The Merope Nebula: NGC 1435

The Merope Nebula: NGC 1435

The Merope Nebula (also known as Tempel's Nebula and NGC 1435) is a diffuse reflection nebula in the Pleiades star cluster, surrounding the 4th magnitude star Merope. The nebula surrounds the star Merope (23 Tauri), after which it gets its name. Merope is a blue-white subgiant 630 times more luminous than our Sun. It is also more than four times larger and has a mass about 4.5 times solar. It lies at an approximate distance of 360 light years (110 parsecs) from Earth. It was discovered on October 19, 1859 by the German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel. 

Image Technical Details

Optics: Phillips 24-inch RCOS Telescope

Camera: SBIG STL11000

Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Nebulae #Nebula #NGC1435 #MeropeNebula #TemplesNebula #ReflectionNebula #Star #Merope #23Tauri #Taurus #Constellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #UA #MountLemmonObservatory #Astrophotographer #AdamBlock #Arizona #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

How to Safely View an Annular Eclipse | NASA Goddard

How to Safely View an Annular Eclipse | NASA Goddard

On Oct. 14, 2023, an annular solar eclipse will cross North, Central, and South America. Visible in parts of the United States, Mexico, and many countries in South and Central America, millions of people in the Western Hemisphere can experience this eclipse.

Eclipses are a wonderful experience, but it is important to carefully follow safety procedures. During an annular eclipse, there is no period of totality when the Moon completely blocks the Sun. Therefore, it is never safe to look directly at the annular eclipse without proper eye protection specially designed for solar viewing. Do not use standard binoculars or telescopes to watch a solar eclipse without safe solar filters attached to the front of the device. Regular sunglasses are NOT safe for attempting to look directly at the Sun. 

To learn more about eclipses and eclipse safety visit: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eclipses/2023/oct-14-annular/safety/

View and download the eclipse map here: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5073

Video Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Producer: Beth Anthony (KBRwyle)

Duration: 1 minute

Release Date: Aug. 14, 2023

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Earth #Moon #Sun #SolarEclipses #SolarEclipse #AnnularEclipse #EclipseMap #Canada #Mexico #SouthAmerica #GSFC #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

NASA's Artemis III Crewed Moon Mission Rocket Upper Stage Rolls to Space Coast

NASA's Artemis III Crewed Moon Mission Rocket Upper Stage Rolls to Space Coast

A key piece of hardware for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the agency’s Artemis III Moon Mission is on its way to the Space Coast in Florida. The journey for the interim cryogenic propulsion stage (ICPS) began in Decatur, Alabama, where crews with United Launch Alliance first boxed it for shipment July 29, 2023, then loaded it onto ULA’s “RocketShip” barge July 31.

On the Artemis III Mission, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the surface of the Moon, paving the way for a long-term lunar presence and serving as a steppingstone on the way to Mars. 

The barge will ferry the SLS flight hardware down the Mississippi River, into the Gulf of Mexico, then around the Florida peninsula to Cape Canaveral. Once it arrives at ULA’s facility in Florida near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the ICPS will undergo final testing and checkouts ahead of the crewed Artemis III mission. The ICPS is the in-space propulsion stage of the SLS rocket, giving NASA’s Orion spacecraft and Artemis astronauts inside it the big push they need to journey all the way to the Moon for a lunar landing. The ICPS for Artemis III is the last of its kind as missions beginning with Artemis IV will use the SLS B1B configuration that includes the more powerful Exploration Upper Stage.

Watch this video to learn more about the preparations for its waterway journey. 

Learn more about the SLS rocket: nasa.gov/sls

Follow updates on the Artemis blog: 

https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/

Credit: NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)

Duration: 2 minutes, 55 seconds

Release Date: Aug. 9, 2023

#NASA #ESA #Space #Moon #ArtemisProgram #ArtemisIII #CrewedMission #Astronauts #NASASLS #SpaceLaunchSystem #ICPS #DeepSpace #MoonToMars #Science #SpaceEngineering #SpaceTechnology #HumanSpaceflight #SolarSystem #SpaceExploration #ULA #MSFC #Alabama #Barge #SpaceCoast #Florida #UnitedStates #Europe #History #STEM #Education #HD #Video

A Gentle Giant: Spiral Galaxy NGC 289 in Sculptor | Victor Blanco Telescope

A Gentle Giant: Spiral Galaxy NGC 289 in Sculptor | Victor Blanco Telescope

In the constellation Sculptor lies this large extended spiral galaxy called NGC 289. Despite being around 75 million light-years away, the light of NGC 289 is stunningly captured here by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the 4-meter Víctor M. Blanco Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab. The galaxy’s bluish arms reach through the expanse of space over 100,000 light-years, larger than the size of our own Milky Way. It is classified as a Type II Seyfert galaxy with its ripe collections of star formation and bright core, but it is also relatively faint. 

Studies have found that the galaxy contains large amounts of dark matter, which is a common feature of all galaxies with a low surface brightness. Dark matter is yet to be directly observed, which led the US Department of Energy to build the DECam in order to study the nature of dark matter. Since the conclusion of its survey, DECam has been available to other scientists for use, such as for this image of NGC 289.

Credit: Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO)/NOIRLab/U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)/National Science Foundation (NSF)/Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA)

Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), J. Miller (Gemini Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab), & M. Zamani (NSF’s NOIRLab)

Release Date: Aug. 9, 2023

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Stars #Galaxies #Galaxy #NGC289 #Type IISeyfert #DarkMatter #SpiralGalaxy #Sculptor #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #VictorBlancoTelescope #DECam #CerroTololoObservatory #NOIRLab #AURA #NSF #DOE #CTIO #CerroTololo #Chile #SouthAmerica #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

A Clear View of Galaxy Cluster 2MASX J05101744-4519179 in Pictor | Hubble

A Clear View of Galaxy Cluster 2MASX J05101744-4519179 in Pictor | Hubble

    

The truly massive galaxy cluster 2MASX J05101744-4519179 basks in the center of this image from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope. This distant galaxy cluster is a cosmic leviathan that is highly luminous at X-ray wavelengths. Observing galaxy clusters like 2MASX J05101744-4519179 can advance our understanding of the evolution and interactions of dark and luminous matter in galaxy clusters, and also reveals powerful gravitational ‘telescopes’ that magnify distant objects through gravitational lensing. The cluster 2MASX J05101744-4519179 is located in the constellation Pictor, around 2.6 billion light-years from Earth.

Image Description: A cluster of elliptical galaxies, visible as a crowd of oval shapes, each glowing around a bright core. The elliptical galaxy that appears largest by far is in the center, with the other largest galaxies close to it. They are surrounded by a variety of more distant stars and galaxies, in many shapes and sizes but all much smaller, on a dark background.

Two of Hubble’s instruments joined forces to create this image: Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Both are third-generation instruments that offer superb image quality and high sensitivity to astronomers studying a range of scientific questions. Both instruments provide images of wide areas of the night sky, but view slightly different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. WFC3 spans the spectrum from the ultraviolet through to visible light and the near-infrared. In contrast to the wide panchromatic coverage of WFC3, ACS was optimized for visible-light observations.

Getting the best from Hubble requires instruments to use built-in corrective optics to account for the effects of the primary mirror's aberration. During the construction of Hubble, a faulty instrument caused the primary mirror to be very precisely ground to slightly the wrong shape by only 0.0002 mm. A corrective instrument called COSTAR was developed to account for this tiny discrepancy, and later instruments like WFC3 and ACS were built with their own corrective optics.

Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble & NASA, H. Ebeling

Release Date: Aug. 14, 2023

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Galaxies #GalaxyClusters #GalaxyCluster #EllipticalGalaxies #2MASXJ051017444519179 #GravitationalLensing #Pictor #Constellation #Science #Astrophysics #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescope #ESA #Europe #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

Esto es lo que necesitas saber sobre moléculas orgánicas | NASA en Español

Esto es lo que necesitas saber sobre moléculas orgánicas | NASA en Español

Las moléculas orgánicas, los componentes básicos de la vida, se encuentran en todo el universo, incluyendo planetas, lunas y asteroides de nuestro propio sistema solar.

Pero, ¿qué significa realmente “orgánico”? Esto es lo que necesitas saber sobre las moléculas orgánicas:

Para obtener más información sobre la ciencia de la NASA, suscríbete al boletín semanal: https://www.nasa.gov/suscribete

Ciencia de la NASA: https://ciencia.nasa.gov/

Credit: NASA en Español/NASA 360

Duration: 1 minute, 43 seconds

Release Date: Aug. 11, 2023

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Astrobiology #Life #LaVida #MoléculasOrgánicas #nasaenespañol #estoesloquenecesitassaber #SolarSystem #Planets #Moons #Asteroids #Comets  #SpaceExploration #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #Animation #HD #Video

Perseid Meteor Fireball near Crestone, Colorado

Perseid Meteor Fireball near Crestone, Colorado

The Perseids, which peak during mid-August, are considered the best meteor shower of the year. With very fast and bright meteors, Perseids frequently leave long "wakes" of light and color behind them as they streak through Earth's atmosphere. The Perseids are one of the most plentiful showers (50-100 meteors seen per hour) and occur with warm summer nighttime weather, allowing sky watchers to easily view them.

Perseids are also known for their fireballs. Fireballs are larger explosions of light and color that are brighter and can persist longer than an average meteor streak. This is due to the fact that fireballs originate from larger particles of cometary material.

Image Credit & Copyright: Mike Lewinski

Image Date: August 13, 2023

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Earth #Planet #Atmosphere #Meteors #ThePerseids #Perseids #Meteor #Fireballs #Perseus #Constellation #Astrophotography #MikeLewinski #Astrophotographer #CitizenScience #SolarSystem #Crestone #Colorado #UnitedStates #NorthernHemisphere #STEM #Education

New Expedition 68 Crew Photos: Summer 2023 | International Space Station

New Expedition 68 Crew Photos: Summer 2023 | International Space Station

Russian Cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev (Station Commander) and NASA astronaut Woody Hoburg play chess

Astronauts Sultan Alneyadi (United Arab Emirates) and Woody Hoburg

Astronaut Sultan Alneyadi (United Arab Emirates) harvests leaves from thale cress plants

Astronaut Frank Rubio services stem cell samples

NASA astronaut & flight engineer Stephen Bowen wears personal protective equipment (PPE) shortly after entering the Northrop Grumman Cygnus space freighter.

NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen installs NanoRacks CubeSat deployer

Astronaut Frank Rubio performing a surface avatar session

NASA astronaut Woody Hoburg poses for a portrait in front of Cygnus hatch

Follow Expedition 69 updates here: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Expedition 69 Crew (August 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.

Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Image Dates: June 28-Aug. 8, 2023

#NASA #Space #Science #Earth #ISS #Astronauts #StephenBowen #FrankRubio #WoodyHoburg #SultanAlneyadi #UAE #Cosmonauts #Cosmonaut #SergeyProkopyev #Russia #Россия #Роскосмос #HumanSpaceflight #UnitedStates #InternationalCooperation #Expedition69 #STEM #Education

Reflection Nebula vdB 4 in Cassiopeia | Schulman Telescope

Reflection Nebula vdB 4 in Cassiopeia | Schulman Telescope

Blue reflection nebula van den Bergh (vdB) 4, also cataloged as LBN 604, is located in the constellation Cassiopeia. vdB 4 is associated with the very young open star cluster NGC 225 which is often called the Sailboat Cluster.

Distance: ~2,000 light years

Image Details

Optics: Schulman 32-inch RCOS Telescope

Camera: SBIG STX16803

Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona

Release Date: Oct. 1, 2012

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Nebulae #Nebula #vdB4 #ReflectionNebula #StarCluster #NGC225 #Cassiopeia #Constellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #UA #MountLemmonObservatory #SchulmanTelescope #Astrophotographer #AdamBlock #Arizona #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan | International Space Station

Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan | International Space Station

Lake Balkhash, one of the largest in Central Asia, spans roughly 6,500 square miles (17,000 square kilometers) in southeastern Kazakhstan. The western part of the lake holds fresh water whereas the eastern side of the basin is salty. The International Space Station soared 261 miles above as this image was taken.

Follow Expedition 69 updates here: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Expedition 69 Crew (August 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.

Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Image Date: Aug. 3, 2023

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Stars #Planet #Earth #CentralAsia #Kazakhstan #Қазақстан #LakeBalkhash #Балқашкөлі #ISS #Astronauts #StephenBowen #FrankRubio #WoodyHoburg #SultanAlneyadi #UAE #Cosmonauts #Russia #Россия #Роскосмос #HumanSpaceflight #UnitedStates #OverviewEffect #OrbitalPerspective #Expedition69 #STEM #Education

How to Become a Star: Dark Nebula Barnard 68—"The Ink Spot" | ESO

How to Become a Star: Dark Nebula Barnard 68—"The Ink Spot" | ESO

How do stars like our Sun come into being? This photograph shows an unusual sky field in the Milky Way band. It is centered on one of the classical, dark globules, known as Barnard 68 (B68) after the American astronomer, Edward E. Barnard (1857 - 1923), who included it in a list of such objects, published in 1919. It appears as a compact, opaque and rather sharply defined object against a rich, background star field. Even on this image that registers many faint stars in the area, not a single foreground star is observed. This is a clear sign that this globule must be relatively nearby. Interstellar clouds consist of gas and dust, including many molecules, some of which contain carbon atoms (i.e. organic). For a long time considered to be "holes in the sky", molecular clouds are now known to be among the coolest objects in the Universe (the temperature is approx. 10 K, or -263 °C). Moreover, and most importantly, they are nurseries of stars and planets. 

Distance: ~500 light years

It still remains a mystery how a dark cloud like Barnard 68 at some moment begins to contract and subsequently transforms itself into hydrogen-burning stars. However, deep images of these clouds, such as this one obtained by FORS1 on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) ANTU, may provide important clues. This small cloud seems to be in its very earliest phase of collapse. It has a diameter of only 7 light-months (approx. 0.2 pc) and it is located at a distance of about 500 light-years (160 pc) towards the southern constellation Ophiuchus (The Serpent-holder). This three-color composite was reproduced from one blue (B), one green-yellow (V) and one near-infrared (I) exposure that were obtained with VLT ANTU and FORS1. The field measures 6.8x6.8 arcmin 2. The image consists of 2048x2048 pixels, each measuring 0.20 arcsec. North is up and East is to the left.

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)

Image Date: March 27, 1999

Release Date: April 30, 1999

#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #Nebulae #Nebula #Barnard68 #LDN57 #BokGlobule #Ophiuchus #Constellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #VLT #ParanalObservatory #Chile #Europe #STEM #Education

The Snake Nebula in Ophiuchus | Kitt Peak National Observatory

The Snake Nebula in Ophiuchus | Kitt Peak National Observatory

What slithers here? The Snake Nebula is a small S-shaped dust lane that snakes out in front of the Milky Way star clouds from the north-north-west edge of the bowl of the Pipe Nebula (the name for the rump and hind legs of the Dark Horse Nebula). The very dark spot to the lower left of the Snake is Barnard 68 (the Ink Spot). Also known as Barnard 72, the Snake Nebula is a series of dark absorption clouds, about 5 light-years across, made up of molecular gas and interstellar dust. Interstellar dust grains—composed predominantly of carbon—absorb visible starlight and reradiate much of it in the infrared. This absorption causes stars behind the clouds to be obscured from view, hence the appearance of starless voids on the sky. Molecular clouds like the Snake Nebula are places where new stars are likely to form. The Snake Nebula, lies about 650 light-years away in the constellation of Ophiuchus (the Serpent Bearer), 1.5° north-northeast of Theta Ophiuchi. It is part of the much larger Dark Horse Nebula and spans the angular width of a full moon.

Barnard 72 (B72) is one of the 182 dark nebulae cataloged in the early 20th century by the American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard. Unlike bright emission nebulae and star clusters, Barnard’s nebulae are interstellar dark clouds of obscuring gas and dust. Their shapes are visible in cosmic silhouette only because they lie in the foreground along the line of sight to rich star fields and glowing stellar nurseries near the plane of our Galaxy. Many of Barnard’s dark nebulae are themselves likely sites of future star formation.

This image was taken as part of Advanced Observing Program (AOP) program at Kitt Peak Visitor Center during 2014.

Credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Tom McQuillan/Adam Block

Release Date: June 13, 2014

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Nebulae #Nebula #SnakeNebula #Barnard72 #Barnard68 #InkSpot #Ophiuchus #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #Telescope #NOIRLab #AURA #NSF #KPNO #Arizona #UnitedStates #Astronomer #EdwardEmersonBarnard #History #STEM #Education

Young Blue Stars of Nebula IC 4605 in Scorpius | Schulman Telescope

Young Blue Stars of Nebula IC 4605 in Scorpius | Schulman Telescope

This view of the reflection nebula IC 4605 and of young blue stars was acquired by the Schulman Telescope at the University of Arizona's Mount Lemmon SkyCenter. The large blue star in the foreground is called 22 Scorpii. It is a B-type main-sequence star with a stellar classification of B3 V. It is ten million years old and has a high rate of spin with a projected rotational velocity of 169 km/s. The star has about six times the mass of the Sun and is radiating 335 times the Sun's luminosity from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 19,600 Kelvin. This star is embedded in, or adjacent to, the diffuse nebulous cloud IC 4605 located in the western regions of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex.

Distance: ~400 light years

Image Details:

Optics: Schulman 32-inch RCOS Telescope

Camera: SBIG STX16803

The 0.81 m (32 in) Schulman Telescope is a Ritchey-Chrétien reflector built by RC Optical Systems and installed in 2010. It is operated by the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter and is Arizona's largest dedicated public observatory. The Schulman Telescope was designed from inception for remote control over the Internet by amateur and professional astrophotographers worldwide. It is currently the world's largest telescope dedicated for this purpose.

Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona

Caption Acknowledgements: UA/Wikipedia

Image Date: May 1, 2015

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Nebulae #Nebula #IC4605 #ReflectionNebula #Star #22Scorpii #Scorpius #Constellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #UA #MountLemmonObservatory #SchulmanTelescope #Astrophotographer #AdamBlock #Arizona #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

Russian Cosmonauts Sergey & Dmitri on Spacewalk | International Space Station

Russian Cosmonauts Sergey & Dmitri on Spacewalk | International Space Station

Russian Cosmonauts Dmitri Petelin & Sergey Prokopyev during a spacewalk. The European robotic arm extends from the Nauka science module to which the Prichal module and the Soyuz MS-23 crew ship are attached.

    

Roscosmos cosmonaut & Expedition 69 Flight Engineer Sergey Prokopyev is pictured in his Orlan spacesuit during a six-hour and 35-minute spacewalk. Sergey Prokopyev is the current commander of the International Space Station for Expedition 69.

Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin of Russia concluded their spacewalk outside the International Space Station at 5:19 p.m. EDT on Aug. 9, 2023, after 6 hours and 35 minutes.

Prokopyev and Petelin attached three debris shields to the Rassvet module and tested the sturdiness of a work platform affixed to the end of the European robotic arm attached to the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module.

This was the eighth spacewalk in Prokopyev’s career, and the sixth for Petelin. It was the tenth spacewalk at the station in 2023 and the 267th spacewalk for space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.

Follow Expedition 69 updates here: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Expedition 69 Crew (August 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.

Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Image Capture Date: August 9, 2023

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Earth #ISS #EVA #Spacewalk #Cosmonauts #DmitriPetelin #SergeyProkopyev #AndreyFedyaev #Russia #Россия #Роскосмос #EuropeanRoboticArm #ERA #Robotics #SpaceTechnology #HumanSpaceflight #Europe #UnitedStates #MicrogravityResearch #SpaceLaboratory #Expedition69 #STEM #Education

Planet Venus: Japan's Venus Climate Orbiter Views | JAXA

Planet Venus: Japan's Venus Climate Orbiter Views | JAXA

Venus - June 7, 2022

Venus - Jan. 4, 2022

Venus - Jan. 4, 2022

Venus - May 5, 2023

Venus - April 3, 2023

Venus - May 27, 2022

"Venus has long been referred to as Earth’s sister planet not only because its size and distance from the sun are similar to those of the Earth, but also because its formation is considered to like that of the Earth at the birth of the solar system." 

"However, Venus is actually very different from the Earth. It is veiled in high-temperature carbon dioxide and thick sulfuric-acid clouds. Moreover, above the surface of Venus, violent winds reach over 400 kilometers per hour. Venus’ whole atmosphere is rotating much faster than the surface below at the altitude of the cloud top (70 km), a unique situation called superrotation. Its mechanisms are still largely unclear."

"Clarification of the causes for such an environment will provide us with clues to understand the Earth better, especially to help understand climate change on Earth. Therefore, Venus is a very important subject for exploration in order to learn about the Earth’s environment."

Akatsuki (あかつき, 暁, "Dawn"), also known as the Venus Climate Orbiter (VCO) and Planet-C, is a Japanese (JAXA) spacecraft tasked to study the atmosphere of Venus. By using five different cameras, working at several wavelengths, Akatsuki is studying the stratification of the atmosphere, atmospheric dynamics, and cloud physics. It was launched aboard an H-IIA 202 rocket on May 20, 2010.

Image Credits: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)/ISAS/DARTS

Caption Credits: JAXA, Wikipedia

Image Processing: Kevin M. Gill

Image Dates: Jan., 4 2022 - May 5, 2023

#NASA #JAXA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Planet #Venus #Atmosphere #Meteorology #Weather #Clouds #Ultraviolet #VenusClimateOrbiter #VCO #Akatsuki #あかつき #PlanetC #Spacecraft #Japan #日本  #SolarSystem #SpaceExploration #宇宙航空研究開発機構 #KevinGill #CitizenScience #STEM #Education

Russia Launches Luna-25 South Pole Lander: First Moon Mission in 47 Years

Russia Launches Luna-25 South Pole Lander: First Moon Mission in 47 Years

Russia launched an uncrewed spacecraft, called Luna-25, Friday, Aug. 11, 2023, designed to land on the south pole of the Moon—the country's first attempt since 1976. Russia seeks to become the first nation to make a soft landing on the moon’s icy south pole. Luna-25 took off from Vostochny Cosmodrome in the country’s southeast at 2:11 a.m. local time, according to Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos. The Vostochny Cosmodrome is a Russian spaceport in the Amur Oblast of the Russian Far East. It is an alternative to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

It will take just over five days for the Luna-25 spacecraft to travel to the Moon’s vicinity, Roscosmos said. Then it will spend several days orbiting before attempting a soft landing on the lunar surface, north of the Boguslawsky crater, on Aug. 21, 2023, the agency said. Boguslawsky is a lunar impact crater that is located near the Moon's southern lunar limb.

This timetable pits Russia in a race with  India, which launched a similar mission—the Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander—last month and is aiming to soft-land by Aug. 23. “We hope to be first,” Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov reportedly said at the launch.

Borisov, director general of Roscosmos, hailed Friday’s launch as a “new page” for Russian space exploration. “All the results of the research will be transferred to Earth,” he said on state television. “We are interested in the presence of water, as well as many other experiments related to the study of the soil, the site.” He noted that the mission is bound to face some “obstacles” along the way.

Video Credit: Roscosmos/RT

Acknowledgement: ShanghaiEye魔都眼

Caption Credit: The Washington Post

Duration: 1 minute, 12 seconds

Release Date: Aug. 11, 2023

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Роскосмос #Roscosmos #Russia #Россия #Earth #Moon #SoyuzRocket #Luna25 #MoonLander #Spacecraft #SolarSystem #SpaceTechnology #SpaceEngineering #SpaceExploration #STEM #Education #HD #Video