Snowy Hills Aurora in Wyoming

Snowy Hills Aurora in Wyoming

Astrophotographer Kevin Palmer: "Last night was an unexpected treat in northern Wyoming. The show really got going after 1am."

"It was supposed to hit the previous night. But the aurora runs on its own schedule. Only after the solar storm watch was cancelled, most skywatchers had written it off as a bust, did the northern lights show. The late arrival ended up being a good thing because this night was crystal clear in Wyoming. Temperatures below zero and a bitter breeze brought frosted eyelashes and numb fingers. But I've been waiting 3 months for a night like this one." 

"Geomagnetic storms are less frequent in the winter and often hidden behind clouds when they do happen. So when conditions are perfect I have to take advantage. Pillars appeared briefly at 11:00 and faded, then the real show started after 1am. This is a location I found while exploring the local backroads. After marking it on a map, I waited until the time was right to return and capture the northerly view. In recent months more sunspots have been appearing on the Sun. As we head towards the maximum of the 11-year solar cycle, views like this will only become more common."

Learn more about aurora: 

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/aurora-news-stories/index.html

Image Credit & Copyright: Kevin Palmer

Kevin's website: www.kevin-palmer.com

Location: Wyoming, United States

Image Date: February 2, 2022

#NASA #Space #Science #Astronomy #Earth #Planet #Aurora #AuroraBorealis #NorthernLights #MagneticField #Magnetosphere #SolarWind #Sun #Wyoming #UnitedStates #Photography #Astrophotography #STEM #Education #KevinPalmer

NASA 2022: The Future is Now

NASA 2022: The Future is Now

Receiving the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope, sending the first uncrewed Artemis mission around the Moon and back to Earth, sending NASA science and technology to the surface of the Moon on three missions with our commercial partners, and flying our first quiet, supersonic plane are just a few of the things NASA has planned for 2022.

To learn more about the missions mentioned in this video, take a deep dive into these links:

Explore Beyond [00:13]

James Webb Space Telescope: https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/ 

DART: https://www.nasa.gov/dart 

IXPE: https://www.nasa.gov/ixpe 

Psyche: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/psyche

GUSTO: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-mission-to-study-churning-chaos-in-our-milky-way-and-beyond

At the Moon [00:35]

Artemis I: https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-1

Commercial Lunar Payload Services: https://www.nasa.gov/content/commercial-lunar-payload-services

CAPSTONE: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/small_spacecraft/capstone

Humans in Space [00:51]

Mark Vande Hei's Record: https://youtu.be/vsAAOuF2670

International Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

Boeing Starliner: https://www.nasa.gov/subject/11845/starliner/

SpaceX Crew Dragon: https://www.nasa.gov/subject/11844/crew-dragon/

Space Technology [1:13]

Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/loftid/index.html

Advanced Composite Solar Sail System: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/small_spacecraft/ACS3

Laser Communications Relay Demonstration: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/lcrd/index.html

Deep Space Optical Communications: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/dsoc/index.html

Future of Flight [1:29]

X-59 QueSST: https://www.nasa.gov/specials/X59/

X-57 Maxwell: https://www.nasa.gov/specials/X57/

Our Earth [1:41]

SWOT: https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/

TEMPO: http://tempo.si.edu/

TROPICS: https://weather.msfc.nasa.gov/tropics/

EMIT: https://earth.jpl.nasa.gov/emit/

Earth System Observatory: https://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/earth-system-observatory

Producer/Editor: Lacey Young

Music: Universal Production Music

Video Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Duration: 2 minutes, 30 seconds

Release Date: December 31, 2021

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #Technology #Aerospace #JamesWebb #JWST #Earth #Moon #Mars #Artemis #ISS #Astronauts #Cosmos #Universe #Environment #ClimateChange #SolarSystem #Exploration #JourneyToMars #STEM #Education #HD #Video

How Do Spacecraft Deal with Dust Storms on Mars? | NASA JPL

How Do Spacecraft Deal with Dust Storms on Mars? | NASA JPL

NASA Mars Report: February 14, 2022

A large dust storm on Mars, nearly twice the size of the United States, covered the southern hemisphere of the Red Planet in early January 2022, leading to some of NASA’s explorers on the surface hitting pause on their normal activities. NASA’s Insight lander put itself in a "safe mode" to conserve battery power after dust prevented sunlight from reaching the solar panels. NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter also had to postpone flights until conditions improved. 

A fleet of NASA orbiters monitor Martian dust storms like this one and serve as lifelines to Earth by relaying data from the rovers and lander on the ground back to the team. This includes the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, and Odyssey. 

Odyssey, while facing its technical issue, was able to recover quickly enough to come to InSight's aid during the dust storm. 

For more information on NASA's Mars missions, visit mars.nasa.gov.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Duration: 2 minutes, 40 seconds

Release Date: February 14, 2022

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Mars #RedPlanet #Planet #Atmosphere #DustStorm #Curiosity #Perseverance #Rover #MSL #Insight #Lander #Robotics #MRO #Odyssey #MAVEN #JPL #Pasadena #California #UnitedStates #JourneyToMars #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth: New Place Names | NASA New Horizons Mission

Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth: New Place Names | NASA New Horizons Mission

On Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth, New Horizons Team Puts Names to the Places

Three prominent features on the Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth—the farthest planetary body ever explored, by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft in January 2019—now have official names. 

Proposed by the New Horizons team and approved by the International Astronomical Union, the new feature names follow a theme set by "Arrokoth" itself, which means "sky" in the Powhatan/Algonquin Native American language. The mission team tagged the nearly circular arc on the larger of Arrokoth two lobes, the bright "neck" connecting the lobes and a 4-mile-wide crater on the smaller lobe with variations of the word "sky." 

"Naming these features on Arrokoth is a milestone that the New Horizons team is very proud to reach," said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "It's a significant step in our discovery and exploration of this ancient object, in a distant region of the solar system we're just beginning to learn about."

Arrokoth orbits the Sun in the Kuiper Belt, more than a billion miles beyond Pluto and some four billion miles from Earth. The farthest object ever explored by spacecraft, the 22-mile (35-kilometer) long binary consists of a large, flat lobe connected to a smaller, rounder lobe. Nothing like it has been seen anywhere in the solar system, and that first close-up look provided by New Horizons in January 2019 yielded a range of images and data that are helping scientists understand how planetesimals like Arrokoth—the building blocks of the planets—form.

Some of the scientific analyses on New Horizons' flyby data has focused on three key features: a nearly circular arc on Arrokoth's larger lobe; a bright "neck" connecting the lobes; and a large crater on the smaller lobe.

The team has named the arc "Ka'an," the word for sky in the Yucatec Mayan language spoken in parts of the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula and Belize. It also resembles the word for "snake" in this language—"kan"—and both terms derive from the classical Mayan word, "chan."

"Mayan paintings often show a snake arching over the scene, representing the sky or heaven," said Mark Showalter, a New Horizons co-investigator from the SETI Institute, and the mission's Nomenclature Working Group chair. "So we thought it was particularly appropriate to use ‘Ka'an' for this prominent, arc-shaped feature on Arrokoth."

The most reflective area on Arrokoth, the neck is named "Akasa," the word for sky in Bengali (Bangla), and derived from similar words in Sanskrit (ākāśam), Nepali (akās), Malayalam (ākāśaṃ), Oriya (akaśô), Sinhalese (ākāśaya), Tamil (ākāyam) and Telugu (ākāśamu).

The large crater, streaked with bright areas across its 4-mile-wide (7-kilometer-wide) floor, is officially named "Sky," in English. The team had nicknamed the crater "Maryland" soon after the flyby, in tribute to the location of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft.

New Horizons itself remains healthy while continuing its exploration of the Kuiper Belt and outer heliosphere. The spacecraft is about 4.9 billion miles (7.8 billion kilometers) from home—more than 52 times farther from the Sun than Earth—in a region where a radio signal from New Horizons, even traveling at the speed of light, needs more than seven hours to reach Earth.

Three prominent features on the Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth—explored by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft in January 2019—now have official names. The mission team tagged the nearly circular arc on the larger of Arrokoth two lobes, the bright "neck" connecting the lobes and a 4-mile-wide crater on the smaller lobe with variations of the word "sky." 

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Southwest Research Institute

Release Date: February 10, 2022

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #NewHorizons #KuiperBelt #KBO #Arrokoth #IAU #Names #FirstNations #History #Algonquin #Powhatan #Mayan #Language #Spacecraft #JPL #SolarSystem #MSFC #JohnsHopkins #JHUAPL #APL #SwRI #SouthwestResearchInstitute #UnitedStates #Exploration #STEM #Education #Infographic

Happy Valentine's Day! | Free NASA eCards

Happy Valentine's Day! | Free NASA eCards

Looking for the perfect way to share love?  

NASA—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration—has you covered! 

Check out our out-of-this-world cards: go.nasa.gov/valentines

Credit: NASA

Release Date: February 14, 2022

#NASA #Space #Science #eCard #ValentinesDay #Free #Astronomy #Cosmos #Universe #SolarSystem #Exploration #STEM #Education #International

SpaceX Starbase Flyover with Polaris Dawn Crew

SpaceX Starbase Flyover with Polaris Dawn Crew

Polaris Program will Undertake a Series of Pioneering SpaceX Dragon Missions, Demonstrating New Technologies and Culminating in the First Human Spaceflight on Starship

Led by tech entrepreneur and Inspiration4 commander Jared Isaacman, this program will advance deep space exploration while raising global awareness for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®. 

Los Angeles, California (February 14, 2022) – Today Jared Isaacman, founder and CEO of Shift4 (NYSE: FOUR), announced the Polaris Program, a first-of-its-kind effort to rapidly advance human spaceflight capabilities, while continuing to raise funds and awareness for important causes here on Earth. The program will consist of up to three human spaceflight missions that will demonstrate new technologies, conduct extensive research, and ultimately culminate in the first flight of SpaceX’s Starship with humans on board. 

The first mission, Polaris Dawn, is targeted for no earlier than the fourth quarter of this year and will be commanded by Isaacman, an accomplished pilot and astronaut who led Inspiration4, the world’s first all-civilian mission to orbit that helped raise over $240 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®.

“The Polaris Program is an important step in advancing human space exploration while helping to solve problems through the use of innovative technology here on Earth,” said Isaacman. “On Polaris Dawn, we endeavor to achieve the highest Earth orbit ever flown in addition to conducting the world’s first commercial spacewalk and testing of Starlink laser-based communication. Alongside these important objectives, we will be supporting scientific research to advance both human health interests on Earth and our understanding of human health during future long-duration spaceflights.” Building upon the Inspiration4 mission, Polaris Dawn will continue to raise funds and awareness for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®. 

THE POLARIS DAWN MISSION 

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Polaris Dawn mission from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew will spend up to five days in orbit, flying higher than any Dragon mission to date and endeavoring to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown. 

While in orbit, SpaceX mission control will carefully monitor Dragon and the crew as they: – Attempt the first-ever commercial spacewalk with SpaceX-designed extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits, upgraded from the current intravehicular (IVA) suit. The development of this suit and the execution of the EVA will be important steps toward a scalable design for spacesuits on future long-duration missions. 

Become the first crew to test Starlink laser-based communications in space, providing valuable data for future space communications systems necessary for human spaceflight to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. 

Conduct scientific research designed to advance both human health on Earth and our understanding of human health during future long-duration spaceflights. This includes, but is not limited to: 

Using ultrasound to monitor, detect, and quantify venous gas emboli (VGE), contributing to studies on human prevalence to decompression sickness; 

Gathering data on the radiation environment to better understand how space radiation affects human biological systems;

Providing biological samples towards multi-omics analyses for a long-term Biobank; and

Research related to Spaceflight Associated Neuro-Ocular Syndrome (SANS), which is a key risk to human health in long-duration spaceflight. 

SpaceX and Polaris Dawn will also collaborate with the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH), BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado Boulder, Space Technologies Lab at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Weill Cornell Medicine, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the U.S. Air Force Academy. 

Image Credit: Polaris Program/John Kraus

Caption Credit: Polaris Program

Image Date: February 11, 2022

#NASA #SpaceX #ElonMusk #Space #PolarisProgram #Polaris #Moon #Mars #Dragon #Starship #Spacecraft #SuperHeavy #Earth #Orbit #Spaceflight #Science #Technology #Engineering #Transportation #Commerce #BocaChica #Texas #Kennedy #KSC #Spaceport #CapeCanaveral #Florida #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

Ultralight Planet Found Next Door| European Southern Observatory (ESO)

Ultralight Planet Found Next Door | European Southern Observatory (ESO)

In this short video, we highlight the discovery of planet Proxima d around the star closest to the Sun.

A team of astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile have found evidence of another planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our Solar System. This candidate planet is the third detected in the system and the lightest yet discovered orbiting this star. At just a quarter of Earth’s mass, the planet is also one of the lightest exoplanets ever found.

“The discovery shows that our closest stellar neighbour seems to be packed with interesting new worlds, within reach of further study and future exploration,” explains João Faria, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, Portugal and lead author of the study published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Sun, lying just over four light-years away.

The newly discovered planet, named Proxima d, orbits Proxima Centauri at a distance of about four million kilometres, less than a tenth of Mercury’s distance from the Sun. It orbits between the star and the habitable zone — the area around a star where liquid water can exist at the surface of a planet — and takes just five days to complete one orbit around Proxima Centauri.

The star is already known to host two other planets: Proxima b, a planet with a mass comparable to that of Earth that orbits the star every 11 days and is within the habitable zone, and candidate Proxima c, which is on a longer five-year orbit around the star.

Proxima b was discovered a few years ago using the HARPS instrument on ESO’s 3.6-metre telescope. The discovery was confirmed in 2020 when scientists observed the Proxima system with a new instrument on ESO’s VLT that had greater precision, the Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO). It was during these more recent VLT observations that astronomers spotted the first hints of a signal corresponding to an object with a five-day orbit. As the signal was so weak, the team had to conduct follow-up observations with ESPRESSO to confirm that it was due to a planet, and not simply a result of changes in the star itself.

“After obtaining new observations, we were able to confirm this signal as a new planet candidate,” Faria says. “I was excited by the challenge of detecting such a small signal and, by doing so, discovering an exoplanet so close to Earth.”  

At just a quarter of the mass of Earth, Proxima d is the lightest exoplanet ever measured using the radial velocity technique, surpassing a planet recently discovered in the L 98-59 planetary system. The technique works by picking up tiny wobbles in the motion of a star created by an orbiting planet’s gravitational pull. The effect of Proxima d’s gravity is so small that it only causes Proxima Centauri to move back and forth at around 40 centimetres per second (1.44 kilometres per hour).

“This achievement is extremely important,” says Pedro Figueira, ESPRESSO instrument scientist at ESO in Chile. “It shows that the radial velocity technique has the potential to unveil a population of light planets, like our own, that are expected to be the most abundant in our galaxy and that can potentially host life as we know it.”

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)

Directed by: Herbert Zodet and Martin Wallner.  

Editing: Herbert Zodet.  

Web and technical support: Gurvan Bazin and Raquel Yumi Shida.  

Written by: Anita Chandran and Juliet Hannay.  

Music: Stellardrone—The Divine Cosmos.  

Footage and photos: ESO, L. Calçada, Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org), F. Char and C. Malin (christophmalin.com).  

Scientific consultants: Paola Amico and Mariya Lyubenova.

Duration: 1 minute, 27 seconds

Release Date: Feb. 10, 2022

#NASA #ESO #Europe #Observatory #Proximad #Exoplanet #Planet #Star #ProximaCentauri #Science #Technology #VLT #Telescope #Earth #SolarSystem #Chile #STEM #Education #HD #Video

The Heart Nebula | APoD

The Heart Nebula | APoD

Happy Valentine's Day!

What excites the Heart Nebula? First, the large emission nebula dubbed IC 1805 looks, in whole, like a human heart. Its shape is perhaps fitting for Valentine's Day. This heart glows brightly in red light emitted by its most prominent element: excited hydrogen. The red glow and the larger shape are all created by a small group of stars near the nebula's center. In the center of the Heart Nebula are young stars from the open star cluster Melotte 15 that are eroding away several picturesque dust pillars with their energetic light and winds. The open cluster of stars contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of our Sun, many dim stars only a fraction of the mass of our Sun, and an absent microquasar that was expelled millions of years ago. The Heart Nebula is located about 7,500 light years away toward the constellation of the mythological Queen of Aethiopia (Cassiopeia).

Astronomy Picture of the Day (APoD): https://apod.nasa.gov

Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Jensen

Caption/Text Credit: NASA APoD

Release Date: February 14, 2022

#NASA #Space #Science #Nebula #Emission #Heart #IC1805 #Star #Cluster #Melotte15 #Cassiopeia #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #Astrophotography #STEM #Education #International #APoD #ValentinesDay

Tumultuous Galactic Trio | Hubble Space Telescope

Tumultuous Galactic Trio | Hubble Space Telescope

The mass of dust and bright swirls of stars in this image are the distant galaxy merger IC 2431, which lies 681 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Cancer. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured what appears to be a triple galaxy merger in progress, as well as a tumultuous mixture of star formation and tidal distortions caused by the gravitational interactions of this galactic trio. The centre of this image is obscured by a thick cloud of dust—though light from a background galaxy can be seen piercing its outer extremities.  

This image is from a series of Hubble observations investigating weird and wonderful galaxies found by the Galaxy Zoo citizen science project. Using Hubble’s powerful Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), astronomers took a closer look at some of the more unusual galaxies that volunteers had identified. The original Galaxy Zoo project was the largest galaxy census ever carried out, and relied on crowdsourcing time from more than 100,000 volunteers to classify 900,000 unexamined galaxies. The project achieved what would have been years of work for a professional astronomer in only 175 days, and has led to a steady stream of similar astronomical citizen science projects. Later Galaxy Zoo projects have included the largest ever studies of galaxy mergers and tidal dwarf galaxies, as well as the discovery of entirely new types of compact star-forming galaxies.

Credit:

ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Keel, Dark Energy Survey, DOE, FNAL, DECam, CTIO, NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, SDSS

Acknowledgement: J. Schmidt

Release Date: February 14, 2022

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxy #Galaxies #Merger #IC2431 #Cancer #Constellation #Stars #Cosmos #Universe #Telescope #ESA #Goddard #GSFC #STScI #GalaxyZoo #CitizenScience #STEM #Education

The Early Universe & The James Webb Space Telescope | Meet ESA Experts

The Early Universe & The James Webb Space Telescope | Meet ESA Experts

European Space Agency (ESA): "How did the universe go from a dark and cold place after the Big Bang, to the mesmerizing cosmos we see today? In this episode of Meet the Experts, ESA research fellow Rachana Bhatawdekar takes us on a tour of the early universe, to discover how the very first stars and galaxies were born after the Big Bang."

Learn more about Webb: https://bit.ly/ESAWebb

"We are Europe's gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe's space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. 

Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related."

Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)

Duration: 6 minutes, 53 seconds

Release Date: February 13, 2022

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #JamesWebb #Webb #JWST #Cosmos #Universe #Telescope #ESA #ESAEducation #Europe #CSA #Canada #Goddard #GSFC #STScI #STEM #Education #HD #Video

50 Years of Solar System Exploration | Free NASA eBook

 50 Years of Solar System Exploration | Free NASA eBook

50 Years of Solar System Exploration: Historical Perspectives—Free eBook

Published: December 2021 | Edited by Linda Billings, 364 pages

» Free EPUB version [10.4 MB] 

Download Link:

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/50-years-of-solar-system-exploration.epub

» Free PDF version (Fixed Layout) [8.5 MB]

Download Link: 

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/50-years-of-solar-system-exploration_tagged.pdf

"NASA’s first successful mission to another planet, Mariner 2 to Venus in 1962, marked the beginning of what former NASA Chief Scientist Jim Green describes in this volume as 'a spectacular era' of solar system exploration. In its first 50 years of planetary exploration, NASA sent spacecraft to fly by, orbit, land on, or rove on every planet in our solar system, as well as Earth’s Moon and several moons of other planets. Pluto, reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006, was visited by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015.

What began as an endeavor of two nations—the United States and the former Soviet Union—has become a multinational enterprise, with a growing number of space agencies worldwide building and launching planetary exploration missions—sometimes alone, sometimes together.

In this volume, a diverse array of scholars addresses the science, technology, policy, and politics of planetary exploration. This volume offers a collection of in-depth studies of important projects, decisions, and milestones of this era.

It is not possible to foresee what the next 50 years of NASA’s planetary exploration program will reveal. However, the 2020s are already looking promising. Planetary missions in recent years have focused more and more on exploring potentially habitable environments in our solar system and developing a more in-depth understanding of the evolution of planetary environments. Upcoming missions will continue to do so. In 2020, NASA launched its Mars 2020 rover, Perseverance, and in 2022 the European Space Agency will launch its Exomars rover. The Lucy and Psyche asteroid missions are set to launch in this decade, as are the Dragonfly mission to Titan and the Europa Clipper mission to the eponymous Jovian moon. Planetary defense is a new addition to NASA’s planetary portfolio, and the Agency’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test—its first planetary defense mission—is due to launch in 2021. NASA plans to develop a Near Earth Object Surveillance Mission this decade as well. It is safe to say that by 2062, our understanding of our solar system will be radically different than it is today. And we will look forward to it."

Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Release Date: December 3, 2021

#NASA #ESA #Mercury #Venus #Earth #Sun #Mars #Jupiter #Saturn #Planets #Science #Exploration #Technology #Spacecraft #Mariner #Pioneer #Voyager #Cassini #NewHorizons #History #JimGreen #UnitedStates #International #eBook #STEM #Education 

Aurora Australis above the Southern Indian Ocean | International Space Station

Aurora Australis above the Southern Indian Ocean | International Space Station

The aurora australis seemingly crowns the Earth's horizon as the International Space Station orbited 272 miles above the southern Indian Ocean in between Asia and Antarctica.

An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the  International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.

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/stemonstation

STEM is an acronym for the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. 

Credit: NASA/Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Image Date: Aug. 2, 2021

#NASA #ESA #ISS #Earth #Planet #Science #Aurora #AuroraAustralis #IndianOcean #EarthObservation #Astronaut #Expedition65 #Technology #Photography #JSC #OverviewEffect #OrbitalPerspective #STEM #Education

Aurora and Light Pillars over Norway | APoD

Aurora and Light Pillars over Norway | APoD

"Which half of this sky is your favorite? On the left, the night sky is lit up by particles expelled from the Sun that later collided with Earth's upper atmosphere—creating bright auroras. On the right, the night glows with ground lights reflected by millions of tiny ice crystals falling from the sky—creating light pillars. And in the center, the astrophotographer presents your choices." 

"The light pillars are vertical columns because the fluttering ice-crystals are mostly flat to the ground, and their colors are those of the ground lights. The auroras cover the sky and ground in the green hue of glowing oxygen, while their transparency is clear because you can see stars right through them. Distant stars dot the background, including bright stars from the iconic constellation of Orion. The featured image was captured in a single exposure two months ago near Kautokeino, Norway."

Learn more about aurora: 

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/aurora-news-stories/index.html

Astronomy Picture of the Day (APoD): https://apod.nasa.gov

Visit Norway: https://www.visitnorway.com

Image Credit & Copyright: Alexandre Correia

Text/Caption Credit: APoD

Image Date: December 2021

Release Date: February 8, 2022

#NASA #Space #Science #Earth #Planet #Aurora #AuroraBorealis #MagneticField #Magnetosphere #SolarWind #Sun #LightPillars #Astrophotography #AlexandreCorreia #Kautokeino #Norway #Norge #Europe #STEM #Education #International #APoD

Fine-Tuning the James Webb Space Telescope | This Week @NASA

Fine-Tuning the James Webb Space Telescope | This Week @NASA

February 11, 2022: Fine-tuning the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a different view of Venus, and the science on an upcoming space station resupply mission . . . a few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA!

Learn more about JWST: https://www.jwst.nasa.gov

0:00 Introduction

0:13 Aligning the James Webb Space Telescope

1:02 Parker Solar Probe’s First Visible Light Images of Venus’ Surface

1:34 Upcoming Commercial Resupply Mission to the Space Station

2:13 Airborne Science Mission Studying Snowstorms

2:45 RS-25 Engine Test Series Continues

Producer: Andre Valentine

Editor: Sonnet Apple

Music: Universal Production Music

Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 

Duration: 3 minutes, 43 seconds

Release Date: February 11, 2022

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #JamesWebb #Webb #JWST #Venus #SolarSystem #Exploration #Parker #ISS #Cosmos #Universe #Telescope #ESA #Europe #CSA #Canada #Goddard #GSFC #STScI #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Aurora over Scotland

Aurora over Scotland

On Earth, auroras are mainly created by particles originally emitted by the Sun in the form of solar wind. When this stream of electrically charged particles gets close to our planet, it interacts with the magnetic field, which acts as a gigantic shield. While it protects Earth’s environment from solar wind particles, it can also trap a small fraction of them. Particles trapped within the magnetosphere—the region of space surrounding Earth in which charged particles are affected by its magnetic field—can be energized and then follow the magnetic field lines down to the magnetic poles. There, they interact with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the upper layers of the atmosphere, creating the flickering, colorful lights visible in the polar regions here on Earth

Earth auroras have different names depending on which pole they occur at. Aurora Borealis, or the northern lights, is the name given to auroras around the north pole and Aurora Australis, or the southern lights, is the name given for auroras around the south pole.

Learn more: 

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/aurora-news-stories/index.html

Image Credit & Copyright: Alan Tough

Caption Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Image Date: February 10, 2022

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Photons Received: Webb Telescope Sees Its First Star—18 Times | NASA

Photons Received: Webb Telescope Sees Its First Star—18 Times | NASA

The James Webb Space Telescope is nearing completion of the first phase of the months-long process of aligning the observatory’s primary mirror using the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument.

The team's challenge was twofold: confirm that NIRCam was ready to collect light from celestial objects, and then identify starlight from the same star in each of the 18 primary mirror segments. The result is an image mosaic of 18 randomly organized dots of starlight, the product of Webb's unaligned mirror segments all reflecting light from the same star back at Webb's secondary mirror and into NIRCam's detectors.

What looks like a simple image of blurry starlight now becomes the foundation to align and focus the telescope in order for Webb to deliver unprecedented views of the universe this summer. Over the next month or so, the team will gradually adjust the mirror segments until the 18 images become a single star. 

Learn more: https://www.jwst.nasa.gov

Music credit: Universal Production Music -Transitions Instrumental by Cotton Niblett

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Michael McClare (KBRwyle): Lead Producer

Adriana Manrique Gutierrez (KBRwyle): Lead Animator

Jonathan North (KBRwyle): Animator

Michael McClare (KBRwyle): Lead Writer, Lead Videographer, Lead Editor, Lead Motion Graphics

Duration: 3 minutes

Release Date: February 11, 2022

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