Two Russian cosmonauts made an out-of-this-world handoff of the Olympic torch at the start of Saturday’s spacewalk. Seen here in the capture from NASA TV, Expedition 37 Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov (holding the torch at left) brought the torch out of the International Space Station and passed it to Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy. The torch was returned to the ISS and the cosmonauts were expected to spend five additional hours conducting maintenance activities. An icon of international cooperation through sports competition, the Olympic torch arrived at the space station Thursday aboard a Soyuz spacecraft carrying three new crew members – Expedition 38 Flight Engineers Mikhail Tyurin, Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata. On Sunday, the torch will return to Earth aboard another Soyuz spacecraft vehicle along with Expedition 37 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano. The spacewalk is a high-flying extension of a relay that will culminate with the torch being used to light the Olympic flame at the Feb. 7 opening ceremonies of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. Image credit: NASA #spacewalk #olympics #olympictorch #torchrelay #sochi2014 #sochi #torch #iss #eva #exp37 #exp38 #lowearthorbit Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
It’s a Fireworks Galaxy! This image is of a medium-sized, face-on spiral galaxy that’s about 22 million light years away from Earth. In the past century, eight supernovas have been observed to explode in the arms of this galaxy, called NGC 6946. Chandra observations (purple) have, in fact, revealed three of the oldest supernovas ever detected in X-rays, giving more credence to its nickname of the "Fireworks Galaxy." This composite image also includes optical data from the Gemini Observatory in red, yellow, and cyan. Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MSSL/R.Soria et al, Optical: AURA/Gemini OBs #chandra, #space #nasa #telescope #xraylight #star, #galaxy, #observatory, #nofilter Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
Love colors from a sunset on Earth? Aboard the space station, astronaut Karen Nyberg snapped a beautiful image of one yesterday, Nov. 6, from orbit. She said, “We often see the sun casting red/orange on clouds at sunset. Finally captured it.” Credit: NASA #NASA #station #iss #spacestation #astronauts #space #nasa, #earth #sunset Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
NASA Satellites see super-Typhoon Haiyan lashing the Philippines in this visible image of the storm taken from the MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite on Nov. 7, 2013, at 11:25 p.m. EST. Super-Typhoon Haiyan is bringing maximum sustained winds of a Category 5 hurricane. NASA is providing visible, infrared and microwave satellite data to forecasters and warnings are in effect for the Philippines and Micronesia as Haiyan moves west. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard captured a visible image that showed the thick bands of powerful thunderstorms that surrounded the eye. The MODIS image also revealed a powerful, wide band of thunderstorms in the western quadrant that was affecting the Philippines in the early morning hours (Eastern Daylight Time/U.S.) on Nov. 7. At the same time, another instrument aboard Aqua captured infrared data on the storm using the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument, providing cloud top temperatures and sea surface temperatures. The infrared data revealed a sharply defined eye with multiple concentric rings of thunderstorms and a deep convective eyewall. The infrared data showed cloud top temperatures as cold as 210 degrees kelvin/-81.67F/-63.15C/ in the thick band of thunderstorms around the center. Those cold temperatures indicate very high, powerful thunderstorms with very heavy rain potential. The U.S. National Hurricane Center website indicates that a Category 5 hurricane/typhoon would cause catastrophic damage: A high percentage of framed homes will be destroyed, with total roof failure and wall collapse. Fallen trees and power poles will isolate residential areas. Power outages will last for weeks to possibly months. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months. After passing through the Philippines, Haiyan is expected to move through the South China Sea as it heads for landfall in Vietnam. Image Credit: NASA Goddard MODIS #typhoon, #typhoonhaiyan, #haiyan, #hurricane #modis #aqua, #airs, #nasa #noaa #space #earth #storms #severestorms #rainfall #heavyrain #weather, #supertyphoon, #science Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
The Soyuz rocket is seen, in this 2 minute exposure, as it is launched with Expedition 38 Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA and Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency onboard, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Tyurin, Mastracchio, and, Wakata will spend the next six months aboard the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls) #nasa, #space, #station, #iss, #spacestation, #soyuz, #exp37, #exp38, #olympictorch, #ISS15, #Olympics #TorchRelay #Sochi2014, #Sochi Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
The Soyuz rocket launched to the space station with Expedition 38 Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA and Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency onboard, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Tyurin, Mastracchio, and, Wakata will spend the next six months aboard station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls) #nasa, #space, #station, #iss, #spacestation, #soyuz, #exp37, #exp38 Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
Next station crew hold an Olympic torch that they will fly to the #ISS tonight. Launch of the Soyuz rocket carrying the Expedition 38 trio is scheduled for 11:14 p.m. EST and will send the trio on a six-month mission aboard the space station. Expedition 38 Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, left, Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA, right, smile and wave as they hold an Olympic torch during a press conference held Wednesday, Nov. 6, at the Cosmonaut hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. On Saturday, Nov. 9, the Olympic torch will be carried on a spacewalk outside the space station. The torch -- which returns to Earth aboard another Soyuz on Sunday, Nov. 10, with Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano and Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin -- will light the flame at the opening of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls #station, #nasa, #space, #iss, #spacestation, #soyuz, #exp37, #exp38, #sochi2014, #olympics, #olympictorch Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
Soyuz Rocket Ready to Launch New Station Crew: The Soyuz TMA-11M rocket, adorned with the logo of the Sochi Olympic Organizing Committee and other related artwork, is seen in this long exposure photograph, as the service structure arms are raised into position at the launch pad on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2013, Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Launch of the Soyuz rocket is scheduled for November 7 and will send Expedition 38 Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA and Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency on a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station. The crew will deliver the Olympic torch, and spacewalkers Kotov and Ryazanskiy will carry it outside the station on Saturday. The torch, returning home with Expedition 37, will light the flame at the opening of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls #nasa #space #soyuz #iss #spacestation #station #kazakhstan #exp37 #exp38 #sochi2014 Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
Upsala Glacier Retreat: Taken from the International Space Station, this photo highlights the snout of the Upsala Glacier on the Argentine side of the North Patagonian Icefield. Ice flow in this glacier comes from the north (right in this rotated image). Dark lines of rocky debris (moraine) within the ice give a sense of the slow ice flow from right to left. A smaller, side glacier joins Upsala at the present-day ice front -- the wall from which masses of ice periodically collapse into Lago (Lake) Argentino. In this image, the 2.7 kilometer-wide ice front casts a thin, dark shadow. The surface of Lago Argentino is whitened by a mass of debris from a recent collapse of the ice wall. Larger icebergs appear as white dots on the lake surface at image left. The water color in Lago Argentino is related to the glacier flow. The lake receives most of the ice from the glacier and thus receives most of the “rock flour” -- rocks ground to white powder by the ice scraping against the rock floor of the valley. Glacial flour turns the lake a gray-green hue in this image. The darker blue of the smaller lakes (image bottom) indicates that they are receiving much less rock flour. This image was taken on Oct. 2, 2013 by an astronaut on the space station, with a Nikon D3 digital camera using a 300 millimeter lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. It has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. Image Credit: NASA; Caption: M. Justin Wilkinson, Jacobs at NASA-Johnson Space Center #nasa #iss #space #astronaut #astropix #earth #glaciers #upsala #argentina #patagonia Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
NASA Webb Mirror is 'CIAF' and Sound: A James Webb Space Telescope flight spare primary mirror segment is loaded onto the CMM (Configuration Measurement Machine) at the CIAF (Calibration, Integration and Alignment Facility) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The CMM is used for precision measurements of the mirrors. These precision measurements must be accurate to 0.1 microns or 1/400th the thickness of a human hair. The James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, will be the most powerful space telescope ever built. It will observe the most distant objects in the universe, provide images of the first galaxies formed and see unexplored planets around distant stars. The Webb telescope is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. Image credit: NASA Goddard/Chris Gunn #mirror #space #jwst #webbtelescope #nasa #esa #csa #jameswebb #nasagoddard #calibration #precision Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
Giant Plumes of Radiation: Jets generated by supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies can transport huge amounts of energy across great distances. 3C353 is a wide, double-lobed source where the galaxy is the tiny point in the center and giant plumes of radiation can be seen in X-rays from Chandra (purple) and radio data from the Very Large Array (orange). Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Tokyo Institute of Technology/J.Kataoka et al, Radio: NRAO/VLA #chandra #vla #radiation #blackholes #supermassive #space #universe #xray #nasa Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
Astronaut Karen Nyberg spends a little Saturday afternoon downtime sewing in space. Karen is a lifelong lover of sewing. She is inviting fellow crafters to join her in stitching together a global community space quilt. In the final weeks of her mission aboard the orbiting laboratory, she recently shared a star-themed quilt block she was able to complete during her limited free time in space. She is now inviting quilters from the public to create their own star-themed quilt blocks to help celebrate her mission and passion for the quilting arts. Video clips of Nyberg quilting aboard the space station will be featured in a NASA exhibit at the 39th annual International Quilt Festival Thursday through Sunday, Nov. 3 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston. Sewing and quilting include many of the principles and technical skills used in developing equipment for spaceflight missions. The exhibit will include sewn samples from spacesuits and parachutes, a cargo transfer bag and other soft goods from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The deadline to submit a block to the Star Block Challenge is Aug. 1, 2014. Image credit: NASA #quilting #QuiltFestival #sewing #crafts #crafty #nasa #space #iss #crafters Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
Up, up and away! Seen here at sunrise is the high-altitude balloon carrying the HySICS instruments before launch to the outermost part of Earth's atmosphere. The HyperSpectral Imager for Climate Science (HySICS) made its inaugural engineering balloon flight from Fort Sumner, N.M., the morning of Sept. 29. Balloon flights provide realistic, space-like conditions at a fraction of the cost of launching an instrument into space, so is an ideal means of testing new technologies. A 60-story tall balloon lifted HySICS to an altitude of nearly 122,000 feet, far above the majority of Earth’s atmosphere, heights where the sky is nearly as black as in space. Image Credit: HySICS Team/LASP #balloon #hysics #lasp #nasa #space #highaltitude #helium #earth #atmosphere #sunrise Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
Halloween Fun With Meteor Cameras: Halloween is here, and astronomers have collected their favorite eerie images from various meteor cameras. They found everything from creepy crawlies to nocturnal visitors to a bubbling cauldron in the night sky. The NASA All-sky Fireball Network is a network of cameras set up by the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) with the goal of observing meteors brighter than the planet Venus, which are called fireballs. The collected data will be used by the MEO in constructing models of the meteoroid environment, which are important to spacecraft designers. Image credit: NASA #nasa #meteor #cameras #nightview #night #fireballs #halloween #meteroid Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
'Witch Head' Brews Baby Stars: A witch appears to be screaming out into space in this new image from NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The infrared portrait shows the Witch Head nebula, named after its resemblance to the profile of a wicked witch. Astronomers say the billowy clouds of the nebula, where baby stars are brewing, are being lit up by massive stars. Dust in the cloud is being hit with starlight, causing it to glow with infrared light, which was picked up by WISE's detectors. The Witch Head nebula is estimated to be hundreds of light-years away in the Orion constellation, just off the famous hunter's knee. WISE was recently "awakened" to hunt for asteroids in a program called NEOWISE. The reactivation came after the spacecraft was put into hibernation in 2011, when it completed two full scans of the sky, as planned. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech #witches #halloween #space #nasa #wise #infrared #nebula Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
This trio of ghostly images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the disembodied remains of dying stars called planetary nebulas. Planetary nebulas are a late stage in a sun-like star's life, when its outer layers have sloughed off and are lit up by ultraviolet light from the central star. They come in a variety of shapes, as indicated by these three spooky structures. Exposed Cranium Nebula (left) The brain-like orb called PMR 1 has been nicknamed the "Exposed Cranium" nebula by Spitzer scientists. This planetary nebula, located roughly 5,000 light-years away in the Vela constellation, is host to a hot, massive dying star that is rapidly disintegrating, losing its mass. The nebula's insides, which appear mushy and red in this view, are made up primarily of ionized gas, while the outer green shell is cooler, consisting of glowing hydrogen molecules. Ghost of Jupiter Nebula (middle) The Ghost of Jupiter, also known as NGC 3242, is located roughly 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Hydra. Spitzer's infrared view shows off the cooler outer halo of the dying star, colored here in red. Also evident are concentric rings around the object, the result of material being periodically tossed out in the star's final death throes. Little Dumbbell Nebula (right) This planetary nebula, known as NGC 650 or the Little Dumbbell, is about 2,500 light-years from Earth in the Perseus constellation. Unlike the other spherical nebulas, it has a bipolar or butterfly shape due to a "waist," or disk, of thick material, running from lower left to upper right. Fast winds blow material away from the star, above and below this dusty disk. The ghoulish green and red clouds are from glowing hydrogen molecules, with the green area being hotter than the red. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA #spitzer #space #nasa #telescope #uvlight #star Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
Curiosity's View of "Cooperstown" Outcrop on Route to Mount Sharp: The low ridge that appears as a dark band below the horizon in the center of this scene is a Martian outcrop called "Cooperstown," a possible site for contact inspection with tools on the robotic arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity. The ridge extends roughly 100 feet (about 30 meters) from left to right, and it is about 260 feet (about 80 meters) away from the location from which Curiosity captured this view. The image combines portions of two frames taken by the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on Curiosity on the 437th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission inside Gale Crater on Mars (Oct. 28, 2013). Curiosity had just completed the mission's first use of two-sol autonomous driving. It resumed autonomous driving on Sol 437 where it had left off driving on Sol 436 (Oct. 27, 2013). In autonomous driving, the rover itself chooses the best route to reach designated waypoints, using onboard analysis of stereo images that it takes during pauses in the drive. The combined two-sol drive that brought Opportunity to this vantage point, for seeing Cooperstown, covered about 410 feet (125 meters). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech #mars #solarsystem #planet #planets #curiosity #marscuriosity #nasa #marsrover #rover #redplanet #nofilter Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
NASA's Orion Spacecraft Comes to Life: Technicians are seen working inside the Orion crew module being built at Kennedy Space Center. NASA's first-ever deep space craft, Orion, has been powered on for the first time, marking a major milestone in the final year of preparations for flight. Orion's avionics system was installed on the crew module and powered up for a series of systems tests at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida last week. Preliminary data indicate Orion's vehicle management computer, as well as its innovative power and data distribution system -- which use state-of-the-art networking capabilities -- performed as expected. All of Orion's avionics systems will be put to the test during its first mission, Exploration Flight Test-1(EFT-1), targeted to launch in the fall of 2014. Image Credit: Lockheed Martin #orion #spacecraft #space #nasa #nasaorion #humansinspace Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
Sunlit Side of the Planet Mercury: Another day, another beautiful view of Mercury's horizon. In this scene, which was acquired looking from the shadows toward the sunlit side of the planet, a 120-km (75 mi.) impact crater stands out near the center. Emanating from this unnamed crater are striking chains of secondary craters, which gouged linear tracks radially away from the crater. While this crater is not especially fresh (its rays have faded into the background), it does appear to have more prominent secondary crater chains than many of its peers. This image was acquired on Oct. 2, 2013 by the Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) aboard NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, as part of the MDIS's limb imaging campaign. Once per week, MDIS captures images of Mercury's limb, with an emphasis on imaging the southern hemisphere limb. These limb images provide information about Mercury's shape and complement measurements of topography made by the Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) of Mercury's northern hemisphere. 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. During the first two years of orbital operations, MESSENGER acquired over 150,000 images and extensive other data sets. MESSENGER is capable of continuing orbital operations until early 2015. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington #solarsystem #mercury #messenger #nasa #apl #space #planets #craters Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
Hubble Tracks a Monster in the Milky Way: This image shows the star-studded center of the Milky Way towards the constellation of Sagittarius. The crowded center of our galaxy contains numerous complex and mysterious objects that are usually hidden at optical wavelengths by clouds of dust — but many are visible here in these infrared observations from Hubble. However, the most famous cosmic object in this image still remains invisible: the monster at our galaxy’s heart called Sagittarius A*. Astronomers have observed stars spinning around this supermassive black hole (located right in the center of the image), and the black hole consuming clouds of dust as it affects its environment with its enormous gravitational pull. Infrared observations can pierce through thick obscuring material to reveal information that is usually hidden to the optical observer. This is the best infrared image of this region ever taken with Hubble, and uses infrared archive data from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, taken in September 2011. Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Brammer #hubble #nasa #space #stars #star #milkyway #universe #nofilter Instagram ดารา @nasa 0
