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The Furthest Ever Galactic Magnetic Field Detected | ESO
ESOcast 267 Light: Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have detected the magnetic field of a galaxy so far away that its light has taken more than 11 billion years to reach us. Never before have we detected a galaxy’s magnetic field this far away. This video summarizes the discovery. The field is about 1,000 times weaker than the Earth’s magnetic field, but extends over more than 16,000 light-years.
To make this detection, the science team searched for light emitted by dust grains in a distant galaxy, 9io9. Galaxies are packed full of dust grains and when a magnetic field is present, the grains tend to align and the light they emit becomes polarized. This means that the light waves oscillate along a preferred direction rather than randomly. When ALMA detected and mapped a polarized signal coming from 9io9, the presence of a magnetic field in a very distant galaxy was confirmed for the first time.
Credits: European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Directed by: Angelos Tsaousis and Martin Wallner
Editing: Angelos Tsaousis
Web and technical support: Gurvan Bazin and Raquel Yumi Shida
Written by: Tom Howarth and Claudia Sciarma
Footage and photos: ESO / Luis Calçada, Angelos Tsaousis, B. Tafreshi (twanight.org), ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), J. E. Geach et al., CFHT, DESI
Scientific consultant: Paola Amico, Mariya Lyubenova
HESS Telescopes in Namibia Explore High-Energy Sky Sources
They may look like modern mechanical dinosaurs, but they are enormous swiveling eyes that watch the sky. The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) Observatory is composed of four 12-meter reflecting-mirror telescopes surrounding a larger telescope housing a 28-meter mirror. They are designed to detect strange flickers of blue light—Cherenkov radiation—emitted when charged particles move slightly faster than the speed of light in air. This light is emitted when a gamma ray from a distant source strikes a molecule in Earth's atmosphere and starts a charged-particle shower. H.E.S.S. is sensitive to some of the highest energy photons (TeV) crossing the universe.
Operating since 2003 in Namibia, Africa, H.E.S.S. has searched for dark matter and has discovered over 50 sources emitting high energy radiation including supernova remnants and the centers of galaxies that contain supermassive black holes. Pictured in June 2023, H.E.S.S. telescopes swivel and stare in time-lapse sequences shot in front of our Milky Way Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds—as the occasional Earth-orbiting satellite zips by.
H.E.S.S. is a system of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes that investigates cosmic gamma rays in the energy range from 10s of GeV to 10s of TeV. The name H.E.S.S. is also intended to pay homage to Victor Hess, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936 for his discovery of cosmic radiation. The instrument allows scientists to explore gamma-ray sources.
H.E.S.S. is located in Namibia, near the Gamsberg mountain, an area well known for its excellent optical quality. The first of the four telescopes of Phase I of the H.E.S.S. project went into operation in Summer 2002; all four were operational in December 2003, and were officially inaugurated on September 28, 2004. A much larger fifth telescope - H.E.S.S. II - is operational since July 2012, extending the energy coverage towards lower energies and further improving sensitivity.
The H.E.S.S. observatory is operated by a collaboration of more than 260 scientists from about 40 scientific institutions and 13 different countries: Namibia and South Africa, Germany, France, the UK, Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Armenia, Japan, and Australia. To date, the H.E.S.S. Collaboration has published over 100 articles in high-impact scientific journals, including the top-ranked ‘Nature’ and ‘Science’ journals.
Video Credit: Jeff Dai (TWAN), H.E.S.S. Collaboration
NASA's SpaceX Crew-6 Splashdown in Atlantic Ocean | International Space Station
Support teams work around the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft shortly after it landed.
The SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft is seen onboard the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN.
Support teams onboard the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN work to open the hatch of the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft.
NASA astronaut Warren "Woody" Hoburg is seen inside an elevator on the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN that will take him up to a waiting helicopter to fly to Jacksonville, Florida.
Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev of Russia is seen inside an elevator on the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN.
Support and medical team members from NASA, the United Arab Emirates, and Roscosmos wait to board the helicopter with the astronauts and cosmonaut Fedyaev.
NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen is helped aboard a helicopter on the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN to fly to Jacksonville, Florida.
NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev of Russia splashed down safely in the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, at 12:17 a.m. EDT on Sept. 4, 2023, after 186 days in space.
Teams on the SpaceX recovery ship, including two fast boats, secured Dragon and ensured the spacecraft was safe for the recovery effort. As the fast boat teams completed their work, the recovery ship moved into position to hoist Dragon onto the main deck with the astronauts inside. Once on the main deck, the crew were taken out of the spacecraft and receive medical checks before taking a helicopter ride to board a plane for Houston.
Crew-6 is SpaceX’s sixth operational mission for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft undocked from the forward-facing port of the International Space Station’s Harmony module on Sept 3, 2023, to complete a six-month science mission.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission launched March 2, 2023, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and docked to the International Space Station the next day.
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 Mars: The Things that Blow Away | NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
This part of the observation gives us a view of linear dunes in northwest Argyre Planitia that appear thin as they have followed the direction of the Martian wind. This image was requested for change detection. The movement of the dunes is very slow, but inexorable. You can also see numerous meters-sized boulders throughout the scene. (This image is the center swath of the full observation using the red-green-blue filter.)
This is a non-narrated clip with ambient sound. Image is less than 1 km (under 1 mi) across and the spacecraft altitude was 254 km (158 mi).
Local Mars time: 15:49
Latitude (centered): -46.900°
Longitude (East): 305.738°
The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
“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.
NASA Psyche Asteroid Mission: Power System Engineer Ben Inouye | JPL
Meet Ben Inouye, a power system engineer on NASA’s Psyche mission, which will be the first to explore a metal-rich asteroid, also named Psyche. In this video, Inouye, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explains what it was like to build the spacecraft’s power system. Inouye talks about the importance of the power system, as well as his passion for astrophotography.
Whether the asteroid Psyche is the partial core of a planetesimal (a building block of the rocky planets in our solar system) or primordial material that never melted, scientists expect the mission to help answer fundamental questions about Earth’s own metal core and the formation of our solar system.
This is the third episode in a weekly, five-part video series called “Behind the Spacecraft.” Each Psyche team member will tell the story of how they came to the mission.
Psyche’s launch period opens Oct. 5, 2023. The spacecraft will begin orbiting the asteroid Psyche in 2029.
NASA’s Moon Rover Practices its Lunar Lander Exit | NASA Ames
NASA’s Moon rover prototype has completed lunar lander egress tests. The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) Mission is managed by NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and is scheduled to be delivered to Mons Mouton near the South Pole of the Moon in late 2024 by Astrobotic Technology’s Griffin lander as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
VIPER will inform future Artemis landing sites by helping to characterize the lunar environment and help determine locations where water and other resources could be harvested to sustain humans over extended stays.
The VIPER science team also aims to address how frozen water and other volatiles got on the Moon in the first place, where they came from, what has kept some of them preserved over billions of years, and where they go after they escape the lunar soil.
NASA’s new Human Research Program project, CIPHER, integrates 14 multi-disciplinary investigations and examines multiple astronauts across different mission durations over the course of many years.
Before astronauts embark on a multi-year venture to Mars, NASA must learn everything possible about how humans adapt to long-duration missions in space. This is why the agency developed the Complement of Integrated Protocols for Human Exploration Research program, or CIPHER.
CIPHER takes a full-body approach, investigating how multiple systems in the body react to spaceflight over increasingly longer mission durations. To this end, CIPHER includes:
Fourteen studies conducted across short-duration missions (less than ~3.5 months), standard-duration missions (between ~3.5 to ~8 months), and extended-duration missions (longer than ~8 months), and
As many as 30 astronauts will contribute to all 14 CIPHER studies—with up to 10 astronauts contributing to each mission-duration category.
The 14 CIPHER studies involve careful examination of how spaceflight affects:
Bone and joint health
The brain and behavior
The cardiovascular system
Exercise performance
Sensorimotor systems, including how astronauts maintain balance
Vision
Biomarkers of muscle, bone, vascular, and organ health
The studies will be performed before, during, and after flight. Data will be gathered from participating astronauts through biological samples, eye and vision exams, cognition and behavioral tests, cardiovascular exercises, ultrasounds, MRIs, and other technologies and techniques.
These data will be combined with baseline information taken from all astronauts as part of the Standard Measures project.
All data will then be fully integrated into one set, so that scientists can gain a comprehensive view of how increasingly longer missions affect the entire human body.
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.
Picture this: It’s time to head to school, but instead of getting in a car or on a school bus, you’re picked up by a flying vehicle. This will be an option in the not-too-distant future! In fact, there are many innovative concepts NASA is working on right now that will impact the future of flight.
We’re launching STEM Engagement to new heights with learning resources that connect teachers, students, parents and caregivers to the inspiring work at NASA. Join us as we apply science, technology, engineering and mathematics to explore space, improve aeronautics, examine Earth and strive to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon with the Artemis program.
For more information about NASA's quiet supersonic mission, visit:
Watch Chinese Astronauts Clean Tiangong Space Station
The three Chinese astronauts aboard the country's space station, named Tiangong ("Heavenly Palace"), recently completed cleaning chores in-between shifts to make their space home clean and tidy.
A video released by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) on Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023, showed the Shenzhou-16 crew, comprised of Jing Haipeng (commander), Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao. The crew spent time sorting parcels scattered across the Tianhe core module and tidying the lab modules Wentian and Mengtian to make items neat and orderly, before a deep cleaning was conducted to collect garbage and remove dust.
China launched the Shenzhou-16 crewed spacecraft on May 30, 2023, sending the three astronauts, including the first Chinese civilian astronaut, Gui Haichao, to the Tiangong space station for a five-month mission. This is the first crewed mission since China's space station entered its application and development stage.
Reflection Nebula Cederblad 51 in Orion | Schulman Telescope
Cederblad 51 is a blue reflection nebula in the constellation of Orion. It is part of the Sharpless 2-264 molecular cloud, which is sometimes referred to as 'Orion's Head'. Cederblad 51 is located about 1,300 light years away from Earth.
Technical Details
Optics: Schulman 32-inch RCOS Telescope
Camera: SBIG STX16803
Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona
Spiral Galaxy IC 1776 in Pisces: Galactic Isolation | Hubble Space Telescope
The swirls of the galaxy IC 1776 stand in splendid isolation in this image from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope. This galaxy lies over 150 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pisces. IC 1776 recently played host to a catastrophically violent explosion—a supernova—which was discovered in 2015 by the Lick Observatory Supernova Search, a robotic telescope which scours the night sky in search of transient phenomena, such as supernovae. A network of automatic robotic telescopes are spread across the globe, operated by both professional and amateur astronomers, and, without human intervention, reveal short-lived astronomical phenomena such as wandering asteroids, gravitational microlensing, or supernovae.
Image Description: A spiral galaxy. It is irregularly-shaped and its spiral arms are difficult to distinguish. The edges are faint and the core has a pale yellow glow. It is dotted with small, wispy, blue regions where stars are forming. A few stars and small galaxies in warm colors are visible around it.
Hubble investigated the aftermath of the supernova SN 2015ap during two different observing programs, both designed to comb through the debris left by supernovae explosions in order to better understand these energetic events. A variety of telescopes automatically follow up the detection of supernovae to obtain early measurements of these events’ brightnesses and spectra. Complementing these measurements with later observations which reveal the lingering energy of supernovae can shed light on the systems which gave rise to these cosmic cataclysms in the first place.
Credit: European Space Agency/Hubble & NASA, A. Filippenko
India's Chandrayaan-3 Vikram Moon Lander "Hops" on The Moon
ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 lander, named Vikram, performed a hop experiment on Sept. 3, 2023. The lander fired its engines, elevated itself by about 40 cm as expected, and landed safely at a distance of 30–40 cm away in the South Pole region of the Moon at Shiv Shakti Point (69.373 S, 32.319E).
NASA's SpaceX Crew-6 Recovery: Home Safe | International Space Station
NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev of Russia splashed down safely in the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, at 12:17 a.m. EDT on Sept. 4, 2023, after 186 days in space.
Teams on the SpaceX recovery ship, including two fast boats, secured Dragon and ensured the spacecraft was safe for the recovery effort. As the fast boat teams completed their work, the recovery ship moved into position to hoist Dragon onto the main deck with the astronauts inside. Once on the main deck, the crew were taken out of the spacecraft and received medical checks before taking a helicopter ride to board a plane for Houston.
Crew-6 is SpaceX’s sixth operational mission for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft undocked from the forward-facing port of the International Space Station’s Harmony module on Sept 3, 2023, to complete a six-month science mission.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission launched March 2, 2023, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and docked to the International Space Station the next day.
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.
NASA's SpaceX Crew-6 Landing in Atlantic Ocean | International Space Station
Support teams worked around the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft shortly after it landed
Support teams raised the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft aboard the recovery ship MEGAN shortly after it landed
Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev of Russia, left, NASA astronaut Warren “Woody" Hoburg, second from left, NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen, second from right, and United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, right, are seen inside the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft onboard the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN shortly after having landed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida
United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi is helped out of the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft onboard the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN
Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev is helped out of the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft onboard the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN
NASA astronaut Warren "Woody" Hoburg helped out of the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft onboard the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN
NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen is helped out of the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft onboard the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN
NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev of Russia splashed down safely in the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, at 12:17 a.m. EDT on Sept. 4, 2023, after 186 days in space.
Teams on the SpaceX recovery ship, including two fast boats, secured Dragon and ensured the spacecraft was safe for the recovery effort. As the fast boat teams completed their work, the recovery ship moved into position to hoist Dragon onto the main deck with the astronauts inside. Once on the main deck, the crew were taken out of the spacecraft and receive medical checks before taking a helicopter ride to board a plane for Houston.
Crew-6 is SpaceX’s sixth operational mission for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft undocked from the forward-facing port of the International Space Station’s Harmony module on Sept 3, 2023, to complete a six-month science mission.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission launched March 2, 2023, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and docked to the International Space Station the next day.
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.
