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Up, up and away! Seen here at sunrise is the high-altitude balloon carrying the HySICS instruments before launch to the outermost part of Earth's atmosphere. The HyperSpectral Imager for Climate Science (HySICS) made its inaugural engineering balloon flight from Fort Sumner, N.M., the morning of Sept. 29. Balloon flights provide realistic, space-like conditions at a fraction of the cost of launching an instrument into space, so is an ideal means of testing new technologies. A 60-story tall balloon lifted HySICS to an altitude of nearly 122,000 feet, far above the majority of Earth’s atmosphere, heights where the sky is nearly as black as in space. Image Credit: HySICS Team/LASP #balloon #hysics #lasp #nasa #space #highaltitude #helium #earth #atmosphere #sunrise; -
Halloween Fun With Meteor Cameras: Halloween is here, and astronomers have collected their favorite eerie images from various meteor cameras. They found everything from creepy crawlies to nocturnal visitors to a bubbling cauldron in the night sky. The NASA All-sky Fireball Network is a network of cameras set up by the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) with the goal of observing meteors brighter than the planet Venus, which are called fireballs. The collected data will be used by the MEO in constructing models of the meteoroid environment, which are important to spacecraft designers. Image credit: NASA #nasa #meteor #cameras #nightview #night #fireballs #halloween #meteroid; -
'Witch Head' Brews Baby Stars: A witch appears to be screaming out into space in this new image from NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The infrared portrait shows the Witch Head nebula, named after its resemblance to the profile of a wicked witch. Astronomers say the billowy clouds of the nebula, where baby stars are brewing, are being lit up by massive stars. Dust in the cloud is being hit with starlight, causing it to glow with infrared light, which was picked up by WISE's detectors. The Witch Head nebula is estimated to be hundreds of light-years away in the Orion constellation, just off the famous hunter's knee. WISE was recently "awakened" to hunt for asteroids in a program called NEOWISE. The reactivation came after the spacecraft was put into hibernation in 2011, when it completed two full scans of the sky, as planned. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech #witches #halloween #space #nasa #wise #infrared #nebula; -
This trio of ghostly images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the disembodied remains of dying stars called planetary nebulas. Planetary nebulas are a late stage in a sun-like star's life, when its outer layers have sloughed off and are lit up by ultraviolet light from the central star. They come in a variety of shapes, as indicated by these three spooky structures. Exposed Cranium Nebula (left) The brain-like orb called PMR 1 has been nicknamed the "Exposed Cranium" nebula by Spitzer scientists. This planetary nebula, located roughly 5,000 light-years away in the Vela constellation, is host to a hot, massive dying star that is rapidly disintegrating, losing its mass. The nebula's insides, which appear mushy and red in this view, are made up primarily of ionized gas, while the outer green shell is cooler, consisting of glowing hydrogen molecules. Ghost of Jupiter Nebula (middle) The Ghost of Jupiter, also known as NGC 3242, is located roughly 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Hydra. Spitzer's infrared view shows off the cooler outer halo of the dying star, colored here in red. Also evident are concentric rings around the object, the result of material being periodically tossed out in the star's final death throes. Little Dumbbell Nebula (right) This planetary nebula, known as NGC 650 or the Little Dumbbell, is about 2,500 light-years from Earth in the Perseus constellation. Unlike the other spherical nebulas, it has a bipolar or butterfly shape due to a "waist," or disk, of thick material, running from lower left to upper right. Fast winds blow material away from the star, above and below this dusty disk. The ghoulish green and red clouds are from glowing hydrogen molecules, with the green area being hotter than the red. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA #spitzer #space #nasa #telescope #uvlight #star; -
Curiosity's View of "Cooperstown" Outcrop on Route to Mount Sharp: The low ridge that appears as a dark band below the horizon in the center of this scene is a Martian outcrop called "Cooperstown," a possible site for contact inspection with tools on the robotic arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity. The ridge extends roughly 100 feet (about 30 meters) from left to right, and it is about 260 feet (about 80 meters) away from the location from which Curiosity captured this view. The image combines portions of two frames taken by the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on Curiosity on the 437th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission inside Gale Crater on Mars (Oct. 28, 2013). Curiosity had just completed the mission's first use of two-sol autonomous driving. It resumed autonomous driving on Sol 437 where it had left off driving on Sol 436 (Oct. 27, 2013). In autonomous driving, the rover itself chooses the best route to reach designated waypoints, using onboard analysis of stereo images that it takes during pauses in the drive. The combined two-sol drive that brought Opportunity to this vantage point, for seeing Cooperstown, covered about 410 feet (125 meters). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech #mars #solarsystem #planet #planets #curiosity #marscuriosity #nasa #marsrover #rover #redplanet #nofilter;
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NASA's Orion Spacecraft Comes to Life: Technicians are seen working inside the Orion crew module being built at Kennedy Space Center. NASA's first-ever deep space craft, Orion, has been powered on for the first time, marking a major milestone in the final year of preparations for flight. Orion's avionics system was installed on the crew module and powered up for a series of systems tests at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida last week. Preliminary data indicate Orion's vehicle management computer, as well as its innovative power and data distribution system -- which use state-of-the-art networking capabilities -- performed as expected. All of Orion's avionics systems will be put to the test during its first mission, Exploration Flight Test-1(EFT-1), targeted to launch in the fall of 2014. Image Credit: Lockheed Martin #orion #spacecraft #space #nasa #nasaorion #humansinspace; -
Sunlit Side of the Planet Mercury: Another day, another beautiful view of Mercury's horizon. In this scene, which was acquired looking from the shadows toward the sunlit side of the planet, a 120-km (75 mi.) impact crater stands out near the center. Emanating from this unnamed crater are striking chains of secondary craters, which gouged linear tracks radially away from the crater. While this crater is not especially fresh (its rays have faded into the background), it does appear to have more prominent secondary crater chains than many of its peers. This image was acquired on Oct. 2, 2013 by the Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) aboard NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, as part of the MDIS's limb imaging campaign. Once per week, MDIS captures images of Mercury's limb, with an emphasis on imaging the southern hemisphere limb. These limb images provide information about Mercury's shape and complement measurements of topography made by the Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) of Mercury's northern hemisphere. The MESSENGER spacecraft is the first ever to orbit the planet Mercury, and the spacecraft's seven scientific instruments and radio science investigation are unraveling the history and evolution of the solar system's innermost planet. During the first two years of orbital operations, MESSENGER acquired over 150,000 images and extensive other data sets. MESSENGER is capable of continuing orbital operations until early 2015. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington #solarsystem #mercury #messenger #nasa #apl #space #planets #craters; -
Hubble Tracks a Monster in the Milky Way: This image shows the star-studded center of the Milky Way towards the constellation of Sagittarius. The crowded center of our galaxy contains numerous complex and mysterious objects that are usually hidden at optical wavelengths by clouds of dust — but many are visible here in these infrared observations from Hubble. However, the most famous cosmic object in this image still remains invisible: the monster at our galaxy’s heart called Sagittarius A*. Astronomers have observed stars spinning around this supermassive black hole (located right in the center of the image), and the black hole consuming clouds of dust as it affects its environment with its enormous gravitational pull. Infrared observations can pierce through thick obscuring material to reveal information that is usually hidden to the optical observer. This is the best infrared image of this region ever taken with Hubble, and uses infrared archive data from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, taken in September 2011. Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Brammer #hubble #nasa #space #stars #star #milkyway #universe #nofilter; -
Antarctic Ozone Hole Slightly Smaller than Average This Year: The ozone hole that forms each year in the stratosphere over Antarctica was slightly smaller in 2013 than average in recent decades, according to NASA satellite data. This video shows the latest false-color view of total ozone over the Antarctic pole. The purple and blue colors are where there is the least ozone, and the yellows and reds are where there is more ozone. The ozone hole is a seasonal phenomenon that starts to form during the Antarctic spring (August and September). The September-October 2013 average size of the hole was 8.1 million square miles (21 million square kilometers). For comparison, the average size measured since the mid-1990s when the annual maximum size stopped growing is 8.7 million square miles (22.5 million square kilometers). However, the size of the hole in any particular year is not enough information for scientists to determine whether a healing of the hole has begun. Video credit: NASA #ozone #ozonehole #antarctic #antarctica #science #nasa #earth #atmosphere; -
Solar Filament Eruption Creates 'Canyon of Fire': A magnetic filament of solar material erupted on the sun in late September, breaking the quiet conditions in a spectacular fashion. The 200,000 mile long filament ripped through the sun's atmosphere, the corona, leaving behind what looks like a canyon of fire. The glowing canyon traces the channel where magnetic fields held the filament aloft before the explosion. In reality, the sun is not made of fire, but of something called plasma: particles so hot that their electrons have boiled off, creating a charged gas that is interwoven with magnetic fields. These images were captured on Sept. 29-30, 2013, by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, which constantly observes the sun in a variety of wavelengths. Different wavelengths help capture different aspect of events in the corona. The red images shown in the movie help highlight plasma at temperatures of 90,000° F and are good for observing filaments as they form and erupt. The yellow images, showing temperatures at 1,000,000° F, are useful for observing material coursing along the sun's magnetic field lines, seen in the movie as an arcade of loops across the area of the eruption. The browner images at the beginning of the movie show material at temperatures of 1,800,000° F, and it is here where the canyon of fire imagery is most obvious. By comparing this with the other colors, one sees that the two swirling ribbons moving farther away from each other are, in fact, the footprints of the giant magnetic field loops, which are growing and expanding as the filament pulls them upward. Image Credit: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory #solar #sdo #nasa #space #sunpix #sun;
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At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Orion ground test vehicle has been lifted high in the air by crane in the transfer aisle of the Vehicle Assembly Building. The ground test vehicle is being used for pathfinding operations, including simulated manufacturing, assembly and stacking procedures. Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and Mars. It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. The first unpiloted test flight of Orion, Exploration Flight Test (EFT)-1 is scheduled to launch in 2014. EFT-1 will be Orion's first mission, which will send an uncrewed spacecraft 3,600 miles into Earth's orbit. As part of the test flight, Orion will return to Earth at a speed of approximately 20,000 mph for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Image Credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis #orion #nasa #nasakennedy #kennedyspacecenter #humansinspace #space; -
What's it like to fly along with the SOFIA mission? In this time-lapse, you see the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) telescope during a scientific observation gathering mission. SOFIA is a heavily modified 747SP aircraft that carries a telescope with an effective diameter of 100 inches (2.5 meters) to altitudes above 39,000 feet (12 km), beyond the obscuring layer of water vapor in Earth's atmosphere. In this video, it appears SOFIA moves — but in reality, the telescope stays extremely stable and steady during observations. The motion seen in this video is actually the airplane moving around the telescope, which is steady. The telescope is designed this way to account for turbulence so that it is stable for accurate observations. SOFIA is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) that is based at NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif. The SOFIA Science Center is located at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Cailf. Video credit: Dr. Daniel Angerhausen, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute #sofia #telescope #space #sky #universe #747 #airplane #nasa; -
Are there salt flats on Titan? This false-color mosaic, made from infrared data collected by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, reveals the differences in the composition of surface materials around hydrocarbon lakes at Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Titan is the only other place in the solar system that we know has stable liquid on its surface, though its lakes are made of liquid ethane and methane rather than liquid water. While there is one large lake and a few smaller ones near Titan's south pole, almost all of Titan's lakes appear near the moon's north pole. The orange areas are thought to be evaporite -- the Titan equivalent of salt flats on Earth. The evaporated material is thought to be organic chemicals originally from Titan's haze particles that once dissolved in liquid methane. They appear orange in this image against the greenish backdrop of Titan's typical bedrock of water ice. This image highlights a high-resolution strip and shows the north pole marked with a red cross. Other smaller lakes are also labeled. The data shown here were obtained by Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer during a close flyby of Titan on Sept. 12, 2013. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/University of Idaho #cassini #saturn #titan #saturnmoon #solarsystem #salt #nasa #space #planets #moon #moons; -
NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, Expedition 37 flight engineer; Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin (center), commander; and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, flight engineer, pose for a photo in the Kibo laboratory of the International Space Station. The International Space Station is a convergence of science, technology and human innovation that demonstrates new technologies and makes research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The space station has had crew members continuous on board since November 2000. In that time, it has been visited by more than 200 people and a variety of international and commercial spacecraft. The space station remains the springboard to NASA's next great leap in exploration, including future missions to an asteroid and Mars. Image Credit: NASA #station #iss #spacestation #astronauts #space #nasa #esa #roscosmos #kibo; -
Cygnus Seen Leaving the International Space Station: Expedition 37 crew members aboard the International Space Station released Orbital Sciences' Cygnus spacecraft from the station's robotic arm at 7:31 a.m. EDT on Oct. 22. Orbital Sciences engineers now will conduct a series of planned burns and maneuvers to move Cygnus toward a destructive re-entry in Earth's atmosphere Wednesday, Oct. 23. Cygnus had been attached to the space station's Harmony module for 23 days. The spacecraft delivered about 1,300 pounds (589 kilograms) of cargo, including food, clothing and student experiments, on a demonstration cargo resupply mission to the station. Cygnus was launched on Orbital's Antares rocket on Sept. 18 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad-0A at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Image Credit: NASA/Karen Nyberg #cygnus #iss #spacestation #cargo #lowearthorbit #space #nasa #astronauts #lifeinspace #orbital #orbitalsciences;
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