NASA News

2022-06-08 20:11:17 #BreakingNews from #Nasa: "NASA, FEMA Release Comprehensive Climate Action Guide" NASA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have released a guide which provides resources for adapting to and mitigating impacts of climate change. [June 08, 2022] Read more here: http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-fema-release-comprehensive-climate-action-guide Open / Comment

2022-06-08 16:44:13 #NewPhoto from #Nasa: "Pacific Ocean From the Space Station" The International Space Station orbits into a dawn 261 miles above a cloudy Pacific Ocean in this image from April 2022. [June 08, 2022] http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/iss066e161043.jpeg Open / Comment

2022-06-08 07:15:18 #NewImage from #Nasa: "Ship Tracks over the Pacific Ocean " What are those unusual streaks? Some images of planet Earth show clear bright streaks that follow the paths of ships. Known as ship tracks, these low and narrow bands are caused by the ship's engine exhaust. Water vapor condenses around small bits of exhaust known as aerosols, which soon grow into floating water drops that efficiently reflect sunlight. Ship tracks were first discovered in 1965 in Earth images taken by NASA's TIROS satellites. Multiple ship tracks are visible across the featured image that was captured in 2009 over the Pacific Ocean by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite. Inspired by ship-tracks, some scientists have suggested deploying a network of floating buoys in the worlds' oceans that spray salt-aerosol containing sea-water into the air so that, with the help of the wind, streams of sunlight-reflecting clouds would also form. Why do this? These human-made clouds could reflect so much sunlight they might help fight global warming. [June 08, 2022] https://apod.nasa.gov/image/2206/ShipTracks_Terra_960.jpg Open / Comment

2022-06-07 20:11:14 #BreakingNews from #Nasa: "NASA to Inflate Heat Shield on Earth Before Spaceflight Demo" NASA is inviting media to see a technology that could one day help land humans on Mars after it is inflated for the final time on Earth before its spaceflight demonstration later this year. [June 07, 2022] Read more here: http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-inflate-heat-shield-on-earth-before-spaceflight-demo Open / Comment

2022-06-07 17:33:41 #NewReport from #ISS : "ISS Daily Summary Report – 6/06/2022" Payloads: Astrorad: The crew gathered the appropriate items and prepared for the upcoming science activities.  Comfort and Human Factors AstroRad Radiation Garment Evaluation (CHARGE) tests a special vest designed to protect astronauts from radiation caused by unpredictable Solar Particle Events (SPEs). Astronauts provide input on the garment as they wear it while performing daily tasks, Open / Comment

2022-06-07 17:24:09 #NewPhoto from #Nasa: "Dickinson Crater on Venus" This November 1996 image from Magellan shows Dickinson, an impact crater in the northeastern Atalanta Region of Venus. [June 07, 2022] http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia00479.jpeg Open / Comment

2022-06-07 07:21:54 #NewImage from #Nasa: "NGC 6188: Dragons of Ara " Do dragons fight on the altar of the sky? Although it might appear that way, these dragons are illusions made of thin gas and dust. The emission nebula NGC 6188, home to the glowing clouds, is found about 4,000 light years away near the edge of a large molecular cloud unseen at visible wavelengths, in the southern constellation Ara (the Altar). Massive, young stars of the embedded Ara OB1 association were formed in that region only a few million years ago, sculpting the dark shapes and powering the nebular glow with stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation. The recent star formation itself was likely triggered by winds and supernova explosions, from previous generations of massive stars, that swept up and compressed the molecular gas. Joining NGC 6188 on this cosmic canvas, visible toward the lower right, is rare emission nebula NGC 6164, also created by one of the region's massive O-type stars. Similar in appearance to many planetary nebulae, NGC 6164's striking, symmetric gaseous shroud and faint halo surround its bright central star near the bottom edge. This impressively wide field of view spans over 2 degrees (four full Moons), corresponding to over 150 light years at the estimated distance of NGC 6188. [June 07, 2022] https://apod.nasa.gov/image/2206/Ngc6188_Robertson_960.jpg Open / Comment

2022-06-06 16:29:41 #NewPhoto from #Nasa: "Artemis I Moon Rocket Heads Back to Launch Pad for Testing" The rocket is scheduled to launch later in 2022. [June 06, 2022] http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/sls_rollout_with_vab_20220606.jpeg Open / Comment

2022-06-06 07:16:24 #NewImage from #Nasa: "Milky Way Galaxy Doomed: Collision with Andromeda Pending " Will our Milky Way Galaxy collide one day with its larger neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy? Most likely, yes. Careful plotting of slight displacements of M31's stars relative to background galaxies on recent Hubble Space Telescope images indicate that the center of M31 could be on a direct collision course with the center of our home galaxy. Still, the errors in sideways velocity appear sufficiently large to admit a good chance that the central parts of the two galaxies will miss, slightly, but will become close enough for their outer halos to become gravitationally entangled. Once that happens, the two galaxies will become bound, dance around, and eventually merge to become one large elliptical galaxy -- over the next few billion years. Pictured here is a combination of images depicting the sky of a world (Earth?) in the distant future when the outer parts of each galaxy begin to collide. The exact future of our Milky Way and the entire surrounding Local Group of Galaxies is likely to remain an active topic of research for years to come. [June 06, 2022] https://apod.nasa.gov/image/2206/M31MwBang_NASA_1080.jpg Open / Comment

2022-06-05 07:16:14 #NewImage from #Nasa: "Two Black Holes Dancing in 3C 75 " What's happening at the center of active galaxy 3C 75? The two bright sources at the center of this composite x-ray (blue)/ radio (pink) image are co-orbiting supermassive black holes powering the giant radio source 3C 75. Surrounded by multimillion degree x-ray emitting gas, and blasting out jets of relativistic particles the supermassive black holes are separated by 25,000 light-years. At the cores of two merging galaxies in the Abell 400 galaxy cluster they are some 300 million light-years away. Astronomers conclude that these two supermassive black holes are bound together by gravity in a binary system in part because the jets' consistent swept back appearance is most likely due to their common motion as they speed through the hot cluster gas at about 1200 kilometers per second. Such spectacular cosmic mergers are thought to be common in crowded galaxy cluster environments in the distant universe. In their final stages, the mergers are expected to be intense sources of gravitational waves. [June 05, 2022] https://apod.nasa.gov/image/2206/3c75_chandraNRAO_960.jpg Open / Comment