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.
Pan of Dark Nebula NGC 1333: A Cauldron of Star Birth | Hubble's 33rd Anniversary
Astronomers are celebrating the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope’s 33rd launch anniversary with an ethereal photo of a nearby star-forming region, NGC 1333. The nebula is in the Perseus molecular cloud, and is located approximately 960 light-years away.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), N. Bartmann (ESA/Hubble)
Dark Nebula NGC 1333: A Cauldron of Star Birth | Hubble's 33rd Anniversary
Astronomers are celebrating the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope’s 33rd launch anniversary with an ethereal photo of a nearby star-forming region, NGC 1333. The nebula is in the Perseus molecular cloud, and is located approximately 960 light-years away.
Hubble’s colourful view, showcasing its unique capability to obtain images in light from ultraviolet to near-infrared, unveils an effervescent cauldron of glowing gases and pitch-black dust stirred up and blown around by several hundred newly forming stars embedded within the dark cloud. Even then, Hubble just scratches the surface; most of the star-birthing firestorm is hidden behind clouds of fine dust—essentially soot—that are thicker toward the bottom of the image. The black areas of the image are not empty space, but are filled with obscuring dust.
Image Description: A vertical image with colors ranging from blue at the top to golden in the middle and red at the bottom. At the top, a bright blue star is illuminating surrounding clouds of gas. At the center of the image, a brighter yellow star illuminates surrounding gas. The bottom of the image is noticeably darker than the rest, with the exception of a dramatic splash of red.
To capture this image, Hubble peered through a veil of dust on the edge of a giant cloud of cold molecular hydrogen—the raw material for fabricating new stars and planets under the relentless pull of gravity. The image underscores the fact that star formation is a messy process in a rambunctious Universe.
Ferocious stellar winds, likely from the bright blue star at the top of the image, are blowing through a curtain of dust. The fine dust scatters the starlight at blue wavelengths.
Farther down, another bright super-hot star shines through filaments of obscuring dust, looking like the Sun shining through scattered clouds. A diagonal string of fainter accompanying stars looks reddish because the dust is filtering their starlight, allowing more of the red light to get through.
The bottom of the picture presents a keyhole peek deep into the dark nebula. Hubble captures the reddish glow of ionized hydrogen. It looks like the finale of a fireworks display, with several overlapping events. This is caused by pencil-thin jets shooting out from newly forming stars outside the frame of view. These stars are surrounded by circumstellar discs, which may eventually produce planetary systems, and powerful magnetic fields that direct two parallel beams of hot gas deep into space, like a double lightsaber from science fiction films. They sculpt patterns on the hydrogen cocoon, like laser lightshow tracings. The jets are a star’s birth announcement.
This view offers an example of the time when our own Sun and planets formed inside such a dusty molecular cloud, 4.6 billion years ago. Our Sun did not form in isolation but was instead embedded inside a mosh pit of frantic stellar birth, perhaps even more energetic and massive than NGC 1333.
Dark Nebula NGC 1333: A Cauldron of Star Birth | Hubble's 33rd Anniversary
NASA is celebrating the Hubble Space Telescope’s 33rd birthday with an ethereal image of a nearby star-forming region, NGC 1333. Located approximately 960 light-years away in the Perseus interstellar cloud, Hubble’s colorful view unveils glowing gasses and pitch-black dust stirred up, colliding, and blown around by several hundred forming stars within the dark cloud.
The Hellespontus Montes is a rugged mountain range located on the western rim of one of the largest impact basins in the Solar System—Hellas Basin. The 7-kilometer depth of Hellas and its location in the Southern Hemisphere form an active atmospheric system that directly impacts local landscape evolution. This image was captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) using the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument. MRO has orbited the Red Planet since 2006.
Hellespontus has a large accumulation of sand dunes and other wind-created bedforms that have been migrating on a continual basis since HiRISE began imaging Mars. A dune's steepest area, called a "slip face," indicates the down-wind side of the dune and its migration direction as driven by local winds. At this location, there are many dunes influenced by eastward winds that were draining into Hellas. Meanwhile, other locations show that migration had shifted towards the opposite direction to the west. In certain cases, we see these opposing dune directions in proximity. The complex patterns are not due to winds that are constant in magnitude or direction, but rather they wax and wane over the course of the Martian.
“For 17 years, MRO has been revealing Mars to us as no one had seen it before,” said the mission’s project scientist, Rich Zurek of JPL.
More About MRO
JPL manages MRO for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Caltech, in Pasadena, manages JPL for NASA. The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado.
Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Achieves Milestones | NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
This enhanced color image of NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard the Perseverance Mars rover on April 16, 2023, the 766th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission. This is the clearest view of the rotorcraft since its first flight. Ingenuity completed its 50th flight on April 13, 2023. The helicopter's first flight on Mars was two years ago on April 19, 2021.
This picture was taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard the Perseverance rover. At the time the image was taken, the rover was about 75 feet (23 meters) away.
Mission Name: Mars 2020
Rover Name: Perseverance
Main Job: Seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for possible return to Earth.
Mars Helicopter (Ingenuity)
Launch: July 30, 2020
Landing: Feb. 18, 2021, Jezero Crater, Mars
For more information on NASA's Mars missions, visit: mars.nasa.gov
NASA's Espacio A Tierra | Empacando: 14 de abril 2023
Espacio a Tierra, la versión en español de las cápsulas Space to Ground de la NASA, te informa semanalmente de lo que está sucediendo en la Estación Espacial Internacional.
Building Blocks for Life to Survive on Saturn's Moon Titan | NASA Goddard
Titan is an icy moon with hydrocarbon lakes near the north pole and clouds made of methane. Learn what the discovery of one chemical on Titan means for life in the solar system.
Russian Cosmonauts on Spacewalk | International Space Station
Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin of Russia spent seven hours and 54 minutes outside the International Space Station today. Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin concluded their spacewalk on Tuesday, April 19, 2023, at 5:35 a.m. EDT after seven hours and 55 minutes.
Prokopyev and Petelin completed their major objectives, which included relocating a radiator from the Rassvet module to the Nauka science module with assistance from European robotic arm operator cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.
This was the fourth spacewalk in Prokopyev’s career, and the second for Petelin. It is the third spacewalk at the station in 2023 and the 260th spacewalk for space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.
The two Roscosmos cosmonauts will also conduct a spacewalk on Tuesday, April 25, to relocate an experiment airlock from Rassvet to Nauka.
An additional spacewalk is planned on Thursday, May 4, to deploy the radiator on Nauka and connect mechanical, electrical, and hydraulic lines.
Station Commander: Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos (Russia)
Roscosmos (Russia): Flight Engineers Dmitri Petelin & Andrey Fedyaev
Flight Engineer Sultan Alneyadi of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
NASA: Flight Engineers Frank Rubio, Stephen Bowen, Warren Hoburg
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)
Acknowledgement: China Global Television Network (CGTN)
Russian Soyuz Crew Ship & Space Modules over Earth | International Space Station
Three Roscosmos components on the International Space Station were photographed by United Arab Emirates astronaut and Expedition 69 Flight Engineer Sultan Alneyadi while orbiting 263 miles above a partly cloudy northern Europe. At left, from top to bottom, are the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module's forward port, the Prichal docking module, and the Soyuz MS-23 crew ship.
Station Commander: Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos (Russia)
Roscosmos (Russia): Flight Engineers Dmitri Petelin & Andrey Fedyaev
Flight Engineer Sultan Alneyadi of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
NASA: Flight Engineers Frank Rubio, Stephen Bowen, Warren Hoburg
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.
Planet Jupiter & Ganymede—Largest Moon in Our Solar System | NASA Juno
Ganymede (visible in the top-left corner) is the largest natural satellite of Jupiter as well as the biggest moon in our Solar System. Ganymede is also the largest Solar System object without an atmosphere, despite being the only moon of the Solar System with a magnetic field. Like Saturn's moon Titan, Ganymede is larger than planet Mercury. However, Ganymede has less surface gravity than Mercury, Io or the Moon.
Goal: Understand origin and evolution of Jupiter, look for solid planetary core, map magnetic field, measure water and ammonia in deep atmosphere, observe auroras.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) manages the Juno mission for NASA. The mission's principal investigator is Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The mission is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill
Wide-field View of Galaxies NGC 4298 & NGC 4302 (ground-based image)
This ground-based image shows the two galaxies NGC 4298 and NGC 4302 (at center) and their surroundings. They look like miniatures in this view. Distance: 55 million light-years
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), Digitized Sky Survey 2
Zoom-in on Galaxies NGC 4298 & NGC 4302 | Hubble & Ground Views
This video starts with a view of the night sky as seen from the ground and zooms in onto the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. A further zoom shows the two galaxies NGC 4298 and NGC 4302 as they are seen by Hubble. Distance: 55 million light-years
This video pans over NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope observations of the two galaxies known as NGC 4298 and NGC 4302. Distance: 55 million light-years away
Galaxy NGC 4298 is seen almost face-on, allowing us to see its spiral arms and the blue patches of ongoing star formation and young stars. In the edge-on disc of NGC 4302 huge swathes of dust are responsible for the mottled brown patterns, but a burst of blue to the side of the galaxy is indicating a region of extremely vigorous star formation.
A Close Galactic Pair: Galaxies NGC 4302 & NGC 4298 | Hubble
This image displays the galaxies NGC 4302—seen edge-on—and NGC 4298, both located 55 million light-years away. The galaxy NGC 4298 is seen almost face-on, allowing us to see its spiral arms and the blue patches of ongoing star formation and young stars. In the edge-on disc of NGC 4302 huge swathes of dust are responsible for the mottled brown patterns, but a burst of blue to the left side of the galaxy indicates a region of extremely vigorous star formation.
The image is a mosaic of four separate captures from Hubble, taken between January 2 and 22, 2017, that have been stitched together to give this amazing field of view. Two different types of light emitted by the galaxies—visible and near-infrared—have been combined to give a rich and colorful image. This light was captured by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, one of the telescope’s most advanced imaging instruments.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency, and M. Mutchler of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
Moscow Celebrates First Film Shot in Space Ahead of Russia Premiere | SCMP
Russian filmmakers are promoting what is touted as the first movie to be shot in space ahead of its release on April 20, 2023. Filmed on board the International Space Station in 2021, The Challenge ("Vyzov" in Russian) tells the story of a female doctor who must go into orbit to save the life of a cosmonaut.
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.
Expedition 69 Astronauts Discuss Life in Space | International Space Station
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 69 Flight Engineer Frank Rubio of NASA discussed life and work aboard the orbital outpost during an in-flight interview April 18, 2023, with Medscape Cardiology. Following this event, Expedition 69 Flight Engineer Woody Hoburg of NASA discussed life board the space station during an in-flight interview with KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh.
Rubio and Hoburg are in the midst of long-duration missions living and working aboard the microgravity laboratory to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies for future human and robotic exploration missions. Such research benefits people on Earth and lays the groundwork for future human exploration through the agency’s Artemis missions, which will send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future expeditions to Mars.
NASA Astronaut Frank Rubio Official NASA Biography
Station Commander: Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos (Russia)
Roscosmos (Russia): Flight Engineers Dmitri Petelin & Andrey Fedyaev
Flight Engineer Sultan Alneyadi of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
NASA: Flight Engineers Frank Rubio, Stephen Bowen, Warren Hoburg
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.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
