Friends of NASA (FoN) is an independent non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to building international support for peaceful space exploration, commerce, scientific discovery, and STEM education.
The International Space Station was orbiting above the Tasman Sea when an Expedition 55 crew member took this picture of New Zealand's North Island where the city of Auckland is located. The sun's glint over the South Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea clearly outlines the island nation.
"Wanderers is a vision of humanity's expansion into the Solar System, based on scientific ideas and concepts of what our future in space might look like, if it ever happens. The locations depicted in the film are digital recreations of actual places in the Solar System, built from real photos and map data where available."
"Without any apparent story, other than what you may fill in by yourself, the idea of the film is primarily to show a glimpse of the fantastic and beautiful nature that surrounds us on our neighboring worlds—and above all, how it might appear to us if we were there."
"As some may notice I have borrowed ideas and concepts from science fiction authors such as Kim Stanley Robinson and Arthur C. Clarke, just to name a few. And visually, I of course owe many tips of my hat to painter Chesley Bonestell—the legendary master of space art."
"More directly, with kind permission from Ann Druyan I have also borrowed the voice of astronomer and author Carl Sagan to narrate the film. The audio I used are excerpts from his own reading of his book: 'Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space' (1994, Random House) penguinrandomhouse.com/books/159735/pale-blue-dot-by-carl-sagan/ —needless to say, a huge inspiration for this film.
-------------- CREDITS: VISUALS BY - Erik Wernquist - erik@erikwernquist.com MUSIC BY - Cristian Sandquist - cristiansandquist@mac.com WRITTEN AND NARRATED BY - Carl Sagan - from his book 'Pale Blue Dot' penguinrandomhouse.com/books/159735/pale-blue-dot-by-carl-sagan/, courtesy of Ann Druyan, copyright by Democritus Properties, LLC, with all rights reserved COLOR GRADE BY - Caj Müller/Beckholmen Film - caj@beckholmenfilm.se LIVE ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY BY - Mikael Hall/Vidiotism - mikael@vidiotism.com LIVE ACTION PERFORMANCE BY - Anna Nerman, Camilla Hammarström, Hanna Mellin VOCALIST - Nina Fylkegård - nina@ladystardust.se THANK YOU - Johan Persson, Calle Herdenberg, Micke Lindgren, Satrio J. Studt, Tomas Axelsson, Christian Lundqvist, Micke Lindell, Sigfrid Söderberg, Fredrik Strage, Johan Antoni, Henrik Johansson, Michael Uvnäs, Hanna Mellin
THIS FILM WAS MADE WITH USE OF PHOTOS AND TEXTURES FROM: NASA/JPL, NASA/CICLOPS, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, ESA, John Van Vliet, Björn Jonsson (and many others, of which I unfortunately do not know the names)
Earth's rotation is the rotation of the planet Earth around its own axis. The Earth rotates from the west towards east. As viewed from North Star or polestar Polaris, the Earth turns counter-clockwise.
Credit: Anton Yankovyi Release Date: March 30, 2018
Timelapse HD 1080p video Credit: AstronautiCAST/JSC Duration: 2 minutes, 15 seconds Video Capture Date: February 13, 2018 Release Date: February 18, 2016 Original timelapse by Riccardo Rossi (ISAA) - Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License - Music: Piano Beautiful Full Version by Maryna - Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike International License - https://www.jamendo.com/artist/491819/maryna
A good-sized active region with bright, towering arches began to rotate into view on April 19, 2018. The arches consist of charged particles spiraling along magnetic field lines revealed in this wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. They rise up above the sun's surface many times the size of Earth. We will keep our eyes on this region to see if it has the kind of dynamism to produce solar storms.
Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA Image Date: April 19, 2018
April 26, 2018: The European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has returned the first images of the Red Planet from its new orbit. The spacecraft arrived in a near-circular 400 km altitude orbit a few weeks ago ahead of its primary goal to seek out gases that may be linked to active geological or biological activity on Mars.
The orbiter’s Color and Stereo Surface Imaging System, CaSSIS, took this stunning image, which features part of an impact crater, during the instrument’s test period. The camera was activated on March 20 and was tested for the start of its main mission on April 28.
“We transmitted new software to the instrument at the start of the test phase and after a couple of minor issues, the instrument is in good health and ready to work,” says the camera’s principal investigator, Nicolas Thomas from the University of Bern in Switzerland.
The image captures a 40 km-long segment of Korolev Crater located high in the northern hemisphere. The bright material on the rim of the crater is ice.
“We were really pleased to see how good this picture was given the lighting conditions,” says Antoine Pommerol, a member of the CaSSIS science team working on the calibration of the data. “It shows that CaSSIS can make a major contribution to studies of the carbon dioxide and water cycles on Mars.”
The image is assembled from three images in different colors that were taken almost simultaneously on April 15.
“We aim to fully automate the image production process,” says Nick. “Once we achieve this, we can distribute the data quickly to the science community for analysis.”
The team also plans to make regular public releases.
The orbiter’s camera is one of four instruments on the Trace Gas Orbiter, or TGO, which also hosts two spectrometer suites and a neutron detector.
The spectrometers began their science mission on April 21 with the spacecraft taking its first ‘sniff’ of the atmosphere. In reality, the sniffing is the spectrometers looking at how molecules in the atmosphere absorb sunlight: each has a unique fingerprint that reveals its chemical composition.
A long period of data collection will be needed to bring out the details, especially for particularly rare—or not even yet discovered—ingredients in the atmosphere. Trace gases, as hinted at from their name, are only present in very small amounts: that is, less than one percent of the volume of the planet’s atmosphere. In particular, the orbiter will seek evidence of methane and other gases that could be signatures of active biological or geological activity.
The camera will eventually help characterise features on the surface that may be related to trace gas sources.
“We are excited to finally be starting collecting data at Mars with this phenomenal spacecraft,” says Håkan Svedhem, ESA’s TGO project scientist. “The test images we have seen so far certainly set the bar high.”
The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter is on a multiyear mission to understand the tiny amounts of methane and other gases in Mars’ atmosphere that could be evidence for possible biological or geological activity.
The ExoMars program is a joint endeavor between ESA and Roscosmos. The Trace Gas Orbiter is the first of two missions in the program: the next is scheduled for launch in 2020 and will comprise a rover and a surface science platform. TGO will act as a communication relay for both. It proved this capability earlier this week in the first of a series of relay communications with NASA’s Curiosity rover, highlighting the cooperation between ESA and NASA to maintain a communications infrastructure around Mars for future missions.
Image Description#1: The ExoMars Color and Stereo Surface Imaging System, CaSSIS, captured this view of the rim of Korolev crater (73.3ºN/165.9ºE) on April 15, 2018. The image is a composite of three images in different colors that were taken almost simultaneously. They were then assembled to produce this color view. The original image has a nominal scale of 5.08 m/pixel and was re-projected at a resolution of 4.6 m/pixel to create the final version. The dimensions are therefore about 10 x 40 km. The image was taken with a ground-track velocity of 2.90 km/s. The solar incidence angle was 76.6º at a local solar time of 07:14:11.
In this orientation, north is off-center to the upper left.
Image Description#2: The ExoMars Color and Stereo Surface Imaging System, CaSSIS, captured this view of the rim of Korolev crater (73.3ºN/165.9ºE) on April 15, 2018. The image is a composite of three images in different colors that were taken almost simultaneously. They were then assembled to produce this color view. The original image has a nominal scale of 5.08 m/pixel and was re-projected at a resolution of 4.6 m/pixel to create the final version. The dimensions are therefore about 10 x 40 km. The image was taken with a ground-track velocity of 2.90 km/s. The solar incidence angle was 76.6º at a local solar time of 07:14:11.
In this orientation north is just below center to the left.
Image Credit: ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS Image Date: April 15, 2018 Release Date: April 26, 2018
This ground-based image from the Digitized Sky Survey shows the area around the Lagoon Nebula, otherwise known as Messier 8. This nebula is filled with intense winds from hot stars, churning funnels of gas, and energetic star formation, all embedded within an intricate haze of gas and pitch-dark dust.
To celebrate its 28th anniversary in space the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took this amazing and colorful image of the Lagoon Nebula. Using its infrared capabilities, the telescope was able to peer through the thick clouds of dust and gas.
The most obvious difference between Hubble’s infrared and visible images of this region is the abundance of stars that fill the field of view in the infrared. Most of them are more distant, background stars located behind the nebula. However, some of them are young stars within the Lagoon Nebula itself.
Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI Release Date: April 19, 2018
This fulldome clip shows the anniversary image released for Hubble’s 28th year in space: the Lagoon Nebula.
The observations made with Hubble reveal a fantastic landscape of ridges, cavities, and mountains of gas and dust. This dust-and-gas landscape is being sculpted by powerful ultraviolet radiation and hurricane-like stellar winds unleashed by a young star. Located at the center of the image, the star, known as Herschel 36, is about 200,000 times brighter than our Sun.
On April 24, 1990, Hubble was launched into space. To celebrate its 28th year in orbit, some of Hubble’s precious observation time was used to observe the colorful Lagoon Nebula. One of only two star-forming nebulae visible to the unaided eye, this spectacular stellar nursery is not quite the tranquil landscape its name suggests.
This new Hubblecast explores the image in more detail and shows some of the delicate features of this cosmic lagoon.
Credit: ESA/NASA Duration: 4 minutes, 7 seconds Directed by: Mathias Jäger Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Rosa Jesse, Mathias Jäger Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: NASA, ESA/Hubble, STScI Videos: NASA, ESA/Hubble Music: Stellardrone Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen Release Date: April 19, 2018
This video zooms into the core of a rich star-birth region called the Lagoon Nebula, located in the constellation Sagittarius in the direction of our Milky Way galaxy’s central bulge. The sequence then dissolves to a series of imagined three-dimensional flights past striking structures of this gaseous landscape. Viewers examine dark, dusty clouds silhouetted against a colorful background of luminous gas that has been heated by a massive star. Pillars of dense gas and bow shocks around newborn stars are shaped by the strong winds from the brightest stars. The intense high-energy emission from these same stars creates the glowing ridges of gas in ionization fronts. These features are some of the highlights of this vibrant region where new stars and planets are born.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon, D. Player, J. DePasquale, F. Summers, and Z. Levay (STScI) Music: J. DePasquale Acknowledgement: A. Fujii, Digitized Sky Survey, ESO/VPHAS, and R. Crisp Duration: 2 minutes, 15 seconds Release Date: April 19, 2018
The new image of the Lagoon Nebula, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to celebrate its 28th year in space, shows colorful clouds of gas and dust of this star-formation region in incredible detail.
The image reveals a fantastic landscape of ridges, cavities, and mountains of gas and dust. This dust-and-gas landscape is being sculpted by powerful ultraviolet radiation and hurricane-like stellar winds unleashed by a young star. Located at the center of the image, the star, known as Herschel 36, is about 200, 000 times brighter than our Sun.
Credit: ESA/NASA Duration: 50 seconds Release Date: April 19, 2018
This week in space news, former shuttle astronauts Scott Altman and Tom Jones are inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, and a swarm of small robots put their programming to the test in the third annual Swarmathon competition.
To celebrate its 28th anniversary in space the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took this amazing and colorful image of the Lagoon Nebula. The whole nebula, about 4000 light-years away, is an incredible 55 light-years wide and 20 light-years tall. This image shows only a small part of this turbulent star-formation region, about four light-years across.
This stunning nebula was first catalogued in 1654 by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Hodierna, who sought to record nebulous objects in the night sky so they would not be mistaken for comets. Since Hodierna’s observations, the Lagoon Nebula has been photographed and analysed by many telescopes and astronomers all over the world.
The observations were taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 between February 12 and February 18, 2018.
Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI Release Date: April 19, 2018
April 27, 2018: Vice President Pence swears in our new NASA Administrator, a Hubble anniversary flythrough of a nebula, and the smell in the clouds of one of our outermost planets—a few of the stories to tell you about—This Week at NASA!
Credit: NASA Duration: 3 minutes, 28 seconds Release Date: April 27, 2018
