Inspecting Orion

The Artemis I Orion capsule is secured on a platform inside the Multi-Payload Processing Facility (MPFF) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida in this image from Jan. 6, 2023.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/inspecting-orion
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The scene may look like a fantasy, but it's really Iceland. The rock arch is named Gatklettur and located on the island's northwest coast. Some of the larger rocks in the foreground span a meter across. The fog over the rocks is really moving waves averaged over long exposures. The featured image is a composite of several foreground and background shots taken with the same camera and from the same location on the same night last November. The location was picked for its picturesque foreground, but the timing was planned for its colorful background: aurora. The spiral aurora, far behind the arch, was one of the brightest seen in the astrophotographer's life. The coiled pattern was fleeting, though, as auroral patterns waved and danced for hours during the cold night. Far in the background were the unchanging stars, with Earth's rotation causing them to appear to slowly circle the sky's northernmost point near Polaris.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230111.html ( January 11, 2023)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 1/09/2023

 

SpaceX-26 Undock and Return: Cargo Dragon SpaceX-26 (SpX-26) undocked from the ISS today at 4:05 PM CT to return cargo and payloads to the ground concluding the 43-day mission aboard the ISS. SpX-26 will complete departure phasing throughout the next day, jettison the Trunk for destructive re-entry, deorbit, and then splash down off the coast … ...

January 09, 2023 at 11:00AM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/01/09/iss-daily-summary-report-1-09-2023/

Space Station Peek

NASA astronaut and Expedition 68 Flight Engineer Nicole Mann peers through one of the seven windows in the cupola, the International Space Station's "window to the world" on Jan. 2, 2023.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/space-station-peek
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Stars are forming in the gigantic dust pillar called the Cone Nebula. Cones, pillars, and majestic flowing shapes abound in stellar nurseries where clouds of gas and dust are sculpted by energetic winds from newborn stars. The Cone Nebula, a well-known example, lies within the bright galactic star-forming region NGC 2264. The featured image of the Cone was captured recently combining 24-hours of exposure with a half-meter telescope at the El Sauce Observatory in Chile. Located about 2,500 light-years away toward the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros), the Cone Nebula's conical pillar extends about 7 light-years. The massive star NGC 2264 IRS, is the likely source of the wind sculpting the Cone Nebula and lies off the top of the image. The Cone Nebula's reddish veil is produced by glowing hydrogen gas.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230110.html ( January 10, 2023)

Comet ZTF may become visible to the unaided eye. Discovered early last year, this massive snowball has been brightening as it approaches the Sun and the Earth. C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will be closest to the Sun later this week, at which time it may become visible even without binoculars to northern observers with a clear and dark sky. As they near the Sun, comet brightnesses are notoriously hard to predict, though. In the featured image taken last week in front of a picturesque star field, three blue ion tails extend to the upper right, likely the result of a variable solar wind on ions ejected by the icy comet nucleus. The comet's white dust tail is visible to the upper left and much shorter. The green glow is the comet's coma, caused by glowing carbon gas. Comet ZTF is expected to pass nearest the Earth in early February, after which it should dim dramatically.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230109.html ( January 09, 2023)

The hydrogen in your body, present in every molecule of water, came from the Big Bang. There are no other appreciable sources of hydrogen in the universe. The carbon in your body was made by nuclear fusion in the interior of stars, as was the oxygen. Much of the iron in your body was made during supernovas of stars that occurred long ago and far away. The gold in your jewelry was likely made from neutron stars during collisions that may have been visible as short-duration gamma-ray bursts or gravitational wave events. Elements like phosphorus and copper are present in our bodies in only small amounts but are essential to the functioning of all known life. The featured periodic table is color coded to indicate humanity's best guess as to the nuclear origin of all known elements. The sites of nuclear creation of some elements, such as copper, are not really well known and are continuing topics of observational and computational research.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230108.html ( January 08, 2023)

Space Stations in Low Earth Orbit

On January 3, two space stations already illuminated by sunlight in low Earth orbit crossed this dark predawn sky. Moving west to east (left to right) across the composited timelapse image China's Tiangong Space Station traced the upper trail captured more than an hour before the local sunrise. Seen against a starry background Tiangong passes just below the inverted Big Dipper asterism of Ursa Major near the peak of its bright arc, and above north pole star Polaris. But less than five minutes before, the International Space Station had traced its own sunlit streak across the dark sky. Its trail begins just above the W-shape outlined by the bright stars of Cassiopeia near the northern horizon. The dramatic foreground spans an abandoned mine at Achada do Gamo in southeastern Portugal.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230107.html ( January 07, 2023)

Prepping to Study the World’s Water

The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) spacecraft is in this early morning photo from Dec. 14, 2022, as preparations for launch continued.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/prepping-to-study-the-world-s-water
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ISS Daily Summary Report – 1/05/2023

 

Payloads: BioNutrients-2: BioNutrients-2 Production Bags were hydrated and inspected. BioNutrients demonstrates a technology that enables on-demand production of human nutrients during long-duration space missions. The process uses engineered microbes, like yeast, to generate carotenoids from an edible media to supplement potential vitamin losses from food that is stored for very long periods. Specially designed storage/growth … ...

January 05, 2023 at 11:00AM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/01/05/iss-daily-summary-report-1-05-2023/