โพสต์เมื่อ 15 ธ.ค. 2557 | 03:05 น.
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Although solid-looking in many images, Saturn's rings are actually translucent. In this picture, we can glimpse the shadow of the rings on the planet through (and below) the A and C rings themselves, towards the lower right hand corner. For centuries people have studied Saturn's rings, but questions about the structure and composition of the rings lingered. It was only in 1857 when the physicist James Clerk Maxwell demonstrated that the rings must be composed of many small particles and not solid rings around the planet, and not until the 1970s that spectroscopic evidence definitively showed that the rings are composed mostly of water ice. This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 17 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Aug. 12, 2014 in near-infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.4 million miles (2.3 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 24 degrees. Image scale is 85 miles (136 kilometers) per pixel. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute; -
LOOK UP TONIGHT! The 2014 Geminid meteor shower is forecast to be a lively meteor shower with great views in the skies over Earth, and tonight is the anticipated peak. Best viewing will be in dark sky locations, away from city lights. Cloudy? We're hosting an overnight web chat from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. EST and will broadcast the shower live on Ustream. Details: http://go.nasa.gov/1yUCCWP #geminids #meteor #meteorshower #skywatch #science #nasa #space; -
View of All That Glitters: This striking Hubble Space Telescope image shows a glittering bauble named Messier 92. Located in the northern constellation of Hercules, this globular cluster — a ball of stars that orbits a galactic core like a satellite — was first discovered by astronomer Johann Elert Bode in 1777. Messier 92 is one of the brightest globular clusters in the Milky Way, and is visible to the naked eye under good observing conditions. It is very tightly packed with stars, containing some 330,000 stars in total. As is characteristic of globular clusters, the predominant elements within Messier 92 are hydrogen and helium, with only traces of others. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Gilles Chapdelaine #nasa #esa #hst #hubble #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science #galaxy #milkyway; -
Super Guppy Spends a Restful Night in the NASA Langley Hangar: A representative test article of a futuristic hybrid wing body aircraft will be unloaded from our Super Guppy aircraft on Friday, Dec. 12, at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.. The large test article, representing the uniquely shaped fuselage cross-section, is made out of a low-weight, damage-tolerant, stitched composite structural concept called Pultruded Rod Stitched Efficient Unitized Structure, or PRSEUS. Langley's Combined Loads Test System will subject the revolutionary carbon-fiber architecture test article to conditions that simulate loads typically encountered in flight. Our Super Guppy aircraft, designed to transport extremely large cargo, rests after making the special delivery to the Langley. The aircraft measures more than 48 feet to the top of its tail and has a wingspan of more than 156 feet with a 25-foot diameter cargo bay - the aircraft features a hinged nose that opens 110 degrees. Image Credit: NASA #nasaaero #aeronautics #nasa #langley #superguppy #aircraft; -
Galactic Get-Together Has Impressive Light Display: At this time of year, there are lots of gatherings often decorated with festive lights. When galaxies get together, there is the chance of a spectacular light show as is the case with NGC 2207 and IC 2163. Located about 130 million light years from Earth, in the constellation of Canis Major, this pair of spiral galaxies has been caught in a grazing encounter. Chandra image of "ultraluminous X-ray sources" (ULXs) found using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/S.Mineo et al, Optical: NASA/STScI, Infr #nasa #space #galaxy #astronomy #science;
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Throwback Thursday: Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan, Apollo 17 commander, salutes the deployed U.S. flag on the lunar surface during extravehicular activity of NASA's final lunar landing mission in the Apollo series. Apollo 17 landed on the moon on this day (December 11) in 1972. The lunar module is at the left background and the lunar roving vehicle, also in background, is partially obscured. The photo was made by Astronaut Harrison H. Schmitt, lunar module pilot. Photo Credit: NASA #TBT #NASA #MoonWalking #ThrowbackThursday; -
Colorful and Plankton-full Patagonian Waters: Late spring and summer weather brings blooms of color to the Atlantic Ocean off of South America, at least from a satellite view. The Patagonian Shelf Break is a biologically rich patch of ocean where airborne dust from the land, iron-rich currents from the south, and upwelling currents from the depths provide a bounty of nutrients for the grass of the sea—phytoplankton. In turn, those floating sunlight harvesters become food for some of the richest fisheries in the world. Image Credit: Norman Kuring, NASA’s Ocean Color Group, using VIIRS data from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership #earth #earthrightnow #nasa #atlanticocean #patagonian #science; -
Venus from Space Station: Astronaut Terry Virts aboard the International Space Station snapped this image and wrote, "Venus sits on the background of the Earth's atmosphere." Virts worked on medical science Wednesday morning and later set up commercial research gear for an experiment to be delivered on the next SpaceX mission, which is scheduled to launch Dec. 16. Meanwhile, station Commander Barry Wilmore and Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti continued this week's maintenance work on a U.S. spacesuit. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #iss #spacestation #space #isscrew #astronauts #venus #earth #exp42; -
View from Above: From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Commander Barry Wilmore took this photograph of the Great Lakes and central U.S. on Dec. 7, 2014, and posted it to social media. This week on the station, the Expedition 42 crew has been busy with medical science and spacesuit work while preparing for the arrival of SpaceX's Dragon commercial cargo craft, scheduled to launch on Dec. 16 on a two day trip to the station before it is captured by the Canadarm2 and berthed to the Harmony node. Image Credit: NASA/Barry Wilmore #nasa #iss #space #spacestation #exp42 #earth #greatlakes #isscargo #spacex; -
RoboSimian and Surrogate are robots that were designed and built at our Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Surrogate was designed more like a human -- with an upright spine, two arms and a head, standing about 4.5 feet (1.4 meters) tall and weighing about 200 pounds (90.7 kilograms). Its strength is in handling objects, and its flexible spine allows for extra manipulation capabilities. But the robot moves on tracks, which doesn't allow it to move over tall objects. A flight of stairs or a ladder would be problematic for Surrogate, for instance. RoboSimian is more ape-like, moving around on four limbs. It is better suited to travel over complicated terrain, including true climbing. In addition, Surrogate has only one set of "eyes" -- two cameras that allow for stereo vision -- mounted to its head. RoboSimian lacks a head but has up to seven sets of eyes, so it can see from its front, "stomach" and sides as well. Image Credit: JPL-Caltech #robots #nasa @NASAJPL;
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Orion at Port: The USS Anchorage, carrying the crew module, arrives in San Diego. The Orion spacecraft successfully completed the first flight last week, traveling to an altitude of 3600 miles and returning to Earth at 20,000 miles per hour. The Navy and NASA team on board the USS Anchorage recovered Orion in the Pacific Ocean after splashdown. Image Credit: US Navy. #orion #navy #nasa #space #testflight #orionlaunch #spacecraft #ussanchorage; -
Clues to How Water Helped Shape Martian Landscape: Observations by our Curiosity Rover indicate Mars' Mount Sharp was built by sediments deposited in a large lake bed over tens of millions of years. This interpretation of Curiosity’s finds in Gale Crater suggests ancient Mars maintained a climate that could have produced long-lasting lakes at many locations on the Red Planet. Curiosity currently is investigating the lowest sedimentary layers of Mount Sharp, a section of rock 500 feet (150 meters) high dubbed the Murray formation. This evenly layered rock photographed by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on Curiosity on Aug. 7, 2014, shows a pattern typical of a lake-floor sedimentary deposit not far from where flowing water entered a lake. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS #nasa #space #mars #curiosity #martian #redplanet #geology #planets #science; -
Warm Gas Pours 'Cold Water' on Galaxy's Star-Making: A new feature in the evolution of galaxies has been captured in this image of galactic interactions. The two galaxies seen here -- NGC 3226 at the top, NGC 3227 at the bottom -- are awash in the remains of a departed third galaxy, cannibalized by the gravity of the surviving galaxies. The surge of warm gas flowing into NGC 3226, seen as a blue filament, appears to be shutting down this galaxy's star formation, disrupting the cool gas needed to make fresh stars. The findings come courtesy of the European Space Agency's Herschel space observatory, in which NASA played a key role, and NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes. Adding material to galaxies often rejuvenates them, triggering new rounds of star birth as gas and dust gel together. Yet data from the three telescopes all indicate that NGC 3226 has a very low rate of star formation. Credit: NASA/CFHT/NRAO/JPL-Caltech/Duc/Cuillandre #nasa #space #galaxy #stars #spitzer #hubble #herschel #esa #astronomy #astrophysics #science; -
Historic Blue Marble Image: On this day in 1972, Apollo 17 launched to the moon, and the crew snapped this photo of Earth on the way. The original caption is reprinted below: View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. This translunar coast photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to the Antarctica south polar ice cap. This is the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap. Note the heavy cloud cover in the Southern Hemisphere. Almost the entire coastline of Africa is clearly visible. The Arabian Peninsula can be seen at the northeastern edge of Africa. The large island off the coast of Africa is the Malagasy Republic. The Asian mainland is on the horizon toward the northeast. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #apollo #otd #bluemarble #bluedot #earth #history; -
Seeking Planets in the Dust: A dusty planetary system (left) is compared to another system with little dust in this artist's conception. Dust can make it difficult for telescopes to image planets because light from the dust can outshine that of the planets. Dust reflects visible light and shines with its own infrared, or thermal, glow. As the illustration shows, planets appear more readily in the planetary system shown at right with less dust. Research with the NASA-funded Keck Interferometer, a former NASA key science project that combined the power of the twin telescopes of the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii, shows that mature, sun-like stars appear to be, on average, not all that dusty. This is good news for future space missions wanting to take detailed pictures of planets like Earth and seek out possible signs of life. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech #nasa #space #planets #stardust #astronomy #keckobservatory #hawaii #dust #science;
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