Wednesday, November 06, 2024

NASA "Espacio a Tierra" | Votar desde el espacio : 01 de noviembre de 2024

NASA "Espacio a Tierra" | Votar desde el espacio : 01 de noviembre de 2024

Espacio a Tierra, la versión en español de las cápsulas Space to Ground de la NASA, te informa semanalmente de lo que está sucediendo en la Estación Espacial Internacional.

Aprende más sobre la ciencia a bordo de la estación espacial: https://www.nasa.gov/international-space-station/space-station-research-and-technology/ciencia-en-la-estacion/

Para obtener más información sobre la ciencia de la NASA, suscríbete al boletín semanal: https://www.nasa.gov/suscribete

Ciencia de la NASA: https://ciencia.nasa.gov


Video Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Duration: 4 minute, 21 seconds

Release Date: Nov. 6, 2024


#NASA #Space #Science #ISS #Earth #NASAenespañol #español #USElection #AstronautVoting #SpaceX #CargoDragonSpacecraft #Astronauts #Cosmonauts #Russia #Россия #Roscosmos #Роскосмос #InternationalCooperation #LongDurationMissions #HumanSpaceflight #SpaceLaboratory #UnitedStates #Expedition72 #STEM #Education #HD #Video

China's Space Exploration Goals: Moon Landing & Mars Sample Return Missions

China's Space Exploration Goals: Moon Landing & Mars Sample Return Missions

China aims to launch a Mars-sample return mission around 2028 and to land taikonauts on the Moon by 2030. From launching its first satellite, Dongfanghong-1, in 1970 to sending the first Chinese taikonaut, Yang Liwei, into space in 2003; from completing the construction of its Tiangong space station in 2022 to collecting lunar samples from the far side of the Moon this year with the Chang'e-6 Mission, China's space exploration has achieved historic leaps. 

For example, China was the first country to successfully send an orbiter, lander and rover to Mars on its first attempt. China is only the second country after the United States to successfully land and operate a spacecraft on Mars.

China's Tianwen-1 Mars probe was launched back in July 2020 and entered Mars orbit in February 2021. The rover landed and started operations in May 2021. After it completed 90 Martian days of assigned scientific exploration tasks, the rover continued its exploration of the Red Planet. The rover, which has traveled 1,921 meters in 358 Martian days, is now in sleep mode.

As of June 29, 2022, the orbiter of the Tianwen-1 mission had completed its primary global remote sensing exploration objectives. It has been in operation for over 1,000 days. It remains in good condition and will continue to conduct scientific exploration and accumulate data from orbit, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).


Video Credit: CGTN
Duration: 2 minutes
Release Date: Oct. 1, 2024


#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Mars #Tianwen1 #Moon #Change6 #Earth #China #中国 #LongMarchRockets #Dongfanghong1 #Satellites #Taikonauts #CSS #ChinaSpaceStation #中国空间站 #TiangongSpaceStation #SpaceTechnology #Engineering #CMSA #国家航天局 #HumanSpaceflight #Spaceflight #SpaceExploration #SolarSystem #History #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Strong X2.3 Solar Flare Erupts from Sun | NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory

Strong X2.3 Solar Flare Erupts from Sun | NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory


The Sun emitted a strong solar flare, peaking at 8:40 a.m. ET on Nov. 6, 2024. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) watches the Sun constantly and captured images of the event.

Visual Description: A portion of the Sun, shown in red. Toward the middle of the image are bright white and yellow areas. A spurt of solar material erupts from the area.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare—seen as the bright flash near the center—on Nov. 6, 2024. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is colorized in red. 

Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy. Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.

This flare is classified as an X2.3 class flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength.

To see how such space weather may affect Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center https://spaceweather.gov/, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts. 

NASA works as a research arm of the nation’s space weather effort. NASA observes the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from the Sun’s activity to the solar atmosphere, and to the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.


Credit: NASA/SDO

Release Date: Nov. 6, 2024


#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Earth #Moon #SpaceWeather #Sun #Star #Solar #SolarFlares #Sunspots #Ultraviolet #Plasma #MagneticField #Astrophysics #Heliophysics #Physics #Spacecraft #Satellites #ElectricalGrids #SDO #SolarSystem #GSFC #UnitedStates #GIF #Animation #STEM #Education

SpaceX Starship Fifth Flight Test Recap & Looking Ahead to The Sixth Flight

SpaceX Starship Fifth Flight Test Recap & Looking Ahead to The Sixth Flight

Starship’s fifth flight test on October 13, 2024, was a "seminal moment in iterating towards a fully and rapidly reusable launch system. The sixth flight test of Starship is targeted to launch as early as Monday, November 18."

For 6th Flight Test updates and the upcoming webcast, visit:

http://spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-6

"Starship executed another successful hot-staging separation, igniting its six Raptor engines and completing ascent into outer space. It coasted along its planned trajectory to the other side of the planet before executing a controlled reentry, passing through the phases of peak heating and maximum aerodynamic pressure, before executing a flip, landing burn, and splashdown at its target area in the Indian Ocean. The flight test concluded at splashdown 1 hour, 5 minutes and 40 seconds after launch."

"The entire SpaceX team should take pride in the engineering feat they just accomplished. The world witnessed what the future will look like when Starship starts carrying crew and cargo to destinations on Earth, the Moon, Mars and beyond."

Review the mission summary here:

"Starship is essential to both SpaceX’s plans to deploy its next-generation Starship system as well as for NASA, which will use a lunar lander version of Starship for landing astronauts on the Moon during the Artemis III mission through the Human Landing System (HLS) program."

Key Starship Parameters:

Height: 121m/397ft

Diameter: 9m/29.5ft

Payload to LEO: 100 – 150t (fully reusable)

Download the Free Starship User Guide (PDF):

https://www.spacex.com/media/starship_users_guide_v1.pdf


Video Credit: Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX)
Duration: 3 minutes, 28 seconds
Capture Date: Oct. 13, 2024
Release Date: Nov. 6, 2024


#NASA #SpaceX #Space #Earth #Mars #Moon #MoonToMars #ArtemisProgram #ArtemisIII #Starship #Spacecraft #Starship5 #TestFlight5 #HeavyBooster #SuperHeavyRocket #ElonMusk #Engineering #SpaceTechnology #HumanSpaceflight #CommercialSpace #SpaceExploration #Starbase #Mechazilla #BocaChica #Texas #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Orbital Sunrise, Spacecraft & Aurora | International Space Station

Spacecraft, Aurora & Orbital Sunrise | International Space Station

The SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft is pictured docked to the space-facing port on the International Space Station's Harmony module.
The unoccupied space-facing port on the International Space Station's Harmony module is pictured several hours before the SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft would relocate there after undocking from Harmony's forward port.
As the International Space Station soared 257 miles above Lake Michigan, NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Don Pettit captured this long-exposure photograph of city lights streaking across Earth while a green and red aurora moved through the atmosphere.
As the International Space Station soared 257 miles above northern Mexico, NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Don Pettit captured this long-exposure photograph of city lights streaking across Earth while a green atmospheric glow crowned the horizon.
The first rays of an orbital sunrise illuminate Earth's atmosphere in this photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited 269 miles above the Pacific Ocean near Chile's Patagonia coast on the South American continent.

On Tuesday, November 5, 2024, a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft docked to the forward port of the International Space Station’s Harmony module successfully delivering NASA science investigations, supplies, and equipment to the International Space Station. CRS-31 is the fifth flight for this Dragon spacecraft. It previously flew CRS-21, CRS-23, CRS-25, and CRS-28 to the International Space Station. 

The SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft, with Expedition 72 crew members NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, autonomously redocked with the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module on November 3, 2024.

The port relocation freed up Harmony’s forward-facing port for the 31st SpaceX commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station. This was the fifth port relocation of a Dragon spacecraft with crew aboard following previous moves during the Crew-1, Crew-2, Crew-6, and Crew-8 missions.

Expedition 72 Updates:

Expedition 72 Crew
Station Commander: Suni Williams
Roscosmos (Russia): Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, Aleksandr Gorbunov
NASA: Butch Wilmore, Don Pettit, Nick Hague

An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.

Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)
Capture Dates: Oct. 1-Nov. 4, 2024

#NASA #Space #Science #ISS #Sun #SolarSystem #Earth #Canadarm2 #SpaceXDragonFreedom #Aurora #OrbitalSunrise #Astronauts #Cosmonauts #Russia #Россия #Roscosmos #Роскосмос #InternationalCooperation #LongDurationMissions #HumanSpaceflight #SpaceLaboratory #Florida #UnitedStates #Expedition72 #STEM #Education

Three African Nations Meet in The Sahara Desert | International Space Station

Three African Nations Meet in The Sahara Desert | International Space Station


The borders of three African nations, Libya, Sudan, and Egypt, meet in the eastern portion of the Sahara in this photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited 258 miles above.

The Sahara is the largest hot desert and the third largest desert in the world after Antarctica and the Arctic. Its area of 9,200,000 square kilometers (3,600,000 sq mi) is comparable to the area of China or the United States. The name 'Sahara' is derived from a dialectal Arabic word for "desert", ṣaḥra (صَحَارَى). 

The Sahara covers much of North Africa, excluding the fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley in Egypt and Sudan. It stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually changes from desert to coastal plains. To the south, it is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna around the Niger River valley and the Sudan Region of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Expedition 72 Updates:

Expedition 72 Crew
Station Commander: Suni Williams
Roscosmos (Russia): Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, Aleksandr Gorbunov
NASA: Butch Wilmore, Don Pettit, Nick Hague

An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.

Learn more about the important research being operated on Station:
For more information about STEM on Station:
Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM)

Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)
Image Date: Oct. 17, 2024
Release Date: Oct. 18, 2024

#NASA #Space #Science #ISS #Earth #Africa #SaharaDesert #Sahara #Libya #Sudan #Egypt #Astronauts #Cosmonauts #Russia #Россия #Roscosmos #Роскосмос #InternationalCooperation #LongDurationMissions #HumanSpaceflight #SpaceLaboratory #Florida #UnitedStates #Expedition72 #STEM #Education

Aurora over Scotland

Aurora over Scotland

On Earth, auroras are mainly created by particles originally emitted by the Sun in the form of solar wind. When this stream of electrically charged particles gets close to our planet, it interacts with the magnetic field, which acts as a gigantic shield. While it protects Earth’s environment from solar wind particles, it can also trap a small fraction of them. Particles trapped within the magnetosphere—the region of space surrounding Earth in which charged particles are affected by its magnetic field—can be energized and then follow the magnetic field lines down to the magnetic poles. There, they interact with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the upper layers of the atmosphere, creating the flickering, colorful lights visible in the polar regions here on Earth.

Earth auroras have different names depending on which pole they occur at. Aurora Borealis, or the northern lights, is the name given to auroras around the north pole and Aurora Australis, or the southern lights, is the name given for auroras around the south pole.

Learn more:
The Colors of the Aurora (National Park Service)
https://www.nps.gov/articles/-articles-aps-v8-i1-c9.htm

Image Credit & Copyright: Alan Tough
Location: Bishopmill, Scotland, United Kingdom
Image Dates: Oct. 26, 2024 


#NASA #Space #Science #Earth #Planet #Aurora #AuroraBorealis #NorthernLights #MagneticField #Magnetosphere #SolarWind #Sun #Astrophotography #Astrophotographer #AlanTough #Bishopmill #Scotland #UK #UnitedKingdom #STEM #Education

Trapezium Star Cluster in The Orion Nebula | Hubble Space Telescope

Trapezium Star Cluster in The Orion Nebula | Hubble Space Telescope


Appearing like glistening precious stones, the Trapezium cluster's central region is here seen through the eyes of the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope. All of the celestial objects in the Trapezium were born together in this hotbed of star formation. The cluster is named for the trapezoidal alignment of those central massive stars.

Probing deep within a neighborhood stellar nursery, the Hubble Space Telescope uncovered a swarm of newborn brown dwarfs. The orbiting observatory's near-infrared camera revealed about 50 of these objects throughout the Orion Nebula's Trapezium cluster about 1,500 light-years from Earth.

This stellar nursery, Messier 42, popularly called the Orion Nebula, has been known to many cultures throughout human history. The nebula is only 1,500 light-years away, making it the closest large star-forming region to Earth and giving it a relatively bright apparent magnitude of 4. Because of its brightness and prominent location just below Orion’s belt, M42 can be spotted with the naked eye, while offering an excellent peek at stellar birth for those with telescopes. It is best observed during January.


Credit: K.L. Luhman (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.); and G. Schneider, E. Young, G. Rieke, A. Cotera, H. Chen, M. Rieke, R. Thompson (Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz.) and NASA/ESA

Release Date: August 24, 2000


#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Hubble #Nebulae #Nebula #OrionNebula #Messier42 #Messier43 #Stars #TrapeziumStars #TrapeziumCluster #BrownDwarfs #Orion #Constellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education

Tuesday, November 05, 2024

Journey to The Orion Nebula | Hubble Space Telescope

Journey to The Orion Nebula | Hubble Space Telescope

This sequence zooms on three ground-based images and ends up with a Hubble image of Messier 42 (M42)—the Orion Nebula. Packed into the center of this region are bright lights of the Trapezium stars, the four heftiest stars in the Orion Nebula. Ultraviolet light unleashed by these stars is carving a cavity in the nebula and disrupting the growth of hundreds of smaller stars. 

Distance: 1,500 light years

This stellar nursery, Messier 42, popularly called the Orion Nebula, has been known to many cultures throughout human history. The nebula is only 1,500 light-years away, making it the closest large star-forming region to Earth and giving it a relatively bright apparent magnitude of 4. Because of its brightness and prominent location just below Orion’s belt, M42 can be spotted with the naked eye, while offering an excellent peek at stellar birth for those with telescopes. It is best observed during January.


Credit: NASA, European Space Agency, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

Duration: 2 minutes

Release Date: Jan. 11, 2006


#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Hubble #Nebulae #Nebula #OrionNebula #Messier42 #Messier43 #Stars #TrapeziumStars #UltravioletLight #Orion #Constellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education #SD #Video

The Orion Nebula's Largest & Brightest Stars | Hubble Space Telescope

The Orion Nebula's Largest & Brightest Stars | Hubble Space Telescope

Packed into the center of this region are bright lights of the Trapezium stars, the four heftiest stars in the Orion Nebula. Ultraviolet light unleashed by these stars is carving a cavity in the nebula and disrupting the growth of hundreds of smaller stars. The dark speck near the bottom, right of the image is a silhouette of an edge-on disk encircling a young star. Another whitish-looking disk is visible near the bottom, left, just above the two bright stars. This disk is encased in a bubble of gas and dust.

Distance: 1,500 light years

This stellar nursery, Messier 42, popularly called the Orion Nebula, has been known to many cultures throughout human history. The nebula is only 1,500 light-years away, making it the closest large star-forming region to Earth and giving it a relatively bright apparent magnitude of 4. Because of its brightness and prominent location just below Orion’s belt, M42 can be spotted with the naked eye, while offering an excellent peek at stellar birth for those with telescopes. It is best observed during January.


Credit: NASA, European Space Agency, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

Release Date: Jan. 11, 2006


#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Hubble #Nebulae #Nebula #OrionNebula #Messier42 #Messier43 #Stars #TrapeziumStars #UltravioletLight #Orion #Constellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education

Nebula IRAS 05437+2502 in Taurus | Hubble Space Telescope

Nebula IRAS 05437+2502 in Taurus | Hubble Space Telescope

The little-known nebula IRAS 05437+2502 billows out among the bright stars and dark dust clouds that surround it in this striking image from the Hubble Space Telescope. It is located in the constellation of Taurus (the Bull), close to the central plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Unlike many of Hubble’s targets, this object has not been studied in detail and its exact nature is unclear. 

At first glance it appears to be a small, rather isolated, region of star formation and one might assume that the effects of fierce ultraviolet radiation from bright young stars probably were the cause of the eye-catching shapes of the gas. However, the bright boomerang-shaped feature may tell a more dramatic tale. The interaction of a high velocity young star and the cloud of gas and dust may have created this unusually sharp-edged bright arc. Such a reckless star would have been ejected from the distant young cluster where it was born and would travel at 200,000 km/hour or more through the nebula.

This faint cloud was originally discovered in 1983 by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), the first space telescope to survey the whole sky in the infrared. IRAS was run by the United States, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom and found huge numbers of new objects that were invisible from the ground.

This image was taken with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on Hubble. It was part of a “snapshot” survey. These are lists of observations that are fitted into Hubble’s busy schedule when possible. 

This picture was created from images taken through yellow (F606W) and near-infrared (F814W) filters. The exposure times were about eleven minutes per filter and the field of view is about 100 arcseconds across.


Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble, R. Sahai and NASA

Release Date: June 14, 2010


#NASA #ESA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #Stars #StellarNursery #Nebulae #Nebula #IRAS054372502 #Taurus #Constellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #HST #HubbleSpaceTelescope #SpaceTelescopes #IRAS #Infrared #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education

Drought Expands across the United States | NASA Earth Observatory

Drought Expands across the United States | NASA Earth Observatory


Unusually dry conditions gripped over half the contiguous United States in October 2024. On October 29, abnormal dryness and drought affected over 78 percent of the American population—the highest percentage in the U.S. Drought Monitor’s 25-year-long record.

Drier- and warmer-than-normal weather dominated the country during much of October, caused by a strong ridge of high pressure that lingered high in the atmosphere for weeks. According to the Southeast Regional Climate Center, 100 weather stations across the U.S. recorded no rain in October, including the cities of Philadelphia, Atlanta, Birmingham, Dallas, Las Vegas, and Sacramento. Over 70 weather stations recorded the driest October on record.

This map shows conditions in the contiguous U.S. on October 29, 2024, as reported by the U.S. Drought Monitor, a partnership of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The map depicts drought intensity in progressive shades of yellow to red. It is based on an analysis of climate, soil, crop, and water condition measurements from more than 350 federal, state, and local observers around the country. NASA contributes several measurements and models that aid the drought monitoring effort.

Drought had expanded from covering just 12 percent of the country in June to 54 percent as of October 29. The rapid development created what NOAA describes as a “flash drought” in many parts of the country. Flash droughts are typically brought on by lower-than-normal rates of precipitation, accompanied by abnormally high temperatures, wind, or radiation.

“Although droughts usually develop slowly over the course of months and years, a flash drought rapidly intensifies over the course of a few weeks to a couple of months,” said Caily Schwartz, a scientist at the Global Water Security Center at the University of Alabama. Schwartz noted that in Nebraska, where the National Drought Mitigation Center is located, there has been little rain and higher-than-normal temperatures in October. Much of the state was in severe drought (represented as orange in the map) in late October.

Almost the entire country was warmer than normal the week of October 23-29, and drought was present in every state except Alaska and Kentucky. The High Plains and South were the warmest regions, with temperatures 10 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit (6 to 7 degrees Celsius) above normal.

Even in the Southeast where Hurricane Helene dropped significant precipitation in late September, many places dried out rapidly, with some recording zero precipitation since the hurricane.

“This fall has been a prime example of flash drought across parts of the U.S.,” said Jason Otkin, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “These events can take people by surprise because you can quickly go from being drought-free to having severe drought conditions.”

Otkin co-authored research published in Science that showed that droughts have intensified more rapidly since the 1950s due to human-caused climate change. According to the research team, flash droughts have become more common over much of the world, making drought monitoring and forecasting more difficult.

Read Science journal article "A global transition to flash droughts under climate change":

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn6301


Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using data from the United States Drought Monitor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Article Credit: Emily Cassidy

Release Date: Nov. 2, 2024


#NASA #NOAA #USGS #Science #Planet #Earth #Atmosphere #Meteorology #Weather #Precipitation #Climate #ClimateChange #Drought #FlashDrought #Agriculture #GlobalHeating #Environment #RemoteSensing #EarthObservation #DOA #UNL #UnitedStates #Infographic #STEM #Education

Earth's Dim Atmospheric Glow over Gulf of Thailand | International Space Station

Earth's Dim Atmospheric Glow over Gulf of Thailand | International Space Station


Earth's dim atmospheric glow blankets the Gulf of Thailand dotted with the lights of fishing boats in this orbital nighttime photograph from the International Space Station as it soared 259 miles above. The Gulf of Thailand, also known as the Gulf of Siam, is a shallow inlet in the southwestern, bounded between the southwestern shores of the Indochinese Peninsula and the northern half of the Malay Peninsula.

Airglow occurs when atoms and molecules in the upper atmosphere, excited by sunlight, emit light to shed their excess energy. Or, it can happen when atoms and molecules that have been ionized by sunlight collide with and capture a free electron. In both cases, they eject a particle of light—called a photon—in order to relax again. The phenomenon is similar to auroras, but where auroras are driven by high-energy particles originating from the solar wind, airglow is energized by ordinary, day-to-day solar radiation. Airglow can be red, green, purple and yellow swaths of light emanating from the Earth's upper atmosphere. In this picture, it is green.

Expedition 72 Updates:

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Expedition 72 Crew

Station Commander: Suni Williams
Roscosmos (Russia): Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, Aleksandr Gorbunov
NASA: Butch Wilmore, Don Pettit, Nick Hague

An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.

Learn more about the important research being operated on Station:
https://www.nasa.gov/iss-science 
For more information about STEM on Station:
https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation
Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM)


Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)
Capture Date: Nov. 1, 2024
Release Date: Nov. 5, 2024

#NASA #Space #Science #ISS #Earth #Atmosphere #Airglow #PacificOcean #SouthChinaSea #GulfOfThailand #Meteorology #LightningStrorm #Weather #Thailand #Astronauts #Cosmonauts #Russia #Россия #Roscosmos #Роскосмос #InternationalCooperation #LongDurationMissions #HumanSpaceflight #SpaceLaboratory #Florida #UnitedStates #Expedition72 #STEM #Education

The New 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope in Chile | Vera C. Rubin Observatory

The New 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope in Chile Vera C. Rubin Observatory


This photo shows Rubin Observatory's Simonyi Survey Telescope taking on-sky observations with the 144-megapixel test camera called the Commissioning Camera on the night of October 24, 2024. It is the largest digital camera ever built for astronomy. The camera is roughly the size of a small car and weighs almost 6200 lbs (2800 kg). The goal of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, currently under construction in Chile, is to conduct a 10-year optical survey of the visible sky that will deliver a 500 petabyte set of images and data products that will address some of the most pressing questions about the structure and evolution of the universe and the objects in it.

The 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope features a unique three-mirror design. This gives the telescope an exceptionally wide field of view, while maintaining a compact shape that allows it to move quickly across the sky. The design and construction of Rubin Observatory took more than a decade.

The Simonyi Survey Telescope is named after Charles Simonyi's family, in recognition of his significant gift early in the construction phase in support of the design, development, and fabrication of the telescope’s primary mirror.

A team of engineers and technicians at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory constructed the LSST Camera. 

The focal plane consists of 189 charge-coupled device (CCD) sensors arranged on 21 “rafts” for a combined 3200 megapixels.

Every night, Rubin Observatory’s intricate data network, designed and built by a distributed team of data management experts, will move 20 terabytes of data from the summit of Cerro Pachón in Chile to the US Data Facility and then to other data processing facilities around the world.  

Rubin Observatory is supported by funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the US Department of Energy (DOE). Rubin Observatory is operated by NSF’s NOIRLab and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.


Credit: RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA/H. Stockebrand

Release Date: Oct. 28, 2024


#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #VeraRubinObservatory #SimonyiSurveyTelescope #Telescope #OpticalTelescope #LSSTCamera #CCD #Cosmos #Universe #CerroPachón #Chile #NOIRLab #NSF #AURA #DOE #SLAC #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

Earth Crepuscular Rays & Cumulonimbus Clouds | International Space Station

Earth Crepuscular Rays & Cumulonimbus Clouds | International Space Station

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this oblique photograph of crepuscular rays while orbiting over southern Asia. The combined off-nadir perspective and low Sun angle highlight the varied cloud structures and warm hues from the setting Sun.

Crepuscular rays, named after the Latin word for twilight, are shafts of light that can appear at any time of day but are most often visible near sunrise or sunset. In this astronaut photograph, gaps between the clouds allow rays of light to penetrate through and partially illuminate regions of shadow cast by the tall clouds. Water vapor and aerosol particles in the atmosphere scatter light, accentuating the bright crepuscular rays.

These rays are known by a variety of names, including sunbeams and antisolar rays. The optical effect is often visible from the ground. However, the high-altitude perspective from the space station is distinctive because astronauts can capture a greater field of view, showing the truly vast distances spanned by the sunbeams. Crepuscular rays can also occur at night when clouds or other high-altitude features block incoming moonlight.

The clouds visible in the photo are cumulonimbus clouds formed by updrafts of warm, moist air. Cumulonimbus clouds are also called thunderclouds because they are often associated with extreme weather, such as lightning, hail, and tornadoes. The flat upper surface of mature cumulonimbus clouds, which resembles an anvil, is caused by strong winds that prevent clouds from growing upward past the tropopause—the layer of the atmosphere that forms a boundary between the troposphere below and stratosphere above.

Astronaut photograph ISS069-E-88621 was acquired on September 16, 2023, with a Nikon D5 digital camera using a focal length of 105 millimeters. 

An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.


Image Credit: ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center

Article Credit: Cadan Cummings, Amentum, JETS II Contract at NASA-JSC

Capture Date: Sept. 16, 2023

Release Date: Nov. 3, 2024


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Young Star V1331 Cyg Takes Center Stage in Cygnus | Hubble Space Telescope

Young Star V1331 Cyg Takes Center Stage in Cygnus | Hubble Space Telescope

With its helical appearance resembling a snail’s shell, this reflection nebula seems to spiral out from a luminous central star in this new NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope image. 

Distance: 1,800 light years

The star in the center, known as V1331 Cyg and located in the dark cloud LDN 981—or, more commonly, Lynds 981—had previously been defined as a T Tauri star. A T Tauri is a young star —or Young Stellar Object—that is starting to contract to become a main sequence star similar to the Sun.

What makes V1331Cyg special is the fact that we look almost exactly at one of its poles. Usually, the view of a young star is obscured by the dust from the circumstellar disc and the envelope that surround it. However, with V1331Cyg we are actually looking in the exact direction of a jet driven by the star that is clearing the dust and giving us this magnificent view.

This view provides an almost undisturbed view of the star and its immediate surroundings allowing astronomers to study it in greater detail and look for features that might suggest the formation of a very low-mass object in the outer circumstellar disc.


Image Credits:

ESA/Hubble, NASA, Karl Stapelfeldt (GSFC), B. Stecklum and A. Choudhary (Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg, Germany)

Release Date: March 2, 2015


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