2014年11月30日 星期日

The Seahorse of the Large Magellanic Cloud



It may look like a grazing seahorse, but the dark object toward the image right is actually a pillar of smoky dust about 20 light years long. The curiously-shaped dust structure occurs in our neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud, in a star forming region very near the expansive Tarantula Nebula. The energetic nebula is creating a star cluster, NGC 2074, whose center is visible just off the top of the image in the direction of the neck of the seahorse. The representative color image was taken in 2008 by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in honor of Hubble's 100,000th trip around the Earth. As young stars in the cluster form, their light and winds will slowly erode the dust pillars away over the next million years. via NASA http://ift.tt/1w9gQi8

Video: "Wanderers" - A Good Way to Start Your Week





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2014年11月29日 星期六

3D 67P



Get out your red/blue glasses and float next to a comet! The Rosetta mission lander Philae's ROLIS camera snapped the two frames used to create this stereo anaglyph for 3D viewing during its November 12 descent to the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The comet's curious double lobed nucleus is seen nearly end on from a distance of about 3 kilometers, about 1 hour before Philae arrived at the surface. Philae's initial landing site is near the center of the front facing lobe. Part of a landing gear foot cuts across the upper right corner, in the close foreground of the 3D-view. Philae bounced twice in the comet's weak gravity after its first contact with the surface. Using high resolution camera images from the Rosetta orbiter along with data from the lander's instruments, controllers have followed Philae's impromptu journey over the comet's surface and have identified a likely area for its final resting place. via NASA http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap141129.html

2014年11月28日 星期五

Portrait of NGC 281



Look through the cosmic cloud cataloged as NGC 281 and you might miss the stars of open cluster IC 1590. But, formed within the nebula, that cluster's young, massive stars ultimately power the pervasive nebular glow. The eye-catching shapes looming in this portrait of NGC 281 are sculpted columns and dense dust globules seen in silhouette, eroded by intense, energetic winds and radiation from the hot cluster stars. If they survive long enough, the dusty structures could also be sites of future star formation. Playfully called the Pacman Nebula because of its overall shape, NGC 281 is about 10,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. This sharp composite image was made through narrow-band filters, combining emission from the nebula's hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms in green, red, and blue hues. It spans over 80 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 281. via NASA http://ift.tt/1zBXmQP

Black Hole Friday



In this artist's illustration, turbulent winds of gas swirl around a black hole. Some of the gas is spiraling inward toward the black hole, but another part is blown away. A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying. Because no light can get out, people can't see black holes. They are invisible. Space telescopes with special tools can help find black holes. The special tools can see how stars that are very close to black holes act differently than other stars. How Big Are Black Holes? Black holes can be big or small. Scientists think the smallest black holes are as small as just one atom. These black holes are very tiny but have the mass of a large mountain. Mass is the amount of matter, or "stuff," in an object. More information on black holes. Artwork Credit: NASA, and M. Weiss (Chandra X -ray Center) via NASA http://ift.tt/1xZVGT3

2014年11月27日 星期四

Galileo s Europa Remastered



Looping through the Jovian system in the late 1990s, the Galileo spacecraft recorded stunning views of Europa and uncovered evidence that the moon's icy surface likely hides a deep, global ocean. Galileo's Europa image data has been newly remastered here, using improved new calibrations to produce a color image approximating what the human eye might see. Europa's long curving fractures hint at the subsurface liquid water. The tidal flexing the large moon experiences in its elliptical orbit around Jupiter supplies the energy to keep the ocean liquid. But more tantalizing is the possibility that even in the absence of sunlight that process could also supply the energy to support life, making Europa one of the best places to look for life beyond Earth. What kind of life could thrive in a deep, dark, subsurface ocean? Consider planet Earth's own extreme shrimp. via NASA http://ift.tt/1vnilHS

Thankful for Saturn

I’m thankful for a lot of things in life — though appreciative might be a better word — but if I had to assess a list of astronomical gifts, then Saturn would be very high on that list.


This ridiculously gaudy bauble of the solar system never ceases to amaze me, filling my sciencey brain with wonder as it overwhelms my artsy brain with beauty.


So just to get you kickstarted for Thanksgiving, here are three portraits of Saturn for which we can all be grateful.


Up first: Rings and shadows.


This image, taken by the Cassini spacecraft in Aug. 14, 2014, shows nearly the entire face of the planet. That’s no small feat, given Saturn’s 116,000 km girth.


Cassini was almost directly above Saturn’s equator when it took this, so the rings, similarly latituded, are seen as a narrow ribbon around the planet. But that’s an illusion of perspective; the rings are 270,000 km across, a huge span. That’s revealed by their shadow on Saturn’s southern hemisphere; a series of concentric arcs darkening the cloud tops.


I like how different rings cast darker or lighter shadows. The inner C ring is sparse, but the main B ring is thick and broad. The A ring, outside of B, is slightly less dense, so the shadow is lighter. The gap between them is called the Cassini Division, and since there’s less stuff there, it appears as a bright band on Saturn (it doesn’t cast a shadow, really). You can also see the Encke division, the very narrow strip near the bottom of A’s shadow. The shadows are like the rings in reverse, both in brightness and order.


By the way, did you spot the moons Tethys (off to the right) and Mimas (just above the rings, to the lower right of center)?


Next up: Light and shadowplay.


Cooool. The images making up the video, taken by Hubble, are from 1995, when Saturn’s tilt brought the Sun shining almost directly along the plane of the rings. That’s how the moons (Enceladus, Mimas, Dione, and Tethys) can cast long shadows on them. The video shows about 9.5 hours in the life of moons, and you can see just how far they move in that short time, tugged by Saturn’s immense gravity.


Finally: Intermix.


This spectacular shot threw me for a moment. I had never see the clouds on Saturn mixing like that before; usually they stay separate. But this is an image taken using a filter that only allows red light through, where methane absorbs light. That means you’re seeing the very top of the clouds, where mixing of winds is more common. That vortex appears to be drawing material from the bright band next to it. It’s a good reminder that air is a fluid — literally, something that can flow.


Perhaps it’s a bit odd of me to be thinking of Saturn on a day like today, but you know what? I’ll take odd, if it means being able to appreciate the intense and wondrous beauty of the natural world… or worlds.






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2014年11月26日 星期三

Io and Callisto Mutual Event



A 24 minute sequence from top to bottom, this intriguing series of telescopic frames tracks the occultation of Io by Callisto, two of Jupiter's Galilean moons, from San Pietro Polesine, Italy, planet Earth. A challenging observational project using a small telescope, the two contrasting Jovian worlds are both slightly larger than Earth's Moon. In fact, bright, volcanic Io and dark, cratered Callisto are about 3,640 and 4,820 kilometers in diameter respectively. With Earth itself now crossing near the orbital plane of Jupiter's moons, astronomers are enjoying a season of Galilean moon mutual events ranging from eclipses to occultations. The series of orbital plane crossings produce a mutual event season every 5 to 6 years. via NASA http://ift.tt/1CdOXZv

Some Recent Views of Mars from Hubble

Ted Stryk showcases some of his processed versions of recent Hubble Space Telescope views of Mars.



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NASA Coverage Set for Fifth SpaceX Resupply Mission to Space Station

The fifth SpaceX cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract is scheduled to launch Tuesday, Dec. 16, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. NASA Television coverage of the launch begins at 1:15 p.m. EST.



November 26, 2014

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Join me in Washington, D.C. for a post-Thanksgiving Celebration of Planetary Exploration

See Bill Nye, Europa scientist Kevin Hand, and Mars scientist Michael Meyer speak at a special event on Capitol Hill on December 2nd.



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United Launch Alliance Answers Burning Questions about Orion's Rocket

When Orion launches next week, you may notice something alarming: The spacecraft's rocket sort of catches itself on fire. But not to worry, says United Launch Alliance.



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NASA's Sloppy FY 2014 Agency Financial Report

NASA FY 2014 Agency Financial Report"Audit of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Fiscal Year 2014 Financial Statements (IG-15-006, November 14, 2014) The Office of Inspector General contracted with the independent public accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) to audit NASA's...



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International Space Station’s 3-D Printer



The International Space Station’s 3-D printer has manufactured the first 3-D printed object in space, paving the way to future long-term space expeditions. The object, a printhead faceplate, is engraved with names of the organizations that collaborated on this space station technology demonstration: NASA and Made In Space, Inc., the space manufacturing company that worked with NASA to design, build and test the 3-D printer. This image of the printer, with the Microgravity Science Glovebox Engineering Unit in the background, was taken in April 2014 during flight certification and acceptance testing at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, prior to its launch to the station aboard a SpaceX commercial resupply mission. The first objects built in space will be returned to Earth in 2015 for detailed analysis and comparison to the identical ground control samples made on the flight printer prior to launch. The goal of this analysis is to verify that the 3-D printing process works the same in microgravity as it does on Earth. The printer works by extruding heated plastic, which then builds layer upon layer to create three-dimensional objects. Testing this on the station is the first step toward creating a working "machine shop" in space. This capability may decrease cost and risk on the station, which will be critical when space explorers venture far from Earth and will create an on-demand supply chain for needed tools and parts. Long-term missions would benefit greatly from onboard manufacturing capabilities. Data and experience gathered in this demonstration will improve future 3-D manufacturing technology and equipment for the space program, allowing a greater degree of autonomy and flexibility for astronauts. Image Credit: NASA/Emmett Given via NASA http://ift.tt/1rkkxQS

Synchronizing Calendars at NASA

NASA Advisory Council Human Exploration and Operations Committee - Meeting Postponement NASA Advisory Council Science Committee - Meeting Postponement NASA Advisory Council - Meeting Postponement "The meeting is being postponed by NASA due to exceptional circumstances and schedule conflicts of...



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Does the Name Pavlof Ring a Bell?

In May 2013, the Aleutian island volcano Pavlof erupted mightily, blowing a stream of ash into the atmosphere and messing up airplane travel.


Last week, it was at it again. This eruption was even more violent than last year’s; the plume went nine kilometers into the air, and was hundreds of kilometers long. It was seen by the Landsat 8 satellite on Nov. 15:


There’s a weird beauty to such things, as awful as they can be. I see them, I suppose, like a rabbit sees a snake: morbid fascination (mixed with a small to fair dose of terror). Even though, in terms of human settlements, Pavlof is remote, it still can muck up airplane travel. Ash is made of fine but very jagged particles of pulverized rock and glass, and if it gets into an airplane engine it can jam it up but good.


That’s why, as I pointed out in last year’s article, we need the Alaska Volcano Observatory… which is generally under threat of a budget ax. That’s nuts, but then, that’s politics these days. When you have a group that denies the existence of everything around them, then dipping your toe into the Presidential election campaign by mocking volcano observatories probably seems downright sane in comparison.


It isn’t.






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A Rich Potpourri of Future Mission Concepts

The past few months have brought announcements for new missions from India and China as well as a wealth of creative ideas for future missions.



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2014年11月25日 星期二

The Creature from the Red Lagoon



What creature lurks near the red Lagoon nebula? Mars. This gorgeous color deep-sky photograph has captured the red planet passing below two notable nebulae -- cataloged by the 18th century cosmic registrar Charles Messier as M8 and M20. M20 (upper right of center), the Trifid Nebula, presents a striking contrast in red/blue colors and dark dust lanes. Just below and to the left is the expansive, alluring red glow of M8, the Lagoon Nebula. Both nebulae are a few thousand light-years distant. By comparison, temporarily situated below them both, is the dominant "local" celestial beacon Mars. Taken late last month while near its closest approach to the Earth, the red planet was only a few light-minutes away. via NASA http://ift.tt/1ALafw8

The Science of “Bennu’s Journey”

The OSIRIS-REx project released Bennu’s Journey, a movie describing one possible history of our target asteroid – Bennu. The animation is among the most highly detailed productions created by Goddard’s Conceptual Image Laboratory.



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NASA Airborne Campaigns Tackle Climate Questions from Africa to Arctic

Five new NASA airborne field campaigns will take to the skies starting in 2015 to investigate how long-range air pollution, warming ocean waters, and fires in Africa affect our climate.



November 25, 2014

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NASA is Fixing Year 2000 Compliance in Year 2014

Federal Acquisition Regulation; Year Format, NASA "DoD, GSA, and NASA published a proposed rule in the Federal Register at 79 FR 16274 on March 25, 2014. No public comments were submitted. The final rule makes no changes from the proposed...



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Field Report from Mars: Sol 3848 — November 20, 2014

Larry Crumpler returns with an update on Opportunity's recent activities, and its road ahead.



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Close to the end for Venus Express

Venus Express is nearly out of fuel. Any day could be the last of its long mission to Venus.



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In Pictures: Expedition 42 Crew Launches to Station

Three more humans are in space today following the launch of Soyuz TMA-15M from the chilly steppes of Kazakhstan.



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2014年11月24日 星期一

NASA Wants To Be More Efficient. Just Kidding.

Earth and Life Sciences, Aircraft Ops Under Microscope in NASA Consolidation Effort, Space News "NASA's latest attempt to right-size its 10 U.S. field centers will begin with a focus on a roughly $3 billion cross-section of the agency's nearly $18...



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Putin-backed RD-180 Markup Scheme Unveiled

In murky Pentagon deal with Russia, big profit for a tiny Florida firm, reuters "For months, a powerful U.S. senator has been pushing for details of a murky deal under which a Russian manufacturer supplies the rocket engines used to...



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Lewis Peach

Keith's note: Sources report that Lewis Peach has died. Details when I get them. Ad astra. Bio at RASC-AL "Lewis Peach is currently an aerospace consultant for a number of space-related organizations and institutes, including: NASA, Buzz Aldrin Enterprises,...



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NASA Sets Prelaunch Activities, Television Coverage for Orion Flight Test

The first flight test of Orion, NASA’s next-generation spacecraft that will send astronauts to an asteroid and onward to Mars, is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 4. NASA will host a series of news conferences and flight test commentary on NASA Television, as well as media events at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.



November 24, 2014

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NASA Opens Cube Quest Challenge for Largest-Ever Prize of $5 Million

Registration now is open for NASA's Cube Quest Challenge, the agency’s first in-space competition that offers the agency’s largest-ever prize purse.



November 24, 2014

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NASA Announces a Challenge Before It Announces the Challenge

Keith's note:NASA has posted Notice of Centennial Challenges Cube Quest Challenge in today's Federal Register. $5,000,000 to send a cubesat to the Moon. Very cool. The notice says "To register for or get additional information regarding the Cube Quest...



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2014年11月23日 星期日

Tornado and Rainbow Over Kansas



The scene might have been considered serene if it weren't for the tornado. During 2004 in Kansas, storm chaser Eric Nguyen photographed this budding twister in a different light -- the light of a rainbow. Featured here, a white tornado cloud descends from a dark storm cloud. The Sun, peeking through a clear patch of sky to the left, illuminates some buildings in the foreground. Sunlight reflects off raindrops to form a rainbow. By coincidence, the tornado appears to end right over the rainbow. Streaks in the image are hail being swept about by the high swirling winds. Over 1,000 tornadoes, the most violent type of storm known, occur on Earth every year, many in tornado alley. If you see a tornado while driving, do not try to outrun it -- park your car safely, go to a storm cellar, or crouch under steps in a basement. via NASA http://ift.tt/1uUeel3

New Crew Arrives at Space Station to Continue Scientific Research

Three new crew members representing the United States, Russia and Italy are at the International Space Station (ISS).



November 23, 2014

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More People Leave Earth for Space

Expedition 42 Launches on Time to International Space Station "The Soyuz TMA-15M launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station at 4:01 p.m. EST (3:01 a.m. on Nov. 24 Baikonur time). Terry Virts of NASA, Anton...



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2014年11月22日 星期六

Solar Flare from a Sharper Sun



Solar active region AR2192 was the largest recorded sunspot group of the last 24 years. Before rotating off the Earth-facing side of the Sun at the end of October, it produced a whopping six energetic X-class flares. Its most intense flare was captured on October 24 in this stunning view from the orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory. The scene is a color combination of images made at three different wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light; 193 angstroms shown in blue, 171 angstroms in white, and 304 angstroms in red. The emission, from highly ionized Iron and Helium atoms, traces magnetic field lines looping through the hot plasma of the Sun's outer chromosphere and corona. Beneath, the cooler solar photosphere appears dark at extreme ultraviolet wavelengths. The exceptionally sharp composite image has been processed with a new mathematical algorithm (NAFE) that adapts to noise and brightness in extreme ultraviolet image data to reliably enhance small details. via NASA http://ift.tt/1HxEKrf

2014年11月21日 星期五

M1: The Crab Nebula



The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first object on Charles Messier's famous 18th century list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, debris from the death explosion of a massive star, witnessed by astronomers in the year 1054. This sharp, ground-based telescopic view uses narrowband data to track emission from ionized oxygen and hydrogen atoms (in blue and red) and explore the tangled filaments within the still expanding cloud. One of the most exotic objects known to modern astronomers, the Crab Pulsar, a neutron star spinning 30 times a second, is visible as a bright spot near the nebula's center. Like a cosmic dynamo, this collapsed remnant of the stellar core powers the Crab's emission across the electromagnetic spectrum. Spanning about 12 light-years, the Crab Nebula is a mere 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. via NASA http://ift.tt/1F6VGkm

Quick update about our website

The last two weeks have been extraordinary for The Planetary Society. As amazing as this increased traffic is, it has brought to light some issues with our website including latency and missing content that we are still working on fixing.



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Don't Miss This Great New Video About Europa

JPL released a slick new video highlighting the significance of Europa, the moon of Jupiter with more liquid water than the Earth.



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More HSPD-12 Abuses at JPL

A Question of Loyalty, Pasadena Weekly "Over the past eight months, Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineer Cate Heneghan said she has been dealing with what she considers to be an abuse of authority by NASA, which has been trying to force...



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NASA Announces New Opportunities for Public Participation in Asteroid Grand Challenge

Ten new projects are providing opportunities for the public to participate in NASA's Asteroid Grand Challenge, which accelerates the agency's asteroid initiative work through innovative partnerships and collaborations.



November 21, 2014

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Lunar Polar Volatile Puzzle

Deepak Dhingra gives an exciting update from the recent Lunar Exploration and Analysis Group (LEAG) meeting at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (JHU-APL) in Baltimore.



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A Mission to Europa Just Got a Whole Lot More Likely

Rep. John Culberson, an outspoken supporter of Europa exploration, will assume leadership of an influential congressional committee that funds NASA.



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2014年11月20日 星期四

LDN 988: Dark Nebula in Cygnus



Obscuring the rich starfields of northern Cygnus, dark nebula LDN 988 lies near the center of this cosmic skyscape. Composed with telescope and camera, the scene is some 2 degrees across. That corresponds to 70 light-years at the estimated 2,000 light-year distance of LDN 988. Stars are forming within LDN 988, part of a larger complex of dusty molecular clouds along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy sometimes called the Northern Coalsack. In fact, nebulosities associated with young stars abound in the region, including variable star V1331 Cygni shown in the inset. At the tip of a long dusty filament and partly surrounded by a curved reflection nebula, V1331 is thought to be a T Tauri star, a sun-like star still in the early stages of formation. via NASA http://ift.tt/1yVkqK0

NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Ionospheric Connection Explorer

NASA has selected Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Virginia, to provide launch services for the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission.



November 20, 2014

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NASA Selects Student Teams for High-Powered Rocket Challenge

NASA has selected eight teams from middle and high schools across the country to participate in the 2014-2015 NASA Student Launch Challenge, April 7-12, organized by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.



November 20, 2014

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Goresat Gets Closer To Launch

DSCOVR Mission Passes Major Milestones "NOAA will manage the DSCOVR mission, giving advanced warning of approaching solar storms. NASA, funded by NOAA, refurbished the DSCOVR satellite and instruments, which were in storage for several years. The U.S. Air Force is...



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Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission Marks Ten Years of Discovery



On Nov. 20, 2004, NASA's Swift spacecraft lifted off aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., beginning its mission to study gamma-ray bursts and identify their origins. Gamma-ray bursts are the most luminous explosions in the cosmos. Most are thought to be triggered when the core of a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel, collapses under its own weight, and forms a black hole. The black hole then drives jets of particles that drill all the way through the collapsing star and erupt into space at nearly the speed of light. Astronomers at NASA and Pennsylvania State University used Swift to create the most detailed ultraviolet light surveys ever of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the two closest major galaxies. Nearly a million ultraviolet sources appear in this mosaic of the Large Magellanic Cloud, which was assembled from 2,200 images taken by Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) and released on June 3, 2013. The 160-megapixel image required a cumulative exposure of 5.4 days. The image includes light from 1,600 to 3,300 angstroms -- UV wavelengths largely blocked by Earth's atmosphere -- and has an angular resolution of 2.5 arcseconds at full size. The Large Magellanic Cloud is about 14,000 light-years across. Viewing in the ultraviolet allows astronomers to suppress the light of normal stars like the sun, which are not very bright at such higher energies, and provides a clearer picture of the hottest stars and star-formation regions. No telescope other than UVOT can produce such high-resolution wide-field multicolor surveys in the ultraviolet. Pennsylvania State University manages the Swift Mission Operations Center, which controls Swift's science and flight operations. Goddard manages Swift, which was launched in November 2004. The satellite is operated in collaboration with Penn State, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Va. International collaborators are in the United Kingdom and Italy, and the mission includes contributions from Germany and Japan. Image Credit: NASA/Swift/S. Immler (Goddard) and M. Siegel (Penn State) via NASA http://ift.tt/1xWOvuu

NASA's Plan For Mars Is To Have No Plan for Mars

How NASA Plans to Land Humans on Mars, Planetary Society "On the surface, NASA's humans to Mars plans seem vague and disjointed. For instance, it's difficult to see how visiting a captured asteroid in lunar orbit fits into a bigger...



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How NASA Plans to Land Humans on Mars

On the surface, NASA's humans to Mars plans seem vague and disjointed. But that's because the agency is playing the long game. Right now, it may be the only game they can play.



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2014年11月19日 星期三

Bright Spiral Galaxy M81



One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful M81. This grand spiral galaxy can be found toward the northern constellation of the Great Bear (Ursa Major). This superbly detailed view reveals M81's bright yellow nucleus, blue spiral arms, and sweeping cosmic dust lanes with a scale comparable to the Milky Way. Hinting at a disorderly past, a remarkable dust lane actually runs straight through the disk, to the left of the galactic center, contrary to M81's other prominent spiral features. The errant dust lane may be the lingering result of a close encounter between M81 and its smaller companion galaxy, M82. Scrutiny of variable stars in M81 has yielded one of the best determined distances for an external galaxy -- 11.8 million light-years. via NASA http://ift.tt/1uH8tbP

Curiosity update, sols 782-813: Walking the outcrop at Pahrump Hills

At Pahrump Hills, Curiosity is becoming the field geologist she was intended to be.



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NASA Awards Agencywide Acquisition of Liquid Hydrogen Contract

NASA has awarded the agencywide Acquisition of Liquid Hydrogen contract to Praxair, Inc. of Danbury, Connecticut.



November 19, 2014

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Remember Comet Siding Spring? Mars Orbiter Mission got photos, too

A set of photos released by Mars Orbiter Mission last week completes the set of Mars spacecraft observations of the comet. Now we wait for science results!



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SLS Has a New Name: Boeing Space Launch System

384 feet tall. 6 and a half million pounds. The largest vehicle ever planned. Boeing Space Launch System. http://t.co/sewvP4ddYz— Boeing Defense (@BoeingDefense) November 19, 2014...



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2014年11月18日 星期二

Star Formation in the Tadpole Nebula



Dusty emission in the Tadpole nebula, IC 410, lies about 12,000 light-years away in the northern constellation Auriga. The cloud of glowing gas is over 100 light-years across, sculpted by stellar winds and radiation from embedded open star cluster NGC 1893. Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, bright cluster stars are seen all around the star-forming nebula. Notable near the image center are two relatively dense streamers of material trailing away from the nebula's central regions. Potentially sites of ongoing star formation in IC 410, these cosmic tadpole shapes are about 10 light-years long. The featured image was taken in infrared light by NASA's Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite. via NASA http://ift.tt/1t0IGXN

NASA Announces Early Stage Innovations Space Tech Research Grants

NASA has selected 11 university-led proposals for the study of innovative, early stage technologies that address high priority needs of America's space program.



November 18, 2014

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NASA Teams with South Korean Agency to Further Improve Air Traffic Management

NASA and the Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement (KAIA) have signed a memorandum of understanding for future cooperation on the development of advanced air traffic management technologies, benefiting airline passengers and citizens of both nations.



November 18, 2014

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Successful Flight Test of Shape Changing Wing Surface



NASA's green aviation project is one step closer to developing technology that could make future airliners quieter and more fuel-efficient with the successful flight test of a wing surface that can change shape in flight. This past summer, researchers replaced an airplane’s conventional aluminum flaps with advanced, shape-changing assemblies that form seamless bendable and twistable surfaces. Flight testing will determine whether flexible trailing-edge wing flaps are a viable approach to improve aerodynamic efficiency and reduce noise generated during takeoffs and landings. For the initial Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge (ACTE) flight, shown in this image, the experimental control surfaces were locked at a specified setting. Varied flap settings on subsequent tests will demonstrate the capability of the flexible surfaces under actual flight conditions. ACTE technology is expected to have far-reaching effects on future aviation. Advanced lightweight materials will reduce wing structural weight and give engineers the ability to aerodynamically tailor the wings to promote improved fuel economy and more efficient operations, while reducing environmental impacts. > More: NASA Tests Revolutionary Shape Changing Aircraft Flap for the First Time Image Credit: NASA/Ken Ulbrich via NASA http://ift.tt/1u6aVU8

2014年11月17日 星期一

The Double Dust Disks of HD 95086



What do other star systems look like? To help find out, astronomers are carrying out detailed observations of nearby stars in infrared light to see which have dust disks that might be forming planets. Observations by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and ESA's Herschel Space Observatory have found that planetary system HD 95086 has two dust disks: a hot one near the parent star and a cooler one farther out. An artist's illustration of how the system might appear is featured here, including hypothetical planets with large rings that orbit between the disks. The planets may have created the large gap between the disks by absorbing and deflecting dust with their gravity. HD 95086 is a blue star about 60 percent more massive than our Sun that lies about 300 light years from Earth and is visible with binoculars toward the constellation of Carina. Studying the HD 95086 system may help astronomers better understand the formation and evolution of our own Solar System as well as the Earth. via NASA http://ift.tt/1H7EezW

Rosetta imaged Philae during its descent -- and after its bounce

This morning ESA released a set of images of the Philae lander taken by the Rosetta orbiter during -- and after -- the lander's first touchdown. The images contain evidence for the spot Philae first touched the comet, and a crucial photo of Philae's position several minutes into its first long bounce.



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NASA Receives Fourth Consecutive Clean Audit Opinion

NASA has received an unmodified, or “clean”, audit opinion on its fiscal year 2014 financial statements, marking the fourth consecutive year of “clean” opinions.



November 17, 2014

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NASA Television Coverage Set for Next International Space Station Crew Launch

NASA Television will provide extensive coverage of the Sunday, Nov. 23, launch from Kazakhstan of three crew members of Expedition 42/43, as they begin their planned six-hour journey to the International Space Station.



November 17, 2014

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Mixing Paints



Nature is an artist, and this time she seems to have let her paints swirl together a bit. What the viewer might perceive to be Saturn's surface is really just the tops of its uppermost cloud layers. Everything we see is the result of fluid dynamics. Astronomers study Saturn's cloud dynamics in part to test and improve our understanding of fluid flows. Hopefully, what we learn will be useful for understanding our own atmosphere and that of other planetary bodies. This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 25 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in red light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 23, 2014. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 127 degrees. Image scale is 7 miles (11 kilometers) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://ift.tt/ZjpQgB and http://ift.tt/Jcddhk . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute via NASA http://ift.tt/1xPz1bu

2014年11月16日 星期日

Leonids Above Torre de la Guaita



Leonids Meteor Shower came to an impressive crescendo in 1999. Observers in Europe saw a sharp peak in the number of meteors visible around 0210 UTC during the early morning hours of November 18. Meteor counts then exceeded 1000 per hour - the minimum needed to define a true meteor storm. At other times and from other locations around the world, observers typically reported respectable rates of between 30 and 100 meteors per hour. This photograph is a 20-minute exposure ending just before the main Leonids peak began. Visible are at least five Leonid meteors streaking high above the Torre de la Guaita, an observation tower used during the 12th century in Girona, Spain. In 2014, over the next few nights, the Leonids meteor shower will again peak. This year, although the crescent Moon should not create much competing skyglow, the Earth is predicted to pass through a more moderate stream of debris left over from Comet Tempel-Tuttle than in 1999, perhaps resulting in as many as 15 visible meteors per hour from dark locations. via NASA http://ift.tt/11dQ9e8

The Little Comet Lander That Could

Philae Spacecraft - robotic european space agency (ESA) lander, eBay "Highly complex spacecraft with on-board laboratory, solar panels (requires sun), inter-stellar communications pack. Power system, Thermal control system, Landing gear, Anchoring system (faulty). Buyer must collect item from it's storage...



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Epic 4K Sun Video, with Bonus Sunspot Tantrums

Not long ago, the ridiculously huge sunspot called Active Region 2192 ruled the face of the Sun. Bigger than Jupiter, it was easily seen by the (adequately protected) naked eye, and it was a distracting though extremely cool blemish during October’s solar eclipse.


A sunspot that big has a lot of storage space to stuff magnetic fields, and 2192 didn’t disappoint. Sunspots are essentially magnetic phenomena, and as the huge looping magnetic field lines in the spot tangled up, they sometimes violently snapped and reconnected, releasing their energy as solar flares. Dwarfing every nuclear bomb on Earth combined, the flares kept popping off as 2192 marched across the Sun’s disk, swept along with our star’s rotation.


From space, the Solar Dynamics Observatory keeps a close eye on the Sun, and watched in multiple wavelengths (think of them as colors) as 2192 did its thing. James Tyrwhitt-Drake, who has created interested scientific animations before, took 17,000 SDO images of the Sun in the ultraviolet, spanning Oct. 14 – 30, 2014, and created an astonishing video that shows 2192 in all its glory. The video is available in 4k resolution, if your bandwidth can choke that down, but it’s worth it to make this full screen:


The sound you hear is not real; it’s made from visible light data by SDO’s Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager, which maps motions on the Sun’s surface, which was then converted into sound by solar astronomer Alexander Kosovichev.


In this view, south is up, so the Sun rotates right to left (I’m used to it the other way, but hey, in space there is no up, so fine). 2192 makes its appearance early on, announcing its presence with towering loops of magnetic energy over 200,000 km high — mind you, the Earth is a mere 13,000 km across — and dominates the view thereafter. It’s incredible.


You can watch as enormous prominences erupt away from it, hot hydrogen gas flowing along otherwise invisible magnetic field lines like beads on a wire. The gravity of the Sun is strong, and pulls the gas with a force nearly 30 times stronger than Earth’s gravity, but the magnetic field is strong, too, and the gas flows back to the Sun along curving, graceful paths. It’s mesmerizing.


As the Sun rotates, AR 2192 has come around again, returning on or about Nov. 12. But it decayed substantially when it was on the far side of the Sun from the Earth. It’s a shadow, so to speak, of its former self. It doesn’t look like it’ll last much longer. We may not get another spot like it for a long time; it was the biggest seen in decades. But the Sun is a complex beast, and predicting its behavior for things like this is a losing bet. We may not see another like 2192, or another might grow and swell into existence once again. We’ll have to wait and see.






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2014年11月15日 星期六

The Tulip in the Swan



Framing a bright emission region this telescopic view looks out along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the nebula rich constellation Cygnus the Swan. Popularly called the Tulip Nebula the glowing cloud of interstellar gas and dust is also found in the 1959 catalog by astronomer Stewart Sharpless as Sh2-101. About 8,000 light-years distant and 70 light-years across the complex and beautiful nebula blossoms at the center of this composite image. Red, green, and blue hues map emission from ionized sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. Ultraviolet radiation from young, energetic stars at the edge of the Cygnus OB3 association, including O star HDE 227018, ionizes the atoms and powers the emission from the Tulip Nebula. HDE 227018 is the bright star very near the blue arc at the cosmic tulip's center. Glowing across the electromagnetic spectrum, microquasar Cygnus X-1 and a curved shock front created by its powerful jets lie toward the top and right. via NASA http://ift.tt/1sPhuv1

Now Philae down to sleep

My last post on the drama in Darmstadt, where ground controllers believe Philae may have fell asleep for good.



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Fixing Wallops

State assessing damage, considering future of commercial spaceport, WDBJ7 "Virginia's Secretary of Transportation says it could take a year and up to $20 million to repair the commercial spaceport on Virginia's Eastern Shore, after a mishap damaged the launchpad last...



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Caltech Employee Lawsuit Involves Her Cat and an Israeli Spy

Caltech professor claims Israeli spy infiltrated JPL, Pasadena Star News "Sandra Troian alleges Caltech administrators ignored the school's whistleblower policy and retaliated against her for the past four years because if they had documented her concern, they could have put...



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2014年11月14日 星期五

Welcome to a Comet



The Rosetta Mission lander is safely on a comet. One of Philae's feet appears at the bottom left of this spectacular image of the surface of C67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Still a happy lander, Philae bounced twice before settling and returning images from the surface, traveling a kilometer or so after initially touching at the targeted site Agilkia. A surface panorama suggests that the lander has come to rest tilted and near a shadowing wall, with its solar panels getting less illumination that hoped. Philae's science instruments are working as planned and data is being relayed during communications windows, when the Rosetta spacecraft is above the lander's new horizon. via NASA http://ift.tt/1BlG3cf

Want Funding? Then Be a National Priority

On Monday, Jason Callahan published an article in The Space Review discussing the importance of aligning the goals of federally funded scientific communities with national priorities. This post highlights some of the main points of the article and suggests a possible role for The Planetary Society.



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With New Horizons Ready to Wake Up, Scientists Prepare for Pluto Encounter

When New Horizons wakes up for the final time on Dec. 6, scientists will spend six weeks preparing for the start of the spacecraft's Pluto encounter.



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NASA Opens Registration for 2015 Exploration Rover Challenge

NASA has opened team registration for the 2015 NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge. Organized by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the event will be held April 16-18, 2015, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, also in Huntsville.



November 14, 2014

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NASA Commercial Crew Partners Continue System Advancements

NASA's industry partners continue to complete development milestones under agreements with the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. The work performed by Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation and SpaceX during partnership and contract initiatives are leading a new generation of safe, reliable and cost-effective crew space transportation systems to low-Earth orbit destinations.



November 14, 2014

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Philae update: My last day in Darmstadt, possibly Philae's last day of operations

Emily Lakdawalla gives a status report on Philae from the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt.



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Quick Philae Update

There’s more news this morning about Philae, the European Space Agency lander that is on the surface of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Recap: It set down on the comet yesterday, but the harpoons didn’t deploy. It bounced, twice, and came to rest a kilometer or so from the desired landing site. It’s not known precisely where it is, and it’s too small for the Rosetta spacecraft, still orbiting the comet, to easily find it.


Philae came to a rest on its side, unfortunately in a hole or an area surrounded by tall outcroppings. Because of this it’s not getting enough sunlight for its solar power cells to keep it charged. It has two batteries, but the instruments are using up that power rapidly. If nothing is done, it will run out of power soon.


If it does run out of power, all is not necessarily lost; as the comet nears the Sun the cells may receive enough charge to turn the lander back on. This is speculative, though.


The good news is the lander is working and taking data; dozens of high-res photos have been taken, for example, and are waiting to be transmitted up to Rosetta so they can be sent back to Earth. Contact between Rosetta and Philae is intermittent as the orbiter moves around the comet and the line of sight clears to the lander. The next good pass should be today around 21:00–23:00 UTC (16:00–18:00 Eastern).


I wondered yesterday if outgassing from the comet could dislodge Philae, but apparently it’s too dense for that to happen. One idea engineers are looking into is turning on the lander’s flywheel (a heavy, rapidly rotating disk that is used to rotate the lander)—Lander Manager Stephan Ulamec calls it “a very attractive idea”—which might provide enough torque to get Philae upright. There may not be enough power to spin it up though.*


I get the impression that, of course, people on the Philae team are disappointed at what happened, but are still really happy that it worked at all and got as far as it did. I keep hearing comments that anything they get now is “cream on top” of the amazing data they’ve already received. In other words, this mission was a success!


Let’s hope that the success it’s had so far is just the beginning, and not the end. And remember: Rosetta is still orbiting and going strong. That part of the mission has many months of discovery ahead of it.


*Correction, Nov. 14, 2014: This post originally misspelled the first name of Stephan Ulamec.






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Exploring the World's Protected Areas from Space



A new book released this week highlights how the view from space with Earth-orbiting sensors is being used to protect some of the world’s most interesting, changing, and threatened places. From space, Egmont National Park in New Zealand shows the benefits and limitations of protected areas. In this Landsat 8 image acquired on July 3, 2014, the park, with Mt. Taranaki at its center, was established in 1900. This isolated island of protected forest (dark green areas) is surrounded by once-forested pasturelands (light and brown green). “Sanctuary: Exploring the World’s Protected Areas from Space,” published by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (Arlington, Virginia) with support from NASA, debuted at the 2014 World Parks Congress in Sydney, Australia. In the book’s foreword, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden writes, “NASA and numerous other space agency partners from around the globe have used this view from space to make incredible scientific advances in our understanding of how our planet works. As a result, we can now better gauge the impact of human activity on our environment and measure how and why our atmosphere, oceans, and land are changing. As a former astronaut who has looked upon our beautiful planet from space, I hope that we can advance the use of space-based remote sensing and other geospatial tools to study, understand, and improve the management of the world’s parks and protected areas as well as the precious biodiversity that thrives within their borders.” Image Credit: NASA/USGS via NASA http://ift.tt/1zUMql6

OIG: NASA Simply Does Not Have The Money to Do Everything

NASA's 2014 Top Management and Performance Challenges "NASA Inspector General Paul Martin today released the Office of Inspector General's (OIG) annual report discussing the most serious management and performance challenges facing NASA. The underlying theme of this year's report is...



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2014年11月13日 星期四

Descent to a Comet



Yesterday, the first soft landing on a comet took place some 500 million kilometers from planet Earth as the Rosetta mission lander Philae settled on the nucleus of C67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The landing site, dubbed Agilkia, is located near the center of this remarkable image snapped by Philae's ROLIS (ROsetta Lander Imaging System) camera. Taken from a distance of about 3 kilometers the image has a resolution of about 3 meters per pixel at the surface. After Philae's release from the orbiter, its seven-hour long descent was made without propulsion or guidance. Following its descent the lander is in place, though its anchoring harpoon system did not fire. For 2.5 days the lander is intended to conduct its main science mission returning extensive images and data. An extended surface mission may be possible if sunlight and dust conditions allow solar panels to recharge Philae's battery. via NASA http://ift.tt/1BdDcls

LightSail Gets Burn Wire Redesign for Round 2 of Vibration Tests

The Planetary Society's LightSail-A spacecraft is less than three weeks away from an expected go/no-go decision on whether the CubeSat will be launched into space for a shakedown cruise next year.



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NASA Awards NASA Balloon Operations Contract

NASA has awarded the NASA Balloon Operations Contract to Orbital Sciences Corporation of Greenbelt, Maryland for engineering and operations services to support the NASA Balloon Program.



November 13, 2014

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Sean O'Keefe's New Gigs

Sean O'Keefe Joins CSIS as Distinguished Senior Adviser, Center for Strategic and International Studies "CSIS has developed a stellar reputation as an important, objective catalyst to shape the public policy debate on a wide range of global security issues," Mr....



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Philae status, a day later

The Philae team scrambled all morning to comprehend the initially confusing status of the lander, and the picture is much clearer today. Speaking of which, there are lots more pictures!



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Russia Says That China May Visit ISS

Russians may visit China's orbital module, TASS "Russian cosmonauts may in the future visit the Chinese orbiting module Tiangong-1, and their Chinese colleagues may visit the International Space Station (ISS), head of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) Oleg Ostapenko...



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Brief Philae "Morning After" update: First ÇIVA panorama from the surface

I'm just getting up to speed on the news from overnight, which is mostly good: Philae remained in contact with the orbiter (which means the CONSERT radar sounding experiment was working), and it's sitting stably on the surface, although it's not anchored in any way. And they released the first ÇIVA image from the ground!



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Shmutz in Jupiter’s Pupik

I remember when I was in grad school, running a telescope observing lab. I was setting up the telescopes, and Jupiter was well placed in the sky, so I was using it to align the finderscopes and get things focused. By coincidence, one of its moons, Io, happened to be just on the edge of Jupiter’s broad face when I looked. Over the course of the three hour lab, we all took turns going back to that ’scope to see how much Io had moved. By another sheer coincidence, Io takes about three hours to cross Jupiter’s disk, so the transit ended just as the lab did.


It was mesmerizing. But it was nothing like this:


That’s how Hubble sees Jupiter, which is way better than my old (otherwise very nice) 25 cm ’scopes did. You can see the broad bands and swirly festooned storms all over its cloud tops. But what really gets you is the ridiculously huge Great Red Spot, big enough to swallow the Earth.


And as if even that isn’t cool enough, there’s a big black spot on it: That’s the shadow of the moon Ganymede, which happened to fall right across the Spot when the shot was taken.


Jupiter’s moons orbit the planet above its equator, and Jupiter has almost no axial tilt (unlike the Earth, where our spin axis is tipped about 24° to the plane of our orbit). That means Jupiter’s moons pass directly between the planet and the Sun every orbit, casting their shadows on the clouds (Jupiter doesn’t have a solid surface; we only see the top of its dense atmosphere, which is tens of thousands of kilometers deep).


I’ve seen moon shadows on Jupiter many times through telescopes, but I’ve never seen one throw its shadow over the Spot! That’s really cool. And what really strikes me is how big Ganymede’s shadow is compared with the Spot. There are two reasons for that: One is that Ganymede is big , 5,270 km across—bigger than the planet Mercury! So it casts a huge shadow.


But also, the Great Red Spot over the years has become somewhat less Great. It’s shrinking. In the past 40 years it’s lost more than 30 percent of its width, and no one knows why.


Incidentally, another mystery is why the Spot is red. Is it from material upwelling from deep within Jupiter's atmosphere, or is it from something else? A new study indicates that it might be due to gases and other material in the upper atmosphere of the planet that get smacked by solar ultraviolet light, changing their chemistry. In the lab, such a process has created a red gas similar to what's seen in the Spot. I can't say if it's conclusive, but it's an interesting step in solving this long-standing enigma.


Anyway, the picture above, released the week of Halloween, was being sold as “Spooky Shadow Play Gives Jupiter a Giant Eye.” I am a master observer of pareidolia, and I’m not buying this. It looks a little like an eye to me, but the placement and relative dimensions don’t look right. If pressed, I’d say it looks more like a jovian belly button.


So maybe, instead of using Hubble, they should have taken this picture with the Naval Observatory.






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2014年11月12日 星期三

PHILAE HAS LANDED! [UPDATED]

The landing happened on time just after 16:02 UT today! Philae mission manager Stephan Ulamec said: "Philae is talking to us! The first thing he told us was the harpoons have been fired and rewound. We are sitting on the surface." Those words later turned out not to be true; but we do know at least that Philae survived the landing and is returning good data.



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Philae Attempts Comet Nucleus Landing



Today humanity will make its first attempt to land a probe on the nucleus of a comet. As the day progresses, the Philae (fee-LAY) lander will separate from the Rosetta spacecraft and head down to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Since the texture of the comet's surface is unknown and its surface gravity is surely low, Philae will then attempt to harpoon itself down, something that has never been done before. Featured here is an artist's illustration of dishwasher-sized Philae as it might look on Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko's surface, along with explanation balloons detailing onboard scientific instruments. Many people on a blue planet across the Solar System will be eagerly awaiting news and updates. Whether Philae actually lands, whether it lands on a smooth patch, whether the harpoons take hold, and how far the robotic lander sinks into the surface should all become known as events unfold today. via NASA http://ift.tt/1ulak5I

Phil Larson Departing OSTP

Keith's note:This email from Phil Larson, Senior Advisor at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, has been making the rounds here in Washington: "After five extraordinary years, I wanted to let you know that I will be leaving...



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China Hacked U.S. Weather Satellites - and NOAA Said Nothing

Chinese hack U.S. weather systems, satellite network, Washington Post "Hackers from China breached the federal weather network recently, forcing cybersecurity teams to seal off data vital to disaster planning, aviation, shipping and scores of other crucial uses, officials said. The...



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NTSB Posts Update on Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Investigation

NTSB Investigative Update on Crash of Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo "The National Transportation Safety Board issued an investigative update today into the crash of SpaceShip Two on Oct. 31, 2014, in Mojave, Calif. - The on-scene portion of the investigation into...



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Planetary Society is Both For and Against Human Spaceflight

+100 RT @starstryder: RT @SciBry: The highs and lows of the last week remind us why the future must be in robotic, not crewed, space flight.— Emily Lakdawalla (@elakdawalla) November 12, 2014 Keith's note: Looks like the Planetary Society's...



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NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Arrives at Launch Pad, Hoisted onto Rocket Ahead of its First Spaceflight

NASA’s new Orion spacecraft now is at its launch pad after completing its penultimate journey in the early hours Wednesday. It arrived at Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 3:07 a.m. EST, where the spacecraft then was lifted onto a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket in preparation for its first trip to space.



November 12, 2014

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NASA Statement on Successful Rosetta Comet Landing

Statement from John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, about the successful comet landing by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft.



November 12, 2014

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Philae Has Landed on a Comet

Touchdown! Rosetta's Philae probe lands on comet "ESA's Rosetta mission has soft-landed its Philae probe on a comet, the first time in history that such an extraordinary feat has been achieved. After a tense wait during the seven-hour descent to...



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Orion Spacecraft Rolls Past the Vehicle Assembly Building



At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the agency's Orion spacecraft passes the spaceport's iconic Vehicle Assembly Building as it is transported to Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on the evening of Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2014. After arrival at the launch pad, United Launch Alliance engineers and technicians will lift Orion and mount it atop its Delta IV Heavy rocket. Orion began its journey to the launch pad at at the Launch Abort System Facility, where a 52-foot-tall protective fairing and the launch abort system were attached to the 10-foot, 11-inch-tall crew module. Resting atop a specialized Kamag transporter, Orion was moved to Space Launch Complex 37B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The move began at 8:54 p.m. EST and concluded at 3:07 a.m., Wednesday, Nov. 12. Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and Mars. It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. Orion is scheduled to launch Dec. 4, 2014 atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket in its first unpiloted flight test, and in 2018 on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. > More about Orion Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett via NASA http://ift.tt/1EBv2BG

Philae update: Photo documentation of Philae's separation!

Here it is. We knew hours ago that Philae separation happened, but there's nothing like seeing a photo, seeing Philae's mothership receding into the distance.



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Philae update: "Go" for landing, despite apparent failure of cold-gas jet system

Philae is "go" for landing. But there has been drama overnight. One of the steps to prepare for landing did not proceed as planned.



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2014年11月11日 星期二

Orion in Gas, Dust, and Stars



The constellation of Orion holds much more than three stars in a row. A deep exposure shows everything from dark nebula to star clusters, all embedded in an extended patch of gaseous wisps in the greater Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The brightest three stars on the far left are indeed the famous three stars that make up the belt of Orion. Just below Alnitak, the lowest of the three belt stars, is the Flame Nebula, glowing with excited hydrogen gas and immersed in filaments of dark brown dust. Below and left of the frame center and just to the right of Alnitak lies the Horsehead Nebula, a dark indentation of dense dust that has perhaps the most recognized nebular shapes on the sky. On the upper right lies M42, the Orion Nebula, an energetic caldron of tumultuous gas, visible to the unaided eye, that is giving birth to a new open cluster of stars. Immediately to the left of M42 is a prominent bluish reflection nebula sometimes called the Running Man that houses many bright blue stars. The featured image covers an area with objects that are roughly 1,500 light years away and spans about 75 light years. via NASA http://ift.tt/1wdzRus

ESA Refuses To Release Rosetta Imagery

Today, I learned that two dust particles on @ESA_Rosetta have names: Francois and Boris. #DPS14 http://ift.tt/1v1Emhf Jason Davis (@jasonrdavis) November 12, 2014 Tensions surround release of new Rosetta comet data, Nature "The comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which the Rosetta spacecraft is...



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Philae update: First of four "go-no-go" decisions is a GO!

It's been a day of calm before the storm here at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, as we get ready for the big event tomorrow: Philae's hoped-for landing on a comet. The first of four "go-no-go" decisions has been made, and it's a "go." Mission navigators have gotten data back from Rosetta that indicates that the spacecraft is on the correct trajectory to deliver Philae to the comet.



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When Worlds Collide, Rings Follow

A few days ago I posted a spectacular picture of a protoplanetary disk, a sprawling multi-ringed wheel of gas and dust swirling around a young, nearby star. I mentioned I had studied such objects before; it all started in the late 1990s when I was working on a Hubble Space Telescope camera called STIS. An astronomer named Carol Grady had observed several such disks around stars, and I helped calibrate and process the images.


And by coincidence, new Hubble images of several similar structures was just released… taken by STIS!


Quite the menagerie. Each image shows a ring around a different star, and the fierce light of the stars themselves has been blocked out so it doesn’t blow out the much fainter light from the rings.


However, unlike the disk image I wrote about last week, these are not protoplanetary disks. They’re dusty debris remnants, shaped more like rings than disks, probably caused by collisions of asteroids and/or comets (some of them quite large) orbiting these stars after planetary formation has already been well underway. In other words, these are somewhat older structures from 100 to 350 light years away.


What’s striking are the weird shapes. You might expect they’d be circular, symmetric, and flat. But they are anything but! The ring seen edge-on around HD 32297 appears to flare, like wings, as does the one around HD 61005. My first thought was that they’re moving through space, plowing through the thin material between the stars. That would blow the rings back a bit, warping them. The analysis done by the team that took the images agrees.


I was also struck by the asymmetry in the ring around HD 181327. Elliptical rings are usually actually circular, but we see them at an angle (like the rim of a drinking glass can look like an oval). But this ring is distorted, thicker and brighter on one side. If it’s from the collision of two objects, they must have been pretty large, and what’s left of the two bodies is probably in that larger thicker part, with the debris having spread out around the star. The ring is about 13 billion kilometers in radius (about three times the distance of Neptune to the Sun), which is pretty weird: You’d think space would be fairly empty that far from the star, and collisions rare. But there it is.


Interestingly, the inner edge of the ring is pretty sharp, when it would be expected to be fuzzy. That means there may be a planet too faint to see in these images, orbiting inside the ring, and gravitationally clearing out the debris closer to the star.


Clearly, other young solar systems have all sorts of behavior problems, and no two appear to be exactly alike. While that makes them somewhat harder to study (it’s nice to be able to categorize objects using similar characteristics) it also makes this more exciting. Surprises are always fun.


And it pleases me greatly to know that not only were these observations made using my old camera, but they were also taken by my old friends Glenn Schneider and the aforementioned Carol Grady, along with a handful of other astronomers with whom I worked in my Hubble days. It’s nice to see good scientists still doing good work.






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Report from Darmstadt: Philae status and early Rosetta results from DPS

I'm reporting live from the press room at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. There's little news on Philae yet except that its status is good. Meanwhile, Rosetta scientists presented their first early comet results at the Division for Planetary Sciences meeting in Tucson, Arizona, which I watched from afar using Twitter.



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2014年11月10日 星期一

The Protoplanetary Disk of HL Tauri from ALMA



Why does this giant disk have gaps? The exciting and probable answer is: planets. A mystery is how planets massive enough to create these gaps formed so quickly, since the HL Tauri star system is only about one million years old. The picture on which the gaps were discovered was taken with the new Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) of telescopes in Chile. ALMA imaged the protoplanetary disk, which spans about 1,500 light-minutes across, in unprecedented detail, resolving features as small as 40 light minutes. The low energy light used by ALMA was also able to peer through an intervening haze of gas and dust. The HL Tauri system lies about 450 light years from Earth. Studying HL Tauri will likely give insight into how our own Solar System formed and evolved. via NASA http://ift.tt/1tZI60q

NASA Administrator, Ambassadors Brigety and Haslach Discuss Application of NASA Earth Science for Planning in African Union Nations

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia Patricia Haslach, and U.S. Ambassador to the African Union (AU) Reuben Brigety, met this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss resources available to help mitigate the impacts in Africa of global climate change.



November 10, 2014

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NASA Signs Lease with Planetary Ventures LLC for Use of Moffett Airfield and Restoration of Hangar One

In an effort to reduce costs and shed surplus property, NASA today signed a lease with Planetary Ventures, LLC to manage Moffett Federal Airfield (MFA), an agency facility located in Moffett Field, California, and rehabilitate its historic Hangar One. NASA estimates the lease will save the agency approximately $6.3 million annually in maintenance and operation costs and provide $1.16 billion in rent over the initial 60-year lease term.



November 10, 2014

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In Pictures: Expedition 41 Crew Returns to Earth

The crew of Expedition 41 is safely back on Earth following a 165-day stay aboard the International Space Station.



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Planetary Science Community Split Over Asteroid Retrieval

NASA's Plan to Visit an Asteroid Faces a Rocky Start, Scientific American "What the critics don't seem to understand is that if we don't send humans to an asteroid that is moved closer to Earth, we will send humans nowhere...



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2014年11月9日 星期日

Expedition 41 Has Returned

Expedition 41 Returns to Earth "Expedition 41 Commander Max Suraev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Flight Engineers Reid Wiseman of NASA and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency touched down northeast of the remote town of...



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The Cat's Eye Nebula from Hubble



To some, it may look like a cat's eye. The alluring Cat's Eye nebula, however, lies three thousand light-years from Earth across interstellar space. A classic planetary nebula, the Cat's Eye (NGC 6543) represents a final, brief yet glorious phase in the life of a sun-like star. This nebula's dying central star may have produced the simple, outer pattern of dusty concentric shells by shrugging off outer layers in a series of regular convulsions. But the formation of the beautiful, more complex inner structures is not well understood. Seen so clearly in this digitally sharpened Hubble Space Telescope image, the truly cosmic eye is over half a light-year across. Of course, gazing into this Cat's Eye, astronomers may well be seeing the fate of our sun, destined to enter its own planetary nebula phase of evolution ... in about 5 billion years. via NASA http://ift.tt/1slJkh9

Space Station Crew Returns to Earth, Lands Safely in Kazakhstan

Three International Space Station (ISS) crew members returned to Earth Sunday after a 165-day mission that included hundreds of scientific experiments and several spacewalks.



November 09, 2014

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Interstellar: The movie that deserves to be called “Gravity”

Mat Kaplan gives his thoughts on the newest space film to hit theatres, "Interstellar."



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China's Moon Plans

China is Now Positioned to Dominate the Moon, Paul Spudis "The complexity of the Chang'E 5 mission profile is somewhat curious, since it would be much simpler to make a direct ascent from the lunar surface and head straight back...



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Loss of Contact With STEREO Behind Spacecraft Continues

Loss of Contact with STEREO Behind "Communications with the STEREO Behind spacecraft were interrupted on October 1, 2014 immediately after a planned reset of the spacecraft performed as part of a test of solar conjunction operations. There have been no...



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2014年11月8日 星期六

Polar Ring Galaxy NGC 660



NGC 660 is featured in this cosmic snapshot, a sharp composite of broad and narrow band filter image data from the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea. Over 20 million light-years away and swimming within the boundaries of the constellation Pisces, NGC 660's peculiar appearance marks it as a polar ring galaxy. A rare galaxy type, polar ring galaxies have a substantial population of stars, gas, and dust orbiting in rings nearly perpendicular to the plane of the galactic disk. The bizarre-looking configuration could have been caused by the chance capture of material from a passing galaxy by a disk galaxy, with the captured debris eventually strung out in a rotating ring. The violent gravitational interaction would account for the myriad pinkish star forming regions scattered along NGC 660's ring. The polar ring component can also be used to explore the shape of the galaxy's otherwise unseen dark matter halo by calculating the dark matter's gravitational influence on the rotation of the ring and disk. Broader than the disk, NGC 660's ring spans over 50,000 light-years. via NASA http://ift.tt/1uKiA1h

2014年11月7日 星期五

The Map of Dione



This cylindrical projection global map is one of six new color maps of Saturn's midsized icy moons, constructed using 10 years of image data from the Cassini spacecraft. Discovered by Cassini (the astronomer) in 1684, Dione is about 1,120 kilometers across. Based on data extending from infrared to ultraviolet, the full resolution of this latest space-age map is 250 meters per pixel. The remarkable brightness difference between the tidally locked moon's lighter leading hemisphere (right) and darker trailing hemisphere clearly stands out. Like other Saturn moons orbiting within the broad E-ring, Dione's leading hemisphere is kept shiny as it picks up a coating of the faint ring's icy material. The E-ring material is constantly replenished by geysers on moon Enceladus' south pole. Lighter, younger surface fractures also appear to cross the dark, cratered trailing hemisphere. via NASA http://ift.tt/1tjB9lM

Hunting Binary Asteroids

Thanks to The Planetary Society’s Shoemaker NEO Grant program, a new telescope has been brought to bear focusing on searching for and understanding the properties of binary asteroid systems.



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A Close Look at Interstellar's Spacecraft

Visiting Interstellar's Spacecraft, SpaceRef "I had an opportunity to stand next to a spaceship from the film "Interstellar" this morning and fly through a simulation of yet another spacecraft from the film. I am not going to post a review...



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NASA Television to Provide Coverage of European Mission Comet Landing

NASA Television and the agency’s website will provide live coverage from 9-11:30 a.m. EST (6-8:30 a.m. PST) of the European Space Agency (ESA) Rosetta mission’s scheduled landing of a probe on a comet on Wednesday, Nov. 12.



November 07, 2014

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Mars Spacecraft Reveal Comet Flyby Effects on Martian Atmosphere

Two NASA and one European spacecraft that obtained the first up-close observations of a comet flyby of Mars on Oct. 19, have gathered new information about the basic properties of the comet’s nucleus and directly detected the effects on the Martian atmosphere.



November 07, 2014

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An Early Preview of Orion's Maiden Voyage

NASA's Orion spacecraft is just four weeks away from its first test flight. Here's an early preview of the mission.



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Astronaut Reid Wiseman Shares Earth Art While Preparing for Return



NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yosemite via his twitter account this morning. Wiseman later tweeted: "We cranked up our #Soyuz this morning and test fired all the thrusters. Everything worked flawlessly - ready for a Sunday departure." - @astro_reid The homebound Expedition 40/41 trio, consisting of Soyuz Commander Max Suraev and Flight Engineers Alexander Gerst and Wiseman, is counting down to its Nov. 9 departure inside the Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft. They are packing gear to be returned home while they continue science and maintenance on the U.S. side of the International Space Station. Back on Earth, the new Expedition 42/43 crew is getting ready for its launch to the space station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Nov. 23. Soyuz Commander Anton Shkaplerov will be joined by NASA astronaut Terry Virts and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti aboard a Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft to begin a 5-1/2 month mission aboard the orbital laboratory. Space Station Blog. Image Credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman via NASA http://ift.tt/1zAm7QT

NASA Tests Revolutionary Shape Changing Aircraft Flap for the First Time

NASA's green aviation project is one step closer to developing technology that could make future airliners quieter and more fuel-efficient with the successful flight test of a wing surface that can change shape in flight.



November 07, 2014

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BA Review: Interstellar

I love a good scifi blockbuster. I love them even more if they have big sweeping themes, thoughtful dialogue and concepts, and a story told elegantly.


Unfortunately, Interstellar doesn’t deliver on any of those levels for me.


Oh, it does have big ideas and big themes, but in my opinion it really failed to deliver on them. The story telling was confused, the concepts yelled instead of allowed to unfold, and the dialogue was clunky (even laughable at times).


And the science. Yeah, the science.


I wrote a (spoiler-laden) review of the flick, and it’s posted over at the Space: The Next Generation section of Slate .


I’ve been getting a fair amount of tweets about it, some of which accuse me of disliking the movie because I didn’t like the science. Actually, in the review I specifically talk about how I can ignore science if the story demands it, and that the bad science in Interstellar is very much not the reason I didn’t like it. I do spend a lot of the review on the science — and barely scratch the surface of the weird-for-no-reason science in the movie — but in the end, the movie failed me because of the weight of its own ponderousness. It set the bar high, and then walked under it.


I have no desire to stop anyone from seeing it, as I tend to ignore critics’ opinions myself. But if you do see it, then drop on by the review and see if you agree or not. All right all right all right.






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2014年11月6日 星期四

SH2-155: The Cave Nebula



This colorful skyscape features the dusty Sharpless catalog emission region Sh2-155, the Cave Nebula. In the composite image, data taken through narrowband filters tracks the glow of ionized sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms in red, green, and blue hues. About 2,400 light-years away, the scene lies along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the royal northern constellation of Cepheus. Astronomical explorations of the region reveal that it has formed at the boundary of the massive Cepheus B molecular cloud and the hot, young stars of the Cepheus OB 3 association. The bright rim of ionized interstellar gas is energized by radiation from the hot stars, dominated by the bright star just above picture center. Radiation driven ionization fronts are likely triggering collapsing cores and new star formation within. Appropriately sized for a stellar nursery, the cosmic cave is over 10 light-years across. via NASA http://ift.tt/1poyKeA

NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Set to Roll out to Launch Pad for its First Flight

NASA’s Orion spacecraft is set to roll out of the Launch Abort System Facility (LASF) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to its launch pad at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 37 on Monday Nov. 10, in preparation for liftoff next month on its first space flight.



November 06, 2014

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NASA Rocket Experiment Finds the Universe Brighter Than We Thought

A NASA sounding rocket experiment has detected a surprising surplus of infrared light in the dark space between galaxies, a diffuse cosmic glow as bright as all known galaxies combined.



November 06, 2014

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Stunning Real Image of Planet Formation

ALMA Image Reveals Planetary Genesis, ESO "This new image from ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, reveals extraordinarily fine detail that has never been seen before in the planet-forming disc around a young star. These are the first observations that...



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NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Captures Intense Space Weather



An active region on the sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 4:47 a.m. EST on Nov. 5, 2014. This is the second mid-level flare from the same active region, labeled AR 12205, which rotated over the left limb of the sun on Nov. 3. The image was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in extreme ultraviolet light that was colorized in red and gold. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. This flare is classified as an M7.9-class flare. M-class flares are a tenth the size of the most intense flares, the X-class flares. The number provides more information about its strength. An M2 is twice as intense as an M1, an M3 is three times as intense, etc. More information on NASA's SDO Mission. Image Credit: NASA/SDO via NASA http://ift.tt/1pqwcwv

TPS at DPS: A Screening of Desert Moon, Advocacy with Casey Dreier, and a Sagan Lecture

The Planetary Society will be well-represented at next week's Division for Planetary Sciences meeting in Tucson, Ariz.



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2014年11月5日 星期三

NGC 4762: A Galaxy on the Edge



Why is there a bright line on the sky? What is pictured above is actually a disk galaxy being seen almost perfectly edge on. The image from the Hubble Space Telescope is a spectacular visual reminder of just how thin disk galaxies can be. NGC 4762, a galaxy in the nearby Virgo Cluster of Galaxies, is so thin that it is actually difficult to determine what type of disk galaxy it is. Its lack of a visible dust lane indicates that it is a low-dust lenticular galaxy, although it is still possible that a view from on top would reveal spiral structure. The unusual stellar line spans about 100,000 light years from end to end. Near NGC 4762's center is a slight bulge of stars, while many background galaxies are visible far in the distance. Galaxies that appear this thin are rare mostly because our Earth must reside (nearly) in the extrapolated planes of their thin galactic disks. Galaxies that actually are this thin are relatively common -- for example our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to be about this thin. via NASA http://ift.tt/1sfkkZS

NASA Television to Broadcast Return of Space Station Crew

Three of the crew members aboard the International Space Station are scheduled to depart the orbiting laboratory Sunday, Nov. 9 after almost six months aboard. NASA Television will provide complete coverage.



November 05, 2014

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Philae landing preview: What to expect on landing day

Earth's first-ever landing on a comet is a week away. On November 12 at 8:35 UT, Philae will separate from Rosetta. Seven hours later, it will arrive at the surface of the comet. Hopefully, Philae will survive the landing, and begin to return data.



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The Consequences of the 2014 Midterm Elections for NASA

A Republican Senate will not drastically change the course of the nation's space program, though it will likely see less funding for NASA and a difficult path forward for the Asteroid Retrieval Mission.



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NASA to Discuss Science Findings of Oct. 19 Comet Flyby of Mars

NASA will host a media teleconference at noon EST on Friday, Nov. 7, to provide initial science observations of comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring’s close flyby of Mars and the impact on the Martian atmosphere.



November 05, 2014

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Rising Above Tragedy - It Has Happened Before

Past Transit Tragedies Point to a Way Forward for Virgin Galactic, Smithsonian "Private spaceflight hit a large bump in the road to orbit last week, with Orbital Sciences' rocket explosion followed days later by Virgin Galactic's fatal spaceplane crash. But...



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Orion Prepares to Move to Launch Pad



On Dec. 4, Orion is scheduled to launch atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 37 in Florida. During the test, Orion will travel 3,600 miles in altitude above Earth. 4 1/2 hours later, the spacecraft will reenter the atmosphere at 20,000 mph and splash down in the Pacific Ocean. Orion’s first flight will verify launch and high-speed reentry systems such as avionics, attitude control, parachutes and the heat shield. Four recently-installed protective panels make up Orion's Ogive. The Ogive reduces drag and acoustic load on the crew module, making it a smoother ride for the spacecraft. Pictured here, inside the Launch Abort System Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a crane brings the fourth and final Ogive panel closer for installation on Orion's Launch Abort System. The Ogive installation was one of the last pieces of the puzzle for Orion prior to its move to the launch pad on Nov. 10. There, it will be lifted and attached to the rocket for its December launch. More on Orion. Image Credit: NASA via NASA http://ift.tt/1y3NPRZ