looks like it is extending one spiral arm downward. The immense gravitational attraction of the two galaxies is causing them to interact. Such gravitational interactions are common and an important part of galactic evolution. Most astronomers think that collisions between spiral galaxies lead to the formation of another type of galaxy, known as elliptical galaxies. These extremely energetic and massive collisions, however, happen on timescales that dwarf a human lifetime. They take place over hundreds of millions of years, so we should not expect Arp 91 to look any different over the course of our lifetimes!
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton; Acknowledgment: J. Schmidt
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency #galaxy #EinsteinRing #gravitationallensing
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
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency #galaxy
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
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #galaxy
The rare sight of a Wolf-Rayet star – among the most luminous, most massive, and most briefly detectable stars known – was one of the first observations made by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in June 2022. Webb shows the star, WR 124, in unprecedented detail with its powerful infrared instruments. The star is 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius.
Massive stars race through their lifecycles, and only some of them go through a brief Wolf-Rayet phase before going supernova, making Webb's detailed observations of this rare phase valuable to astronomers. Wolf-Rayet stars are in the process of casting off their outer layers, resulting in their characteristic halos of gas and dust. The star WR 124 is 30 times the mass of the Sun and has shed 10 Suns' worth of material – so far. As the ejected gas moves away from the star and cools, cosmic dust forms and glows in the infrared light detectable by Webb.
The origin of cosmic dust that can survive a supernova blast and contribute to the universe's overall “dust budget” is of great interest to astronomers for multiple reasons. Dust is integral to the workings of the universe: It shelters forming stars, gathers together to help form planets, and serves as a platform for molecules to form and clump together – including the building blocks of life on Earth. Despite the many essential roles that dust plays, there is still more dust in the universe than astronomers' current dust-formation theories can explain. The universe is operating with a dust budget surplus.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team
#NASA #STScI #jwst #jameswebbspacetelescope #NASAGoddard #NASAMarshall
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
Engineers with Exploration Ground Systems and contractor Jacobs successfully completed the Umbilical Release and Retract Test on Sept. 19 inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in preparation for the Artemis I mission.
The umbilicals will provide power, communications, coolant, and fuel to the rocket and the Orion spacecraft while at the launch pad until they disconnect and retract at ignition and liftoff.
This is a close-up view of the Artemis I Space Launch System rocket inside High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sept. 20, 2021. All 10 levels of work platforms have been retracted from around the rocket as part of the umbilical release and retract test. During the test, several umbilical arms on the mobile launcher were extended to connect to the SLS rocket and then swung away from the launch vehicle, just as they will on launch day. Artemis I will be the first integrated test of the SLS and Orion spacecraft. In later missions, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the surface of the Moon, paving the way for a long-term lunar presence and serving as a steppingstone on the way to Mars. Photo credit: NASA/Frank Michaux
Image Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux
#NASA #space #moon #Mars #Moon2Mars #MoontoMars #NASAMarshall #msfc #sls #spacelaunchsystem #nasasls #rockets #exploration #engineering #explore #rocketscience #artemis #Orion #KSC #KennedySpaceCenter #ArtemisI
Two enormous galaxies capture your attention in this spectacular image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope using the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). The galaxy on the left is a lenticular galaxy, named 2MASX J03193743+4137580. The side-on spiral galaxy on the right is more simply named UGC 2665. Both galaxies lie approximately 350 million light-years from Earth, and they both form part of the huge Perseus galaxy cluster.
Perseus is an important figure in Greek mythology, renowned for slaying Medusa the Gorgon – who is herself famous for the unhappy reason that she was cursed to have living snakes for hair. Given Perseus’s impressive credentials, it seems appropriate that the galaxy cluster is one of the biggest objects in the known universe, consisting of thousands of galaxies, only a few of which are visible in this image. The wonderful detail in the image is thanks to the WFC3’s powerful resolution and sensitivity to both visible and near-infrared light, the wavelengths captured in this image.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Harris; Acknowledgment: L. Shatz
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency #galaxy
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals emerging stellar nurseries and individual stars in the Carina Nebula that were previously obscured. Images of “Cosmic Cliffs” showcase Webb’s cameras’ capabilities to peer through cosmic dust, shedding new light on how stars form. Objects in the earliest, rapid phases of star formation are difficult to capture, but Webb’s extreme sensitivity, spatial resolution, and imaging capability can chronicle these elusive events.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
#NASAMarshall #msfc #gsfc #jwst #space #telescope #jameswebspacetelescope #nebula #star
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
#NASA #NASAMarshall #ISS #InternationalSpaceStation #Earth #moon
Around 8:30 a.m. EDT on Nov. 4, the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I mission arrived at launch pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after a nearly nine-hour journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building. Teams will continue working to configure SLS and Orion for the upcoming Nov. 14. launch attempt.
Here, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard is seen atop the mobile launcher as it arrives at Launch Pad 39B, Friday, Nov. 4, 2022, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s Artemis I mission is the first integrated test of the agency’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft, SLS rocket, and supporting ground systems. Launch of the uncrewed flight test is targeted for Nov. 14 at 12:07 a.m. EST.
Image Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
#NASA #NASAMarshall #ArtemisI #sls #spacelaunchsystem #nasasls #exploration #rocket #artemis #KSC #KennedySpaceCenter
This image shows an orbital sunset above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Africa as the space station passed 266 miles overhead.
Image Credit: NASA
#NASAMarshall #astronaut #ISS #InternationalSpaceStation
For Valentine's Day, here is the Rosette star formation region, located about 5,000 light years from Earth. The X-rays reveal hundreds of young stars clustered in the center of the image and additional fainter clusters on either side. In red, the young stars look like a path of rose petals through the heart of the nebula.
Image credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Wang et al), Optical (DSS & NOAO/AURA/NSF/KPNO 0.9-m/T. Rector et al)
#NASA #NASAMarshall #Chandra #nebula #ValentinesDay
The Soyuz MS-01 spacecraft launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome with Expedition 48-49 crewmembers Kate Rubins of NASA, Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) onboard, Thursday, July 7, 2016 , Kazakh time (July 6 Eastern time), Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Rubins, Ivanishin, and Onishi will spend approximately four months on the orbital complex, returning to Earth in October.
Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
For more information about the International Space Station, click here.
_____________________________________________
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, click here.
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
This is not an ethereal landscape of time-forgotten tombs. Nor are these soot-tinged fingers reaching out. These pillars, flush with gas and dust, enshroud stars that are slowly forming over many millennia. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has snapped this eerie, extremely dusty view of the Pillars of Creation in mid-infrared light – showing us a new view of a familiar landscape.
Why does mid-infrared light set such a somber, chilling mood in Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) image? Interstellar dust cloaks the scene. And while mid-infrared light specializes in detailing where dust is, the stars aren’t bright enough at these wavelengths to appear. Instead, these looming, leaden-hued pillars of gas and dust gleam at their edges, hinting at the activity within.
Thousands and thousands of stars have formed in this region. This is made plain when examining Webb’s recent Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image. In MIRI’s view, the majority of the stars appear missing. Why? Many newly formed stars are no longer surrounded by enough dust to be detected in mid-infrared light. Instead, MIRI observes young stars that have not yet cast off their dusty “cloaks.” These are the crimson orbs toward the fringes of the pillars. In contrast, the blue stars that dot the scene are aging, which means they have shed most of their layers of gas and dust.
Mid-infrared light excels at observing gas and dust in extreme detail. This is also unmistakable throughout the background. The densest areas of dust are the darkest shades of gray. The red region toward the top, which forms an uncanny V, like an owl with outstretched wings, is where the dust is diffuse and cooler. Notice that no background galaxies make an appearance – the interstellar medium in the densest part of the Milky Way’s disk is too swollen with gas and dust to allow their distant light to penetrate.
How vast is this landscape? Trace the topmost pillar, landing on the bright red star jutting out of its lower edge like a broomstick. This star and its dusty shroud are larger than the size of our entire solar system.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
#NASA #STScI #jwst #jameswebbspacetelescope #NASAGoddard #NASAMarshall #PillarsOfCreation
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
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astrophysics #NASAGoddard #gsfc #galaxy
This advanced rocket engine design could one day change how future propulsion systems are built!
Marshall propulsion engineers designed the Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) to differ from a traditional rocket engine by generating thrust using a supersonic combustion phenomenon known as detonation.
This NASA Technology design produces more power while using less fuel than today’s propulsion systems and has the potential to power both human landers and interplanetary vehicles to deep space destinations, such as the Moon and Mars.
Image credit: NASA
#NASA #NASAMarshall #rocket #rocketengine #RDRE #RotatingDetonationRocketEngine #STMD #technology
In this 30-second exposure, a meteor streaks across the sky during the annual Perseid meteor shower, Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021, as seen from Spruce Knob, West Virginia.
Learn more about the annual Perseid meteor shower. Find out how you can see them in skies across North America!
Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #meteorshower #Perseids #astronomy
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
NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) announced the four astronauts who will venture around the Moon on Artemis II, the first crewed mission on NASA’s path to establishing a long-term presence at the Moon for science and exploration through Artemis. The agencies revealed the crew members Monday during an event at Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“The Artemis II crew represents thousands of people working tirelessly to bring us to the stars. This is their crew, this is our crew, this is humanity's crew,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Hammock Koch, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen, each has their own story, but, together, they represent our creed: E pluribus unum – out of many, one. Together, we are ushering in a new era of exploration for a new generation of star sailors and dreamers – the Artemis Generation.”
The crew assignments are as follows: (left to right) Mission Specialist 1 Christina Hammock Koch, Commander Reid Wiseman (seated), Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialist 2 Jeremy Hansen. They will work as a team to execute an ambitious set of demonstrations during the flight test.
Image credit: NASA
#NASA #NASAMarshall #sls #spacelaunchsystem #nasasls #exploration #rocket #artemis #MichoudAssemblyFacility #ArtemisII #Astronauts
The Soyuz MS-23 crew ship is pictured docked to the Prichal docking module as the International Space Station orbited 261 miles above the northeast coast of the United States. The city lights of New York City and the surrounding metropolitan area are easily visible from the orbital outpost.
Image Credit: NASA
#NASA #NASAMarshall #ISS #InternationalSpaceStation #Earth
The two interacting galaxies making up the pair known as Arp-Madore 608-333 seem to float side by side in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Though they appear serene and unperturbed, the two are subtly warping one another through a mutual gravitational interaction that is disrupting and distorting both galaxies. Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys captured this drawn-out galactic interaction.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Dark Energy Survey/Department of Energy/Fermilab/Dark Energy Camera (DECam)/Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory/NOIRLab/AURA
#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAGoddard #ESA #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astrophysics #galaxy
NASA astronaut Jeff Williams, commander of Expedition 48 aboard the International Space Station, tweeted this image today with the caption "Prominent clouds cast their long shadows on the horizon."
For more information about the International Space Station, click here.
To follow Williams on twitter, click here.
New images of Saturn from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope herald the start of the planet's "spoke season" surrounding its equinox, when enigmatic features appear across its rings. The cause of the spokes, as well as their seasonal variability, has yet to be fully explained by planetary scientists.
Like Earth, Saturn is tilted on its axis and therefore has four seasons, though because of Saturn's much larger orbit, each season lasts approximately seven Earth years. Equinox occurs when the rings are tilted edge-on to the Sun. The spokes disappear when it is near summer or winter solstice on Saturn. (When the Sun appears to reach either its highest or lowest latitude in the northern or southern hemisphere of a planet.) As the autumnal equinox of Saturn's northern hemisphere on May 6, 2025, draws near, the spokes are expected to become increasingly prominent and observable.
The suspected culprit for the spokes is the planet's variable magnetic field. Planetary magnetic fields interact with the solar wind, creating an electrically charged environment (on Earth, when those charged particles hit the atmosphere this is visible in the northern hemisphere as the aurora borealis, or northern lights). Scientists think that the smallest, dust-sized icy ring particles can become charged as well, which temporarily levitates those particles above the rest of the larger icy particles and boulders in the rings.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAGoddard #ESA #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astrophysics #saturn
A blue halo glows around Pluto’s receding crescent in this parting image taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft on July 14, 2015. At the time of this shot, New Horizons was 120,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) away from Pluto.
Shown in approximate true color, the picture was constructed from a mosaic of six black-and-white images from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager, with color added from a lower resolution Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera color image.
Scientists believe the haze is a smog resulting from the action of sunlight on methane and other molecules in Pluto's atmosphere. This reaction produces a complex mixture of hydrocarbons that accumulate into small haze particles which scatter blue light. As they settle down through the atmosphere, the haze particles form numerous intricate horizontal layers that extend to altitudes of over 120 miles (200 kilometers).
Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAMarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #NewHorizons #SolarSystemandBeyond #Pluto #marshallspaceflightcenter #NewFrontiers
The first of two solar arrays for NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has been extended inside the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 20, 2023.
This week, NASA invited media to view the Psyche spacecraft at 9 a.m. EDT Friday, Aug. 11, at the Astrotech Space Operations payload processing facility in Titusville, Florida.
The Psyche mission is a journey to a metal-rich asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. What makes the asteroid Psyche unique is that it appears to be exposed nickel-iron core material of an early planetesimal, one of the building blocks of our solar system.
Deep within rocky, terrestrial planets – including Earth – scientists infer the presence of metallic cores, but these lie unreachably far below the planets' rocky mantles and crusts. Because we cannot see or measure Earth's core directly, Psyche offers a unique window into the violent history of collisions and accretion that created the terrestrial planets.
DSOC will be NASA’s furthest-ever test of high-bandwidth optical communications. DSOC will send and receive test data from Earth using an invisible near-infrared laser, which can transmit data at 10 to 100 times the bandwidth of conventional radio wave systems used on spacecraft today. As the first demonstration of deep-space laser communications, DSOC is not relaying mission data from Psyche. Although, what the team learns from DSOC could support future agency missions, including humanity's next giant leap: When NASA sends astronauts to Mars.
Image Credit: NASA/Isaac Watson
#SolarSystemandBeyond #NASAMarshall #jpl #psyche #asteroid
NASA’s Perseverance rover is well into its second science campaign, collecting rock-core samples from features within an area long considered by scientists to be a top prospect for finding signs of ancient microbial life on Mars. The rover has collected four samples from an ancient river delta in the Red Planet’s Jezero Crater since July 7, bringing the total count of scientifically compelling rock samples to 12.
Twenty-eight miles (45 kilometers) wide, Jezero Crater hosts a delta – an ancient fan-shaped feature that formed about 3.5 billion years ago at the convergence of a Martian river and a lake. Perseverance is currently investigating the delta’s sedimentary rocks, formed when particles of various sizes settled in the once-watery environment. During its first science campaign, the rover explored the crater’s floor, finding igneous rock, which forms deep underground from magma or during volcanic activity at the surface.
In this image, NASA’s Perseverance rover puts its robotic arm to work around a rocky outcrop called “Skinner Ridge” in Mars’ Jezero Crater. Composed of multiple images, this mosaic shows layered sedimentary rocks in the face of a cliff in the delta, as well as one of the locations where the rover abraded a circular patch to analyze a rock’s composition.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
#NASAMarshall #NASAJPL #SolarSystemandBeyond #Mars #planet #Perseverance