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Friday, September 07, 2018

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

Thursday, September 06, 2018

Mars Curiosity Rover Surveys a Mystery Under Dusty Skies

After snagging a new rock sample on Aug. 9, NASA's Curiosity rover surveyed its surroundings on Mars, producing a 360-degree panorama of its current location on Vera Rubin Ridge.

The panorama includes umber skies, darkened by a fading global dust storm. It also includes a rare view by the Mast Camera of the rover itself, revealing a thin layer of dust on Curiosity's deck. In the foreground is the rover's most recent drill target, named "Stoer" after a town in Scotland near where important discoveries about early life on Earth were made in lakebed sediments.

The new drill sample delighted Curiosity's science team, because the rover's last two drill attempts were thwarted by unexpectedly hard rocks. Curiosity started using a new drill method earlier this year to work around a mechanical problem. Testing has shown it to be as effective at drilling rocks as the old method, suggesting the hard rocks would have posed a problem no matter which method was used.

There's no way for Curiosity to determine exactly how hard a rock will be before drilling it, so for this most recent drilling activity, the rover team made an educated guess. An extensive ledge on the ridge was thought to include harder rock, able to stand despite wind erosion; a spot below the ledge was thought more likely to have softer, erodible rocks. That strategy seems to have panned out, but questions still abound as to why Vera Rubin Ridge exists in the first place.

The rover has never encountered a place with so much variation in color and texture, according to Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity's project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the Mars Science Laboratory mission that Curiosity is a part of.

"The ridge isn't this monolithic thing—it has two distinct sections, each of which has a variety of colors," Vasavada said. "Some are visible to the eye and even more show up when we look in near-infrared, just beyond what our eyes can see. Some seem related to how hard the rocks are."

The best way to discover why these rocks are so hard is to drill them into a powder for the rover's two internal laboratories. Analyzing them might reveal what's acting as "cement" in the ridge, enabling it to stand despite wind erosion. Most likely, Vasavada said, groundwater flowing through the ridge in the ancient past had a role in strengthening it, perhaps acting as plumbing to distribute this wind-proofing "cement."

Much of the ridge contains hematite, a mineral that forms in water. There's such a strong hematite signal that it drew the attention of NASA orbiters like a beacon. Could some variation in hematite result in harder rocks? Is there something special in the ridge's red rocks that makes them so unyielding?

For the moment, Vera Rubin Ridge is keeping its secrets to itself.

Two more drilled samples are planned for the ridge in September. After that, Curiosity will drive to its scientific end zone: areas enriched in clay and sulfate minerals higher up Mt. Sharp. That ascent is planned for early October.

Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates the Mastcam. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover.

More information about Curiosity is online at https://www.nasa.gov/msl and https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Release Date: September 6, 2018

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Mars #RedPlanet #Planet #DustStorm #VeraRubinRidge #Drilling #Rock #Stoer #MountSharp #Curiosity #Rover #MSL #Robotics #JPL #Pasadena #California #UnitedStates #JourneyToMars #360Degree #Panorama #STEM #Education

Wednesday, September 05, 2018

Soyuz MS-09 Spacecraft | International Space Station

The Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft is pictured docked to the Rassvet module on the Russian segment of the International Space Station as the orbital complex was flying 253 miles above the North Pacific Ocean south of Alaska's Aleutian Islands.

The Aleutian Islands are a chain of 14 large volcanic islands and 55 smaller ones belonging to both the U.S. state of Alaska and the Russian federal subject of Kamchatka Krai. They form part of the Aleutian Arc in the Northern Pacific Ocean, occupying an area of 6,821 sq mi (17,666 km2) and extending about 1,200 mi (1,900 km) westward from the Alaska Peninsula toward the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, and mark a dividing line between the Bering Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. (Source: Wikipedia)

Credit: NASA/JSC
Image Date: August 29, 2018

#NASA #Space #ISS #Science #Earth #Planet #AleutianIslands #Aleutians #Islands #Volcanic #Alaska #Pacific #Ocean #UnitedStates #Soyuz #Союз #SoyuzMS09 #Crew #Roscosmos #Роскосмос #Russia #Россия #Astronauts #Cosmonauts #Expedition56 #Human #Spaceflight #Spacecraft #Photography #STEM #Education #International #OrbitalPerspective #OverviewEffect

Tuesday, September 04, 2018

Major Solar System Moons to Scale

Note: "Based on mean radius. Some moons are subpixel in size, but appear to occupy a single pixel. Moons considerably smaller than a pixel have been omitted. Units are in kilometers."

Full Hi-res Original (24MB):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmgill/43564841545/in/dateposted/

Credits:
Image Processing & Layout: Kevin M. Gill
Cassini: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS
New Horizons: NASA/SwRI/JHAPL
Juno: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS
ISRO Mars Orbiter Mission: ISRO/ISSDC
Voyager, Galileo: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Rosetta: ESA/MPS/OSIRIS Team
MESSENGER: NASA/JHUAPL/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Akatsuki: JAXA/ISAS/DARTS

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Planets #Moon #Moons #SolarSystem #Spacecraft #Exploration #Poster #Infographic #STEM #Education

Super Typhoon Jebi Approaching Japan | NASA/NOAA

Japan Hit by Strongest Typhoon in 25 Years
Image of Super Typhoon Jebi approaching Japan. This image was acquired on September 3, 2018 by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument, on board the joint NASA/NOAA Suomi-National Polar orbiting Partnership (Suomi-NPP) satellite.

For updates, visit the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS) website: http://www.gdacs.org

Stay Safe Everyone!

Credit: NASA Earth Data
Image Date: September 3, 2018

#NASA #NOAA #Earth #Space #Satellite #Planet #Weather #Storm #Typhoon #SuperTyphoon #Jebi #Japan #日本 #Honshu #本州 #JAXA #SuomiNPP #VIIRS #Pacific #Ocean #Meteorology #STEM #Education

Tropical Storm Gordon | International Space Station

Cameras outside the International Space Station captured views of Tropical Storm Gordon at 11:30 a.m. EDT Sept. 4 from an altitude of 255 miles as the storm churned over the northern Gulf of Mexico moving northwest at 15 miles an hour. Gordon was expected to make landfall tonight as a category 1 hurricane over the southeast Louisiana or southwestern Mississippi coastline.

Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)
Duration: 2 minutes, 52 seconds
Release Date: September 4, 2018

#NASA #Space #ISS #Science #Earth #TropicalStorm #Gordon #Gulf #Mexico #Louisiana #Mississippi #Weather #Meteorology #Astronauts #UnitedStates #Expedition56 #Human #Spaceflight #Spacecraft #Photography #STEM #Education #OrbitalPerspective #OverviewEffect #HD #Video

Magnificent Saturn | NASA Cassini Mission

Processed using calibrated red, green, and blue filtered images of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft on August 21, 2015.

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius about nine times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth, but with its larger volume, Saturn is over 95 times more massive. Saturn is a gas giant because it is predominantly composed of hydrogen and helium. It lacks a definite surface, though it may have a solid core.
(Source: Wikipedia)

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

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

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill
Image Date: August 21, 2015
Release Date: September 4, 2018

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

Summer Ship Tracks in the Pacific | NASA Aqua

In August 2018, long, narrow clouds stood out against the backdrop of marine clouds blanketing much of the North Pacific Ocean. Known as ship tracks, the distinctive clouds form when water vapor condenses around the tiny particles emitted by ships in their exhaust. Ship tracks typically form in areas where thin, low-lying stratus and cumulus clouds are present.

Some particles generated by ships (especially sulfates) are soluble in water and serve as the seeds around which cloud droplets form. Clouds infused with ship exhaust have more and smaller droplets than unpolluted clouds. As a result, the light hitting the polluted clouds scatters in many directions, making them appear especially bright and thick.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua Earth satellite captured this natural-color image of several ship tracks extending northward on August 26, 2018. The clouds were located about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) west of the California-Oregon border. Similar environmental conditions also triggered the formation of ship tracks in this part of the Pacific on August 27 and 28.

An analysis of one year of satellite observations from the Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) on the European Space Agency’s Enivisat indicates that very low clouds are most often present off the west coasts of North and South America.

The large number of ships traversing the North Pacific, combined with all of the low clouds, make ship tracks more common here than anywhere else in the world. Roughly two-thirds of the world’s ship tracks are found in the Pacific, according to the study. Other ship track hotspots were in the North Atlantic, off the west coast of southern Africa, and off the west coast of South America.

The research team also detected a clear seasonality in their occurrence: they are most often observed in May, June, and July, and only occasionally present in December, January, and February. Ship traffic is roughly constant throughout the year, so the cycle is mostly due to seasonal changes in the abundance of very low clouds.

Image Credit: NASA/Lauren Dauphin/Adam Voiland/Bastiaan van Diedenhoven (NASA GISS)
Release Date: September 4, 2018

#NASA #Earth #Space #Satellite #Science #Ship #Tracks #Water #Vapor #Maritime #Shipping #International #Pacific #Ocean #Research #Aqua #MODIS #EarthObservation #RemoteSensing #Environment #Goddard #GISS #STEM #Education

The Sun: New Active Region Expands | NASA SDO

Over the course of just one day a tiny active region grew to became almost as large as its many-days-old neighbor (Aug. 23-24, 2018). Active regions, which are areas of intense magnetism, appear brighter in wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light and are often the source of solar storms.

Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA
Image Date: August 24, 2018
Release Date: September 4, 2018

#NASA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Sun #Solar #ActiveRegion #Plasma #Corona #Physics #Astrophysics #Ultraviolet #SDO #GSFC #Goddard #STEM #Education

Dry Paris | International Space Station

ESA Astronaut Alexander Gerst: "Another concerning sight from orbit. Paris surrounded by brown fields, like much of Europe was this summer."

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

Credit: ESA/NASA-A.Gerst
Image Date: August 6, 2018

#NASA #ESA #Space #ISS #Science #Earth #Planet #Paris #France #CNES #Climate #ClimateChange #GlobalWarming #GlobalHeating #Agriculture #Farming #AlexanderGerst #Horizons #Europe #Germany #Deutschland #DLR #Expedition56 #Human #Spaceflight #Spacecraft #Photography #STEM #Education #OrbitalPerspective #OverviewEffect

Blue sky? | International Space Station

ESA Astronaut Alexander Gerst: "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said one does not need to travel around the world to understand that the sky is blue everywhere. I'm not so sure..."

Blauer Himmel?
"Um zu begreifen, daß der Himmel überall blau ist, braucht man nicht um die Welt zu reisen. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe). Vielleicht doch...?"

Why is Earth's sky blue?
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/blue-sky/en/

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

Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/NASA–A. Gerst
Image Date: June 24, 2018

#NASA #Space #ISS #Science #Earth #Planet #Atmosphere #Astronaut #AlexanderGerst #Horizons #Europe #Germany #Deutschland #Expedition56 #Human #Spaceflight #Spacecraft #Photography #STEM #Education #International #OrbitalPerspective #OverviewEffect

Monday, September 03, 2018

Hazy dust in Ursa Major | Hubble

This week’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image showcases the galaxy NGC 4036: a lenticular galaxy some 70 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major (the Great Bear).

This galaxy is known for its irregular lanes of dust, which form a swirling spiral pattern around the center of the galaxy. This core is surrounded by an extended, hazy aura of gas and dust that stretches further out into space and causes the warm, fuzzy glow that can be seen here. The center itself is also intriguing; it is something known as a LINER-type (Low-Ionization Nuclear Emission-line Region) galactic nucleus, meaning that it displays particular emission lines within its spectrum. The particularly bright star visible slightly to the right of the galactic center is not within the galaxy itself; it sits between us and NGC 4036, adding a burst of brightness to the scene.

Due to its relative brightness, this galaxy can be seen using an amateur telescope, making it a favorite among backyard astronomers and astrophotography aficionados.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
Release Date: September 3, 2018

+Hubble Space Telescope
+NASA Goddard
+European Space Agency, ESA
+Space Telescope Science Institute

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxy #Lenticular #NGC4036 #UrsaMajor #Cosmos #Universe #Telescope #ESA #Goddard #GSFC #STScI #STEM #Education

Saturday, September 01, 2018

Inside NASA's Kennedy Space Center | Week of Aug. 31, 2018

The Orion pressure vessel for Exploration Mission-2 arrived at Kennedy Space Center. The mobile launcher for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket was transported to Launch Pad 39B atop crawler-transporter-2 for system checkouts. Teams from various NASA centers supporting the Commercial Crew Program met at Kennedy to review launch and landing operations as Boeing and SpaceX gear up for their flight tests.