Schlagwort: NASA

Taken near local midnight, this autumn night’s panorama follows the arch of the Milky Way across the northern horizon from the High Fens, Eifel Nature Park at the border of Belgium and Germany. Shift your gaze across the wetlands from west to east (left to right) and you can watch stars once more prominent in northern summer give way to those that will soon dominate northern winter nights. Setting, wanderer Mars is brightest at the far left, still shinning against almost overwhelming city lights along the southwestern horizon. Bright stars Altair, Deneb, and Vega form the northern sky’s summer triangle, straddling the Milky Way left of center. Part of the winter hexagon Capella and Aldebaran, along with the beautiful Pleiades star cluster shine across the northeastern sky. The line-of-sight along the hikers boardwalk leads almost directly toward the Big Dipper, an all season asterism from these northern latitudes. Follow the Big Dipper’s pointer stars to Polaris and the north celestial pole nearly centered above it. Andromeda, the other large galaxy in the skyscape, is near the top of the frame. via NASA https://ift.tt/2NP5Ml4

On Oct. 18, 1989, space shuttle Atlantis deployed NASA’s Galileo spacecraft six hours, 30 minutes into the STS-34 mission. Galileo arrived at Jupiter in December, 1995 and spent eight years in orbit around the gas giant, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit an outer planet. via NASA https://ift.tt/2CQtRXt

On October 10, a new telescope reflected the light of the setting Sun. With dark horizon above and sunset colors below, its segmented mirror inverts an image of the beautiful evening sky in this snapshot from the Roque del Los Muchachos Observatory on the Canary Island of La Palma. The mirror segments cover a 23 meter diameter and are mounted in the open structure of the Large Scale Telescope 1, inaugurated as the first component of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). Most ground-based telescopes are hindered by the atmosphere that blurs, scatters, and absorbs light. But cherenkov telescopes are designed to detect very high energy gamma rays and actually require the atmosphere to operate. As the gamma rays impact the upper atmosphere they produce air showers of high-energy particles. A large, fast camera at the common focus images the brief flashes of optical light, called Cherenkov light, created by the air shower particles. The flashes reveal the incoming gamma ray timing, direction, and energy. Ultimately more than 100 Cherenkov telescopes are planned for the CTA at locations in both northern and southern hemispheres on planet Earth. via NASA https://ift.tt/2AggvBy

This artist’s conception of the core of Cygnus A shows the dusty donut-shaped surroundings, called a torus, and jets launching from its center. via NASA https://ift.tt/2P0z3hl

Viewed from a window inside the cupola, the International Space Station’s „window to the world,“ is the Japanese Exploration Agency’s H-II Transfer Vehicle-7. via NASA https://ift.tt/2CNoDvQ

During National Hispanic Heritage Month, we’re celebrating the achievements of astronaut Ellen Ochoa and other Hispanic astronauts and professionals at NASA. Floating upside down and reading a checklist may not be how most of us perform the day’s work, but it was for Ochoa on Space Shuttle Discovery’s STS-96 mission. via NASA https://ift.tt/2yBhk5M