Seeing both sides of the Sun at once | Europe's Proba-2 & Solar Orbiter Missions

Seeing both sides of the Sun at once | Europe's Proba-2 & Solar Orbiter Missions

This video shows the Sun as seen from Earth orbit by the European Space Agency’s Proba-2 mission on the left, and as seen from the opposite side of the Sun by the European Space Agency-led Solar Orbiter mission on the right. The two spacecraft carry an almost-identical imager instrument that takes photos of the Sun in ultraviolet light. The images shown here were measured by Proba-2’s SWAP (Sun Watcher using Active Pixel System detector and Image Processing) imager and Solar Orbiter’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument at a wavelength of 17.4 nanometers.

By watching the side of the Sun facing away from Earth, Solar Orbiter has allowed us to track the monster active region AR3664 as it rotates in and out of Earth’s view. AR3664 was very active in May 2024, producing many powerful solar flares and sending out highly energetic particles and large amounts of material in so-called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). It was responsible for the beautiful aurorae seen on Earth on May 10–12, and on May 20 Solar Orbiter saw it produce the largest solar flare of the current solar cycle (class X12). 

“Solar Orbiter’s position, in combination with other missions watching the Sun from Earth’s side, gives us a 360-degree view of the Sun for an extended period of time. This will only happen three more times in the future of Solar Orbiter, so we are in a unique situation to observe active regions on the far side that will then rotate into Earth’s view,” explains Daniel Müller, Solar Orbiter Project Scientist at the European Space Agency (ESA).

The European Space Agency's sun-watching spacecraft monitors the Sun's behavior to better understand the influence of space weather on our home planet. The ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission, in partnership with NASA, is orbiting the Sun from closer than ever before and is providing the first high resolution images of the Sun's poles.

Learn more here: 

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Solar_Orbiter/Can_t_stop_won_t_stop_Solar_Orbiter_shows_the_Sun_raging_on

Credit: ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/EUI

Acknowledgement: D. Berghmans

Duration: 26 seconds

Release Date: June 18, 2024

#NASA #ESA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Planet #Earth #SpaceWeather #Aurorae #Sun #Star #Heliophysics #ActiveRegion #AR3664 #Sunspots #Proba2 #SolarOrbiter #Satellites #Spacecraft #Europe #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Boeing Starliner over Egypt's Mediterranean Coast | International Space Station

Boeing Starliner over Egypt's Mediterranean Coast | International Space Station

The Starliner spacecraft on NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test is pictured docked to the Harmony module's forward port as the International Space Station orbited 262 miles above Egypt's Mediterranean coast.

Expedition 71 Crew

Station Commander: Oleg Kononenko (Russia)

Roscosmos (Russia): Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin (Russia)

NASA: Tracy Dyson, Matthew Dominick, Mike Barrett, Jeanette Epps

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.

Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Image Date: June 13, 2024

#NASA #Space #Earth #ISS #Egypt #NileRiver #Africa #MediterraneanSea #BoeingStarliner #Astronauts #SuniWilliams #BarryWilmore #Science #SpaceTechnology #SpaceLaboratory #Engineering #UnitedStates #Cosmonauts #Russia #Россия #Roscosmos #Роскосмос #HumanSpaceflight #InternationalCooperation #Expedition71 #STEM #Education #مصر

The Sound of Space Data: Crab Nebula Sonification | NASA/JPL

The Sound of Space Data: Crab Nebula Sonification | NASA/JPL

This video is a sonification of X-ray light emitted by the Crab Nebula. The data was obtained by NASA’s NuSTAR and Chandra space observatories, whose teams turned the data into sound to enable people to audibly perceive different features of the Crab Nebula, making it more accessible for the visually impaired.

In this sonification, X-ray wavelengths from NuSTAR (represented as unique colors) are mapped to musical pitches and sounds. Red, yellow, purple, blue, and white are mapped to notes from low to high. For Chandra, brightness in the X-ray data corresponds with pitch and volume, and a bell sound indicates the position of the pulsar at the center of the nebula.

The Crab Nebula is what remains of a star that exploded as a supernova. The explosion that created the Crab Nebula was visible from Earth in the year 1054, when it was recorded by Chinese astronomers. Most of the star’s mass was pushed into space, creating a wide debris field that continues to expand. 

The rest of the stellar material collapsed into a dense object called a pulsar. The pulsar’s rapid rotation and strong magnetic field accelerate particles and shoot them into space.The particles emit high-energy X-rays that NuSTAR can detect, but as they travel outward, they collide with the debris scattered by the supernova, causing them to slow down and lose their energy. This is why NuSTAR only sees light from a relatively small region close to the pulsar. Lower energy X-rays detected by Chandra can be seen farther out.

More information on NuStar: 

nustar.caltech.edu

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/CXC/SAO

Duration: 1 minute, 15 seconds

Release Date: June 17, 2024

#NASA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Nebula #CrabNebula #NGC1952 #Taurus #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #Astrophysics #Xrays #NASAChandra #SpaceTelescopes #NASAMarshall #MSFC #NUSTAR #JPL #Caltech #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #Sonification #HD #Video

Distant Merging Quasars at Cosmic Dawn Discovered | Gemini North Telescope

Distant Merging Quasars at Cosmic Dawn Discovered | Gemini North Telescope

Cosmoview Episode 82: With the help of the GNIRS instrument on the Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by NSF NOIRLab, a team of astronomers have discovered a double-record-breaking pair of quasars. Not only are they the most distant pair of merging quasars ever found, but also the only pair confirmed in the bygone era of the Universe’s earliest formation.

Galaxy mergers fuel the formation of quasars—extremely luminous galactic cores where gas and dust falling into a central supermassive black hole emit enormous amounts of light. So when looking back at the early Universe astronomers would expect to find numerous pairs of quasars in close proximity to each other as their host galaxies undergo mergers. However, they have been surprised to find exactly none—until now.

Cosmic Dawn spanned from about 50 million years to one billion years after the Big Bang. During this period the first stars and galaxies began appearing, filling the dark Universe with light for the first time. The arrival of the first stars and galaxies kicked off a new era in the formation of the cosmos known as the Epoch of Reionization.

The Epoch of Reionization, which took place within Cosmic Dawn, was a period of cosmological transition. Beginning roughly 400 million years after the Big Bang, ultraviolet light from the first stars, galaxies and quasars spread throughout the cosmos, interacting with the intergalactic medium and stripping the Universe’s primordial hydrogen atoms of their electrons in a process known as ionization. The Epoch of Reionization was a critical epoch in the history of the Universe that marked the end of the cosmic dark ages and seeded the large structures we observe in our local Universe today.

To understand the exact role that quasars played during the Epoch of Reionization, astronomers are interested in finding and studying quasars populating this early and distant era. 

Since 2002 Gemini North has also been known as the Frederick C. Gillett Gemini North telescope. Dr. Gillett, who died in April 2001, was one of the primary visionaries of the Gemini telescopes. He was instrumental in assuring that the design of Gemini's twin 8-meter telescopes would make major scientific contributions to astronomy.

Learn more here: https://www.gemini.edu

Video Credit:

Images and Videos: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Garlick/P. Horálek (Institute of Physics in Opava)/T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab)/D. de Martin (NSF NOIRLab)/M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab)/ESA/Hubble/NASA/M. Kornmesser/N. Bartmann (NSF NOIRLab)

Duration: 1 minute, 20 seconds

Release Date: June 7, 2024

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Quasars #EarlyUniverse #CosmicDawn  #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #InternationalGeminiObservatory #GeminiNorthTelescope #Optical #GNIRS #NOIRLab #AURA #NSF #Maunakea #Hawaii #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #Animation #HD #Video

Pan of The Crab Nebula: A New View | James Webb Space Telescope

Pan of The Crab Nebula: A New View | James Webb Space Telescope

The NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope dissected the Crab Nebula’s structure, aiding astronomers as they continue to evaluate leading theories about the supernova remnant’s origins. With the data collected by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), a team of scientists were able to closely inspect several of the Crab Nebula’s major components.

For the first time ever, astronomers mapped the warm dust emission throughout this supernova remnant. Represented here as fluffy magenta material, the dust grains form a cage-like structure that is most apparent toward the lower left and upper right portions of the remnant. Filaments of dust are also threaded throughout the Crab’s interior and sometimes coincide with regions of doubly ionized sulphur (sulphur III), colored in green. Yellow-white mottled filaments, which form large loop-like structures around the supernova remnant’s center, represent areas where dust and doubly ionized sulphur overlap.

The dust’s cage-like structure helps constrain some, but not all of the ghostly synchrotron emission represented in blue. The emission resembles wisps of smoke, most notable toward the Crab’s center. The thin blue ribbons follow the magnetic field lines created by the Crab’s pulsar heart—a rapidly rotating neutron star.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, T. Temim (Princeton University)

Duration: 30 seconds

Release Date: June 17, 2024

#NASA #ESA #JWST #Astronomy #Space #Star #NeutronStar #Nebula #CrabNebula #NGC1952 #M1 #Taurus #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #Infrared #SpaceTelescope #UnfoldTheUniverse #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #CSA #Canada #STEM #Education #HD #Video

The Crab Nebula: A New View | James Webb Space Telescope

The Crab Nebula: A New View | James Webb Space Telescope

The NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope dissected the Crab Nebula’s structure, aiding astronomers as they continue to evaluate leading theories about the supernova remnant’s origins. With the data collected by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), a team of scientists were able to closely inspect several of the Crab Nebula’s major components.

For the first time ever, astronomers mapped the warm dust emission throughout this supernova remnant. Represented here as fluffy magenta material, the dust grains form a cage-like structure that is most apparent toward the lower left and upper right portions of the remnant. Filaments of dust are also threaded throughout the Crab’s interior and sometimes coincide with regions of doubly ionized sulphur (sulphur III), colored in green. Yellow-white mottled filaments, which form large loop-like structures around the supernova remnant’s center, represent areas where dust and doubly ionized sulphur overlap.

The dust’s cage-like structure helps constrain some, but not all of the ghostly synchrotron emission represented in blue. The emission resembles wisps of smoke, most notable toward the Crab’s center. The thin blue ribbons follow the magnetic field lines created by the Crab’s pulsar heart—a rapidly rotating neutron star.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, T. Temim (Princeton University)

Release Date: June 17, 2024

#NASA #ESA #JWST #Astronomy #Space #Star #NeutronStar #Nebula #CrabNebula #NGC1952 #M1 #Taurus #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #Infrared #SpaceTelescope #UnfoldTheUniverse #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #CSA #Canada #STEM #Education

Pan of Nebula RCW 7 in Puppis: A Stellar Nursery of Protostars | Hubble

Pan of Nebula RCW 7 in Puppis: A Stellar Nursery of Protostars | Hubble

Named RCW 7, this nebula is located just over 5,300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Puppis. It is a visually striking collection of interstellar gas and dust. 

Nebulae are areas of space that are rich in the raw material needed to form new stars. Under the influence of gravity, parts of these molecular clouds collapse until they coalesce into protostars, surrounded by spinning discs of leftover gas and dust. In the case of RCW 7, the protostars forming  here are particularly massive, giving off strongly ionizing radiation and fierce stellar winds that have transformed it into what is known as a H II region.

H II regions are filled with hydrogen ions—where H I refers to a normal hydrogen atom, H II is hydrogen that has lost its electron. The ultraviolet radiation from the massive protostars excites the hydrogen, causing it to emit light and giving this nebula its soft pinkish glow. Here Hubble is studying a particular massive protostellar binary named IRAS 07299-1651, still in its glowing cocoon of gas in the curling clouds towards the top of the nebula. To expose this star and its siblings, this image was captured using the Wide Field Camera 3 in near-infrared light. The massive protostars here are brightest in ultraviolet light, but they emit plenty of infrared light. This can pass through much of the gas and dust around them and be seen by Hubble. Many of the other, larger-looking stars in this image are not part of the nebula, but sit between it and our Solar System.

The creation of an H II region marks the beginning of the end for a molecular cloud. Over only a few million years, the radiation and winds from the massive stars gradually disperse the gas—even more so as the most massive stars come to the end of their lives in supernova explosions. Only a fraction of the gas will be incorporated into new stars in this nebula with the rest being spread throughout the galaxy to eventually form new molecular clouds.

Image Description: Clouds of gas and dust with many stars. The clouds form a flat blue background towards the bottom, and become more thick and smoky towards the top. They are lit on one side by stars in the nebula. A thick arc of gas and dust reaches around from the top, where it is brightly lit by many stars in and around it, to the bottom where it is dark and obscuring. Other large stars lie between the clouds and the viewer.

Video Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Tan (Chalmers University & University of Virginia), R. Fedriani (Institute for Astrophysics of Andalusia)

Duration: 30 seconds

Release Date: June 17, 2024

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Hubble #Nebulae #Nebula #RCW7 #HIIRegion #Protostars #IRAS072991651 #StellarNursery #Puppis #Constellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescope #HST #STScI #GSFC #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Nebula RCW 7 in Puppis: A Stellar Nursery of Protostars | Hubble

Nebula RCW 7 in Puppis: A Stellar Nursery of Protostars | Hubble

Named RCW 7, this nebula is located just over 5,300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Puppis. It is a visually striking collection of interstellar gas and dust. 

Nebulae are areas of space that are rich in the raw material needed to form new stars. Under the influence of gravity, parts of these molecular clouds collapse until they coalesce into protostars, surrounded by spinning discs of leftover gas and dust. In the case of RCW 7, the protostars forming  here are particularly massive, giving off strongly ionizing radiation and fierce stellar winds that have transformed it into what is known as a H II region.

H II regions are filled with hydrogen ions—where H I refers to a normal hydrogen atom, H II is hydrogen that has lost its electron. The ultraviolet radiation from the massive protostars excites the hydrogen, causing it to emit light and giving this nebula its soft pinkish glow. Here Hubble is studying a particular massive protostellar binary named IRAS 07299-1651, still in its glowing cocoon of gas in the curling clouds towards the top of the nebula. To expose this star and its siblings, this image was captured using the Wide Field Camera 3 in near-infrared light. The massive protostars here are brightest in ultraviolet light, but they emit plenty of infrared light. This can pass through much of the gas and dust around them and be seen by Hubble. Many of the other, larger-looking stars in this image are not part of the nebula, but sit between it and our Solar System.

The creation of an H II region marks the beginning of the end for a molecular cloud. Over only a few million years, the radiation and winds from the massive stars gradually disperse the gas—even more so as the most massive stars come to the end of their lives in supernova explosions. Only a fraction of the gas will be incorporated into new stars in this nebula with the rest being spread throughout the galaxy to eventually form new molecular clouds.

Image Description: Clouds of gas and dust with many stars. The clouds form a flat blue background towards the bottom, and become more thick and smoky towards the top. They are lit on one side by stars in the nebula. A thick arc of gas and dust reaches around from the top, where it is brightly lit by many stars in and around it, to the bottom where it is dark and obscuring. Other large stars lie between the clouds and the viewer.

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Tan (Chalmers University & University of Virginia), R. Fedriani (Institute for Astrophysics of Andalusia)

Release Date: June 17, 2024

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Hubble #Nebulae #Nebula #RCW7 #HIIRegion #Protostars #IRAS072991651 #StellarNursery #Puppis #Constellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescope #HST #STScI #GSFC #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education

The Lagoon Nebula: Wide-field View | Kitt Peak National Observatory

The Lagoon Nebula: Wide-field View | Kitt Peak National Observatory

This image was obtained with the wide-field view of the Mosaic camera on the KPNO 0.9m-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. M8 is a giant star forming region. It is so large that it is faintly visible to the naked eye. The gas in the nebula is energized by a massive star at its center, causing the gas to glow. The dark objects within the nebula are called Bok globules—dense clouds of gas where new stars are forming. The image was generated with observations in Hydrogen alpha (red), Oxygen [OIII] (green) and Sulfur [SII] (blue) filters. In this image, North is left, East is down

Credit: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage)

Release Date: June 30, 2020

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Nebulae #Nebula #M8 #NGC6523 #LagoonNebula #Sagittarius #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #Telescope #WIYN #Optical #KittPeak #Tucson #Arizona #NOIRLab #AURA #NSF #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

The Lagoon Nebula Close-up & Star Herschel 36 | Kitt Peak National Observatory

The Lagoon Nebula Close-up & Star Herschel 36 | Kitt Peak National Observatory

M8, the Lagoon Nebula, is a tremendous star forming region in our galaxy. Under dark skies it is easily seen with the unaided eye just above the "teapot" (spout) asterism of Sagittarius. A view through a small telescope (with the eye) shows the milky glow of nebulosity pervades the entire field. A star cluster, NGC 6530, highlights how star formation is proceeding in this cloud. A few of NGC 6530's stars can been seen in the bottom right of this image, but most of it is just outside the field to the right.

Charge-coupled device (CCD) images like this hint at the turbulent activity of the gases in the cloud. As stars form, they create strong stellar winds (and radiation) that heat and churn their surrounding natal material. Shown here is a particularly dense part of M8 with an "hour-glass" like shape. This hour-glass is the brightest part of the nebula left of the dark rift that divides the nebula. The star next to the hourglass is called Herschel 36 and it is most responsible for all of the activity in this area. The hour-glass structure itself spans a little more than a lightyear across in the longest dimension. At this scale, our solar system would be about 1/1000th of a pixel.

This image was taken as part of Advanced Observing Program (AOP) program at Kitt Peak Visitor Center during 2014.

Credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Jack Harvey and Tom Doughtery/Adam Block

Release Date: June 7, 2014

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Nebulae #Nebula #M8 #NGC6523 #LagoonNebula #Stars #StarCluster #NGC6530 #Herschel36 #Sagittarius #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #Telescope #KPNO #Optical #KittPeak #Tucson #Arizona #NOIRLab #AURA #NSF #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

The Lagoon Nebula | Mayall Telescope

The Lagoon Nebula | Mayall Telescope

The Lagoon Nebula, Messier object 8 (M8) or NGC 6523, in the constellation of Sagittarius, as seen by the 4-meter Kitt Peak Mayall Telescope in 1973. North is at the top. The Lagoon Nebula glows with the red light of hydrogen (H alpha) excited by the radiation of very hot stars buried within its center. Deep within the cloud, dark filaments of obscuring matter emit strong infrared radiation. Several peculiar variable stars in the nebula occasionally flare up, increasing in brightness to some 25 times their normal luminosity. The nebula is about 60 light-years across.

The Mayall Telescope saw first light on February 27, 1973, and was the second-largest telescope in the world at that time.

Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

Release Date: June 30, 2020

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Stars #Nebulae #Nebula #M8 #NGC6523 #LagoonNebula #BokGlobules #Sagittarius#Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #Observatory #Telescope #Optical #MayallTelescope #KittPeak #KPNO #Tucson #Arizona #NOIRLab #AURA #NSF #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

The Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius | SPECULOOS Southern Observatory

The Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius | SPECULOOS Southern Observatory

If you had a brand new state-of-the-art telescope facility, what would you look at first? Researchers at the SPECULOOS Southern Observatory—comprised of four small telescopes, each with a 1-meter primary mirror—chose to view the Lagoon Nebula. This magnificent picture is the result, and was one of the SPECULOOS’ first observations. The nebula is a cloud of dust and gas in our galaxy where new stars are being born, and is found roughly 4,000-5000 light-years from us.

This striking image is made even more impressive by the fact that the SPECULOOS is not designed to study nebulae. The name says it all—SPECULOOS, the Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars. In other words, the primary mission of this telescope facility is to find Earth-like planets orbiting faint nearby stars. The candidates it discovers will be passed over to larger telescopes, such as the European Southern Observatory ESO’s forthcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), to be studied in more detail.

SPECULOOS is located at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of Chile, taking full advantage of the location’s dark skies, ideal atmospheric conditions, and the support systems ESO has there—from telescope infrastructure to staff accommodation. It will have a partner, the SPECULOOS Northern Observatory, in the Canary Islands. It will hunt for planets in the northern skies not visible from Chile. Together they promise to vastly expand our knowledge of the exoplanets in our neighborhood.

Credit: ESO/SPECULOOS Team/E. Jehin

Release Date: March 4, 2019

#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #Stars #Nebulae #Nebula #M8 #NGC6523 #LagoonNebula #BokGlobules #Sagittarius #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #SPECULOOS #ParanalObservatory #Chile #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

The Lagoon Nebula:"Behind The Veil" (Infrared View) | VISTA Telescope

The Lagoon Nebula:"Behind The Veil" (Infrared View) | VISTA Telescope

This infrared view of the star formation region Messier 8, often called the Lagoon Nebula, was captured by the VISTA telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. This color picture was created from images taken through J, H and Ks near-infrared filters. These were acquired as part of a huge survey of the central parts of the Milky Way. The field of view is about 34 by 15 arcminutes.

The Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) is a 4-meter class specialized wide field survey telescope for the southern hemisphere, equipped with a near infrared camera VIRCAM (VISTA InfraRed CAMera) with 1.65 degree diameter field of view at VISTA's nominal pixel size, containing 67 million pixels of mean size 0.339 arcsec and available broad band filters at Z, Y, J, H, Ks and narrow band filters at 0.98, 0.99, and 1.18 micron.

Distance: 4,000 light years

Image Credit: ESO/VVV

Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit

Release Date: January 5, 2011

#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #Stars #Nebulae #Nebula #M8 #NGC6523 #LagoonNebula #BokGlobules #Sagittarius #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #VISTATelescope #Infrared #ParanalObservatory #Chile #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

The Lagoon Nebula | Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory

The Lagoon Nebula | Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory

The Lagoon Nebula, M8 or NGC 6523. As one of the showpiece objects of the summer sky in the northern hemisphere, the Lagoon never rises very high from most locations north of the equator. This image of the Lagoon was imaged from Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Twenty hours of data were collected over several nights with seeing usually around 0.5” and occasionally as low as the mid 0.30”. Those familiar with other images of the Lagoon Nebula may note that this version shows more blue—most renditions of this nebula are decidedly reddish in character. However, the object’s altitude during much of the imaging—as high as 80 degrees—minimized the normal tendency for blue extinction that is commonly experienced when imaging objects closer to the horizon. 

Distance: 4,000 light years

The numerous dark Bok Globules associated with M8 are also readily apparent. Bok globules are opaque, dark knots of gas and dust that absorb light.

Credit: SSRO/PROMPT/CTIO

Release Date: June 30, 2020

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Nebulae #Nebula #M8 #NGC6523 #LagoonNebula #BokGlobules #Sagittarius #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #Telescope #Optical #CTIO #Chile #NOIRLab #AURA #NSF #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

China's Crewed Lunar Missions Rocket: Reusable Engines, Intelligent Flight System

China's Crewed Lunar Missions Rocket: Reusable Engines, Intelligent Flight System

The Long March-10 series of rockets for China's crewed lunar mission is a reusable launch vehicle with intelligent technologies to cope with possible system failures during the flight. As new-generation carrier rockets specially developed for the crewed lunar exploration, the Long March-10 series has two versions: the lunar version is meant for Moon landing and the near-Earth version is mainly to carry out space station missions.

To reduce the operating costs of the China Space Station, the first-stage rocket of the near-Earth version has been designed with reusable technology. Its main engine has completed over 10 tests for reusable verification.

"The re-usability scheme of the near-Earth rocket's first stage has already passed scaled-down verification tests on land and at sea. We hope to enter the phase of engineering verification at an early date. We have come up with some innovative methods, which should be able to provide a reference for developing other models in the future, and later we can may develop some near-Earth version of rockets for commercial use," said Xu Hongping, an engineer with China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).

To better ensure the safety of astronauts, the Long March-10 series also features a "smart brain" and other intelligent technologies to enable the rocket to detect and troubleshoot problems autonomously during flight to support mission success.

"During the research and development, we took into consideration all possible failure modes that we can imagine. When a failure occurs, we can continue finishing our established tasks through mission re-planning and reconstruction of the entire system," said Xu.

The Long March-10 is a strategic support for China to land astronauts on the Moon before 2030, and it is expected to prepare for its maiden flight in 2027, according to CASC.

The Long March-10, measuring 92.5 meters (303.5 feet) tall, is a three-stage super-heavy rocket that burns kerosene and liquid oxygen.

Its first stage is five meters wide and powered by seven YF-100K engines. Along with two boosters, each also consisting of seven YF-100K engines, the rocket can generate a thrust of 2,678 tonnes at lift-off.

It is capable of delivering at least 27 tonnes to an Earth-moon transfer orbit—around three times the capacity of Long March-5, China’s most powerful rocket to date.

Video Credit: CCTV Video News Agency

Duration: 1 minute, 35 seconds

Release Date: June 16, 2024

#NASA #Space #Earth #China #中国 #Beijing #北京 #LongMarch10Rocket #RocketEngines #YF100KEngine #EngineTesting #CASC #Moon #月亮 #Taikonauts #Astronauts #HumanSpaceflight #CNSA #CMSA #国家航天局 #Science #SpaceTechnology #SpaceEngineering #STEM #Education #HD #Video

The Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius | Kitt Peak National Observatory

The Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius | Kitt Peak National Observatory

The Lagoon Nebula, Messier object 8 (M8) or NGC 6523, in the constellation of Sagittarius. This full color image was created from eight images taken in the BVR pass-bands at the Burrell Schmidt telescope of Case Western Reserve University's Warner and Swasey Observatory. The Burrell Schmidt is located on Kitt Peak, near Tucson, Arizona. The images were taken in June 1995 during the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program operated at the Kitt Peak National Observatory and supported by the National Science Foundation. 

North is at the top with east to the left.

Credit: N.A.Sharp, REU Program / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA

Release Date: June 30, 2020

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Nebulae #Nebula #M8 #NGC6523 #LagoonNebula #Sagittarius #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #Observatory #Telescope #Optical #NOIRLab #AURA #NSF #BurrellSchmidtTelescope #SwaseyObservatory #KittPeak #Tucson #Arizona #UnitedStates #STEM #Education