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The Tarantula Nebula (also known as 30 Doradus) is a large H II region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), or Nubecula Major is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
Video Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
Science Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Lennon and E. Sabbi (ESA/STScI), J. Anderson, S. E. de Mink, R. van der Marel, T. Sohn, and N. Walborn (STScI), N. Bastian (Excellence Cluster, Munich), L. Bedin (INAF, Padua), E. Bressert (ESO), P. Crowther (University of Sheffield), A. de Koter (University of Amsterdam), C. Evans (UKATC/STFC, Edinburgh), A. Herrero (IAC, Tenerife), N. Langer (AifA, Bonn), I. Platais (JHU), and H. Sana (University of Amsterdam)
The Tarantula Nebula (also known as 30 Doradus) is a large H II region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), or Nubecula Major is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
Video Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI), European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Science Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Lennon and E. Sabbi (ESA/STScI), J. Anderson, S. E. de Mink, R. van der Marel, T. Sohn, and N. Walborn (STScI), N. Bastian (Excellence Cluster, Munich), L. Bedin (INAF, Padua), E. Bressert (ESO), P. Crowther (University of Sheffield), A. de Koter (University of Amsterdam), C. Evans (UKATC/STFC, Edinburgh), A. Herrero (IAC, Tenerife), N. Langer (AifA, Bonn), I. Platais (JHU), and H. Sana (University of Amsterdam)
This Hubble image shows a cosmic creepy-crawly known as the Tarantula Nebula in infrared light. This region is full of star clusters, glowing gas, and thick dark dust. Created using observations taken as part of the Hubble Tarantula Treasury Project (HTTP), this image was snapped using Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The Hubble Tarantula Treasury Project (HTTP) is scanning and imaging many of the many millions of stars within the Tarantula, mapping out the locations and properties of the nebula's stellar inhabitants. These observations will help astronomers to piece together an understanding of the nebula's skeleton, viewing its starry structure.
Ring-shaped Nebula of The Large Magellanic Cloud Region | ESO
Turbulent region around the ring-shaped nebula DEM L 299 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way system. It was produced by combining three monochromatic images obtained in December 2001 with the Wide-Field-Imager (WFI) at the ESO/MPG 2.2-m telescope at the La Silla Observatory. The sky field measures 33.3 x 33.0 arcmin ; the original pixel size (in the FullRes version) is 0.238 arcsec. North is up and East is left. The colored rings seen near some of the brighter stars in the field result from light reflections in the telescope optics.
New View of Spiral Galaxy NGC 7496 | James Webb Space Telescope & Hubble
This beautiful new image shows the barred spiral galaxy NGC 7496, which lies over 24 million light-years away in the constellation Grus. It combines optical (Hubble), radio (ALMA), and infrared (James Webb) telescope data. The Grus constellation, whose name is Latin for crane, is one of four constellations collectively known as the Southern Birds. The others are Pavo, Phoenix and Tucana, which depict a peacock, phoenix, and toucan respectively. The rest of the night sky is also home to a flock of ornithological constellations, including an eagle (Aquilla), swan (Cygnus), crow (Corvus), and dove (Columba).
This image comes from a collection of observations delving into the relationship between young stars and the cold, dense clouds of gas in which they form. In addition to observations with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys, the astronomers behind this project gathered data using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), one of the largest radio telescopes in the world—including the James Webb Space Telescope.
As well as shedding light on the speed and efficiency of star formation in a variety of galactic environments, this project is also creating a treasury of data incorporating both Hubble and ALMA observations. This treasure trove of data from two of the world’s most capable observatories will contribute to wider research into star formation, as well as paving the way for future science with the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
Judy Schmidt: "As I work through trying out different ways to combine the data [from the Hubble & Webb space telescopes], this method stood out as particularly pretty, even if it lacks immediate scientific clarity. The glowing strands and flocks of dust, which would normally be dark in visible light imagery, are instead bright and glowing with infrared light from JWST.
Data from the PHANGS-HST program were used to create this image:
China Space Station Wentian Lab Module Moved to Launch Pad in Hainan
Another mission for the construction of China's Space Station has been unveiled. The Long March 5B carrier rocket with the Wentian lab module, one of two new space station modules being added this year, was moved to the launch pad at China's southern island province of Hainan on July 18, 2022.
SpaceX CRS-25 Cargo Dragon Docking | International Space Station
The SpaceX Dragon resupply ship (CRS-25) carrying over 5,800 pounds of new science experiments and crew supplies docked with the International Space Station on Saturday, July 16, 2022. The spacecraft is expected to spend about a month attached to the orbiting outpost before it returns to Earth with research and return cargo, splashing down off the coast of Florida.
NASA Flight Engineers Jessica Watkins and Bob Hines spent Monday, July 18, 2022, unloading some of the science experiments and crew supplies delivered. The duo transferred time-critical research samples into the orbital lab to begin exploring a variety of space phenomena to benefit humans on and off the Earth. Some of the new experiments include a human immune system study, a protein production investigation, and a cancer treatment experiment.
'Black Hole Police' Spot Extragalactic Black Hole | European Southern Observatory
ESOcast 255 Light: The "black hole police", a team of astronomers known for debunking black hole discoveries, reported finding a "needle in a haystack". After searching nearly 1,000 stars outside our galaxy, they found that one of them has a stellar-mass black hole as a companion. This short video summarizes the discovery.
Zooming in on Binary System VFTS 243: A Hot Blue Star & Black Hole | ESO
In this video, we get to fly out from our home galaxy and into the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way. The LMC is the home of one of the brightest known nebulae, the Tarantula Nebula, that was discovered in the mid-18th century. The Tarantula Nebula hosts the binary system VFTS 243, where this video eventually ends. The system might seem like a lone hot blue star, but the other component is in fact invisible to us: a black hole, weighing at least nine times the mass of our Sun, and about 200,000 times smaller than its stellar companion.
A team of international experts, renowned for debunking several black hole discoveries, have found a stellar-mass black hole in the Large Magellanic Cloud. "For the first time, our team got together to report on a black hole discovery, instead of rejecting one," says study leader Tomer Shenar. Moreover, they found that the star that gave rise to the black hole vanished without any sign of a powerful explosion. The discovery was made thanks to six years of observations obtained with the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) Very Large Telescope (VLT).
Stellar-mass black holes are formed when massive stars reach the end of their lives and collapse under their own gravity. In a binary, a system of two stars revolving around each other, this process leaves behind a black hole in orbit with a luminous companion star. The black hole is ‘dormant’ if it does not emit high levels of X-ray radiation, which is how such black holes are typically detected.
This close-up of an area in the northwest region of the large Iris Nebula seems to be clogged with cosmic dust. With bright light from the nearby star HD 200775 illuminating it from above, the dust resembles thick mounds of billowing cotton. It is actually made up of tiny particles of solid matter, with sizes from ten to a hundred times smaller than those of the dust grains we find at home. Both background and foreground stars are dotted throughout the image. Researchers studying the object are particularly interested in the region to the left and slightly above centre in the image, where dusty filaments appear redder than is expected.
Technical Info: Data from the following proposal were used to create this image.
"The Exciting Wavelength of Extended Red Emission"
Red: ACS/WFC F850LP
Green: ACS/WFC F625W
Blue: ACS/WFC F475W
North is 169.96° clockwise from up.
North is down, East is right. The field of view is 3.3 arcminutes. The image is a composite of four images obtained through blue, green, near-infrared and H-alpha filters.
Merging Galaxies Nicknamed "The Angel Wing" | Hubble
A close-up look at two merging galaxies in the VV689 system—nicknamed "The Angel Wing" system—in this image from the NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Hubble Space Telescope. In this view, the focus is placed on the system itself, allowing a closer look at its unique morphology.
Judy Schmidt: "It's easy to see how it became known as the Angel Wing system. With nearly complete bilateral symmetry, it's hard not to see some kind of animal like an angel or bird wings."
China's First Space Telescope Under Development | CGTN
China is developing the prototype of the country's first space telescope Xuntian, or Chinese Survey Space Telescope, also known as the Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST). It will maintain a similar orbit to China's Space Station (CSS) to allow docking and crew servicing. The 10-ton, bus-sized space telescope has an aperture of 2 meters (6.6 foot) and state-of-the-art detectors. It is expected to have a field of view 300–350 times larger than the 32-year old Hubble Space Telescope. This will allow the telescope to image up to 40 percent of the sky using its 2.5 gigapixel camera over ten years. The space telescope will be launched after the construction of China's Space Station is completed later in 2022.
SpaceX Starlink Mission: July 17, 2022 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station
On Sunday, July 17, 2022, at 10:20 a.m. ET, SpaceX launched 53 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This was the 13th flight for the Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched Dragon’s first crew demonstration mission, the RADARSAT Constellation Mission, SXM-7, and now 10 Starlink missions.
Credit: Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX)
This intriguing observation from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a gravitationally lensed galaxy with the long-winded identification SGAS J143845+145407. Gravitational lensing has resulted in a mirror image of the galaxy at the center of this image, creating a captivating centerpiece.
Gravitational lensing occurs when a massive celestial body—such as a galaxy cluster—causes a sufficient curvature of spacetime for the path of light around it to be visibly bent, as if by a lens. Appropriately, the body causing the light to curve is called a gravitational lens, and the distorted background object is referred to as being "lensed". Gravitational lensing can result in multiple images of the original galaxy, as seen in this image, or in the background object appearing as a distorted arc or even a ring. Another important consequence of this lensing distortion is magnification, allowing astronomers to observe objects that would otherwise be too far away or too faint to be seen.
Hubble has a special flair for detecting lensed galaxies. The telescope's sensitivity and crystal-clear vision allow it to see faint and distant gravitational lenses that cannot be detected with ground-based telescopes because of the blurring effect of Earth's atmosphere. Hubble was the first telescope to resolve details within lensed images of galaxies, and is capable of imaging both their shape and internal structure.
This particular lensed galaxy is from a set of Hubble observations that take advantage of gravitational lensing to peer inside galaxies in the early Universe. The lensing reveals details of distant galaxies that would otherwise be unobtainable, and this allows astronomers to determine star formation in early galaxies. This in turn gives scientists a better insight into how the overall evolution of galaxies has unfolded.
Credit: European Space Agency/Hubble & NASA, J. Rigby
NASA SLS Moon Rocket Booster Test Preview | Northrop Grumman
NASA and Northrop Grumman will perform a full-scale static test of a Space Launch System (SLS) solid rocket booster motor at Northrop Grumman’s Promontory, Utah, test facility July 21, 2022. [This video is an example test from 2015.] Engineers will fire the booster during the demonstration, called the Flight Support Booster 2 test, to evaluate materials and processes to improve boosters for future Artemis missions.
“The current SLS boosters for the first eight Artemis missions are using a robust mix of new avionics and substantial heritage hardware from the Space Shuttle Program,” said Bruce Tiller, SLS Booster Program manager. “This particular ground test will demonstrate some new materials, a completely new steering system, and a new way to ignite the motor. Data from this test will improve our booster design for future missions that take us farther into deep space than ever before.”
For the test, one booster is affixed in a horizontal test stand and fired for approximately two minutes, the same amount of time and at the same power level as it would be fired during launch. On launch day, a pair of solid rocket boosters in a vertical position attached to the core stage of the SLS rocket supply more than 75% of the total thrust for the first two minutes of flight. Northrop Grumman is the lead contractor for the SLS solid rocket boosters.
NASA and Northrop Grumman experts will discuss the Flight Support Booster 2 test during a Facebook Live on the Space Launch System rocket’s Facebook page, as well as on NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center YouTube channel, beginning at 2:55 p.m. EDT. During the test, anyone can submit questions on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube using the hashtag #AskNASA. Julia Khodabandeh, motor team lead for SLS boosters at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and Jessica Rose, chemical engineer for SLS boosters at Northrop Grumman, will answer questions.
NASA and Northrop Grumman will perform a full-scale static test of a Space Launch System (SLS) solid rocket booster motor at Northrop Grumman’s Promontory, Utah, test facility July 21, 2022. Engineers will fire the booster during the demonstration, called the Flight Support Booster 2 test, to evaluate materials and processes to improve boosters for future Artemis missions.
The FSB-2 test builds off the Flight Support Booster-1 test conducted in September 2020 and will demonstrate a newly qualified motor initiation system and qualify a new ablative lining to protect the booster nozzle. This test will also provide information for the development of the next generation booster obsolescence and life extension booster that will support Artemis IX and beyond.
Through Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon, paving the way for a long-term, sustainable lunar presence and serving as a steppingstone for future astronaut missions to Mars.
QM-1 Static Fire Test Preview Video Footage [replay]
On March 11, 2015 NASA and Orbital ATK conducted the first qualification ground test of the five-segment rocket motor that will be used for initial thrust for NASA's heavy-lift Space Launch System, which will enable new missions of exploration across the solar system. This Northrop Grumman/Orbital ATK video gives a quick look at the events of the day. Release Date: April 24, 2015
Story Credit: Northrop Grumman/NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)
NASA & Northrop Grumman Test Fire Future Artemis Moon Rocket Booster Motor
Image Description: Teams installed the flight support booster for future versions of the SLS rocket’s solid rocket boosters into a test stand in Promontory, Utah. Image Credit: Northrop Grumman. Image Date: June 24, 2022
Teams installed the flight support booster for future versions of the SLS rocket’s solid rocket boosters into a test stand in Promontory, Utah. NASA and Northrop Grumman engineers are preparing to conduct a full-scale static test of the motor at the Northrop Grumman test facility July 21.
NASA and Northrop Grumman will perform a full-scale static test of a Space Launch System (SLS) solid rocket booster motor at Northrop Grumman’s Promontory, Utah, test facility July 21, 2022. Engineers will fire the booster during the demonstration, called the Flight Support Booster 2 test, to evaluate materials and processes to improve boosters for future Artemis missions.
“The current SLS boosters for the first eight Artemis missions are using a robust mix of new avionics and substantial heritage hardware from the Space Shuttle Program,” said Bruce Tiller, SLS Booster Program manager. “This particular ground test will demonstrate some new materials, a completely new steering system, and a new way to ignite the motor. Data from this test will improve our booster design for future missions that take us farther into deep space than ever before.”
For the test, one booster is affixed in a horizontal test stand and fired for approximately two minutes, the same amount of time and at the same power level as it would be fired during launch. On launch day, a pair of solid rocket boosters in a vertical position attached to the core stage of the SLS rocket supply more than 75% of the total thrust for the first two minutes of flight. Northrop Grumman is the lead contractor for the SLS solid rocket boosters.
NASA and Northrop Grumman experts will discuss the Flight Support Booster 2 test during a Facebook Live on the Space Launch System rocket’s Facebook page, as well as on NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center YouTube channel, beginning at 2:55 p.m. EDT. During the test, anyone can submit questions on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube using the hashtag #AskNASA. Julia Khodabandeh, motor team lead for SLS boosters at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and Jessica Rose, chemical engineer for SLS boosters at Northrop Grumman, will answer questions.
The FSB-2 test builds off the Flight Support Booster-1 test conducted in September 2020 and will demonstrate a newly qualified motor initiation system and qualify a new ablative lining to protect the booster nozzle. This test will also provide information for the development of the next generation booster obsolescence and life extension booster that will support Artemis IX and beyond.
Through Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon, paving the way for a long-term, sustainable lunar presence and serving as a steppingstone for future astronaut missions to Mars.
Credit: NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)
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