Perseverance Selfie with Ingenuity

On sol 46 (April 6, 2021) the Perseverance rover held out a robotic arm to take its first selfie on Mars. The WATSON camera at the end of the arm was designed to take close-ups of martian rocks and surface details though, and not a quick snap shot of friends and smiling faces. In the end, teamwork and weeks of planning on Mars time was required to program a complex series of exposures and camera motions to include Perseverance and its surroundings. The resulting 62 frames were composed into a detailed mosiac, one of the most complicated Mars rover selfies ever taken. In this version of the selfie, the rover's Mastcam-Z and SuperCam instruments are looking toward WATSON and the end of the rover's outstretched arm. About 4 meters (13 feet) from Perseverance is a robotic companion, the Mars Ingenuity helicopter.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210701.html ( July 01, 2021)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 6/29/2021

 

Cygnus Northrup Grumman-15 (NG-15) Release: NG-15 (named the S.S. Katherine Johnson) was successfully released by the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) and departed the ISS today at 11:31 AM CT while the crew monitored from the Cupola. The completion of the NG-15 mission on ISS marks both the longest Cygnus mission duration to-date of … ...

June 29, 2021 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2021/06/29/iss-daily-summary-report-6-29-2021/

Picturing Our Solar System's Asteroid Belt

Today is International Asteroid Day!

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/picturing-our-solar-systems-asteroid-belt
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Simulation: Formation of the First Stars

How did the first stars form? To help find out, the SPHINX computer simulation of star formation in the very early universe was created, some results of which are shown in the featured video. Time since the Big Bang is shown in millions of years on the upper left. Even 100 million years after the Big Bang, matter was spread too uniformly across the cosmos for stars to be born. Besides background radiation, the universe was dark. Soon, slight matter clumps rich in hydrogen gas begin to coalesce into the first stars. In the time-lapse video, purple denotes gas, white denotes light, and gold shows radiation so energetic that it ionizes hydrogen, breaking it up into charged electrons and protons. The gold-colored regions also track the most massive stars that die with powerful supernovas. The inset circle highlights a central region that is becoming a galaxy. The simulation continues until the universe was about 550 million years old. To assess the accuracy of the SPHINX simulations and the assumptions that went into them, the results are not only being compared to current deep observations, but will also be compared with more direct observations of the early universe planned with NASA's pending James Web Space Telescope.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210630.html ( June 30, 2021)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 6/28/2021

 

Payloads Behavioral Core Measures (BCM): The crew set up the appropriate robotics hardware and performed the BCM testing. These sessions are nominally planned to be completed once per month, starting two weeks after a crewmember’s arrival on ISS. The Standardized Behavioral Measures for Detecting Behavioral Health Risks during Exploration Missions (Behavioral Core Measures, or simply … ...

June 28, 2021 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2021/06/28/iss-daily-summary-report-6-28-2021/

Visualizing Quieter Supersonic Flight

NASA’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology X-plane is designed to fly faster than the speed of sound without producing sonic booms.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/visualizing-quieter-supersonic-flight
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Orion Nebula: The Hubble View

Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion Nebula. Also known as M42, the nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1,500 light-years away. The Orion Nebula offers one of the best opportunities to study how stars are born partly because it is the nearest large star-forming region, but also because the nebula's energetic stars have blown away obscuring gas and dust clouds that would otherwise block our view - providing an intimate look at a range of ongoing stages of starbirth and evolution. The featured image of the Orion Nebula is among the sharpest ever, constructed using data from the Hubble Space Telescope. The entire Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210629.html ( June 29, 2021)

Space Station Transits the Sun

This composite image made from seven frames shows the International Space Station, with a crew of seven onboard, in silhouette as it transits the Sun.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/space-station-transits-the-sun
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A Paper Moon Solar Eclipse

It may look like a paper Moon. Sailing past a canvas Sun. But those are not cardboard clouds. And it's not make believe.��  The featured picture of an orange colored sky is real -- a digital composite of two exposures of the solar eclipse that occurred earlier this month. The first exposure was taken with a regular telescope that captured an overexposed Sun and an underexposed Moon, while the second image was taken with a solar telescope that captured details of the chromosphere of the background Sun. The Sun's canvas-like texture was brought up by imaging in a very specific shade of red emitted by hydrogen. Several prominences can be seen around the Sun's edge. The image was captured just before sunset from Xilingol, Inner Mongolia, China. It's also not make-believe to imagine that the Moon is made of dense rock, the Sun is made of hot gas, and clouds are made of floating droplets of water and ice.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210628.html ( June 28, 2021)

The Dancing Auroras of Saturn

What drives auroras on Saturn? To help find out, scientists have sorted through hundreds of infrared images of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft for other purposes, trying to find enough aurora images to correlate changes and make movies. Once made, some movies clearly show that Saturnian auroras can change not only with the angle of the Sun, but also as the planet rotates. Furthermore, some auroral changes appear related to waves in Saturn's magnetosphere likely caused by Saturn's moons. Pictured here, a false-colored image taken in 2007 shows Saturn in three bands of infrared light. The rings reflect relatively blue sunlight, while the planet itself glows in comparatively low energy red. A band of southern aurora in visible in green. In has recently been found that auroras heat Saturn's upper atmosphere. Understanding Saturn's auroras is a path toward a better understanding of Earth's auroras.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210627.html ( June 27, 2021)

Pixels in the Sun

These two panels, composed of video frames made with a safe solar telescope and hydrogen alpha filter, show remarkably sharp details on the solar disk and giant prominences along the Sun's edge on June 6 (top) and June 18. Taken from Beijing, China, they also show a transit of the International Space Station and China's new Tiangong Space Station in silhouette against the bright Sun. The International Space Station is near center in the bottom panel, crossing the solar disk left of bright active region AR2833 and below a large looping solar filament. The Chinese space station is below solar active region AR2827 and right of center in the top panel, seen as a smaller, combined "+" and "-" shape. The pictures of the transiting orbital outposts were taken with the same equipment and at the same pixel scale, with the International Space Station some 492 kilometers away. The Chinese space station was over 400 kilometers from the camera.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210626.html ( June 26, 2021)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 6/24/2021

 

ISS Reboost: Last night at 10:40 PM CT, the ISS performed a 7 minute and 25 second reboost using the DC-1 77P Mid-Ring thrusters resulting in a 0.5 m/s increase in ISS velocity. This reboost set up the phasing for 78P, Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM), and Boeing Starliner Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) rendezvous in the … ...

June 24, 2021 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2021/06/24/iss-daily-summary-report-6-24-2021/

Hubble Images a Dazzling Dynamic Duo

A cataclysmic cosmic collision takes center stage in this image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/hubble-images-a-dazzling-dynamic-duo
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Andromeda in a Single Shot

How far can you see? The Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light years away, is the most distant object easily seen by the unaided eye. Other denizens of the night sky, like stars, clusters, and nebulae, are typically hundreds to thousands of light-years distant. That's far beyond the Solar System but well within our own Milky Way Galaxy. Also known as M31, the external galaxy poses directly above a chimney in this well-planned deep night skyscape from an old mine in southern Portugal. The image was captured in a single exposure tracking the sky, so the foreground is slightly blurred by the camera's motion while Andromeda itself looms large. The galaxy's brighter central region, normally all that's visible to the naked-eye, can be seen extending to spiral arms with fainter outer reaches spanning over 4 full moons across the sky. Of course in only 5 billion years or so, the stars of Andromeda could span the entire night sky as the Andromeda Galaxy merges with the Milky Way.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210625.html ( June 25, 2021)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 6/23/2021

 

Payloads Plasma Krystall-4 (PK-4): The crew executed two Run 2 operations by catching clouds of particles inside the PK-4 chamber using the PK-4 Human Computer Interface (HCI) software on the European Physiology Module (EPM) laptop. PK-4 is a scientific collaboration between ESA and Roscosmos performing research in the field of “Complex Plasmas”. Complex Plasmas are … ...

June 23, 2021 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2021/06/23/iss-daily-summary-report-6-23-2021/

Viewing Earth from the Space Station

In this June 2021 image, our Sun's glint beams off the Indian Ocean as the International Space Station orbited 269 miles above south of western Australia.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/viewing-earth-from-the-space-station
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Messier 99

Grand design spiral galaxy Messier 99 looks majestic on a truly cosmic scale. This recently processed full galaxy portrait stretches over 70,000 light-years across M99. The sharp view is a combination of ultraviolet, visible, and infrared image data from the Hubble Space Telescope. About 50 million light-years distant toward the well-groomed constellation Coma Bernices, the face-on spiral is a member of the nearby Virgo Galaxy Cluster. Also cataloged as NGC 4254, a close encounter with another Virgo cluster member has likely influenced the shape of its well-defined, blue spiral arms.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210624.html ( June 24, 2021)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 6/22/2021

 

Payloads Lyophilization-2: The crew removed the sample tray from the sample chamber and then removed and stowed the hardware from the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG), completing the investigation Lyophilization-2 in Microgravity (Lyophilization-2) examines gravity’s effects on freeze-dried materials. Lyophilization, or freeze-drying, is a common method for formulating pharmaceuticals with improved chemical and physical stability. On … ...

June 22, 2021 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2021/06/22/iss-daily-summary-report-6-22-2021/

STARFORGE: A Star Formation Simulation

How do stars form? Most form in giant molecular clouds located in the central disk of a galaxy. The process is started, influenced, and limited by the stellar winds, jets, high energy starlight, and supernova explosions of previously existing stars. The featured video shows these complex interactions as computed by the STARFORGE simulation of a gas cloud 20,000 times the mass of our Sun. In the time-lapse visualization, lighter regions indicate denser gas, color encodes the gas speed (purple is slow, orange is fast), while dots indicate the positions of newly formed stars. As the video begins, a gas cloud spanning about 50 light years begins to condense under its own gravity. Within 2 million years, the first stars form, while newly formed massive stars are seen to expel impressive jets. The simulation is frozen after 4.3 million years, and the volume then rotated to gain a three-dimensional perspective. Much remains unknown about star formation, including the effect of the jets in limiting the masses of subsequently formed stars.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210623.html ( June 23, 2021)

NASA and ESA Astronauts Continue Installing Space Station Solar Arrays

Spacewalkers Shane Kimbrough of NASA (left) and Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency worked to install new roll out solar arrays on the space station.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/nasa-and-esa-astronauts-continue-installing-space-station-solar-arrays
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HD 163296: Jet from a Star in Formation

How are jets created during star formation? No one is sure, although recent images of the young star system HD 163296 are quite illuminating. The central star in the featured image is still forming but seen already surrounded by a rotating disk and an outward moving jet. The disk is shown in radio waves taken by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, and show gaps likely created by the gravity of very-young planets. The jet, shown in visible light taken by the Very Large Telescope (VLT, also in Chile), expels fast-moving gas -- mostly hydrogen -- from the disk center. The system spans hundreds of times the Earth-Sun distance (au). Details of these new observations are being interpreted to bolster conjectures that the jets are generated and shaped, at least in part, by magnetic fields in the rotating disk. Future observations of HD 163296 and other similar star-forming systems may help fill in details.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210622.html ( June 22, 2021)

Shane Kimbrough Helps Install Solar Array on Space Station

NASA Expedition 65 astronaut Shane Kimbrough is pictured during the Friday, June 18, 2021, spacewalk.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/shane-kimbrough-helps-install-solar-array-on-space-station
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The Tadpole Galaxy from Hubble

Why does this galaxy have such a long tail? In this stunning vista, based on image data from the Hubble Legacy Archive, distant galaxies form a dramatic backdrop for disrupted spiral galaxy Arp 188, the Tadpole Galaxy. The cosmic tadpole is a mere 420 million light-years distant toward the northern constellation of the Dragon (Draco). Its eye-catching tail is about 280 thousand light-years long and features massive, bright blue star clusters. One story goes that a more compact intruder galaxy crossed in front of Arp 188 - from right to left in this view - and was slung around behind the Tadpole by their gravitational attraction. During the close encounter, tidal forces drew out the spiral galaxy's stars, gas, and dust forming the spectacular tail. The intruder galaxy itself, estimated to lie about 300 thousand light-years behind the Tadpole, can be seen through foreground spiral arms at the upper right. Following its terrestrial namesake, the Tadpole Galaxy will likely lose its tail as it grows older, the tail's star clusters forming smaller satellites of the large spiral galaxy.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210621.html ( June 21, 2021)

Sunrise Solstice over Stonehenge

Today the Sun reaches its northernmost point in planet Earth's sky. Called a solstice, many cultures mark this date as a change of seasons -- from spring to summer in Earth's Northern Hemisphere and from fall to winter in Earth's Southern Hemisphere. Precisely, the single time of solstice occurs today for some parts of the world, but tomorrow for other regions. The featured image was taken during the week of the 2008 summer solstice at Stonehenge in United Kingdom, and captures a picturesque sunrise involving fog, trees, clouds, stones placed about 4,500 years ago, and a 4.5 billion year old large glowing orb. Even given the precession of the Earth's rotational axis over the millennia, the Sun continues to rise over Stonehenge in an astronomically significant way.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210620.html ( June 20, 2021)

Northern Summer Twilight

Nights grow shorter and days grow longer as the summer solstice approaches in the north. Usually seen at high latitudes in summer months, noctilucent or night shining clouds begin to make their appearance. Drifting near the edge of space about 80 kilometers above the Earth's surface, these icy clouds were still reflecting the sunlight on June 14. Though the Sun was below the horizon as seen north of Forrest, Manitoba, Canada, they were caught in a single exposure of a near midnight twilight sky. Multiple exposures of the foreground track the lower altitude flash of fireflies, another fleeting apparition shining in the summer night.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210619.html ( June 19, 2021)

Galveston from Space

On Monday, June 19, 1865, enslaved African Americans in Texas learned of their freedom. That day of liberation became known as Juneteenth.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/galveston-from-space
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Devil Horns from a Ring of Fire

Atmospheric refraction flattened the solar disk and distorted its appearance in this telescopic view of an Atlantic sunrise on June 10. From Belmar, New Jersey on the US east coast, the scene was recorded at New Moon during this season's annular solar eclipse. The Moon in partial silhouette gives the rising Sun its crescent shape reminding some of the horns of the devil (or maybe a flying canoe ...). But at its full annular phase this eclipsed Sun looked like a ring of fire in the heavens. June's annular solar eclipse followed on the heels of the total lunar eclipse of late May's Full Moon. Of course, that total lunar eclipse was a dramatic red Blood Moon eclipse.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210618.html ( June 18, 2021)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 6/16/2021

 

USOS Extravehicular Activity (EVA) #74 – 2B IROSA Install: EV1 (Thomas Pesquet) and EV2 (Shane Kimbrough) performed a 7 hour and 15 minute EVA and completed the following tasks in support of Integrated Roll-Out Solar Array (IROSA) installation. Release IROSA from FSE Get ahead task: Release Outer Hinge Restraint Bolt, R5 Install IROSA on P6 … ...

June 16, 2021 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2021/06/16/iss-daily-summary-report-6-16-2021/

New Research Studies Turbulence

In a series of flights between June 1-6, 2021, Stratodynamics Inc. launched its HiDRON stratospheric glider from a high-altitude balloon to study turbulence.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/new-research-studies-turbulence
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NGC 6888: The Crescent Nebula

NGC 6888, also known as the Crescent Nebula, is a about 25 light-years across blown by winds from its central, bright, massive star. A triumvirate of astroimagers ( Joe, Glenn, Russell) created this sharp portrait of the cosmic bubble. Their telescopic collaboration collected over 30 hours of narrow band image data isolating light from hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The oxygen atoms produce the blue-green hue that seems to enshroud the detailed folds and filaments. Visible within the nebula, NGC 6888's central star is classified as a Wolf-Rayet star (WR 136). The star is shedding its outer envelope in a strong stellar wind, ejecting the equivalent of the Sun's mass every 10,000 years. The nebula's complex structures are likely the result of this strong wind interacting with material ejected in an earlier phase. Burning fuel at a prodigious rate and near the end of its stellar life this star should ultimately go out with a bang in a spectacular supernova explosion. Found in the nebula rich constellation Cygnus, NGC 6888 is about 5,000 light-years away.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210617.html ( June 17, 2021)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 6/15/2021

 

Payloads: Oral Biofilms in Space (OBIS): The crew hydrated the OBIS assembly session packs 6-10 with fluid flow from Fluid Bag 1 into the Fluid Chamber for 30 minutes. The mixture was allowed to sit for 4 hours and then the fluid flow was reinitiated. The session packs were then incubated for 20 hours. Fluid … ...

June 15, 2021 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2021/06/15/iss-daily-summary-report-6-15-2021/

A Purposeful Passenger Prepares for Mission Aboard Orion Spacecraft

When NASA’s Orion spacecraft launches around the Moon later this year, a suited manikin will be its passenger.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/a-purposeful-passenger-prepares-for-mission-aboard-orion-spacecraft
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Scorpius Enhanced

If Scorpius looked this good to the unaided eye, humans might remember it better. Scorpius more typically appears as a few bright stars in a well-known but rarely pointed out zodiacal constellation. To get a spectacular image like this, though, one needs a good camera, a dark sky, and some sophisticated image processing. The resulting digitally-enhanced image shows many breathtaking features. Diagonal across the image right is part of the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. Visible there are vast clouds of bright stars and long filaments of dark and intricate dust. Rising vertically on the image left are dark dust bands known as the Dark River. Several of the bright stars on the left are part of Scorpius' head and claws, and include the bright star Antares. Numerous red emission nebulas, blue reflection nebulas, and dark filaments became visible as the deep 17-hour expo image developed. Scorpius appears prominently in southern skies after sunset during the middle of the year.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210616.html ( June 16, 2021)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 6/14/2021

 

Payloads: Advanced Plant EXperiment-07 (APEX -07): The crew configured the Veggie facility for initial APEX-07 operations and inserted data loggers and Petri Plates into the facility. APEX-07 examines how changes in gravity and other environmental factors associated with spaceflight affect plants at the level of gene expression. Previous research shows that microgravity conditions during spaceflight … ...

June 14, 2021 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2021/06/14/iss-daily-summary-report-6-14-2021/

Artemis I Space Launch System Core Stage Lift and Mate

Teams with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems and contractor Jacobs lower the Space Launch System (SLS) core stage – the largest part of the rocket – onto the mobile launcher.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/artemis-i-space-launch-system-core-stage-lift-and-mate
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Zhurong: New Rover on Mars

There's a new rover on Mars. In mid-May, China's Tianwen-1 mission delivered the Zhurong rover onto the red planet. As Mars means Planet of Fire in Chinese, the Zhurong rover's name means, roughly, God of Fire in Chinese mythology. Zhurong landed in northern Utopia Planitia, the largest known impact basin in the Solar System, and an area reported to have much underground ice. Among many other scientific instruments, Zhurong carries ground-penetrating radar that can detect ice buried even 100-meters deep. Car-sized Zhurong is pictured here next to its landing base. The image was snapped by a remote camera deployed by the rolling rover. Zhurong's planned 90-day mission includes studying the geology, soil, and atmosphere of Mars in Utopia Planitia.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210615.html ( June 15, 2021)

Flag Day 2021: Saluting the U.S. Flag

June 14 of each year is celebrated as Flag Day in the U.S.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/flag-day-2021-saluting-the-us-flag
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Ganymede from Juno

What does the largest moon in the Solar System look like? Jupiter's moon Ganymede, larger than even Mercury and Pluto, has an icy surface speckled with bright young craters overlying a mixture of older, darker, more cratered terrain laced with grooves and ridges. The cause of the grooved terrain remains a topic of research, with a leading hypothesis relating it to shifting ice plates. Ganymede is thought to have an ocean layer that contains more water than Earth -- and might contain life. Like Earth's Moon, Ganymede keeps the same face towards its central planet, in this case Jupiter. The featured image was captured last week by NASA's robotic Juno spacecraft as it passed only about 1000 kilometers above the immense moon. The close pass reduced Juno's orbital period around Jupiter from 53 days to 43 days. Juno continues to study the giant planet's high gravity, unusual magnetic field, and complex cloud structures.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210614.html ( June 14, 2021)

Eclipse on the Water

Eclipses tend to come in pairs. Twice a year, during an eclipse season that lasts about 34 days, Sun, Moon, and Earth can nearly align. Then the full and new phases of the Moon separated by just over 14 days create a lunar and a solar eclipse. Often partial eclipses are part of any eclipse season. But sometimes the alignment at both new moon and full moon phases during a single eclipse season is close enough to produce a pair of both total (or a total and an annular) lunar and solar eclipses. For this eclipse season, the New Moon following the Full Moon's total lunar eclipse on May 26 did produce an annular solar eclipse along its northerly shadow track. That eclipse is seen here in a partially eclipsed sunrise on June 10, photographed from a fishing pier in Stratford, Connecticut in the northeastern US.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210612.html ( June 12, 2021)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 6/10/2021

 

Payloads: Bioculture system: The crew removed the Bioculture system from Dragon, installed it into EXPRESS rack 4, and successfully powered it up.  This facility will be used to support the Cell Science-04 investigation in mid-July.  The tardigrade (water bear) is the model organism for studying biological survival under the most extreme environmental stress conditions on … ...

June 10, 2021 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2021/06/10/iss-daily-summary-report-6-10-2021/

Earth's Atmospheric Glow and Star Trails

The beauty of our home planet is shown in this long exposure photograph, taken from the International Space Station.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/earths-atmospheric-glow-and-star-trails-0
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Eclipse Flyby

On June 10 a New Moon passed in front of the Sun. In silhouette only two days after reaching apogee, the most distant point in its elliptical orbit, the Moon's small apparent size helped create an annular solar eclipse. The brief but spectacular annular phase of the eclipse shows a bright solar disk as a ring of fire when viewed along its narrow, northerly shadow track across planet Earth. Cloudy early morning skies along the US east coast held gorgeous views of a partially eclipsed Sun though. Rising together Moon and Sun are captured in a sequence of consecutive frames near maximum eclipse in this digital composite, seen from Quincy Beach south of Boston, Massachusetts. The serendipitous sequence follows the undulating path of a bird in flight joining the Moon in silhouette with the rising Sun.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210611.html ( June 11, 2021)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 6/09/2021

 

Payloads: AC Touch: Per standard procedure, the crew touched both the coated and uncoated coupons for this long-term investigation.  Boeing Environment Responding Antimicrobial Coatings tests an antimicrobial coating on several different materials that represent high-touch surfaces. Some microbes change characteristics in microgravity, which could create new risks to crew health and spacecraft systems as well … ...

June 09, 2021 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2021/06/09/iss-daily-summary-report-6-09-2021/

A Partial Solar Eclipse

A partial solar eclipse is seen as the Sun rises behind the United States Capitol Building, Thursday, June 10, 2021, as seen from Arlington, Virginia.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/a-partial-solar-eclipse
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Circular Sun Halo

Want to see a ring around the Sun? It's easy to do in daytime skies around the world. Created by randomly oriented ice crystals in thin high cirrus clouds, circular 22 degree halos are visible much more often than rainbows. This one was captured by smart phone photography on May 29 near Rome, Italy. Carefully blocking the Sun, for example with a finger tip, is usually all that it takes to reveal the common bright halo ring. The halo's characteristic angular radius is about equal to the span of your hand, thumb to little finger, at the end of your outstretched arm. Want to see a ring of fire eclipse? That's harder. The spectacular annular phase of today's (June 10) solar eclipse, known as a ring of fire, is briefly visible only if you're standing along the Moon's narrow shadow track that passes over parts of northern Canada, Greenland, the Arctic, and eastern Russia. The solar eclipse is partial though, when seen from broader regions, including northern Asia, Europe, and parts of the US.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210610.html ( June 10, 2021)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 6/08/2021

 

Payloads: FIR/LMM (Fluids Integrated Rack/Light Microscopy Module): Following the completion of several weeks of observations of the ACE-T-2 science module, the crew performed the steps necessary to remove ACE-T-2 and install the ACE-T-11 science module. Advanced Colloids Experiment-Temperature Control and Gradient Sample-11 (ACE-T-11) involves the design and assembly of complex three-dimensional (3D) structures from colloids, … ...

June 08, 2021 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2021/06/08/iss-daily-summary-report-6-08-2021/

Galactic Goulash

One definition for goulash, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is mixture of heterogeneous elements, jumble. This 2017 image of Arp 299 is just that.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/galactic-goulash
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A Total Lunar Eclipse Corona

This moon appears multiply strange. This moon was a full moon, specifically�� called a Flower Moon at this time of the year. But that didn't make it strange -- full moons occur once a month (moon-th). This moon was a supermoon, meaning that it reached its full phase near its closest approach�� to the Earth in its slightly elliptical orbit. Somewhat strange, a supermoon appears a bit larger and brighter than the average full moon -- and enables it to be called a Super Flower Moon.��  This moon was undergoing a total lunar eclipse. An eclipsed moon can look quite strange, being dark, unevenly lit, and, frequently, red -- sometimes called blood red. Therefore, this moon could be called a Super Flower Blood Moon. This moon was seen through thin clouds. These clouds created a faint corona around the moon, making it look not only strange, but colorful. This moon was imaged so deeply that the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, far in the background, was visible to its lower right. This moon, this shadow, this galaxy and these colors were all captured last month near Cassilis, NSW, Australia -- with a single shot. (Merged later with two lower shots that better capture the Milky Way.)

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210609.html ( June 09, 2021)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 6/07/2021

 

SpaceX (SpX)-22 Docking:  Following last Thursday’s successful launch, Dragon was docked on Saturday at 4:20 AM CT at the Node 2 Zenith port. Prior to docking the crew gathered and set up necessary tools required for the crew to monitor vehicle approach. After the vehicle docked, the crew completed Dragon International Docking Adapter (IDA) Vestibule pressurization … ...

June 07, 2021 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2021/06/07/iss-daily-summary-report-6-07-2021/

Earth Is a Water World

In this view from aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour, a pair of the International Space Station's main solar seemingly arrays drape across the Earth's horizon.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/earth-is-a-water-world
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