Friends of NASA

Sunday, June 04, 2023

Galaxy Messier 85: The Darkness Within? | Hubble Space Telescope

Galaxy Messier 85: The Darkness Within? | Hubble Space Telescope

This atmospheric image shows a galaxy named Messier 85, captured in all its delicate, hazy glory by the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope. Messier 85 slants through the constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenice’s Hair), and lies around 50 million light-years from Earth. It was first discovered by Charles Messier’s colleague Pierre Méchain in 1781, and is included in the Messier catalogue of celestial objects.

Messier 85 is intriguing—its properties lie somewhere between those of a lenticular and an elliptical galaxy, and it appears to be interacting with two of its neighbors: the beautiful spiral NGC 4394, located out of frame to the upper left, and the small elliptical MCG 3-32-38, located out of frame to the center bottom.

The galaxy contains some 400 billion stars, most of which are very old. However, the central region hosts a population of relatively young stars of just a few billion years in age; these stars are thought to have formed in a late burst of star formation, likely triggered as Messier 85 merged with another galaxy over four billion years ago. Messier 85 has a further potentially strange quality. Almost every galaxy is thought to have a supermassive black hole at its center, but from measurements of the velocities of stars in this galaxy, it is unclear whether Messier 85 contains such a black hole.

This image combines infrared, visible and ultraviolet observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3.

Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble & NASA, R. O'Connell

Release Date: Feb. 4, 2019

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Hubble #Galaxies #Galaxy #Messier85 #NGC4394 #MCG33238 #EllipticalGalaxy #ComaBerenices #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescope #ESA #Europe #STScI #GSFC #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

Saturday, June 03, 2023

Shenzhou-15 Crew Exits Spacecraft in Inner Mongolia | China Space Station

Shenzhou-15 Crew Exits Spacecraft in Inner Mongolia | China Space Station

The Shenzhou-15 crew, Junlong Fei (费俊龙, commander), Qingming Deng (邓清明) and Lu Zhang (张陆), was successfully recovered from their spacecraft at the Dongfeng landing site, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, on June 3, 2023, at 22:34 UTC (June 4, at 06:34 China Standard Time). They were the third crew to complete a six-month long-duration mission aboard the China Space Station.

Credit: China National Space Administration (CNSA)/China Central Television (CCTV)

Acknowledgment: SciNews

Duration: 4 minutes

Release Date: June 3, 2023

#NASA #Space #China #中国 #Earth #CSS #ChinaSpaceStation #天和核心舱 #Shenzhou15 #神舟十五 #Taikonauts #Astronauts #Commander #FeiJunlong #ZhangLu #DengQingming #CNSA #CMSA #国家航天局 #MicrogravityExperiments #SpaceResearch #SpaceLaboratory #Science #Technology #HumanSpaceflight #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Shenzhou-15 Crew Landing in Inner Mongolia | China Space Station

Shenzhou-15 Crew Landing in Inner Mongolia | China Space Station

[No audio] The Shenzhou-15 crew spacecraft successfully landed at the Dongfeng landing site, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, on June 3, 2023, at 22:34 UTC (June 4, at 06:34 China Standard Time). The Shenzhou-15 spacecraft transported the fourth crew of three astronauts, Junlong Fei (费俊龙, commander), Qingming Deng (邓清明) and Lu Zhang (张陆), from the third six-month mission on the China Space Station.

Credit: China National Space Administration (CNSA)/China Central Television (CCTV)

Acknowledgment: SciNews

Duration: 3 minutes, 22 seconds

Release Date: June 3, 2023

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón's Poem for Jupiter's Ocean Moon Europa | NASA

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón's Poem for Jupiter's Ocean Moon Europa | NASA

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón reads her poem for the Europa Clipper mission during an event with NASA, Thursday, June 1, 2023, in the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress in Washington.

The original poem, entitled “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa,” connects two water worlds— Earth and Europa. The poem will be engraved on a plaque carried aboard the Europa Clipper spacecraft as part of NASA’s "Message in a Bottle" campaign, which invites people around the world to sign their names to the poem that will journey to another world. Participants’ names will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.89 billion kilometers) aboard the Europa Clipper spacecraft, set to launch in October 2024, on its voyage to Jupiter and its moons.

Read the poem in Spanish/vea en español [Adobe PDF]:

https://europa.nasa.gov/internal_resources/449/poem-pdf-test.pdf

The commissioned work was released on June 1, 2023, for NASA’s "Message in a Bottle" campaign, which invites people around the world to sign their names to the poem that will journey to another world. Participants’ names will travel 1.8 billion miles, or 2.89 billion kilometers, aboard the Europa Clipper spacecraft on its voyage to Jupiter and its moons.

The mission is set to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in October 2024, and reach orbit around Jupiter by 2030. Over several years, it will conduct multiple flybys of Europa, gathering detailed measurements to determine if the moon has conditions suitable for life.

Read the poem, send your name to Europa, and create your own customizable souvenir artwork: https://go.nasa.gov/MessageInABottle

For more information on the Europa Clipper mission, visit: https://europa.nasa.gov

Image Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber

Release Date: June 2, 2023

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Poem #Poetry #AdaLimón #PoetLaureate #Planet #Jupiter #Europa #Moon #Ocean #Astrobiology #Biosignatures #Habitability #EuropaClipper #Spacecraft #SolarSystem #SpaceExploration #MSFC #JPL #Caltech #JHUAPL #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

A Poem for Jupiter's Ocean Moon Europa by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón | NASA

A Poem for Jupiter's Ocean Moon Europa by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón | NASA

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón wrote an original poem dedicated to NASA’s Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter's moon Europa, which is believed to harbor a vast ocean beneath its icy surface.

Narrated by Limón herself, the poem is entitled “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa” and it connects two water worlds—Earth, yearning to reach out and understand what makes a world habitable, and Europa, waiting with secrets yet to be explored. The poem will be engraved on a plaque carried aboard the Europa Clipper spacecraft.

Read the poem, send your name to Europa, and create your own customizable souvenir artwork: https://go.nasa.gov/MessageInABottle

For more information on the mission, visit: https://europa.nasa.gov

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Duration: 1 minute, 43 seconds

Release Date: June 1, 2023

Pluto's Largest Moon Charon | NASA's New Horizons Mission

Pluto's Largest Moon Charon | NASA's New Horizons Mission

A darkened and mysterious north polar region known to some as Mordor Macula caps this high-resolution view of Charon, Pluto's largest moon. It was captured by NASA's New Horizons Mission near the spacecraft's closest approach on July 14, 2015. The combined blue, red, and infrared data was processed to enhance colors and follow variations in Charon's surface properties with a resolution of about 2.9 kilometers (1.8 miles). A stunning image of Charon's Pluto-facing hemisphere, it also features a clear view of an apparently moon-girdling belt of fractures and canyons that seems to separate smooth southern plains from varied northern terrain. Charon is 1,214 kilometers (754 miles) across. This is about 1/10th the size of planet Earth but a whopping 1/2 the diameter of Pluto itself, and makes it the largest satellite relative to its parent body in the Solar System.

New Horizons successfully pulled off the first exploration of the Pluto system in July 2015, followed by the farthest flyby in history—and first close-up look at a Kuiper Belt object (KBO)—with its flight past Arrokoth on New Year’s Day 2019. From its unique perch in the Kuiper Belt, New Horizons is making observations that cannot be made from anywhere else; even the stars look different from the spacecraft’s point of view.

As New Horizons team members use giant telescopes like the Japanese Subaru observatory to scan the skies for another potential (and long-shot) KBO flyby target, New Horizons itself remains healthy, collecting data on the solar wind and space environment in the Kuiper Belt, other KBOs, and distant planets like Uranus and Neptune.

Follow New Horizons on its historic voyage at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu

Image Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins University/APL, Southwest Research Institute

Capture Date: July 14, 2015

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #NewHorizonsMission #Pluto #DwarfPlanet #Moon #Charon #NewHorizonsSpacecraft #JPL #SolarSystem #MSFC #JohnsHopkinsUniversity #JHUAPL #SwRI #SouthwestResearchInstitute #UnitedStates #SolarSystem #SpaceExploration #Technology #Engineering #Robotics #STEM #Education

Shenzhou-15 Crew Returning to Earth after 6-Month Mission | China Space Station

Shenzhou-15 Crew Returning to Earth after 6-Month Mission | China Space Station

The Shenzhou-15 crew will return to Earth on June 4, 2023, having completed all their scheduled tasks, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said on Friday. The trio, consisting of commander Fei Junlong, Deng Qingming, and Zhang Lu, started their mission with fanfare. Their time at the China Space Station has earned them even more respect.

Credit: China Global Television Network (CGTN)

Duration: 1 minute, 9 seconds

Release Date: June 3, 2023

#NASA #Space #China #中国 #Earth #MicrogravityExperiments #SpaceResearch #SpaceLaboratory #CSS #ChinaSpaceStation #天和核心舱 ##Shenzhou15 #Shenzhou16 #Taikonauts #Astronauts #Commander #FeiJunlong #ZhangLu #DengQingming #CNSA #CMSA #国家航天局 #Science #Technology #HumanSpaceflight #Infographics #STEM #Education #HD #Video

NASA SpaceX CRS-28 Falcon 9 & Dragon Pre-Launch | Kennedy Space Center

NASA SpaceX CRS-28 Falcon 9 & Dragon Pre-Launch | Kennedy Space Center

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon spacecraft atop is on the pad at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 2, 2023. SpaceX is scheduled to launch its 28th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station for NASA. Launch is scheduled for no earlier than June 3 at 12:35 p.m. EDT. Dragon will deliver approximately 7,000 pounds of crew supplies, equipment, and science experiments to the orbiting laboratory. Dragon is also carrying two new roll-out solar arrays that will be extracted from its unpressurized trunk about two days after its docking then staged on a pallet attached to the station’s starboard-side truss structure.

The Dragon 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.

Credit: Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX)

Image Date: June 2, 2023

#NASA #Space #ISS #Earth #SpaceX #Falcon9Rocket #DragonSpacecraft #CRS28 #CommercialResupplyServices #ElonMusk #GwynneShotwell #Astronauts #Cosmonauts #HumanSpaceflight #Technology #Engineering #Spaceport #CapeCanaveral #Florida #UnitedStates #Russia #UAE #InternationalCooperation #STEM #Education

Friday, June 02, 2023

Axiom Space Ax-2 Mission Highlights | International Space Station

Axiom Space Ax-2 Mission Highlights | International Space Station

The astronauts of the Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2) have returned to Earth from a successful 10-day mission in space. Here we show highlights of the second all-private astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

The Ax-2 crew includes Axiom Space’s Director of Human Spaceflight and Commander Peggy Whitson (USA), a former NASA astronaut, Pilot John Shoffner (USA), and Mission Specialists Ali Alqarni and Rayyanah Barnawi, from the Saudi Space Commission (SSC). Both are members of the inaugural Saudi national astronaut class.

Learn more about Ax-2 at https://axiomspace.com/ax2

"Axiom offers end-to-end missions to the International Space Station today while privately developing its successor—a permanent commercial destination in Earth’s orbit that will sustain human growth off the planet and bring untold benefits back home."

More information about Axiom can be found at: www.axiomspace.com

Credit: Axiom Space

Duration: 2 minutes, 47 seconds

Release Date: June 2, 2023

#NASA #Space #ISS #Axiom #AxiomSpace #Ax2Mission #Ax2 #AX2Crew #Astronauts #PeggyWhitson #JohnShoffner #AliAlqarni #RayyanahBarnawi #SpaceX #CrewDragon #Science #MicrogravityResearch #SpaceLaboratory #InternationalCooperation #UAE #SaudiArabia #SaudiSpaceCommission #Cosmonauts #Russia #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

The Axiom Space Mission 2 Crew Return to Earth | This Week @NASA

The Axiom Space Mission 2 Crew Return to Earth | This Week @NASA

Week of June 2, 2023: Axiom Mission 2 crew members return to Earth, discussing unidentified anomalous phenomena, and a water plume off of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus . . . a few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA!

Video Credits: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Video Producer: Haley Reed

Video Editor: Shane Apple

Narrator: Jesse Carpenter

Audio support: Eric Land

Duration: 2 minutes, 25 seconds

Release Date: June 2, 2023

New Planet Mars Images | NASA's Curiosity & Perseverance Rovers | JPL

New Planet Mars Images | NASA's Curiosity & Perseverance Rovers | JPL

MSL - sol 3841

MSL - sol 3842

Mars2020 - sols 721-729

Mars2020 - sol 805

MSL - sol 3845

MSL - sol 3843

MSL - sol 3842

Mars2020 - sol 806

Support FriendsofNASA.org

Celebrating 10 Years+ on Mars! (2012-2023)

Mission Name: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)

Rover Name: Curiosity

Main Job: To determine if Mars was ever habitable to microbial life.

Launch: Nov. 6, 2011

Landing Date: Aug. 5, 2012, Gale Crater, Mars

Celebrating 2+ Years on Mars (2021-2023)

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

Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State University/Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS)

Processing: Kevin M. Gill

Image Release Dates: May 28-June 1, 2023

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Mars #RedPlanet #Planet #Astrobiology #Geology #CuriosityRover #MSL #MountSharp #GaleCrater #PerseveranceRover #Mars2020 #IngenuityHelicopter #JezeroCrater #Robotics #Technology #Engineering #JPL #Caltech #ASU #MSSS #UnitedStates #MoonToMars #CitizenScience #KevinGill #STEM #Education

Views of Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 5068 | Webb Telescope

Views of Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 5068 | Webb Telescope

This video highlights two views of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 5068 as seen by the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope. The galaxy’s bright central bar is visible in the upper left of this image. NGC 5068 lies around 17 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

With its ability to peer through the gas and dust enshrouding newborn stars, the Webb is the perfect telescope to explore the processes governing star formation. Stars and planetary systems are born amongst swirling clouds of gas and dust that are opaque to visible-light observatories like Hubble or the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT). The keen vision at infrared wavelengths of two of Webb’s instruments—MIRI and NIRCam—allowed astronomers to see right through the gargantuan clouds of dust in NGC 5068 and capture the processes of star formation as they happened. Both of these views are highlighted in this video.

Credit: European Space Agency/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST Team

Duration: 30 seconds

Release Date: June 2, 2023

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Science #JWST #Stars #StarClusters #Galaxies #Galaxy #NGC5068 #Barred #Spiral #Virgo #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescope #MIRI #NIRCam #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #CSA #Canada #Europe #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Zoom into Star Clusters of Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 5068 | Webb Telescope

Zoom into Star Clusters of Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 5068 | Webb Telescope

This video takes the viewers on a journey to the barred spiral galaxy NGC 5068, whose bright central bar is visible in the upper left of this image. NGC 5068 lies around 17 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

With its ability to peer through the gas and dust enshrouding newborn stars, the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope is the perfect telescope to explore the processes governing star formation. Stars and planetary systems are born amongst swirling clouds of gas and dust that are opaque to visible-light observatories like Hubble or the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT). The keen vision at infrared wavelengths of two of Webb’s instruments—MIRI and NIRCam—allowed astronomers to see right through the gargantuan clouds of dust in NGC 5068 and capture the processes of star formation as they happened. This image combines the capabilities of these two instruments, providing a truly unique look at the composition of NGC 5068.

Credit: European Space Agency/Webb, NASA, CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST Team, Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, DSS, N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb), E. Slawik, N. Risinger, D. de Martin (ESA/Webb), M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)

Duration: 1 minute

Release Date: June 2, 2023

Pan of Star Clusters in Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 5068 | Webb Telescope

Pan of Star Clusters in Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 5068 | Webb Telescope

This video features a new image of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 5068 as seen by the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope. The galaxy’s bright central bar is visible in the upper left of this image. NGC 5068 lies around 17 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

With its ability to peer through the gas and dust enshrouding newborn stars, Webb is the perfect telescope to explore the processes governing star formation. Stars and planetary systems are born amongst swirling clouds of gas and dust that are opaque to visible-light observatories like Hubble or the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT). The keen vision at infrared wavelengths of two of Webb’s instruments—MIRI and NIRCam—allowed astronomers to see right through the gargantuan clouds of dust in NGC 5068 and capture the processes of star formation as they happened. This image combines the capabilities of these two instruments, providing a truly unique look at the composition of NGC 5068.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST Team

Duration: 30 seconds

Release Date: June 2, 2023

Star Clusters in Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 5068 | James Webb Space Telescope

Star Clusters in Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 5068 | James Webb Space Telescope

A delicate tracery of dust and bright star clusters threads across this image from the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope. The bright tendrils of gas and stars belong to the barred spiral galaxy NGC 5068, whose bright central bar is visible in the upper left of this image. NGC 5068 lies around 17 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

Image Description: A close-in image of a spiral galaxy, showing its core and part of a spiral arm. Thousands upon thousands of tiny stars that make it up can be seen, most dense in a whitish bar that forms its core. Clumps and filaments of dust form an almost skeletal structure that follows the twist of the galaxy and its spiral arm. Large, glowing bubbles of red gas are hidden in the dust.

With its ability to peer through the gas and dust enshrouding newborn stars, Webb is the perfect telescope to explore the processes governing star formation. Stars and planetary systems are born amongst swirling clouds of gas and dust that are opaque to observations in visible light, like many from Hubble or the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT). The keen vision at infrared wavelengths of two of Webb’s instruments—MIRI and NIRCam—allowed astronomers to see right through the gargantuan clouds of dust in NGC 5068 and capture the processes of star formation as they happened. This image combines the capabilities of these two instruments, providing a truly unique look at the composition of NGC 5068.

This portrait of NGC 5068 is part of a campaign to create an astronomical treasure trove, a repository of observations of star formation in nearby galaxies. These observations are particularly valuable to astronomers for two reasons. The first is because star formation underpins so many fields in astronomy, from the physics of the tenuous plasma that lies between stars to the evolution of entire galaxies. By observing the formation of stars in nearby galaxies, astronomers hope to kick-start major scientific advances with some of the first available data from Webb.

The second reason is that Webb’s observations build on other studies using telescopes including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and some of the world’s most capable ground-based observatories. Webb collected images of 19 nearby star-forming galaxies which astronomers could then combine with catalogs from Hubble of 10,000 star clusters, spectroscopic mapping of 20,000 star-forming emission nebulae from ESO's VLT, and observations of 12,000 dark, dense molecular clouds identified by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). These observations span the electromagnetic spectrum and give astronomers an unprecedented opportunity to piece together the minutiae of star formation.

Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST Team

Release Date: June 2, 2023

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Science #JWST #Stars #StarClusters #Galaxies #Galaxy #NGC5068 #Barred #Spiral #Virgo #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescope #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #CSA #Canada #Europe #STEM #Education

NASA's Space to Ground: Storm Watch | Week of June 2, 2023

NASA's Space to Ground: Storm Watch | Week of June 2, 2023

NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what is happening aboard the International Space Station. A Dragon cargo craft is counting down to its liftoff to the International Space Station on Saturday, June 3, 2023, as two NASA astronauts get ready for next week’s spacewalk. Meanwhile, the Expedition 69 crew is keeping up with its human research, robotics, and lab maintenance activities.

Expedition 69 Crew (June 2023)

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.

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

Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM)

Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Duration: 2 minutes, 50 seconds

Release Date: June 1, 2023

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