Carriacou Island Before & After Hurricane Beryl | NASA Earth Observatory

Carriacou Island Before & After Hurricane Beryl | NASA Earth Observatory

Carriacou Island on July 6, 2024, after Hurricane Beryl: Many areas that were dark green before the hurricane turned brown in its aftermath. Note that built-up portions of the island appear less defined in the post-hurricane image. This may be due to flooding and scattered debris from damaged infrastructure. This image was acquired by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite.

Carriacou Island on June 20, 2024, before Hurricane Beryl: This image was acquired by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite.

Views of Carriacou Island on June 20, 2024 (left) and July 6, 2024 (right)—before and after Hurricane Beryl, respectively. This comparison offers another way of viewing Beryl’s effects on vegetation on Carriacou and several smaller Grenadine islands. The images are false color, made up of shortwave infrared, near-infrared, and red light collected by Landsat 8 (bands 6, 5, 4). With this band combination, healthy plants appear bright green because they reflect near-infrared light. As on Carriacou, areas of vegetation on surrounding islands have lost their bright-green signature, suggesting widespread harm.

Hurricane Beryl first made landfall as a Category 4 storm on Carriacou Island on the morning of July 1, 2024. With maximum sustained winds of 150 miles (240 kilometers) per hour, the storm damaged practically all of the structures on the island, affecting its entire population, according to reports. Rough seas and air control tower outages hindered aid responses immediately after the storm.

After crossing the Grenadine islands, the hurricane swept west across the Caribbean, where it brought strong winds and dangerous storm surge to Jamaica and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula before making landfall in Texas as a Category 1 storm. Beryl flooded streets, tore roofs off homes, and knocked out power and communications for millions of people along its path.

The powerful storm also devastated forests on Carriacou. 

Hurricanes frequently disturb temperate and tropical forests in coastal regions of North and Central America. High winds blow leaves off trees and snap branches, and when combined with heavy rain, they more easily uproot trees from saturated soils.

Carriacou’s vegetation consists primarily of deciduous and dry thorn-scrub forests. Due to the island’s relatively low topographic relief, little of the plant life would likely have been spared from Beryl’s raging winds, said Jess Zimmerman, a professor of ecology at the University of Puerto Rico. Zimmerman has studied how tree composition changes after hurricanes. “All vegetation would have been defoliated,” he said. “Thus, the brown [seen in the image] is the exposed wood.”

Changes to mangrove stands on the coasts of Carriacou and Union islands are evident, if subtle, in the false-color imagery. Mangroves are networks of hardy trees and shrubs that help prevent coastal erosion, absorb carbon from the atmosphere, and provide habitat for fish and other marine animals. Extreme storms can defoliate and uproot mangrove trees, block drainage to the ocean, and cause flooding that affects soil oxygen concentrations and hinders photosynthesis.

The darker appearance of mangrove areas in the July 6 image suggests they might have taken on water from the storm. (Dark areas elsewhere on the islands are the shadows cast by clouds.) Previous studies have suggested that mangroves’ ability to drain may be linked to their resilience. According to a 2021 analysis incorporating airborne lidar and satellite imagery, Florida mangroves in well-drained areas began resprouting within one year of Hurricane Irma, whereas poorly drained sites saw diebacks.

Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

Article Credit: Lindsey Doermann

Release Date: July 10, 2024

#NASA #Space #Satellites #Science #Planet #Earth #Meteorology #Weather #HurricaneBeryl #CarriacouIsland #GrenadineIslands #Grenada #CaribbeanSea #AtlanticOcean #LandsatProgram #Landsat8 #OLI #USGS #ClimateChange #GlobalHeating #Climate #Environment #GreenhouseGases #EarthObservation #RemoteSensing #GSFC #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

NASA Artemis II Moon Rocket Core Stage Arrives at Kennedy Space Center

NASA Artemis II Moon Rocket Core Stage Arrives at Kennedy Space Center

NASA’s Pegasus barge, carrying the agency’s massive Space Launch System (SLS) core stage, arrives at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Complex 39 turn basin wharf in Florida on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, after journeying from the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The core stage is the next piece of Artemis hardware to arrive at the spaceport and will be offloaded and moved to NASA Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building, where it will be prepared for integration ahead of the Artemis II launch.

The core stage for the SLS mega rocket is the largest stage NASA has ever produced. At 212 feet tall, the stage consists of five major elements, including two huge propellant tanks that collectively hold more than 733,000 gallons of super chilled liquid propellant to feed four RS-25 engines at its base. During launch and flight, the stage will operate for just over eight minutes, producing more than 2 million pounds of thrust to help send a crew of four astronauts inside NASA’s Orion spacecraft onward to the Moon. All the major structures for every SLS core stage are fully manufactured at NASA Michoud.

NASA is working to land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the Moon under Artemis. SLS is part of NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration, along with the Orion spacecraft and Gateway in orbit around the Moon and commercial human landing systems, next-generation space, next-generational spacesuits, and rovers on the lunar surface. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single launch.

Check the NASA Artemis II Mission page for updates:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/

For more information about SLS, visit: 

https://www.nasa.gov/sls

Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Image Date: July 23, 2024

#NASA #ESA #CSA #Space #Moon #ArtemisProgram #ArtemisIIMission #ArtemisII #SLS #SLSCoreStage #DeepSpace #Astronauts #VictorGlover #ChristinaKoch #JeremyHansen #ReidWiseman #MoonToMars #Science #SpaceExploration #HumanSpaceflight #NASAKennedy #Spaceport #Florida #UnitedStates #Canada #Europe #STEM #Education

Planet Earth: Noctilucent Clouds | International Space Station

Planet Earth: Noctilucent Clouds | International Space Station

Noctilucent clouds, high-altitude clouds visible during the summer months and illuminated when the sun is below Earth's horizon, are pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited 259 miles above the Pacific Ocean south of Alaska. Noctilucent clouds, or night shining clouds, are the highest clouds in Earth's atmosphere, composed of tiny water ice crystals.

Also known as polar mesospheric clouds, noctilucent clouds form in a part of the atmosphere roughly 50 to 86 kilometers (30 to 54 miles) above the surface of our planet. Their high altitude allows them to reflect sunlight after the Sun has set. These clouds long puzzled the researchers that studied them. They wondered how they formed. The clouds’ behavior has become more mysterious over the past two decades as the clouds have begun to shine more brightly and to appear at lower latitudes than they did before.

Scientists recently discovered that polar stratospheric clouds, long known to play an important role in Antarctic ozone destruction, are occurring with increasing frequency in the Arctic. These high altitude clouds form only at very low temperatures and help to destroy ozone in two ways. They provide a surface that converts benign forms of chlorine into reactive, ozone-destroying forms, and they remove nitrogen compounds that moderate the destructive impact of chlorine. In recent years, the atmosphere above the Arctic has been colder than usual, and polar stratospheric clouds have lasted longer. As a result, ozone levels have been decreasing.

Expedition 71 Updates: 

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Expedition 71 Crew

Station Commander: Oleg Kononenko (Russia)

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:

https://www.nasa.gov/iss-science 

For more information about STEM on Station:

https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation

Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM)

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

Image Date: July 16, 2024

#NASA #Space #ISS #Science #Planet #Earth #Atmosphere #Clouds #Noctilucent #NoctilucentClouds #PacificOcean #SpaceTechnology #SpaceLaboratory #Engineering #Astronauts #UnitedStates #Cosmonauts #Russia #Россия #Roscosmos #Роскосмос #HumanSpaceflight #InternationalCooperation #Expedition71 #STEM #Education

China's Shenzhou-18 Astronauts Conduct Emergency Drill & Replace Samples

China's Shenzhou-18 Astronauts Conduct Emergency Drill & Replace Samples

Nearly halfway through their mission, the Shenzhou-18 crew members aboard China's orbiting space station have finished a range of tasks including replacing experimental samples, conducting a comprehensive emergency drill and undergoing psychological assessments after completing their second spacewalk in early July 2024.

In addition to swapping samples inside the container-less materials laboratory cabinet and fluid physics experiment cabinet, astronauts replaced the filter window of the plug-in in the combustion science experiment cabinet. Going forward, they will carry out research on boiling heat transfer and enhancement mechanisms.

A research on In-orbit Emotion Recognition and Evaluation of Astronauts was conducted. The crew members filled out questionnaires including "Mood States" and "Positive and Negative Emotional States" on a computer and completed color preference tests and emotional picture tests to help the ground team explore the impact of long-term space missions on astronaut psychological health.

To enhance emergency preparedness, they also staged a system-wide drill last week in collaboration with the ground team. This involved the whole process of emergency response to a simulated scenario where China's Tiangong space station is hit by space debris and faces internal decompression. After an alarm was raised, they made quick adjustments and started finding the source of the leak and successfully plugged it with the help of engineers on Earth.

The Shenzhou-18 trio was launched on April 25, 2024, to the orbiting Tiangong space station for a six-month mission as the third manned mission in the application and development stage of China's space station, and the 32nd flight mission of the country's overall crewed space program.

Shenzhou-18 Crew:

Ye Guangfu (叶光富, commander)

Li Cong (李聪, mission specialist)

Li Guangsu (李广苏, mission specialist)

Video Credit: CCTV Video News Agency

Duration: 1 minute, 14 seconds

Release Date: July 21, 2024

#NASA #Space #Science #Earth #China #中国 #Shenzhou18 #神舟十八 #ScientificExperiments #SpaceDebris #EmergencyDrills #Taikonauts #Astronauts #YeGuangfu #LiCong #LiGuangsu #CSS #ChinaSpaceStation #中国空间站 #TiangongSpaceStation #SpaceLaboratory #CMSA #国家航天局 #HumanSpaceflight #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Merging Galaxies in Delphinus: ZW II 96 | Hubble Space Telescope

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)

Release Date: April 24, 2008

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxy #Galaxies #IIZW96 #IRAS205501656 #LEDA65779 #InteractingGalaxies #Delphinus #Constellation #HST #SpaceTelescopes #Cosmos #Universe #Europe #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

Model Behavior: Visualizing Global Carbon Dioxide | NASA Goddard

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

Producer, Narration: Katie Jepson (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)

Scientist: Lesley Ott (NASA/GSFC)

Scientist: Brad Weir (USRA)

Writer: Jenny Marder Fadoul (Telophase)

Visualizer: A. J. Christensen (AVL NCSA/University of Illinois)

Technical Support: Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET Systems, Inc.)

Duration: 1 minute, 51 seconds

Release Date: July 23, 2024

#NASA #Space #Satellites #Science #Planet #Earth #Atmosphere #OCO2Observatory #GlobalCO2Emissions #ClimateModels #ClimateChange #GlobalHeating #Climate #Environment #GreenhouseGases #GHG #EarthObservation #RemoteSensing #Supercomputers #GSFC #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #Visualization #HD #Video

Eileen Collins: America’s First Female Space Shuttle Commander | NASA

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.

Official Biography NASA Astronaut Eileen Collins:

https://www.nasa.gov/former-astronaut-eileen-collins/

https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/collins_eileen.pdf?emrc=84ac97

Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Release Date: July 22, 2024

#NASA #Space #Science #Astronomy #HumanSpaceflight #Astronauts #EileenCollins #SpaceShuttleCommander #SpaceShuttle #STS93 #Aviators #Pilots #Women #Leaders #Pioneers #ChandraObservatory #JSC #USAF #UnitedStates #History #STEM #Education

Star-forming Region RCW 108 in Ara | ESO

Star-forming Region RCW 108 in Ara | ESO

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. 

Distance: 4,000 light years

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)

Release Date: April 30, 1999

#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #Nebulae #Nebula #StarClusters #NGC6188 #NGC6193 #RCW108 #Ara #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #MPGESOTelescope #LaSillaObservatory #Chile #Europe #STEM #Education

NASA Astronaut Jeanette Epps Talks to Florida TV | International Space Station

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.  

NASA Astronaut Jeanette Epps Official Biography:

https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/biographies/jeanette-j-epps/biography

Expedition 71 Updates: 

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Expedition 71 Crew

Station Commander: Oleg Kononenko (Russia)

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:

https://www.nasa.gov/iss-science 

For more information about STEM on Station:

https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation

Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM)

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

Duration: 21 minutes

Release Date: July 22, 2024

#NASA #Space #ISS #Science #Earth #Astronaut #JeanetteEpps #SpaceTechnology #SpaceLaboratory #Engineering #Astronauts #UnitedStates #Cosmonauts #Russia #Россия #Roscosmos #Роскосмос #HumanSpaceflight #InternationalCooperation #Expedition71 #STEM #Education #Timelapse #HD #Video

Pan of Globular Cluster NGC 2005 in Dorado | Hubble

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)

Duration: 30 seconds

Release Date: June 10, 2024

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #Stars #StarClusters #GlobularStarCluster #NGC2005 #Dorado #Constellation #Galaxy #LargeMagellanicCloud #LMC #Cosmos #Universe #HST #SpaceTelescope #ESA #Europe #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

25 Images to Celebrate 25th Anniversary of NASA's Chandra Observatory

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.

Video Credit: NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory

Duration: 3 minutes

Release Date: July 22, 2024

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Stars #Supernovae #Planets #Nebulae #Galaxies #GalaxyClusters #Cosmos #Universe #NASAChandra #XrayObservatory #SpaceTelescopes #JPL #Caltech #CXC #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Pan of Spiral Galaxy NGC 3059 in Carina | Hubble

Pan of Spiral Galaxy NGC 3059 in Carina | Hubble

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.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker

Duration: 30 seconds

Release Date: June 3, 2024

#NASA #ESA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxies #Galaxy #NGC3059 #SpiralGalaxy  #BarredSpiral #Carina #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #HST #HubbleSpaceTelescope #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #Europe #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Earth-directed Coronal Mass Ejection from Sun | NASA’s SDO

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.

Credit: NASA/SDO

Duration: 7 seconds 

Capture Date: July 21, 2024

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Planet #Earth #SpaceWeather #Sun #Star #Solar #CME #Ultraviolet #Plasma #MagneticField #Astrophysics #Heliophysics #Physics #Spacecraft #Satellites #ElectricalGrids #SDO #SolarSystem #GSFC #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Aurora, Meteor, Stars, Satellites & Sunrise | International Space Station

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

Expedition 71 Updates: 

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Expedition 71 Crew

Station Commander: Oleg Kononenko (Russia)

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:

https://www.nasa.gov/iss-science 

For more information about STEM on Station:

https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation

Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM)

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

Duration: 1 minute, 16 seconds

Release Date: July 21, 2024

#NASA #Space #ISS #Satellites #Stars #Earth #Aurora #Sunrise #Science #SpaceTechnology #SpaceLaboratory #Engineering #Astronauts #UnitedStates #Cosmonauts #Russia #Россия #Roscosmos #Роскосмос #HumanSpaceflight #InternationalCooperation #Expedition71 #STEM #Education #Timelapse #HD #Video

Spiral Galaxy NGC 3430: "An Island Universe" | Hubble Space Telescope

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.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick

Release Date: July 22, 2024

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxies #Galaxy #NGC3430 #SAcGalaxy #LeoMinor #Constellation #Galaxy #Cosmos #Universe #HST #SpaceTelescope #ESA #Europe #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

Pan of Dwarf Irregular Galaxy NGC 5238 in Canes Venatici | Hubble

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)

Duration: 30 seconds

Release Date: July 15, 2024

#NASA #Hubble #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxies #Galaxy #NGC5238 #GalacticMergers #InteractingGalaxies #Stars #GlobularClusters #CanesVenatici #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #HST #SpaceTelescope #ESA #Europe #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video