Super Typhoon Mangkhut Slams China and the Philippines

Around the same time Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina, another dangerous tropical cyclone was wreaking havoc on the other side of the globe. On September 15, 2018, Super Typhoon Mangkhut tore through the northern Philippines, battering the country's most populous island of Luzon with destructive Category 5-level winds, 40-foot waves, and torrential rain.

Known locally as "Ompong" in the Philippines, Mangkhut is the strongest storm seen on Earth so far in 2018. On September 12, Mangkhut was packing one-minute sustained of 180 mph (285 km/h), the Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported. Winds were only slightly lower, around 165 mph, as the storm made landfall in Cagayan Province, making Mangkhut the strongest storm to hit the Philippines since Typhoon Haiyan ravaged the island nation in 2013.

News outlets said Mangkhut killed at least 60 people in the Philippines and four people in China after it slammed into southern China as a weaker, but still powerful storm. On September 16, Mangkhut lashed Hong Kong with 121 mph winds, the strongest typhoon to hit the city in nearly 40 years.

This visible satellite image from Japan's Himawari-8 geostationary satellite, shows Mangkhut on September 14 before the eye of the storm barreled through the northern Philippines.

Credit: JAXA/JMA/Seán Doran
Image Date: September 14, 2018
Release Date: September 17, 2018
#NASA #Earth #Space #Satellite #Planet #Atmosphere #Weather #Meteorology #SuperTyphoon #Typhoon #Mangkhut #Ompong #Luzon #Philippines #HongKong #香港 #Hainan #海南省 #中国 #Pacific #Ocean #SouthChinaSea #Himawari8 #Japan #日本 #JAXA #JMA #STEM #Education

Galactic knots and bursts | Hubble

In the northern constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair) lies the impressive Coma Cluster—a structure of over a thousand galaxies bound together by gravity. Many of these galaxies are elliptical types, as is the brighter of the two galaxies dominating this image: NGC 4860 (center). However, the outskirts of the cluster also host younger spiral galaxies that proudly display their swirling arms. Again, this image shows a wonderful example of such a galaxy in the shape of the beautiful NGC 4858, which can be seen to the left of its bright neighbor and which stands out on account of its unusual, tangled, fiery appearance.

NGC 4858 is special. Rather than being a simple spiral, it is something called a “galaxy aggregate”, which is, just as the name suggests, a central galaxy surrounded by a handful of luminous knots of material that seem to stem from it, extending and tearing away and adding to or altering its overall structure. It is also experiencing an extremely high rate of star formation, possibly triggered by an earlier interaction with another galaxy. As we see it, NGC 4858 is forming stars so frantically that it will use up all of its gas long before it reaches the end of its life. The color of its bright knots indicates that they are formed of hydrogen, which glows in various shades of bright red as it is energized by the many young, hot stars lurking within.

This scene was captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), a powerful camera designed to explore the evolution of stars and galaxies in the early Universe.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Release Date: September 17, 2018

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #ComaCluster #Galaxies #Elliptical #NGC4860 #Galaxy #NGC4858 #Cosmos #Universe #Telescope #ESA #Goddard #GSFC #STScI #STEM #Education

An explosive phoenix | ESO

This European Southern Observatory image shows a dwarf galaxy in the southern constellation of Phoenix named, for obvious reasons, the Phoenix Dwarf.

The Phoenix Dwarf is unique in that it cannot be classified according to the usual scheme for dwarf galaxies; while its shape would label it as a spheroidal dwarf galaxy—which do not contain enough gas to form new stars—studies have shown the galaxy to have an associated cloud of gas nearby, hinting at recent star formation, and a population of young stars.

The gas cloud does not lie within the galaxy itself, but is still gravitationally bound to it—meaning that it will eventually fall back into the galaxy over time. Since the cloud is close by, it’s likely that the process that flung it outwards it is still ongoing. After studying the shape of the gas cloud, astronomers suspect the most likely cause of the ejection to be supernova explosions within the galaxy.

The data to create this image was selected from the ESO archive as part of the Hidden Treasure competition.

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Release Date: September 17, 2018

+European Southern Observatory (ESO)

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Hurricane Florence: Landfall | International Space Station

U.S. Astronaut Ricky Arnold: "Hurricane Florence makes landfall this morning."

Credit: NASA Astronaut Ricky Arnold/JSC
Release Date: September 14, 2018
#NASA #Space #ISS #Science #Earth #Planet #Atmosphere #Hurricane #Florence #Landfall #NorthCarolina #UnitedStates #Atlantic #Ocean #Weather #Storm #Meteorology #Astronaut #RickyArnold #Expedition56 #Human #Spaceflight #Spacecraft #Photography #STEM #Education #OrbitalPerspective #OverviewEffect

Landfall of Hurricane Florence | International Space Station

Sept. 14, 2018: Cameras outside the International Space Station captured views of Hurricane Florence on Sept. 14 at 7:41 a.m. EDT minutes after the storm made landfall.

NASA satellites track the storm: https://go.nasa.gov/2CEmDGQ

Florence made landfall near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina packing winds of 90 miles an hour. The National Hurricane Center said Florence is moving very slowly to the west at only 6 miles an hour, then is expected to turn to the southwest, increasing the threat for historic storm surge and catastrophic flooding to coastline areas and inland cities in North Carolina and South Carolina.

Credit: NASA/JSC
Duration: 4 minutes, 49 seconds
Capture Date: September 14, 2018

#NASA #NOAA #Space #ISS #Science #Earth #Hurricane #Florence #Landfall #NorthCarolina #UnitedStates #Atlantic #Ocean #Weather #Storm #Meteorology #Astronauts #Expedition56 #Human #Spaceflight #Spacecraft #Photography #STEM #Education #OrbitalPerspective #OverviewEffect #HD #Video

Hurricane Florence Makes Landfall | NOAA

Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina at 7:15 a.m. ET on September 14, 2018, as a Category 1 storm. The GOES East satellite captured this geocolor image of the massive storm at 7:45 a.m. ET, shortly after it moved ashore.

The National Hurricane Center reported Florence had sustained winds of 90 mph at landfall and was moving slowly westward at 6 mph. The storm is expected to slowly begin weakening later today and this evening, but will continue to have significant impacts across the Carolinas.

Life-threatening storm surges and hurricane-force winds are expected to continue even as Florence moves inland, while very heavy rainfall, upwards of 20 inches in some locations, will cause catastrophic flooding across portions of North and South Carolina into the weekend.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is an American scientific agency within the United States Department of Commerce that focuses on the conditions of the oceans, major waterways, and the atmosphere.

This geocolor enhanced imagery was created by NOAA's partners at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA).

Credit: NOAA
Image Date: September 14, 2018

#NASA #NOAA #Space #Science #Satellite #Earth #Planet #Atmosphere #Hurricane #Florence #Landfall #GOESEast #GOES16 #CIRA #Geocolor #NorthCarolina #SouthCarolina #UnitedStates #Atlantic #Ocean #Weather #Storm #Meteorology #History #STEM #Education

NASA's Space to Ground: Above the Storm

Week of Sept. 14, 2018: NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station. Japan is poised to launch its HTV-7 resupply ship, nicknamed the Kounotori, loaded with over five tons of cargo to the International Space Station on Friday, U.S. time. Back on Earth, a new crew is preparing for its launch from Kazakhstan next month to the orbital lab.

JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) H-IIB rocket is set to blast off from the Tanegashima Space Center Friday at 4:59 p.m. EDT and send the Kounotori cargo craft on a four-day ride to the station. Commander Drew Feustel and will be in the Cupola Tuesday, with Flight Engineer Serena Auñón-Chancellor as his backup, to command the Canadarm2 robotic arm to capture the Kounotori at 7:30 a.m. The duo trained Thursday morning on a computer and practiced rendezvous procedures and robotics maneuvers.

Learn more about the important research being operated on Station:
https://www.nasa.gov/iss-science

Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)
Duration: 2 minutes, 34 seconds
Release Date: September 14, 2018

#NASA #Space #ISS #Science #Earth #Hurricane #Florence #UnitedStates #Atlantic #Ocean #Weather #Storm #Meteorology #Japan #JAXA #Japan #HTV #Kounotori #Cargo #Resupply #Astronauts #Expedition56 #Human #Spaceflight #Spacecraft #JSC #Houston #Texas #STEM #Education #HD #Video

SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch: Telstar 18 Vantage Mission

The Falcon 9 Rocket’s 60th Successful Mission

Liftoff at 14-minute mark
SpaceX launched its second heavyweight Telstar telecommunications satellite from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida early Monday morning, Sept 10, 2018. It then brought the Falcon 9 rocket’s first-stage booster down for a landing on SpaceX's East Coast drone ship, named "Of Course I Still Love You", located hundreds of miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean.

The SpaceX mission successfully placed the 15,600-pound Telstar 18 Vantage satellite into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) for Canadian-based Telesat. Telstar 18V will provide constant broadband communications services to China, Mongolia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Ocean region.

Credit: SpaceX
Location: Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States
Duration: 49 minutes
Capture Date: September 10, 2018

#SpaceX #Space #Satellite #Launch #Falcon9 #Block5 #Rocket #Telstar18 #Vantage #Telesat #Canada #SSL #MaxarTechnologies #Commercial #Communications #Droneship #Spaceport #CapeCanaveral #AirForce #Florida #UnitedStates #Photography #STEM #Education #HD #Video

SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch: Telstar 18 Vantage Mission

The Falcon 9 Rocket’s 60th Successful Mission

SpaceX launched its second heavyweight Telstar telecommunications satellite from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida early Monday morning, Sept 10, 2018. It then brought the Falcon 9 rocket’s first-stage booster down for a landing on SpaceX's East Coast drone ship, named "Of Course I Still Love You", located hundreds of miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean.

The SpaceX mission successfully placed the 15,600-pound Telstar 18 Vantage satellite into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) for Canadian-based Telesat. Telstar 18V will provide constant broadband communications services to China, Mongolia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Ocean region.

Credit: SpaceX
Location: Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States
Image Date: September 10, 2018

#SpaceX #Space #Satellite #Launch #Falcon9 #Block5 #Rocket #Telstar18 #Vantage #Telesat #Canada #SSL #MaxarTechnologies #Commercial #Communications #Droneship #Spaceport #CapeCanaveral #AirForce #Florida #UnitedStates #Photography #STEM #Education

"The Sun, Our Living Star" Planetarium Show | ESO

The Sun, Our Living Star tells the story of our nearest star—our planet’s powerhouse, the source of energy that drives Earth’s winds and weather, and the ball of light that allows the very existence of life. 

The Sun, Our Living Star premiered at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Supernova planetarium from September 7, 2018 and is also available for free download from the ESO website.

This video is a Full HD conversion from the original 4K Planetarium format. Download the free show in 4K resolution here:
https://www.eso.org/public/videos/The-Sun-show/
English, German and Japanese narrations are available and more languages are planned.

The Sun, Our Living Star reveals the impact our star has on every aspect of our lives here on Earth. Explore the Sun’s role in allowing and maintaining life, from photosynthesis to humanity. Discover how the Sun dictates our days, seasons and years. Delve into the history of the Sun’s impact on human religion and culture. Learn about the Sun’s dynamic nature—what appears as a flat disk in the sky is in fact a violent and evolving celestial body, burning 600 million tons of hydrogen every second. The Sun, Our Living Star allows viewers to experience the Sun in a new way, with never-before-seen images of its turbulent surface in immersive fulldome format, revealing its power and variability in breathtaking detail.

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/Matsopoulos Astronomy
Duration: 24 minutes, 43 seconds
Release Date: September 7, 2018

Film Director: Theofanis Matsopoulos
Music & Sound Effects: Konstantino Polizois
3D Animation and Graphics: Theofanis Matsopoulos, Luis Calçada & Martin Kornmesser
Producer: Theofanis Matsopoulos & the European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Executive Producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen
Script and Scientific Advice: Lars Lindberg Christensen, Ryan Wyatt, Nicolas Matsopoulos, Adam Hadhazy, Rebecca Davies, Carl Mundy & Paola Amico
Narration: Sara Mendes Da Costa
Audio mastering: George Deligiannis

#ESO #Astronomy #Sun #Star #Ultraviolet #Earth #SolarSystem #Astrophysics #Planetarium #Munich #München #Bavaria #Bayern #Germany #Deutschland #Europe #Poster #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Poster for "The Sun, Our Living Star" | ESO

Poster for the European Southern Observatory planetarium show "The Sun, Our Living Star" showing the detailed structure of the Sun's surface.

Learn more about the show here:
https://supernova.eso.org/programme/detail/es1005/

The ESO Supernova planetarium is located 2 km north-east of Garching and about 15 km north-east of Munich, Germany in the “Forschungszentrum” area.

Credit: ESO/M. Druckmüller
Release Date: September 6, 2018
#ESO #Astronomy #Sun #Star #Ultraviolet #Earth #SolarSystem #Astrophysics #Planetarium #Munich #München #Bavaria #Bayern #Germany #Deutschland #Europe #Poster #STEM #Education

The Sun: Our Living Star | ESO

Image from the European Southern Observatory planetarium show "The Sun, Our Living Star" showing the detailed structure of the Sun's surface.

Learn more about the show here:
https://supernova.eso.org/programme/detail/es1005/

The ESO Supernova planetarium is located 2 km north-east of Garching and about 15 km north-east of Munich, Germany in the “Forschungszentrum” area.

Credit: ESO/M. Druckmüller
Release Date: September 6, 2018

#ESO #Astronomy #Sun #Star #Ultraviolet #Earth #SolarSystem #Astrophysics #Planetarium #Munich #München #Bavaria #Bayern #Germany #Deutschland #Europe #STEM #Education

California Dreaming | International Space Station

ESA Astronaut Alexander Gerst: "California dreaming. One of my favourite orbits is down along the West Coast of USA, from Alaska to the Andes. We fly this route once a day."

"California dreaming. Einer meiner Lieblingsorbits geht von Alaska entlang der Westküste der USA bis über die Anden. Wir fliegen diese Route jeden Tag einmal."

Follow Alexander and the Horizons mission:
http://bit.ly/AlexanderGerstESA and on http://bit.ly/HorizonsBlogESA

Credit: ESA/NASA-A.Gerst
Image Date: June 21, 2018

#NASA #Space #ISS #Science #Earth #Planet #California #Orbit #UnitedStates #CSA #Canadarm2 #Robotics #Astronaut #AlexanderGerst #Horizons #Europe #Germany #Deutschland #Expedition56 #Human #Spaceflight #Spacecraft #Photography #STEM #Education

A Tour of Ring Galaxy AM 0644 | NASA Chandra

Sept. 6, 2018: Astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to discover a ring of X-ray power. This ring sounds like it might belong in Tolkien's Middle Earth, but it is, in fact, found in a galaxy about 300 million light years from Earth.

The galaxy called AM 0644-741 is what astronomers refer to as a "ring" galaxy. Taking a look at the image quickly reveals why. Astronomers think ring galaxies are formed when one galaxy smashes into another in a catastrophic collision. The impact generates ripples in the interstellar gas of the targeted galaxy. These ripples, in turn, trigger new waves of star formation as gas expands outward from the site of the collision.

The most massive of these fledgling stars will lead short lives—in cosmic terms—of millions of years. After that, their nuclear fuel is spent and the stars explode as supernovas leaving behind either black holes with masses less than about a hundred times that of the Sun, or neutron stars with a mass approximately equal to one and a half times of the Sun.

Some of these black holes and neutron stars have closecompanion stars, and siphon gas from their stellar partner. This gas falls towards the black hole or neutron star, forming a spinning disk like water circling a drain, and becomes heated by friction. This superheated gas produces large amounts of X-rays that Chandra can detect.

Astronomers are on a quest to study AM 0644-741 and others like it to better understand the origins of ring galaxies and the intriguing objects that they contain.

Credit: NASA Chandra
Duration: 2 minutes, 40 seconds
Release Date: September 6, 2018

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxy #Ring #AM0644 #AM0644741 #Volans #Chandra #Xray #Observatory #Marshall #MSFC #Cosmos #Universe #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Cosmic Collision Forges Galactic One Ring | NASA Chandra

What happens when one galaxy punches through another?
Astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to discover a ring of black holes or neutron stars in a galaxy 300 million light years from Earth. This ring, while not wielding power over Middle Earth, may help scientists better understand what happens when galaxies smash into one another in catastrophic impacts.

In this new composite image of the galaxy AM 0644-741 (AM 0644 for short), X-rays from Chandra (purple) have been combined with optical data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (red, green, and blue). The Chandra data reveal the presence of very bright X-ray sources, most likely binary systems powered by either a stellar-mass black hole or neutron star, in a remarkable ring.

Where did the ring of black holes or neutron stars in AM 0644 come from? Astronomers think that it was created when one galaxy was pulled into another galaxy by the force of gravity. The first galaxy generated ripples in the gas of the second galaxy, AM 0644, located in the lower right. These ripples then produced an expanding ring of gas in AM 0644 that triggered the birth of new stars. The first galaxy is possibly the one located in the lower left of the image.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.

Image Credits:
X-ray: NASA/CXC/INAF/A. Wolter et al
Optical: NASA/STScI
Release Date: September 6, 2018

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxy #Ring #AM0644 #AM0644741 #Volans #Chandra #Xray #Observatory #Marshall #MSFC #Cosmos #Universe #STEM #Education

Saturn's Glory | NASA Cassini

Processed using calibrated red, green, and blue filtered images of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft on September 9, 2014.

The Cassini spacecraft ended its mission on Sept. 15, 2017.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

The Cassini-Huygens mission was 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, California, managed 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 was based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Kevin M. Gill
Image Date: September 9, 2014
Release Date: September 6, 2018
#NASA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Saturn #Planet #Rings #SolarSystem #Exploration #Cassini #Spacecraft #SSI #JPL #California #UnitedStates #ESA #ASI #History #STEM #Education