NASA will air the final test Wednesday, Sept. 12, of the parachute system for its Orion spacecraft, which will carry astronauts to the Moon and beyond.
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Hurricane Florence Viewed from the Space Station
Astronaut Ricky Arnold, from aboard the International Space Station, shared this image of Hurricane Florence on Sept. 10, taken as the orbiting laboratory flew over the massive storm. via NASA https://ift.tt/2CFemSZ
NASA Astronaut Nick Hague Available for Interviews Before First Spaceflight
NASA astronaut Nick Hague will be available at 7 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, Sept. 19, for live satellite interviews from Russia before he launches to the International Space Station on his first spaceflight in October.
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Curiosity Vista from Vera Rubin Ridge
If you could stand on Mars — what might you see? If you were NASA’s Curiosity rover, just last month you would have seen the view from Vera Rubin Ridge, an intriguing rock-strewn perch on the side of Mount Sharp. In the featured 360-degree panorama, you can spin around and take in the vista from all directions, in many browsers, just by pointing or tilting. In this virtual reality view, many instruments on the rover are labelled, including antennas, the robotic arm, and the radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG). Dark sand and light rock cover the ground nearby in a mixture called lakebed mudstone. Towering Mount Sharp is only barely visible in the distance due to airborne dust from a planet-wide storm just winding down. Among its many discoveries, Curiosity has found that the raw ingredients for life are present on Mars. Next on Mars will be NASA’s Insight, on target to land in late November, which is scheduled to deploy a seismometer to better study the interior of the red planet. via NASA https://ift.tt/2oVTpcY
M1: The Crab Nebula from Hubble
This is the mess that is left when a star explodes. The Crab Nebula, the result of a supernova seen in 1054 AD, is filled with mysterious filaments. The filaments are not only tremendously complex, but appear to have less mass than expelled in the original supernova and a higher speed than expected from a free explosion. The featured image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, is presented in three colors chosen for scientific interest. The Crab Nebula spans about 10 light-years. In the nebula’s very center lies a pulsar: a neutron star as massive as the Sun but with only the size of a small town. The Crab Pulsar rotates about 30 times each second. via NASA https://ift.tt/2NXDR35
Real Time Perseid
Bright meteors and dark night skies made this year’s Perseid meteor shower a great time for a weekend campout. And while packing away their equipment, skygazers at a campsite in the mountains of southern Germany found at least one more reason to linger under the stars, witnessing this brief but colorful flash with their own eyes. Presented as a 50 frame gif, the two second long video was captured during the morning twilight of August 12. In real time it shows the development of the typical green train of a bright Perseid meteor. A much fainter Perseid is just visible farther to the right. Plowing through Earth’s atmosphere at 60 kilometers per second, Perseids are fast enough to excite the characteristic green emission of atomic oxygen at altitudes of 100 kilometers or so. via NASA https://ift.tt/2wW3dYE
Colorado Students to Speak with Astronauts on International Space Station
High school students in Fort Collins, Colorado, will talk live with a NASA astronaut currently living and working aboard the International Space Station Wednesday, Sept. 12, as part of NASA’s Year of Education on Station.
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Bright Spots On Ceres
Bright surface features on the dwarf planet Ceres known as faculae were first discovered by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft in 2015. via NASA https://ift.tt/2Me8LCU
Saturn s North Polar Hexagon
In full view, the amazing six-sided jet stream known as Saturn’s north polar hexagon is shown in this colorful Cassini image. Extending to 70 degrees north latitude, the false-color video frame is map-projected, based on infrared, visible, and ultraviolet image data recorded by the Saturn-orbiting spacecraft in late 2012. First found in the outbound Voyager flyby images from the 1980s, the bizarre, long-lived feature tied to the planet’s rotation is about 30,000 kilometers across. At its center lies the ringed gas giant’s hurricane-like north polar storm. A new long term study of Cassini data has found a remarkable higher-altitude vortex, exactly matching the outlines of the north polar hexagon, that formed as summer approached the planet’s northern hemisphere. It appears to reach hundreds of kilometers above these deeper cloud tops, into Saturn’s stratosphere. via NASA https://ift.tt/2Q6nP8y
NASA Television to Air Launch, Capture of Japanese Cargo Ship to Space Station
A Japanese cargo ship loaded with more than five tons of supplies, water, spare parts and experiments is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station at 6:32 p.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 10 (7:32 a.m. Sept. 11 in Japan). Live coverage of the launch and capture will air on NASA Television and the agency’s website.
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