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As seen on #Cosmos: Meteors Shooting stars, or meteors, are bits of interplanetary material falling through Earth's atmosphere and heated to incandescence by friction. These objects are called meteoroids as they are hurtling through space, becoming meteors for the few seconds they streak across the sky and create glowing trails. Scientists estimate that 44 tonnes (44,000 kilograms, about 48.5 tons) of meteoritic material falls on the Earth each day. Several meteors per hour can usually be seen on any given night. Sometimes the number increases dramatically - these events are termed meteor showers. Some occur annually or at regular intervals as the Earth passes through the trail of dusty debris left by a comet. Meteor showers are usually named after a star or constellation that is close to where the meteors appear in the sky. Perhaps the most famous are the Perseids, which peak around 12 August every year. Every Perseid meteor is a tiny piece of the comet Swift-Tuttle, which swings by the Sun every 135 years. Other meteor showers and their associated comets are the Leonids (Tempel-Tuttle), the Aquarids and Orionids (Halley), and the Taurids (Encke). Most comet dust in meteor showers burns up in the atmosphere before reaching the ground; some dust is captured by high-altitude aircraft and analyzed in NASA laboratories. Chunks of rock and metal from asteroids and other planetary bodies that survive their journey through the atmosphere and fall to the ground are called meteorites. Most meteorites found on Earth are pebble to fist size, but some are larger than a build-ing. Early Earth experienced many large meteorite impacts that caused extensive destruction. Image credit: NASA/JPL #meteor #meteorite #nasa #space; -
Researchers were greatly surprised to discover 3-million-year-old landscape beneath Greenland Ice Sheet! The finding provides strong evidence that the Greenland Ice Sheet has persisted much longer than previously known, enduring through many past periods of global warming. The new discovery indicates that even during the warmest periods since the ice sheet formed, the center of Greenland remained stable. "It’s likely that it did not fully melt at any time," said University of Vermont geologist and lead author Paul Bierman. This allowed a tundra landscape to be locked away, unmodified, under ice through millions of years of global warming and cooling. Image Credit: Joshua Brown, University of Vermont #ice #green;and #nasa #science #climate #climatechange #greenlandicesheet; -
And liftoff! SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket with Dragon spacecraft lifted off at 3:25 p.m. EDT from Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. and is on its way to the International Space Station. Dragon's twin solar arrays deployed on schedule less than 15 minutes after launch. They will allow the spacecraft to recharge its batteries on its way to the space station. The scientific payloads on Dragon include investigations that focus on efficient ways to grow plants in space, demonstrating laser optics to communicate with Earth, human immune system function in microgravity and Earth observation. Also being delivered is a set of high-tech legs for Robonaut 2, which can provide the humanoid robot torso already aboard the orbiting laboratory with the mobility it needs to help with regular and repetitive tasks inside the space station. Image Credit: NASA #spacex #spacex3 #nasa #science #dragon #falcon9 #launch #321liftoff #iss #space #spacestation; -
Today's Launch Site From Space! Astronaut Steve Swanson captured this view of Cape Canaveral, Florida, from the International Space Station. At Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, SpaceX is preparing to launch its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft at 3:25 p.m. EDT today on its third commercial resupply mission to the space station. The Dragon is loaded with nearly 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiment hardware. The U.S. Air Force 45th Weather Squadron predicts a 40 percent chance of favorable conditions at launch time. A launch today will send Dragon on a course to rendezvous with the station Sunday morning. The backup launch opportunity for the launch of SpaceX-3 is Saturday, April 19 at 3:02 p.m. Image Credit: NASA #spacex #nasa #science #space #launch #321liftoff #dragon #falcon9 #astronauts #iss #earth #spacex3; -
Astronauts gear up for spacewalk and launch to the space station - As work continues at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida for Friday's 3:25 p.m. EDT launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon cargo craft, the crew geared up Thursday for a contingency spacewalk to replace a failed backup computer relay box on the station's truss. The 2 ½-hour spacewalk is set for Wednesday, April 23, unless SpaceX scrubs its launch attempt Friday, in which case the excursion will move up earlier to Sunday, April 20. Flight Engineers Steve Swanson (left) and Rick Mastracchio work with spacesuits in the station's Quest airlock. Swanson downlinked this photo to @ISS on Instragram. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #launch #spacex #eva #spacewalk #astronauts #iss #spacestation;
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Mars Rover Selfie! This self-portrait of our Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows effects of wind events that had cleaned much of the accumulated dust off the rover's solar panels. It combines multiple frames taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam) through three different color filters March 22 through March 24, 2014, the 3,611th through 3,613th Martian days, or sols, of Opportunity's work on Mars. This image is presented in false color to make differences in surface materials more easily visible, and as a vertical projection. The mast on which the Pancam is mounted does not appear in the image, though its shadow does. Cleaning effects of wind events in March boosted the amount of electricity available for the rover's work. With the cleaner arrays and lengthening winter days, Opportunity's solar arrays are generating more than 620 watt-hours per day in mid-April 2014, compared to less than 375 watt-hours per day in January 2014. In its sixth Martian winter, Opportunity now has cleaner solar arrays than in any Martian winter since its first on the Red Planet in 2005. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ. #mars #opportunity #rovers #mer #selfie #power #redplanet #nasa #planets #science; -
An Earth-like planet? Our Kepler spacecraft discovered first Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of another star! The artist's concept depicts Kepler-186f , the first validated Earth-size planet to orbit a distant star in the habitable zone-a range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the planet's surface. The discovery of Kepler-186f confirms that Earth-size planets exist in the habitable zones of other stars and signals a significant step closer to finding a world similar to Earth. The size of Kepler-186f is known to be less than ten percent larger than Earth, but its mass, density and composition are not known. Previous research suggests it's likely rocky. Kepler-186f orbits its star once every 130 days and receives one-third the energy that Earth does from the sun, placing it near the outer edge of the habitable zone. If you could stand on the surface of Kepler-186f, the brightness of its star at high noon would appear as bright as our sun is about an hour before sunset on Earth. Kepler-186f is about 500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. The system is also home to four inner planets, seen lined up in orbit around a host star that is half the size and mass of the sun. Credit: NASA Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech #kepler #exoplanet #star #earth #space #astronomy #science #nasa; -
Throwback Thursday! On April 17, 1967, our Surveyor 3 spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on a mission to the lunar surface. A little more than two years after it landed on the moon with the goal of paving the way for a future human mission, the Surveyor 3 spacecraft got a visit from Apollo 12 Commander Charles Conrad Jr. and astronaut Alan L. Bean, who snapped this photo on Nov. 20, 1969. The Apollo 12 Lunar Module, visible in the background at right, landed about 600 feet from Surveyor 3 in the Ocean of Storms. The television camera and several other pieces were taken from Surveyor 3 and brought back to Earth for scientific examination. Here, Conrad examines the Surveyor's TV camera prior to detaching it. Astronaut Richard F. Gordon Jr. remained with the Apollo 12 Command and Service Modules (CSM) in lunar orbit while Conrad and Bean descended in the LM to explore the moon. Image Credit: NASA #tbt #otd #throwbackthursday #moon #lunar #astronauts #space #surveyor #apollo12; -
The Grand Canyon in northern Arizona is a favorite for astronauts shooting photos from the International Space Station. The steep walls of the Colorado River canyon and its many side canyons make an intricate landscape that contrasts with the dark green, forested plateau to the north and south. The Colorado River has done all the erosional work of carving away cubic kilometers of rock in a geologically short period of time. Visible as a darker line snaking along the bottom of the canyon, the river lies at an altitude of 715 meters (2,345 feet), thousands of meters below the North and South Rims. Temperatures are furnace-like on the river banks in the summer. This astronaut photograph was taken on March 25, 2014, from the space station with a Nikon D3S digital camera using a 180 millimeter lens. It has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. Image Credit: NASA #grandcanyon #nasa #astronauts #iss #science #space #coloradoriver #arizona; -
Look closely! Our Curiosity Mars rover and its tracks are visible in this view from orbit, acquired on April 11 by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The rover is near the largest butte in the lower left quadrant of the image, at about a two o'clock position relative to the butte. It appears bright blue in the exaggerated color of this image. Curiosity entered the area included in this image on March 12, along the tracks visible near the upper left corner. The multi-layered location filling much of the left half of this image is called "the Kimberley." Curiosity's science team chose it, based on other HiRISE images, as a potential gold mine for the rover mission. Black gold, that is, as organic material that, if found at the Kimberley could be a biomarker (sign of past life) -- the holy grail of Mars exploration. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona #mars #marscuriosity #msl #hirise #uarizona #planets #space #nasa #science;
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Eclipse! From open prairie land on the 1625-acre Johnson Space Center site, one of our photographers took this multi-frame composite image of the so-called "Blood Moon" lunar eclipse in the early hours of April 15. During these rare events, the full moon rapidly darkens and then glows red as it enters the Earth's shadow. Though a lunar eclipse can be seen only at night, it's worth staying up to catch the show. The next full lunar eclipse visible in the U.S. will be in 2019. Photo credit: NASA #eclipse #bloodmooneclipse #lunareclipse #moon #lunar #science #earth; -
Space station astronauts focused today on preparations for a contingency spacewalk to be conducted in the next week or so. Meanwhile station program managers and SpaceX officials are working toward scheduling dates for the next launch attempt for Dragon cargo spacecraft and that contingency spacewalk, while managing all this around the planned undocking and redocking of a Russian cargo craft next week. Monday's launch attempt of the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft, loaded with nearly 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiment hardware, was scrubbed due to a helium leak on the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage. The next launch opportunity would be Friday at 3:25 p.m. EDT if the issue can be resolved. In this image, ISS Commander Koichi Wakata works with spacesuits, called extravehicular mobility units, in the Quest airlock of station. Image Credit: NASA #iss #nasa #spacestation #space #astronauts #dragon #spacex #exp39 #falcon9 #eva #spacewalk; -
Eclipse! The United States was in a prime orbital position and time of day to view the eclipse on April 15. Depending on local weather conditions, the public got a spectacular view looking into the sky as the moon's appearance changed from bright orange to blood red to dark brown and perhaps gray. The eclipse is a phenomenon that occurs when the Earth, moon and sun are in perfect alignment, blanketing the moon in the Earth's shadow. The United States will not be able to witness a full lunar eclipse in its entirety again until 2019. This image was taken in San Jose, Calif. Image Credit: NASA Ames Research Center/Brian Day #eclipse #bloodmooneclipse #lunareclipse #nasa #moon #lunar #science #earth; -
The total lunar eclipse has started! The eclipse's peak, when the moon will enter the Earth's full shadow or umbra, will occur at 3:45 a.m. EDT. The United States is in a prime orbital position and time of day to view the eclipse. Depending on local weather conditions, you will get a spectacular view looking into the sky as the moon's appearance will change from bright orange to blood red to dark brown and perhaps gray. The eclipse is a phenomenon that occurs when the Earth, moon and sun are in perfect alignment, blanketing the moon in the Earth's shadow. The United States will not be able to witness a full lunar eclipse in its entirety again until 2019. Image Credit: NASA #lunareclipse #eclipse #bloodmooneclipse #moon #science #space #nasa #moon; -
Stay up all night with us to watch the total lunar #eclipse! You can view and learn more about the eclipse on NASA television. Coverage begins at 2 a.m. EDT and will last about three hours. The eclipse's peak, when the moon will enter the Earth's full shadow or umbra, will occur at 3:45 a.m. Live NASA TV coverage and commentary will begin at 1 a.m. To view the coverage and access eclipse streaming video, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv The United States will be in a prime orbital position and time of day to view the eclipse. Depending on local weather conditions, the public will get a spectacular view looking into the sky as the moon's appearance will change from bright orange to blood red to dark brown and perhaps gray. The eclipse is a phenomenon that occurs when the Earth, moon and sun are in perfect alignment, blanketing the moon in the Earth's shadow. The United States will not be able to witness a full lunar eclipse in its entirety again until 2019. Image Credit: F. Espenak #nasa #eclipse #moon #lunar #earth #sun #shadow;
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