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A Tour of the International Space Station with European Astronaut Andreas Mogensen
On the last day of his Huginn mission, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen of Denmark takes us on a tour of the place he called home for 6 months—the International Space Station. From the beautiful views of cupola to the kitchen in Node 1 filled with food and friends and all the way to the science of Columbus, the space station is the work and living place for astronauts as they help push science forward.
For more about Andreas and his Huginn mission, visit the Huginn mission page:
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 Space to Ground: Above the Umbra | Week of April 12, 2024
NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station. The International Space Station soared into the Moon’s shadow during the solar eclipse on Monday afternoon, April 8, 2024. The Expedition 71 crew members had an opportunity to view the shadow at the end of their workday filled with cargo transfers, spacesuit maintenance, and microgravity research.
The windows on the cupola, the orbital outpost’s “window to the world,” were open and NASA Flight Engineers Matthew Dominick and Jeanette Epps were inside photographing and videotaping the Moon’s shadow on Earth, or umbra, beneath them. They were orbiting 260 miles above southeastern Canada as the Moon’s umbra was moving from New York state into Newfoundland.
The space station experienced a totality of about 90% during its flyover period. Views of the solar eclipse itself, the Moon orbiting directly between the sun and the Earth, were only accessible through a pair of windows in the space station’s Roscosmos segment which may not have been accessible due to cargo constraints.
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.
Launch of Russia's New Angara-A5 Heavy Lift Rocket in Far East | Roscosmos
An Angara-A5 launch vehicle with an Orion upper stage was successfully launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia, on April 11, 2024, at 09:00 UTC (18:00 local time). This was the fourth test launch (Test flight No.4) for the Angara-A5 heavy lift launch vehicle—the most powerful version of the Angara rocket, and the first Angara-A5 launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Far East Amur Region close to China. Angara heavy lift class launch vehicles will support future Russian Moon missions.
The Angara rocket family is the first Russian space booster designed since the fall of the Soviet Union. Development originally began in the 1990s, and the first rocket was tested in 2014.
It is described as an ‘eco-rocket’ due to its use of kerosene and oxygen as fuel.
Wide-field View: Dragon’s Egg Nebula & HD 148937 Binary Star System | ESO
Thousands of stars fill the frame. Most of them are small dots in white, bluish or red, but four larger ones surrounded by blue halos appear on the left and right margins of the image. The background is dark, with hazy, reddish, cloud-like structures covering most of it. There is a bright reddish structure in the center of the image. It is approximately the size of the larger stars, shaped like an egg tilted to the right, and has a bright white star in its center.
This wide-field view, created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2, shows the rich star clouds in the constellation of Norma (the Carpenter’s Square) in our Milky Way galaxy. The beautiful nebula NGC 6164/6165, also known as the Dragon’s Egg, appears in the center of the image.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/Digitized Sky Survey 2
Clash of Stars Solves Stellar Mystery in Binary Star System HD 148937 | ESO
Nine years’ worth of data from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) and other telescopes has revealed the mysterious past of an unusual pair of stars. The study reveals odd differences between these stars for a binary system—one of the stars appears younger and, unlike the other, is magnetic. The pair is also surrounded by a nebula hundreds of times younger than them. Astronomers believe this couple was originally a trio, in which two of the stars were much closer than the third and eventually clashed, violently merging into a younger, magnetic star. This event also released the nebula that now surrounds the stars. This video summarizes the discovery.
Video Credits: European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Directed by: Angelos Tsaousis and Martin Wallner
Editing: Angelos Tsaousis
Written by: Elena Reiriz Martínez, Louisa Spillman, Davor Curic
Footage and photos: ESO/Luis Calçada, Martin Kornmesser, Angelos Tsaousis, Babak Tafreshi, Mahdi Zamani, VPHAS+ team
Scientific consultants: Paola Amico, Mariya Lyubenova
Acknowledgments: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit (CASU)
Artist's Animation: The Violent History of Stellar Pair HD 148937 | ESO
This animation shows the violent event that changed the fate of the stellar system HD 148937. Originally, the system had at least three stars, two of them close together and another one much more distant, until one day the two inner stars clashed and merged. This violent event created a new, larger and magnetic star, now in pair with the more distant one. The merger also released the materials that created the spectacular nebula now surrounding the stars.
While the animations of the merger event and the birth of the nebula are artist’s impressions, the view of the nebula at the end is based on a real image from the VLT Survey Telescope, hosted at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal site.
In a new study using ESO data, astronomers have shown that the two stars are unusually different from each other—one appears much younger and, unlike the other, is magnetic. Moreover, the nebula is significantly younger than either star at its heart, and is made up of gases normally found deep within a star and not on the outside. These clues together helped solve the mystery of the HD 148937 system—there were most likely three stars in the system until two of them clashed and merged, creating a new, larger and magnetic star. This violent event also created the spectacular nebula that now surrounds the remaining stars.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/L. Calçada, M. Kornmesser/VPHAS+ team Acknowledgement: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit (CASU)
Zooming into The Dragon's Egg Nebula & HD 148937 Binary Star System | ESO
This zoom video transports us from a broad view of the Milky Way in the sky all the way to the cloudy nebula NGC 6164/6165 (also known as the Dragon’s Egg), home to the fascinating star system HD 148937 right at its center. Using nine years’ of data from the European Southern Observatory’s’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer and other telescopes, astronomers have inferred that this pair of stars used to be a trio, until two fatally merged into one younger, magnetic star, releasing the stunning nebula you see in this video.
Distance: 4,000 light years
Nebula NGC 6164/6165 surrounding the HD 148937 star system as seen in visible light. Most of the image is taken up by a cloud-like structure shaped like an egg, slightly tilted to the right. It is colored in shades of orange and pink, with certain areas brighter than others. In a gap at its center, a white sphere shines brightly, with white, blue and green rays coming out of it. Surrounding the cloud are stars of different sizes and colors over a dark background.
In a new study using ESO data, astronomers have shown that the two stars are unusually different from each other—one appears much younger and, unlike the other, is magnetic. Moreover, the nebula is significantly younger than either star at its heart, and is made up of gases normally found deep within a star and not on the outside. These clues together helped solve the mystery of the HD 148937 system—there were most likely three stars in the system until two of them clashed and merged, creating a new, larger and magnetic star. This violent event also created the spectacular nebula that now surrounds the remaining stars.
Credits: ESO/L. Calçada, N. Risinger, DSS, VPHAS+ team.
3D View: The Dragon's Egg Nebula & HD 148937 Binary Star System | ESO
This 3D animation of the beautiful nebula NGC 6164/6165, also known as the Dragon’s Egg, imagines what it might feel like to fly close to these swirling clouds of gas and dust and approach the star pair HD 148937 at its heart. This video is based on a real image from the VLT Survey Telescope, hosted at ESO’s Paranal site, but the 3D view is not real—the location of the stars shown here is only indicative.
Nebula NGC 6164/6165 surrounding the HD 148937 star system as seen in visible light. Most of the image is taken up by a cloud-like structure shaped like an egg, slightly tilted to the right. It is colored in shades of orange and pink, with certain areas brighter than others. In a gap at its center, a white sphere shines brightly, with white, blue and green rays coming out of it. Surrounding the cloud are stars of different sizes and colors over a dark background. Distance: 4,000 light years
This image, taken with the VLT Survey Telescope hosted at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory, shows the beautiful nebula NGC 6164/6165, also known as the Dragon’s Egg. The nebula is a cloud of gas and dust surrounding a pair of stars called HD 148937.
In a new study using ESO data, astronomers have shown that the two stars are unusually different from each other—one appears much younger and, unlike the other, is magnetic. Moreover, the nebula is significantly younger than either star at its heart, and is made up of gases normally found deep within a star and not on the outside. These clues together helped solve the mystery of the HD 148937 system—there were most likely three stars in the system until two of them clashed and merged, creating a new, larger and magnetic star. This violent event also created the spectacular nebula that now surrounds the remaining stars.
Credits: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/M. Kornmesser, VPHAS+ team
Acknowledgement: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit (CASU)
The Dragon's Egg Nebula & HD 148937 Binary Star System | ESO
Nebula NGC 6164/6165 surrounding the HD 148937 star system as seen in visible light. Most of the image is taken up by a cloud-like structure shaped like an egg, slightly tilted to the right. It is colored in shades of orange and pink, with certain areas brighter than others. In a gap at its center, a white sphere shines brightly, with white, blue and green rays coming out of it. Surrounding the cloud are stars of different sizes and colors over a dark background. Distance: 4,000 light years
This image, taken with the VLT Survey Telescope hosted at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory, shows the beautiful nebula NGC 6164/6165, also known as the Dragon’s Egg. The nebula is a cloud of gas and dust surrounding a pair of stars called HD 148937.
In a new study using ESO data, astronomers have shown that the two stars are unusually different from each other—one appears much younger and, unlike the other, is magnetic. Moreover, the nebula is significantly younger than either star at its heart, and is made up of gases normally found deep within a star and not on the outside. These clues together helped solve the mystery of the HD 148937 system—there were most likely three stars in the system until two of them clashed and merged, creating a new, larger and magnetic star. This violent event also created the spectacular nebula that now surrounds the remaining stars.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/VPHAS+ team
Acknowledgement: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit (CASU)
Artemis II Moon Mission: Orion Spacecraft Testing | NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
On April 4, 2024, a team lifts the Artemis II Orion spacecraft into a vacuum chamber inside the Operations and Checkout Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will undergo electromagnetic compatibility and interference testing.
The Orion spacecraft for NASA’s Artemis II mission is photographed inside the Final Assembly and System Testing cell at the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday, March 15, 2024.
NASA's Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II Moon Mission is undergoing altitude chamber testing at the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This puts the spacecraft through conditions as close as possible to the environment it will experience in the vacuum of deep space.
Four astronauts will venture around the Moon in the Orion spacecraft on Artemis II. It will be the first crewed mission on NASA's path to establishing a long-term presence at the Moon for science and exploration through the Artemis campaign.
Check the NASA Artemis II Mission page for updates:
How does a comet tail change? It depends on the comet. The ion tail of Comet 12P/Pons–Brooks has been changing markedly, as detailed in the featured image sequenced over nine days from March 6 to 14, 2024 (top to bottom). On particular days, the comet's ion tail was relatively long and complex, but not every day. Reasons for tail changes include the rate of ejection of material from the comet's nucleus, the strength and complexity of the passing solar wind, and the rotation rate of the comet. Over the course of a week, apparent changes even include a change of perspective from the Earth. In general, a comet's ion tail will point away from the Sun, as gas expelled is pushed out by the Sun's wind.
12P/Pons–Brooks is a periodic comet with an orbital period of 71 years. It fits the classical definition of a Halley-type comet with an orbital period between 20 and 200 years. It is also one of the brightest known periodic comets, reaching an absolute visual magnitude ~5 in its approach to perihelion.
Comet Pons-Brooks was discovered at Marseilles Observatory in July 1812 by Jean-Louis Pons.
The greenish coma of this comet has become relatively easy to observe in small telescopes.
Black Brant IX Sounding Rockets Fire for Solar Eclipse Science | NASA Wallops
NASA Engineer Cindy Fuentes Rosal waves goodbye to a Black Brant IX sounding rocket launching from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. The rocket was part of a series of three launches for the Atmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path (APEP) mission to study the disturbances in the electrified region of Earth’s atmosphere known as the ionosphere created when the Moon eclipses the Sun. The rockets launched before, during, and after peak local eclipse time on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
Three Black Brant IX sounding rocket launches at Wallops are presented in the images here.
Black Brant IX sounding rockets are produced by Magellan Aerospace in Canada.
EPIC Solar Eclipse View (GIF): The Deep Space Climate Observatory | NOAA/NASA
Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR): Celebrating The 9-Year Anniversary (2015-2024)
From one million miles away, NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s DSCOVR satellite captured these spectacular views of the total solar eclipse that swept across a narrow portion of the North American continent from Mexico’s Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada on April 8, 2024. A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of Central America and Europe.
This is NOAA's first operational deep space satellite and became its primary system of warning Earth in the event of solar magnetic storms.
On Feb. 11, 2015, DSCOVR was finally lofted into space by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. After a journey of about 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) to the L1 Lagrange Point, the satellite and its Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC). At L1—four times farther than the orbit of the Moon—the gravitational pull of the Sun and Earth cancel out, providing a stable orbit and a continuous view of Earth. These images were made by combining information from EPIC’s red, green, and blue bands. (Bands are narrow regions of the electromagnetic spectrum to which a remote sensing instrument responds. When EPIC collects data, it takes a series of 10 images at different bands—from ultraviolet to near-infrared.)
Top Astronomical Discoveries of The World’s Largest Telescope Array (ALMA) | ESO
Chasing Starlight 9: Celebrating ALMA's 10th Anniversary! Travel to the world’s largest telescope array. Made up of 66 antennas, the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) has been observing the sky at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths for 10 years now.
Join European Southern Observatory astronomer, Suzanna Randall, in the latest episode of Chasing Starlight, to find out about some of the greatest discoveries of this telescope.
00:00 Introduction
00:21 Trip to Chile
01:28 What does ALMA observe?
02:11 Taking the first image of a black hole
03:48 Looking at the birthplace of stars
04:50 Studying nearby galaxies
05:33 Revealing the details of planet formation
06:51 Doing astrochemistry
07:26 What else are scientists observing with ALMA?