Three Galaxies in Draco

This tantalizing trio of galaxies sometimes called the Draco Group, is located in the northern constellation of (you guessed it) Draco, the Dragon. From left to right are face-on spiral NGC 5985, elliptical galaxy NGC 5982, and edge-on spiral NGC 5981, all found within this single telescopic field of view that spans a little more than the width of the full moon. While the group is far too small to be a galaxy cluster, and has not been catalogued as a compact galaxy group, the three galaxies all do lie roughly 100 million light-years from planet Earth. Not as well known as other tight groupings of galaxies, the contrast in visual appearance still makes this triplet an attractive subject for astroimagers. On close examination with spectrographs, the bright core of striking spiral NGC 5985 shows prominent emission in specific wavelengths of light, prompting astronomers to classify it as a Seyfert, a type of active galaxy. This impressively deep exposure hints at a faint dim halo along with sharp-edged shells surrounding elliptical NGC 5982, evidence of past galactic mergers. It also reveals many even more distant background galaxies.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230701.html ( July 01, 2023)

Hubble Checks in on a Galactic Neighbor

The highly irregular galaxy ESO 174-1, which resembles a lonely, hazy cloud against a backdrop of bright stars, dominates this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2023/hubble-checks-in-on-a-galactic-neighbor
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ISS Daily Summary Report 6/29/2023

 

SpaceX-28 (SpX-28) Undock and Return: SpX-28 Cargo Dragon successfully undocked from the ISS on this morning at 11:25 AM CDT. The deorbit burn is scheduled to occur tomorrow morning at approximately 8:42 AM CDT. Dragon is targeted to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico near Jacksonville, FL at approximately 9:30 AM CDT on Friday, … ...

June 29, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/06/29/iss-daily-summary-report-6-29-2023/

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Are asteroids dangerous? Some are, but the likelihood of a dangerous asteroid striking the Earth during any given year is low. Because some past mass extinction events have been linked to asteroid impacts, however, humanity has made it a priority to find and catalog those asteroids that may one day affect life on Earth. Pictured here are the orbits of the over 1,000 known Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs). These documented tumbling boulders of rock and ice are over 140 meters across and will pass within 7.5 million kilometers of Earth -- about 20 times the distance to the Moon. Although none of them will strike the Earth in the next 100 years -- not all PHAs have been discovered, and past 100 years, many orbits become hard to predict. Were an asteroid of this size to impact the Earth, it could raise dangerous tsunamis, for example. To investigate Earth-saving strategies, NASA successfully tested the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission last year. Of course, rocks and ice bits of much smaller size strike the Earth every day, usually pose no danger, and sometimes create memorable fireball and meteor displays.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230630.html ( June 30, 2023)

ISS Daily Summary Report 6/28/2023

 

Payloads: Dose Distribution Inside the ISS – 3D (DOSIS-3D): The DOSIS-3D main box was removed and prepared for return to the ground. ISS crewmembers are continually exposed to varying levels of radiation, which can be harmful to their health. DOSIS-3D uses several active and passive detectors to determine the radiation doses inside the ISS. The … ...

June 28, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/06/28/iss-daily-summary-report-6-28-2023/

Artemis II Heat Shield Installed

Teams install the heat shield on the Artemis II Orion spacecraft at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 22, 2023.

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Monitoring 68 pulsars with very large radio telescopes, the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) has uncovered evidence for the gravitational wave (GW) background by carefully measuring slight shifts in the arrival times of pulses. These shifts are correlated between different pulsars in a way that indicates that they are caused by GWs. This GW background is likely due to hundreds of thousands or even millions of supermassive black hole binaries. Teams in Europe, Asia and Australia have also independently reported their results today. Previously, the LIGO and Virgo detectors have detected higher-frequency GWs from the merging of individual pairs of massive orbiting objects, such as stellar-mass black holes. The featured illustration highlights this spacetime-shaking result by depicting two orbiting supermassive black holes and several of the pulsars that would appear to have slight timing shifts. The imprint these GWs make on spacetime itself is illustrated by a distorted grid.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230629.html ( June 29, 2023)

Rising to the Challenge: NASA TechRise Student Teams Take Flight

Students from 20 middle and high schools watched as their experiments launched aboard a high-altitude balloon on June 14 as part of NASA’s TechRise Student Challenge.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/feature/rising-to-the-challenge-nasa-techrise-student-teams-take-flight
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ISS Daily Summary Report 6/27/2023

 

Payloads: Kibo Robot Programming Challenge-4 (Robo-Pro Challenge): A repeat of the rehearsal-1 session for Robo-Pro Challenge was performed. This session was not able to be completed in a previous attempt due to battery issues with the Astrobee free flyers. Technical Rehearsals are used to verify various elements of the real Robo-Pro Challenge. In the actual … ...

June 27, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/06/27/iss-daily-summary-report-6-27-2023/

Messier 24: Sagittarius Star Cloud

Unlike most entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog of deep sky objects, M24 is not a bright galaxy, star cluster, or nebula. It's a gap in nearby, obscuring interstellar dust clouds that allows a view of the distant stars in the Sagittarius spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy. Direct your gaze through this gap with binoculars or small telescope and you are looking through a window over 300 light-years wide at stars some 10,000 light-years or more from Earth. Sometimes called the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud, M24's luminous stars fill this gorgeous starscape. Covering over 3 degrees or the width of 6 full moons in the constellation Sagittarius, the telescopic field of view includes dark markings B92 and B93 near center, along with other clouds of dust and glowing nebulae toward the center of the Milky Way.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230628.html ( June 28, 2023)

Sunning at Kennedy

A young alligator rests on a concrete structure at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 25, 2023.

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ISS Daily Summary Report 6/26/2023

 

Payloads: Kibo Robot Programming Challenge-4 (Robo Pro Challenge): In preparation for the upcoming Robo Pro Challenge tech rehearsal, the perching arm was attached to the Astrobee free flyer. Technical Rehearsals are used to test and verify various elements of the real Robo-Pro challenge. In the actual competition, the student teams will develop code to direct … ...

June 26, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/06/26/iss-daily-summary-report-6-26-2023/

MAVEN s Ultraviolet Mars

These two global views of Mars were captured at ultraviolet wavelengths, beyond the spectrum visible to human eyes. Recorded by the MAVEN spacecraft's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument in July 2022 (left) and January 2023, three otherwise invisible ultraviolet bands are mapped into red, green, and blue colors. That color scheme presents the Red Planet's surface features in shades of tan and green. Haze and clouds appear white or blue, while high altitude ozone takes on a dramatic purple hue. On the left, Mars' south polar ice cap is in brilliant white at the bottom but shrinking during the southern hemisphere's summer season. On the right, the northern hemisphere's polar region is seen shrouded in clouds and atmospheric ozone. Known to some as the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN spacecraft, MAVEN has been exploring Mars' tenuous upper atmosphere, ionosphere, and its interactions with the Sun and solar wind since 2014.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230627.html ( June 27, 2023)

Exploring Climate Data in a New Way

Local students take in the sights—and data—at an Earth Information Center student engagement event, Friday, June 23, 2023, at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/exploring-climate-data-in-a-new-way
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You've surely seen it, but you might not have noticed it. During a cloudless twilight, just before sunrise or after sunset, part of the atmosphere above the horizon appears slightly dark and off-color. Called the Belt of Venus, this transitional band between the dark eclipsed sky and the bright day sky can be seen most prominently in the direction opposite the Sun. Straight above, blue sky is normal sunlight reflecting off the atmosphere, while near the horizon the clear sky can appear more orange or red. In the Belt of Venus, the atmosphere reflects more light from the setting (or rising) Sun and so appears more red. Featured here, the Belt of Venus was photographed over several Himalayan mountains including, second from the right, Mount Everest, the tallest mountain on Earth. Although usually not mentioned, the belt is frequently caught by accident in other photographs.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230626.html ( June 26, 2023)

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Does lightning occur only on Earth? No. Spacecraft in our Solar System have detected lightning on other planets, including Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and lightning is likely on Venus, Uranus, and Neptune. Lightning is a sudden rush of electrically charged particles from one location to another. On Earth, drafts of colliding ice and water droplets usually create lightning-generating charge separation, but what happens on Jupiter? Images and data from NASA's Jupiter-orbiting Juno spacecraft bolster previous speculation that Jovian lightning is also created in clouds containing water and ice. In the featured Juno photograph, an optical flash was captured in a large cloud vortex near Jupiter's north pole. During the next few months, Juno will perform several close sweeps over Jupiter's night side, likely allowing the robotic probe to capture more data and images of Jovian lightning.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230625.html ( June 25, 2023)

3D Ingenuity

The multicolor, stereo imaging Mastcam-Z on the Perseverance rover zoomed in to capture this 3D close-up (get out your red/blue glasses) of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter on mission sol 45. That's Earth-date 2021 April 5. Casting a shadow on the Martian surface, Ingenuity is standing alone on its four landing legs next to the rover's wheel tracks. The experimental helicopter's solar panel, charging batteries that keep it warm through the cold Martian nights and power its flight, sits just above Ingenuity's two 1.2 meter (4 foot) long counter-rotating blades. Thirteen sols later, on April 19, Ingenuity became the first aircraft to perform powered, controlled flight on another planet. It has since gone on to complete more than 50 flights through the thin atmosphere of Mars.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230624.html ( June 24, 2023)

Hubble Glimpses a Glistening Cluster

The teeming stars of the globular cluster NGC 6544 glisten in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2023/hubble-glimpses-a-glistening-cluster
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ISS Daily Summary Report 6/22/2023

 

RS Extravehicular Activity (EVA) #59: Today, ISS CDR Sergey Prokopyev (EV1) and FE-2 Dmitry Petelin (EV2) performed RS EVA #59 with Andrey Fedyaev supporting as the Intravehicular (IV) operator. The trio performed a multitude of tasks in order to perform various external payload and system configuration updates, as well as take photos. The MRM2 hatch … ...

June 22, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/06/22/iss-daily-summary-report-6-22-2023/

Giant Galaxies in Pavo

Over 500,000 light years across, NGC 6872 (top right) is a truly enormous barred spiral galaxy, at least 5 times the size of our own very large Milky Way. The appearance of this giant galaxy's distorted and stretched out spiral arms suggests the magnificent wings of a giant bird. Of course its popular moniker is the Condor galaxy. It lies about 200 million light-years distant toward the southern constellation Pavo, the Peacock. Lined with star-forming regions, the distorted spiral arms are due to NGC 6872's gravitational interaction with the nearby smaller galaxy IC 4970, seen just above the giant galaxy's core. The Pavo galaxy group's dominant giant elliptical galaxy, NGC 6876 is below and left of the soaring Condor galaxy.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230623.html ( June 23, 2023)

One Last Look from Skylab 2

During the Skylab 2 crew's final fly-around inspection on June 22, 1973, they saw this overhead view of the Skylab Space Station.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/one-last-look-from-skylab-2
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ISS Daily Summary Report 6/21/2023

 

Payloads: Cardiobreath: The Bio-Monitor wearables were used prior to, after, and during a CEVIS exercise to record data for the Cardiobreath experiment. Astronauts experience changes in their cardiovascular, respiratory, and musculoskeletal systems during spaceflight, which can affect their capacity to exercise and to maintain blood pressure when standing after return to Earth. Causal Analysis of … ...

June 21, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/06/21/iss-daily-summary-report-6-21-2023/

Stars and Dust across Corona Australis

Cosmic dust clouds cross a rich field of stars in this telescopic vista near the northern boundary of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown. Part of a sprawling molecular cloud complex this star forming region is a mere 500 light-years away. That's about one third the distance of the more famous stellar nursery known as the Orion Nebula. The 2 degree wide frame would span 15 light-years at the clouds' estimated distance. Mixed with bright nebulosities the dust clouds effectively block light from more distant background stars in the Milky Way and obscure from view embedded stars still in the process of formation. Large dark nebula Bernes 157 is on the left. To its right are a group of pretty reflection nebulae cataloged as NGC 6726, 6727, 6729, and IC 4812. Their characteristic blue color is produced as light from hot stars is reflected by the cosmic dust. The more compact NGC 6729 surrounds young variable star R Coronae Australis. Just below it, filamentary arcs and loops are identified as Herbig Haro objects associated with energetic newborn stars. In fact, at the heart of this area lies the Coronet Cluster, one of the nearest and most active star forming regions.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230622.html ( June 22, 2023)

ISS Daily Summary Report 6/20/2023

 

Payloads: General Laboratory Active Cryogenic ISS Experiment Refrigerator (GLACIER): The Glacier trays (two), tray support structures, and desiccants were removed and stowed. The GLACIER refrigerators are ultra-cold freezers that will store samples at temperatures as low as -160°C (-301°F). ISS Ham Radio: An ISS Ham pass contact was made with Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre, … ...

June 20, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/06/20/iss-daily-summary-report-6-20-2023/

The Glowing North Sea

As sunlight and warmth increase in the spring and summer, the North Sea starts to gain swirls and tendrils of color.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-glowing-north-sea
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Does the Sun follow the same path every day? No. The Sun's path changes during the year, tracing a longer route during the summer than the winter. Pictured here, the Sun's arc was captured from noon to sunset on three days, from highest in the sky to lowest: summer solstice, equinox, and winter solstice. The images were taken near Gatto Corvino Village in Sicily, Italy in 2020 and 2021. The path and time the Sun spends in the sky is more important in determining the season than how close the Earth is to the Sun. In fact, the Earth is closest to the Sun in January, during northern winter. Today is a solstice, so today the Sun is taking its longest path of the year across the sky in Earth's northern hemisphere, but the shortest path in the southern hemisphere.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230621.html ( June 21, 2023)

It's Rock Science

Astronauts Reid Wiseman of NASA (left), Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency (middle), and Victor Glover of NASA (right) pay close attention to Moon samples as they receive a lesson in the Apollo Lunar Lab at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston on May 9, 2023.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/its-rock-science
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Have you seen the bird in the Milky Way? Beyond the man in the Moon, the night sky is filled with stories, and cultures throughout history have projected some of their most enduring legends onto the stars and dust above. Generations of people see these celestial icons, hear their associated stories, and pass them down. Pictured here is not only a segment of the central band of our Milky Way galaxy, but, according to folklore of several native peoples of Uruguay, the outline of a great bird called Ñandú. Furthermore, Ñandú's footprint is associated with the Southern Cross asterism. In the foreground, in silhouette, is a statue of María Micaela Guyunusa, an indigenous woman of the Charrúa people who lived in the 1800s and endures as a symbol of colonial resistance. The composite image was taken in mid-April in Cabo Polonio, Uruguay, with the Atlantic Ocean in the background.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230620.html ( June 20, 2023)

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The center of the Lagoon Nebula is a whirlwind of spectacular star formation. Visible near the image center, at least two long funnel-shaped clouds, each roughly half a light-year long, have been formed by extreme stellar winds and intense energetic starlight. A tremendously bright nearby star, Herschel 36, lights the area. Vast walls of dust hide and redden other hot young stars. As energy from these stars pours into the cool dust and gas, large temperature differences in adjoining regions can be created generating shearing winds which may cause the funnels. This picture, spanning about 15 light years, combines images taken in four colors by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. The Lagoon Nebula, also known as M8, lies about 5000 light years distant toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius).

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230619.html ( June 19, 2023)

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Why would clouds form a hexagon on Saturn? Nobody is sure. Originally discovered during the Voyager flybys of Saturn in the 1980s, nobody has ever seen anything like it anywhere else in the Solar System. Acquiring its first sunlit views of far northern Saturn in late 2012, the Cassini spacecraft's wide-angle camera recorded this stunning, false-color image of the ringed planet's north pole. The composite of near-infrared image data results in red hues for low clouds and green for high ones, giving the Saturnian cloudscape a vivid appearance. This and similar images show the stability of the hexagon even 20+ years after Voyager. Movies of Saturn's North Pole show the cloud structure maintaining its hexagonal structure while rotating. Unlike individual clouds appearing like a hexagon on Earth, the Saturn cloud pattern appears to have six well defined sides of nearly equal length. Four Earths could fit inside the hexagon. Beyond the cloud tops at the upper right, arcs of the planet's eye-catching rings are tinted bright blue.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230618.html ( June 18, 2023)

Planet Earth at Night II

Recorded during 2017, timelapse sequences from the International Space Station are compiled in this serene video of planet Earth at Night. Fans of low Earth orbit can start by enjoying the view as green and red aurora borealis slather up the sky. The night scene tracks from northwest to southeast across North America, toward the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida coast. A second sequence follows European city lights, crosses the Mediterranean Sea, and passes over a bright Nile river in northern Africa. Seen from the orbital outpost, erratic flashes of lightning appear in thunder storms below and stars rise above the planet's curved horizon through a faint atmospheric airglow. Of course, from home you can always check out the vital signs of Planet Earth Now.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230617.html ( June 17, 2023)

A View of Galveston the Birthplace of Juneteenth

This image of Galveston was taken by the Expedition 67 crew aboard the International Space Station on June 20, 2022, as it orbited 224 miles above.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/a-view-of-galveston-the-birthplace-of-juneteenth
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ISS Daily Summary Report 6/15/2023

 

USOS Extravehicular Activity (EVA) #88 ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (IROSA) 1B Install: Today, Woody Hoburg and Steve Bowen conducted USOS EVA #88 to install and deploy the IROSA 1B. Operators Frank Rubio and Sultan Al Neyadi provided SSRMS M1/M2 support during the EVA. The IROSA will augment power generation for the 1B power channel on … ...

June 15, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/06/15/iss-daily-summary-report-6-15-2023/

Sunset to Sunrise over the Baltic Sea

This serene view from the coast of Sweden looks across the Baltic sea and compresses time, presenting the passage of one night in a single photograph. From sunset to sunrise, moonlight illuminates the creative sea and skyscape. Fleeting clouds, fixed stars, and flowing northern lights leave their traces in planet Earth's sky. To construct the timelapse image, 3296 video frames were recorded on the night of June's Full Moon between 7:04pm and 6:35am local time. As time progresses from left to right, a single column of pixels was taken from the corresponding individual frame and combined in sequence into a single digital image 3296 pixels wide.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230616.html ( June 16, 2023)

Artemis II Module Makes a Move

The European Service Module for the Artemis II Orion spacecraft moves into the Final Assembly and System Testing Cell at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in this image from May 22, 2023.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/artemis-ii-module-makes-a-move
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M15: Dense Globular Star Cluster

Messier 15 is an immense swarm of over 100,000 stars. A 13 billion year old relic of the early formative years of our galaxy it's one of about 170 globular star clusters that still roam the halo of the Milky Way. Centered in this sharp reprocessed Hubble image, M15 lies some 35,000 light-years away toward the constellation Pegasus. Its diameter is about 200 light-years, but more than half its stars are packed into the central 10 light-years or so, making one of the densest concentrations of stars known. Hubble-based measurements of the increasing velocities of M15's central stars are evidence that a massive black hole resides at the center of the dense cluster. M15 is also known to harbour a planetary nebula. Called Pease 1 (aka PN Ps 1), it can be seen in this image as a small blue blob below and just right of center.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230615.html ( June 15, 2023)

A Dragon Beams Up

In this long exposure photo from June 5, 2023, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket creates a beam of light as it launches from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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There is no sea on Earth large enough to contain the Shark nebula. This predator apparition poses us no danger as it is composed only of interstellar gas and dust. Dark dust like that featured here is somewhat like cigarette smoke and created in the cool atmospheres of giant stars. After being expelled with gas and gravitationally recondensing, massive stars may carve intricate structures into their birth cloud using their high energy light and fast stellar winds as sculpting tools. The heat they generate evaporates the murky molecular cloud as well as causing ambient hydrogen gas to disperse and glow red. During disintegration, we humans can enjoy imagining these great clouds as common icons, like we do for water clouds on Earth. Including smaller dust nebulae such as Lynds Dark Nebula 1235 and Van den Bergh 149 & 150, the Shark nebula spans about 15 light years and lies about 650 light years away toward the constellation of the King of Aethiopia (Cepheus).

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230614.html ( June 14, 2023)

ISS Daily Summary Report 6/12/2023

 

Payloads: Fluid Science Laboratory (FSL) Soft Matter Dynamics (SMD) – FOAM: Three samples were exchanged inside the SMD Experiment Container with five Foam-C Samples (09, 10, 11, 13, 14) in the Lower drawer of the FSL. FSL Soft Matter Dynamics – Hydrodynamics of Wet Foams (Foam Coarsening) aims to investigate bubble size and rearrangement dynamics … ...

June 12, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/06/12/iss-daily-summary-report-6-12-2023/

Spacewalker Woody Hoburg rides the Canadarm2 robotic arm

Spacewalker Woody Hoburg rides the Canadarm2 robotic arm while maneuvering a roll-out solar array toward the International Space Station's truss structure.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/spacewalker-woody-hoburg-rides-the-canadarm2-robotic-arm
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Jupiter's moons circle Jupiter. The featured video depicts Europa and Io, two of Jupiter's largest moons, crossing in front of the grand planet's Great Red Spot, the largest known storm system in our Solar System. The video was composed from images taken by the robotic Cassini spacecraft as it passed Jupiter in 2000, on its way to Saturn. The two moons visible are volcanic Io, in the distance, and icy Europa. In the time-lapse video, Europa appears to overtake Io, which is odd because Io is closer to Jupiter and moves faster. The explanation is that the motion of the fast Cassini spacecraft changes the camera location significantly during imaging. Jupiter is currently being visited by NASA's robotic Juno spacecraft, while ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE), launched in April, is enroute.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230613.html ( June 13, 2023)

What’s that near the Moon? It’s the International Space Station (ISS). Although the ISS may appear to be physically near the Moon, it is not — it is physically near the Earth. In low Earth orbit and circulating around our big blue marble about every 90 minutes, the ISS was captured photographically as it crossed nearly in front of the Moon. The Moon, itself in a month-long orbit around the Earth, shows a crescent phase as only a curving sliver of its Sun-illuminated half is visible from the Earth. The featured image was taken in late March from Shanghai, China and shows not only details of Earth's largest human-made satellite, but details of the cratered and barren surface of Earth's largest natural satellite. Over the next few years, humanity is planning to send more people and machines to the Moon than ever before.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230612.html ( June 12, 2023)

Here are all the visible colors of the Sun, produced by passing the Sun's light through a prism-like device. The spectrum was created at the McMath-Pierce Solar Observatory and shows, first off, that although our white-appearing Sun emits light of nearly every color, it appears brightest in yellow-green light. The dark patches in the featured spectrum arise from gas at or above the Sun's surface absorbing sunlight emitted below. Since different types of gas absorb different colors of light, it is possible to determine what gasses compose the Sun. Helium, for example, was first discovered in 1870 on a solar spectrum and only later found here on Earth. Today, the majority of spectral absorption lines have been identified - but not all.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230611.html ( June 11, 2023)

Mars and the Beehive

This month, bright Mars and brilliant Venus are the prominent celestial beacons in planet Earth's western skies after sunset. Wandering through the constellation Cancer the Crab, the Red Planet was captured here on the evening of June 3 near the stars of open cluster Messier 44. Recognized since antiquity this nearby, naked-eye star cluster is also known as the Praesepe or the Beehive cluster. A swarm of stars all much younger than the Sun, the Beehive cluster is a mere 600 light-years distant. Seen with a yellowish hue, Mars is about 17 light-minutes away. On June 12/13 Venus will take its turn posing next to the stars of the Beehive cluster. But the dazzling light of Venus will make the Beehive stars difficult to see by eye alone.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230610.html ( June 10, 2023)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 6/08/2023

 

Payloads: Plasma Kristall-4 (PK-4): The crew configured the video monitor system and gas system valves in order to prepare the PK-4 chamber for storage. PK-4 is a scientific collaboration between ESA and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), performing research in the field of Complex Plasmas: low temperature gaseous mixtures composed of ionized gas, neutral … ...

June 08, 2023 at 12:00PM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/06/08/iss-daily-summary-report-6-08-2023/

Hubble Observes a Cosmic Sea Creature

The jellyfish galaxy JO206 trails across this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2023/hubble-observes-a-cosmic-sea-creature
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Pandora s Cluster of Galaxies

This deep field mosaicked image presents a stunning view of galaxy cluster Abell 2744 from the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRCam. Also dubbed Pandora's Cluster, Abell 2744 itself appears to be a ponderous merger of three different massive galaxy clusters some 3.5 billion light-years away toward the constellation Sculptor. Dominated by dark matter, the mega-cluster warps and distorts the fabric of spacetime, gravitationally lensing even more distant objects. Redder than the Pandora cluster galaxies many of the lensed sources are very distant galaxies in the early Universe, stretched and distorted into arcs. Of course distinctive diffraction spikes mark foreground Milky Way stars. At the Pandora Cluster's estimated distance this cosmic box spans about 6 million light-years. But don't panic. You can explore the tantalizing region in a 2 minute video tour.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230609.html ( June 09, 2023)

A Cloudy Approach

The last rays of an orbital sunset illuminate the cloud tops above the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan, providing a dramatic background for the SpaceX CRS-28 Dragon cargo craft as it approached the International Space Station for docking on June 6, 2023.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/a-cloudy-approach
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Elephant s Trunk and Caravan

Like an illustration in a galactic Just So Story, the Elephant's Trunk Nebula winds through the emission region and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. Seen on the left the cosmic elephant's trunk, also known as vdB 142, is over 20 light-years long. This detailed telescopic view features the bright swept-back ridges and pockets of cool interstellar dust and gas that abound in the region. But the dark, tendril-shaped clouds contain the raw material for star formation and hide protostars within. Nearly 3,000 light-years distant, the relatively faint IC 1396 complex covers a large region on the sky, spanning over 5 degrees. This rendition spans a 1 degree wide field of view though, about the angular size of 2 full moons. Of course the dark shapes below and to the right of the outstretched Elephant's Trunk, are known to some as The Caravan.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230608.html ( June 08, 2023)

Crew-5 Visits NASA Headquarters

On June 5, 2023, Crew-5 astronauts Josh Cassada (left) and Nicole A. Mann (second from left) of NASA, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata (right) visited NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana (second from right) at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/crew-5-visits-nasa-headquarters
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