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.
How NASA Uses Simple Technology to Track Lunar Missions | NASA Goddard
NASA is using a simple but surprisingly effective technology called Laser Retroreflective Arrays (LRAs) to determine the locations of lunar landers more accurately. They will be attached to landers sent to the Moon as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) initiative. LRAs are inexpensive, small, and lightweight.
Stargazing Podcast: Venus for Valentine's Day (Feb. 12-18, 2024) | BBC Sky at Night
Watch Venus pass through the morning sky this Valentine’s Day. Get the details in the latest episode of our weekly stargazing guide podcast, Star Diary February 12 to 18, 2024.
Splashdown Training: How The Ax-3 Crew Prepared | International Space Station
The successful splashdown of the Ax-3 crew's SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft on Feb. 9, 2024, off the Florida coast, after an 18 day mission aboard the International Space Station, reminds us of the exceptional training and support provided by partners of Axiom Space, like Operator Solutions.
Axiom Space operates end-to-end missions to the International Space Station today while developing its successor, Axiom Station—planning to become the world’s first commercial space station in low-Earth orbit. Axiom Space seeks to "sustain human growth off the planet, while bringing benefits back home."
Ax-3 Crew Arrives in Houston, Texas | Axiom Space | International Space Station
"A Texas-sized welcome for the returning Ax-3 crew as they land back in Houston!"
The crew of Axiom Space’s Ax-3 Mission to the International Space Station, commander Michael López-Alegría (United States-Spain), pilot Walter Villadei (Italy), mission specialist Alper Gezeravcı (Türkiye) and European Space Agency (ESA) project astronaut Marcus Wandt (Sweden), was successfully recovered from SpaceX’s “Freedom” Crew Dragon spacecraft.
SpaceX’s “Freedom” Crew Dragon spacecraft splashed down off the coast of Florida, on February 9, 2024, at 13:30 UTC (8:30am EST).
The Ax-3 astronauts completed 18 days aboard the orbiting laboratory at the conclusion of their mission. The SpaceX Crew Dragon returned to Earth with more than 550 pounds of science and supplies, including NASA experiments and hardware.
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.
Ax-3 Commander Michael López-Alegría: Crew Dragon Landing | Axiom Space
Ax-3 Commander Michael López-Alegría (United States-Spain) arrives back on Earth, making history as the first person to ride aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft twice.
The crew of Axiom Space’s Ax-3 Mission to the International Space Station, commander Michael López-Alegría (United States-Spain), pilot Walter Villadei (Italy), mission specialist Alper Gezeravcı (Türkiye) and European Space Agency (ESA) project astronaut Marcus Wandt (Sweden), was successfully recovered from SpaceX’s “Freedom” Crew Dragon spacecraft.
SpaceX’s “Freedom” Crew Dragon spacecraft splashed down off the coast of Florida, on February 9, 2024, at 13:30 UTC (8:30am EST).
The Ax-3 astronauts completed 18 days aboard the orbiting laboratory at the conclusion of their mission. The SpaceX Crew Dragon returned to Earth with more than 550 pounds of science and supplies, including NASA experiments and hardware.
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.
Sagittarius C: The Milky Way's Galaxy Center | European Southern Observatory
Thousands of bright dots in different sizes and colors—red, orange, blue and bluish-white—fill the frame. The dark background is almost completely obscured, aside from a few small black patches peeking through. In the lower left corner, there is a particularly big orange star.
Hundreds of thousands of stars are contained in this infrared image of Sagittarius C, a region near the center of the Milky Way. Taken with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the Chilean Atacama Desert, this image is helping astronomers unlock a stellar puzzle.
The center of the Milky Way is the most prolific star-forming region in the entire galaxy. However, astronomers have only found a fraction of the young stars they expected here: there is “fossil” evidence that many more stars were born in the recent past than the ones we actually see. This is because looking towards the center of the galaxy is not an easy task: clouds of dust and gas block the light from the stars and obscure the view. Infrared instruments, such as the HAWK-I camera on the VLT, allow astronomers to peer through these clouds and reveal the starry landscape beyond.
In a recent study, Francisco Nogueras Lara, an astronomer at ESO in Germany, analyzed VLT data of Sagittarius C, a region whose chemical composition made it a promising candidate to host recently formed stars. And it delivered: he found that this region was much richer in young stars than other areas in the galactic center. Looking to similar regions, now, is a promising lead to find the other missing young stars.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/F. Nogueras-Lara et al.
Star-forming Region IRAS 16562-3959 in Scorpius | Hubble
This image is a relatively close-by star-forming region known as IRAS 16562-3959 that lies within the Milky Way in the constellation Scorpius, about 5,900 light-years from Earth.
This image was compiled using observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC 3). The detailed nuances of color are possible because of the four separate filters that were used to collect the data. Filters are thin slivers of highly specialized material that only allow very specific wavelengths of light through. They can be slid in front of the part of the telescope that is sensitive to light, letting astronomers control which wavelengths of light the telescope collects with each observation. This is useful not only for specific scientific research, but also for the creation of images like this one.
Raw telescope observations are always monochrome, regardless of the filter used. However, specially trained artists and image specialists can select colors that match the wavelength range covered by individual filters. Or, in the case where a direct match is not possible—such as for the data used in this image (all in the infrared regime) that human eyes are not sensitive to—the artist can select a color that sensibly represents what is taking place. For example, they might assign bluer colors to shorter wavelengths and redder colors to longer wavelengths, as is the case in the visible light range. Then, data from multiple filters can be combined to build up a multi-color image that looks beautiful and has scientific meaning.
At the center of the image, IRAS 16562-3959 is thought to host a massive star—about 30 times the mass of our Sun—that is still in the process of forming. At the near-infrared wavelengths to which Hubble is sensitive, the central region appears dark because there is so much obscuring dust in the way. However, near-infrared light leaks out mainly on two sides—upper left and lower right—where a powerful jet from the massive protostar has cleared away the dust. Multi-wavelength images, including this incredible Hubble scene, will help us gain a better understanding of how the most massive, brightest stars in our galaxy are born.
Image Description: A nebula with stars. The center of the image from top-left to bottom-right glows brightly with light from where new stars are being formed, and is partially covered by dark dust. Colored layers of gas and dust billow out across the rest of the image. The nebula is speckled with foreground stars with large diffraction spikes.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble & NASA, R. Fedriani, J. Tan
NASA Astronauts Aboard International Space Station Huddle Up for Super Bowl
NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara, currently aboard the International Space Station, talk about the similarities between training for space travel and training for the Big Game. Spoiler: "It’s all about teamwork."
The crew aboard the orbiting laboratory are studying a variety of microgravity experiments that benefit people on Earth, including research in human heart health, cancer therapies, space manufacturing techniques, and technology demonstrations.
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.
Video Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
The surface of Venus is completely inhospitable for life: barren, dry, crushed under an atmosphere about 90 times the pressure of Earth’s and roasted by temperatures two times hotter than an oven.
Was it always that way? Could Venus once have been a twin of Earth—a habitable world with liquid water oceans? This is one of the many mysteries associated with our shrouded sister world.
Twenty-nine years have passed since NASA’s Magellan mission last orbited Venus. It was NASA’s most recent mission to Earth’s sister planet. While we have gained significant knowledge of Venus since then, there are still numerous mysteries about the planet that remain unsolved. NASA’s DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) mission hopes to change that.
Venus, our planetary neighbor, is a hot, hellish unforgiving world and NASA has selected two bold new missions to study this inferno-like planet: DAVINCI+ and VERITAS. Are Venus and Earth fundamentally unique worlds? Or are the differences between these ‘twins’ only cosmetic? Answering this question is key to understanding what makes other rocky planets habitable and, ultimately, emerge with life.
Scheduled for launch in 2029, NASA’s Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry and Imaging (DAVINCI) Mission will bring a suite of instruments to Venus to address long standing questions about Earth’s sister planet. A number of scientists think Venus may once have been more Earth-like in the past, with oceans and pleasant surface temperatures—DAVINCI data will help us determine if this intriguing possibility is true. Clues to Venus’ mysterious past may be hidden in atmospheric gases or in surface rocks formed in association with ancient water in the planet’s mountainous highlands.
During two flybys, the DAVINCI carrier, relay, and imaging spacecraft will collect data on the planet’s day side of unknown compounds that absorb ultraviolet light in the Venus upper atmosphere with an instrument called the Compact Ultraviolet to Visible Imaging Spectrometer (CUVIS); on the planet’s night side, the Venus Imaging System for Observational Reconnaissance (VISOR) will sense heat from Venus’ surface emerging from beneath the clouds to help us better understand the composition of diverse geological highlands regions across Venus. VISOR will also study clouds on the Venus day side in the ultraviolet, producing cloud motion video.
Venus has a scorching surface hotter than your home oven, and a complex atmosphere 90 times thicker than Earth’s made mostly of carbon dioxide and with sulfuric acid clouds. Two years after launch, the DAVINCI descent sphere will by dropped by the carrier spacecraft into this extreme environment to provide new direct measurements of the Venus atmosphere, and to reveal a bird’s eye view of the surface below the clouds. The descent location, the Alpha Regio “tessera,” is a mountainous highland region whose rocks may hold clues to the planet’s mysterious past. The titanium sphere is designed to withstand the harsh conditions of the Venus environment while protecting the instruments nestled inside.
The Venus Tunable Laser Spectrometer (VTLS) will measure key gases that offer clues to the planet’s past, including compounds that may hint at the possible history of past water. The Venus Mass Spectrometer (VMS) will study the atmosphere in detail, including noble gases and trace gases from 67 km to the near surface. The Venus Atmospheric Structure Investigation (VASI) will measure pressure, temperature, and winds throughout the descent. Peering through a transparent sapphire window at the bottom of the descent sphere, the Venus Descent Imager (VenDI) will map the 3-D topography and composition of Alpha Regio, with topographic resolution at up to sub-meter scales. Lastly, a student collaboration experiment called the Venus Oxygen Fugacity experiment (VfOx) will be mounted to the probe to measure oxygen in the deep atmosphere. Together, this set of data will help rewrite the textbooks on Venus and may even help us better understand Venus-like planets in other solar systems.
DAVINCI is a partnership between NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland, and Lockheed Martin in Denver, Colorado, with instruments from NASA Goddard, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Malin Space Science Systems, and key supporting hardware from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and the University of Michigan.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: Year in Review 2023
From our home planet to the farthest reaches of the universe, review top highlights over 2023 from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the agency’s scientific nerve center.
Download a PDF of Goddard’s 2023 year in review booklet at:
Goddard is NASA’s premiere space flight complex and home to the nation’s largest organization of scientists, engineers, and technologists who build spacecraft, instruments, and new technology to study Earth, the Sun, our solar system, and the universe.
Video Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Swarupa Nune (eMITS) [Lead] Writer, Producer
Michael Randazzo (Abacus Technology) [Lead] Video Editor
Wade Sisler (NASA/GSFC) Producer
Rob Andreoli (ROTHE ARES Joint Venture) Videographer
John D. Philyaw (Abacus Technology) Videographer
Claire Andreoli (NASA/GSFC) Project Support
Dan Gallager (Abacus Technology) Project Support
David Ladd (Abacus Technology) Project Support
Deanna Kekesi (NASA/GSFC) Project Support
James Garvin (NASA, Chief Scientist Goddard) Project Support
Jeremy Eggers (NASA/WFF) Project Support
Katie Jepson (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) Project Support
Lacey Young (ROTHE ARES Joint Venture) Project Support
Laura Betz (Telophase) Project Support
Michael McClare (ROTHE ARES Joint Venture) Project Support
Miranda Chabot (NASA Intern) Project Support
Nancy Neal-Jones (NASA/GSFC) Project Support
Paul Morris (ROTHE ARES Joint Venture) Project Support
Ryan Fitzgibbons (ROTHE ARES Joint Venture) Project Support
Scott Wiessinger (ROTHE ARES Joint Venture) Project Support
Haiti & The Dominican Republic | International Space Station
An astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this photograph of Hispaniola while in orbit over the Atlantic Ocean. Hispaniola is divided into two countries, Haiti to the west and the Dominican Republic to the east. The island is part of the Greater Antilles, a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea stretching from Cuba (out of frame to the right) to Puerto Rico (bottom-left of the image). In this view, north is toward the bottom-right.
The oblique angle of the photo reveals Earth’s upper troposphere and stratosphere, visible as the light-blue strip in the top-left corner of the image. Atmospheric phenomena, such as a plume of smoke over the north-central part of the island and various cloud types, also make an appearance.
Sunglint brightens virtually all water surfaces in this image, highlighting the island’s hydrography. Sunglint occurs when sunlight reflects from a water surface directly back to the observer, or in this case, the camera. The Artibonite and Yaque del Sur rivers are especially visible against the darker landscape as bright, thin lines. The calm waters of interior lakes, such as Lago Enriquillo and nearby Lake Azuéi, and coastal bays along the island’s south side appear bright white, as sunglint is stronger in places with calmer winds and smoother water surfaces.
Trails of clouds stream downwind from Gonâve Island, west of Hispaniola, and the Tiburon Peninsula farther to the southwest. Such clouds likely form when warm, less-dense air near the ground rises and condenses. Clouds can also be caused by the orographic effect, which occurs when mountains act as a natural barrier that prevents the passage of air masses. Mountains force the air to rise and cool, triggering water vapor to condense into clouds on the windward side of a mountain while leaving the leeward side drier. This effect is evident along the Cordillera Central, where clouds have formed on the east side of the mountain range (windward) and mostly clear skies prevail on the west side (leeward).
Astronaut photograph ISS068-E-36387 was acquired on January 2, 2023, with a Nikon D5 digital camera using a focal length of 50 millimeters.
Image Credit: ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at Johnson Space Center
Shenzhou-17 Crew Celebrates Spring Festival | China Space Station
Astronauts aboard China's Space Station may not have been able to join the millions of Chinese in journeying back to their hometown for the Spring Festival this year but they did throw their very own Chinese New Year's party in-orbit high above the Earth. They enjoyed a traditional New Year's Eve dinner with snacks sent from ground control.
The Spring Festival, centered around the Chinese New Year, is the most important annual festival in China. The Shenzhou-17 crew on duty in outer space held a unique celebration as they hung up festive decorations inside the Tiangong Space Station and extended New Year wishes to those back on the ground.
On the New Year's Eve on Friday, Chinese astronauts Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie, and Jiang Xinlin put on auspicious suits with the lucky color red and hung up New Year paintings, stuck up signs with the Chinese character "fu", meaning fortune, and pasted Spring Festival couplets on the walls of the station's Tianhe core module, the Wentian experimental module, and the Mengtian experimental module, creating a strong festive vibe.
The three crew members also extended their blessings to the ground control team via video call.
Even up in space, the trio were still able to enjoy the traditional New Year's Eve dinner as the ground control team had sent them festive food such as dumplings, osmanthus cheese rice cakes, and several other favorite snacks.
"Hanging up Spring Festival couplets, watching the Spring Festival Gala, and staying up late on New Year's Eve together are the happiest moments of the year for us," said astronaut Tang Shengjie.
"Celebrating the Lunar New Year on the space station is truly extraordinary and holds significant meaning for us," added his crew-mate Jiang.
This marks the third time that Chinese astronauts have celebrated the Spring Festival in their own "space home," following the Shenzhou-13 and Shenzhou-15 missions of the previous two years.
During the first three days of the Spring Festival holiday, the astronauts are being permitted to carry out some of their own arrangements, including video chatting with relatives, friends and colleagues, and enjoying some entertainment activities. After this well-earned break, the three astronauts will then proceed with their planned program objectives.
"After having been in orbit for more than 100 days, the entire astronaut crew is in very good working condition, physical and mental condition, and are in good health. They will resume work on the fourth day of the Chinese New Year and make a lot of preparations in advance for the following extravehicular missions and some on-orbit experiments," said Wang Chunhui, deputy chief designer of astronaut system, China Astronaut Research and Training Center.
The Shenzhou-17 manned spaceship was launched on Oct. 26 last year, sending the three crew members into orbit to carry out a six-month mission aboard the Tiangong space station.
El fascinante desafío de observar en persona | NOIRLab
Cosmoview Episodio 75: Los observatorios de clase mundial de NOIRLab de NSF: el Observatorio Cerro Tololo, el Observatorio Nacional Kitt Peak, el Observatorio Internacional Gemini y el Observatorio Vera C. Rubin, están construidos en algunos de los lugares más altos y secos del planeta, a menudo alejados de las principales áreas pobladas. Trasladarse y trabajar en ellos presenta algunos desafíos, pero también ofrece a los astrónomos y astrónomas la oportunidad de descubrir entornos únicos y remotos.
Video Credit:
Images and Videos: International Gemini Observatory/CTIO/KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/DOE/FNAL/DECam/T. Matsopoulos/R. Hahn/T. Slovinský/N. Bartmann
.jpg)
.jpg)
