Latest Posts by space-little-girl-blog - Page 2

Falcon 9 prepares for first post-Shuttle era launch from Kennedy Space Center.

The first Falcon 9 rocket stands atop LC-39A Thursday evening, February 16, 2017. Preparing for a Saturday morning launch, the completed rocket and Dragon spacecraft arrived at the launch pad Friday afternoon. Over 5,000 pounds of science experiments and cargo are launching to the International Space Station on CRS-10,  the tenth of 20 missions NASA has contracted to SpaceX to deliver cargo to the orbiting laboratory. CRS-10 marks the first time a rocket has stood atop LC-39A since the final space shuttle mission in 2011, and the first uncrewed rocket atop the pad since the Skylab space station was launched in 1973. SpaceX began leasing the historic Apollo and Shuttle era launch pad in 2015 to accommodate their crewed Falcon and Falcon Heavy launches. Liftoff is scheduled for 10:01am EST February 18. SpaceX will be providing a webcast beginning at 9:50am here, as well as NASA TV coverage here. Shortly after the Dragon spacecraft is expected to reach orbit, the rocket’s first stage will attempt a landing at Landing Zone-1 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station nine miles away. P/C: SpaceX

View of a single engine orbital maneuvering system (OMS) firing on the Discovery. The payload bay is open and the protective canisters for the AUSSAT communications satellite (open) and the ASC-1 are visible. A cloudy Earth’s horizon can be seen above the orbiter … #Astronomy #Space #Spacegram #Spaceflight #Nasa #ESA #ASI #Astronaut #Universe #Cosmos #Sky #Earth #Nebula #Galaxy #Love #MarsGeneration #TheMarsGeneration #MoonColonist #Moon #Astro_Lorenzo

Asa Smith - Phases of the Moon, “Smith’s Illustrated Astronomy”, 1855.

NASA-funded Website Lets Public Search for New Nearby Worlds

NASA - NEOWISE Mission logo. Feb. 15, 2017 NASA is inviting the public to help search for possible undiscovered worlds in the outer reaches of our solar system and in neighboring interstellar space. A new website, called Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, lets everyone participate in the search by viewing brief movies made from images captured by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission. The movies highlight objects that have gradually moved across the sky.

Join the Search for New Nearby World

Video above: Join the search for new worlds in the outer reaches of our solar system and in nearby interstellar space at Backyard Worlds: Planet 9. Video Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab/Krystofer D.J. Kim. “There are just over four light-years between Neptune and Proxima Centauri, the nearest star, and much of this vast territory is unexplored,” said lead researcher Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Because there’s so little sunlight, even large objects in that region barely shine in visible light. But by looking in the infrared, WISE may have imaged objects we otherwise would have missed.” WISE scanned the entire sky between 2010 and 2011, producing the most comprehensive survey at mid-infrared wavelengths currently available. With the completion of its primary mission, WISE was shut down in 2011. It was then reactivated in 2013 and given a new mission assisting NASA’s efforts to identify potentially hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs), which are asteroids and comets on orbits that bring them into the vicinity of Earth’s orbit. The mission was renamed the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE). 

Image above: This artist’s concept illustrates a close-up view of a cool brown dwarf. Objects like this, drifting just beyond our solar system, have been imaged by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer and could be discovered by Backyard Worlds: Planet 9. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. The new website uses the data to search for unknown objects in and beyond our own solar system. In 2016, astronomers at Caltech in Pasadena, California, showed that several distant solar system objects possessed orbital features indicating they were affected by the gravity of an as-yet-undetected planet, which the researchers nicknamed “Planet Nine.” If Planet Nine — also known as Planet X — exists and is as bright as some predictions, it could show up in WISE data. The search also may discover more distant objects like brown dwarfs, sometimes called failed stars, in nearby interstellar space. “Brown dwarfs form like stars but evolve like planets, and the coldest ones are much like Jupiter,” said team member Jackie Faherty, an astronomer at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. “By using Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, the public can help us discover more of these strange rogue worlds.”

Animation above: A previously cataloged brown dwarf named WISE 0855−0714 shows up as a moving orange dot (upper left) in this loop of WISE images spanning five years. By viewing movies like this, anyone can help discover more of these objects. Animation Credits: NASA/WISE. Unlike more distant objects, those in or closer to the solar system appear to move across the sky at different rates. The best way to discover them is through a systematic search of moving objects in WISE images. While parts of this search can be done by computers, machines are often overwhelmed by image artifacts, especially in crowded parts of the sky. These include brightness spikes associated with star images and blurry blobs caused by light scattered inside WISE’s instruments. Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 relies on human eyes because we easily recognize the important moving objects while ignoring the artifacts. It’s a 21st-century version of the technique astronomer Clyde Tombaugh used to find Pluto in 1930, a discovery made 87 years ago this week. On the website, people around the world can work their way through millions of “flipbooks,” which are brief animations showing how small patches of the sky changed over several years. Moving objects flagged by participants will be prioritized by the science team for follow-up observations by professional astronomers. Participants will share credit for their discoveries in any scientific publications that result from the project. “Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 has the potential to unlock once-in-a-century discoveries, and it’s exciting to think they could be spotted first by a citizen scientist,” said team member Aaron Meisner, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in analyzing WISE images.

NEOWISE spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA

Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 is a collaboration between NASA, UC Berkeley, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Arizona State University, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and Zooniverse, a collaboration of scientists, software developers and educators who collectively develop and manage citizen science projects on the internet. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages and operates WISE for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The WISE mission was selected competitively under NASA’s Explorers Program managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah. The spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech, which manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, visit: http://backyardworlds.org For more information about NASA’s WISE mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/wise Related links: NEOWISE: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/neowise/main/index.html Zooniverse: https://www.zooniverse.org/ Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, by Francis Reddy/Rob Garner. Greetings, Orbiter.ch Full article

Date a person who likes the stars

Bright Spiral Galaxy M81 : One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earths sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful M81. The grand spiral galaxy can be found toward the northern constellation of the Great Bear . This superbly detailed image reveals M81s bright yellow nucleus, blue spiral arms, tell tale pinkish star forming regions, and sweeping cosmic dust lanes with a scale comparable to the Milky Way. Hinting at a disorderly past, a remarkable dust lane actually runs straight through the disk, to the left of the galactic center, contrary to M81s other prominent spiral features. The errant dust lane may be the lingering result of a close encounter between between M81 and its smaller companion galaxy, M82. Scrutiny of variable stars in M81 has yielded one of the best determined distances for an external galaxy 11.8 million light-years. M81s dwarf companion galaxy Holmberg IX can be seen just above the large spiral. via NASA

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All these wars, famines and injustice, everything at this point…!

Saturn and Mars visit Milky Way Star Clouds : Planets, stars, nebulas and a galaxy this impressive image has them all. Closest to home are the two planets Mars , visible as the two bright orange spots in the upper half of the featured image. On the central right are the colorful Rho Ophiuchus star clouds featuring the bright orange star Antares lined up below Mars. These interstellar clouds contain both red emission nebulas and blue reflection nebulas. At the top right of the image is the Blue Horsehead reflection nebula. On the lower left are many dark absorption nebulas that extend from the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. The featured deep composite was composed of multiple deep exposures taken last month from Brazil. Although you need a telescope to see the nebulosities, Saturn and Mars will remain visible to the unaided eye this month toward the east, just after sunset. via NASA

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The Dark Side of Pluto : NASAs New Horizons spacecraft took this stunning image of Pluto only a few minutes after closest approach on July 14, 2015. The image was obtained at a high phase angle that is, with the sun on the other side of Pluto, as viewed by New Horizons. Seen here, sunlight filters through and illuminates Plutos complex atmospheric haze layers.

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Our Most “Liked” Instagram Posts of 2016

Our Instagram page has over 1,800 images and is lucky enough to be followed by more than 18 million fans.

What images and videos were your favorite from this past year? Great question, and one we asked ourselves too! 

Here’s a look at our most liked Instagram posts* of 2016…Enjoy!

#10

Colorful “last hurrah’ of a star: The Hubble Space Telescope shows off the colorful “last hurrah” of a star like our sun. The star is ending its life by casting off its outer layers of gas, which formed a cocoon around the star’s remaining core. With 513,672 likes, this image is our 10th most liked of 2016.

#9

Vivid glowing auroras in Jupiter’s atmosphere! Astronomers are using the Hubble Space Telescope to study auroras – stunning light shows in a planet’s atmosphere – on the poles of the largest planet in the solar system. This image ranks #9 for 2016 with 515,339 likes.

#8

Astronomers found evidence for what is likely one of the most extreme pulsars, or rotating neutron stars, ever detected. The source exhibits properties of a highly magnetized neutron star, or magnetar, yet its deduced spin period is thousands of times longer than any pulsar ever observed. With 517,995 likes, this picture ranks #8 for 2016.

#7

Fiery South Atlantic Sunset! An astronaut aboard the International Space Station photographed a sunset that looks like a vast sheet of flame. With Earth’s surface already in darkness, the setting sun, the cloud masses, and the sideways viewing angle make a powerful image of the kind that astronauts use to commemorate their flights. This image ranks #7 for 2016 with 520,553 likes.

#6

Go floating! Join us for a fly-through of the International Space Station! This footage was shot using a fisheye lens for extreme focus and depth of field. This video ranks as our sixth most liked Instagram post of 2016 with 541,418 likes.

#5

This #BlackFriday post helped us celebrate our 4th annual #BlackHoleFriday! Each year we pose awesome content about black holes on the Black Friday shopping holiday. A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out. With 549,910 likes, this image ranks #5 for 2016.

#4

A cluster of young stars – about one to two million years old – located about 20,000 light years from Earth. Data in visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope (green and blue) reveal thick clouds where the stars are forming. This image ranks #4 for 2016 with 573,002 likes.

#3

Supermoon is a spectacular sight! The Nov. 14 supermoon was especially “super” because it was the closest full moon to Earth since 1948. We won’t see another supermoon like this until 2034. Which might have something to do with this image ranking #3 for 2016 with 695,343 likes.

#2

Supermoon seen from space! Aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson posted this image on Dec. 14 captured by European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet. This stunning image ranks #2 for 2016 with 704,530 likes.

#1

It’s a bird, it’s a plane…no, it’s a #supermoon! The moon, or supermoon, is seen rising behind the Soyuz rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad in Kazakhstan ahead of the November crew launch to the International Space Station. This photo was our #1 image of 2016 with 746,981 likes.

Thanks for joining us as we traveled through the space events of 2016. We’re looking forward to all of the interstellar fun that 2017 will bring. Happy Holidays!

Do you want to get amazing images of Earth from space, see distant galaxies and more on Instagram? Of course you do! Follow us: https://www.instagram.com/nasa/

*Posts and rankings are were taken as of Dec. 21, 2016.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Be humble for you are made of Earth. Be noble for you are made of stars.

Serbian proverb

(via the-wolf-and-moon)

NASA’s Best Photographs of 2016

Apollo 9

Space Shuttle Discovery STS-133

Credit: NASA / GSFC / Rebecca Roth

This is a real, unprocessed photo from Cassini spacecraft.

Keep reading

Star Bubble

Hubble Sees Spiral in Andromeda

NASA - Hubble Space Telescope patch. Feb. 10, 2017

The Andromeda constellation is one of the 88 modern constellations and should not be confused with our neighboring Andromeda Galaxy. The Andromeda constellation is home to the pictured galaxy known as NGC 7640. Many different classifications are used to identify galaxies by shape and structure — NGC 7640 is a barred spiral type. These are recognizable by their spiral arms, which fan out not from a circular core, but from an elongated bar cutting through the galaxy’s center. Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is also a barred spiral galaxy. NGC 7640 might not look much like a spiral in this image, but this is due to the orientation of the galaxy with respect to Earth — or to Hubble, which acted as photographer in this case! We often do not see galaxies face on, which can make features such as spiral arms less obvious. There is evidence that NGC 7640 has experienced some kind of interaction in its past. Galaxies contain vast amounts of mass, and therefore affect one another via gravity. Sometimes these interactions can be mild, and sometimes hugely dramatic, with two or more colliding and merging into a new, bigger galaxy. Understanding the history of a galaxy, and what interactions it has experienced, helps astronomers to improve their understanding of how galaxies — and the stars within them — form. For images and more information about Hubble, visit: http://hubblesite.org/ http://www.nasa.gov/hubble http://www.spacetelescope.org/ Image, Text, Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA/Text Credits: European Space Agency/NASA/Karl Hille. Best regards, Orbiter.ch Full article