โพสต์เมื่อ 17 พ.ค. 2557 | 06:45 น.
นาซา
Explore the universe and discover our home planet with the official NASA Instagram account
ของ NASA
มี 11,948 คนชอบรูปนี้
-
Hubble Sees Starbursts in the Wake of a Fleeting Romance! This Hubble Space Telescope image shows galaxy NGC 4485 in the constellation of Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs). The galaxy is irregular in shape, but it hasn’t always been so. Part of it has been dragged towards a second galaxy, named NGC 4490 — which lies out of frame to the bottom right of this image. The interactions of the two have warped them both, turning them from spiral galaxies into irregular ones. NGC 4485 is the smaller galaxy in this pair, which provides a fantastic real-world example for astronomers to compare to their computer models of galactic collisions. The most intense interaction between these two galaxies is all but over; they have made their closest approach and are now separating. The trail of bright stars and knotty orange clumps that we see here extending out from NGC 4485 is all that connects them — a trail that spans some 24 000 light-years. Many of the stars in this connecting trail could never have existed without the galaxies’ fleeting romance. When galaxies interact hydrogen gas is shared between them, triggering intense bursts of star formation. The orange knots of light in this image are examples of such regions, clouded with gas and dust. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Kathy van Pelt #nasa #esa #hubble #hst #galaxy #astronomy #stars #science; -
“Getting a tan while growing lettuce,” stated astronaut Steve Swanson about this image, which was taken aboard the International space Station. Swanson was tending to the Vegetable Production System (Veggie), which is a newly installed plant growth unit capable of producing salad-type crops to provide the crew with a palatable, nutritious, and safe source of fresh food and a tool to support relaxation and recreation. The Veggie provides lighting and nutrient delivery, but utilizes the cabin environment for temperature control and as a source of carbon dioxide to promote growth. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #nasajsc #spacestation #internationalspacestation #explore #exploration #spacegram #exp39 #garden #iss #exp40 #science #swanny; -
Rosetta's Comet Comes Alive! The target of ESA’s Rosetta mission has started to reveal its true personality as a comet, its dusty veil clearly developing over the past six weeks. A new sequence of images of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko was taken between March 24 and May 4, as the gap between craft and comet closed from around 3.1 million miles (5 million km) to 1.2 million miles (2 million km). By the end of the sequence, the comet’s coma extends about 800 miles (1,300 km) into space. The nucleus is roughly 2.5 miles (4 km) across. Image Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS #nasa #esa #mps #rosetta #comet #space; -
Great Spot! Jupiter's trademark Great Red Spot -- a swirling anti-cyclonic storm larger than Earth -- has shrunk to its smallest size ever measured. Recent Hubble Space Telescope observations confirm the Great Red Spot now is approximately 10,250 miles across. Historic observations as far back as the late 1800s gauged the storm to be as large as 25,500 miles on its long axis. Our Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft flybys of Jupiter in 1979 measured it to be 14,500 miles across. In 1995, a Hubble photo showed the long axis of the spot at an estimated 13,020 miles across. And in a 2009 photo, it was measured at 11,130 miles across. Images of Jupiter's Great Red Spot, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope over a span of 20 years, shows how the planet's trademark spot has decreased in size over the years Image Credit: NASA/ESA #nasa #hst #hubble #jupiter #space #planets #science #voyager; -
Peering into the capsule! A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Wednesday, May 14, 2014. Wakata, Tyurin and Mastracchio returned to Earth after more than six months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 38 and 39 crews. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls #nasa #iss #soyuz #jaxa #roscosmos #exp39 #exp38 #spacestation #space #astronauts #kazakhstan;
-
Staying Alive! The spokes in Saturn's rings continue to be active and Cassini scientists continue to study them in order to unravel their mysteries. The spokes, visible near the center of the image, appear bright against the dense core of the B ring, which is the darkest section of the rings shown here in silhouette. Conditions favorable to the production of spokes are expected to wane as Saturn approaches its northern summer solstice. Scientists are eager to monitor the transition, the timing of which could yield valuable insight into the mechanisms that form these intriguing and ethereal features. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute #nasa #saturn #cassini #planets #spacecraft #science; -
Galaxies are collections of stars, gas, dust and dark matter held together by gravity. Their appearance and composition are shaped over billions of years by interactions with groups of stars and other galaxies. Using supercomputers, scientists can look back in time and simulate how a galaxy may have formed in the early universe and grown into what we see today. Galaxies are thought to begin as small clouds of stars and dust swirling through space. As other clouds get close, gravity sends these objects careening into one another and knits them into larger spinning packs. Subsequent collisions can sling material toward a galaxy’s outskirts, creating extensive spiral arms filled with colonies of stars. Image credit: NASA/GSFC/National Center for Supercomputing/Advanced Visualization Laboratoy/B. O'Shea and M. Norman #nasa #space #galaxies #galaxy #universe; -
Landing time! The Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft is seen as it lands with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Wednesday, May 14, 2014. Wakata, Tyurin and Mastracchio returned to Earth after more than six months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 38 and 39 crews. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls) #nasa #iss #spacestation #space #soyuz #astronauts #jaxa #roscosmos; -
Live HD Earth viewing from the space station! This image is of a screen grab from the High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment aboard the ISS. It is mounted on the External Payload Facility of the European Space Agency's Columbus module. This experiment includes several commercial HD video cameras aimed at the earth which are enclosed in a pressurized and temperature controlled housing. Video from these cameras is transmitted back to earth and also streamed live on this channel: http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/HDEV Image Credit: NASA #iss #nasa #space #hdev #science #spacestation #hdcamera #highdef #earth; -
One of the most violent events in the universe: a pair of neutron stars colliding, merging and forming a black hole. A neutron star is the compressed core left behind when a star born with between eight and 30 times the sun's mass explodes as a supernova. Neutron stars pack about 1.5 times the mass of the sun - equivalent to about half a million Earths - into a ball just 12 miles (20 km) across. As the stars spiral toward each other, intense tides begin to deform them, possibly cracking their crusts. Neutron stars possess incredible density, but their surfaces are comparatively thin, with densities about a million times greater than gold. Their interiors crush matter to a much greater degree densities rise by 100 million times in their centers. To begin to imagine such mind-boggling densities, consider that a cubic centimeter of neutron star matter outweighs Mount Everest. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center #nasa #star #blackhole #neutronstar #universe #astrophysics #supernova #science;
-
Wonders in the Antarctic Sky! In 43 hours across five science flights in late November 2013, NASA's P-3 research aircraft collected more than 20,000 kilometers (12,000 miles) worth of science data. Instruments gathered information about the thickness of the ice over subglacial lakes, mountains, coasts, and frozen seas. The flights over Antarctica were part of Operation IceBridge, a multi-year mission to monitor conditions in Antarctica and the Arctic until a new ice-monitoring satellite, ICESat-2, launches in 2016. This photograph is of a multi-layered lenticular cloud hovering near Mount Discovery, a volcano about 70 kilometers (44 miles) southwest of McMurdo Station on Antarctica's Ross Island. Image Credit: Michael Studinger #ice #icebridge #earthrightnow #earth #nasa #mtdiscovery #volcano #science #satellite #antarctica; -
Preparing to Descend! This photo, taken from the CT-133 aircraft of research partner National Research Council of Canada, shows the NASA HU-25C Guardian aircraft flying 250 meters behind NASA's DC-8 aircraft before it descends into the DC-8's exhaust plumes to sample ice particles and engine emissions. The flights are part of the Alternative Fuel Effects on Contrails and Cruise Emissions or ACCESS II experiment, which is measuring and characterizing airborne emissions from the DC-8 as it burns both conventional jet fuel and blended alternative fuels, including a biofuel. Along with research partners from Germany and Canada, we're investigating fuel effects on aircraft cruise emissions and contrail formation. Image credit: National Research Council of Canada #nasa #accessii #aeronautics #climatechange #contrails #nrc #biofuel #aircraft #dc8; -
As seen on #Cosmos: Aurora The dancing lights of the aurora provide spectacular views on the ground, but also capture the imagination of scientists who study incoming energy and particles from the sun. Aurora are one effect of such energetic particles, which can speed out from the sun both in a steady stream called the solar wind and due to giant eruptions known as coronal mass ejections or CMEs. After a trip toward Earth that can last two to three days, the solar particles and magnetic fields cause the release of particles already trapped near Earth, which in turn trigger reactions in the upper atmosphere in which oxygen and nitrogen molecules release photons of light. The result: the Northern and Southern lights. NASA's suite of heliophysics spacecraft track how events on the sun affect near-Earth space, including several missions dedicated to aurora studies. Auroras are but one symptom of a larger space weather system in which solar material and radiation can affect Earth's own magnetic environment and block radio communications, disturb onboard satellite computers, or -- at their worst -- cause electrical surges in power grids. This image shows the aurora as seen from the International Space Station. Credit: NASA #aurora #nasa #iss #space #northernlights #southernlights; -
As seen on #Cosmos: The Van Allen Belts Named for their discoverer, James Van Allen, these two concentric, donut-shaped rings are filled with high-energy particles that gyrate, bounce, and drift through the region, sometimes shooting down to Earth's atmosphere, sometimes escaping out into space. The radiation belts swell and shrink over time as part of a much larger space weather system driven by energy and material that erupt off the sun's surface and fill the entire solar system. NASA currently has two Van Allen Probes (formerly known as the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP)) studying the two extreme and dynamic regions of space known as the Van Allen Radiation Belts that surround Earth. This image shows an artist's depiction with cutaway section of the two giant donuts of radiation, called the Van Allen Belts, that surround Earth. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio #space #vanallen #earth #radiation #science #nasa #rbsp; -
Researchers with NASA's Operation IceBridge added three more flights to the books, continuing the campaign's data collection with surveys of major outlet glaciers and elevation across the northern Greenland Ice Sheet. In two weeks the IceBridge Arctic campaign will come to a close with the P-3 carrying the research team back from Thule Air Base. NASA’s Operation IceBridge images Earth's polar ice in unprecedented detail to better understand processes that connect the polar regions with the global climate system. IceBridge utilizes a highly specialized fleet of research aircraft and the most sophisticated suite of innovative science instruments ever assembled to characterize annual changes in thickness of sea ice, glaciers, and ice sheets. In addition, IceBridge collects critical data used to predict the response of earth’s polar ice to climate change and resulting sea-level rise. IceBridge also helps bridge the gap in polar observations between NASA's ICESat satellite missions. Seen here is a view of mountains and sea ice near Thule Air Base, Greenland, from the NASA P-3 on May 6, 2014. Credit: NASA / Michael Studinger #operationicebridge #icebridge #nasa #nasaice #greenland #thule #earth #polarcap;
Instagram is a registered trademark of Instagram, inc.
