View allAll Photos Tagged NASAMarshall
This week in 1961, NASA launched the first test flight of the Saturn I rocket. The uncrewed suborbital flight carried a dummy upper stage filled with water to an altitude of 84.8 mi. The flight accomplished its objective of verifying the aerodynamical and structural design of the Saturn I booster. The rocket stood 162 feet tall, weighed 460 tons, and employed eight H-1 engines. Today, Marshall is playing a vital role in the Artemis program by developing the Space Launch System, the backbone of NASA’s exploration plans and the only rocket capable of sending humans to the Moon and Mars. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating, and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological, and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage.
Image credit: NASA
#tbt #nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #marshall #space #history #marshallhistory #nasamarshall #nasahistory #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #Apollo #SaturnI #Saturnrocket #Saturn #SA-1
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
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
This 2003 Chandra image of the supermassive black hole at our Galaxy's center, a.k.a. Sagittarius A* or Sgr A*, was made from the longest X-ray exposure of that region to date. In addition to Sgr A* more than two thousand other X-ray sources were detected in the region, making this one of the richest fields ever observed.
During the two-week observation period, Sgr A* flared up in X-ray intensity half a dozen or more times. The cause of these outbursts is not understood, but the rapidity with which they rise and fall indicates that they are occurring near the event horizon, or point of no return, around the black hole. Even during the flares the intensity of the X-ray emission from the vicinity of the black hole is relatively weak. This suggests that Sgr A*, weighing in at 3 million times the mass of the Sun, is a starved black hole, possibly because explosive events in the past have cleared much of the gas from around it.
Evidence for such explosions was revealed in the image - huge lobes of 20 million-degree Centigrade gas (the red loops in the image at approximately the 2 o'clock and 7 o'clock positions) that extend over dozens of light years on either side of the black hole. They indicate that enormous explosions occurred several times over the last ten thousand years.
Further analysis of the Sgr A* image is expected to give astronomers a much better understanding of how the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy grows and how it interacts with its environment. This knowledge will also help to understand the origin and evolution of even larger supermassive black holes found in the centers of other galaxies.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/MIT/F.K.Baganoff et al.
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #chandraxrayobservatory #ChandraXRay #cxo #chandra #astronomy #space #astrophysics #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #solarsystemandbeyond #blackhole #supermassiveblackhole
The Full Moon is pictured setting below Earth's horizon from the International Space Station as it orbited 262 miles above the Pacific Ocean. At the time of this photograph the Orion vehicle on the Artemis I mission was about 207,200 miles from Earth and 180,400 miles from the Moon, cruising at 1,415 mph.
Image Credit: NASA
#nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #space #nasamarshall #ISS #InternationalSpaceStation
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
Images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveal large amounts of dust within Supernova 2004et and Supernova 2017eaw. These supernovae are located in spiral galaxy NGC 6946, 22 million light-years away from Earth. The hexagonal shape of SN 2004et in Webb’s image is an artifact of the telescope’s mirror and struts — when the bright light of a point source is observed, the light interacts with the sharp edges of the telescope, creating diffraction spikes. In these images, blue, green, and red were assigned to Webb’s MIRI data at 10; 11.3, 12.8, and 15.0; and 18 and 21 microns (F1000W; F1130, F1280W, and F1500; and F1800W and F2100W, respectively).
Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ori Fox (STScI), Melissa Shahbandeh (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
#NASA #STScI #jwst #jameswebbspacetelescope #NASAGoddard #NASAMarshall #galaxy #supernova
In an enormous new image, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals never-before-seen details of galaxy group “Stephan’s Quintet.” The close proximity of Stephan’s Quintet gives astronomers a ringside seat to galactic mergers, interactions. Webb’s new image shows in rare detail how interacting galaxies trigger star formation in each other and how gas in galaxies is being disturbed. The image also shows outflows driven by a black hole in Stephan’s Quintet in a level of detail never seen before. Tight galaxy groups like this may have been more common in the early universe when superheated, infalling material may have fueled very energetic black holes.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
#NASAMarshall #msfc #gsfc #jwst #space #telescope #jameswebspacetelescope #galaxy
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured a lush, highly detailed landscape – the iconic Pillars of Creation – where new stars are forming within dense clouds of gas and dust. The three-dimensional pillars look like majestic rock formations, but are far more permeable. These columns are made up of cool interstellar gas and dust that appear – at times – semi-transparent in near-infrared light.
Webb’s new view of the Pillars of Creation, which were first made famous when imaged by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, will help researchers revamp their models of star formation by identifying far more precise counts of newly formed stars, along with the quantities of gas and dust in the region. Over time, they will begin to build a clearer understanding of how stars form and burst out of these dusty clouds over millions of years.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
#NASA #STScI #jwst #jameswebbspacetelescope #NASAGoddard #NASAMarshall #PillarsOfCreation
This image shows two of Jupiter's large rotating storms, captured by Juno’s visible-light imager, JunoCam, on Juno’s 38th perijove pass, on Nov. 29, 2021.
This image was acquired at 50 degrees 5 minutes north latitude, at an altitude of 3,815 miles (6,140 kilometers). Atmospheric details as small as 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) can be discerned in the image. Bright “pop-up” clouds are visible above the lower storm, casting shadows on the cloud bank below. Although the pop-up clouds appear small in comparison to the large storm below, such clouds are typically 31 miles (50 kilometers) across.
Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill processed the image to enhance the color and contrast, using raw JunoCam data
JunoCam's raw images are available for the public to peruse and process into image products at missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing. More information about NASA citizen science can be found at science.nasa.gov/citizenscience and www.nasa.gov/solve/opportunities/citizenscience.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; Image processing: Kevin M. Gill CC BY--
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #jpl #jetpropulsionlaboratory #nasamarshall #MSFC #solarsystem #juno #jupiter #space #astronomy #nasajuno #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter
This week in 1992, space shuttle Columbia launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. STS-52 was the first flight of the U.S. Microgravity Payload-1, a complement of three experiments mounted on two connected Spacelab Multipurpose Experiment Support Structures in the cargo bay of Columbia. Science teams on Earth remotely commanded and monitored instruments and analyzed data from workstations at the Spacelab Mission Operation Control Facility at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
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.
On Earth, amethysts can form when gas bubbles in lava cool under the right conditions. In space, a dying star with a mass similar to the Sun is capable of producing a structure on par with the appeal of these beautiful gems.
As stars like the Sun run through their fuel, they cast off their outer layers and the core of the star shrinks. Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have found a bubble of ultra-hot gas at the center of one of these expiring stars, a planetary nebula in our galaxy called IC 4593. At a distance of about 7,800 light years from Earth, IC 4593 is the most distant planetary nebula yet detected with Chandra.
This new image of IC 4593 has X-rays from Chandra in purple, invoking similarities to amethysts found in geodes around the globe. The bubble detected by Chandra is from gas that has been heated to over a million degrees. These high temperatures were likely generated by material that blew away from the shrunken core of the star and crashed into gas that had previously been ejected by the star.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UNAM/J. Toalá et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #chandraxrayobservatory #ChandraXRay #cxo #chandra #astronomy #space #astrophysics #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #solarsystemandbeyond #nebula #planetarynebula #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #STScI
NASA astronaut and Expedition 66 Flight Engineer Kayla Barron poses for a portrait in front of the Advanced Plant Habitat inside the International Space Station's Kibo laboratory module.
Image Credit: NASA
#NASA #NASAMarshall #ISS #WHM #InternationalSpaceStation
Spring doesn't just hapen on Earth. Spring also happens on some of our neighboring planets in the solar system.
Of the countless equinoxes Saturn has seen since the birth of the solar system, this one, captured here in a mosaic of light and dark, is the first witnessed up close by an emissary from Earth … none other than our faithful robotic explorer, Cassini in this image from 2009.
Seen from our planet, the view of Saturn's rings during equinox is extremely foreshortened and limited. But in orbit around Saturn, Cassini had no such problems. From 20 degrees above the ring plane, Cassini's wide angle camera shot 75 exposures in succession for this mosaic showing Saturn, its rings, and a few of its moons a day and a half after exact Saturn equinox, when the sun's disk was exactly overhead at the planet's equator.
At equinox, the shadows of the planet's expansive rings are compressed into a single, narrow band cast onto the planet as seen in this mosaic. At this time so close to equinox, illumination of the rings by sunlight reflected off the planet vastly dominates any meager sunlight falling on the rings. Hence, the half of the rings on the left illuminated by planetshine is, before processing, much brighter than the half of the rings on the right. On the right, it is only the vertically extended parts of the rings that catch any substantial sunlight.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
#NASA #Cassini #JPL #JetPropulsionLaboratory #NASAMarshall #SolarSystemandBeyond #space #astronomy #Saturn #astronomy #planet
From all of us here at Marshall Space Flight Center, we wish you a healthy and happy holiday season!
Celebrate with a stellar snowflake that sits within the cosmic Christmas Tree Cluster!
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/CfA
#NASA #NASAMarshall #JPL #JetPropulsionLaboratory #SpitzerSpaceTelescope #Spitzer #ChristmasTreeCluster
More about NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope
This week in 1992, the First International Microgravity Laboratory, IML-1, module launched aboard space shuttle Discovery. IML-1, which was managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, was the first in a series of missions with payloads dedicated to life science and microgravity science research.
The primary objective of the mission was to conduct science and technology investigations that required the low-gravity environment of space, with emphasis on experiments that studied the effects of microgravity on materials and processes and living organisms.
Today, Marshall's Payload Operations Integration Center serves as "science central" for the International Space Station, working 24/7, 365 days a year in support of the orbiting laboratory's scientific experiments.
For more fun throwbacks, check out Marshall's History Album by clicking here.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured this view of Jupiter during the mission’s 40th close pass by the giant planet on Feb. 25, 2022. The large, dark shadow on the left side of the image was cast by Jupiter’s moon Ganymede.
Citizen scientist Thomas Thomopoulos created this enhanced-color image using raw data from the JunoCam instrument (Figure A). At the time the raw image was taken, the Juno spacecraft was about 44,000 miles (71,000 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops, at a latitude of about 55 degrees south, and 15 times closer than Ganymede, which orbits about 666,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) away from Jupiter.
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 (Galilean satellites) that often pass between Jupiter and the Sun: in seven days, Ganymede transits once; Europa, twice; and Io, four times. 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: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Image processing by Thomas Thomopoulos © CC BY--
#NASAMarshall #nasajuno #jupiter #ganymede
During its 36th low pass over Jupiter, NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured this view of striking cloud bands and swirls in the giant planet’s mid-southern latitudes. The dark, circular vortex near the center of the image is a cyclone that spans roughly 250 miles (about 400 kilometers). The color at its center is likely to be the result of descending winds that cleared out upper-level clouds, revealing darker material below.
Citizen scientist Brian Swift used a raw JunoCam image digitally projected onto a sphere to create this view. It has been rotated so that north is up. The original image was taken on Sept. 2, 2021, at 4:09 p.m. PDT (7:09 p.m. EDT). At the time, the spacecraft was about 16,800 miles (about 27,000 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops, at a latitude of about 31 degrees south.
JunoCam's raw images are available for the public to peruse and process into image products at missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing. More information about NASA citizen science can be found a science.nasa.gov/citizenscience and www.nasa.gov/solve/opportunities/citizenscience.
More information about Juno is at www.nasa.gov/juno and missionjuno.swri.edu/. For more about this finding and other science results, see www.missionjuno.swri.edu/science-findings/.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; Image processing by Brian Swift © CC BY--
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #jpl #jetpropulsionlaboratory #nasamarshall #MSFC #solarsystem #juno #jupiter #space #astronomy #nasajuno #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter
The International Space Station's Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams tweeted this photo recently with the caption "Uniquely beautiful cloud formation south of Sicily."
For more information about the International Space Station, click here.
To follow Williams on twitter, 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.
The galaxy NGC 1961 unfurls its gorgeous spiral arms in this newly released image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Glittering, blue regions of bright young stars dot the dusty spiral arms winding around the galaxy’s glowing center.
NGC 1961 is an intermediate spiral and an AGN, or active galactic nuclei, type of galaxy. Intermediate spirals are in between “barred” and “unbarred” spiral galaxies, meaning they don’t have a well-defined bar of stars at their centers. AGN galaxies have very bright centers that often far outshine the rest of the galaxy at certain wavelengths of light. These galaxies likely have supermassive black holes at their cores churning out bright jets and winds that shape their evolution. NGC 1961 is a fairly common type of AGN that emits low-energy-charged particles.
Located about 180 million light-years away, NGC 1961 resides in the constellation Camelopardalis.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton (University of Washington), R. Foley (University of California - Santa Cruz); Image processing: G. Kober (NASA Goddard/Catholic University of America)
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astrophysics #NASAGoddard #gsfc #galaxy
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope feels incredibly three-dimensional for a piece of deep-space imagery. The image shows Arp 282, an interacting galaxy pair composed of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 169 (bottom) and the galaxy IC 1559 (top). Interestingly, both galaxies have monumentally energetic cores known as active galactic nuclei (AGN), although that is difficult to tell from this image, which is fortunate. If the image revealed the full emission of both AGNs, their brilliance would obscure the beautifully detailed tidal interactions we see in this image. Tidal forces occur when an object’s gravity causes another object to distort or stretch. The direction of tidal forces is away from the lower-mass object and toward the higher mass object. When two galaxies tidally interact, gas, dust, and even entire star systems can move toward one galaxy and away from the other. The image reveals this process in action as delicate streams of matter visibly link the two galaxies.
Astronomers now accept that an important aspect of how galaxies evolve is the way they interact with one another. Galaxies can merge, collide, or brush past one another – each interaction significantly affecting their shapes and structures. As common as such interactions may be, it is rare to capture an image of two galaxies interacting in such a visibly dynamic way.
Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton, Dark Energy Survey, Department of Energy (DOE), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory/NoirLab/National Science Foundation/Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS); Acknowledgment: J. Schmidt
#NASA #NASAMarshall #Hubble #HST #galaxy
Cyclones at the north pole of Jupiter appear as swirls of striking colors in this extreme false color rendering of an image from NASA’s Juno mission. The huge, persistent cyclone found at Jupiter’s north pole is visible at the center of the image, encircled by smaller cyclones that range in size from 2,500 to 2,900 miles (4,000 to 4,600 kilometers). Together, this pattern of storms covers an area that would dwarf the Earth.
The color choices in this image reveal both the beauty of Jupiter and the subtle details present in Jupiter’s dynamic cloud structure. Each new observation that Juno provides of Jupiter’s atmosphere complements computer simulations and helps further refine our understanding of how the storms evolve over time.
The Juno mission provided the first clear views of Jupiter’s polar regions. Juno’s Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument has also mapped this area, as well as a similar pattern of storms at the planet’s south pole.
Citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt made this composite image using data obtained by the JunoCam instrument during four of the Juno spacecraft’s close passes by Jupiter, which took place between Feb. 17, 2020, and July 25, 2020. The greatly exaggerated color is partially a result of combining many individual images to create this view.
Image Credit: Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; Image processing by Gerald Eichstädt
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #jpl #jetpropulsionlaboratory #nasamarshall #MSFC #solarsystem #juno #jupiter #space #astronomy #nasajuno #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter
Zeta Ophiuchi is a star with a complicated past, having likely been ejected from its birthplace by a powerful stellar explosion. A new look by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory helps tell more of the story of this runaway star.
Located about 440 light-years from Earth, Zeta Ophiuchi is a hot star that is 20 times more massive than the Sun. Previous observations have provided evidence that Zeta Ophiuchi was once in close orbit with another star, before being ejected at about 100,000 miles per hour when this companion was destroyed in a supernova explosion over a million years ago. Previously released infrared data from NASA's now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope, seen in this new composite image, reveals a spectacular shock wave (red and green) that was formed by matter blowing away from the star's surface and slamming into gas in its path. Data from Chandra shows a bubble of X-ray emission (blue) located around the star, produced by gas that has been heated by the effects of the shock wave to tens of millions of degrees.
A team of astronomers led by Samuel Green from the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in Ireland has constructed the first detailed computer models of the shock wave. They have begun testing whether the models can explain the data obtained at different wavelengths, including X-ray, optical, infrared and radio observations. All three of the different computer models predict fainter X-ray emission than observed. The bubble of X-ray emission is brightest near the star, whereas two of the three computer models predict the X-ray emission should be brighter near the shock wave.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Dublin Inst. Advanced Studies/S. Green et al.; Infrared: NASA/JPL/Spitzer
#NASAMarshall #Chandra #NASA #MSFC #ChandraXrayObservatory #astrophysics #blackhole #star #supernova
In the place of fireworks, looking like a glittering swarm of buzzing bees, here are the stars of globular cluster NGC 6440 shining brightly in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. The cluster is located some 28,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius, the Archer.
Globular clusters like NGC 6440 are roughly spherical, tightly packed collections of stars that live on the outskirts of galaxies. They hold hundreds of thousands to millions of stars that average about one light-year apart, but they can be as close together as the size of our solar system.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, C. Pallanca and F. Ferraro (Universits Di Bologna), and M. van Kerkwijk (University of Toronto); Processing: G. Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAGoddard #ESA #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astrophysics #globularcluster
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has enabled another long-sought scientific breakthrough, this time for solar system scientists studying the origins of Earth’s abundant water. Using Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument, astronomers have confirmed gas – specifically water vapor – around a comet in the main asteroid belt for the first time, indicating that water ice from the primordial solar system can be preserved in that region. However, the successful detection of water comes with a new puzzle: unlike other comets, Comet 238P/Read had no detectable carbon dioxide.
This image of Comet 238P/Read was captured by the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope on September 8, 2022. It displays the hazy halo, called the coma, and tail that are characteristic of comets, as opposed to asteroids. The dusty coma and tail result from the vaporization of ices as the Sun warms the main body of the comet.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, M. Kelley (University of Maryland). Image processing: H. Hsieh (Planetary Science Institute), A. Pagan (STScI)
#NASA #STScI #jwst #jameswebbspacetelescope #NASAGoddard #NASAMarshall #comet #water
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the lenticular galaxy NGC 3489. Lenticular galaxies aren’t quite spiral galaxies or elliptical galaxies. They lie somewhere in between, exhibiting traits of both. Lenticular galaxies have a central bulge of tightly packed stars and a thin, circular disk of stars, gas, and dust, like spiral galaxies, but they lack arms. And like elliptical galaxies, lenticular galaxies have older stellar populations and little ongoing star formation.
NGC 3489 has an active galactic nucleus, or AGN. The AGN sits at the center of the galaxy, is extremely bright, and emits radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum as the black hole devours material that gets too close to it.
This lenticular galaxy is a Seyfert galaxy, which is a class of AGN that is dimmer than other types of AGNs. They generally don’t outshine the rest of the galaxy, so the galaxy surrounding the black hole is clearly visible. Other types of AGNs emit so much radiation that it is almost impossible to observe the host galaxy.
NGC 3489 is about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Leo.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, P. Erwin (Max-Planck-Institut fur extraterrestrische Physik), L. Ho (Peking University), and S. Kaviraj (University of Hertfordshire); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAGoddard #ESA #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astrophysics #galaxy
The Parinacota and Pomerape stratovolcanoes (top to bottom) are pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited 263 miles above the South American nation of Chile. Parinacota is a dormant volcano on the Chile-Bolivia border and its peak is about 20,800 feet. Pomerape, last active over 100,000 years ago, is also on the Chile- Bolivia border with an elevation of about 20,600 feet. At top left, is Chungará Lake in northern Chile which rests about 14,800 feet above sea level.
Image credit: NASA
#nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #space #nasamarshall #ISS #InternationalSpaceStation #Earth
This image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope features the Grand Design Spiral, NGC 3631, located some 53 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major. The “arms” of grand design spirals appear to wind around and into the galaxy’s nucleus.
Close inspection of NGC 3631’s grand spiral arms reveals dark dust lanes and bright star-forming regions along the inner part of the spiral arms. Star formation in spirals is similar to a traffic jam on the interstate. Like cars on the highway, slower moving matter in the spiral’s disk creates a bottleneck, concentrating star-forming gas and dust along the inner part of their spiral arms. This traffic jam of matter can get so dense that it gravitationally collapses, creating new stars (here seen in bright blue-white).
The image uses data collected from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. The color blue represents visible wavelengths of blue light, and the color orange represents infrared light.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Filippenko (University of California - Berkeley), and D. Sand (University of Arizona); Image Processing: G. Kober (NASA Goddard/Catholic University of America)
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astrophysics #gsfc #galaxy
This Chandra X-ray image shows SNR 0509-68.7, a supernova remnant located in the Large Magellanic Cloud about 160,000 light years from Earth. SNR 0509-68.7, also known as N103B, was observed from January 1-3, 2001.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
#NASA #NASAMarshall #Chandra #supernova
Christmas Eve, 1968. As one of the most turbulent, tragic years in American history drew to a close, millions around the world were watching and listening as the Apollo 8 astronauts - Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders - became the first humans to orbit another world. As their command module floated above the lunar surface, the astronauts beamed back images of the moon and Earth and took turns reading from the book of Genesis, closing with a wish for everyone "on the good Earth."
Image credit: NASA
#tbt #nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #marshall #space #history #marshallhistory #nasamarshall #nasahistory #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #apollo #apollo8 #moon #astronaut #earth
Saturn is showing off 💎
On June 25, 2023, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope turned to the famed ringed world Saturn for its first near-infrared observations of the planet.
Saturn itself appears extremely dark at this infrared wavelength observed by the telescope, as methane gas absorbs almost all of the sunlight falling on the atmosphere. However, the icy rings stay relatively bright, leading to the unusual appearance of Saturn in the Webb image.
#NASA #NASAMarshall #Webb #JamesWebbSpaceTelescope #Telescope #Space #Saturn #Planet
Four composite images deliver dazzling views from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope of two galaxies, a nebula, and a star cluster. Each image combines Chandra's X-rays — a form of high-energy light — with infrared data from previously released Webb images, both of which are invisible to the unaided eye. Data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (optical light) and retired Spitzer Space Telescope (infrared), plus the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton (X-ray) and the European Southern Observatory's New Technology Telescope (optical) is also used. These cosmic wonders and details are made available by mapping the data to colors that humans can perceive.
Messier 16, also known as the Eagle Nebula, is a famous region of the sky often referred to as the “Pillars of Creation.” The Webb image shows the dark columns of gas and dust shrouding the few remaining fledgling stars just being formed. The Chandra sources, which look like dots, are young stars that give off copious amounts of X-rays. (X-ray: red, blue; infrared: red, green, blue)
Image credit: X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/SAO, XMM: ESA/XMM-Newton; IR: JWST: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI, Spitzer: NASA/JPL/CalTech; Optical: Hubble: NASA/ESA/STScI, ESO; Image Processing: L. Frattare, J. Major, and K. Arcand
#NASAMarshall #NASA #astrophysics #astronomy #chandra #NASAChandra #NASA #STScI #jwst #jameswebbspacetelescope #NASAGoddard #nebula
Read more about the Chanddra X-ray Observatory
The first anniversary image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope displays star birth like it’s never been seen before, full of detailed, impressionistic texture. The subject is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. It is a relatively small, quiet stellar nursery, but you’d never know it from Webb’s chaotic close-up. Jets bursting from young stars crisscross the image, impacting the surrounding interstellar gas and lighting up molecular hydrogen, shown in red. Some stars display the telltale shadow of a circumstellar disk, the makings of future planetary systems.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI)
#NASA #STScI #jwst #jameswebbspacetelescope #NASAGoddard #NASAMarshall #stellarnursery
Happy Fourth of July from #NASAMarshall! Appearing like a winged creature poised on a pedestal, this object captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is actually a billowing tower of cold gas and dust rising in the Eagle Nebula. The soaring pillar is 9.5 light-years, or about 57 trillion miles, high, about twice the distance from our Sun to the nearest star. Stars in the Eagle Nebula are born in clouds of cold hydrogen that reside in chaotic neighborhoods, where energy from young stars sculpts fantasy-like landscapes in the gas.
Image Credit: NASA
#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAGoddard #ESA #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astrophysics #nebula
In the summer of 2022, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope released images from some of its earliest observations with the newly commissioned telescope. Almost instantaneously, these stunning images landed everywhere from the front pages of news outlets to larger-than-life displays in Times Square.
Webb, however, will not pursue its exploration of the universe on its own. It is designed to work in concert with NASA's many other telescopes as well as facilities both in space and on the ground. These new versions of Webb’s first images combine its infrared data with X-rays collected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, underscoring how the power of any of these telescopes is only enhanced when joined with others.
The four galaxies within Stephan’s Quintet are undergoing an intricate dance choreographed by gravity. (The fifth galaxy, on the left, is an interloping galaxy at a different distance.) The Webb image (red, orange, yellow, green, blue) of this object features never-seen-before details of the results of these interactions, including sweeping tails of gas and bursts of star formation. The Chandra data (light blue) of this system has uncovered a shock wave that heats gas to tens of millions of degrees, as one of the galaxies passes through the others at speeds of around 2 million miles per hour. This new composite also includes infrared data from NASA’s now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope (red, green, blue).
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR (Spitzer): NASA/JPL-Caltech; IR (Webb): NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
#NASAMarshall #Chandra #NASA #ChandraXrayObservatory #jwst #jameswebbspacetelescope #SpitzerSpaceTelescope #galaxy
Read more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory
NASA astronaut and Expedition 68 Flight Engineer Nicole Mann's image is refracted through a sphere of water flying weightlessly in microgravity.
Image Credit: NASA
#NASA #NASAMarshall #ISS #InternationalSpaceStation
What's happening to this spiral galaxy? Just a few hundred million years ago, NGC 2936, the upper of the two large galaxies shown, was likely a normal spiral galaxy -- spinning, creating stars -- and minding its own business. But then it got too close to the massive elliptical galaxy NGC 2937 below and took a dive. Dubbed the Porpoise Galaxy for its iconic shape, NGC 2936 is not only being deflected but also being distorted by the close gravitational interaction. A burst of young blue stars forms the nose of the porpoise toward the right of the upper galaxy, while the center of the spiral appears as an eye. Alternatively, the galaxy pair, together known as Arp 142, look to some like a penguin protecting an egg. Either way, intricate dark dust lanes and bright blue star streams trail the troubled galaxy to the lower right. The featured re-processed image showing Arp 142 in unprecedented detail was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope last year. Arp 142 lies about 300 million light years away toward the constellation, coincidently, of the Water Snake (Hydra). In a billion years or so the two galaxies will likely merge into one larger galaxy.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA
What looks like a red butterfly in space is in reality a nursery for hundreds of baby stars, revealed in this infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Officially named W40, the butterfly is a nebula – a giant cloud of gas and dust in space where new stars may form. The butterfly's "wings" are giant bubbles of hot, interstellar gas blowing from the hottest, most massive stars in this region.
The material that forms W40's wings was ejected from a dense cluster of stars that lies between the wings in the image. The hottest, most massive of these stars, W40 IRS 1a, lies near the center of the star cluster.
W40 is about 1,400 light-years from the Sun, about the same distance as the well-known Orion nebula, although the two are almost 180 degrees apart in the sky.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#NASA #NASAMarshall #JPL #JetPropulsionLaboratory #SpitzerSpaceTelescope #Spitzer #nebula
Scientists have found four enormous cavities, or bubbles, at the center of a galaxy cluster using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This unusual set of features may have been caused by eruptions from two supermassive black holes closely orbiting each other.
Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in the universe held together by gravity. They are a mixture of hundreds or even thousands of individual galaxies, enormous amounts of hot gas, and unseen dark matter. The hot gas that pervades clusters contains much more mass than the galaxies themselves, and glows brightly in X-ray light that Chandra detects. An enormous galaxy is usually found at the center of a cluster.
A new Chandra study of the galaxy cluster known as RBS 797, located about 3.9 billion light-years from Earth, uncovered two separate pairs of cavities extending away from the center of the cluster.
These types of cavities have been seen before in other galaxy clusters. Scientists think they are the result of eruptions from regions near a supermassive black hole in the middle of the massive central galaxy. As matter flies away from the black hole as jets in opposing directions, it blows cavities in the hot gas. The revelation in RBS 797 is that there are two sets of jets directed perpendicular to each other.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Bologna/F. Ubertosi; Optical: NASA/STScl/M.Calzadilla
#NASA #NASAMarshall #Chandra #Hubble #blackhole
Asteroid Bennu's boulder-covered surface gives it protection against small meteoroid impacts, according to observations of craters by NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft.
Bennu is a “rubble-pile” asteroid, meaning that it formed from the debris of a much larger asteroid that was destroyed by an ancient impact. Fragments from the collision coalesced under their own weak gravity to form Bennu.
This image shows asteroid Bennu’s boulder-covered surface. It was taken by the PolyCam camera on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on April 11, 2019 from a distance of 2.8 miles (4.5 km). The field of view is 211 ft (64.4 m), and the large boulder in the upper right corner of the image is 50 ft (15.4 m) tall. When the image was taken, the spacecraft was over the southern hemisphere, pointing PolyCam far north and to the west.
Image credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
#NASA #NASAMarshall #MSFC #GSFC #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #OSIRISRex #asteroid #newfrontiers #bennu #regolith
This Hubble image shows the star cluster NGC 1850, located about 160,000 light-years away. For this image, two filters were used with the camera to gather data: one at visible wavelengths, the other at near-infrared wavelengths. Following chromatic order, the shorter wavelength visible light data is blue, while the longer near-infrared data is red.
Image credit: NASA, ESA and P. Goudfrooij (Space Telescope Science Institute); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAGoddard #ESA #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astrophysics #starcluster
Astronomers have discovered what can happen when a giant black hole does not intervene in the life of a galaxy cluster. Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes they have shown that passive black hole behavior may explain a remarkable torrent of star formation occurring in a distant cluster of galaxies.
Galaxy clusters contain hundreds or thousands of galaxies pervaded by hot, X-ray emitting gas that outweighs the combined mass of all the galaxies. Ejections of material powered by a supermassive black hole in the cluster’s central galaxy usually prevent this hot gas from cooling to form vast numbers of stars. This heating allows supermassive black holes to influence or control the activity and evolution of their host cluster.
But what happens if that black hole stops being active? The galaxy cluster SpARCS104922.6+564032.5 (SpARCS1049 for short) located 9.9 billion light years away from Earth is supplying one answer.
Based on observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers had previously discovered stars were forming at an extraordinary rate of about 900 new Suns worth of mass per year in SpARCS1049. This is over 300 times faster than the rate at which our galaxy, the Milky Way, is forming its stars. (At the rate seen in SpARCS1049, all of the stars in the Milky Way could form in just 100 million years, which is a short period of time compared to our Galaxy’s age of more than ten billion years.)
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXO/Univ. of Montreal/J. Hlavacek-Larrondo et al; Optical: NASA/STScI
In March, the Relativity Space Terran 1 rocket lit up the night sky as it launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This was the first launch of a test rocket made entirely from 3D-printed parts, measuring 100 feet tall and 7.5 feet wide. A form of additive manufacturing, 3D printing is a key technology for enhancing capabilities and reducing cost. Terran 1 included nine additively manufactured engines made of an innovative copper alloy, which experienced temperatures approaching 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Created at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland under the agency’s Game Changing Development program, this family of copper-based alloys known as Glenn Research Copper, or GRCop, are designed for use in combustion chambers of high performance rocket engines. A combination of copper, chromium, and niobium, GRCop is optimized for high strength, high thermal conductivity, high creep resistance – which allows more stress and strain in high temperature applications – and good low cycle fatigue -– which prevents material failures –above 900 degrees Farenheit. They tolerate temperatures up to 40% higher than traditional copper alloys, which leads to higher performance components and reusability.
This image shows the Terran 1’s rocket exhaust during launch in March 2023.
Image credit: Relativity Space
#NASAMarshall #NASA #3dprinting
Read more about Rapid Analysis and Manufacturing Propulsion Technology (RAMPT)
The galaxy Centaurus A (Cen A) shines bright in this image combining data from multiple observatories. In the center of this galaxy is a supermassive black hole feeding off the gas and dust encircling it, and large jets of high-energy particles and other material spewing out. The jet shown at the upper left of this image extends for about 13,000 light-years away from the black hole. Also visible is a dust lane, wrapping around the middle of the galaxy, which may have resulted from a collision with a smaller galaxy millions of years ago.
Colors in this image have been chosen to reflect the sources of data. Blue shows X-ray light captured by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, orange represents X-rays detected by NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) satellite, and optical light seen by the European Southern Observatory in Chile is colored white and gray.
Cen A has been studied extensively since the launch of Chandra in 1999. With IXPE, which launched in 2021, scientists can understand the mysteries of this object in a new way. IXPE is specialized to look at a property of X-ray light called polarization, which relates to the organization of electromagnetic waves. This specialized measurement is helping scientists study how particles become accelerated to high energies and speeds — nearly the speed of light — at extreme cosmic objects like this one.
At Cen A, researchers using IXPE seek to understand what causes the X-ray emission in the jets. So far, scientists have not detected X-ray polarization at Cen A, indicating that particles much heavier than electrons, such as protons, are not producing the X-rays. More insights are to come as scientists analyze the data.
Cen A is found 12 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus and represents the fifth brightest galaxy in the sky.
Image credit: X-ray: (IXPE): NASA/MSFC/IXPE/S. Ehlert et al.; (Chandra): NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: ESO/WFI; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J.Schmidt
#NASAMarshall #NASA #IXPE #astrophysics #astronomy #chandra #NASAChandra #BlackHoleWeek
Read more about the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE)
This object is, in fact, a pair: a white dwarf star that steadily burns at a relatively cool temperature and a highly variable red giant. As they orbit each other, the white dwarf pulls material from the red giant onto its surface. Over time, enough of this material accumulates and triggers an explosion. Astronomers have seen such outbursts over recent decades. Evidence for much older outbursts is seen in the spectacular structures observed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (red and blue). X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (purple) shows how a jet from the white dwarf is striking material surrounding it and creating shock waves, similar to sonic booms from supersonic planes.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
#NASA #NASAMarshall #Chandra #astronomy #space
This image is dominated by NGC 7469, a luminous, face-on spiral galaxy approximately 90 000 light-years in diameter that lies roughly 220 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. Its companion galaxy IC 5283 is partly visible in the lower left portion of this image.
This spiral galaxy has recently been studied as part of the Great Observatories All-sky LIRGs Survey (GOALS) Early Release Science program with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, which aims to study the physics of star formation, black hole growth, and feedback in four nearby, merging luminous infrared galaxies. Other galaxies studied as part of the survey include previous ESA/Webb Pictures of the Month II ZW 096 and IC 1623.
NGC 7469 is home to an active galactic nucleus (AGN), which is an extremely bright central region that is dominated by the light emitted by dust and gas as it falls into the galaxy’s central black hole. This galaxy provides astronomers with the unique opportunity to study the relationship between AGNs and starburst activity because this particular object hosts an AGN that is surrounded by a starburst ring at a distance of a mere 1500 light-years. While NGC 7469 is one of the best studied AGNs in the sky, the compact nature of this system and the presence of a great deal of dust have made it difficult for scientists to achieve both the resolution and sensitivity needed to study this relationship in the infrared. Now, with Webb, astronomers can explore the galaxy’s starburst ring, the central AGN, and the gas and dust in between.
Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, L. Armus, A. S. Evans
#NASA #STScI #jwst #jameswebbspacetelescope #NASAGoddard #NASAMarshall #ESA #CSA #galaxy
Shreds of the colorful supernova remnant DEM L 190 seem to billow across the screen in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The delicate sheets and intricate filaments are debris from the cataclysmic death of a massive star that once lived in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. DEM L 190 – also known as LMC N49 – is the brightest supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud and lies approximately 160,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Dorado.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. Kulkarni, Y. Chu
#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAGoddard #ESA #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astrophysics #supernova
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals tendrils of dark dust threading across the heart of the spiral galaxy NGC 7172. The galaxy lies approximately 110 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Piscis Austrinus. The lane of dust threading its way across NGC 7172 is obscuring the luminous heart of the galaxy, making NGC 7172 appear to be nothing more than a normal spiral galaxy viewed from the side.
When astronomers inspected NGC 7172 across the electromagnetic spectrum they quickly discovered that there was more to it than meets the eye: NGC 7172 is a Seyfert galaxy – a type of galaxy with an intensely luminous active galactic nucleus powered by matter accreting onto a supermassive black hole.
This image combines data from two sets of Hubble observations, both proposed to study nearby active galactic nuclei. The image also combines data from two instruments -– Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. J. Rosario, A. Barth; Acknowledgment: L. Shatz
#NASA #NASAMarshall #Hubble #nebula #galaxy
In this image taken on Oct. 30, 2021, an aurora dimly intersected with Earth's airglow as the International Space Station flew into an orbital sunrise 264 miles above the Pacific Ocean before crossing over Canada.
Image Credit: NASA
#NASA #space #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #NASAMarshall #msfc #InternationalSpaceStation #ISS #biomining
This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of IC 4271, also known as Arp 40, is a curious pair of spiral galaxies some 800 million light-years away. The smaller galaxy is superimposed on the larger one, which is a type of active galaxy called a Seyfert galaxy. Seyfert galaxies are named for astronomer Carl K. Seyfert who, in 1943, published a paper about spiral galaxies with very bright emission lines. Today we know that about 10% of all galaxies may be Seyfert galaxies. They belong to the class of “active galaxies” – galaxies that have supermassive black holes at their centers accreting material, which releases vast amounts of radiation. The active cores of Seyfert galaxies are at their brightest when observed in light outside the visible spectrum.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and B. Holwerda (University of Louisville Research Foundation, Inc.); Image processing: G. Kober (NASA Goddard/Catholic University of America)
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astrophysics #gsfc #galaxy