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As seen on Cosmos: Eta Carinae! At the turn of the 19th century, the binary star system Eta Carinae was faint and undistinguished. In the first decades of the century, it became brighter and brighter, until, by April 1843, it was the second brightest star in the sky, outshone only by Sirius (which is almost a thousand times closer to Earth). In the years that followed, it gradually dimmed again and by the 20th century was totally invisible to the naked eye. The star has continued to vary in brightness ever since, and while it is once again visible to the naked eye on a dark night, it has never again come close to its peak of 1843. Eta Carinae is not only interesting because of its past, but also because of its future. It is one of the closest stars to Earth that is likely to explode in a supernova in the relatively near future (though in astronomical timescales the "near future" could still be a million years away). When it does, expect an impressive view from Earth, far brighter still than its last outburst. SN 2006gy, the brightest supernova ever observed, came from a star of the same type, though from a galaxy over 200 million light-years away. This image consists of ultraviolet and visible light images from the High Resolution Channel of Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Credit: ESA/NASA #cosmos #nasa #star #space #astronomy #earth #science; -
As seen on Cosmos:: The Life of Stars! Our Hubble Space Telescope captured this stunning true-color picture of the giant galactic nebula NGC 3603 on March 5, 1999, with its Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. This single view nicely illustrates the entire stellar life cycle of stars, starting with the Bok globules and giant gaseous pillars, followed by circumstellar disks, and progressing to evolved massive stars in the young starburst cluster. The blue supergiant with its ring and bipolar outflow marks the end of the life cycle. Image Credit: NASA, Wolfgang Brandner (JPL/IPAC), Eva K. Grebel (Univ. Washington), You-Hua Chu (Univ. Illinois Urbana-Champaign) #cosmos #nasa #science #astronomy #hst #hubble #stars; -
As seen on Cosmos: Pleiades This image shows the famous Pleiades cluster of stars. The Pleiades are what astronomers call an open cluster of stars, meaning the stars are loosely bound to each other and will eventually, after a few hundred million years, go their separate ways. The cluster is prominent in the sky during winter months in the constellation Taurus, when viewed from the Northern Hemisphere. Often called the Seven Sisters from Greek tradition, this cluster of stars has been named by cultures the world over: Parveen in Persian; Tianquiztli in the Aztec tradition, and Subaru in Japan. The Pleiades is even the logo of the automotive company that bears its Japanese name. At a distance of about 436 light-years from Earth, the Pleiades is one of the closest star clusters and plays an important role in determining distances to astronomical bodies further away. This picture from WISE covers an area of 3.05 by 2.33 degrees, which is the roughly the same area on the sky that a grid of six full moons by 4.7 full moons would occupy. Most of the stars in the cluster fall within the 20-light-year-wide region shown here. All four infrared detectors aboard WISE were used to make this mosaic. Color is representational: blue and cyan represent infrared light at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns, which is dominated by light from stars. Green and red represent light at 12 and 22 microns, which is mostly light from warm dust. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA #nasa #space #wise #pleiades #stars #astronomy #science; -
Astronaut Rick Mastracchio tweeted this image and wrote, "An 'EVA Selfie' of me. Notice the Earth reflected in my visor." The Progress 53 spacecraft docked to the International Space Station on Friday and will fire its thrusters Tuesday for an orbital adjustment that will put the station at the correct altitude for the May 13 undocking of the Soyuz TMA-11M that will bring back to Earth Mastracchio and his crewmates Mikhail Tyurin of the Russian Federal Space Agency and Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency after almost six months in space. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #iss #space #selfie #astronauts #roscosmos #spacestation #earth #jaxa; -
Is the Mars Curiosity rover playing in the sand again? No, all work, all the time! Our Curiosity Mars rover has driven within robotic-arm's reach of the sandstone slab at the center of this view from the rover's Mast Camera (Mastcam). The rover team plans to have Curiosity examine a target patch on the rock, called "Windjana," with tools on the rover's arm and mast to aid a decision on whether to use Curiosity's drill at this site. The rock is about 2 feet (about 60 centimeters) across, left-to-right in this image. The informal name for the target comes from Windjana Gorge in Western Australia. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #msl #mars #marscuriosity #drill #science #geology;
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We've found a close, cold neighbor to our sun! Our Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered what appears to be the coldest "brown dwarf" known -- a dim, star-like body that surprisingly is as frosty as Earth's North Pole. Images from the space telescopes also pinpointed the object's distance to 7.2 light-years away, earning it the title for fourth closest system to our sun. The closest system, a trio of stars, is Alpha Centauri, at about 4 light-years away. Brown dwarfs start their lives like stars, as collapsing balls of gas, but they lack the mass to burn nuclear fuel and radiate starlight. The newfound coldest brown dwarf is named WISE J085510.83-071442.5. It has a chilly temperature between minus 54 and 9 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 48 to minus 13 degrees Celsius). Previous record holders for coldest brown dwarfs, also found by WISE and Spitzer, were about room temperature. This is an artist's conception of the brown dwarf. Image Credit: Penn State University/NASA/JPL-Caltech #nasa #wise #telescope #star #space #science #spitzer #sun #astronomy; -
X-class Flare Erupts from Sun on April 24! The sun emitted a significant solar flare, peaking at 8:27 p.m. EDT on April 24, 2014. Images of the flare were captured by our Solar Dynamics Observatory. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. This image shows light in the 131-angstrom wavelength, which is particularly good for seeing material at the high temperatures present in solar flares and which is typically colorized in teal. Image Credit: NASA/SDO #sdo #solarflare #sun #space #spaceweather #science #nasa; -
"Beautiful Nebula discovered between the Balance [Libra] & the Serpent [Serpens] ..." begins the description of the 5th entry in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier's famous catalog of nebulae and star clusters. Though it appeared to Messier to be fuzzy and round and without stars, Messier 5 (M5) is now known to be a globular star cluster, 100,000 stars or more, bound by gravity and packed into a region around 165 light-years in diameter. It lies some 25,000 light-years away. Roaming the halo of our galaxy, globular star clusters are ancient members of the Milky Way. M5 is one of the oldest globulars, its stars estimated to be nearly 13 billion years old. The beautiful star cluster is a popular target for Earthbound telescopes. Of course, deployed in low Earth orbit on April 25, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has also captured its own stunning close-up view that spans about 20 light-years near the central region of M5. Even close to its dense core at the left, the cluster's aging red and blue giant stars and rejuvenated blue stragglers stand out in yellow and blue hues in the sharp color image. Image Credit: NASA, Hubble Space Telescope, ESA #hubble #nasa #space #stars; -
Three months, 20 balloons, and one very successful campaign. The team for NASA's BARREL – short for Balloon Array for Radiation belt Relativistic Electron Losses -- mission returned from Antarctica in March 2014. BARREL's job is to help unravel the mysterious Van Allen belts, two gigantic donuts of radiation that surround Earth, which can shrink and swell in response to incoming energy and particles from the sun and sometimes expose satellites to harsh radiation. While in Antarctica, the team launched 20 balloons carrying instruments that sense charged particles that are scattered into the atmosphere from the belts, spiraling down the magnetic fields near the South Pole. Each balloon traveled around the pole for up to three weeks. The team will coordinate the BARREL data with observations from NASA's two Van Allen Probes to better understand how occurrences in the belts relate to bursts of particles funneling down toward Earth. BARREL team members will be on hand at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in DC on April 26 and 27, 2014 for the exhibit Space Balloons: Exploring the Extremes of Space Weather. Seen here is the release of a BARREL balloon. The launch crew can be seen on the right holding the payload as the top of the balloon moves overhead where they can release it. Credit: NASA/Goddard/BARREL #barrel #balloons #antarctica #earth #vanallenbelt #vanallen #ballooning #nasa; -
Happy 24th Birthday to the Hubble Space Telescope! On April 24, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on the STS-31 mission. The mission featured the deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope, the first of NASA's Great Observatories to reach orbit. STS-31 was the tenth launch of the shuttle Discovery. On board were astronauts Charles F. Bolden (pilot, now NASA Administrator), Steven A. Hawley (mission specialist), Loren J. Shriver (commander), Bruce McCandless (mission specialist) and Kathryn D. Sullivan (mission specialist, now @NOAA Administrator). In this April 25, 1990 photograph taken with a handheld Hasselblad camera, most of the giant Hubble Space Telescope can be seen as it is suspended in space by Discovery's Remote Manipulator System (RMS) following the deployment of part of its solar panels and antennae. This was among the first photos NASA released on April 30 from the five-day STS-31 mission. Image Credit: NASA #tbt #throwbackthursday #tbthursday #hubble #nasa #space #universe #launch #otd #history #birthday;
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Space Selfie! It's been said that it's difficult to get a good selfie while wearing a spacesuit, but an astronaut snapped this one during a spacewalk on April 23 outside the International Space Station! Astronauts Steve Swanson and Rick Mastracchio completed a short spacewalk to replace a failed Multiplexer/Demultiplexer (MDM) back up computer. The backup computer failed April 11 after a routine health check by the Mission Control team in Houston. Image Credit: NASA #iss #exp39 #nasa #space #spacestation #station #selfie #globalselfie #earth #swanny; -
The images in this quartet of galaxies represent a sample of composites created with X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and optical data collected by an amateur astronomer. In these images, the X-rays from Chandra are shown in pink, infrared emission from Spitzer is red, and the optical data are in red, green, and blue. The two astrophotographers who donated their images for these four images -- Detlef Hartmann and Rolf Olsen -- used their personal telescopes of 17.5 inches and 10 inches in diameter respectively. Starting in the upper left and moving clockwise, the galaxies are M101 (the "Pinwheel Galaxy"), M81, Centaurus A, and M51 (the "Whirlpool Galaxy"). M101 is a spiral galaxy like our Milky Way, but about 70% bigger. It is located about 21 million light years from Earth. M81 is a spiral galaxy about 12 million light years away that is both relatively large in the sky and bright, making it a frequent target for both amateur and professional astronomers. Centaurus A is the fifth brightest galaxy in the sky -- making it an ideal target for amateur astronomers -- and is famous for the dust lane across its middle and a giant jet blasting away from the supermassive black hole at its center. Finally, M51 is another spiral galaxy, about 30 million light years away, that is in the process of merging with a smaller galaxy seen to its upper left. Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Detlef Hartmann; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech #chandra #nasa #universe #galaxy #space #xray #chandraxray; -
What happens when the work of amateur astronomers and astrophotographers is combined with the data from some of the world's most sophisticated space telescopes? Collaborations between professional and amateur astronomers reveal the possibilities and are intended to raise interest and awareness among the community of the wealth of data publicly available in NASA's various mission archives. This effort is particularly appropriate for this month because April marks Global Astronomy Month, the world's largest global celebration of astronomy. The images in this quartet of galaxies represent a sample of composites created with X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and optical data collected by an amateur astronomer. In these images, the X-rays from Chandra are shown in pink, infrared emission from Spitzer is red, and the optical data are in red, green, and blue. The two astrophotographers who donated their images for these four images -- Detlef Hartmann and Rolf Olsen -- used their personal telescopes of 17.5 inches and 10 inches in diameter respectively. More details on how these images were made can be found in this blog post. Starting in the upper left and moving clockwise, the galaxies are M101 (the "Pinwheel Galaxy"), M81, Centaurus A, and M51 (the "Whirlpool Galaxy"). M101 is a spiral galaxy like our Milky Way, but about 70% bigger. It is located about 21 million light years from Earth. M81 is a spiral galaxy about 12 million light years away that is both relatively large in the sky and bright, making it a frequent target for both amateur and professional astronomers. Centaurus A is the fifth brightest galaxy in the sky -- making it an ideal target for amateur astronomers -- and is famous for the dust lane across its middle and a giant jet blasting away from the supermassive black hole at its center. Finally, M51 is another spiral galaxy, about 30 million light years away, that is in the process of merging with a smaller galaxy seen to its upper left. Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Detlef Hartmann; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech #chandra #nasa #universe #galaxy #space #xray #chandraxray; -
NASA astronauts Steve Swanson and Rick Mastracchio completed a short spacewalk from the International Space Station this morning to replace a failed Multiplexer/Demultiplexer back up computer. The backup computer failed April 11 after a routine health check by the Mission Control team in Houston. While the primary computer continues operating flawlessly NASA managers ordered Wednesday’s spacewalk repair to ensure redundancy on critical systems. The computer outage did not pose a risk to the six crew members aboard the space station. While out for the spacewalk, Mastracchio snapped this image of the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft attached to the ISS and shared it on Twitter following the conclusion of today's spacewalk. Image credit: NASA #spacex #iss #exp39 #nasa #space #spacestation #station; -
Our radar imaging mission got underway in early April to collect data over targets in the Gulf Coast area of the southeastern United States. Our C-20A aircraft, a modified Gulfstream III, is carrying the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar instrument in a specialized pod. Research during the deployment is covering a variety of topics, including volcanoes, glaciers, forest structure, levees, and subsidence. It is also providing vegetation data sets for satellite algorithm development. The volcanoes of Central and South America are of interest because of the hazard they pose to nearby population centers. A majority of the research will focus on gathering volcano deformation measurements. Surface deformation often precedes other signs of renewed volcanic activity. This photo of volcanoes in Guatemala was taken over Central and South America. The conical volcano in the center is "Volcan de Agua." The two volcanoes behind it are, right to left, "Volcan de Fuego" and "Acatenango." "Volcan de Pacaya" is in the foreground. Image Credit: NASA/Stu Broce #nasa #volcano #science #earth #earthrightnow #guatemala;
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