Mars: Those Sleek Dunes | NASA MRO

Observation by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), approximately 252 kilometers above the surface. Enhanced color image is less than 1 kilometer across. This image was acquired by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument.

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Image Date: December 2016
Release Date: May 9, 2017

#NASA #Mars #Space #Astronomy #Science #Dunes #Geology #Landscape #Terrain #Geoscience #MRO #Reconnaissance #Orbiter #Spacecraft #HiRISE #Camera #JPL #STEM #Education

Tropical Cyclone Donna, South Pacific | International Space Station

Cyclone Donna was photographed just East of Australia as the International Space Station orbited about 250 miles above. Donna is the strongest South Pacific cyclone in the month of May ever recorded.

Credit: NASA/JSC
Image Date: May 7, 2017
Release Date: May 9, 2017

#NASA #Earth #Science #Cyclone #Tropical #Donna #Weather #Storm #Pacific #Ocean #Fiji #Australia #Astronauts #Expedition51 #Technology #JSC #UnitedStates #OverviewEffect #OrbitalPerspective #STEM #Education 

Auroras over Europe | International Space Station

Happy Europe Day!

ESA Astronaut Thomas Pesquet of France: "We also have auroras in Europe (and they are the best auroras, it is true): a bit to the north, though. The big city in the foreground is Berlin, and over there I see Copenhagen."

"L’Europe aussi offre de belles aurores boréales, du moins au nord. Au premier plan, Berlin et derrière, la Belgique se distingue comme toujours nettement"

Credit: ESA/NASA
Image Date: March 27, 2017
Release Date: May 9, 2017

#NASA #ESA #Earth #Science #Aurora #Borealis #Berlin #Germany #Deutschland #Copenhagen #Denmark #Danmark #EuropeDay #Astronaut #ThomasPesquet #Expedition51 #Technology #UnitedStates #CNES #France #Europe #OverviewEffect #OrbitalPerspective #LightPollution #STEM #Education

European Triangle | International Space Station

Happy Europe Day!

ESA Astronaut Thomas Pesquet of France: "London, Paris and Brussels form a very European triangle."

"Londres, Paris et Bruxelles forment un triangle très européen"

Credit: ESA/NASA

Image Date: April 2, 2017
Release Date: May 9, 2017

#NASA #ESA #Earth #Science #EuropeDay #Astronaut #ThomasPesquet #Expedition51 #Technology #UnitedStates #CNES #France #Europe #OverviewEffect #OrbitalPerspective #LightPollution #STEM #Education

NASA's P-3 Aircraft Flies over Southeast Greenland

Image: shadow of aircraft from above flying over iceberg
May 9, 2017: The shadow of NASA's P-3 aircraft is seen over an iceberg on a May 8, 2017 flight supporting NASA's Operation IceBridge mission. IceBridge began its final week of Arctic Spring 2017 surveys with a glacier-packed mission in Greenland, called Southeast Glaciers 01.

The P-3 is a four-engine turboprop based out of Wallops and capable of long duration flights of 8-12 hours. It is supporting the same suite of IceBridge instruments flown in the past IceBridge Arctic and Antarctic campaigns.

The mission of Operation IceBridge is to collect data on changing polar land and sea ice and maintain continuity of measurements between ICESat missions. The original ICESat mission ended in 2009, and its successor, ICESat-2, is scheduled for launch in 2018.

Image Credit: NASA/Joe MacGregor
Image Date: May 8, 2017
Release Date: May 9, 2017

#NASA #Earth #Science #Greenland #Grønland #Iceberg #Ice #Polar #OperationIcebridge #Icebridge #ICESat #ICESat2 #Aircraft #Lockheed #P3 #WP3DOrion #Airborne #Reconnaissance #Observatory #Climate #ClimateChange #Laboratory #Research #Mapping #NOAA #Photography #STEM #Education

Canada Post launches stamp for Canadarm robotic arm

Happy 150th Birthday, Canada!

May 4, 2017: Deepak Chopra, President and CEO of Canada Post, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen unveiled the Canadarm stamp together. The new Canadarm stamp, which goes on sale on June 1, features a photo of the robotic arm taken on April 25, 1990 as it grappled the Hubble Space Telescope in the payload bay of the shuttle Discovery to place the observatory into orbit. First tested in orbit on Nov. 13, 1981, during the second mission of NASA's space shuttle Columbia, the Canadarm shuttle remote manipulator system (SRMS) made possible the deployment and recovery of satellites from the payload bay of the shuttle and played a critical role in the assembly of the International Space Station.

The 50-foot-long (15-meter) robotic arms—five were flown between 1981 and 2011—featured six rotating joints and could maneuver items in space that had a mass equivalent to a fully-loaded city bus.

Credit: Canada Post
Release Date: May 4, 2017

#Canada #CSA #Space #Science #Technology #Engineering #Robotics #Robots #Canadarm #Canadarm2 #Dextre #Spacecraft #MDA #SparAerospace #CanadaPost #Stamp #Astronaut #JeremyHansen #Canada150 #ISS #SpaceShuttle #Human #Spaceflight #Aerospace #Innovation #History #STEM #Education

Athens, Greece | International Space Station

ESA Astronaut Thomas Pesquet of France: "Athens, Greece: The cradle of European civilization and democracy!"

"Au centre d’Athènes, on devine la Pnyx où siégeait l’assemblée des citoyens ! 25 siècles plus tard, un Européen la survole tranquillement depuis l’espace… La technologie a drôlement avancé, mais certains idéaux sont éternels…"

Credit: ESA/NASA
Release Date: March 4, 2017

#NASA #ESA #Earth #Science #Athens #Αθήνα #Greece #Ελλάδα #Culture #Civilization #History #Astronaut #ThomasPesquet #Expedition50 #Technology #UnitedStates #CNES #France #Europe #OverviewEffect #OrbitalPerspective #STEM #Education

Green and blue | European Southern Observatory

Sitting amongst the alien landscape of the harsh Atacama, the antennas of the Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) look eerily otherworldly in this ESO Picture of the Week as they are bathed in a neon green light.

This light is actually an built-in function of ALMA, not evidence of alien activity! The array’s antennas have a flashing green light that blinks periodically whilst the antennas are in operation, and does not disturb the radio-wavelength observations. This light is not usually quite so visible—this picture was captured using a 10-second exposure, during which time a green flash occurred and spread throughout the image, creating a stark contrast between the neon green of the antennas and the deep blue of the night sky.

Jagged ice formations known as penitentes can be seen in the foreground. These form at high altitudes where the low pressure and cold temperatures cause an unusual freezing and melting cycle. Penitentes form in a wide range of sizes, from a couple of centimeters up to around five meters. The ones in this picture are fairly small, measuring less than a meter.

Credit: ESO/S. Fandango
Release Date: May 8, 2017

#ESO #Astronomy #Science #Space #Cosmos #Universe #Array #Antennas #ALMA #Atacama #Chile #Europe #Astrophotography #Photography #STEM #Education

James Webb Space Telescope Arrival | NASA’s Johnson Space Center

James Webb Space Telescope is pushed into the clean room
May 7, 2017: The James Webb Space Telescope is pushed into the clean room of Building 32. Building 32 houses Chamber A, the thermal vacuum chamber where the telescope will have its final thermal vacuum testing.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has arrived at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where it will undergo its last cryogenic test before it is launched into space in 2018.

The telescope was loaded onto a trailer truck from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and moved slowly down a highway by the Webb team to U.S. Air Force’s Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. At Andrews, the telescope was then loaded onto a C-5 aircraft and flown to Ellington Field in Houston, Texas.

When the C-5 landed at Ellington, the telescope was carefully unloaded and delivered to NASA Johnson. In the coming weeks, the telescope will be prepared for a final cryogenic test that will run approximately 100 days. Then, it will continue its journey to Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems in Redondo Beach, California, for final integration and testing with the remainder of the Webb Observatory—the sunshield and spacecraft bus—prior to launch.

To ensure the telescope's optics will operate at its frigid destination 1 million miles out in space, it must complete several cryogenic tests. The last cryogenic test will occur in Johnson's Chamber A, the same vacuum chamber where the Apollo spacecraft were tested. This critical end-to-end optical test will test the telescope at its extremely cold operating temperatures—at 40 Kelvin—the temperature that it will operate in space.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s most advanced space observatory. This engineering marvel is designed to unravel some of the greatest mysteries of the universe, from discovering the first stars and galaxies that formed after the big bang to studying the atmospheres of planets around other stars. It is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

For further information about the James Webb Space Telescope, visit: jwst.nasa.gov or www.nasa.gov/webb

Article Credit: NASA/Goddard/JSC
Image Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
Release Date: May 7, 2017

#NASA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Telescope #JWST #JamesWebb #Exoplanets #Planets #Astrophysics #Cosmos #Universe #ESA #CSA #Goddard #GSFC #Aircraft #VacuumChamber #Cryogenic #Testing #JSC #Johnson #Houston #Texas #UnitedStates #STScI #STEM #Education

Ural Delta "Tree leaf" | International Space Station

ESA Astronaut Thomas Pesquet of France: "The Ural Delta in the Caspian Sea looks like a tree leaf."

"L’embouchure du fleuve Oural, qui se déverse dans la mer Caspienne, ressemble étrangement aux nervures d’une feuille d’arbre , Kazakhstan"

The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed inland body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. It is in an endorheic basin (a basin without outflows) located between Europe and Asia. It is bounded by Kazakhstan to the northeast, Russia to the northwest, Azerbaijan to the west, Iran to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southeast.
(Source: Wikipedia)

Credit: ESA/NASA
Capture Date: April 27, 2017

#NASA #ESA #ISS #Science #Earth #EarthArt #Planet #UralDelta #CaspianSea #Astronaut #ThomasPesquet #Proxima #Expedition51 #Technology #Photography #JSC #CNES #France #Europe #OverviewEffect #OrbitalPerspective #STEM #Education

Saturn: Hail the Hexagon | NASA Cassini Mission

May 8, 2017: Saturn's hexagonal polar jet stream is the shining feature of almost every view of the north polar region of Saturn. The region, in shadow for the first part of the Cassini mission, now enjoys full sunlight, which enables Cassini scientists to directly image it in reflected light.

Although the sunlight falling on the north pole of Saturn is enough to allow us to image and study the region, it does not provide much warmth. In addition to being low in the sky (just like summer at Earth's poles), the sun is nearly ten times as distant from Saturn as from Earth. This results in the sunlight being only about 1 percent as intense as at our planet.

This view looks toward Saturn from about 31 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Jan. 22, 2017 using a spectral filter which preferentially admits wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 939 nanometers.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 560,000 miles (900,000 kilometers) from Saturn. Image scale is 33 miles (54 kilometers) per pixel.

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (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. 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, Colorado.

For more information about Cassini's Grand Finale, visit: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/grandfinale

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and www.nasa.gov/cassini
The Cassini imaging team homepage is at https://ciclops.org

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Image Date: January 22, 2017
Release Date: May 8, 2017

#NASA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Saturn #Atmosphere #Hexagon #Planet #GrandFinale #SolarSystem #Exploration #Cassini #Spacecraft #JPL #Pasadena #California #UnitedStates #ESA #ASI #History #STEM #Education

Approaching Jupiter | NASA Juno Mission

This enhanced color view of Jupiter’s south pole was created by citizen scientist Gabriel Fiset using data from the JunoCam instrument on NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Oval storms dot the cloudscape. Approaching the pole, the organized turbulence of Jupiter’s belts and zones transitions into clusters of unorganized filamentary structures, streams of air that resemble giant tangled strings.

The image was taken on Dec. 11, 2016 at 9:44 a.m. PST (12:44 p.m. EST), from an altitude of about 32,400 miles (52,200 kilometers) above the planet’s beautiful cloud tops.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gabriel Fiset
Image Date: December 11, 2016
Release Date: May 5, 2017

#NASA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Jupiter #Planet #Juno #Spacecraft #JunoCam #Atmosphere #Clouds #Exploration #SolarSystem #Technology #Engineering #JPL #Pasadena #California #USA #UnitedStates #LockheedMartin #MSFC #Marshall #SwRI #STEM #Education #CitizenScience

Arianespace Ariane 5 Rocket Launch: SGDC and KOREASAT-7

May 4, 2017: "Today’s mission was the seventh Arianespace dual-launch carrying two satellites built by Thales Alenia Space. SGDC and KOREASAT-7 were built in Thales Alenia Space’s plants in Cannes and Toulouse (France), using the Spacebus 4000C4 and 4000B2 platforms, respectively. These platforms are perfectly adapted to Arianespace’s launcher family."

"Arianespace and Thales Alenia Space have developed a very solid and fruitful relationship since the launch of Meteosat-F2 on June 19, 1981. SGDC and KOREASAT-7 are the 147th and 148th Thales Alenia Space satellites to be launched by Arianespace."

"Eight more Thales Alenia Space satellites are to be launched by Arianespace in the coming years."

Shortly after the announcement of the orbital injection of the two satellites, Stéphane Israël, CEO of Arianespace, said: 'With this second successful launch of the year by Ariane 5, and the 78th successful mission in a row by our heavy launcher, Arianespace proudly gives our Brazilian and South Korean customers the benefits of our excellent launch services. We are honored by the confidence expressed today by Visiona Tecnologia Espacial, which chose us for its first satellite on behalf of the operator Telebras and the Brazilian government; as well as that of the South Korean operator KTsat, for whom we have launched three satellites since 1999."

“Congratulations to all our partners for this 92nd launch of an Ariane 5: Thales Alenia Space, which built both satellites launched on the same Ariane for the seventh time since 1991; our primary shareholder, Airbus Safran Launchers, and the entire European launcher industry for the reliability and availability of this heavy launcher; ESA, which provides essential support for the Ariane program; CNES/CSG, our ground segment companies and all staff at the space center, who continue to work alongside us as we go from success to success. And, of course, I would like to congratulate everybody at Arianespace for this successful launch, the fourth of the year.”

"The SGDC satellite was built by Thales Alenia Space using a Spacebus 4000C4 platform. Its payload comprises 57 Ka and X-band transponders. Positioned at 75° West, SGDC will provide telecommunications, internet access and civil and military communications services for Brazil. The satellite weighed 5,735 kg. at launch and offers a design life exceeding 18 years."

"KOREASAT-7 was built by Thales Alenia Space using a Spacebus 4000B2 platform. Its payload comprises 30 Ku-band transponders, plus Ka-band transponders. Positioned at 116° East, KOREASAT-7 will supply telecommunications and broadcasting services for South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, India and the Indochinese peninsula. The satellite weighed 3,680 kg. at launch and offers a design life exceeding 15 years."

About Arianespace

"Arianespace uses space to make life better on Earth by providing launch services for all types of satellites into all orbits. It has orbited more than 550 satellites since 1980, using its family of three launchers, Ariane, Soyuz and Vega, from launch sites in French Guiana (South America) and Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Arianespace is headquartered in Evry, near Paris, and has a technical facility at the Guiana Space Center, Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, plus local offices in Washington, D.C., Tokyo and Singapore. Arianespace is a subsidiary of Airbus Safran Launchers, which holds 74% of its share capital, with the balance held by 17 other shareholders from the European launcher industry."

Credit: Arianespace
Release Date: May 4, 2017
#ESA #Arianespace #Space #Rocket #Ariane5 #Ariane #HeavyLaunch #Satellite #Telecommunications #KOREASAT7 #KTsat #한국 #SGDC #Telebras #Brazil #Brasil #ThalesAlenia 

NASA Visualization Explorer App Now Available for Android

The NASA Visualization Explorer App is now available to users with Android devices running version 5.0 or higher.

You can download the app for free from the Google Play store or from NASA's website: https://nasaviz.gsfc.nasa.gov/

The app features data visualizations developed by NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, Earth Observatory, Science@NASA and others, that show current research from NASA's study of Earth, the moon, the sun, our solar system and the universe beyond.

Stories are released every other Monday, and with the Android version release, put NASA's exploration of our world and universe into the hands of more people with a smartphone or tablet. Each story features a high-resolution movie or still image and short text to put it into context. Recent features have included viewing the world's carbon dioxide in 3-D, erupting water plumes on Jupiter and the path of this summer's total solar eclipse across North America.

Originally launched in 2011 for the iPad, the app became available on all iOS devices in 2014. User requests prompted development of the Android version, which will run on Android 5.0 and higher.

The current release is a beta version, and while users do not yet have all the features of the iOS versions, they will be able to browse all 525 current stories, receive new stories and share them via social media. NASA is looking forward to receiving input from users as we continue refining the Android version. Users can send feedback in the main menu of the app or through the developer email found on the NASA Viz App's Google Play webpage.

Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio at Goddard Space Flight Center
Release Date: May 2, 2017
#NASA #Earth #Science #Space #Technology #Visualization #Smartphone #Tablet #App #Android #Google #GooglePlay #Explorer #Students #Teachers #Goddard #GSFC #Greenbelt #Maryland #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

Saturn | NASA Cassini Mission

Assembled using raw uncalibrated infrared (IR3), red, and violet filtered images taken by the Cassini spacecraft on May 3rd, 2017.

For more information about Cassini's Grand Finale, visit: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/grandfinale

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Kevin M. Gill
Image Date: May 3, 2017
Release Date: May 4, 2017

#NASA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Saturn #Rings #Planet #GrandFinale #SolarSystem #Exploration #Cassini #Spacecraft #JPL #Pasadena #California #UnitedStates #ESA #ASI #History #STEM #Education

Happy Star Wars Day from NASA's Orion Program!

#MayThe4thBeWithYou

Orion is NASA's deep space human exploration spacecraft.

Learn more: nasa.gov/orion

Credit: NASA
Release Date: May 4, 2017


#NASA #StarWarsDay #MayTheFouthBeWithYou #Space #Orion #Spacecraft #DeepSpace #Exploration #SolarSystem #Mars #JourneyToMars #Human #Spaceflight #StarWars #ScienceFiction #Film #GeorgeLucas #Lucasfilm #UnitedStates #Technology #Aerospace #Engineering #Future #Humanity #Imagination #STEM #Education