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Mars Comet! Today, Comet C/2013 A1, also known as comet Siding Spring, will pass within about 87,000 miles (139,500 kilometers) of the Red Planet -- less than half the distance between Earth and our moon and less than one-tenth the distance of any known comet flyby of Earth. Siding Spring's nucleus will come closest to Mars around 11:27 a.m. PDT (2:27 p.m. EDT), hurtling at about 126,000 mph (56 kilometers per second). The images above show -- after filtering -- comet C/2013 A1, also known as Siding Spring, as captured by Wide Field Camera 3 on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute) #nasa #space #comet #marscomet #sidingspring #mars #redplanet #planets #martian #science; -
Stuck on the Rings: Like a drop of dew hanging on a leaf, Saturn's moon Tethys appears to be stuck to the planet's A and F rings from this perspective. Tethys (660 miles, or 1,062 kilometers across), like the ring particles, is composed primarily of ice. The gap in the A ring through which Tethys is visible is the Keeler gap, which is kept clear by the small moon Daphnis (not visible here). This view looks toward the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Tethys. North on Tethys is up and rotated 43 degrees to the right. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 14, 2014. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute #nasa #space #cassini #rings #saturn #planets #solarsystem #ice #science 52E2B293-CABE-40D1-9ADB-EF86C9366490; -
Which is it? A new study focused on the interior of Saturn's icy moon Mimas suggests its cratered surface hides one of two intriguing possibilities: Either the moon's frozen core is shaped something like a football, or the satellite contains a liquid water ocean. Researchers used numerous images of Mimas taken by NASA's Cassini mission to determine how much the moon wobbles as it orbits Saturn. They then evaluated several possible models for how its interior might be arranged, finding two possibilities that fit their data.The study is published in the Oct. 17 issue of the journal Science. This mosaic of Saturn's moon Mimas was created from images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during its closest flyby of the moon on Feb. 13, 2010. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute #nasa #cassini #space #moon #mimas #saturn #planets #solarsystem #science; -
Hurricane Gonzalo Viewed From the International Space Station This image of Hurricane Gonzalo was taken from the International Space Station by European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst on Oct. 16, 2014. In addition to the crew Earth observations from the space station, NASA and NOAA satellites have been providing continuous coverage of Hurricane Gonzalo as it moves toward Bermuda. Image Credit: Alexander Gerst/ESA/NASA #hurricane #gonzalo #esa @iss #iss #spacestation #tropicalstorm #hurricanes #nasa #space #storms #storm; -
Caught in Hyperion's Particle Beam: Static electricity is known to play an important role on Earth's airless, dusty moon, but evidence of static charge building up on other objects in the solar system has been elusive until now. A new analysis of data from our Cassini mission has revealed that, during a 2005 flyby of Saturn's moon Hyperion, the spacecraft was briefly bathed in a beam of electrons coming from the moon's electrostatically charged surface. Cassini obtained this false-color view of Saturn's chaotically tumbling moon Hyperion during a flyby on Sept. 26, 2005. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute #nasa #space #hyperion #saturn #cassini #moon #electricity #science DB078C72-8AC3-4FE5-9DA2-1167461FA6D7;
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Peering through a giant cosmic magnifying glass, our Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a tiny, faint galaxy -- one of the farthest galaxies ever seen. The diminutive object is estimated to be more than 13 billion light-years away. This galaxy offers a peek back to the very early formative years of the universe and may just be the tip of the iceberg. The mammoth galaxy cluster Abell 2744 is so massive that its powerful gravity bends the light from galaxies far behind it, making these otherwise unseen background objects appear larger and brighter than they would normally. For more, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble Image Credit: NASA, J. Lotz, (STScI) #nasa #hubble #hst #space #galaxy #universe #science; -
Operation IceBridge Turns Five In May 2014, two new studies concluded that a section of the land-based West Antarctic ice sheet had reached a point of inevitable collapse. Meanwhile, fresh observations from September 2014 showed sea ice around Antarctica had reached its greatest extent since the late 1970s. To better understand such dynamic and dramatic differences in the region's land and sea ice, researchers are travelling south to Antarctica this month for the sixth campaign of NASA’s Operation IceBridge. The airborne campaign, which also flies each year over Greenland, makes annual surveys of the ice with instrumented research aircraft. Instruments range from lasers that map the elevation of the ice surface, radars that "see" below it, and downward looking cameras to provide a natural-color perspective. The Digital Mapping System (DMS) camera acquired this photo during the mission’s first science flight on October 16, 2009. At the time of the image, the DC-8 aircraft was flying at an altitude of 515 meters (1,700 feet) over heavily compacted first-year sea ice along the edge of the Amundsen Sea. Repeated measurements of land and sea ice from aircraft extend the record of observations once made by NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite, or ICESat, which stopped functioning in 2009. In addition to extending the ICESat record, IceBridge also sets the stage for ICESat-2, which is scheduled for launch in 2017. Image Credit: Digital Mapping System (DMS) team/NASA DAAC at the NSIDC; -
Throwback Thursday: Atlantis Docked to MIR This view of the Space Shuttle Atlantis still connected to Russia's Mir Space Station was photographed by the Mir-19 crew on July 4, 1995. Cosmonauts Anatoliy Y. Solovyev and Nikolai M. Budarin, Mir-19 Commander and Flight Engineer, respectively, temporarily undocked the Soyuz spacecraft from the cluster of Mir elements to perform a brief fly-around. They took pictures while the STS-71 crew, with Mir-18's three crew members aboard, undocked Atlantis for the completion of this leg of the joint activities. Solovyev and Budarin had been taxied to the Mir Space Station by the STS-71 ascent trip of Atlantis. Image credit: NASA #NASA #History #MIR #Atlantis #Space #Science #TBT #ThrowbackThursday; -
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;
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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; -
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;
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