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Before the Drop: Engineers ready the saucer-shaped Supersonic Decelerator designed to test interplanetary landing devices. The vehicle hangs on a tower in preparation for launch at U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii. The saucer, which is part of our Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project, will test two devices for landing heavy payloads on Mars, an inflatable tube and an enormous parachute. Our first potential launch date of the high-altitude balloon carrying the LDSD experiment is June 3. This image was taken during the vehicle's Integrated System Test, an operations rehearsal that engaged all of the teams and systems required for launch and flight, and ran through all of the preparation activities before launch, the launch itself, ascent, powered drop and flight. Image Credit: NASA/Gazarik #path2mars #321techoff #nasatech #nasa #mars #ldsd; -
A laboratory in space! On Feb. 10, 2001, the crews of the Space Shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station successfully installed the U.S. Destiny Laboratory onto the station. In this photo, Destiny is moved by the shuttle's robot arm from its stowage position in the cargo bay of Atlantis. The lab added 3,800 cubic feet of volume to the station, increasing the onboard living space by 41 percent. The 2005 NASA Authorization Act designated the U.S segment of the space station as a national laboratory. As the nation's only national laboratory on-orbit, the space station National Lab will improve life on Earth, foster relationships among NASA, other federal entities, and the private sector, and advance science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education through utilization of the space station's unique capabilities as a permanent microgravity platform with exposure to the space environment. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #iss #astronauts #spacestation #space #research #science #stem #tbt #throwbackthursday; -
Dark Clouds on the Milky Way's Horizon - Astronomers have found cosmic clumps so dark, dense and dusty that they throw the deepest shadows ever recorded. The clumps were discovered within a huge cosmic cloud of gas and dust. Infrared observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of these blackest-of-black regions in the cloud paradoxically light the way to understanding how the brightest stars form. The large cloud looms in the very center of this image of the galactic plane from Spitzer. A new study takes advantage of the shadows cast by the cloud's darkest clumps to measure the cloud's overall structure and mass. The dusty cloud, the results suggest, will likely evolve into one of the most massive young clusters of stars in our galaxy. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #space #astronomy #spitzer #science #galaxy; -
Get ready to launch! Three new Expedition 40/41 crew members are counting down to their May 28 launch to the orbital laboratory. Soyuz Commander and cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman and European astronaut Alexander Gerst will launch aboard the Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft at 3:57 p.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. They are scheduled to dock after just four orbits at 9:48 p.m. returning the space station to its full complement of six crew members. Pictured here, Wiseman gives the thumbs up during launch preparations on May 19 in Kazakhstan. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #iss #spacestation #space #science #astronauts #soyuz #exp40; -
Space Station! Scientific research to prepare astronauts to venture farther into the solar system than ever before and provide real benefits to life on Earth happens every day aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS is the largest human-made object ever to orbit the Earth. The ISS is so large that it can be seen drifting overhead with the unaided eye, and is frequently imaged from the ground in picturesque fashion. Image Credit: NASA #ISS #spacestation #exp40 #astronauts #science #nasa #space #exp40;
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And lift off! A student-built rocket launched the brilliant white hardpan of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Tooele County, Utah, May 17, during the "launchfest" that concluded the 2013-14 NASA Student Launch rocketry competition. Sixteen teams, comprised of some 250 student participants from 15 states, launched rockets of their own design, complete with three working science and engineering payloads apiece, cheered on by approximately 500 spectators. Our Student Launch is an annual education event, designed to inspire young people to pursue studies and careers in the "STEM" fields -- science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The event is organized by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and sponsored by ATK Aerospace Group of Magna, Utah. The grand-prize-winning school team will be named by ATK and us in late May. Image Credit: NASA/MSFC/Dusty Hood #launch #stem #rocket #launchfest #nasalaunchfest #nasa; -
Rover Gains Martian Vista From Ridgeline! This vista of the Endeavour Crater rim was acquired by our Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's panoramic camera on April 18 from the southern end of "Murray Ridge" on the western rim of the crater. The floor of Endeavour crater is filled with dark sand, brighter dust, and, in the distance, dusty haze. Outcrops here on the western rim are crater ejecta covered in the foreground by dark sand ripples. On Sol 3662 (May 13, 2014), Opportunity approached the dark outcrops about halfway down on the right side of the image. The view merges exposures taken through three of the Pancam's color filters, centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers (near-infrared), 535 nanometers (green) and 432 nanometers (violet). It is presented in approximately true color. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ. #nasa #mars #planets #crater #rover #opportunity #science; -
Tethys, a moon of Saturn, has a trailing side that shows two terrains that tell a story of a rough past. To the north (up, in the image) is older, rougher terrain, while to the south is new material dubbed "smooth plains" by scientists. The smooth plains are roughly antipodal to the large impact crater Odysseus. Odysseus, which is on the far side of Tethys (660 miles, or 1,060 kilometers across) from this perspective, is out of view. It's thought that the impact that created Odysseus also created the smooth plains, although exactly how this happened is not yet clear. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 27, 2013. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute #nasa @cassini #saturn #planets #science #space; -
Smooth Splashdown! SpaceX's Dragon cargo spacecraft splashed down at 3:05 p.m. EDT Sunday in the Pacific Ocean, approximately 300 miles west of Baja California, returning more than 3,500 pounds of NASA cargo and science samples from the International Space Station. Investigations included among the returned cargo could aid in better understanding the decreased effectiveness of antibiotics during spaceflight while also improving antibiotic development on Earth. Others could lead to the development of plants better suited for space and improvements in sustainable agriculture. Image Credit: SpaceX #nasa #space #spacestation #iss #science ##spacex #dragon; -
As seen on #Cosmos: Death of the sun. In 5 billion years, our sun may become a red giant. Researchers who specialize in stellar evolution have long known that the inner planets are in danger. The trouble starts in the distant future when the sun's core runs out of hydrogen fuel for nuclear fusion. To keep the fires burning, the sun will begin to fuse hydrogen outside the core, in a layer closer to the stellar surface. This will turn the sun into a red giant, at least 200 times wider than it is today. Mercury, Venus, Earth and possibly even Mars could be engulfed. Image Credit: NASA #sun #nasa #solarsystem #redgiant #cosmos #science;
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As seen on #Cosmos: Climate change. The Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era - and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth's orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives. The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is very likely human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented in the past 1,300 years. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #earth #earthrightnow #science #climatechange; -
As seen on #Cosmos: Communicating with the Cosmos. Our Deep Space Network. The DSN supports NASA and non-NASA missions that explore the furthest points of our solar system. The DSN has three ground stations located approximately 120 degrees apart on Earth (120 + 120 + 120 = 360). This is to ensure that any satellite in deep space is able to communicate with at least one station at all times. The ground stations also communicate with satellites in order to initiate course corrections, provide software updates, and alter the way scientific observations are made. Image Credit: NASA #dsn #goldstone #nasa #dsn50; -
As seen on #Cosmos: Comets! Comets are cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust roughly the size of a small town. When a comet's orbit brings it close to the sun, it heats up and spews dust and gases into a giant glowing head larger than most planets. The dust and gases form a tail that stretches away from the sun for millions of kilometers. This image of Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) was taken at the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz. on 7 May 2004. Image Credit: National Science Foundation #nasa #space #comets #cosmos #rocks #ice #science; -
As seen on #Cosmos: Stars born in giant clouds of gas and dust. Stars are often born in clusters or groups, in giant clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers have studied two star clusters using our Chandra X-ray Observatory and infrared telescopes and the results show that the simplest ideas for the birth of these clusters cannot work. This composite image shows one of the clusters, NGC 2024, which is found in the center of the so-called Flame Nebula about 1,400 light years from Earth. In this image, X-rays from Chandra are seen as purple, while infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope are colored red, green and blue. Image Credit: NASA #chandra #space #nasa #astronomy #stars #science #cosmos; -
As seen on #Cosmos: Nakhla meteorite, Martian rocks found here on Earth! This shows two possible fossilized Martian cells and the fragments of others. The cell in the center has the remains of a fossilized biofilm partly covering its surface. The cell to the right is partly embedded in the clay mineral which fills veins or cracks in the meteorite (NAKHLA). This clay mineral is now known to have formed on Mars about 700 million years ago. If these bumps are truly fossilized Martian microbes, they are then about 700 million years old. Image Credit: NASA #space #mars #science #nakhla #cosmos #nasa;
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