The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 4:16 a.m. EDT on June 25. Our Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, 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 flare is classified as a M7.9 flare. M-class flares are a tenth the size of the most intense flares, the X-class flares. The number provides more information about its strength. An M2 is twice as intense as an M1, an M3 is three times as intense, etc. Credits: NASA/SDO #nasa #sun #sdo #solarflare #spaceweather #science #nasabeyond Instagram ดารา @nasa 40,425
A light echo in X-rays detected by our Chandra X-ray Observatory has provided a rare opportunity to precisely measure the distance to an object on the other side of the Milky Way galaxy. The rings exceed the field-of-view of Chandra's detectors, resulting in a partial image of X-ray data. Credits: NASA/CXC/U. Wisconsin/S. Heinz #nasa #space #astronomy #xray #milkyway #galaxy #chandra #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 12,119
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) captured photographs and video of auroras from the International Space Station on June 22, 2015. Kelly wrote, " I've never seen this before- red #aurora. Spectacular! #YearInSpace." Kelly is on a one-year mission in space, testing the limits of human research, space exploration and the human spirit. Most expeditions to the space station last four to six months. By doubling the length of this mission, researchers hope to better understand how the human body reacts and adapts to long-duration spaceflight. This knowledge is critical as we look toward human journeys deeper into the solar system, including to and from Mars, which could last 500 days or longer. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #iss #space #isscrew #spacestation #science #journeytomars Instagram ดารา @nasa 26,073
A single crescent moon is a familiar sight in Earth's sky, but with Saturn's many moons, you can see three or even more. The three moons shown here -- Titan (3,200 miles or 5,150 kilometers across), Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), and Rhea (949 miles or 1,527 kilometers across) -- show marked contrasts. Titan, the largest moon in this image, appears fuzzy because we only see its cloud layers. And because Titan's atmosphere refracts light around the moon, its crescent "wraps" just a little further around the moon than it would on an airless body. Rhea (upper left) appears rough because its icy surface is heavily cratered. And a close inspection of Mimas (center bottom), though difficult to see at this scale, shows surface irregularities due to its own violent history. This view looks toward the anti-Saturn hemisphere of Titan. North on Titan is up. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 25, 2015. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute #nasa #cassini #saturn #space #moon #mimas #titan #rhea #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 18,260
In the Company of Dione NASA's Cassini imaging scientists processed this view of Saturn's moon Dione, taken during a close flyby on June 16, 2015. This was Cassini's fourth targeted flyby of Dione and the spacecraft had a close approach altitude of 321 miles (516 kilometers) from Dione's surface. Also making an appearance in this image is Saturn's geysering moon Enceladus, seen in the upper right, just above the bright line of Saturn's rings. North on Dione is up and rotated 44 degrees to the left. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft's wide-angle camera on June 16, 2015. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers) from Dione and at a sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 128 degrees. Image scale is 3 miles (5 kilometers) per pixel. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute #nasa #space #saturn #solarsystem #dione #moon #planet #planets Instagram ดารา @nasa 27,772
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a galaxy known as UGC 11411. It is a galaxy type known as an irregular blue compact dwarf (BCD) galaxy. BCD galaxies are about a tenth of the size of a typical spiral galaxy such as the Milky Way and are made up of large clusters of hot, massive stars that ionize the surrounding gas with their intense radiation. Because these stars are so hot they glow brightly with a blue hue, giving galaxies like UGC 11411 their characteristic blue tint. With these massive stars being less than 10 million years old, they are very young compared to stellar standards. They were created during a starburst, a galaxy-wide episode of furious star formation. UGC 11411 in particular has an extremely high star formation rate, even for a BCD galaxy. Unusually for galaxies with such intense star-forming regions, BCDs don’t contain either a lot of dust, or the heavy elements that are typically found as trace elements in recently formed stars, making their composition very similar to that of the material from which the first stars formed in the early universe. Because of this astronomers consider BCD galaxies to be good objects to study to improve our understanding of primordial star-forming processes. The bright stars in the image are foreground stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA #nasa #space #hubble #galaxy #stars Instagram ดารา @nasa 37,041
Aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Scott Kelly (@stationcdrkelly) posted this image on the evening of June 18 and wrote, ‘Day 83. Our galaxy from 250 miles away. Good night from @space_station! #YearInSpace.’ Kelly is on a one-year mission in space, testing the limits of human research, space exploration and the human spirit. Most expeditions to the space station last four to six months. By doubling the length of this mission, researchers hope to better understand how the human body reacts and adapts to long-duration spaceflight. This knowledge is critical as we look toward human journeys deeper into the solar system, including to and from Mars, which could last 500 days or longer. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #iss #space #isscrew #spacestation #science #journeytomars Instagram ดารา @nasa 9,092
On this day in 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space when the space shuttle Challenger launched on mission STS-7 from Pad 39A at our Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This high-angle view of the shuttle liftoff, showing a lengthy stretch of Florida Atlantic coastline and a number of large cumulus clouds, was photographed with a handheld 70mm camera by astronaut John W. Young, who piloted the Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA) for weather monitoring at launch and landing sites for STS missions. The STS-7 crew consisted of astronauts Robert Crippen, commander, the first two-time space shuttle astronaut; Frederick H. Hauck, pilot; and three mission specialists -- Ride, John M. Fabian and Norman E. Thagard. One of Sally Ride's jobs was to call out "Roll program" seven seconds after launch. "I'll guarantee that those were the hardest words I ever had to get out of my mouth," she said later. Image Credit: NASA #otd #tbt #throwbackthursday #sallyride #space #nasahistory #history #nasa Instagram ดารา @nasa 21,797
Our Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) takes off from home base in Palmdale, California at sunset on May 29, 2015. SOFIA is the largest airborne observatory in the world, capable of making observations that are impossible for even the largest and highest ground-based telescopes. This SOFIA mission was a science observation flight with the Faint Object infraRed CAmera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST) science instrument, a mid-infrared camera that records images at infrared wavelengths of 5 to 40 microns that are used to study celestial objects such as planets and star forming regions. SOFIA is currently conducting science flights on six week deployment in the Southern Hemisphere. Image Credit: Greg Perryman/USRA #flynasa #nasabeyond #nasa #sofia #astronomy #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 34,172
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly), currently on a one-year mission aboard the International Space Station, took this photograph of Tropical Storm Bill in the Gulf of Mexico as it approached the coast of Texas, on June 15, 2015. Kelly wrote, "Concerned for all in its path including family, friends & colleagues." Tropical Storm Bill was making landfall at 11 a.m. CDT on Matagorda Island, Texas on June 16 as NASA and NOAA satellites gathered data on the storm. The center of Bill is expected to move inland over south-central Texas during the afternoon and night of June 16. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #tropicalstorm #tsbill #bill #space #iss #spacestation #satellites #noaa @NASA #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 34,940
Astronomers have used our Chandra X-ray Observatory to show that, multiple eruptions from a supermassive black hole over 50 million years have rearranged the cosmic landscape at the center of a group of galaxies. Scientists discovered this history of black hole eruptions by studying NGC 5813, a group of galaxies about 105 million light years from Earth. These Chandra observations are the longest ever obtained of a galaxy group, lasting for just over a week. The Chandra data are shown in this new composite image where the X-rays from Chandra (purple) have been combined with visible light data (red, green and blue). Credit: NASA #nasa #chandra #blackhole #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 27,962
[Image is an artist's concept] They wouldn't float like balloons or give you the chance to talk in high, squeaky voices, but planets with helium skies may constitute an exotic planetary class in our Milky Way galaxy. Researchers using data from our Spitzer Space Telescope propose that warm Neptune-size planets with clouds of helium may be strewn about the galaxy by the thousands. This artist's concept depicts a proposed helium-atmosphere planet called GJ 436b, which was found by Spitzer to lack in methane -- a first clue about its lack of hydrogen. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech' (artist's concept) #nasa #space #spitzer #galaxy #planet #milkyway #helium #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 39,890
There are many galaxies in the universe and although there is plenty of room, they tend to stick together. The Milky Way, for example, is part of a large gathering of more than fifty galaxies known as the Local Group. Galaxy groups like this come together to form even larger groups called clusters which can congregate further still to create mammoth superclusters. The sphere of space surrounding our galaxy is known as the Local Volume, a region some 35 million light-years in diameter and home to several hundred known galaxies. The subject of this new Hubble Space Telescope image, a beautiful dwarf irregular galaxy known as PGC 18431, is one of these galaxies. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA #hubble #hst #hubble25 #nasa #space #galaxy #astronomy #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 14,178
Three crew members of the International Space Station (ISS) returned to Earth today after a 199-day mission that included several spacewalks, technology demonstrations, and hundreds of scientific experiments spanning multiple disciplines, including human and plant biology. The Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft is seen in this image as it lands with Expedition 43 commander Terry Virts (@Astro_Terry) of NASA, cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), and Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti from European Space Agency (ESA) near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls #nasa #space #soyuz #iss #isscrew #esa #exp43 #spacestation Instagram ดารา @nasa 29,430
Most galaxies are clumped together in groups or clusters. A neighboring galaxy is never far away. But this galaxy, known as NGC 6503, has found itself in a lonely position, at the edge of a strangely empty patch of space called the Local Void. The Local Void is a huge stretch of space that is at least 150 million light-years across. It seems completely empty of stars or galaxies. The galaxy's odd location on the edge of this never-land led stargazer Stephen James O'Meara to dub it the "Lost-In-Space galaxy" in his 2007 book, Hidden Treasures. NGC 6503 is 18 million light-years away from us in the northern circumpolar constellation of Draco. NGC 6503 spans some 30,000 light-years, about a third of the size of the Milky Way. Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Calzetti (University of Massachusetts), H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University), and the Hubble Heritage Team #nasa #space #hubble #hst #galaxy #astronomy #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 42,662
Astronaut Terry Virts (@Astro_Terry) shared this video of "Tropical Storm #Blanca as it made landfall yesterday." The International Space Station (@ISS) and its crew orbit Earth from an altitude of 250 miles, traveling at a speed of approximately 17,500 miles per hour, providing a great vantage point to observe the Earth below. Video credit: NASA #nasa #hurricane #tropicalstorm #iss #space #spacestation #internationalspacestation #storm #pacific #ocean #clouds #earth #earthobs Instagram ดารา @nasa 14,660
A new video animation of dwarf planet Ceres, based on images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, provides dramatic flyover views of this heavily cratered, mysterious world. The images come from Dawn's first mapping orbit at Ceres, at an altitude of 8,400 mile (13,600 kilometers), as well as navigational images taken from 3,200 miles (5,100 kilometers) away. The images provided information for a three-dimensional terrain model. The vertical dimension has been exaggerated by a factor of two, and a star field has been added in the background. Video credit: NASA/JPL #ceres #dawn #nasadawn #nasajpl #jpl #nasa #space #dwarfplanet #planet #solarsystem #crater Instagram ดารา @nasa 25,962
Playing it conservatively, International Space Station flight controllers conducted a pre-determined avoidance maneuver today to steer the station well clear of a fragment of a spent Minotaur rocket body launched in 2013. Having tracked the object throughout the weekend and today, U.S. and Russian flight controllers executed a 5 minute, 22 second firing of the ISS Progress 58 thrusters at 2:58 p.m. CDT to slightly raise the station’s orbit and distance it from the fragment that was projected to pass within three statute miles of the complex later in the day. The maneuver raised the station’s altitude by just 106 feet at apogee and 7/10 of a mile at perigee, resulting in an ISS orbit of 254 x 244.8 statute miles. The crew was never in any danger and the maneuver will have no impact on the scheduled landing later this week of three crew members from the station. Seen here is a night view from the space station on May 18, 2015 that gives a view of brilliant city lights on the Earth’s surface shining beneath thousands of stars above. The thin line of Earth’s atmosphere can be seen with the green glow of aurora along the outer edge. Image credit: NASA #iss @iss #spacestation #space #nasa #astropics #stars Instagram ดารา @nasa 37,998
Aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Terry Virts posted this video June 2 of the moon setting and wrote, “Full moon #moonset.” Credit: NASA #nasa #space #moon #iss #astronauts #earth #spacestation @iss @astro_terry Instagram ดารา @nasa 6,601
This elliptical galaxy was discovered in March 1781 and lies about 60 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin). The galaxy is part of the very heavily populated center of the Virgo Cluster, a cluster which consists of more than 1,000 galaxies. This image does not show the whole galaxy but only its very interesting center with intriguing dust lanes that stretch across it. This is likely to be the best image of the region ever captured. Previous observations using Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) revealed a supermassive black hole in the center of Messier 84. Astronomers found the supermassive black hole by mapping the motion of the gas and the stars which are caught in its grip. Next to its interesting center Messier 84 is also known for its supernovae. Two supernovae have been observed within the galaxy. The first, SN1957, was discovered in 1957 and another, called SN1991bg, was discovered in 1991. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA #nasa #hubble #hubble25 #space #astronomy #hst #galaxy #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 14,452
