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Merging Galaxies in Delphinus: ZW II 96 | Hubble Space Telescope
This is a system of merging galaxies with a bizarre shape. Powerful young starburst regions hang as long threadlike structures between the main galaxy cores. The system almost qualifies as an ultraluminous system, but has not yet reached the late stage of coalescence that is the norm for most ultraluminous systems. Zw II 96 is located in the constellation of Delphinus, the Dolphin, about 500 million light-years away from Earth.
Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)
Model Behavior: Visualizing Global Carbon Dioxide | NASA Goddard
This global map of carbon dioxide was created using a model called GEOS, short for the Goddard Earth Observing System. GEOS is a high-resolution weather reanalysis model, powered by supercomputers, that is used to represent what was happening in the atmosphere—including storm systems, cloud formations, and other natural events. This model pulls in billions of data points from ground observations and satellite instruments—and has a resolution is more than 100 times greater than your typical weather model.
Video Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)/Scientific Visualization Studio
Eileen Collins: America’s First Female Space Shuttle Commander | NASA
Official NASA portrait of Eileen M. Collins, space shuttle flight STS-93 commander - Oct. 30, 1998
STS-93 Commander Eileen M. Collins waves while having her launch and entry suit checked - July 22, 1999
STS-93 Commander Eileen M. Collins
Commander Collins seated in space shuttle Columbia flight deck commander's station on flight STS-93 - July 24, 1999
Commander Eileen Collins and her daughter, Bridget Youngs, prepare to board an aircraft for their return flight to Houston following the completion of the STS-93 Space Shuttle mission
Astronaut Eileen M. Collins, STS-114 commander, waves while floating in the Zvezda Service Module of the International Space Station while Space Shuttle Discovery was docked to the station
Deployment of Chandra x-ray space telescope on space shuttle flight STS-93 (HDTV image) - Aug. 16, 1999
Launch of space shuttle Columbia - flight STS-93 - July 23, 1999
At the end of February 1998, Johnson Space Center Deputy Director James D. Wetherbee called Astronaut Eileen Collins to his office in Building 1. He told her she had been assigned to command STS-93 and went with her to speak with Center Director George W.S. Abbey who informed her that she would be going to the White House the following week.
Selecting a female commander to fly in space was a monumental decision, something the space agency recognized when they alerted the president of the United States. First Lady Hillary Clinton wanted to publicly announce the flight to the American people along with her husband President William J. Clinton and NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin.
At that event, on March 5, 1998, the First Lady noted what a change it would be to have a female in the commander’s seat. Referencing Neil A. Armstrong’s first words on the Moon, Clinton proclaimed, “Collins will take one big step forward for women and one giant leap for humanity.” Collins, a military test pilot and shuttle astronaut, was about to break one of the last remaining barriers for women at NASA by being assigned a position previously filled by men only. Clinton went on to reflect on her own experience with the space agency when she explained how in 1962, at the age of 14, she had written to NASA and asked about the qualifications to become an astronaut. NASA responded that women were not being considered to fly space missions. “Well, times have certainly changed,” she said wryly.
The same year Hillary Clinton inquired about the astronaut corps, a special subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science and Astronautics held hearings on the issue of sexual discrimination in the selection of astronauts. Astronaut John H. Glenn, who had flown that February in 1962, justified women’s exclusion from the corps. “I think this gets back to the way our social order is organized really. It is just a fact. The men go off and fight the wars and fly the airplanes and come back and help design and build and test them. The fact that women are not in this field is a fact of our social order. It may be undesirable.” Attitudes about women’s place in society, not just at NASA, were stubbornly hard to break. It would be 16 years before the agency selected its first class of astronauts that included women.
By 1998, views about women’s roles had changed substantially, as demonstrated by the naming of the first female shuttle commander. The agency even commissioned a song for the occasion: “Beyond the Sky,” by singer-songwriter Judy Collins. NASA dedicated the historic mission’s launch to America’s female aviation pioneers from the Ninety-Nines—an international organization of women pilots—to the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), women who ferried aircraft for the military during World War II. Collins also extended an invitation to the women who had participated in Randy Lovelace’s Woman in Space Program, where women went through the same medical and psychological tests as the Mercury 7 astronauts; the press commonly refers to these women as the Mercury 13. (Commander Collins had thanked both the WASPs and the Mercury 13 for paving the way and inspiring her career in aviation and spaceflight in her White House speech.)
In a group interview with several of the WASPs in Florida, just before launch, Mary Anna “Marty” Martin Wyall explained why they came. “Eileen Collins was one of those women that has always looked at us as being her mentors, and we just think she’s great. That’s why we want to come see her blast off.” Betty Skelton Frankman expressed just how proud she was of Collins, and how NASA’s first female commander would be fulfilling her dream to fly in space. “In a way,” she said, “it’s like my dream come true.” In the ‘60s it was not possible for a woman to fly in space because none met the requirements as laid out by NASA. However, by the end of the twentieth century, women had been in the Astronaut Office for 20 years, and opportunities for women had grown as women were selected as pilot astronauts. NASA named its second and only other female space shuttle commander, Pamela A. Melroy, to STS-120, and Peggy A. Whitson went on to command the International Space Station. Melroy and Whitson shook hands in space, when their missions coincided, for another historic first—two women commanding space missions at the same time.
Twenty-five years ago, Eileen Collins’ command broke down barriers in human spaceflight. As the First Lady predicted, her selection led to other opportunities for women astronauts. More women continue to command spaceflight missions, including Expedition 65 Commander Shannon Walker and Expedition 68 Commander Samantha Cristoforetti. More importantly, Collins became a role model for young people interested in aviation, engineering, math, science, and technology. Her career demonstrated that there were no limits if you worked hard and pursued your passion.
RCW 108 is a molecular cloud that is in the process of being destroyed by intense ultraviolet radiation from heavy and hot stars in the nearby stellar cluster NGC 6193, seen to the left in the photo. The photo shows the RCW 108 complex of bright and dark nebulae in the southern association Ara OB1, a star-forming region in the constellation Ara (the Altar), deep in the southern sky.
NASA Astronaut Jeanette Epps Talks to Florida TV | International Space Station
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 71 Flight Engineer Jeanette Epps of NASA discussed life and work aboard the orbital outpost during an in-flight interview July 22, 2024, with WFLA-TV, Tampa. Epps is in the midst of a long-duration mission aboard the microgravity laboratory to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies for future human and robotic exploration flights as part of NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration approach, including lunar missions through NASA’s Artemis program.
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:
Pan of Globular Cluster NGC 2005 in Dorado | Hubble
The globular cluster NGC 2005 is not unusual in and of itself; but it is a peculiarity in relation to its surroundings. NGC 2005 is located about 750 light-years from the heart of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). This is the Milky Way’s largest satellite galaxy. It lies about 162,000 light-years from Earth. Globular clusters are densely-packed clusters that can be made up of tens of thousands or millions of stars. Their density means that they are tightly gravitationally bound, and are therefore, very stable. This stability contributes to their longevity—globular clusters can be billions of years old, and often contain very old stars. Thus, studying globular clusters in space can be a little like studying fossils on Earth. Fossils give insights into the characteristics of ancient plants and animals, while globular clusters illuminate the characteristics of ancient stars.
Current theories of galaxy evolution predict that galaxies merge with one another. It is widely thought that the relatively large galaxies that we observe in the modern Universe were formed via the merging of smaller galaxies. If this is correct, then astronomers would expect to see evidence that the most ancient stars in nearby galaxies originated in unique galactic environments. As globular clusters are known to contain ancient stars, and because of their stability, they are an excellent laboratory to test this hypothesis.
NGC 2005 is such a globular cluster, and its very existence has provided evidence to support the theory of galaxy evolution via mergers. Indeed, the stars in NGC 2005 have a chemical composition that is distinct from the stars in the LMC around it. This suggests that the LMC underwent a merger with another galaxy during its history. Although the other galaxy has long-since merged and otherwise dispersed, NGC 2005 remains behind as an ancient witness to the long-past merger.
Credit: European Space Agency/Hubble & NASA, F. Niederhofer, L. Girardi, N. Bartmann (ESA/Hubble)
25 Images to Celebrate 25th Anniversary of NASA's Chandra Observatory
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of its launch, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is releasing 25 never-before-seen views of a wide range of cosmic objects.
These images, showing data from Chandra, demonstrate how X-ray astronomy explores all corners of the Universe. By combining X-rays from Chandra with other space-based observatories and telescopes on the ground, astronomers can tackle the biggest questions and investigate long-standing mysteries across the cosmos.
On July 23, 1999, the Space Shuttle Columbia launched into orbit carrying Chandra. It was then the heaviest payload ever carried by the Shuttle. With Commander Eileen Collins at the helm, the astronauts aboard Columbia successfully deployed Chandra into its highly-elliptical orbit that takes it nearly one-third of the distance to the Moon.
X-rays are an especially penetrating type of light that reveals extremely hot objects and very energetic physical processes. Many fascinating regions in space glow strongly in X-rays such as the debris from exploded stars and material swirling around black holes. Stars, galaxies, and even planets also give off X-rays that can be studied with Chandra.
The new set of images is a sample of almost 25,000 observations Chandra has taken during its quarter century in space.
In 1976, Riccardo Giacconi and Harvey Tananbaum first proposed to NASA the mission that would one day become Chandra. Eventually, Chandra was selected to become one of NASA’s “Great Observatories,” along with the Hubble Space Telescope, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope, each looking at distinct types of light.
Today, astronomers continue to use Chandra data in conjunction with other powerful telescopes, including the James Webb Space Telescope and the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE).
Chandra science has led to over 700 Ph.Ds and has supported a diverse talent pool of more than 3,500 undergraduate and graduate students, about 1,700 postdocs and over 5,000 unique Principal Investigators throughout the U.S. and worldwide. Demand for the telescope has consistently been extremely high throughout the entire mission with only about 20% of the requested observing time able to be approved.
Despite being in space for a quarter century, Chandra is operating remarkably well and is still making discoveries. Scientists are looking forward to using this exceptional telescope for years to come.
This picture features the barred spiral galaxy NGC 3059. It lies about 57 million light-years from Earth. The data used to compose this image were collected by Hubble in May 2024, as part of an observing program that studied a number of galaxies. All the observations were made using the same range of filters—partially transparent materials that allow only very specific wavelengths of light to pass through.
Filters are used extensively in observational astronomy, and can be calibrated to allow either extremely narrow or somewhat broader ranges of light through. Narrow-band filters are invaluable from a scientific perspective because certain light wavelengths are associated with specific physical and chemical processes. For example, under particular conditions, hydrogen atoms are known to emit red light with wavelength value of 656.46 nanometers. Red light at this wavelength is known as H-alpha emission, or the ‘H-alpha line’. It is very useful to astronomers because its presence acts as an indicator of certain physical processes and conditions; it is often a tell-tale sign of new stars being formed, for example.
Thus, narrow-band filters calibrated to allow H-alpha emission through can be used to identify regions of space where stars are forming.
Such a filter was used for this image, the narrow-band filter called F657N or the H-alpha filter. The F stands for filter, and the N stands for narrow. The numerical value refers to the peak wavelength (in nanometers) that the filter lets through. The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that 657 is very close to the 656.46 H-alpha line’s wavelength. Data collected using five other filters contributed to this image as well, all were wide-band filters. They allow a wider range of light wavelengths through. This is less useful for identifying extremely specific lines (such as the H-alpha line) but still enables astronomers to explore relatively specific parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. In addition, collectively the information from multiple filters can be used to make beautiful images such as this one.
Image Description: A spiral galaxy seen face-on, so that its many arms and its glowing, bar-shaped core can be easily seen. The arms are filled with bluish patches of older stars, pink patches where new stars are forming, and dark threads of dust. A few bright stars with cross-shaped diffraction spikes lie in the foreground.
Earth-directed Coronal Mass Ejection from Sun | NASA’s SDO
The Sun emitted an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME) on July 21, 2024. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), watching the Sun constantly in extreme ultraviolet light, captured images of the event (see brief, bright flash at upper left).
A CME is an eruption of solar material. When they arrive at Earth, a geomagnetic storm can result. A G2 geomagnetic storm watch has been issued. Watches of this level are uncommon. The effects of the CME are expected on July 24.
To see how such space weather may affect Earth, please visit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center: https://spaceweather.gov
NOAA is the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts.
NASA works as a research arm of the nation’s space weather effort. NASA observes the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from the Sun’s activity to the solar atmosphere, and to the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.
Aurora, Meteor, Stars, Satellites & Sunrise | International Space Station
NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick: "Satellites, stars, and, a meteor . . . Night timelapse just prior to sunrise. If you watch carefully, part way through you can see a meteor streak towards Earth."
Photo details: 50mm, f1.2, ISO 6400, 1/4s, with a 1/2s interval
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:
Spiral Galaxy NGC 3430: "An Island Universe" | Hubble Space Telescope
In this Hubble picture, we are treated to a detailed view of NGC 3430. A spiral galaxy, it lies 100 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo Minor. Several other galaxies are located relatively nearby, just out of frame; one is close enough that gravitational interaction is driving star formation in NGC 3430.
NGC 3430 is a fine example of a galactic spiral. This may be why it ended up as part of the sample that Edwin Hubble used to define his classification of galaxies. Namesake of the Hubble Space Telescope, in 1926 he authored a paper that classified four hundred galaxies by their appearance—as either spiral, barred spiral, lenticular, elliptical or irregular. This straightforward typology proved immensely influential, and the modern, more detailed schemes that astronomers use today are still based on it. NGC 3430 itself is an SAc galaxy, a spiral lacking a central bar with open, clearly-defined arms.
At the time of Hubble’s paper, the study of galaxies in their own right was in its infancy. With the benefit of Henrietta Leavitt’s work on Cepheid variable stars, Hubble had only a couple of years before settled the debate about whether these ‘nebulae’, as they were called then, were situated within our galaxy or were distant and independent. He himself referred to ‘extragalactic nebulae’ in his paper, indicating that they lay beyond the Milky Way galaxy. Once it became clear that these distant objects were very different from actual nebulae, the favored term for a while was the quite poetic ‘island universe’. While NGC 3430 may look as if it still deserves this moniker, today we simply call it and the objects like it a ‘galaxy’.
Image Description: A spiral galaxy with three prominent arms wrapping around it, and plenty of extra gas and dark dust between the arms. There are shining blue points throughout the arms and patches of gas out beyond the galaxy’s edge, where stars are forming. The center of the galaxy also shines brightly. It is on a dark background where small orange dots mark distant galaxies.
Pan of Dwarf Irregular Galaxy NGC 5238 in Canes Venatici | Hubble
The galaxy featured in this Hubble picture is the dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 5238, located 14.5 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici. Its unexciting, blob-like appearance, resembling more an oversized star cluster than a galaxy, belies a complicated structure that has been the subject of considerable research. Here, the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope is able to pick out the galaxy’s countless stars, as well as its associated globular clusters—the glowing spots both inside and around the galaxy that contain ever more stars.
NGC 5238 is theorized to have recently—here meaning no more than a billion years ago—had a close encounter with another galaxy. The evidence for this is the tidal distortions of NGC 5238’s shape, the kind produced by two galaxies pulling on each other as they interact. There is no nearby galaxy that could have caused this disturbance, so the hypothesis is that the culprit is a smaller satellite galaxy that was devoured by NGC 5238. Traces of the erstwhile galaxy might be found by closely examining the population of stars in NGC 5238, a task for which the Hubble Space Telescope is an astronomer’s best tool. Two tell-tale signs would be groups of stars with properties that look out of place compared to most of the galaxy’s other stars, indicating that they were originally formed in a separate galaxy, or stars that look to have all formed abruptly at around the same time. This would occur during a galactic merger. The data used to make this image will be put to use in testing these predictions.
Despite their small size and unremarkable appearance, it is not unusual for dwarf galaxies like NGC 5238 to drive our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution. One main theory of galaxy evolution is that galaxies formed ‘bottom-up’ in a hierarchical fashion: star clusters and small galaxies were the first to form out of gas and dark matter, and they gradually were assembled by gravity into galaxy clusters and superclusters, explaining the shape of the very largest structures in the Universe today. A dwarf irregular galaxy like NGC 5238 merging with an even smaller companion is just the type of event that might have begun this process of galaxy assembly in the early Universe. So, it turns out that this tiny galaxy may serve as a testbed for the most fundamental predictions in astrophysics!
Image Description: A dwarf irregular galaxy. It appears as a cloud of bluish gas, filled with point-like stars that also spread beyond the edge of the gas. A few glowing red clouds sit near its center. Many other objects can be seen around it: distant galaxies in the background, four-pointed stars in the foreground, and star clusters that are part of the galaxy—shining spots surrounded by more tiny stars.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, N. Bartmann (ESA/Hubble)
The Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius | Hubble Space Telescope
This NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope image shows the Lagoon Nebula, an object with a deceptively tranquil name. The region is filled with intense winds from hot stars, churning funnels of gas, and energetic star formation, all embedded within an intricate haze of gas and pitch-dark dust.
Distance:4,500 light years
Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
BBC Star Diary: Mars Gives Taurus Constellation Another Eye (July 22-28, 2024)
The planet of Mars passes through Taurus this week, giving the constellation a second red eye. Find out how to see it for yourself and other astronomy highlights in this week's episode of Star Diary July 22-28, the stargazing podcast guide from the makers of BBC Sky at Night Magazine.
NASA to Host Panels, Forums & More at Oshkosh 2024: July 22-28
Each summer, aviation enthusiasts and experts from around the planet—including NASA’s aeronautical innovators—descend into a regional airport near Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to attend the Experimental Aviation Association’s AirVenture Oshkosh. In this 66 second video, get a sense of what NASA’s presence is like at Oshkosh through scenes captured from previous years.
The weeklong airshow and fly-in, where droves of pilots arrive in their own aircraft, draws hundreds of thousands of aviation enthusiasts to enjoy aerial demonstrations, static aircraft displays, aviation-related forums, and hands-on activities for people of all ages and all education levels.
NASA will appear at Oshkosh with a full slate of interactive exhibits, informative activities, and fascinating people to meet. This year’s event, held July 22-28, is chock-full of things to do and see.
If you’re attending Oshkosh this year, here’s a brief summary of what you can expect inside the NASA Pavilion and on the forum stages:
NASA’s pavilion will feature the X-66 sustainable flight demonstrator, X-59 quiet supersonic demonstrator, a Saab 340B, a small drone, an air taxi concept, and a DeHavillland “Dash 7.” The Saaab and Dash 7 are part of the Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration project.
Meet and greet opportunities with NASA’s researchers, leaders, pilots, and maybe even an astronaut
Hands-on educational STEM activities and handouts for kids and adults of all ages
Talks and panels on NASA activities from our leadership, engineers, pilots, and other subject matter experts
Models of NASA aircraft and spacecraft
And if you are looking for certain activities, NASA guides will be available onsite to help you find the ones best suited to you and your group.
NASA Panel Events
In addition to the NASA Pavilion and forum talks, there are also several NASA-focused panels that should not be missed.
For example, the “NASA Artemis Campaign: For All Humankind” panel will be held at 7 p.m. CDT on Friday, July 26 at AirVenture’s Theater in the Woods. The event will feature astronaut Randy Bresnik and subject matter experts discussing the upcoming Artemis II mission.
“Women of NASA,” another great panel, will take place at 8:30 a.m. CDT on Wednesday, July 24, the WomenVenture Center. It will feature several inspiring NASA Women, from senior leaders to project managers and engineers.
A list of all NASA activities is available on AirVenture’s website, and our aeronautical innovators will be inside the NASA Pavilion to assist you.
More NASA’s activities are available on the event schedule or on EAA’s app:
The NASA Pavilion’s STEM Zone will have interactive activities and demonstrations. NASA will also have materials available for educators. The STEM Zone will be open Monday to Sunday, July 22-28, from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. CDT.
The KidVenture buildings, hosted by the EAA Museum, will include hands-on NASA STEM activities also, and NASA will participate at the AeroEducate Center in Aviation Gateway Park with activities intended for middle—and high-school aged youth—including lectures and a drone flight cage.
Video Credit: NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate
China's Lunar Exploration Program Welcomes More Global Partners
The United Nations has marked July 20 as International Moon Day to honor the anniversary of the first landing of a human on the Moon. Following China's successful Chang'e-6 lunar mission this year, many countries now seek to work more closely with China on future lunar programs.
China's aerospace and lunar exploration programs are open to the world and welcome all countries to engage in cooperative missions and projects, said Wu Weiren, chief designer of the country's lunar exploration program, ahead of the International Moon Day on July 20.
After the successful operation of payloads from the European Space Agency (ESA), France, Italy, and Pakistan in China's Chang'e-6 Moon mission, China will aim to expand its international collaboration in upcoming lunar exploration endeavors, Wu said in an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN).
"We are open and welcome international cooperation from all countries, including those countries from the Global South, emerging BRICS countries, as well as Western countries. We do not have any isolating or exclusionary policies, and we want to cooperate in an all-round way. I think our principle is to share data, share results. We are willing to co-build and co-share with our partners. We have no intention to establish small circles or groups. Therefore, China's aerospace and lunar exploration programs, including planetary exploration, are all open to the whole world," said Wu.
He also offered an update on the development of the international lunar research station (ILRS) and the country’s plans for the station.
"The international lunar research station is actually the first large-scale scientific project to be implemented in our country. We are preparing to build a lunar scientific research station at the south pole of the Moon. This scientific research station will be combined with an orbital station and a lunar surface station, plus ground facilities such as the headquarters for major scientific projects. This is being done so that work can continue for a long time, with or without people at the south pole of the moon. It will enable scientific exploration and resource development," said Wu.
"We hope to build a basic station by 2035, and an extended station by 2045. So far, we have signed agreements with more than 10 countries and nearly 30 international research institutions. We hope to work with 50 countries by inviting 500 foreign scientific research institutions, and 5,000 foreign scientific research personnel to jointly build our international lunar scientific research station," he added.
Wu said that in the future, visiting the the international lunar research station will no longer be just a dream for ordinary citizens, while Chinese astronauts and international partners will reach deeper into the solar system.
"I think China should also think about these plans, including space tourism, space breeding, and space mining in the future. We can achieve these targets on the Moon and Mars. I don't think this is too far away," Wu said.
Space breeding involves exposing plant seeds to cosmic radiation and microgravity in space to generate potentially beneficial genetic mutations.
