Friends of NASA (FoN) is an independent non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to building international support for peaceful space exploration, commerce, scientific discovery, and STEM education.
This close-up shot of the center of the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8) clearly shows the delicate structures formed when the powerful radiation of young stars interacts with the hydrogen cloud they formed from. Distance: 5,000 light years
This image was created from exposures taken with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on Hubble. Light from glowing hydrogen (through the F658N filter) is colored red. Light from ionized nitrogen (through the F660N filter) is colored green and light through a yellow filter (F550M) is colored blue. The exposure times through each filter are 1560 s, 1600 s and 400 s respectively. The blue-white flare at the upper-left of the image is scattered light from a bright star just outside the field of view. The field of view is about 3.3 by 1.7 arcminutes.
European Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti: EVA Prep | International Space Station
Can you sense Samantha's excitement just before her first spacewalk outside the International Space Station? She can be seen here putting on a Russian Orlan spacesuit. Expedition 67 Commander Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos and Flight Engineer Samantha Cristoforetti (Italy) of the European Space Agency (ESA) concluded their spacewalk or extravehicular activity (EVA) at 5:55 p.m. EDT, July 21, 2022, after 7 hours and 5 minutes.
Artemyev and Cristoforetti completed all but one of their major objectives, which included the deployment of 10 nanosatellites designed to collect radio electronics data during the spacewalk and installing platforms and workstation adapter hardware near the 37-foot-long manipulator system mounted to Nauka. The spacewalkers also relocated the arm’s external control panel and replaced a protective window on the arm’s camera unit. The last planned activity, to extend a Strela telescoping boom from Zarya to Poisk, will be completed on a future spacewalk.
Additional spacewalks are planned to continue outfitting the European robotic arm and to activate Nauka’s airlock for future spacewalks. The work on the European robotic arm will be used to move spacewalkers and payloads around the Russian segment of the station.
This was the sixth spacewalk in Artemyev’s career, and the first for Cristoforetti. It was the sixth spacewalk at the station in 2022 and the 251st spacewalk for space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.
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.
The Lagoon Nebula: Visible & Infrared Light View | Hubble
This short videoclip shows the Lagoon Nebula, which was observed to celebrate Hubble's 28th anniversary in space in 2018, first in the visible light and then in the infrared. Both observations were made by Hubble.
While the observations in visible light allow astronomers to study the gas in full detail, the infrared light cuts through the obscuring patches of dust and gas, revealing the more intricate structures underneath and the young stars hiding within it. Only by combining optical and infrared data can astronomers paint a complete picture of the ongoing processes in the nebula.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency, Science Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
This image of the Lagoon Nebula, captured by the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope to celebrate its 28th year in space back in 2018, shows colorful clouds of gas and dust of this star-formation region in incredible detail.
The image reveals a fantastic landscape of ridges, cavities, and mountains of gas and dust. This dust-and-gas landscape is being sculpted by powerful ultraviolet radiation and hurricane-like stellar winds unleashed by a young star. Located at the center of the image, the star, known as Herschel 36, is about 200,000 times brighter than our Sun.
This video begins with a ground-based view of the night sky, before zooming in on the Lagoon Nebula as it can be seen with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The nebula is immense—55 light-years wide and 20 light-years tall—and so Hubble can only image a tiny part of it in stunning detail.
This nebula is filled with intense winds from hot stars, churning funnels of gas, and energetic star formation, all embedded within an intricate haze of gas and pitch-dark dust.
To celebrate its 28th anniversary in space back in 2018, the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope took this amazing and colorful image of the Lagoon Nebula. The whole nebula, about 4,000 light-years away, is an incredible 55 light-years wide and 20 light-years tall. This image shows only a small part of this turbulent star-formation region, about four light-years across. The Lagoon Nebula is classified as an emission nebula in the H II region.
This stunning nebula was first catalogued in 1654 by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Hodierna, who sought to record nebulous objects in the night sky so they would not be mistaken for comets. Since Hodierna’s observations, the Lagoon Nebula has been photographed and analysed by many telescopes and astronomers all over the world.
The observations were taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 between February 12-18, 2018.
Credit: NASA, ESA, Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
NASA's Space to Ground: Double Dragons | Week of July 22, 2022
European Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti of Italy Completes Her First Spacewalk!
NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station. Expedition 67 Commander Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos and Flight Engineer Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency (ESA) concluded their spacewalk at 5:55 p.m. EDT, July 21, 2022, after 7 hours and 5 minutes.
Artemyev and Cristoforetti completed all but one of their major objectives, which included the deployment of 10 nanosatellites designed to collect radio electronics data during the spacewalk and installing platforms and workstation adapter hardware near the 37-foot-long manipulator system mounted to Nauka. The spacewalkers also relocated the arm’s external control panel and replaced a protective window on the arm’s camera unit. The last planned activity, to extend a Strela telescoping boom from Zarya to Poisk, will be completed on a future spacewalk.
Additional spacewalks are planned to continue outfitting the European robotic arm and to activate Nauka’s airlock for future spacewalks. The work on the European robotic arm will be used to move spacewalkers and payloads around the Russian segment of the station.
This was the sixth spacewalk in Artemyev’s career, and the first for Cristoforetti. It was the sixth spacewalk at the station in 2022 and the 251st spacewalk for space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.
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.
Tour Stunning Hubble Nebulae Images | NASA Goddard
Over the years, the Hubble Space Telescope has taken hundreds of images of different kinds of incredible nebulae in our universe.
A nebula is a giant cloud of dust and gas in space. There are different types of nebulae, ranging from sites where stars are being born under gravitational pressures to expanding gaseous remnants thrown off by dying stars.
Hubble Senior Project Scientist, Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, takes us on a tour of some of our universe’s most incredible Nebulae.
Ground-based image taken by Akira Fujii, zoom in on the star formation region of the Orion Nebula observed by Martin Kornmesser
Zoom in to the Cat’s Eye Nebula:
NASA, ESA, HEIC, NOT, Digitized Sky Survey 2, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) and Romano Corradi (Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, Spain)
Music Credits:
“Magic Mars” by Bernhard Hering [GEMA], Martin Wester [GEMA], Matthias Kruger [GEMA], via Ed.Berlin Production Music / Universal Production Music GmbH [GEMA], and Universal Production Music
FriendsofNASA.org: NASA’s Artemis I mission is targeted to launch no earlier than Aug. 29, 2022.
Artemis I will be the first integrated test of NASA’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the ground systems at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The first in a series of increasingly complex missions, Artemis I will be an uncrewed flight test that will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration, and demonstrate our commitment and capability to extend human existence to the Moon and beyond.
During this flight, the spacecraft will launch on the most powerful rocket in the world and fly farther than any spacecraft built for humans has ever flown. It will travel 280,000 miles from Earth, thousands of miles beyond the Moon over the course of about a four to six-week mission. Orion will stay in space longer than any ship for astronauts has done without docking to a space station and return home faster and hotter than ever before.
Wispy, noctilucent clouds are pictured blanketing the Earth's horizon as the International Space Station orbited 263 miles above the Sea of Okhotsk. Noctilucent clouds, or night shining clouds, are the highest clouds in Earth's atmosphere, composed of tiny water ice crystals, and are only visible when the sun is below the planet's horizon illuminating them.
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.
The Orion Nebula: Crossfade Between Visible & Infrared Light Images | ESO
This sequence compares an infrared 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 with a picture of the same part of the sky imaged in visible light with the WFI camera on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope. The longer wavelength light detected by HAWK-I can penetrate the dusty regions of the nebula and expose many young stars that are normally invisible and also reveal many curious features created by very young stars and the jets that they expel.
Credits: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/H. Drass/Igor Chekalin. Music: Johan B. Monell
Flight Through the Orion Nebula: Visible and Infrared Light | Hubble
This visualization explores the Orion Nebula using both visible and infrared light. The sequence begins with a wide-field view of the sky showing the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, then zooms down to the scale of the Orion Nebula. The visible light observation (from the Hubble Space Telescope) and the infrared light observation (from the Spitzer Space Telescope) are compared first in two-dimensional images, and then in three-dimensional models.
As the camera flies into the star-forming region, the sequence cross-fades back and forth between the visible and infrared views. The glowing gaseous landscape has been illuminated and carved by the high energy radiation and strong stellar winds from the massive hot stars in the central cluster. The infrared observations generally show cooler temperature gas at a deeper layer of the nebula that extends well beyond the visible image. In addition, the infrared showcases many faint stars that shine primarily at longer wavelengths. The higher resolution visible observations show finer details including the wispy bow shocks and tadpole-shaped proplyds. In this manner, this video illustrates the contrasting features uncovered by multi-wavelength astronomy.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and F. Summers, G. Bacon, Z. Levay, J. DePasquale, L. Hustak, L. Frattare, M. Robberto (STScI), R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC), M. Kornmesser (ESA), A. Fujii
Acknowledgement: R. Gendler
Music: “Dvorak – Serenade for Strings Op22 in E Major larghetto”, performed by The Advent Chamber Orchestra, CC BY-SA
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.
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
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.
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
.jpg)
L.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)