NASA's Space to Ground: At the Midpoint | Week of Aug. 30, 2019

NASA's Space to Ground: At the Midpoint 

Week of Aug. 30, 2019 

Aug. 30, 2019: NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station.

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/audience/foreducators/stem_on_station/

Human research kept the Expedition 60 crew busy today helping NASA and its partners understand how to keep astronauts healthy on long-term space missions. More spaceship activity is also coming up in September to ensure a well-stocked and fully staffed International Space Station.

NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Andrew Morgan continued researching how fluid shifts caused by microgravity induce vascular changes as well as head and eye pressure. The duo processed more blood and urine samples today for the ongoing study observing the potentially risky condition.

Doctors on the ground are exploring telemedicine as a way to examine astronauts orbiting Earth and farther in space. Flight Engineer Luca Parmitano of ESA (European Space Agency) set up and held a remotely controlled ultrasound scanner to his femoral artery for the Vascular Echo study today. A doctor on Earth then guided the device’s motorized probes during the cardiovascular exam.

NASA Flight Engineer Christina Koch set up protein crystal samples for stowage inside an automated incubator. The research takes advantage of microgravity’s weightlessness to support the development of advanced pharmaceutical therapies.

The Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft continues to be unpacked by cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Alexander Skvortsov. They will soon load the crew ship back up with more cargo for return to Earth next week.

Another crew ship, the Soyuz MS-15, is being processed for its launch to the station on Sept. 25. Commander Oleg Skripochka will lead Flight Engineer Jessica Meir and Spaceflight Participant Hazzaa Ali Almansoori on a six-hour ride to their new home in space. The new trio along with their backups began two days of qualification exams today.

In between the Soyuz missions, the H-II Transfer Vehicle-8 (HTV-8) is due to blast off Sept. 10 from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. It will take a four-day trip to the orbiting lab and deliver new batteries for the Port-6 truss power channels. It will be robotically captured and installed to the Harmony module for a month-long stay.

Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)
Duration: 2 minutes, 47 seconds
Release Date: Aug. 30, 2019

#NASA #Space #ISS #Science #HTV #Cargo #Supply #JAXA #日本 #Japan#Research #Microgravity #Astronauts #ChristinaKoch #NickHague#AndrewMorgan #ESA #LucaParmitano #Italia #Italy #Cosmonauts#AlexeyOvchinin #AlexanderSkvortsov #Russia #Россия #Expedition60#Human #Spaceflight #Spacecraft #JSC #Houston #Texas #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #Video

Eyes on the Skies: History of the Telescope - Full Film

Eyes on the Skies: The 400-Year History of the Telescope

This is the International Astronomical Union's documentary film celebrating the 400th anniversary of the telescope. The Eyes on the Skies film explores the many facets of the telescope—the historical development, the scientific importance, the technological breakthroughs, and also the people behind this ground-breaking invention, their triumphs, and failures . . .

The Eyes on the Skies documentary is presented by Dr. J aka Dr. Joe Liske from the European Southern Observatory (ESO), host of the Hubblecast video podcast. It runs for 60 minutes.

European Space Agency (ESA)

Credit:
Direction & Executive Producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen, ESA/ESO  
Art Director/Production Designer: Martin Kornmesser, ESA/ESO  
Written by: Govert Schilling, Lars Lindberg Christensen, ESA/ESO  
3D Animations: Martin Kornmesser (ESA/ESO), Luis Calçada (ESO)  
Research: Laura Simurda, ESA/ESO  
Editing: Martin Kornmesser, ESA/ESO  
Cinematographer & Narration Mastering: Peter Rixner  
Soundtrack & Sound Effects: movetwo - Axel Kornmesser & Markus Löffler  
Lead Scientist: Dr. J (Dr. Joe Liske, ESO)  
Technical Support: Lars Holm Nielsen (ESA/ESO), Raquel Yumi Shida (IAU/ESA-ESO), Dirk Essl (ESO)  
IYA2009 Coordination: Pedro Russo & Mariana Barrosa (IAU/ESA-ESO)  
Proof reading: Anne Rhodes

Duration: 60 minutes
Release Date: April 23, 2019


#NASA #ESA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #Planets #SolarSystem #Stars #MilkyWay #Cosmos #Universe #Hubble #Telescope #International #Europe #History #Technology #STEM #Education #Documentary #Film #HD #Video

Formation of the Southern Crab Nebula (Animation) | NASA/ESA

Formation of the Southern Crab Nebula (Animation)

April 18, 2019: This animation takes the viewer on a journey to explore how the Southern Crab Nebula came to form its iconic shape.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
European Space Agency (ESA)
European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)

Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, ESO/M. Kornmesser
Duration: 25 seconds
Release Date: April 18, 2019

#NASA #ESA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #CrabNebula #Nebula #Stars #Centaurus #MilkyWay #Cosmos #Universe #Hubble29 #Anniversary #Telescope #Birthday #International #ESO #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education #Animation #HD #Video

The Southern Crab Nebula: Zooming In | NASA/ESA

The Southern Crab Nebula

Hubble's 29th Birthday Celebrations!

This video takes the viewer on a journey into the 29th anniversary image NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the Southern Crab Nebula. This peculiar nebula, which exhibits nested hourglass-shaped structures, has been created by the interaction between a pair of stars at its center. The unequal pair consists of a red giant and a white dwarf. The red giant is shedding its outer layers in the last phase of its life before it too lives out its final years as a white dwarf.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
European Space Agency (ESA)

Credits:
Video: Hubble, DSS, Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)
Music: Astral Electronic
Duration: 50 seconds
Release Date: April 18, 2019

#NASA #ESA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #CrabNebula #Nebula #Stars #Centaurus #MilkyWay #Cosmos #Universe #Hubble29 #Anniversary #Telescope #Birthday #International #ESO #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Hubble’s 29th Anniversary! | NASA/ESA

Hubble Celebrates its 29th Birthday!

Hubblecast 119 | On April 18, 2019, Hubble celebrated its 29th year in space. For this anniversary, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) dedicated a small amount of its precious observation time to take a look at the beautiful Southern Crab Nebula. This beautiful nebula is created by the ejected material of a red giant, which is in close interaction with a white dwarf star.

Credits:

Directed by: Bethany Downer
Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser
Written by: Sarah Leach
Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa
Images: NASA, ESA, STScI, Romano Corradi, Mario Livo, Ulisse Munari, Hugo Schwartz
Videos: NASA, ESA, STScI, ESO/L. Calçada, M. Kornmesser
Music: Johan B. Monell (www.johanmonell.com)
Web and technical support: Bethany Downer and Raquel Yumi Shida
Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

Duration: 6 minutes
Release Date: April 18, 2019

#NASA #ESA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #CrabNebula #Nebula #Stars #Centaurus #MilkyWay #Cosmos #Universe #Hubble29 #Anniversary #Birthday #International #STScI #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

The Southern Crab Nebula | Hubble's 29th Birthday

The Southern Crab Nebula 

Hubble Celebrates its 29th Birthday!

This incredible image of the hourglass-shaped Southern Crab Nebula was taken to mark the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s 29th anniversary in space. The nebula, created by a binary star system, is one of the many objects that Hubble has demystified throughout its productive life. This new image adds to our understanding of the nebula and demonstrates the telescope’s continued capabilities.

On April 24, 1990, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was launched on the space shuttle Discovery. It has since revolutionized how astronomers and the general public see the Universe. The images it provides are spectacular from both a scientific and a purely aesthetic point of view.

Each year the telescope dedicates a small portion of its precious observing time to take a special anniversary image, focused on capturing particularly beautiful and meaningful objects. This year’s image is the Southern Crab Nebula, and it is no exception [1].

This peculiar nebula, which exhibits nested hourglass-shaped structures, has been created by the interaction between a pair of stars at its center. The unequal pair consists of a red giant and a white dwarf. The red giant is shedding its outer layers in the last phase of its life before it too lives out its final years as a white dwarf. Some of the red giant’s ejected material is attracted by the gravity of its companion.

When enough of this cast-off material is pulled onto the white dwarf, it too ejects the material outwards in an eruption, creating the structures we see in the nebula. Eventually, the red giant will finish throwing off its outer layers, and stop feeding its white dwarf companion. Prior to this, there may also be more eruptions, creating even more intricate structures.

Astronomers did not always know this, however. The object was first written about in 1967, but was assumed to be an ordinary star until 1989, when it was observed using telescopes at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory. The resulting image showed a roughly crab-shaped extended nebula, formed by symmetrical bubbles of gas and dust.

These observations only showed the outer hourglass emanating from a bright central region that could not be resolved. It was not until Hubble observed the Southern Crab in 1999 that the entire structure came into view. This image revealed the inner nested structures, suggesting that the phenomenon that created the outer bubbles had occurred twice in the (astronomically) recent past.

It is fitting that Hubble has returned to this object twenty years after its first observation. This new image adds to the story of an active and evolving object and contributes to the story of Hubble’s role in our evolving understanding of the Universe.

Notes

[1] The Southern Crab Nebula is so named to distinguish it from the better-known Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant visible in the constellation of Taurus.

[2] Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)

Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), and STScI

Release Date: April 18, 2019

#NASA #ESA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #CrabNebula #Nebula #Stars #Centaurus #MilkyWay #Cosmos #Universe #Hubble29 #Anniversary #Birthday #International #STScI #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

Space for US: Together for a Better Earth | NASA

Space for US: Together for a Better Earth

Visit: https://www.nasa.gov/SpaceforUS/

"Space for U.S." highlights some of the many ways that NASA's Earth observations help people strengthen communities across the United States and make informed decisions about public health, disaster response and recovery, and environmental protection. 

For six decades, NASA has used the vantage point of space to better understand our home planet and improve lives. By highlighting advanced technology from a global perspective, our data helps provide people achieve groundbreaking insights. "Space for U.S." features 56 stories illustrating how our science has made an impact in every state in the nation as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and regions along the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes.

NASA freely and openly provides its Earth-observing data to those seeking answers to important global issues. The Applied Sciences Program in NASA’s Earth Science Division funds projects that enable innovative uses of NASA Earth science data, resulting in informed decision making to strengthen America's economy and improve the quality of life worldwide.

For more information about NASA Earth science activities, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/earth/

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Earth #EarthObservation #Environment #ClimateChange #Climate #Weather #ISS #Satellites #Planet #SolarSystem #ISS #OverviewEffect #OrbitalPerspective #International #NOAA #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

NASA Earth Data Helps Scientists to Understand Our Home Planet

NASA Earth Data Helps Scientists Understand Our Home Planet 

In September 2017, the Atlantic Ocean was brewing with several large hurricanes. This view of the hurricanes, and our home planet, was created by assembling images acquired throughout Sept. 6, 2017 by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument on the joint NASA/NOAA Suomi-NPP.

For six decades, NASA has used the vantage point of space to better understand our home planet and improve lives. A new interactive website called Space for U.S. highlights some of the many ways that NASA's Earth observations help people strengthen communities across the United States and make informed decisions about public health, disaster response and recovery, and environmental protection.

Image Credit: NASA/Joshua Stevens
Caption Credit: Kathryn Hansen
Release Date: April 19, 2019

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Earth #EarthDay #EarthDay2019 #PictureEarth #Planet #SolarSystem #ISS #OverviewEffect #OrbitalPerspective #International #NOAA #Satellite #SuomiNPP #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

NASA Scientists Share Why They Like Earth

HAPPY EARTH DAY 2019!
NASA Scientists Share Why They Like Earth

April 22, 2019: The Earth is a unique planet. In celebration of Earth Day, NASA scientists shared their favorite thing about our home planet.

Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Duration: 1 minute, 24 seconds
Release Date: April 22, 2019


#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Earth #EarthDay #EarthDay2019 #Planet #SolarSystem #ISS #OverviewEffect #OrbitalPerspective #International #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

NASA Sees Earth, Our Unique Home

HAPPY EARTH DAY 2019!
NASA Sees Earth, Our Unique Home

April 22, 2019: Of all the planets NASA has explored, none have matched the dynamic complexity of our own. Earth is a very special place. From the vantage point of space, the perspective of sky and sea, and all across the land, we study our planet not only to learn about it, but also to protect it.

Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Duration: 55 seconds
Release Date: April 22, 2019


#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Earth #EarthDay #EarthDay2019 #Planet #SolarSystem #ISS #OverviewEffect #OrbitalPerspective #International #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

Lakes at Saturn's Moon Titan: NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Reveals Surprises

NASA's Cassini Probe Reveals Surprises with Titan's Lakes 

April 15, 2019: This near-infrared, color view from the Cassini spacecraft shows the sun glinting off of Titan's north polar seas. On its final flyby of Saturn's largest moon in 2017, NASA's Cassini spacecraft gathered radar data revealing that the small liquid lakes in Titan's northern hemisphere are surprisingly deep, perched atop hills and filled with methane. 

The new findings, published April 15 in Nature Astronomy, are the first confirmation of just how deep some of Titan's lakes are (more than 300 feet, or 100 meters) and of their composition. They provide new information about the way liquid methane rains on, evaporates from and seeps into Titan—the only planetary body in our solar system other than Earth known to have stable liquid on its surface. 

Scientists have known that Titan's hydrologic cycle works similarly to Earth's—with one major difference. Instead of water evaporating from seas, forming clouds and rain, Titan does it all with methane and ethane. We tend to think of these hydrocarbons as a gas on Earth, unless they're pressurized in a tank. But Titan is so cold that they behave as liquids, like gasoline at room temperature on our planet. 

Scientists have known that the much larger northern seas are filled with methane, but finding the smaller northern lakes filled mostly with methane was a surprise. Previously, Cassini data measured Ontario Lacus, the only major lake in Titan's southern hemisphere. There they found a roughly equal mix of methane and ethane. Ethane is slightly heavier than methane, with more carbon and hydrogen atoms in its makeup. 

"Every time we make discoveries on Titan, Titan becomes more and more mysterious," said lead author Marco Mastrogiuseppe, Cassini radar scientist at Caltech in Pasadena, California. "But these new measurements help give an answer to a few key questions. We can actually now better understand the hydrology of Titan." 

Adding to the oddities of Titan, with its Earth-like features carved by exotic materials, is the fact that the hydrology on one side of the northern hemisphere is completely different than the that of the other side, said Cassini scientist and co-author Jonathan Lunine of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

"It is as if you looked down on the Earth's North Pole and could see that North America had completely different geologic setting for bodies of liquid than Asia does," Lunine said.

On the eastern side of Titan, there are big seas with low elevation, canyons and islands. On the western side: small lakes. And the new measurements show the lakes perched atop big hills and plateaus. The new radar measurements confirm earlier findings that the lakes are far above sea level, but they conjure a new image of landforms—like mesas or buttes—sticking hundreds of feet above the surrounding landscape, with deep liquid lakes on top. 

The fact that these western lakes are small—just tens of miles across—but very deep also tells scientists something new about their geology: It's the best evidence yet that they likely formed when the surrounding bedrock of ice and solid organics chemically dissolved and collapsed. On Earth, similar water lakes are known as karstic lakes. Occurring in in areas like Germany, Croatia and the United States, they form when water dissolves limestone bedrock. 

Alongside the investigation of deep lakes, a second paper in Nature Astronomy helps unravel more of the mystery of Titan's hydrologic cycle. Researchers used Cassini data to reveal what they call transient lakes. Different sets of observations—from radar and infrared data—seem to show liquid levels significantly changed. 

The best explanation is that there was some seasonally driven change in the surface liquids, said lead author Shannon MacKenzie, planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. "One possibility is that these transient features could have been shallower bodies of liquid that over the course of the season evaporated and infiltrated into the subsurface," she said. 

These results and the findings from the Nature Astronomy paper on Titan's deep lakes support the idea that hydrocarbon rain feeds the lakes, which then can evaporate back into the atmosphere or drain into the subsurface, leaving reservoirs of liquid stored below. 

Cassini, which arrived in the Saturn system in 2004 and ended its mission in 2017 by deliberately plunging into Saturn's atmosphere, mapped more than 620,000 square miles (1.6 million square kilometers) of liquid lakes and seas on Titan's surface. It did the work with the radar instrument, which sent out radio waves and collected a return signal (or echo) that provided information about the terrain and the liquid bodies' depth and composition, along with two imaging systems that could penetrate the moon's thick atmospheric haze.

The crucial data for the new research were gathered on Cassini's final close flyby of Titan, on April 22, 2017. It was the mission's last look at the moon's smaller lakes, and the team made the most of it. Collecting echoes from the surfaces of small lakes while Cassini zipped by Titan was a unique challenge. 

"This was Cassini's last hurrah at Titan, and it really was a feat," Lunine said

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the U.S. and several European countries.

More information about Cassini can be found here:
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/cassini

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. Arizona/Univ. Idaho
Caption Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech
Release Date: April 15, 2019

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Saturn #Planet #Moon #Titan #Lakes #Methane #SolarSystem #Cassini #Spacecraft #ESA #ISA #Huygens #JPL #Caltech #California #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

NASA's NEOWISE Celebrates Five Years of Asteroid Data | JPL

NASA's NEOWISE Celebrates 5 Years of Asteroid Data | JPL
Comet C/2018 Y1 Iwamoto: Infrared Images

April 15, 2019: Comet C/2018 Y1 Iwamoto as imaged in multiple exposures of infrared light by the NEOWISE space telescope. The infrared images were taken on Feb. 25, 2019, when the comet was about 56 million miles, or 90 million kilometers, from Earth. C/2018 Y1 Iwamoto is a long-period comet originally from the Oort Cloud and coming in near the Sun for the first time in over 1,000 years. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) mission released its fifth year of survey data on April 11, 2019. The five years of NEOWISE data have significantly advanced scientists' knowledge of asteroids and comets in the solar system, as well as the stars and galaxies beyond.

The data from all five years of the survey are available at:
http://wise2.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/release/neowise/.

"NEOWISE recently surpassed 95 billion recorded measurements of asteroids, comets, stars and galaxies—a remarkable accomplishment for a recycled spacecraft," said Lindley Johnson, NASA's planetary defense officer and head of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This asteroid hunter has measured the sizes of more than 1,000 near-Earth asteroids and is still producing great data, making it a unique asset in our portfolio of asteroid-hunting telescopes and an important prototype for an upcoming space-based NEO survey mission."

In addition to providing critical data on asteroids and comets in our own solar system, NEOWISE has provided data that have enabled the worldwide scientific community to track bursting stars, characterize distant quasars from the first billion years of the universe's history, conduct a census of millions of merging galaxies and take multi-wavelength measurements of hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies.

"The data from NEOWISE effectively give us a movie of the universe as it changes over time at infrared wavelengths, which is now being used in over 1,000 different astronomical publications," said Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

From WISE to NEOWISE

Originally called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), the spacecraft was launched in December 2009 to study galaxies, stars and solar system bodies by imaging the the infrared light in the entire sky. It was placed in hibernation in 2011 after completing its primary astrophysics mission. In September 2013, the spacecraft was reactivated, renamed NEOWISE and assigned a new mission: to assist NASA's efforts to identify and characterize the population of near-Earth objects. NEOWISE is also characterizing more distant populations of asteroids and comets to provide information about their sizes and compositions.

The NEOWISE survey will end when its changing orbit eventually prevents it from obtaining high-quality data. But until that time, NEOWISE will continue to contribute valuable data both to humanity's record of the universe around us and to the search for asteroids that pose a hazard to Earth.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages and operates the NEOWISE mission for NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office within the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, built the science instrument. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colorado, built the spacecraft. Science data processing takes place at IPAC at Caltech in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about NEOWISE, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/neowise
and
http://neowise.ipac.caltech.edu/

For more information about asteroids and near-Earth objects, visit:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch

Credit: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)/Caltech
Release Date: April 15, 2019

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Comet #Iwamoto #Asteroids #Earth #Planet #Defense #SolarSystem #NEOWISE #Infrared #Telescope #Satellite #Anniversary #JPL #Caltech #California #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

Key Concepts in Interferometry

Key Concepts in Interferometry | ESO

 Responsible for First Image of a Black Hole

This poster from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) explains some of the key concepts in interferometry, the breakthrough that made the Event Horizon Telescope observations of M87’s black hole possible.

Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF; S. Dagnello
Acknowledgment: European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Release Date: April 10, 2019


#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #BlackHoles #EventHorizon #RealBlackHole #EHTBlackHole #Astrophysics #Interferometry #Discovery #Exploration #History #EHT #Telescope #Galaxy #Messier87 #NSF #Earth #Europe #International #Telescopes #Infographic #Poster #STEM #Education

Locations of Event Horizon Telescopes Responsible for 1st Image of Black Hole

Event Horizon Telescope Locations

Responsible for First Image of a Black Hole

This diagram shows the location of the telescopes used in the 2017 Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observations of elliptical galaxy Messier 87.

April 10, 2019: The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT)—a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration—was designed to capture images of a black hole.

Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.

This breakthrough was announced in a series of six papers published in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The image reveals the black hole at the center of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides 55 million light-years from Earth and has a mass 6.5-billion times that of the Sun.

Image Credit: National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)

Release Date: April 10, 2019

#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #BlackHoles #EventHorizon #RealBlackHole #EHTBlackHole #Discovery #Exploration #History #EHT #Telescope #Galaxy #Messier87 #NSF #Earth #Europe #International #Telescopes #Infographic #Diagram #STEM #Education

Black Hole at the heart of M87: Artist’s impression

Black Hole at the heart of M87: Artist’s impression

This artist’s impression depicts the black hole at the heart of the enormous elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87). This black hole was chosen as the object of paradigm-shifting observations by the Event Horizon Telescope. The superheated material surrounding the black hole is shown, as is the relativistic jet launched by M87’s black hole.

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/M. Kornmesser
Release Date: April 10, 2019


#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #BlackHoles #VLT #EventHorizon #RealBlackHole #EHTBlackHole #Discovery #Exploration #History #EHT #Telescope #Galaxy #Messier87 #NSF #Earth #Europe #International #Art #Illustration #STEM #Education

First Image of a Black Hole Captured Here: Galaxy Messier 87

First Image of a Black Hole Captured Here

Galaxy Messier 87 | ESO’s Very Large Telescope

Messier 87 (M87) is an enormous elliptical galaxy located about 55 million light years from Earth, visible in the constellation Virgo. It was discovered by Charles Messier in 1781, but not identified as a galaxy until the 20th Century. At double the mass of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and containing as many as ten times more stars, it is amongst the largest galaxies in the local universe. Besides its raw size, M87 has some very unique characteristics. For example, it contains an unusually high number of globular clusters: while our Milky Way contains under 200, M87 has about 12,000, which some scientists theorize it collected from its smaller neighbors.

Just as with all other large galaxies, M87 has a supermassive black hole at its center. The mass of the black hole at the center of a galaxy is related to the mass of the galaxy overall, so it shouldn’t be surprising that M87’s black hole is one of the most massive known. The black hole also may explain one of the galaxy’s most energetic features: a relativistic jet of matter being ejected at nearly the speed of light.

The black hole was the object of paradigm-shifting observations by the Event Horizon Telescope. The EHT chose the object as the target of its observations for two reasons. While the EHT’s resolution is incredible, even it has its limits. As more massive black holes are also larger in diameter, M87's central black hole presented an unusually large target—meaning that it could be imaged more easily than smaller black holes closer by. The other reason for choosing it, however, was decidedly more Earthly. M87 appears fairly close to the celestial equator when viewed from our planet, making it visible in most of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. This maximized the number of telescopes in the EHT that could observe it, increasing the resolution of the final image.

This image was captured by FORS2 on ESO’s Very Large Telescope as part of the Cosmic Gems program, an outreach initiative that uses ESO telescopes to produce images of interesting, intriguing or visually attractive objects for the purposes of education and public outreach. The program makes use of telescope time that cannot be used for science observations, and  produces breathtaking images of some of the most striking objects in the night sky. In case the data collected could be useful for future scientific purposes, these observations are saved and made available to astronomers through the ESO Science Archive.

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Release Date: April 10, 2019

#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #BlackHoles #VLT #EventHorizon #RealBlackHole #EHTBlackHole #Discovery #Exploration #History #EHT #Telescope #Galaxy #Messier87 #NSF #Earth #Europe #International #STEM #Education