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Our Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected a rapid-fire "storm" of high-energy blasts from a highly magnetized neutron star, also called a magnetar, on Jan. 22, 2009. Now astronomers analyzing this data have discovered underlying signals related to seismic waves rippling throughout the magnetar. Such signals were first identified during the fadeout of rare giant flares produced by magnetars. Over the past 40 years, giant flares have been observed just three times -- in 1979, 1998 and 2004 -- and signals related to starquakes, which set the neutron stars ringing like a bell, were identified only in the two most recent events. Neutron stars are the densest, most magnetic and fastest-spinning objects in the universe that scientists can observe directly. Each one is the crushed core of a massive star that ran out of fuel, collapsed under its own weight, and exploded as a supernova. A neutron star packs the equivalent mass of half-a-million Earths into a sphere about 12 miles across, roughly the length of Manhattan Island in New York City. While typical neutron stars possess magnetic fields trillions of times stronger than Earth's, the eruptive activity observed from magnetars requires fields 1,000 times stronger still. To date, astronomers have confirmed only 23 magnetars. Seen here is a rupture in the crust of a highly magnetized neutron star in an artist's rendering. It can trigger high-energy eruptions. Fermi observations of these blasts include information on how the star's surface twists and vibrates, providing new insights into what lies beneath. Image Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/S. Wiessinger; -
Turquoise-Tinted Plumes in Large Magellanic Cloud: The brightly glowing plumes seen in this image are reminiscent of an underwater scene, with turquoise-tinted currents and nebulous strands reaching out into the surroundings. However, this is no ocean. This image actually shows part of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small nearby galaxy that orbits our galaxy, the Milky Way, and appears as a blurred blob in our skies. The Hubble Space Telescope has peeked many times into this galaxy, releasing stunning images of the whirling clouds of gas and sparkling stars. This image shows part of the Tarantula Nebula's outskirts. This famously beautiful nebula, located within the LMC, is a frequent target for Hubble (heic1206, heic1402). In most images of the LMC the color is completely different to that seen here. This is because, in this new image, a different set of filters was used. The customary R filter, which selects the red light, was replaced by a filter letting through the near-infrared light. In traditional images, the hydrogen gas appears pink because it shines most brightly in the red. Here however, other less prominent emission lines dominate in the blue and green filters. Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA: acknowledgement: Josh Barrington #nasa #hst #hubble #space #glaxy #cloud #esa #astronomy #science; -
A Rare Event Captured! These images were taken of comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring by our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Oct. 19, 2014, during the comet's close flyby of Mars and the spacecraft. Comet Siding Spring is on its first trip this close to the sun from the Oort Cloud at the outer fringe of the solar system. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona #nasa #space #marscomet #comet #sidingspring #mars #science B0DA0052-9825-4887-918B-6A9CCB51F69F; -
X-Class Flare: The sun emitted a significant solar flare, peaking at 1:01 a.m. EDT on Oct. 19, 2014. Our Solar Dynamics Observatory, which is always observing the sun, captured an image of the event. 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 image was captured in extreme ultraviolet wavelength of 131 Angstroms – a wavelength that can see the intense heat of a flare and that is typically colorized in teal. Image Credit: NASA/SDO #nasa #sun #earth #space #solarflare #sdo #science; -
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;
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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; -
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;
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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; -
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);
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