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Thursday, July 21, 2022

The Sun Illuminating Earth's Atmosphere | International Space Station

The Sun Illuminating Earth's Atmosphere | International Space Station

The sun's rays begin to illuminate the Earth's atmosphere as the International Space Station flew into an orbital sunrise 261 miles above Texas.

Expedition 67 Crew

Commander Oleg Artemyev (Russia)

Roscosmos Flight Engineers: Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov (Russia)

NASA Flight Engineers: Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, Jessica Watkins (USA)

European Space Agency (ESA) Flight Engineer: Samantha Cristoforetti (Italy)

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.

Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Image Date: July 16, 2022

#NASA #Space #ISS #Sun #Star #Starlight #Earth #Planet #Atmosphere #Astronauts #Cosmonauts #Science #Technology #HumanSpaceflight #Expedition67 #Europe #Russia #Россия #Japan #日本 #Canada #UnitedStates #International #Photography #STEM #Education

The Orion Nebula: Panning across a deep infrared image | ESO

The Orion Nebula: Panning across a deep infrared image | ESO

This video gives a close-up view of a spectacular new image of the Orion Nebula star-formation region that was obtained from multiple exposures using the HAWK-I infrared camera on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. This is one of the deepest views ever of this region and it revealed many more very faint planetary-mass objects than expected.

Credits: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/H. Drass et al. Music: Johan B. Monell

Duration: 1 minute, 30 seconds

Release Date: July 12, 2016

#NASA #ESO #Space #Astronomy #OrionNebula #Infrared #Orion #Constellation #Astrophysics #Physics #Cosmos #Universe #VLT #Telescope #HAWK1 #Chile #SouthAmerica #Europe #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Zoom-in on The Orion Nebula | Hubble

Zoom-in on The Orion Nebula | Hubble

This video starts with a ground-based image of the night sky, taken by Akira Fujii, zooms on the star formation region of the Orion Nebula—observed by Martin Kornmesser—and ends with a detailed view of the nebula as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)

ESA/Hubble, A. Fujii, M. Kornmesser

Music: Johan B. Monell

Release Date: March 17, 2017

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Hubble #Stars #Trapezium #M43 #Nebula #OrionNebula #Orion #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescope #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education #HD #Video

The Orion Nebula | Hubble

The Orion Nebula | Hubble

This dramatic image offers a peek inside a cavern of roiling dust and gas where thousands of stars are forming. The image, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, represents one of the sharpest views ever taken of this region, called the Orion Nebula. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light. These stars reside in a dramatic dust-and-gas landscape of plateaus, mountains, and valleys that are reminiscent of the Grand Canyon.

The Orion Nebula is a picture book of star formation, from the massive, young stars that are shaping the nebula to the pillars of dense gas that may be the homes of budding stars. The bright central region is the home of the four heftiest stars in the nebula. The stars are called the Trapezium because they are arranged in a trapezoid pattern. Ultraviolet light unleashed by these stars is carving a cavity in the nebula and disrupting the growth of hundreds of smaller stars. Located near the Trapezium stars are stars still young enough to have disks of material encircling them. These disks are called protoplanetary disks or "proplyds" and are too small to see clearly in this image. The disks are the building blocks of solar systems.

The bright glow at upper left is from M43, a small region being shaped by a massive, young star's ultraviolet light. Astronomers call the region a miniature Orion Nebula because only one star is sculpting the landscape. The Orion Nebula has four such stars. Next to M43 are dense, dark pillars of dust and gas that point toward the Trapezium. These pillars are resisting erosion from the Trapezium's intense ultraviolet light. The glowing region on the right reveals arcs and bubbles formed when stellar winds—streams of charged particles ejected from the Trapezium stars—collide with material.

The faint red stars near the bottom are the myriad brown dwarfs that Hubble spied for the first time in the nebula in visible light. Sometimes called "failed stars," brown dwarfs are cool objects that are too small to be ordinary stars because they cannot sustain nuclear fusion in their cores the way our Sun does. The dark red column, below, left, shows an illuminated edge of the cavity wall.

The Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years away, the nearest star-forming region to Earth. Astronomers used 520 Hubble images, taken in five colors, to make this picture. They also added ground-based photos to fill out the nebula. The ACS mosaic covers approximately the apparent angular size of the full moon.

The Orion observations were taken between 2004 and 2005.

Credits: NASA,ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

Release Date: January 11, 2006

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Hubble #Stars #Trapezium #M43 #Nebula #OrionNebula #Orion #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescope #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Tour of the Moon | NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Tour of the Moon | NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Happy International Moon Day!

Take a virtual tour of the Moon in high resolution, thanks to data provided by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft. As the visualization moves around the near side, far side, north and south poles, we highlight interesting features, sites, and information gathered on the lunar terrain. Since its launch in June 2009, the LRO mission has given scientists the largest volume of data ever collected by a planetary science mission at NASA. LRO has made a 3-D map of the Moon's surface at 100-meter resolution and 98.2% coverage (excluding polar areas in deep shadow), including 0.5-meter resolution images of Apollo landing sites.

Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/David Ladd & Ernie Wright/Scientific Visualization Studio

Music Provided By Killer Tracks: "Never Looking Back" - Frederick Wiedmann. "Flying over Turmoil" - Benjamin Krause & Scott Goodman.

Ernie Wright (USRA): Lead Visualizer – Scientific Visualization Studio

David Ladd (USRA): Lead Producer, Editor, Narrator

Noah Petro (NASA/GSFC): Lead Scientist

Duration: 4 minutes, 56 seconds

Release Date: April 9, 2018

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Apollo #Artemis #Moon #InternationalMoonDay #Science #Geology #Lunar #LRO #Orbiter #Spacecraft #Robotics #Technology #Engineering #NASAGoddard #GSFC #Greenbelt #Maryland #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #Animation #Visualization #HD #Video

A Quick Look at Supernova Remnant E0102 | NASA Chandra

A Quick Look at Supernova Remnant E0102 | NASA Chandra

A distant and lonely neutron star has been discovered outside the Milky Way galaxy for the first time.

Neutron stars are the ultra-dense cores of massive stars that collapse and undergo a supernova explosion.

1E 0102.2-7219 is a supernova remnant, the stellar debris field left behind after the giant star exploded.

Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes points to a celestial bull's eye where the neutron star was found.

Unlike many other neutron stars, this one has a very low magnetic field and no stellar companion.

Astronomers will continue to observe this object at X-ray, radio, and visible light wavelengths to learn more about this cosmic oddity.

Credit: Chandra X-ray Observatory

Duration: 1 minute, 8 seconds

Release Date: May 23, 2018

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Chandra #Xray #Hubble #Star #NeutronStar #1E010227219 #E0102 #Supernova #SupernovaRemnant #N76 #Henize1956 #SMC #Tucana #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescopes #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Supernova Remnant E0102: A New Dimension to an Old Explosion | NASA Chandra

Supernova Remnant E0102: A New Dimension to an Old Explosion | NASA Chandra

Summary: E0102 is the debris of a very massive star that exploded in the neighboring galaxy known as the Small Magellanic Cloud. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory first looked at this object nearly ten years ago, just months after the telescope was launched. Analysis of new Chandra data gives information on the geometry of the supernova explosion. The best model based on the data is that the ejecta is shaped like a cylinder that we see end-on.

This image of the debris of an exploded star—known as supernova remnant 1E 0102.2-7219, or "E0102" for short—features data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. E0102 is located about 190,000 light years away in the Small Magellanic Cloud, one of the nearest galaxies to the Milky Way. It was created when a star that was much more massive than the Sun exploded, an event that would have been visible from the Southern Hemisphere of the Earth over 1000 years ago.

Chandra first observed E0102 shortly after its launch in 1999. New X-ray data have now been used to create this spectacular image and help celebrate the ten-year anniversary of Chandra's launch on July 23, 1999. In this latest image of E0102, the lowest-energy X-rays are colored orange, the intermediate range of X-rays is cyan, and the highest-energy X-rays Chandra detected are blue. An optical image from the Hubble Space Telescope (in red, green and blue) shows additional structure in the remnant and also reveals foreground stars in the field.

The Chandra image shows the outer blast wave produced by the supernova (blue), and an inner ring of cooler (red-orange) material. This inner ring is probably expanding ejecta from the explosion that is being heated by a shock wave traveling backwards into the ejecta. A massive star (not visible in this image) is illuminating the green cloud of gas and dust to the lower right of the image. This star may have similar properties to the one that exploded to form E0102.

Analysis of the Chandra spectrum gives astronomers new information about the geometry of the remnant, with implications for the nature of the explosion. The spectrum - which precisely separates X-rays of different energies - shows some material is moving away from Earth and some is moving toward us. When the material is moving away, its light is shifted toward the red end of the spectrum due to the so-called Doppler effect. Alternatively, when material is moving toward us, the light is bluer because of the same effect.

A clear separation was detected between the red-shifted and blue-shifted light, leading astronomers to think that the appearance of E0102 is best explained by a model in which the ejecta is shaped like a cylinder that is being viewed almost exactly end-on (see animation above). The smaller red and blue cylinders represent faster moving material closer to the cylinder axis.

This model suggests that the explosion that created the E0102 remnant may itself have been strongly asymmetric, consistent with the rapid kicks given to neutron stars after supernova explosions. Another possibility is that the star exploded into a disk of material formed when material was shed from the equator of the pre-supernova red giant star. Such asymmetries have been observed in winds from lower mass red giants that form planetary nebulas.

Credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/MIT/D.Dewey et al. & NASA/CXC/SAO/J.DePasquale); Optical (NASA/STScI)

Duration: 56 seconds

Release Date: July 23, 2009

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Chandra #Xray #Hubble #Star #1E010227219 #E0102 #Supernova #SupernovaRemnant #N76 #Henize1956 #SMC #Tucana #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescopes #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education

A Tour of Supernova Remnant E0102 | NASA Chandra

A Tour of Supernova Remnant E0102 | NASA Chandra

The supernova remnant known as E0102 was one of the targets that NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory first observed after its launch in 1999. Now, some ten years later, new X-ray data from Chandra have been used to produce this spectacular image. E0102 is located about 190 thousand light-years away in the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is one of the nearest galaxies to the Milky Way. It was created when a star that was much more massive than the sun, exploded, an event that would have been visible from the southern hemisphere on Earth over one thousand years ago.

The information captured in this new image, which includes optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope, reveals new clues about the geometry of the remnant. This in turn helps astronomers better understand the details of the explosion that created the remnant we see today.

Credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/MIT/D.Dewey et al. & NASA/CXC/SAO/J.DePasquale); Optical (NASA/STScI))

Duration: 1 minute, 19 seconds

Release Date: July 30, 2009

Zoom Into Supernova Remnant E0102 | Hubble

Zoom Into Supernova Remnant E0102 | Hubble

This European Space Agency (ESA) video zooms into an expanding, gaseous corpse—a supernova remnant—known as 1E 0102.2-7219. It is the remnant of a star that exploded long ago in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way located roughly 200,000 light-years away.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Banovetz and D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University), Digitized Sky Survey 2, Risinger

Music: Stellardrone - "The Night Sky in Motion."

Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Duration: 40 seconds

Release Date: July 31, 2006

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Hubble #Star #1E010227219 #E0102 #Supernova #SupernovaRemnant #N76 #Henize1956 #SMC #Tucana #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescope #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Supernova Remnant E0102 | Hubble

Supernova Remnant E0102 | Hubble

The supernova remnant (SNR), known as "E0102" for short, is the greenish-blue shell of debris just below the center of the Hubble image. Its name is derived from its cataloged placement (or coordinates) in the celestial sphere. More formally known as 1E0102.2-7219, it is located almost 50 light-years (15 parsecs) away from of the edge of the massive star-forming region, N 76, also known as Henize 1956 in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). This delicate structure glowing a multitude of lavenders and peach hues, resides in the upper right of the image.

The composition and thus, the coloring, of the diffuse remnant in comparison to its star-forming neighbor is due to the presence of very large quantities of oxygen compared to hydrogen. E0102 is a member of the oxygen-rich class of SNRs showing strong oxygen and other more metal-like abundances in its optical and X-ray spectra, and an absence of hydrogen and helium. N 76 in contrast is made up primarily of glowing hydrogen emission.

One explanation for the abundance of oxygen in the SNR is that the parent star was very large and old, and had blown away most its hydrogen as stellar wind before it exploded. It is surmised that the progenitor star that caused the supernova explosion may have been a Wolf-Rayet. These stars, which can be upward of 20 times the mass of the sun and tens of thousands times more luminous, are famous for having a strong stellar wind throughout their lifetime. This stellar wind carried off material from the outer-most shells of the star (the hydrogen and helium shells), leaving the next most abundant element, oxygen, as a visible signature after the star exploded as a supernova.

Determined to be only about 2000 years old, E0102 is relatively young on astronomical scales and is just beginning its interactions with the nearby interstellar medium. Young supernova remnants like E0102 allow astronomers to examine material from the cores of massive stars directly. This in turn gives insight on how stars form, their composition, and the chemical enrichment of the surrounding area. As well, young remnants are a great learning tool to better understand the physics of supernova explosions.

E0102 was observed in 2003 with the Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys. Four filters that isolate light from blue, visible, and infrared wavelengths and hydrogen emission were combined with oxygen emission images of the SNR taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in 1995.

The Small Magellanic Cloud is a nearby dwarf galaxy to our own Milky Way. It is visible in the Southern Hemisphere, in the direction of the constellation Tucana, and lies roughly 210,000 light-years (65,000 parsecs) distant.

Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Release Date: July 31, 2006

Moonrise and Venus | International Space Station

The Moon and Venus | International Space Station

Happy International Moon Day!

A moonrise with Venus visible as seen by ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti aboard the International Space Station for her Minerva Mission.

Samantha Cristoforetti's Biography (ESA)

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Astronauts/Samantha_Cristoforetti

Learn about Samantha's Minerva Mission: https://bit.ly/MissionMinerva

Expedition 67 Crew

Commander Oleg Artemyev (Russia)

Roscosmos Flight Engineers: Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov (Russia)

NASA Flight Engineers: Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, Jessica Watkins (USA)

European Space Agency (ESA) Flight Engineer: Samantha Cristoforetti (Italy)

Credit: European Space Agency Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti

Image Date: June 26, 2022

#NASA #Space #ISS #ESA #Earth #Planet #Moon #InternationalMoonDay #Apollo11 #UN #Moonrise #Venus #Astronaut #SamanthaCristoforetti #Minerva #MissionMinerva #Italy #Italia #ASI #Science #Technology #HumanSpaceflight #Expedition67 #Europe #UnitedStates #International #Photography #Astrophotography #STEM #Education

Moonrise and Venus | International Space Station

Moonrise and Venus | International Space Station

Happy International Moon Day!

A moonrise with Venus visible as seen by European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti aboard the International Space Station for her Minerva Mission.

Samantha Cristoforetti's Biography (ESA)

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Astronauts/Samantha_Cristoforetti

Learn about Samantha's Minerva Mission: https://bit.ly/MissionMinerva

Expedition 67 Crew

Commander Oleg Artemyev (Russia)

Roscosmos Flight Engineers: Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov (Russia)

NASA Flight Engineers: Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, Jessica Watkins (USA)

European Space Agency (ESA) Flight Engineer: Samantha Cristoforetti (Italy)

Credit: European Space Agency Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti

Image Date: June 26, 2022

Searchlight Beams of The Egg Nebula | Hubble

Searchlight Beams of The Egg Nebula | Hubble

The NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Hubble Space Telescope has been at the cutting edge of research into what happens to stars like our Sun at the ends of their lives. One stage that stars pass through as they run out of nuclear fuel is the preplanetary, or protoplanetary nebula. This Hubble image of the Egg Nebula shows one of the best views to date of this brief but dramatic phase in a star’s life.

The preplanetary nebula phase is a short period in the cycle of stellar evolution—over a few thousand years, the hot remains of the star in the center of the nebula heat it up, excite the gas, and make it glow as a planetary nebula. The short lifespan of preplanetary nebulae means there are relatively few of them in existence at any one time. Moreover, they are very dim, requiring powerful telescopes to be seen. This combination of rarity and faintness means they were only discovered comparatively recently. The Egg Nebula, the first to be discovered, was first spotted less than 40 years ago, and many aspects of this class of object remain shrouded in mystery.

At the center of this image, and hidden in a thick cloud of dust, is the nebula’s central star. While we cannot see the star directly, four searchlight beams of light coming from it shine out through the nebula. It is thought that ring-shaped holes in the thick cocoon of dust, carved by jets coming from the star, let the beams of light emerge through the otherwise opaque cloud. The precise mechanism by which stellar jets produce these holes is not known for certain, but one possible explanation is that a binary star system, rather than a single star, exists at the centre of the nebula.

The onion-like layered structure of the more diffuse cloud surrounding the central cocoon is caused by periodic bursts of material being ejected from the dying star. The bursts typically occur every few hundred years.

The distance to the Egg Nebula is only known very approximately, the best guess placing it at around 3000 light-years from Earth. This in turn means that astronomers do not have any accurate figures for the size of the nebula (it may be larger and further away, or smaller but nearer).

This image is produced from exposures in visible and infrared light from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Release Date: April 23, 2012

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Hubble #Nebula #EggNebula #PreplanetaryNebula #Star #Cygnus #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescope #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education

NGC 3603: Extreme Star Cluster Bursts to Life | Hubble

NGC 3603: Extreme Star Cluster Bursts to Life | Hubble

Hubblecast 09: The NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Hubble Space Telescope has captured a spectacular image of NGC 3603, a giant nebula hosting one of the most prominent massive young clusters in the Milky Way. This is a splendid location for continued studies of stellar birth in star forming regions.

Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)

Duration: 6 minutes

Release Date: June 22, 2010

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Hubble #Stars #NGC3603 #StarCluster #Carina #Constellation #MilkyWay #Galaxy #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescope #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Zoom into Colorful Star Cluster NGC 3603 in Carina | Hubble

Zoom into Colorful Star Cluster NGC 3603 in Carina | Hubble

[No audio] NGC 3603 is a nebula situated in the Carina–Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way around 20,000 light-years away from the Solar System. It is a massive H II region containing a very compact open cluster HD 97950.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

Duration: 26 seconds

Release Date: December 31, 2014

Starburst Cluster in Carina: Celestial Fireworks | Hubble

Starburst Cluster in Carina: Celestial Fireworks | Hubble

Like a 4th of July fireworks display, a young, glittering collection of stars looks like an aerial burst. The cluster is surrounded by clouds of interstellar gas and dust—the raw material for new star formation. The nebula, located 20,000 light-years away in the constellation Carina, contains a central cluster of huge, hot stars, called NGC 3603.

This environment is not as peaceful as it looks. Ultraviolet radiation and violent stellar winds have blown out an enormous cavity in the gas and dust enveloping the cluster, providing an unobstructed view of the cluster.

Most of the stars in the cluster were born around the same time but differ in size, mass, temperature, and color. The course of a star's life is determined by its mass, so a cluster of a given age will contain stars in various stages of their lives, giving an opportunity for detailed analyses of stellar life cycles. NGC 3603 also contains some of the most massive stars known. These huge stars live fast and die young, burning through their hydrogen fuel quickly and ultimately ending their lives in supernova explosions.

Star clusters like NGC 3603 provide important clues to understanding the origin of massive star formation in the early, distant Universe. Astronomers also use massive clusters to study distant starbursts that occur when galaxies collide, igniting a flurry of star formation. The proximity of NGC 3603 makes it an excellent lab for studying such distant and momentous events.

This Hubble Space Telescope image was captured in August 2009 and December 2009 with the Wide Field Camera 3 in both visible and infrared light, which trace the glow of sulfur, hydrogen, and iron.

Credits:

NASA, ESA, R. O'Connell (University of Virginia), F. Paresce (National Institute for Astrophysics, Bologna, Italy), E. Young (Universities Space Research Association/Ames Research Center), the WFC3 Science Oversight Committee, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Release Date: July 6, 2010

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Hubble #Stars #NGC3603 #StarCluster #Carina #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescope #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education

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Thursday, July 21, 2022

Wednesday, July 20, 2022