NGC 2442: Galaxy in Volans

Distorted galaxy NGC 2442 can be found in the southern constellation of the flying fish, (Piscis) Volans. Located about 50 million light-years away, the galaxy's two spiral arms extending from a pronounced central bar give it a hook-shaped appearance in this deep colorful image, with spiky foreground stars scattered across the telescopic field of view. The image also reveals the distant galaxy's obscuring dust lanes, young blue star clusters and reddish star forming regions surrounding a core of yellowish light from an older population of stars. But the star forming regions seem more concentrated along the drawn-out (upper right) spiral arm. The distorted structure is likely the result of an ancient close encounter with the smaller galaxy seen near the top left of the frame. The two interacting galaxies are separated by about 150,000 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 2442.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230401.html ( April 01, 2023)

Patagonian Plankton Swirls

Phytoplankton create rich blooms of color in the Atlantic Ocean near South America in this enhanced color image from Dec. 2, 2014.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/patagonian-plankton-swirls
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Seeing Titan

Shrouded in a thick atmosphere, Saturn's largest moon Titan really is hard to see. Small particles suspended in the upper atmosphere cause an almost impenetrable haze, strongly scattering light at visible wavelengths and hiding Titan's surface features from prying eyes. But Titan's surface is better imaged at infrared wavelengths where scattering is weaker and atmospheric absorption is reduced. Arrayed around this visible light image (center) of Titan are some of the clearest global infrared views of the tantalizing moon so far. In false color, the six panels present a consistent processing of 13 years of infrared image data from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on board the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn from 2004 to 2017. They offer a stunning comparison with Cassini's visible light view. NASA's revolutionary rotorcraft mission to Titan is due to launch in 2027.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230331.html ( March 31, 2023)

NASA’s Crawler Transporter 2 Sets Record

Guinness World Records officially designated NASA’s Crawler Transporter 2 as the heaviest self-powered vehicle, weighing approximately 6.65 million pounds—equivalent to about 15 Statues of Liberty or 1,000 pickup trucks.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/nasa-s-crawler-transporter-2-sets-record
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ISS Daily Summary Report – 3/29/2023

 

Payloads: BioFabrication Facility (BFF): Vials were inserted into the BFF that contained Cell Cassette 20510 in order to re-attempt a print session from the previous day’s aborted session. Four cleaning (Bio-ink) syringes were swapped out, media was applied into the BFF and tissue printing was initiated. The Cassette was removed, and Cassette 20511 was installed … ...

March 29, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/03/29/iss-daily-summary-report-3-29-2023/

NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad

The delightful Dark Doodad Nebula drifts through southern skies, a tantalizing target for binoculars toward the small constellation Musca, The Fly. The dusty cosmic cloud is seen against rich starfields just south of the Coalsack Nebula and the Southern Cross. Stretching for about 3 degrees across the center of this telephoto field of view, the Dark Doodad is punctuated near its southern tip (upper right) by yellowish globular star cluster NGC 4372. Of course NGC 4372 roams the halo of our Milky Way Galaxy, a background object some 20,000 light-years away and only by chance along our line-of-sight to the Dark Doodad. The Dark Doodad's well defined silhouette belongs to the Musca molecular cloud, but its better known alliterative moniker was first coined by astro-imager and writer Dennis di Cicco in 1986 while observing Comet Halley from the Australian outback. The Dark Doodad is around 700 light-years distant and over 30 light-years long.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230330.html ( March 30, 2023)

Crew-4’s Museum Field Trip

NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, left, Jessica Watkins, center, and Bob Hines, right, take in the view from the interactive recreation of the International Space Station’s cupola in the One World Connected gallery at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum on March 28, 2023.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/crew-4-s-museum-field-trip
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Which star created this bubble? It wasn't the bright star on the bubble's right. And it also wasn't a giant space dolphin. It was the star in the blue nebula's center, a famously energetic Wolf-Rayet star. Wolf-Rayet stars in general have over 20 times the mass of our Sun and expel fast particle winds that can create iconic looking nebulas. In this case, the resulting star bubble spans over 60 light years, is about 70,000 years old, and happens to look like the head of a dolphin. Named Sh2-308 and dubbed the Dolphin-Head Nebula, the gas ball lies about 5,000 light years away and covers as much sky as the full moon -- although it is much dimmer. The nearby red-tinged clouds on the left of the featured image may owe their glow and shape to energetic light emitted from the same Wolf-Rayet star.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230329.html ( March 29, 2023)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 3/27/2023

 

Payloads: Engineered Heart Tissues-2: A media change, sampling and assigned treatment dosing was performed on each Tissue Chamber on Saturday. Engineered Heart Tissues-2 continues work with 3D cultured cardiac muscle tissue to assess human cardiac function in microgravity. Previous work with 3D cultures in space detected changes at the cellular and tissue level that could … ...

March 27, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/03/27/iss-daily-summary-report-3-27-2023/

Yes, but can your green flash do this? A green flash at sunset is a rare event that many Sun watchers pride themselves on having seen.  Once thought to be a myth, a green flash is now understood to occur when the Earth's atmosphere acts like both a prism and a lens. Different atmospheric layers create altitude-variable refraction that takes light from the top of the Sun and disperses its colors, creates two images, and magnifies it in just the right way to make a thin sliver appear green just before it disappears. Pictured, though, is an even more unusual sunset. From the high-altitude Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile one day last April, the Sun was captured setting beyond an atmosphere with multiple distinct thermal layers, creating several  mock images of the Sun.  This time and from this location, many of those layers produced a green flash simultaneously. Just seconds after this multiple-green-flash event was caught by two well-surprised astrophotographers, the Sun set below the clouds.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230328.html ( March 28, 2023)

Earth’s Radiant Atmosphere

The last rays of an orbital sunset illuminate the Earth's atmosphere in this Feb. 17, 2023, photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited 269 miles above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Argentina.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/earth-s-radiant-atmosphere
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Reports of powerful solar flares started a seven-hour quest north to capture modern monuments against an aurora-filled sky. The peaks of iconic Arctic Henge in Raufarhöfn in northern Iceland were already aligned with the stars: some are lined up toward the exact north from one side and toward exact south from the other. The featured image, taken after sunset late last month, looks directly south, but since the composite image covers so much of the sky, the north star Polaris is actually visible at the very top of the frame. Also visible are familiar constellations including the Great Bear (Ursa Major) on the left, and the Hunter (Orion) on the lower right. The quest was successful. The sky lit up dramatically with bright and memorable auroras that shimmered with amazing colors including red, pink, yellow, and green -- sometimes several at once.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230327.html ( March 27, 2023)

Venus and the Da Vinci Glow

On March 23 early evening skygazers could watch Venus and a young crescent moon, both near the western horizon. On that date Earth's brilliant evening star, faint lunar night side and slender sunlit crescent were captured in this telephoto skyscape posing alongside a church tower from Danta di Cadore, Dolomiti, Italy. Of course the subtle lunar illumination is earthshine, earthlight reflected from the Moon's night side. A description of earthshine, in terms of sunlight reflected by Earth's oceans illuminating the Moon's dark surface, was written over 500 years ago by Leonardo da Vinci. On March 24, from some locations the Moon could be seen to occult or pass in front of Venus. Around the planet tonight, a waxing lunar crescent will appear near the Pleiades star cluster.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230325.html ( March 25, 2023)

Working on Artemis II

A technician works on part of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket’s core stage for Artemis II in this March 11, 2023, image.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/working-on-artemis-ii
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Outbound Comet ZTF

Former darling of the northern sky Comet C/2022E3 (ZTF) has faded. During its closest approach to our fair planet in early February Comet ZTF was a mere 2.3 light-minutes distant. Then known as the green comet, this visitor from the remote Oort Cloud is now nearly 13.3 light-minutes away. In this deep image, composed of exposures captured on March 21, the comet still sports a broad, whitish dust tail and greenish tinted coma though. Not far on the sky from Orion's bright star Rigel, Comet ZTF shares the field of view with faint, dusty nebulae and distant background galaxies. The telephoto frame is crowded with Milky Way stars toward the constellation Eridanus. The influence of Jupiter's gravity on the comet's orbit as ZTF headed for the inner solar system, may have set the comet on an outbound journey, never to return.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230324.html ( March 24, 2023)

Celebrating Women in STEM

Deputy director for technology and research investments at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Dr. Christyl Johnson, speaks during a panel discussion as part of a Women’s History Month program, “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories,” Wednesday, March 22, 2023.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/celebrating-women-in-stem
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ISS Daily Summary Report – 3/22/2023

 

Payloads: Cardinal Heart 2.0: Microscopy and video recordings were performed on eight BioCell tissue chambers. A previous investigation showed that four weeks of microgravity exposure caused significant changes in heart cell function and gene expression that could lead to long-term damage or cardiac muscle atrophy. Effect of Microgravity on Drug Responses Using Heart Organoids (Cardinal … ...

March 22, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/03/22/iss-daily-summary-report-3-22-2023/

Spiral Galaxy NGC 2841

A mere 46 million light-years distant, spiral galaxy NGC 2841 can be found in planet Earth's night sky toward the northern constellation of Ursa Major. This sharp image centered on the gorgeous island universe also captures spiky foreground Milky Way stars and more distant background galaxies within the same telescopic field of view. It shows off the bright nucleus of NGC 2841, along with its inclined galactic disk, and faint outer regions. Dust lanes, small star-forming regions, and young star clusters are embedded in the galaxy's patchy, tightly wound spiral arms. In contrast, many other spirals exhibit broader, sweeping arms with large star-forming regions. NGC 2841 has a diameter of over 150,000 light-years, making it even larger than our own Milky Way. X-ray images suggest that extreme outflows from giant stars and stellar explosions create plumes of hot gas extending into a halo around NGC 2841.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230323.html ( March 23, 2023)

Space Station Star Trail

Stars leave streaks of light in concentric circles in this Mar 16, 2012, view from the International Space Station.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/space-station-star-trail
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ISS Daily Summary Report – 3/21/2023

 

Payloads: Cardinal Heart 2.0: A media change was performed for Samples 1B and 1A. A previous investigation showed that four weeks of microgravity exposure caused significant changes in heart cell function and gene expression that could lead to long-term damage or cardiac muscle atrophy. Effect of Microgravity on Drug Responses Using Heart Organoids (Cardinal Heart … ...

March 21, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/03/21/iss-daily-summary-report-3-21-2023/

How far can you see? The most distant object easily visible to the unaided eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy, over two million light-years away. Without a telescope, even this immense spiral galaxy appears as an unremarkable, faint, nebulous cloud in the constellation Andromeda. But a bright white nucleus, dark winding dust lanes, luminous blue spiral arms, and bright red emission nebulas are recorded in this stunning fifteen-hour telescopic digital mosaic of our closest major galactic neighbor. But how do we know this spiral nebula is really so far away? This question was central to the famous Shapley-Curtis debate of 1920. M31's great distance was determined in the 1920s by observations that resolved individual stars that changed their brightness in a way that gave up their true distance. The result proved that Andromeda is just like our Milky Way Galaxy -- a conclusion making the rest of the universe much more vast than had ever been previously imagined.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230322.html ( March 22, 2023)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 3/20/2023

 

Payloads: Cardinal Heart 2.0: Samples were removed from the Glacier facility. A previous investigation showed that four weeks of microgravity exposure caused significant changes in heart cell function and gene expression that could lead to long-term damage or cardiac muscle atrophy. Effect of Microgravity on Drug Responses Using Heart Organoids (Cardinal Heart 2.0) uses heart … ...

March 20, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/03/20/iss-daily-summary-report-3-20-2023/

Louisiana’s Rice Fields

This Feb 3, 2023, enhanced-color image from Landsat 9 highlights a green and blue patchwork pattern in flooded rice fields in southwestern Louisiana.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/louisiana-s-rice-fields
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Can dust be beautiful? Yes, and it can also be useful. The Taurus molecular cloud has several bright stars, but it is the dark dust that really draws attention. The pervasive dust has waves and ripples and makes picturesque dust bunnies, but perhaps more importantly, it marks regions where interstellar gas is dense enough to gravitationally contract to form stars. In the image center is a light cloud lit by neighboring stars that is home not only to a famous nebula, but to a very young and massive famous star. Both the star, T Tauri, and the nebula, Hind's Variable Nebula, are seen to vary dramatically in brightness -- but not necessarily at the same time, adding to the mystery of this intriguing region. T Tauri and similar stars are now generally recognized to be Sun-like stars that are less than a few million years old and so still in the early stages of formation. The featured image spans about four degrees not far from the Pleiades star cluster, while the featured dust field lies about 400 light-years away.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230321.html ( March 21, 2023)

Galactic Giants Titan and Saturn

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, looks quite small in comparison to the giant planet behind it in this natural color view from the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/galactic-giants-titan-and-saturn
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Are your eyes good enough to see the Crab Nebula expand? The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first on Charles Messier's famous list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, an expanding cloud of debris from the explosion of a massive star. The violent birth of the Crab was witnessed by astronomers in the year 1054. Roughly 10 light-years across today, the nebula is still expanding at a rate of over 1,000 kilometers per second. Over the past decade, its expansion has been documented in this stunning time-lapse movie. In each year from 2008 to 2022, an image was produced with the same telescope and camera from a remote observatory in Austria. The sharp, processed frames even reveal the dynamic energetic emission surrounding the rapidly spinning pulsar at the center. The Crab Nebula lies about 6,500 light-years away toward the constellation of the Bull (Taurus).

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230320.html ( March 20, 2023)

To see the feathered serpent descend the Mayan pyramid requires exquisite timing. You must visit El Castillo -- in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula -- near an equinox. Then, during the late afternoon if the sky is clear, the pyramid's own shadows create triangles that merge into the famous illusion of a slithering viper. Also known as the Temple of Kukulkan, the impressive step-pyramid stands 30 meters tall and 55 meters wide at the base. Built up as a series of square terraces by the pre-Columbian civilization between the 9th and 12th century, the structure can be used as a calendar and is noted for astronomical alignments. The featured composite image was captured in 2019 with Jupiter and Saturn straddling the diagonal central band of our Milky Way galaxy. Tomorrow marks another equinox -- not only at Temple of Kukulcán, but all over planet Earth.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230319.html ( March 19, 2023)

Wolf Rayet 124

Driven by powerful stellar winds, expanding shrouds of gas and dust frame hot, luminous star Wolf-Rayet 124 in this sharp infrared view. The eye-catching 6-spike star pattern is characteristic of stellar images made with the 18 hexagonal mirrors of the James Webb Space Telescope. About 15,000 light-years distant toward the pointed northern constellation Sagitta, WR 124 has over 30 times the mass of the Sun. Produced in a brief and rarely spotted phase of massive star evolution in the Milky Way, this star's turbulent nebula is nearly 6 light-years across. It heralds WR 124's impending stellar death in a supernova explosion. Formed in the expanding nebula, dusty interstellar debris that survives the supernova will influence the formation of future generations of stars.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230318.html ( March 18, 2023)

Venus' Volcano

Maat Mons, a volcano on Venus that has shown signs of a recent eruption, is in the black square near the planet’s equator in this annotated, computer-simulated global map of Venus’ surface.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/venus-volcano
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ISS Daily Summary Report – 3/16/2023

 

SpaceX-27 (SpX-27) Docking: The SpX-27 Cargo Dragon docked to the ISS at 6:31 AM CT, delivering more than 6,200 pounds of cargo. Since its launch Tuesday evening, the spacecraft has successfully performed a series of maneuvers to setup today’s docking to the Node 2 (Harmony Module) forward port of the ISS. Payloads: Analyzing Interferometer for … ...

March 16, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/03/16/iss-daily-summary-report-3-16-2023/

The Medusa Nebula

Braided and serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggest this nebula's popular name, The Medusa Nebula. Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an old planetary nebula some 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. Like its mythological namesake, the nebula is associated with a dramatic transformation. The planetary nebula phase represents a final stage in the evolution of low mass stars like the sun as they transform themselves from red giants to hot white dwarf stars and in the process shrug off their outer layers. Ultraviolet radiation from the hot star powers the nebular glow. The Medusa's transforming star is the faint one near the center of the overall bright crescent shape. In this deep telescopic view, fainter filaments clearly extend below and right of the bright crescent region. The Medusa Nebula is estimated to be over 4 light-years across.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230317.html ( March 17, 2023)

Sunrise Over the Pacific

An orbital sunrise reveals cloud tops above the Pacific Ocean northeast of New Zealand as the International Space Station orbited 260 miles above on Feb. 10, 2023.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/sunrise-over-the-pacific-0
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ISS Daily Summary Report – 3/15/2023

 

Payloads: Combustion Integrated Rack/Solid Fuel Ignition and Extinction/Growth and Extinction Limit (CIR/SoFIE/GEL): In support of ongoing science, the crew accessed the CIR and exchanged a used manifold gas bottle with a new bottle. SoFIE is a hardware insert for the CIR that enables a wide range of solid-material combustion and fire suppression studies, providing common … ...

March 15, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/03/15/iss-daily-summary-report-3-15-2023/

Millions of Stars in Omega Centauri

Globular star cluster Omega Centauri, also known as NGC 5139, is 15,000 light-years away. The cluster is packed with about 10 million stars much older than the Sun within a volume about 150 light-years in diameter. It's the largest and brightest of 200 or so known globular clusters that roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy. Though most star clusters consist of stars with the same age and composition, the enigmatic Omega Cen exhibits the presence of different stellar populations with a spread of ages and chemical abundances. In fact, Omega Cen may be the remnant core of a small galaxy merging with the Milky Way. Omega Centauri's red giant stars (with a yellowish hue) are easy to pick out in this sharp, color telescopic view.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230316.html ( March 16, 2023)

Diana Trujillo Sparks Students' Curiosity

Elementary school students eagerly raise their hands as Diana Trujillo, technical group supervisor for sequence planning and execution and tactical mission lead for the Mars Perseverance rover, speaks to them on March 13, 2023.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/diana-trujillo-sparks-students-curiosity
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ISS Daily Summary Report – 3/14/2023

 

Payloads: Immunity Assay: In continuation of the multi-day experiment session, science samples were processed in the Human Research Facility (HRF) centrifuge. The Monitoring the Cellular Immunity by In Vitro Delayed Type Hypersensitivity (DTH) Assay on the ISS (Immunity Assay) investigation aims to monitor the impact of spaceflight stressors on cellular immune functions in a blood sample, with … ...

March 14, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/03/14/iss-daily-summary-report-3-14-2023/

This was a sky to show the kids. Early this month the two brightest planets in the night sky, Jupiter and Venus, appeared to converge. At their closest, the two planets were separated by only about the angular width of the full moon. The spectacle occurred just after sunset and was seen and photographed all across planet Earth. The displayed image was taken near to the time of closest approach from Wiltingen, Germany, and features the astrophotographer, spouse, and their two children. Of course, Venus remains much closer to both the Sun and the Earth than Jupiter -- the apparent closeness between the planets in the sky of Earth was only angular. Jupiter and Venus have passed and now appear increasingly far apart. Similar planetary convergence opportunities will eventually arise. In a few months, for example, Mars and Venus will appear to congregate just as the Sun sets.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230315.html ( March 15, 2023)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 3/13/2023

 

Payloads: Electrostatic Levitation Furnace (ELF): The ELF high-speed camera LAN cable was routed to avoid interference with the work volume and small experiment area doors. The high-speed camera was recently installed and checked out to allow additional capabilities for the facility. ELF is an experimental facility designed to levitate/melt/solidify materials by containerless processing techniques using … ...

March 13, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/03/13/iss-daily-summary-report-3-13-2023/

Stars are forming in the Soul of the Queen of Aethopia. More specifically, a large star forming region called the Soul Nebula can be found in the direction of the constellation Cassiopeia, whom Greek mythology credits as the vain wife of a King who long ago ruled lands surrounding the upper Nile river. Also known as Westerhout 5 (W5), the Soul Nebula houses several open clusters of stars, ridges and pillars darkened by cosmic dust, and huge evacuated bubbles formed by the winds of young massive stars. Located about 6,500 light years away, the Soul Nebula spans about 100 light years and is usually imaged next to its celestial neighbor the Heart Nebula (IC 1805). The featured image is a composite of exposures made in different colors: red as emitted by hydrogen gas, yellow as emitted by sulfur, and blue as emitted by oxygen.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230314.html ( March 14, 2023)

Crew-5’s Nighttime Splashdown

The SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft is seen as it lands with Crew-5 mission members aboard on Saturday, March 11, 2023.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/crew-5-s-nighttime-splashdown
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What lies at the end of a rainbow? Something different for everyone. For the photographer taking this picture, for example, one end of the rainbow ended at a tree. Others nearby, though, would likely see the rainbow end somewhere else. The reason is because a rainbow's position depends on the observer. The center of a rainbow always appears in the direction opposite the Sun, but that direction lines up differently on the horizon from different locations. This rainbow's arc indicates that its center is about 40 degrees to the left and slightly below the horizon, while the Sun is well behind the camera and just above the horizon. Reflections and refractions of sunlight from raindrops in a distant storm in the direction of the rainbow are what causes the colorful bands of light. This single exposure image was captured in early January near Knight's Ferry, California, USA.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230313.html ( March 13, 2023)

What lies at the bottom of Hyperion's strange craters? To help find out, the robot Cassini spacecraft that once orbited Saturn swooped past the sponge-textured moon and took images of unprecedented detail. A six-image mosaic from the 2005 pass, featured here in scientifically assigned colors, shows a remarkable world strewn with strange craters and an odd, sponge-like surface. At the bottom of most craters lies some type of unknown dark reddish material. This material appears similar to that covering part of another of Saturn's moons, Iapetus, and might sink into the ice moon as it better absorbs warming sunlight. Hyperion is about 250 kilometers across, rotates chaotically, and has a density so low that it likely houses a vast system of caverns inside.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230312.html ( March 12, 2023)

3D Bennu

Put on your red/blue glasses and float next to asteroid 101955 Bennu. Shaped like a spinning toy top with boulders littering its rough surface, the tiny Solar System world is about one Empire State Building (less than 500 meters) across. Frames used to construct this 3D anaglyph were taken by PolyCam on the OSIRIS_REx spacecraft on December 3, 2018 from a distance of about 80 kilometers. With a sample from the asteroid's rocky surface on board, OSIRIS_REx departed Bennu's vicinity in May of 2021 and is now enroute to planet Earth. The robotic spacecraft is scheduled to return the sample to Earth this September.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230311.html ( March 11, 2023)

Hubble Spots a Star-Forming Spiral

The irregular spiral galaxy NGC 5486 hangs against a background of dim, distant galaxies in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2023/hubble-spots-a-star-forming-spiral
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Orion and the Running Man

Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like The Great Nebula in Orion. Visible as a faint celestial smudge to the naked-eye, the nearest large star-forming region sprawls across this sharp telescopic image, recorded on a cold January night in dark skies from West Virginia, planet Earth. Also known as M42, the Orion Nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot, young stars. About 40 light-years across, it lies at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1,500 light-years away within the same spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy as the Sun. Along with dusty bluish reflection nebula NGC 1977 and friends near the top of the frame, the eye-catching nebulae represent only a small fraction of our galactic neighborhood's wealth of star-forming material. Within the well-studied stellar nursery, astronomers have also identified what appear to be numerous infant solar systems.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230310.html ( March 10, 2023)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 3/08/2023

 

Payloads: Combustion Integrated Rack/Solid Fuel Ignition and Extinction/Growth and Extinction Limit (CIR/SoFIE/GEL): The crew gained access to the CIR rack and exchanged a used manifold gas bottle with a new one of the same composition (85% O2, 15% N2). SoFIE is a hardware insert for the CIR that enables a wide range of solid-material combustion … ...

March 08, 2023 at 11:00AM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/03/08/iss-daily-summary-report-3-08-2023/

A Sliver of the Sun

The Moon is seen passing in front of the Sun during a solar eclipse from Ross Lake, Northern Cascades National Park, Washington on Aug. 21, 2017.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/a-sliver-of-the-sun-0
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DART vs Dimorphos

On the first planetary defense test mission from planet Earth, the DART spacecraft captured this close-up on 26 September 2022, three seconds before slamming into the surface of asteroid moonlet Dimorphos. The spacecraft's outline with two long solar panels is traced at its projected point of impact between two boulders. The larger boulder is about 6.5 meters across. While the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft had a mass of some 570 kilograms, the estimated mass of Dimorphos, the smaller member of a near-Earth binary asteroid system, was about 5 billion kilograms. The direct kinetic impact of the spacecraft measurably altered the speed of Dimorphos by a fraction of a percent, reducing its 12 hour orbital period around its larger companion asteroid 65803 Didymos by about 33 minutes. Beyond successfully demonstrating a technique to change an asteroid's orbit that can prevent future asteroid strikes on planet Earth, the planetary-scale impact experiment has given the 150-meter-sized Dimorphos a comet-like tail of material.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230309.html ( March 09, 2023)

Eileen Collins, Discovery Pilot

Former astronaut Eileen Collins sits at the pilot’s station aboard space shuttle Discovery during a hotfiring procedure on Feb. 2, 1995.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/eileen-collins-discovery-pilot
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ISS Daily Summary Report – 3/07/2023

 

Payloads: Combustion Integrated Rack/Solid Fuel Ignition and Extinction/Growth and Extinction Limit (CIR/SoFIE/GEL):The GEL experiment samples, igniter tip, and adsorber cartridge were replaced in support of continuing experiment runs. SoFIE is a hardware insert for the CIR that enables a wide range of solid-material combustion and fire suppression studies, providing common infrastructure including sample holders, flow … ...

March 07, 2023 at 11:00AM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/03/07/iss-daily-summary-report-3-07-2023/