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What's Up for July 2024 | Skywatching Tips from NASA
Here are examples of skywatching highlights for the northern hemisphere in July 2024:
The Moon and planets come together twice in the morning sky—at the start and end of July, find the elusive planet Uranus with some help from Mars, and two star clusters—M6 and M7—are well placed for viewing in the evening.
Planet Earth: Polar Ice Mass Loss | NASA GRACE Mission
The mass of the polar ice sheets have changed over the last decades. Research based on observations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites (2002-2017) and GRACE Follow-On (since 2018-) indicates that between 2002 and 2023, Antarctica shed approximately 150 gigatons of ice per year, causing global sea level to rise by 0.4 millimeters per year; and Greenland shed approximately 270 gigatons of ice per year, causing global sea level to rise by 0.03 inches (0.8 millimeters) per year.
These images, created from GRACE and GRACE-FO data, show changes in polar land ice mass since 2002. Orange and red shades indicate areas that lost ice mass, while light blue shades indicate areas that gained ice mass. White indicates areas where there has been very little or no change in ice mass since 2002.
The average flow lines (grey; created from satellite radar interferometry) of the icesheets converge into the locations of prominent outlet glaciers, and coincide with areas of highest mass loss. This supports other observations that warming ocean waters near polar icesheets play a key role in contemporary ice mass loss.
The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) was a joint mission of NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) that measured Earth's gravity field anomalies
Global Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) | NASA Earth Observatory
The visualization featured here shows the atmosphere in three dimensions and highlights the accumulation of CO₂ during a single calendar year (January 1-December 31, 2021). Every year, the world’s vegetation and oceans absorb about half of human CO₂ emissions, providing an incredibly valuable service that has mitigated the rate of accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, around 2.5 parts per million remain in the atmosphere every year causing a steady upward march in concentrations that scientists have tracked since the 1950s at surface stations.
NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory, 2 (OCO-2) provides the most complete dataset tracking the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂), the main driver of climate change. Every day, OCO-2 measures sunlight reflected from Earth’s surface to infer the dry-air column-averaged CO₂ mixing ratio and provides around 100,000 cloud-free observations. Despite these advances, OCO-2 data contain many gaps where sunlight is not present or where clouds or aerosols are too thick to retrieve CO₂ data. In order to fill gaps and provide science and applications users a spatially complete product, OCO-2 data are assimilated into NASA’s Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS), a complex modeling and data assimilation system used for studying the Earth’s weather and climate.
GEOS is also informed by satellite observations of nighttime lights and vegetation greenness along with about 1 million weather observations collected every hour. These data help scientists infer CO2 mixing ratios even when a direct OCO-2 observation is not present and provide additional information on the altitude of CO₂ plumes that the satellite is not able to see. Together, OCO-2 and GEOS create one of the most complete pictures of CO₂.
The volumetric visualization starts in January 1, 2021, showing the higher CO₂ concentrations, which are closer to the ground, revealing the seasonal movement of high CO₂ at a global scale. During the months of June-September (summer months for northern hemisphere), global CO₂ concentrations tend to be lowest because northern hemisphere plants actively absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere via photosynthesis. During northern hemisphere fall and winter months, much of this CO₂ is re-released to the atmosphere due to respiration and can be seen building up. By June and July 2021, plants again draw CO₂ out of the atmosphere, but notably higher concentrations remain in contrast to the nearly transparent colors of the previous year.
The diurnal rhythm of CO₂ is apparent over our planet's largest forests, such as the Amazon rainforest in South America and the Congo rainforest in Central Africa. The fast-paced pulse in those rainforests is due to the day-night cycle; plants absorb CO₂ during the day via photosynthesis when the sun is out, then stop absorbing CO₂ at night. In addition to highlighting the buildup of atmospheric CO₂, this visualization shows how interconnected the world’s greenhouse gas problem is. NASA’s unique combination of observations and models plays a critical role in helping scientists track increases in CO₂ as they happen to better understand their climate impact.
Saturn Moons Titan & Tethys | NASA Cassini Mission
NASA's Cassini spacecraft arrived in the Saturn system in 2004 and ended its mission in 2017 by deliberately plunging into Saturn's atmosphere. This method was chosen because it is necessary to ensure protection and prevent biological contamination to any of the moons of Saturn thought to offer potential habitability. The Cassini Mission mapped more than 620,000 square miles (1.6 million square kilometers) of liquid lakes and seas on the surface of Saturn's largest moon Titan (visible in foreground). This work was performed with its radar instrument that sent out radio waves and collected a return signal (or echo) that provided information about the terrain and the liquid bodies' depth and composition, along with two imaging systems that could penetrate the moon's thick atmospheric haze.
Titan is larger than the planet Mercury and is the second largest moon in our solar system. Titan is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object in space, other than Earth, where clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found. Titan’s subsurface water could be a place to harbor life as we know it, while its surface lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons could conceivably harbor life that uses different chemistry than we are used to—that is, life as we do not yet know it.
Tethys (visible in background) is Saturn's fifth largest moon. This cold, airless and heavily scarred body is very similar to sister moons Dione and Rhea except that Tethys is not as heavily cratered as the other two. This may be because its proximity to Saturn causes more tidal warming, and that warming kept Tethys partially molten longer, erasing or dulling more of the early terrain.
Tethys' density is 0.97 times that of liquid water. This suggests that Tethys is composed almost entirely of water ice plus a small amount of rock.
Tethys has a high reflectivity (or visual albedo) of 1.229 in the visual range, again suggesting a composition largely of water ice. However, this would behave like rock in the Tethyan average temperature of -305 degrees Fahrenheit (-187 degrees Celsius). Many of the crater floors on Tethys are bright, suggesting an abundance of water ice. Also contributing to the high reflectivity is that Tethys is bombarded by Saturn E-ring water-ice particles generated by geysers on Enceladus.
Tethys appeared as a tiny dot to astronomers until the Voyager (1 and 2) encounters in 1980 and 1981. The Voyager images showed a major impact crater and a great chasm. The Cassini spacecraft has added details including a great variety of colors at small scales suggesting a variety of materials not seen elsewhere.
The Cassini-Huygens mission was a cooperative project of NASA, European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter. The Cassini radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the U.S. and several European countries.
The World's Largest Optical Telescope Takes Shape | ESO's ELT in Chile
This drone footage shows the European Southern Observatory's Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) taking shape in the Chilean Atacama Desert. We can see the insulating cladding being used to dress the dome and the white lattice structure at the center—now almost complete—that will support the ELT’s 39-meter primary mirror. Around the 1:30 mark, we can also see two arc-shaped tracks, currently protected with tan wooden plates, bracketing the white lattice. These tracks will allow the telescope to move in altitude. The grey beams at opposite sides of the lattice, seen more clearly at the 2:15 mark, will support the so-called Nasmyth platforms—two tennis-court-sized areas where the scientific instruments will rest.
The current largest optical telescopes have diameters of up to ten meters, and the ELT's diameter will thus be four times greater.
Altitude: 3046 meters
Planned year of technical first light: 2027
Learn more about the European Southern Observatory's ELT at: https://elt.eso.org
Flyover of Hurricane Beryl in Caribbean: July 1, 2024 | International Space Station
The International Space Station flew 260 miles over Hurricane Beryl at approximately 9 a.m. EDT Monday, July 1, 2024. External cameras on the orbiting laboratory captured views of the storm as it traveled across the Caribbean near the Windward Islands as a Category 4 hurricane with winds around 130 miles per hour.
Visit the NOAA's National Hurricane Center for updates:
Roscosmos (Russia): Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin (Russia)
NASA: Tracy Dyson, Matthew Dominick, Mike Barrett, Jeanette Epps
NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore
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.
Learn more about the important research being operated on Station:
This picture from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope depicts the galaxy NGC 4951, a spiral galaxy that is located 49 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The data used to make this image were captured by Hubble as part of a program to examine how matter and energy travel in nearby galaxies. Galaxies continuously undergo a cycle of star formation as the gas in a galaxy forms molecular clouds. This can collapse to create new stars, dispersing the clouds they formed from with powerful radiation or stellar winds in a process called feedback. The remaining gas is left to create new clouds elsewhere. This cycle of moving matter and energy determines how fast a galaxy forms stars and how quickly it burns through its supplies of gas—that is, how it evolves over the course of its life. Understanding this evolution depends on the nebulae, stars and star clusters in the galaxy—when they formed and their past behavior. Hubble has always excelled at measuring populations of stars, and the task of tracking gas and star formation in galaxies including NGC 4951 is no exception.
NGC 4951 is also a Seyfert galaxy, a type of galaxy that has a very bright and energetic nucleus called an active galactic nucleus (AGN). This image demonstrates well how energetic the galaxy is, and how dynamic galactic activity transports matter and energy throughout it. It is a shining core surrounded by swirling arms, glowing pink star-forming regions, and thick dust.
Image Description: A spiral galaxy, tilted diagonally. It has thick, cloudy spiral arms wrapping around the core. They are filled with pink patches marking new star formation, young blue stars, and dark wisps of dust that block light. The galaxy glows brightly from its core. It is on a dark background, with a few distant galaxies and unrelated stars around it.
Video Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker, M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble), N. Bartmann (ESA/Hubble)
Spiral Galaxy NGC 4951 in Virgo: A Maelstrom of Matter & Energy | Hubble
This picture from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope depicts the galaxy NGC 4951, a spiral galaxy that is located 49 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The data used to make this image were captured by Hubble as part of a program to examine how matter and energy travel in nearby galaxies. Galaxies continuously undergo a cycle of star formation as the gas in a galaxy forms molecular clouds. This can collapse to create new stars, dispersing the clouds they formed from with powerful radiation or stellar winds in a process called feedback. The remaining gas is left to create new clouds elsewhere. This cycle of moving matter and energy determines how fast a galaxy forms stars and how quickly it burns through its supplies of gas—that is, how it evolves over the course of its life. Understanding this evolution depends on the nebulae, stars and star clusters in the galaxy—when they formed and their past behavior. Hubble has always excelled at measuring populations of stars, and the task of tracking gas and star formation in galaxies including NGC 4951 is no exception.
NGC 4951 is also a Seyfert galaxy, a type of galaxy that has a very bright and energetic nucleus called an active galactic nucleus (AGN). This image demonstrates well how energetic the galaxy is, and how dynamic galactic activity transports matter and energy throughout it. It is a shining core surrounded by swirling arms, glowing pink star-forming regions, and thick dust.
Image Description: A spiral galaxy, tilted diagonally. It has thick, cloudy spiral arms wrapping around the core. They are filled with pink patches marking new star formation, young blue stars, and dark wisps of dust that block light. The galaxy glows brightly from its core. It is on a dark background, with a few distant galaxies and unrelated stars around it.
Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker, M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble)
Ten Impact Craters Seen from Space | European Space Agency
Have you ever wondered what an impact crater looks like from space? Today, we’re counting down examples of our favorite impact craters here on Earth—captured by Earth-observing satellites.
Craters are inevitably part of being a rocky planet. They occur on every planetary body in our solar system—no matter the size. By studying impact craters and the meteorites that cause them, we can learn more about the processes and geology that shape our entire solar system.
See Jupiter’s Moons Form a Triangle | BBC Star Diary: July 1-7, 2024
This week, Jupiter’s moons will arrange themselves into a triangle to the left of the gas giant. Find out how you can see it and other celestial sights in this week’s stargazing guide podcast, Star Diary from the makers of BBC Sky at Night Magazine, July 1-7, 2024.
In July 2024, find the Scorpius constellation to identify the reddish supergiant Antares, which will lead you to discover a trio of globular star clusters. Keep watching for space-based views of these densely packed, spherical collections of ancient stars, as well as three nebulas: the Swan Nebula, the Lagoon Nebula, and the Trifid Nebula.
About this Series
“Tonight’s Sky” is a monthly video of constellations you can observe in the night sky. The series is produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute, home of science operations for the Hubble Space Telescope, in partnership with NASA’s Universe of Learning.
Video Credit: Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
Nebulae NGC 1999 & L1641N in Orion: Star Birth Jets | WIYN Observatory
Astronomers captured this spectacular panorama of star formation with the National Science Foundation's 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak. Located in the constellation of Orion (the Hunter), the area in this image is located about two degrees south of the Orion Nebula, where a surviving portion of one of Orion's giant molecular clouds (known as "Orion A") is continuing to spawn new stars. Powerful jets of outflowing gas are often the first visible signs of the birth of young stars. These jets punch holes through the opaque clouds where the star is formed. Through such holes the light of the new-born stars can escape to produce what are known as reflection nebulae. Several such nebulae are seen in this image. The bright object below and to the left of center is the reflection nebula NGC 1999, which contains the young star V380 Orionis. A small, triangle shaped patch of dusty material is seen in silhouette against the reflection nebula. NGC 1999 lies at the center of a network of nebulous filaments that billow out and away like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. These features may trace a wide-angle wind emerging from NGC 1999.
Near the upper half of the image, bright young stars in a forming cluster named L1641N light up another reflection nebula. It contains several dense clumps of opaque material. Infrared images have identified over 50 forming stars in this region. More than six jets and outflows are erupting from this region. Outflowing jets from young stars also power luminous shock waves known as Herbig-Haro (HH) objects. They can move through the surrounding gas at speeds of up to hundreds of kilometers per second (over 100,000 miles an hour). As these shock waves ram their surroundings, they heat up bow-shaped nebulae of glowing plasma. This image shows dozens of such objects.
The region below the NGC1999 reflection nebula contains a cluster of deeply embedded young stars that power oppositely directed bow shocks. These objects were first recognized by Guillermo Haro and George Herbig around 1950 and today they are known as HH 1 and HH 2. Recent observations indicate that the cone shape located near the right edge of the image (known as HH 401) may be a giant bow shock powered by the source of the HH 1 & 2 outflow. If so, this outflow is more than 10 light-years long! The arc of light looking like a waterfall (located above and to the left of HH 401) is the enigmatic object HH 222. Unlike most other HH objects, it is a source of polarized, non-thermal radio waves. The nature of this feature remains largely unknown.
Between HH 401 and HH 222 runs a long chain of Herbig-Haro objects associated with the object HH 34. HH 34 itself is the bright and compact bow shock located near the bottom of HH 222. Just above HH 34, a compact jet can be seen to emerge from the source star. This jet and its first bow shock (HH 34) mark the inner portion of a chain of shocks that trace a graceful S-shaped curve from the upper right hand corner of the image down towards HH 1 & 2. The north end of the flow is just below the top of the image (objects HH 33 & 40); the south end of the flow terminates in a group of small bow shocks known as HH 86 & 87. They reside in the dark region between HH 401 and NGC 1999. Many other smaller nebulous patches in this image mark small reflection nebulae, Herbig-Haro objects, and stellar jets. The rich detail in this image reveals one of the most fascinating areas of the night sky.
The Kitt Peak National Observatory is located on Kitt Peak of the Quinlan Mountains in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert on the Tohono O'odham Nation. With over twenty optical and two radio telescopes, it is one of the largest gatherings of astronomical instruments in the northern hemisphere.
The Wisconsin-Indiana-Yale-NOIRLab (WIYN) Observatory is situated atop Kitt Peak National Observatory, a partnership consisting of University of California Irvine, Purdue University, the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, and NASA.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured extraordinary ring-moon interactions, observed the lowest ring-temperature ever recorded at Saturn, discovered that the moon Enceladus is the source for Saturn’s E ring, and viewed the rings at equinox when sunlight strikes the rings edge-on, revealing never-before-seen ring features and details.
The Cassini spacecraft arrived in the Saturn system in 2004 and ended its mission in 2017 by deliberately plunging into Saturn's atmosphere. This method was chosen because it is necessary to ensure protection and prevent biological contamination to any of the moons of Saturn thought to offer potential habitability.
The Cassini-Huygens mission was a cooperative project of NASA, European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter. The Cassini radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the U.S. and several European countries.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft arrived in the Saturn system in 2004 and ended its mission in 2017 by deliberately plunging into Saturn's atmosphere. This method was chosen because it is necessary to ensure protection and prevent biological contamination to any of the moons of Saturn thought to offer potential habitability. The Cassini Mission mapped more than 620,000 square miles (1.6 million square kilometers) of liquid lakes and seas on the surface of Saturn's largest moon Titan. This work was performed with its radar instrument that sent out radio waves and collected a return signal (or echo) that provided information about the terrain and the liquid bodies' depth and composition, along with two imaging systems that could penetrate the moon's thick atmospheric haze.
Titan is larger than the planet Mercury and is the second largest moon in our solar system. Titan is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object in space, other than Earth, where clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found. Titan’s subsurface water could be a place to harbor life as we know it, while its surface lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons could conceivably harbor life that uses different chemistry than we are used to—that is, life as we do not yet know it.
The Cassini-Huygens mission was a cooperative project of NASA, European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the U.S. and several European countries.
NASA Planetary Defense: Near-Earth Asteroids Discovered to Date for June 2024
What do we know about the asteroids and comets in Earth's neighborhood? Planetary defense includes finding, tracking, and characterizing these near-Earth objects. It is part of NASA's mission. Here is what we have found so far . . .
Comet 13P/Olbers Returns to Inner Solar System: Last Seen in Year 1956
Comet 13P/Olbers is returning to the inner Solar System after 68 years. This periodic, Halley-type comet will reach its next perihelion or closest approach to the Sun on June 30, 2024. It can be viewed with binoculars in the night sky of planet Earth's northern hemisphere.
This sharp telescopic image of 13P is composed of stacked exposures made on the night of June 25. It easily reveals shifting details in the bright comet's torn and tattered ion tail buffeted by the wind from an active Sun, along with a broad, fanned-out dust tail and slightly greenish coma. The frame spans over two degrees across a background of faint stars toward the constellation Lynx.
13P/Olbers fits the classical definition of a Halley-type comet with a period between 20 and 200 years. This comet was last seen in 1956. German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers discovered this comet on March 6, 1815.
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