Schlagwort: NASA

Over a mere four days this summer, snow from the previous winter melted into a pond of slush a glaciologist called a “snow swamp.” via NASA https://ift.tt/2NoPJhB

A truck sprays water to reduce the dust as NASA’s crawler-transporter 2 with the mobile launcher atop moves slowly along, on its trek to Launch Pad 39B. via NASA https://ift.tt/2NRaWh0

What do spiral galaxies look like sideways? Featured is a sharp telescopic view of a magnificent edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3628, a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this deep galactic portrait puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, The Hamburger Galaxy. The tantalizing island universe is about 100,000 light-years across and 35 million light-years away in the northern springtime constellation Leo. NGC 3628 shares its neighborhood in the local Universe with two other large spirals M65 and M66 in a grouping otherwise known as the Leo Triplet. Gravitational interactions with its cosmic neighbors are likely responsible for the extended flare and warp of this spiral’s disk. via NASA https://ift.tt/2wHNYmi

Long, narrow clouds, known as ship tracks, stood out against the backdrop of marine clouds blanketing much of the North Pacific Ocean. via NASA https://ift.tt/2PxiKFk

What’s happened to the Moon? Nothing, but something has happened to the image of the Moon. The heat from a volcanic lava fountain in the foreground has warmed and made turbulent the air nearby, causing passing light to refract differently than usual. The result is a lava plume that appears to be melting the Moon. The featured picture was taken as the full Sturgeon Moon was setting behind Mt. Etna as it erupted in Italy about one week ago. The picture is actually a composite of two images, one taken right after the other, with the same camera and lens. The first image was a quick exposure to capture details of the setting Moon, while the second exposure, taken after the Moon set a few minutes later, was longer so as to capture details of the faint lava jets. From our Earth, we can only see the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars as they appear through the distortion of the Earth’s atmosphere. This distortion can not only change the images of familiar orbs into unusual shapes, it can –unexpectedly at times — delay sunset and moonset by several minutes. via NASA https://ift.tt/2LUCrEP

Are Saturn’s auroras like Earth’s? To help answer this question, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Cassini spacecraft monitored Saturn’s North Pole simultaneously during Cassini’s final orbits around the gas giant in September 2017. During this time, Saturn’s tilt caused its North Pole to be clearly visible from Earth. The featured image is a composite of ultraviolet images of aurora and optical images of Saturn’s clouds and rings, all taken recently by Hubble. Like on Earth, Saturn’s northern auroras can make total or partial rings around the pole. Unlike on Earth, however, Saturn’s auroras are frequently spirals — and more likely to peak in brightness just before midnight and dawn. In contrast to Jupiter’s auroras, Saturn’s auroras appear better related to connecting Saturn’s internal magnetic field to the nearby, variable, solar wind. Saturn’s southern auroras were similarly imaged back in 2004 when the planet’s South Pole was clearly visible to Earth. via NASA https://ift.tt/2NIcNox

It was one of the most powerful solar flares in recorded history. Occurring in 2003 and seen across the electromagnetic spectrum, the Sun briefly became over 100 times brighter in X-rays than normal. The day after this tremendous X 17 solar flare — and subsequent Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) — energetic particles emitted from the explosions struck the Earth, creating auroras and affecting satellites. The spacecraft that took these frames — SOHO — was put in a turtle-like safe mode to avoid further damage from this and subsequent solar particle storms. The featured time-lapse movie condenses into 10 seconds events that occurred over 4 hours. The CME, visible around the central sun-shade, appears about three-quarters of the way through the video, while frames toward the very end are progressively noisier as protons from the explosions strike SOHO’s LASCO detector. One this day in 1859, the effects of an even more powerful solar storm caused telegraphs on Earth to spark in what is known as the Carrington Event. Powerful solar storms such as these may create beautiful aurora-filled skies, but they also pose a real danger as they can damage satellites and even power grids across the Earth. via NASA https://ift.tt/2NEaX8a