โพสต์เมื่อ 5 พ.ค. 2558 | 03:53 น.
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Tatooine? No, it's Kepler-16b, illustrated in this artist concept. The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. Our Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet - a planet orbiting two stars - 200 light-years from Earth. Unlike Star Wars' Tatooine, the planet is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor life, but its discovery demonstrates the diversity of planets in our galaxy. Previous research has hinted at the existence of circumbinary planets, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Kepler detected such a planet by observing transits, where the brightness of a parent star dims from the planet crossing in front of it. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #kepler #space #astronomy#maythe4thbewithyou #happystarwarsday #science; -
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... The unusual spiral galaxy, Messier 66, is located at a distance of about 35 million light-years in the constellation of Leo. Together with Messier 65 and NGC 3628, Messier 66 is the member of the Leo Triplet, a trio of interacting spiral galaxies, part of the larger Messier 66 group. Messier 66 wins in size over its fellow triplets - it is about 100 000 light-years across. Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin and Robert Gendler #nasa #hubble #space #astronomy #maythe4thbewithyou#happystarwarsday #science #hst #galaxy; -
Aboard the International Space Station, European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti posted this image at the end of the day Friday and wrote, "Good night from #space. Buona notte dallo spazio." Last week the station astronauts continued preparing for the next round of robotic refueling demonstrations while conducting various biomedical experiments and checkouts. Image Credit: NASA/ESA #iss #nasa #esa #spacestation #earth; -
Enjoy mesmerizing views of our sun: Over a six-hour period on April 21, 2015, our Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) observed a wing-like prominence eruption from our sun. SDO views the sun in various wavelengths of the extreme ultraviolet, including 171 (shown in gold) and 304 (shown in orange) angstroms. Credit: NASA/SDO #sun #solar #nasa #space #sdo #eruption #uv; -
Hubble Eyes Galactic Refurbishment: The smudge of stars at the center of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a galaxy known as UGC 5797. UGC 5797 is an emission line galaxy, meaning that it is currently undergoing active star formation. The result is a stellar population that is constantly being refurbished as massive bright blue stars form. Galaxies with prolific star formation are not only veiled in a blue tint, but are key to the continuation of a stellar cycle. In this image UGC 5797 appears in front of a background of spiral galaxies. Spiral galaxies have copious amounts of dust and gas - the main ingredient for stars - and therefore often also belong to the class of emission line galaxies. Spiral galaxies have disk-like shapes that drastically vary in appearance depending on the angle at which they are observed. The collection of spiral galaxies in this frame exhibits this attribute acutely: Some are viewed face-on, revealing the structure of the spiral arms, while the two in the bottom left are seen edge-on, appearing as plain streaks in the sky. There are many spiral galaxies, with varying colors and at different angles, sprinkled across this image - just take a look. European Space Agency Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Luca Limatola #hubble #nasa #space #science;
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Today at 3:26 p.m. EDT, a new crater was created on this region of Mercury's surface when our MESSENGER spacecraft slammed into the planet at about 8,750 mph! Among its many accomplishments, the MESSENGER mission determined Mercury's surface composition, revealed its geological history, discovered its internal magnetic field is offset from the planet's center, and verified its polar deposits are dominantly water ice. The large, 400-kilometer-diameter (250-mile-diameter), impact basin "Shakespeare" occupies the bottom left quarter of this image, acquired by the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) and Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) instruments aboard the spacecraft. The image is coded by topography. The tallest regions are colored red and are roughly 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) higher than low-lying areas such as the floors of impact craters, colored blue. The large crater on the left side of the image is "Janacek," with a diameter of 48 kilometers (30 miles). The Shakespeare impact basin is filled with smooth plains material, likely due to extensive lava flooding in the past. As of 24 hours before the impact, the current best estimates predict that the spacecraft will strike a ridge slightly to the northeast of Shakespeare. View this image to see more details of the predicted impact site and time. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington #nasa #mercury #messenger #nasabeyond #space #science; -
We captured possible 'screams' from zombie stars! Peering into the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, our Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) has spotted a mysterious glow of high-energy X-rays that, according to scientists, could be the "howls" of dead stars as they feed on stellar companions. The center of our Milky Way galaxy is bustling with young and old stars, smaller black holes and other varieties of stellar corpses - all swarming around a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A*. Astronomers have four potential theories to explain the baffling X-ray glow, three of which involve different classes of stellar corpses. When stars die, they don't always go quietly into the night. Unlike stars like our sun, collapsed dead stars that belong to stellar pairs, or binaries, can siphon matter from their companions. This zombie-like "feeding" process differs depending on the nature of the normal star, but the result may be an eruption of X-rays. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech #nasa #nustar #galaxy #astronomy #milkyway #blackhole #science; -
Unmasking the Secrets of Mercury Scientists have worked to learn more about the minerals and surface processes on Mercury using instruments on the MESSENGER spacecraft to diligently collect single tracks of spectral surface measurements since entering Mercury orbit on March 17, 2011. The track coverage is now extensive enough that the spectral properties of both broad terrains and small, distinct features such as pyroclastic vents and fresh craters can be studied. The MESSENGER spacecraft is the first ever to orbit the planet Mercury, and the spacecraft's seven scientific instruments and radio science investigation are unraveling the history and evolution of the solar system's innermost planet. In the mission's more than four years of orbital operations, MESSENGER has acquired over 250,000 images and extensive other data sets. MESSENGER's highly successful orbital mission is about to come to an end, as the spacecraft runs out of propellant and the force of solar gravity causes it to impact the surface of Mercury near the end of April 2015. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington #Mercury #MESSENGER #NASA #space #Planets #SolarSystem #Planet; -
This galaxy goes by the name of ESO 162-17 and is located about 40 million light-years away in the constellation of Carina. At first glance this image seems like a fairly standard picture of a galaxy with dark patches of dust and bright patches of young, blue stars. However, a closer look reveals several peculiar features. Firstly, ESO 162-17 is what is known as a peculiar galaxy — a galaxy that has gone through interactions with its cosmic neighbors, resulting in an unusual amount of dust and gas, an irregular shape, or a strange composition. Secondly, on February 23, 2010 astronomers observed the supernova known as SN 2010ae nestled within this galaxy. The supernova belongs to a recently discovered class of supernovae called Type Iax supernovae. This class of objects is related to the better known Type-Ia supernovae. Type Ia supernovae result when a white dwarf accumulates enough mass either from a companion or, rarely, through collision with another white dwarf, to initiate a catastrophic collapse followed by a spectacular explosion as a supernova. Type Iax supernovae also involve a white dwarf as the central star, but in this case it may survive the event. Type Iax supernovae are much fainter and rarer than Type Ia supernovae, and their exact mechanism is still a matter of open debate. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA #Hubble #Telescope #NASA #space #HST #stars; -
On April 22, 2015, Calbuco volcano in southern Chile began erupting for the first time since 1972. An ash cloud rose at least 50,000 feet (15 km) above the volcano, menacing the nearby communities of Puerto Montt, Chile and San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina. Around midday on April 24, 2015, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this natural-color image of the ash and gas plume from Calbuco volcano in southern Chile. According to Chile’s National Geology and Mining Service, tremors, ash emissions, and other volcanic activity are continuing. Image Credit: NASA/LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response/Joshua Stevens/MODIS #Earth #earthRightnow #volcano #plume #chile #argentina #southamerica #modis #ChileVolcanCalbuco;
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The Hubble Space Telescope turns 25 years old today! Celebrate with us as we share incredible images from Hubble: The graceful, winding arms of the majestic spiral galaxy M51 (NGC 5194) appear like a grand spiral staircase sweeping through space. They are actually long lanes of stars and gas laced with dust. This image of the Whirlpool Galaxy, taken in January 2005 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, illustrates a spiral galaxy's grand design, from its curving spiral arms, where young stars reside, to its yellowish central core, a home of older stars. The galaxy is nicknamed the Whirlpool because of its swirling structure. The Whirlpool is one of astronomy's galactic darlings. Located 31 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs), the Whirlpool's beautiful face-on view and closeness to Earth allow astronomers to study a classic spiral galaxy's structure and star-forming processes. Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) #Hubble25 #Hubble #Telescope #HST #Space #NASA; -
The Hubble Space Telescope turns 25 years old today! Celebrate with us as we share incredible images from Hubble: In its first glimpse of the heavens following the successful December 1999 servicing mission, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured a majestic view of a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a dying, Sun-like star. This stellar relic, first spied by William Herschel in 1787, is nicknamed the "Eskimo" Nebula (NGC 2392) because, when viewed through ground-based telescopes, it resembles a face surrounded by a fur parka. In this Hubble telescope image, the "parka" is really a disk of material embellished with a ring of comet-shaped objects, with their tails streaming away from the central, dying star. The Eskimo's "face" also contains some fascinating details. Although this bright central region resembles a ball of twine, it is, in reality, a bubble of material being blown into space by the central star's intense "wind" of high-speed material. The Eskimo Nebula is about 5,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Gemini. The picture was taken Jan. 10 and 11, 2000, with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The nebula's glowing gases produce the colors in this image: nitrogen (red), hydrogen (green), oxygen (blue), and helium (violet). Credit: NASA, Andrew Fruchter and the ERO Team [Sylvia Baggett (STScI), Richard Hook (ST-ECF), Zoltan Levay (STScI)] #Hubble25 #Hubble #Telescope #HST #Space #NASA; -
The Hubble Space Telescope turns 25 years old today! Celebrate with us as we share incredible images from Hubble: This composite image is a view of the colorful Helix Nebula taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the Mosaic II Camera on the 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The object is so large that both telescopes were needed to capture a complete view. The Helix is a planetary nebula, the glowing gaseous envelope expelled by a dying, sun-like star. The Helix resembles a simple doughnut as seen from Earth. But looks can be deceiving. New evidence suggests that the Helix consists of two gaseous disks nearly perpendicular to each other. The Hubble images were taken on November 19, 2002; the Cerro Tololo images on Sept. 17-18, 2003. Credit: NASA, ESA, C.R. O'Dell (Vanderbilt University), M. Meixner and P. McCullough (STScI) #Hubble25 #Hubble #Telescope #HST #Space #NASA; -
The Hubble Space Telescope turns 25 years old today! Celebrate with us as we share incredible images from Hubble: This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image captures the chaotic activity atop a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also being assaulted from within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas that can be seen streaming from towering peaks. This turbulent cosmic pinnacle lies within a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 observed the pillar on Feb. 1-2, 2010. The colors in this composite image correspond to the glow of oxygen (blue), hydrogen and nitrogen (green), and sulfur (red). Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI) #Hubble25 #hubble #hst #telescope #nasa #space; -
25 years ago today on April 24, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched. It was deployed on April 25, as seen in this photograph taken in 1990 by the crew of the STS-31 space shuttle mission, the Hubble Space Telescope is suspended above shuttle Discovery's cargo bay some 332 nautical miles above Earth. The Canadian-built Remote Manipulator System (RMS) arm, controlled from in-cabin by the astronaut crew members, held the huge telescope in this position during pre-deployment procedures, which included extension of solar array panels and antennae. STS-31 was the tenth launch of the shuttle Discovery. On board were Commander Loren J. Shriver, Pilot Charles F. Bolden, Jr. (now NASA Administrator), Mission Specialists Steven A. Hawley, Bruce McCandless II and Kathryn D. Sullivan (now NOAA Administrator). To launch Hubble into an orbit that guaranteed longevity, Discovery soared to a record altitude of 600 km. Image Credit: NASA #Hubble25 #nasa #space #hubble #telescope #tbt;
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