Astrosciencechick

OSIRIS-REx arrived at asteroid Bennu this week! It will stay in orbit to do a complete survey of the asteroid. But even cooler, it will get so close to the surface it will touch Bennu briefly and use a puff of hydrogen to dislodge surface material, that it will then collect. After that, OSIRIS-REx heads back to Earth to deliver the sample!

Here is a really cool video on how this little orbiter got to Bennu and detailing its mission.

https://youtu.be/NYGHbl_esgw

NGC 3576, Statue of Liberty Nebula

This year’s winners of Nobel Prize for Physics includes a woman! 🎉🎊

Her name is Donna Strickland. Together with Arthur Ashkin, and Gérard Mourou, they are awarded the Nobel Prize “for their groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics” which help open up doors for potential research in biomedical physics.

[The announcement comes one day after a senior scientist with Cern, the academic home to a number of Nobel prize winners, was suspended for saying that physics was invented and built by men.

“We need to celebrate women physicists because we’re out there. I’m honored to be one of those women,” Strickland said in a news conference following the announcement in Stockholm.

Speaking about being the third woman to ever win the award, she said she thought there might have been more, adding: “Hopefully in time it will start to move forward at a faster rate.”]

Source

This mosaic image from the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens spacecraft is centered at 9 degrees north latitude, 254 degrees west longitude. The image was acquired at a distance of about 57,800 km from Rhea.

Image credit: NASA/JPL

Celestial Buddy Earth peers out at Mother Earth from the ISS after hitching a ride on this weeks SpaceX Dragon test flight

Central Cygnus Skyscape via NASA https://ift.tt/2vgpcsn

[OC] Nine Merlin engines bloom at high altitude as SpaceX Falcon9 streaks across the night sky