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What makes one rose bush blossom with flowers, while another remains barren? Astronomers ask a similar question of galaxies, wondering how some flourish with star formation and others barely bloom. A new study published in the Oct. 16 issue of the journal Nature addresses this question by making some of the most accurate measurements yet of the meager rates at which small, sluggish galaxies create stars. The findings are helping researchers figure out how the very first stars in our universe sprouted. Like the stars examined in the new study, the first-ever stars from billions of years ago took root in poor conditions. Growing stars in the early cosmos is like trying to germinate flower seeds in a bed of dry, poor soil. Back then, the universe hadn't had time yet to make "heavy metals," elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. Seen here is a small galaxy, called Sextans A. Image Credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/NRAO; -
Hurricane Gonzalo has made the jump to major hurricane status and on Oct. 15 was a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. Gonzalo is seen here from the International Space Station as it orbited above on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2014. Video credit: NASA #gonzalo #hurricane #iss @iss #hurricanegonzalo #storms #weather #tropicalstorm #hurricanes #nasa #space #spacestation; -
Peering out to the dim, outer reaches of our solar system, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered three Kuiper Belt objects our New Horizons spacecraft could potentially visit after it flies by Pluto in July 2015. This is an artist’s impression of a Kuiper Belt object, located on the outer rim of our solar system at a staggering distance of 4 billion miles from the Sun. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI); -
Rosetta Selflessly Beams Back Comet Selfie: A camera aboard the European Space Agency's Philae lander snapped this "selfie" of one of the Rosetta spacecraft's 52-foot-long (16-meter) solar arrays, with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko hovering in the background some 10 miles (16 kilometers) away. The image, taken by the Comet Infrared and Visible Analyser (CIVA), was taken on Oct. 7. Philae, which is connected to the Rosetta orbiter at this time, will make its descent to the surface of the comet on Nov. 12. Image Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA #nasa #esa #comet #selfie #rosetta #67p #space #science; -
Wavy Polar Jet Nature is often more complex and wonderful than it first appears. For example, although it looks like a simple hexagon, this feature surrounding Saturn's north pole is really a manifestation of a meandering polar jet stream. This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 33 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in red light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on July 24, 2013. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 605,000 miles (973,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 19 degrees. Image scale is 36 miles (58 kilometers) per pixel. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute;
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Hubble Catches a Dusty Spiral in Virgo This magnificent new image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 4206, located about 70 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Virgo. Captured here are vast streaks of dust, some of which are obscuring the central bulge, which can just be made out in the center of the galaxy. Towards the edges of the galaxy, the scattered clumps, which appear blue in this image, mark areas where stars are being born. The bulge, on the other hand, is composed mostly of much older, redder stars, and very little star formation takes place. NGC 4206 was imaged as part of a Hubble snapshot survey of nearby edge-on spiral galaxies to measure the effect that the material between the stars — known as the interstellar medium — has on light as it travels through it. Using its Advanced Camera for Surveys, Hubble can reveal information about the dusty material and hydrogen gas in the cold parts of the interstellar medium. Astronomers are then able to map the absorption and scattering of light by the material — an effect known as extinction — which causes objects to appear redder to us, the observers. NGC 4206 is visible with most moderate amateur telescopes at 13th magnitude. It was discovered by Hanoverian-born British astronomer, William Herschel on April 17, 1784. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; -
Normally, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has its cameras fixed on the surface of the Moon. But on May 24, 2014, flight engineers directed the spacecraft to turn back for a quick look at Earth and one of our closest planetary neighbors—Mars. When the spacecraft’s LROC camera captured this image, Earth was about 376,687 kilometers (234,062 miles) away from LRO and Mars was 112.5 million kilometers away. In other words, Mars was about 300 times farther from the Moon than the Earth. (Note: Mars has been contrast-stretched in order to improve its visibility.) This view of Earth includes several cloud patterns that satellites observe frequently. A line of rain and thunderstorms are visible in a band near the equator, an area known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone. To the north, off the west coast of North Africa, notice the banks of closed-cell clouds over the Atlantic Ocean. Moving into the high latitudes, we see comma-shaped cloud patterns caused by extra-tropical cyclones. LROC actually consists of two narrow-angle cameras. Images taken by these cameras are built from rows of pixels acquired one after another, and then the left and right images are mosaicked together to make a complete pair. If the spacecraft was not moving, the rows of pixels would image the same area over and over; so it is the spacecraft motion, combined with fine-tuning of the camera exposure time, that enabled the final image. Capturing this image required some advance planning. LRO’s team took practice images of Mars on May 8, 2014, to refine their timing and camera settings. Image credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University; -
This timelapse video from space was taken by ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst from the Cupola observatory module on the International Space Station as it orbited Earth at around 400 km altitude. As the Space Station passes over Earth at night we can see city lights and lightning. The International Space Station travels at 28 800 km/h meaning that it only takes 90 minutes to circle Earth completely. Each orbit the Station moves around 2200 km to the West in relation to 90 minutes before. Astronauts often use normal consumer digital cameras to take pictures of Earth through Europe’s observatory module Cupola in their spare time. Setting the camera to take an image every few seconds and then playing the images back quickly create this timelapse effect. Video credit: ESA #esa #astro_alex #space #iss @iss #spacestation #internationalspacestation; -
Super Typhoon #Vongfong continued on its trek north through the Philippine Sea while slightly weakening on Oct. 10. Our TRMM and Aqua satellites provided forecasters with cloud extent, rainfall rates and distribution and more. Seen here is an image from our Terra satellite, which captured this on Oct. 10 at 2:05 UTC. This image of Typhoon Vongfong that revealed the eye had become filled with high clouds, but remained symmetrical. Feeder bands of thunderstorms wrapping into the center from the north, extended over Japan's Ryukyu Islands. Image Credit: NASA Goddard #nasa #space #storm #supertyphoon #vongfong @nasagoddard #hurricane #typhoon; -
Active regions on the sun combined to look something like a jack-o-lantern’s face on Oct. 8, 2014. The active regions appear brighter because those are areas that emit more light and energy — markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona. This image blends together two sets of wavelengths at 171 and 193 Angstroms, typically colorized in gold and yellow, to create a particularly Halloween-like appearance. Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO #happyhalloween #halloween #autumn #pumpkin #jackolantern #fall #sun #space #nasa #sdo #solar;
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Throwback Thursday: NASA successfully completed its first rendezvous mission with two Gemini spacecraft-Gemini VII and Gemini VI-in December 1965. This photograph, taken by Gemini VI crewmembers Walter Schirra and Thomas Stafford, shows Gemini VII in orbit 160 miles (257 km) above Earth. The main purpose of Gemini VI was the rendezvous with Gemini VII. The main purpose of Gemini VII, on the other hand, was studying the long-term effects of long-duration (up to 14 days) space flight on a two-man crew. The pair also carried out 20 experiments, including medical tests. Although the principal objectives of both missions differed, they were both carried out so that NASA could master the technical challenges of getting into and working in space. Image credit: NASA #TBT #space #history #NASA #Gemini #throwbackthursday; -
Astronomers have found a pulsating, dead star beaming with the energy of about 10 million suns. This is the brightest pulsar – a dense stellar remnant left over from a supernova explosion – ever recorded. The discovery was made with NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. Seen here is a rare and mighty pulsar (pink) can be seen at the center of the galaxy Messier 82 in this new multi-wavelength portrait. NASA's NuSTAR mission discovered the "pulse" of the pulsar — a type of dead star — using is high-energy X-ray vision. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech; -
Blood Moon! On Wednesday morning, Oct. 8th, not long before sunrise, the bright full moon over North America turned a lovely shade of celestial red. The lunar eclipse was visible from all parts of the USA. A lunar eclipse happens when the Earth casts a shadow that blocks sunlight that normally reflects off of the moon. A total lunar eclipse can only happen when the sun, Earth and moon are perfectly aligned. During the time of total eclipse, the moon will often look reddish due to red and orange light being scattered by the atmosphere. This eerie, harmless effect has earned the tongue-in-cheek nickname "blood moon." Image Credit: NASA #nasa #space #eclipse #lunareclipse #redmoon #bloodmoon #moon #earth #totallunareclipse; -
Astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image from today's spacewalk tweeting "what an experience." His fellow spacewalker, ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst also tweeted "I do not have words to describe what we did today." The duo worked outside for six hours, thirteen minutes. They installed a degraded pump module on an external stowage platform and an electrical relay system that will provide backup power to the Mobile Transporter, which can move supplies on rails along the station's backbone, and the space station's robotic arm, Canadarm2. Image credit: NASA #spacewalk #iss #exp41 @iss #nasa #spacestation; -
A Spacewalker's View: Astronaut Reid Wiseman of NASA and Alexander Gerst of ESA ended today's spacewalk at 2:43 p.m. EDT. They installed a degraded pump module on an external stowage platform and an electrical relay system that will provide backup power to the Mobile Transporter, which can move supplies on rails along the station's backbone, and the space station's robotic arm, Canadarm2. Wiseman and Gerst now have spent 6 hours and 13 minutes in space. Wiseman and NASA's Barry "Butch" Wilmore are scheduled to conduct another spacewalk on Oct. 15. Wiseman posted this image to Twitter and wrote, "The view was reasonably INSANE during the #spacewalk." Image Credit: NASA #nasa #iss #spacestation #exp41 #eva #earth #esa #space;
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