Friends of NASA (FoN) is an independent non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to building international support for peaceful space exploration, commerce, scientific discovery, and STEM education.
Jupiter's Moon Ganymede: The Solar System's Largest | NASA Juno Mission
What does the largest moon in the Solar System look like? Jupiter's moon Ganymede, larger than even Mercury and Pluto, has an icy surface speckled with bright young craters overlying a mixture of older, darker, more cratered terrain laced with grooves and ridges. The cause of the grooved terrain remains a topic of research, with a leading hypothesis relating it to shifting ice plates. Ganymede is thought to have an ocean layer that contains more water than Earth—and might contain life. Ganymede’s ocean is estimated to be 60 miles (100 kilometers) thick—10 times deeper than Earth's ocean—and is thought to be buried under a 95-mile- (150-kilometer-) thick crust of mostly ice. Identifying liquid water is crucial in the search for habitable worlds beyond Earth and in the search for life as we know it.
Like Earth's Moon, Ganymede keeps the same face towards its central planet, in this case Jupiter. The featured image was captured in 2021 by NASA's robotic Juno spacecraft when it passed by the immense moon. This close pass reduced Juno's orbital period around Jupiter from 53 days to 43 days. Juno continues to study the giant planet's high gravity, unusual magnetic field, and complex cloud structures. Ganymede is also the only moon in the Solar System to have a magnetosphere.
The European Space Agency's JUICE Mission will arrive at Ganymede in 2031 to conduct investigations.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott J. Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft.
Stellar Disc Discovered in Neighboring Galaxy | European Southern Observatory
ESOCast 268 Light: Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) astronomers have for the first time found a disc around a young star outside our own galaxy. This video summarizes the discovery. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is an ALMA partner.
“When I first saw evidence for a rotating structure in the ALMA data I could not believe that we had detected the first extragalactic accretion disc, it was a special moment,” says Anna McLeod, an associate professor at Durham University in the UK and lead author of the study published today in Nature. “We know discs are vital to forming stars and planets in our galaxy, and here, for the first time, we’re seeing direct evidence for this in another galaxy.”
As matter is pulled towards a growing star, it cannot fall directly onto it; instead, it flattens into a spinning disc around the star. Closer to the center, the disc rotates faster, and this difference in speed shows astronomers an accretion disc is present.
The detailed frequency measurements from ALMA allowed the authors to distinguish the characteristic spin of a disc, confirming the detection of the first disc around an extragalactic young star.
Massive stars, like the one observed here, form much more quickly and live far shorter lives than low-mass stars like our Sun. In our galaxy, these massive stars are notoriously challenging to observe and are often obscured from view by the dusty material they formed from at the time a disc is shaping around them. However, in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a galaxy 160,000 light-years away, the material new stars are being born in is fundamentally different from that of the Milky Way Galaxy. Thanks to the lower dust content, HH 1177 is no longer cloaked in its natal cocoon, offering astronomers an unobstructed, if far away, view of stellar and planetary formation.
Video Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Directed by: Angelos Tsaousis and Martin Wallner
Editing: Angelos Tsaousis
Written by: Pamela Freeman and Tom Howarth
Footage and Photos: ESO / L. Calçada, M. Kornmesser, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), A McLeod et al.
Scientific Consultants: Paola Amico, Mariya Lyubenova
Solar Arrays and The Earth's Blue Glow | International Space Station
Clouds hang over a glaciated region as the International Space Station began to enter orbital nighttime 262 miles above the Tian Shan mountain range on the border between China, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. The golden hue of three of the station's solar arrays contrasts with the backdrop of Earth's blue glow near the center-right of the image.
Station Commander: Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency (Denmark)
Roscosmos (Russia): Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, Konstantin Borisov
JAXA: Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa (Japan)
NASA: Jasmin Moghbeli, Loral O'Hara (USA)
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.
Meet the Perseverance Rover's Mars Samples: "Pilot Mountain" | NASA/JPL
Meet the 21st Martian sample collected by NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover—“Pilot Mountain,” a rock sample believed to be among the youngest preserved material in Jezero Crater.
The team’s decision to sample this area was based on images taken by the Ingenuity helicopter, which showed interesting rocks scientists had not yet seen. An initial abrasion revealed green, glassy grains that represent some of the youngest material Perseverance has investigated. Comparing rocks of different ages can help shed light on the evolution of the planet.
As of early November 2023, the Perseverance rover has collected and sealed 23 scientifically selected samples inside pristine tubes as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign. The next stage is to get them to Earth for study.
Considered one of the highest priorities by the scientists in the Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032, Mars Sample Return would be the first mission to return samples from another planet and provides the best opportunity to reveal the early evolution of Mars, including the potential for ancient life. NASA is teaming with the European Space Agency (ESA) on this important endeavor.
A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet's geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, as well as be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
NASA Artemis V Moon Rocket Engine Test#3: Preparing for Crewed Missions
NASA has conducted the third hot fire in a final 12-test certification series paving the way for production of new RS-25 engines to help power NASA's Space Launch System rocket for future Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond. An Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 rocket engine (RS-25 developmental engine E0525) was tested on the Fred Haise Test Stand (formerly A-1 Test Stand) at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, on November 29, 2023, at 12:32 EST. This was the third hot fire test out of the 12 planned in the final round of certification testing ahead of production of an updated set of engines for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) that will be used beginning with Artemis V. The test had a planned duration of 500 seconds with the RS-25 engine running up to 113% power level—more than the level needed to power SLS.
Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Pan of Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1385: Two Views, Two Filters | Hubble
This luminous tangle of stars and dust is the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1385. It lies about 30 million light-years from Earth. The same galaxy was captured by Hubble before but the two images are notably different. This more recent image has far more pinkish-red and umber shades, whereas the former image was dominated by cool blues. This chromatic variation is not just a creative choice, but a technical one, made in order to represent the different number and type of filters used to collect the data that were used to make the respective images.
It is understandable to be a bit confused as to how the same galaxy, imaged twice by the same telescope, could be represented so differently in two different images. The reason is that—like all powerful telescopes used by professional astronomers for scientific research—Hubble is equipped with a range of filters. These highly specialized components have little similarity to filters used on social media. Those software-powered filters are added after the image has been taken, and cause information to be lost from the image as certain colors are exaggerated or reduced for aesthetic effect. In contrast, telescope filters are pieces of physical hardware that only allow very specific wavelengths of light to enter the telescope as the data are being collected. This does cause light to be lost, but means that astronomers can probe extremely specific parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. This is very useful for a number of reasons. For example, physical processes within certain elements emit light at very specific wavelengths, and filters can be optimized to these wavelengths.
Image Description: A spiral galaxy. It has several arms that are mixed together and an overall oval shape. The center of the galaxy glows brightly. There are bright pink patches and filaments of dark red dust spread across the center.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Chandar, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST team
Panning across Distant Galaxy Cluster Abell 3192: Plus One More? | Hubble
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.
Panning across Irregular Galaxy NGC 2814 in Ursa Major | Hubble
This Hubble picture features NGC 2814, an irregular galaxy that lies about 85 million light years from Earth. In this image, captured using Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), the galaxy appears to be quite isolated. Visually, it looks like a stroke of bright paint across a dark background. However, looks can be deceiving. NGC 2814 actually has three close (in astronomical terms) galactic neighbors: a side-on spiral galaxy known as NGC 2820; an irregular galaxy named IC 2458; and a face-on non-barred spiral galaxy called NGC 2805. Collectively, the four galaxies make up a galaxy group known as Holmberg 124. In some literature these galaxies are referred to as a group of ‘late-type galaxies’.
The terminology ‘late-type’ refers to spiral and irregular galaxies, whilst ‘early-type’ refers to elliptical galaxies. This rather confusing terminology has led to a common misconception within the astronomy community. It is still quite widely believed that Edwin Hubble inaccurately thought that elliptical galaxies were the evolutionary precursors to spiral and irregular galaxies, and that that is the reason why ellipticals are classed as ‘early-type’ and spirals and irregulars are classed as ‘late-type’. This misconception is due to the Hubble ‘tuning fork’ of galactic classification. It visually shows galaxy types proceeding from elliptical to spiral, in a sequence that could easily be interpreted as a temporal evolution. However, Hubble actually adopted the terms ‘early-type’ and ‘late-type’ from much older astronomical terminology for stellar classifications, and did not mean to state that ellipticals were literally evolutionary precursors to spiral and irregular galaxies. In fact, he explicitly said in his 1927 paper that ‘the nomenclature . . . [early and late] . . . refers to position in the sequence, and temporal connotations are made at one’s peril’.
Despite Hubble himself being quite emphatic on this topic, the misunderstanding persists almost a hundred years later, and perhaps provides an instructive example of why it is helpful to classify things with easy-to-interpret terminology from the get-go!
Image Description: An irregular galaxy, a narrow streak of stars crossed by faint dust lanes. It is surrounded by a bright glow, appearing like a beam of light in the center of a dark background. A scatter of small, distant galaxies and a single, bright star surround the galaxy.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick
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)
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]
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.
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.
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.
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 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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
.jpg)
.jpg)
ESA-Webb.jpg)
