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At the 2014 NASA Centennial Challenges Sample Return Robot Challenge at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass., 18 teams are competing for a $1.5 million NASA prize purse. Teams will be required to demonstrate autonomous robots that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of this NASA-WPI Centennial Challenge is to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies. Innovations stemming from the challenge may improve NASA's capability to explore a variety of destinations in space, as well as enhance the nation's robotic technology for use in industries and applications on Earth. Pictured here, the Retrievers team, a high school team from Schenectady, N.Y., positions their robot at the start of their attempt at the level one challenge. Weather permitting, level one of the Sample Return Robot challenge will take place tomorrow, Saturday, June 14 beginning at 8 a.m. EST. Photo Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky #321techoff #SRRbot #NASAPrrize; -
The Herschel Space Observatory has uncovered a weird ring of dusty material while obtaining one of the sharpest scans to date of a huge cloud of gas and dust, called NGC 7538. The gigantic ring structure is situated at the center-top of this image. The odd ovoid possesses the mass of 500 suns, with its long axis spanning about 35 light-years and its short axis about 25 light-years. Astronomers often see ring and bubble-like structures in cosmic dust clouds. The strong winds cast out by the most massive stars, called O-type stars, can generate these expanding puffs, as can their explosive deaths as supernovas. But no energetic source or remnant of a deceased O-type star, such as a neutron star, is apparent within the center of the ring. It is possible that a big star blew the bubble and, because stars are all in motion, subsequently left the scene, escaping detection. Astronomers study stellar nurseries such as NGC 7538 to better learn how stars come into being. The Herschel observations have revealed numerous clumps of material in NGC 7538, a baker's dozen of which may evolve into O-type stars. Early in the star-formation process, these clumps remain quite cold, just a few tens of degrees above absolute zero. At these temperatures, the clumps emit the bulk of their radiation in the low-energy, submillimeter and infrared light that Herschel was specifically designed to detect. Finding the mysterious ring came as an unexpected bonus during the Herschel observing run. The blue and green colors in this image represent 70- and 160-micron data, respectively, from Herschel's Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) instrument. The red colors are 250-micron observations obtained from Herschel's Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE) instrument. Image credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Whitman College #nasa #space #universe #herschel; -
Brazil's World Cup 2014 host cities are seen at night in this satellite image from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite, captured on August 4, 2013. Home to roughly 190 million people, Brazil is the largest country in South America and the fifth largest in the world by area (8.5 million square kilometers). As shown in the image above, Brazil stretches about 4,000 kilometers from north to south and from east to west. The coastal cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (below) are the centerpieces of the most densely populated part of the country. In 2014, twelve cities are hosting World Cup matches,including Brasilia, Belo Horizonte, Manaus, Fortaleza, Cuiaba, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Natal, Recife, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo. The nighttime view was made possible by the VIIRS day-night band which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared, and uses light intensification to enable the detection of dim signals. The instrument can sense light 100,000 times fainter than the conventional visible light sensors, making it very sensitive to things like moonlight and city lights. Unlike a film camera that captures a photograph in one exposure, VIIRS produces an image by repeatedly scanning a scene and resolving it as millions of individual picture elements, or pixels. The day-night band goes a step further, determining on-the-fly whether to use its low, medium, or high-gain mode. If a pixel is very bright, a low-gain mode on the sensor prevents the pixel from over-saturating. If the pixel is dark, the signal will be amplified. Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Defense. Image Credit: NASA/Suomi NPP/Earth Observatory #nasa #space @noaa #npp #suominpp; -
In honor of Julia Collins's historic 20-win run on #Jeopardy, winning more money than any other female who has appeared on the show, we're throwing back this Thursday to #AlexTrebek's 'clue' on NASA's investment in America's future. Video credit: NASA #tbt #321TechOff #nasa #space #investment #psa #alextrebek #throwbackthursday; -
Excitement is building for fans across the globe with today’s first match of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) 2014 World Cup tournament. These fans include NASA engineers, who used the lead-up to the tournament to test the aerodynamics of soccer balls and this year’s new ball design, developed by Adidas and dubbed the Brazuca ball. Although NASA is not in the business of designing or testing balls, the tournament provides an opportunity to explain the concepts of aerodynamics to students and individuals less familiar with the fundamentals of aerodynamics. Aerodynamics is the study of how air and liquids, referred to collectively as "fluids" in aerodynamics research, flow around objects. Engineers at Ames, a world leader in fundamental aerodynamics research, possess an in-depth understanding of how fluids flow around simple three-dimensional shapes such as cylinders and spheres. With this knowledge, engineers can predict how even the minor alterations in these basic shapes change flow patterns. Image credit: NASA Ames Research Center #worldcup #worldcup2014 #soccer #soccerball #brazuca #adidas #nasa #aerodynamics;
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Scientists used Earth-based radar to produce these sharp views of the asteroid designated “2014 HQ124" on June 8, 2014. 2014 HQ124 is what scientists call a "contact binary": an asteroid that consists of two lobes that are in contact and that could have once been separate objects. About one in six asteroids in the near-Earth population has this type of elongated, "peanut" shape. The asteroid is about 1,300 feet (400 meters) long and about half as wide. The radar images reveal a wealth of interesting features, including a large depression or concavity on the larger lobe as well as two blocky, sharp-edged features at the bottom on the radar echo. Scientists suspect that some of the bright features that persist from frame to frame could be surface boulders. The 21 radar images were taken over a span of four hours. During that interval, the asteroid rotated a few degrees per frame, suggesting its rotation period is slightly less than 24 hours. At its closest approach to Earth on June 8, the asteroid came within 776,000 miles (1.25 million kilometers), or slightly more than three times the distance to the moon. Scientists began radar observations of 2014 HQ124 shortly after the closest approach, when the asteroid was between about 864,000 miles (1.39 million kilometers) and 902,000 miles (1.45 million kilometers) from Earth. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arecibo Observatory/USRA/NSF #dsn #nasa #space #asteroid #asteroidwatch #radar #neo #nearearthobject; -
Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo seen from International Space Station: Astronaut Reid Wiseman on the space station captures an image of Rio de Janiero and Sao Paulo as the station orbits the Earth. Sao Paulo is the farthest cluster of lights on the right side and Rio de Janeiro is closer to the middle of the picture. There are three World Cup 2014 stadium cities in one picture: Arena de Sao Paulo, Estadio Mineirao (Belo Horizonte), and Estadio Do Maracana (Rio de Janeiro). As fans around the world tune in to World Cup 2014, a few fans out of this world will be watching, too. United States astronauts Reid Wiseman and Steve Swanson and German astronaut Alexander Gerst will be cheering on their teams from some 230 miles above Earth aboard the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman #ISS #exp40 #worldcup #worldcup2014 #brazil #space #nasa #earth; -
An adult osprey returns home to its nest built on a platform in a parking lot at our Kennedy Space Center, carrying a fish in its talons. In the background is the 12,300-square-foot NASA logo painted on the side of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). The VAB is adjacent to the Turn Basin in Launch Complex 39, making it an ideal osprey nesting place. The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge overlaps with Kennedy Space Center property and provides a habitat for many types of wildlife, including the osprey, and 330 species of birds. Photo credit: NASA/Daniel Casper #nasa #usfws #osprey #wildlife #nature #earth #motherearth #nasakennedy #kennedyspacecenter; -
As fans around the world tune in to World Cup 2014, a few fans out of this world will be watching, too. United States astronauts Reid Wiseman and Steve Swanson and German astronaut Alexander Gerst will be cheering on their teams from some 230 miles above Earth aboard the International Space Station. The crew sent down a special message to wish good luck to all the players and teams as they compete in World Cup 2014 in Brazil from June 12 until the final match July 13. The astronauts have trained for years to work together as a unified crew, but the U.S. astronauts and their German crewmate are feeling a little friendly competition: their home countries will play against each other for a chance to advance out of Group G of the World Cup matches. USA and Germany face off on June 26 at Arena Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil. Reid Wiseman, of NASA, and Alexander Gerst, of the European Space Agency, arrived at the space station on May 28 as part of the Expedition 40/41 crew and are scheduled to spend the next several months living and working in space until they return to Earth in November 2014. Steven Swanson arrived as part of the Expedition 39/40 crew on March 25 and is expected to return home in September 2014. Video credit: NASA #worldcup #iss #nasa #space #dlr #exp40; -
This isn't a science fiction movie — it's the view in the International Space Station, photographed by an Expedition 40 crew member, showing how it looks inside the space station while the crew is asleep. The dots near the hatch point to a Soyuz spacecraft docked to the station in case the crew was to encounter an emergency. This view is looking into the Destiny Laboratory from Node 1 (Unity) with Node 2 (Harmony) in the background. Destiny is the primary research laboratory for U.S. payloads, supporting a wide range of experiments and studies. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #iss #exp40 #space #sleeping #spacestation;
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NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has imaged the planet Mercury passing in front of the sun, visible as a faint darkening that moves across the face of the sun. This is the first transit of the sun by a planet observed from any planet other than Earth, and also the first imaging of Mercury from Mars. Mercury fills only about one-sixth of one pixel as seen from such great distance, so the darkening does not have a distinct shape, but its position follows Mercury's expected path based on orbital calculations. The observations were made on June 3, 2014, from Curiosity's position inside Gale Crater on Mars. In addition to showing the Mercury transit, the same Mastcam frames show two sunspots approximately the size of Earth. The sunspots move only at the pace of the sun's rotation, much slower than the movement of Mercury. Many viewers on Earth observed a Venus transit in June 2012, the last visible from Earth this century. The next Mercury transit visible from Earth will be May 9, 2016. Mercury and Venus transits are visible more often from Mars than from Earth, and Mars also offers a vantage point for seeing Earth transits. The next of each type visible from Mars will be Mercury in April 2015, Venus in August 2030 and Earth in November 2084. This animated blink comparison shows five versions of observations that NASA's Curiosity made about one hour apart while Mercury was passing in front of the sun on June 3, 2014. Two sunspots, each about the diameter of Earth, also appear, moving much less than Mercury during the hour. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Texas A&M #nasa #mars #curiosity #marscuriosity #solarsystem #space #mercury #sun #solar; -
Orion Comes Together The Orion crew module for Exploration Flight Test-1 is shown in the Final Assembly and System Testing (FAST) Cell, positioned over the service module just prior to mating the two sections together. The FAST cell is where the integrated crew and service modules are put through their final system tests prior to rolling out of the Operations and Checkout Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Technicians are in position to assist with the final alignment steps once the crew module is nearly in contact with the service module. In December, Orion will launch 3,600 miles into space in a four-hour flight to test the systems that will be critical for survival in future human missions to deep space. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #space #orion #nasaorion #spacecapsule #capsule #spacecraft; -
NASA's SDO Sees a Summer Solar Flare The sun emitted a significant solar flare, peaking at 7:42 a.m. EDT on June 10, 2014. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory – which typically observes the entire sun 24 hours a day -- captured images of the flare. It is seen bursting off the left limb of the sun in this image captured by SDO and is shown in a blend of two wavelengths of light: 171 and 131 angstroms, colorized in gold and red, respectively. 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 flare is classified as an X2.2 flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, etc. Image Credit: NASA/SDO/Goddard/Wiessinger #nasa #sun #solarflare #sdo #solar #flare; -
Prometheus is caught in the act of creating gores and streamers in the F ring. Scientists believe that Prometheus and its partner-moon Pandora are responsible for much of the structure in the F ring. The orbit of Prometheus (53 miles, or 86 kilometers across) regularly brings it into the F ring. When this happens, it creates gores, or channels, in the ring where it entered. Prometheus then draws ring material with it as it exits the ring, leaving streamers in its wake. This process creates the pattern of structures seen in this image. This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 8.6 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 11, 2014. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.3 million miles (2.1 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 147 degrees. Image scale is 8 miles (13 kilometers) per pixel. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute #nasa #space #solarsystem #saturn #cassini; -
As seen on #Cosmos: NASA's Voyager 1 & 2 The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. Continuing on their more-than-35-year journey since their 1977 launches, they each are much farther away from Earth and the sun than Pluto. In August 2012, Voyager 1 made the historic entry into interstellar space, the region between stars, filled with material ejected by the death of nearby stars millions of years ago. Scientists hope to learn more about this region when Voyager 2, in the “heliosheath" -- the outermost later of the heliosphere where the solar wind is slowed by the pressure of interstellar medium -- also reaches interstellar space. Both spacecraft are still sending scientific information about their surroundings through the Deep Space Network. The primary mission was the exploration of Jupiter and Saturn. After making a string of discoveries there -- such as active volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io and intricacies of Saturn's rings -- the mission was extended. Voyager 2 went on to explore Uranus and Neptune, and is still the only spacecraft to have visited those outer planets. The adventurers' current mission, the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM), will explore the outermost edge of the Sun's domain. And beyond. This artist's concept shows the general locations of NASA's two Voyager spacecraft. Voyager 1 (top) has sailed beyond our solar bubble into interstellar space, the space between stars. Its environment still feels the solar influence. Voyager 2 (bottom) is still exploring the outer layer of the solar bubble. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech #nasa #space #voyager @nasajpl;
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