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Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Panning on Protostar in Perseus: Herbig Haro Object 797 | Webb Telescope

Panning on Protostar in Perseus: Herbig Haro Object 797 | Webb Telescope

This image was captured with Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). Infrared imaging is powerful in studying newborn stars and their outflows, because the youngest stars are invariably still embedded within the gas and dust from which they are formed. The infrared emission of the star’s outflows penetrates the obscuring gas and dust, making Herbig-Haro objects ideal for observation with Webb’s sensitive infrared instruments. Molecules excited by the turbulent conditions, including molecular hydrogen and carbon monoxide, emit infrared light that Webb can collect to visualize the structure of the outflows. NIRCam is particularly good at observing the hot (thousands of degree Celsius) molecules that are excited as a result of shocks.

Using ground-based observations, researchers have previously found that the for cold molecular gas associated with HH 797, most of the red-shifted gas (moving away from us) is found to the south (bottom right), while the blue-shifted gas (moving towards us) is to the north (bottom left). A gradient was also found across the outflow, such that at a given distance from the young central star, the velocity of the gas near the eastern edge of the jet is more red-shifted than that of the gas on the western edge. Astronomers in the past thought this was due to the outflow’s rotation. In this higher resolution Webb image, however, we can see that what was thought to be one outflow is in fact made up of two almost parallel outflows with their own separate series of shocks (which explains the velocity asymmetries). The source, located in the small dark region (bottom right of center), and already known from previous observations, is therefore not a single but a double star. Each star is producing its own dramatic outflow. Other outflows are also seen in this image, including one from the protostar in the top right of center along with its illuminated cavity walls.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, T. Ray (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb)

Duration: 30 seconds

Release Date: Nov. 28, 2023

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Science #HerbigHaro797 #StarCluster #IC348 #Perseus #Constellation #JamesWebb #SpaceTelescope #JWST #InfraredLight #Cosmos #Universe #UnfoldTheUniverse #Europe #CSA #Canada #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Finds 300 Gamma-Ray Pulsars

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Finds 300 Gamma-Ray Pulsars

This visualization shows 294 gamma-ray pulsars, first plotted on an image of the entire starry sky as seen from Earth and then transitioning to a view from above our galaxy. The symbols show different types of pulsars. Young pulsars blink in real time except for the Crab that pulses slower because its rate is only slightly lower than the video frame rate. Millisecond pulsars remain steady, pulsing too quickly to be seen. The Crab, Vela, and Geminga were among the 11 gamma-ray pulsars known before Fermi launched. Other notable objects are also highlighted. Distances are shown in light-years (abbreviated ly).

A new catalog produced by a French-led international team of astronomers shows that NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered 294 gamma-ray-emitting pulsars, while another 34 suspects await confirmation. This is 27 times the number known before the mission launched in 2008.

Pulsars touch on a wide range of astrophysics research, from cosmic rays and stellar evolution to the search for gravitational waves and dark matter. They are a type of neutron star, the city-sized leftover of a massive sun that has exploded as a supernova. Neutron stars, containing more mass than our Sun in a ball less than 17 miles wide, represent the densest matter astronomers can study directly. They possess strong magnetic fields, produce streams of energetic particles, and spin quickly 716 times a second for the fastest known. Pulsars, in addition, emit narrow beams of energy that swing lighthouse-like through space as the objects rotate. When one of these beams sweeps past Earth, astronomers detect a pulse of emission.

The new catalog represents the work of 170 scientists across the globe. A dozen radio telescopes carry out regular monitoring of thousands of pulsars, and radio astronomers search for new pulsars within gamma-ray sources discovered by Fermi. Other researchers have teased out gamma-ray pulsars that have no radio counterparts through millions of hours of computer calculation, a process called a blind search.

Fermi's neutron star discoveries even extend beyond our galaxy. The mission discovered the first gamma-ray pulsar in another galaxy, the neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud, in 2015. And in 2021, astronomers announced the discovery of a giant gamma-ray flare from a magnetar—a different type of neutron star—located in the Sculptor galaxy, about 11.4 million light-years away.

Video Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Producer: Scott Wiessinger (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)

Visualizer: Mark SubbaRao (NASA/GSFC) [Lead]

Visualizer: A. J. Christensen (AVL NCSA/University of Illinois)

Science Writer: Francis Reddy (University of Maryland College Park)

Editor: Scott Wiessinger (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)

Scientist: David A. Smith (Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux) [Lead]

Scientist: Elizabeth Hays (NASA/GSFC)

Duration: 1 minute, 15 seconds

Release Date: Nov. 28, 2023

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Stars #NeutronStars #Pulsars #GammaRayPulsars #Cosmos #Universe #Astrophysics #Physics #GammaRaySpaceTelescope #FermiMission #GSFC #UnitedStates #France #STEM #Education #Visualization #HD #Video

A Prominent Protostar in Perseus: Herbig Haro Object 797 | Webb Telescope

A Prominent Protostar in Perseus: Herbig Haro Object 797 | Webb Telescope

This new NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope reveals intricate details of the Herbig Haro object 797 (HH 797). Herbig-Haro objects are luminous regions surrounding newborn stars (known as protostars), and are formed when stellar winds or jets of gas spewing from these newborn stars form shockwaves colliding with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. HH 797, dominating the lower half of this image, is located close to the young open star cluster IC 348 that is near the eastern edge of the Perseus dark cloud complex. The bright infrared objects in the upper portion of the image are thought to host two further protostars.

Image Description: In the lower half of the image is a narrow, horizontal nebula that stretches from edge to edge. It is brightly colored with more variety on its right side. In the upper half there is a glowing point with multi-colored light radiating from it in all directions. A bright star with long diffraction spikes lies along the right edge, and a few smaller stars are spread around. The background is covered in a thin haze.

In this higher resolution Webb image, however, we can see that what was thought to be one outflow is in fact made up of two almost parallel outflows with their own separate series of shocks (which explains the velocity asymmetries). The source, located in the small dark region (bottom right of centre), and already known from previous observations, is therefore not a single but a double star. Each star is producing its own dramatic outflow. Other outflows are also seen in this image, including one from the protostar in the top right of center along with its illuminated cavity walls.

Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, T. Ray (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies)

Release Date: Nov. 28, 2023

China Releases First Image of its Complete Space Station | CGTN

China Releases First Image of its Complete Space Station | CGTN

The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) released a high-definition panoramic image of China Space Station at a press conference in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) on November 28, 2023. The photo was shot by the Shenzhou-16 crew before they returned to Earth on October 30, 2023. This is the first photo showing the entire configuration of the China Space Station in orbit with Earth visible in the background.

Shenzhou-17 is the sixth crew of three astronauts on a mission to the China Space Station. Shenzhou-17 is also the twelfth crewed and seventeenth flight overall of China's Shenzhou spaceflight program.

Shenzhou-17 Crew:

Hongbo Tang (Commander)

Shengjie Tang (Mission Specialist)

Xinlin Jiang (Mission Specialist)

Shenzhou-16 Crew:

Jing Haipeng (Commander)

Zhu Yangzhu (Mission Specialist)

Gui Haichao (Mission Specialist)

Credit: China Global Television Network (CGTN)

Duration: 34 seconds

Release Date: Nov. 28, 2023

#NASA #Space #China #中国 #Shenzhou16 #Shenzhou17 #神舟十七号 #CrewSpacecraft #Taikonauts #Astronauts #HongboTang #ShengjieTang #XinlinJiang #SpaceLaboratory #CSS #ChinaSpaceStation #TiangongSpaceStation #中国空间站 #CMSA #国家航天局 #Science #SpaceTechnology #HumanSpaceflight #STEM #Education #HD #Video

What Would Mars Look Like if an Astronaut Could Orbit the Planet? | NASA/JPL

What Would Mars Look Like if an Astronaut Could Orbit the Planet? | NASA/JPL

Mars Report—Nov. 2023: NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter captured the first-ever views of Mars that showcase the curving horizon and layers of atmosphere, similar to what an astronaut sees of Earth from the International Space Station. While there are no astronauts yet at Mars, this view gives us a sense of what they might see. This series of panoramic images was taken from an altitude of about 250 miles (400 kilometers), the same altitude at which the space station flies above Earth. These new images capture gauzy layers of clouds and dust. They will help scientists better understand the Martian atmosphere.

In this Mars Report, learn how engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Lockheed Martin Space, the company that built Odyssey, had to maneuver the spacecraft to capture these views. Odyssey Deputy Project Scientist Laura Kerber also breaks down the significance of the new images.

The 2001 Mars Odyssey mission is NASA’s longest operating spacecraft at Mars, marking 22 years in orbit in October 2023.

For more information on Odyssey, go to: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/odyssey

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Lockheed Martin Space

Duration: 2 minutes

Release Date: Nov. 28, 2023

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Mars #Planet #RedPlanet #Atmosphere #MarsOdyssey #MarsOdysseySpacecraft #Orbiter #LockheedMartin #ASU #JPL #Caltech #STEM #Education #HD #Video

The Westerhout 5 (W5) Stellar Blast Furnace | NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

The Westerhout 5 (W5) Stellar Blast Furnace | NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

Westerhout 5 (W5) is a chaotic region, sculpted by the glare of one generation of massive stars that is giving rise to the next. Generations of stars can be seen in these infrared portraits from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. In this wispy star-forming region, called Westerhout 5 (W5), the oldest stars can be seen as blue dots in the centers of the two hollow cavities (other blue dots are background and foreground stars not associated with the region). Younger stars line the rims of the cavities, and some can be seen as dots at the tips of the elephant-trunk-like pillars. The white knotty areas are where the youngest stars are forming.

W5 spans an area of sky equivalent to four full moons and is about 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. The Spitzer picture was taken over a period of 24 hours.

Like other massive star-forming regions, such as Orion and Carina, W5 contains large cavities that were carved out by radiation and winds from the region's most massive stars. According to the theory of triggered star-formation, the carving out of these cavities pushes gas together, causing it to ignite into successive generations of new stars.

These images contain the best evidence yet for the triggered star-formation theory. Scientists analyzing the photo have been able to show that the ages of the stars become progressively and systematically younger with distance from the center of the cavities.

Credit: ExploreAstro/Caltech IPAC

Duration: 6 minutes

Release Date: Dec. 29, 2008

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #StellarNursery #Nebula #Westerhout5 #W5 #Sharpless2199 #LBN667 #SoulNebula #Cassiopeia #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #SST #SpitzerSpaceTelescope #Infrared #CfA #JPL #Caltech #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Westerhout 5 Star Formation Region: 4 Colors | NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

Westerhout 5 Star Formation Region: 4 Colors | NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

Generations of stars can be seen in this infrared portrait from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. In this wispy star-forming region, called Westerhout 5 (W5), the oldest stars can be seen as blue dots in the centers of the two hollow cavities (other blue dots are background and foreground stars not associated with the region). Younger stars line the rims of the cavities, and some can be seen as dots at the tips of the elephant-trunk-like pillars. The white knotty areas are where the youngest stars are forming.

W5 spans an area of sky equivalent to four full moons and is about 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. The Spitzer picture was taken over a period of 24 hours.

This image contains the best evidence yet for the triggered star-formation theory. Scientists analyzing the photo have been able to show that the ages of the stars become progressively and systematically younger with distance from the center of the cavities.

This picture was taken with Spitzer's infrared array camera. It is a four-color composite, where light with a wavelength of 3.6 microns is blue; 4.5-micron light is green; 5.8-micron light is orange; and 8-micron light is red.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/L. Allen & X. Koenig (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)

Release Date: July 21, 2008

Monday, November 27, 2023

Westerhout 5 Star Formation Region | NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

Westerhout 5 Star Formation Region | NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

W5 spans an area of sky equivalent to four full moons and is about 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. The Spitzer picture was taken over a period of 24 hours.

This image contains some of the best evidence yet for the triggered star-formation theory. Scientists analyzing the photo have been able to show that the ages of the stars become progressively and systematically younger with distance from the center of the cavities.

This picture was taken with Spitzer's infrared array camera. It is a four-color composite, in which light with a wavelength of 3.6 microns is blue; 4.5-micron light is green; 5.8-micron light is orange; and 8-micron light is red.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/L. Allen & X. Koenig (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)

Release Date: July 21, 2008

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #StellarNursery #Nebula #Westerhout5 #W5 #Sharpless2199 #LBN667 #SoulNebula #Cassiopeia #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #WISE #SST #SpitzerSpaceTelescope #Infrared #CfA #JPL #Caltech #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education

Westerhout 5: Cosmic Mountains of Creation | NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

Westerhout 5: Cosmic Mountains of Creation | NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

This image from infrared NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveals billowing mountains of dust ablaze with the fires of stellar youth. These are star-forming clouds of cool gas and dust that have been sculpted into pillars by radiation and winds from hot, massive stars.

The Spitzer image shows the eastern edge of a region known as Westerhout 5 (W5), in the Cassiopeia constellation 7,000 light-years away. This region is dominated by a single massive star, whose location outside the pictured area is "pointed out" by the finger-like pillars. The pillars themselves are colossal, together resembling a mountain range. The largest of the pillars observed by Spitzer entombs hundreds of never-before-seen embryonic stars, and the second largest contains dozens.

"We believe that the star clusters lighting up the tips of the pillars are essentially the offspring of the region's single, massive star," said Dr. Lori Allen, lead investigator of the new observations, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass. "It appears that radiation and winds from the massive star triggered new stars to form."

Spitzer was able to see the stars forming inside the pillars thanks to its infrared vision. Visible-light images of this same region show dark towers outlined by halos of light. The stars inside are cloaked by walls of dust. However, infrared light coming from these stars can escape through the dust, providing astronomers with a new view.

"With Spitzer, we can not only see the stars in the pillars, but we can estimate their age and study how they formed," said Dr. Joseph Hora, a co-investigator, also from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The W5 region is referred to as high-mass star-forming regions. They start out as thick and turbulent clouds of gas and dust that later give birth to families of stars, that can be 10 times more massive than the sun. Radiation and winds from the massive stars subsequently blast the cloudy material outward, so that only the densest pillar-shaped clumps of material remain. The process is akin to the formation of desert mesas, which are made up of dense rock that resisted water and wind erosion.

According to theories of triggered star formation, the pillars eventually become dense enough to spur the birth of a second generation of stars. Those stars, in turn, might also trigger successive generations. Astronomers do not know if the sun, that formed about five billion years ago, was originally a member of this type of extended stellar family.

Allen and her colleagues believe they have found evidence for triggered star formation in the new Spitzer image. Though it is possible the clusters of stars in the pillars are siblings of the single massive star, the astronomers say the stars are more likely its children.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., managed the Spitzer mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Science operations were conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. JPL is a division of Caltech. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., built Spitzer's infrared array camera that took these observations. The instrument's principal investigator was Dr. Giovanni Fazio of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Image Credit: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

Release Date: Nov. 9th, 2005

NASA's Chandra Observatory Catches Spider Pulsars Destroying Nearby Stars

NASA's Chandra Observatory Catches Spider Pulsars Destroying Nearby Stars

A horde of dead stars known as “spider pulsars” are obliterating companion stars within their reach. Data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory of the globular cluster Omega Centauri are helping astronomers understand how these spider pulsars prey on nearby stars.

A pulsar is the spinning dense core that remains after a massive star collapses into itself. Rapidly rotating neutron stars can produce beams of radiation. Like a rotating lighthouse beam, the radiation can be observed as a powerful, pulsing source of radiation, or pulsar. There are pulsars that spin around dozens to hundreds of times per second, and these are known as millisecond pulsars.

Spider pulsars are a special class of millisecond pulsars, and get their name for the damage they inflict on small companion stars in orbit around them. Through winds of energetic particles streaming from their surfaces, the spider pulsars methodically strip the companion stars of their outer layers.

Astronomers recently discovered 18 millisecond pulsars in Omega Centauri—located about 17,700 light-years from Earth—using radio telescopes. A pair of astronomers from the University of Alberta in Canada then looked at Chandra data of Omega Centauri to see if how many of the millisecond pulsars give off X-rays.

They found 11 millisecond pulsars emitting X-rays, and five of those were spider pulsars concentrated near the center of Omega Centauri. The researchers next combined the data of Omega Centauri with Chandra observations of 26 spider pulsars in 12 other globular clusters.

Spider pulsars are typically separated from their companions by only about one to 14 times the distance between the Earth and Moon. This close proximity—cosmically speaking—causes the energetic particles from the pulsars to be particularly damaging to their companion stars.

Chandra's sharp X-ray vision is crucial for studying millisecond pulsars in globular clusters because they often contain large numbers of X-ray sources in a small part of the sky, making it difficult to distinguish sources from each other.

Video Credit: Chandra X-ray Observatory

Duration: 2 minutes, 47 seconds

Release Date: Nov. 27, 2023

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Stars #GlobularCluster #OmegaCentauri #NeutronStars #Pulsars #SpidarPulsars #Centaurus #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #NASAChandra #ChandraObservatory #Xray #MSFC #SpaceTelescope #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

NASA's "Espacio a Tierra" | Entrega directa: 17 de noviembre de 2023

NASA's "Espacio a Tierra" | Entrega directa: 17 de noviembre de 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.

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

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

Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Duration: 2 minutes, 49 seconds

Release Date: Nov. 27, 2023

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #ISS #Earth #NASAenespañol #español #HumanSpaceflight #Astronauts #LoralOHara #JasminMoghbeli #UnitedStates #AndreasMogensen #ESA #Europe #SatoshiFurukawa #JAXA #Japan #Cosmonauts #OlegKononenko #NikolaiChub #KonstantinBorisov #Russia #Роскосмос #Expedition70 #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Un tour de la estación espacial con el astronauta Frank Rubio | NASA en Español

Un tour de la estación espacial con el astronauta Frank Rubio | NASA en Español

El astronauta de la NASA Frank Rubio, quien acaba de cumplir una misión récord, es el presentador de un video con el primer tour narrado en español del hogar de la humanidad en el espacio: la Estación Espacial Internacional. El recorrido por la estación espacial va de un extremo a otro del complejo orbital, comenzando en el módulo Harmony e incluyendo la cúpula, la ventana al mundo de la estación espacial. Rubio, que participó como ingeniero de vuelo en las Expediciones 68 y 69, pasó un total de 371 días en el espacio durante su primera misión.

Astronaut Frank Rubio’s Official NASA Biography:

https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/astronauts/frank-rubio/

Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Duration: 14 minutes

Release Date: Nov. 27, 2023

#NASA #Space #Earth #NASAenespañol #español #Science #Astronauts #Astronaut #FrankRubio #LongDurationMission #HumanSpaceflight #UAE #Russia #Россия #Роскосмос #MicrogravityResearch #SpaceResearch #SpaceLaboratory #InternationalCooperation #UnitedStates #Expedition69 #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Distant Galaxy Cluster Abell 3192: Plus One More? | Hubble Space Telescope

Distant Galaxy Cluster Abell 3192: Plus One More? | Hubble Space Telescope

This Hubble image features a massive cluster of brightly glowing galaxies, first identified as Abell 3192. Like all galaxy clusters, this one is suffused with hot gas that emits powerful X-rays, and it is enveloped in a halo of invisible dark matter. All this unseen material—not to mention the many galaxies visible in this image—comprises such a huge amount of mass that the galaxy cluster noticeably curves spacetime around it, making it into a gravitational lens. Smaller galaxies behind the cluster appear distorted into long, warped arcs around the cluster’s edges.

The galaxy cluster is located in the constellation Eridanus, but the question of its distance from Earth is a more complicated one. Abell 3192 was originally documented in the 1989 update of the Abell catalogue, a catalogue of galaxy clusters that was first published in 1958. At that time, Abell 3192 was thought to comprise a single cluster of galaxies, concentrated at a single distance. However, further research revealed something surprising: the cluster’s mass seemed to be densest at two distinct points rather than one.

It was subsequently shown that the original Abell cluster actually comprised two independent galaxy clusters—a foreground group around 2.3 billion light-years from Earth, and a further group at the greater distance of about 5.4 billion light-years from our planet. The more distant galaxy cluster, included in the Massive Cluster Survey as MCS J0358.8-2955, is central in this image. The two galaxy groups are thought to have masses equivalent to around 30 trillion and 120 trillion times the mass of the Sun, respectively. These two largest galaxies at the center of this image are part of MCS J0358.8-2955; the smaller galaxies you see here, however, are a mixture of the two groups within Abell 3192.

Image Description: A cluster of galaxies, concentrated around what appear to be two large elliptical galaxies. The rest of the black background is covered in smaller galaxies of all shapes and sizes. In the top left and bottom right, beside the two large galaxies, some galaxies appear notably distorted into curves by gravity.

Science paper by V. Hamilton-Morris et al.: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2041-8205/748/2/L23

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, G. Smith, H. Ebeling, D. Coe

Release Date: Nov. 27, 2023

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Hubble #Galaxies #GalaxyClusters #Abell3192 #ABellCluster #MCSJ035882955 #Eridanus #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #HST #HubbleSpaceTelescope #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education

Sunday, November 26, 2023

Asteroid Bennu’s Surprises | NASA's OSIRIS-REx Mission

Asteroid Bennu’s Surprises | NASA's OSIRIS-REx Mission

When it comes to space exploration, expect the unexpected. As NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft approached asteroid Bennu, scientists were surprised to find a loosely packed rubble pile. We have a closer look at Bennu and the surprises in store.

Find more information about NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission at:

https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex

University of Arizona's OSIRIS-REx Mission Page: http://www.asteroidmission.org

Video Credit: NASA

Created by: James Tralie

Producers: James Tralie, Dan Gallagher, Lauren Ward, Katy Mersmann

Scientists: Dante Lauretta, Dani DellaGiustina, Mike Moreau

Engineers: Anjani Polit, Ryan Olds, Sandy Freund

Operations: Kenny Getzandanner, David Lorenz

Videographers: Rob Andreoli, John Philyaw, John Caldwell

Animation: Walt Feimer, Michael Lentz, Jonathan North, Adriana Manrique Gutierrez, Krystofer Kim, James Tralie, Bailee DesRocher, Jacquelyn DeMink, Lisa Poje

Sound Design: James Tralie

Data Visualization: Kel Elkins

NASA+ Executive Producer: Rebecca Sirmons

Duration: 23 minutes

Release Date: Nov. 16, 2023

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #OSIRISRExMission #OSIRISRExSpacecraft #Asteroids #AstreroidBennu #ToBennuAndBack #SampleReturn #SpaceTechnology #CSA #Canada #CNES #France #JSC #GSFC #UArizona #LockheedMartin #JSC #UnitedStates #SolarSystem #SpaceExploration #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Comet 67P: A Dust Jet | Europe's Rosetta Mission

Comet 67P: A Dust Jet | Europe's Rosetta Mission

Where do comet tails come from? There are no obvious places on the nuclei of comets where jets can create comet tails. However, in 2016, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft imaged a jet emerging from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and it flew right through it. This picture shows a bright plume emerging from a small circular dip bounded on one side by a 10-meter high wall. Analyses of Rosetta data show that the jet was composed of dust and water-ice. The rugged but otherwise unremarkable terrain indicates that something likely happened far under the porous surface to create the plume. This image was taken about two months before Rosetta's mission ended with a controlled impact onto Comet 67P's surface.

Image Credit: ESA, Rosetta, MPS, OSIRIS; UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

Release Date: Nov. 26, 2023

#NASA #ESA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Comet #Comet67P #DustJet #WaterIce #RosettaSpacecraft #PhilaeLander #OSIRIS #ChuryumovGerasimenko #DLR #Germany #Deutschland #Europe #SolarSystem #SpaceExploration #STEM #Education #APoD

Galactic Neighbors Messier 60 & NGC 4647 (Arp 116) | Hubble

Galactic Neighbors Messier 60 & NGC 4647 (Arp 116) | Hubble

Arp 116 is composed of a giant elliptical galaxy known as Messier 60, and a much smaller spiral galaxy, NGC 4647.

Astronomers have long tried to determine whether these two galaxies are actually interacting. Although they overlap as seen from Earth, there is no evidence of new star formation, which would be one of the clearest signs that the two galaxies are indeed interacting. However, recent studies of very detailed Hubble images suggest the onset of some tidal interaction between the two.

Technical 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/NASA/ESA

Release Date: Dec. 1, 2011

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxies #Galaxy #Messier60 #M60 #EllipticalGalaxy #NGC4647 #SpiralGalaxy #Arp116 #Virgo #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #UA #MountLemmonObservatory #SchulmanTelescope #Astrophotographer #AdamBlock #Arizona #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

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