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Globular Star Cluster M13 in Hercules: The 'Snow Globe' | Hubble
Like a whirl of shiny flakes sparkling in a snow globe, the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope caught an instantaneous glimpse of many hundreds of thousands of stars moving about in the globular cluster Messier 13 (M13)—one of the brightest and best-known globular clusters in the northern sky. This glittering metropolis of stars is easily found in the winter sky in the constellation Hercules and can even be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.
M13 is home to over 100,000 stars and located at a distance of 25,000 light-years. These stars are packed so closely together in a ball, approximately 150 light-years across, that they will spend their entire lives whirling around in the cluster.
This image is a composite of archival Hubble data taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Observations from four separate science proposals taken in November 1999, April 2000, August 2005, and April 2006 were used. The image includes broadband filters that isolate light from the blue, visible, and infrared portions of the spectrum.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
The Great Globular Star Cluster Messier 13 in Hercules: Wide-field view
In 1716, English astronomer Edmond Halley noted, "This is but a little Patch, but it shows itself to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent." Of course, M13 is now less modestly recognized as the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules—one of the brightest globular star clusters in the northern sky.
Sharp telescopic views like this one reveal the spectacular cluster's hundreds of thousands of stars. At a distance of 25,000 light-years, the cluster stars crowd into a region 150 light-years in diameter. Approaching the cluster core, upwards of 100 stars could be contained in a cube just 3 light-years on a side. For comparison, the closest star to the Sun is over 4 light-years away. The deep, wide-field image also reveals distant background galaxies including NGC 6207 at the upper left, and faint, foreground Milky Way dust clouds known to some as integrated flux nebulae.
In 1974, the former United States Arecibo Observatory, a radio telescope in Puerto Rico, sent a message containing encoded information about humans, DNA, atomic numbers, Earth's position and other information, towards Messier 13 as an experiment in contacting potential extraterrestrial civilizations in the cluster. M13 was chosen because it was a large, relatively close star cluster that was available at the time. The cluster will move through space during the transit time; views differ on whether the cluster will be in a position to receive the message by the time that it arrives in ~25,000 years. Arecibo was the world's largest radio telescope for over half a century— from its construction in 1963 until 2016. Today, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in Australia holds that record.
Image Credit & Copyright: Jan Beckmann, Julian Zoller, Lukas Eisert, Wolfgang Hummel
Crowded Heart of The Hercules Globular Star Cluster | Hubble Space Telescope
This image, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope, shows the core of the great globular cluster Messier 13 and provides an extraordinarily clear view of the hundreds of thousands of stars in the cluster—one of the brightest and best known in the sky. Just 25,000 light-years away and about 145 light-years in diameter, Messier 13 has drawn the eye since its discovery by Edmund Halley, the noted British astronomer, in 1714. The cluster lies in the constellation of Hercules and is so bright that under the right conditions it is even visible to the unaided eye. As Halley wrote: “This is but a little Patch, but it shews it self to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent.” Messier 13 was the target of a symbolic Arecibo radio telescope message that was sent in 1974, communicating humanity’s existence to possible extraterrestrial intelligences. However, more recent studies suggest that planets are very rare in the dense environments of globular clusters.
Messier 13 has also appeared in literature. In his 1959 novel, The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut wrote “Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules—and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress.” The step from Halley’s early telescopic view to this Hubble image indicates the progress in astronomy over the last three hundred years.
This picture was created from images taken with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. Data through a blue filter (F435W) are colored blue, data through a red filter (F625W) are colored green and near-infrared data (through the F814W filter) are colored red. The exposure times are 1480 s, 380 s and 567 s respectively and the field of view is about 2.5 arcminutes across.
Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA Release Date: July 5, 2010
Hawaiian Night Skyline from Maunakea | Gemini North Telescope
The starry band of our Milky Way galaxy hangs overhead in this panorama taken from Maunakea, the home of Gemini North, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by NOIRLab. Down on the mountain at the center of the image, a snaking band of light marks the location of an access road. In the distance, large cities on the Island of Hawai‘i light up spots under the clouds while the active volcano Mauna Loa rises above them.
Just like Mauna Loa, Maunakea is a shield volcano—though thankfully a dormant one. However, the volcanic past of Maunakea continues to be an asset to astronomers. The mountain’s smoothly sloping sides and high elevation are two of the factors that contribute to the exceptional observing conditions at the summit.
The 8.1-meter diameter optical/infrared North Gemini Telescope is located on Hawaii‘s Maunakea as part of the international community of observatories built to take advantage of the superb atmospheric conditions on this long-dormant volcano that rises about 4,214 meters (13,825 feet) into the dry, stable air of the Pacific. The Gemini Observatory's international headquarters is located in Hilo, Hawai‘i at the University of Hawaii Hilo's University Park.
Since 2002 Gemini North has also been known as the Frederick C. Gillett Gemini North telescope. Dr. Gillett, who died in April 2001, was one of the primary visionaries of the Gemini telescopes. He was instrumental in assuring that the design of Gemini's twin 8-meter telescopes would make major scientific contributions to astronomy.
The Rosetta Mission: How the European Space Agency Landed on a Comet
On November 12, 2014, after a ten-year journey through the Solar System and over 500 million kilometers from home, Rosetta’s lander Philae made space exploration history by touching down on a comet for the first time. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of this extraordinary feat, we celebrate by taking a look back over the mission's highlights.
Rosetta was a European Space Agency mission with contributions from its Member States and NASA. It studied Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for over two years, including delivering lander Philae to the comet’s surface. Philae was provided by a consortium led by the German Aeropace Center (DLR), the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), France's Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) and Italy's Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI).
China Launch of Commercial Lijian-1 Rocket with Satellites +1 for West Asia's Oman
CAS Space commercial Lijian-1 (Kinetica 1) carrier rocket (solid fuel)
Oman Lens Earth Observation CubeSat: Oman's First Ever Satellite
Oman Lens and CAS Space Teams
CAS Space commercial Lijian-1 (Kinetica 1) carrier rocket (solid fuel) in its hangar
China successfully launched the Lijian-1 Y5 commercial carrier rocket with 15 satellites aboard in northwest China on Monday, November 11, 2024, including a remote-sensing satellite for the West Asia country of Oman. This marked the first time a Chinese commercial space company has launched a satellite for an international client. This was also Oman's first satellite in a landmark commercial launch.
Officially the Sultanate of Oman, the country is located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia. It overlooks the entrance to the Persian Gulf. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
Beijing-based rocket manufacturer CAS Space, a subsidiary of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), successfully launched these 15 satellites into orbit.
The Kinetica 1-Y5 rocket lifted off at 12:03pm on November 11, 2024, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China's Gobi Desert, placing the satellites into their designated orbit, CAS Space announced.
The "Y5" in the rocket's code signifies it as the fifth flight of the series. It debuted in July 2022 as China's largest and most powerful solid-propellant rocket. The rocket, standing 30 meters tall and weighing 135 metric tons at liftoff, can carry payloads up to 1.5 tons into a sun-synchronous orbit approximately 500 kilometers above Earth.
Among the satellites launched was the IRSS-1, developed by the China Academy of Space Technology—a subsidiary of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp—for Oman Lens, a startup in the Omani space industry. The satellite will assist Oman with data collection and imaging for land mapping, urban planning, forestry monitoring, and disaster management.
CAS Space upgraded the Kinetica 1's payload fairing—the protective shell housing the satellite payload—for this mission, expanding its diameter from 2.65 to 3.35 meters to accommodate the 15 satellites. This adaptation marks a milestone for the series. It has now deployed a total of 57 satellites since its debut, maintaining a 100 percent success rate.
China Launches Commercial Lijian-1 Rocket with Satellites +1 for West Asia's Oman
China successfully launched the Lijian-1 Y5 commercial carrier rocket with 15 satellites aboard in northwest China on Monday, November 11, 2024, including a remote-sensing satellite for the West Asia country of Oman. This marked the first time a Chinese commercial space company has launched a satellite for an international client. This was also Oman's first satellite in a landmark commercial launch.
Officially the Sultanate of Oman, the country is located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia. It overlooks the entrance to the Persian Gulf. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
Beijing-based rocket manufacturer CAS Space, a subsidiary of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), successfully launched these 15 satellites into orbit.
The Kinetica 1-Y5 rocket lifted off at 12:03pm on November 11, 2024, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China's Gobi Desert, placing the satellites into their designated orbit, CAS Space announced.
The "Y5" in the rocket's code signifies it as the fifth flight of the series. It debuted in July 2022 as China's largest and most powerful solid-propellant rocket. The rocket, standing 30 meters tall and weighing 135 metric tons at liftoff, can carry payloads up to 1.5 tons into a sun-synchronous orbit approximately 500 kilometers above Earth.
Among the satellites launched was the IRSS-1, developed by the China Academy of Space Technology—a subsidiary of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp—for Oman Lens, a startup in the Omani space industry. The satellite will assist Oman with data collection and imaging for land mapping, urban planning, forestry monitoring, and disaster management.
CAS Space upgraded the Kinetica 1's payload fairing—the protective shell housing the satellite payload—for this mission, expanding its diameter from 2.65 to 3.35 meters to accommodate the 15 satellites. This adaptation marks a milestone for the series. It has now deployed a total of 57 satellites since its debut, maintaining a 100 percent success rate.
Video Credit: New China TV
Caption Credit: ChinaDaily/New China TV Duration: 1 minute Release Date: Nov. 11, 2024
A 'Ghostly' Galactic Embrace in Coma Berenices | Hubble Space Telescope
This new image from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope depicts the cosmic tangle that is MCG+05-31-045, a pair of interacting galaxies located 390 million light-years away and a part of the so-called Coma galaxy cluster in the constellation Coma Berenices, named for the hair of the historical Egyptian queen.
The Coma cluster is a particularly rich cluster and contains over a thousand known galaxies. Several can be easily seen with amateur telescopes. Most of them are elliptical galaxies, and that is typical of a dense galaxy cluster like the Coma cluster—many elliptical galaxies are formed in close encounters between galaxies that stir them up, or even collisions that rip them apart. While the stars in the interacting galaxies can stay together, the gas in the galaxies is a different story—it is twisted and compressed by gravitational forces, and rapidly used up to form new stars. When the hot, massive, blue stars die, there is little gas left to replace them with new generations of young stars. For interacting spiral galaxies, the regular orbits that produce their striking spiral arms are also disrupted. Whether through mergers or simple near misses, the result is a galaxy almost devoid of gas, with ageing stars orbiting in uncoordinated circles: an elliptical galaxy.
It is very likely that a similar fate will befall MCG+05-31-045. As the smaller spiral galaxy is torn up and integrated into the larger galaxy, many new stars will form, and the hot, blue ones will quickly burn out, leaving cooler, redder stars behind in an elliptical galaxy much like the others in the Coma cluster. However, this process will not be complete for many millions of years—until then, Queen Berenice II will suffer from knots in her hair!
Image Description: In the center is a large, oval-shaped galaxy with a shining, ringed core. Left of its center is a second, smaller galaxy with two spiral arms. The pair of galaxies are close enough that they appear to be merging. A tail of material with a few glowing spots connects from one of the smaller galaxy’s spiral arms to the larger galaxy. Both are surrounded by a faint halo. Several stars can be seen around the pair.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. J. Foley (UC Santa Cruz) Release Date: Nov. 11, 2024
Ancient Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas over Canary Islands
Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas is now headed back to the outer Solar System. The massive dusty snowball put on quite a show during its trip near the Sun, resulting in many impressive pictures from planet Earth during October 2024. This image of Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS was captured by Gergely Tóth from La Palma, Canary Islands, October 1, 2024 at 06:00 UTC.
The Canary Islands, also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish region, autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of Morocco and the Western Sahara. La Palma, also known as La isla bonita and historically San Miguel de La Palma, is the most northwesterly island of the Canary Islands, Spain.
C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) is a comet from the solar system's Oort cloud discovered by the Purple Mountain Observatory east of Nanjing, China, on January 9, 2023, and independently found by the automated Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in South Africa on February 22, 2023. ATLAS is funded by NASA's planetary defense office, and developed and operated by the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy. C/2023 A3 passed perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) at a distance of 0.39 AU (58 million km; 36 million miles) on September 27, 2024.
Although this comet is very old, it was just discovered in 2023, when it approached the inner solar system on its highly elliptical orbit for the first time in documented human history. Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas hails from the Oort Cloud that scientists think is a giant spherical shell surrounding our solar system. It is like a big, thick-walled bubble made of icy pieces of space debris the sizes of mountains and sometimes larger. The Oort Cloud lies far beyond Pluto and the most distant edges of the Kuiper Belt and may contain billions, or even trillions, of objects.
Catch the Last Supermoon of 2024: The Beaver Moon (Nov. 11-17, 2024) | Star Diary
This week sees the last supermoon of the year—The Beaver Moon. Find out how it earned its name, as well as all the latest stargazing highlights in this week’s Star Diary podcast, from the makers of BBC Sky at Night Magazine.
What’s next for Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)?:
Shockwaves ripple across the glare as a launch eclipses the setting Sun in this exciting close-up. Captured on September 17, 2024, the roaring SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried European Galileo L13 navigation satellites to medium Earth orbit after lift-off from Cape Canaveral on Florida's space coast. The Falcon 9 booster returned safely to Earth about 8.5 minutes later, notching the 22nd launch and landing for this reusable workhorse launch vehicle.
This first stage booster previously launched CRS-22, Crew-3, Turksat 5B, Crew-4, CRS-25, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13G, O3B mPOWER, PSN SATRIA, Telkomsat Marah Putih 2, and 12 Starlink missions.
Learn more about Europe's Galileo: The world's first civilian Earth satellite navigation system:
Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas over Italy's Dolomite Mountains
Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas is now headed back to the outer Solar System. The massive dusty snowball put on quite a show during its trip near the Sun, resulting in many impressive pictures from planet Earth during October 2024. This image was taken in mid-October and shows a defining visual feature of the comet—its impressive anti-tail. The image captures Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) with impressively long dust and ion tails pointing up and away from the Sun, while the strong anti-tail—composed of more massive dust particles—trails the comet and points down and (nearly) toward the recently-set Sun.
In the foreground is village of Tai di Cadore, Italy, with the Dolomite Mountains in the background. Another comet, C/2024 S1 (ATLAS), once a candidate to rival Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas in brightness, broke up last week during its close approach to our Sun.
C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) is a comet from the solar system's Oort cloud discovered by the Purple Mountain Observatory east of Nanjing, China, on January 9, 2023, and independently found by the automated Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in South Africa on February 22, 2023. ATLAS is funded by NASA's planetary defense office, and developed and operated by the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy. C/2023 A3 passed perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) at a distance of 0.39 AU (58 million km; 36 million miles) on September 27, 2024.
The Oort cloud is theorized to be a vast cloud of icy planetesimals surrounding the Sun at distances ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 AU (0.03 to 3.2 light-years). The concept of such a cloud was proposed in 1950 by the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, in whose honor the idea was named. Oort proposed that the bodies in this cloud replenish and keep constant the number of long-period comets entering the inner Solar System—where they are eventually consumed and destroyed during close approaches to the Sun.
Credit & Copyright: Alessandra Masi Subscribe to Alessandra's YouTube Channel:
Handover Between Shenzhou-18 & Shenzhou-19 Crews | China Space Station
This short video provides extended coverage of the handover between China’s Shenzhou-18 and Shenzhou-19 crews at the Tiangong space station, including samples and equipment for scientific experiments.
The Shenzhou-19 spacecraft, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Oct. 30, 2024
The Shenzhou-19 crew—Cai Xuzhe, Song Lingdong, and Wang Haoze—successfully reached their destination and joined their Shenzhou-18 colleagues—Ye Guangfu, Li Cong, and Li Guangsu—on the same day after the spacecraft completed a rapid automated rendezvous and docking with Tianhe core module of China's Tiangong space station.
During the in-orbit rotation, the astronauts cooperated in an orderly manner to complete the handover procedure, including the transfer and sorting of items brought by Shenzhou-19, the operating precautions of the equipment on the space station, and important ground calls and requirements, to ensure the smooth progress of subsequent work.
The scientific experiments on the space station were also handed over smoothly. The Shenzhou-18 crew helped the new trio in transferring and placing the experimental components and samples brought by Shenzhou-19 to the space station.
The scientific projects to be carried out by the Shenzhou-19 crew include cell experiments, focusing on the effects of the microgravity environment on cell growth, differentiation and function.
So far, China has implemented many space medical cytology experimental projects in orbit, providing an important research platform for the physical health protection of astronauts.
During the rotation, the two crews also carried out routine medical examinations, including mass measurements, muscle ultrasound examinations, and bone density measurements. The Shenzhou-18 crew shared the experience in using relevant equipment and instruments.
The two crews held a handover ceremony in the core module on Nov. 1. The Shenzhou-18 astronauts passed the key to the new trio and signed confirmation documents together.
After the handover, the Shenzhou-18 crew made preparations for the return trip, and the three astronauts returned to Earth on Nov. 4 after completing their planned tasks aboard the space station.
Shenzhou-19 Crew: Commander Cai Xuzhe (蔡旭哲) Mission Specialist Wang Haoze (王浩泽) Mission Specialist Song Lingdong (宋令东)
Shenzhou-18 Crew:
Commander Ye Guangfu (叶光富) Mission Specialist Li Cong (李聪) Mission Specialist Li Guangsu (李广苏)
Aurora Australis over New Zealand + STEVE, A Meteor, The Moon & Venus
The night sky can be full of surprises. Take the sky over Lindis Pass, South Island, New Zealand one night in early October 2024. Instead of a typically calm evening sky filled with constant stars, a busy and dynamic night sky appeared. Suddenly visible were pervasive red aurora, green picket-fence aurora, a stable auroral red (SAR) arc, a STEVE, a meteor, and the Moon. Can you spot the faint meteor at the top of this image?
On the far right side of this picture, close to the Moon, an unusual type of aurora is present. It is called a Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE). This lesser-known phenomena appears to form from a 'ribbon' of hot gases in the Earth's atmosphere.
Meanwhile, planet Venus is shining just above the horizon below the Moon and a little to the left.
All the above have outshone light from the center of our Milky Way Galaxy and two satellite galaxies: the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) visible in the Earth's southern skies. These objects were captured together on 28 exposures in five minutes through this magnificent panorama.
Auroras have been lighting up many skies recently as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from our Sun unleash bursts of particles towards Earth that create colorful skies over latitudes usually too far from the Earth's poles to be viewed often.
Today, we remember astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan (1934-1996) on his birthday. He would have celebrated his 90th birthday on this date. A leading visionary in the American space program, Sagan inspired millions of people with his love for space exploration.
The founder of Friends of NASA, Dwayne Lawrence, was partly inspired by Carl Sagan to study astronomy at the University of Toronto and to found this organization in 2008. He grew up reading Carl Sagan's books, such as The Cosmic Connection published in 1973. He also watched the popular and award winning 13-part PBS television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage that Sagan narrated and co-wrote with Ann Druyan and Dr. Steven Soter in 1980.
Friends of NASA (FoN) is an independent non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to building international support for peaceful space exploration, commerce, scientific discovery, and STEM education.
Learn more about Friends of NASA here (donations are welcome):
Carl Sagan founded The Planetary Society in 1980 together with Bruce Murray and Louis Friedman. This American internationally-active non-governmental nonprofit organization was involved in research, public outreach, and space advocacy for engineering projects related to astronomy, planetary science, and space exploration.
Image & Caption Credit: NASA's History Office/Dwayne Lawrence (FriendsofNASA.org) Release Date: Nov. 9, 2024
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