The Launch Of The Space Shuttle EndeavourAfter a one-day delay due to clouds, space shuttle Endeavour launched at 4:14 a.m. EST Monday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with a new module and an attached cupola for the International Space Station that should increase human understanding of our home planet. It was the last scheduled night launch in shuttle program history. GET THEFULL STORY AND MORE PHOTOS IN THE MANNED SPACEFLIGHT SECTION - CLICK READ MORE BELOW AND THEN SELECT THE SPACE SHUTTLE SLIDE SHOW Photo Credit: NASA
Endeavour Ready For LaunchThe rotating service structure surrounding the space shuttle Endeavour was retracted this morning. First motion occurred at 7:58 AM EST and retraction was completed about 20 minutes later clearing the way for tanking this evening. Launch remains on target for 4:39 AM EST. MORE PHOTOS AND A FULL UPDATE IS AVAILABLE IN THE MANNED SPACEFLIGHT SECTION - CLICK READ MORE BELOW AND SELECT THE SPACE SHUTTLE SLIDE SHOW Photo credit Keith Rudroff
NASA, GM Take Giant Leap in Robotic TechnologyNASA and General Motors are working together to accelerate development of the next generation of robots and related technologies for use in the automotive and aerospace industries. Robonaut2 – or R2 for short – is the next generation dexterous robot, developed through a Space Act Agreement by NASA and General Motors. Credit: NASA. GET THE FULL STORY IN THE ROBOTIC SPACEFLIGHT SECTION - CLICK READ MORE BELOW Credit: NASA
New Hubble Maps of Pluto Show Surface ChangesThis is the most detailed view to date of the entire surface of the dwarf planet Pluto, as constructed from multiple NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken from 2002 to 2003. The center disk (180 degrees) has a mysterious bright spot that is unusually rich in carbon monoxide frost. Pluto is so small and distant that the task of resolving the surface is as challenging as trying to see the markings on a soccer ball 40 miles away. GET THE FULL STORY IN THE ROBOTIC SPACEFLIGHT SECTION CLICK READ MORE BELOW Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Buie (Southwest Research Institute). Photo No. STScI-PR10-06a
Proba 2 Captures Annular EclipseAnnular solar eclipse on 15 January 2010 observed by the Sun-imaging SWAP (Sun Watcher using APS detectors and imaging processing) instrument on ESA's Proba-2. This is the same solar eclipse observed on the ground from Africa and Asia, the longest eclipse of the new millennium. It is termed 'annular' because the Moon is further away from the Earth than during a total eclipse, so only part of the Sun is covered. MORE ON PROBA 2 CAN BE FOUND IN THE ROBOTIC SPACEFLIGHT SECTION. CLICK READ MORE BELOW Credits: ESA/ROB
Prometheus: Over EasyLooking for all intents and purposes like a celestial egg after a session in Saturn's skillet, Prometheus displayed its pockmarked, irregular surface for NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Jan. 27, 2010. Prometheus is one of Saturn's innermost moons. It orbits the gas-giant at a distance of 139,353 kilometers (85,590 miles) and is 86 kilometers (53 miles) across at its widest point. The porous, icy-bodied world was originally discovered by images taken by Voyager 1 back in 1980. You could say this latest "egg-cellent" view has the Cassini science team licking their chops at the thought of future Prometheus images. This raw, unprocessed image of Prometheus [pro-MEE-thee-us] , taken in visible light, was obtained by Cassini's narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 36,000 kilometers (23,000 miles). The Cassini Equinox Mission is a joint United States and European endeavor. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. Photo Credit: JPL
Galaxy Cluster Has Two 'Tails' to TellTwo spectacular tails of X-ray emission have been seen trailing behind a galaxy using the Chandra X-ray Observatory. A composite image of the galaxy cluster Abell 3627 shows X-rays from Chandra in blue, optical emission in yellow and emission from hydrogen light -- known to astronomers as 'H-alpha' -- in red. The optical and H-alpha data were obtained with the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope in Chile. At the front of the tail is the galaxy ESO 137-001. The brighter of the two tails has been seen before and extends for about 260,000 light years. The detection of the second, fainter tail, however, was a surprise to the scientists. The X-ray tails were created when cool gas from ESO 137-001 (with a temperature of about ten degrees above absolute zero) was stripped by hot gas (about 100 million degrees) as it travels towards the center of the galaxy cluster Abell 3627. What astronomers observe with Chandra is essentially the evaporation of the cold gas, which glows at a temperature of about 10 million degrees. Evidence of gas with temperatures between 100 and 1,000 degrees Kelvin in the tail was also found with the Spitzer Space Telescope. Galaxy clusters are collections of hundreds or even thousands of galaxies held together by gravity that are enveloped in hot gas. The two-pronged tail in this system may have formed because gas has been stripped from the two major spiral arms in ESO 137-001. The stripping of gas is thought to have a significant effect on galaxy evolution, removing cold gas from the galaxy, shutting down the formation of new stars in the galaxy, and changing the appearance of inner spiral arms and bulges because of the effects of star formation. Image Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UVa/M. Sun et al; H-alpha/Optical: SOAR/MSU/NOAO/UNC/CNPq-Brazil/M.Sun et al.
On the Trail of a Cosmic Cateso1003 - Photo Release Translations: On the Trail of a Cosmic Cat 20 January 2010 Click to Enlarge ESO has just released a stunning new image of the vast cloud known as the Cat’s Paw Nebula or NGC 6334. This complex region of gas and dust, where numerous massive stars are born, lies near the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, and is heavily obscured by intervening dust clouds. Few objects in the sky have been as well named as the Cat’s Paw Nebula, a glowing gas cloud resembling the gigantic pawprint of a celestial cat out on an errand across the Universe. British astronomer John Herschel first recorded NGC 6334 in 1837 during his stay in South Africa. Despite using one of the largest telescopes in the world at the time, Herschel seems to have only noted the brightest part of the cloud, seen here towards the lower left. NGC 6334 lies about 5500 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Scorpius (the Scorpion) and covers an area on the sky slightly larger than the full Moon. The whole gas cloud is about 50 light-years across. The nebula appears red because its blue and green light are scattered and absorbed more efficiently by material between the nebula and Earth. The red light comes predominantly from hydrogen gas glowing under the intense glare of hot young stars. NGC 6334 is one of the most active nurseries of massive stars in our galaxy and has been extensively studied by astronomers. The nebula conceals freshly minted brilliant blue stars — each nearly ten times the mass of our Sun and born in the last few million years. The region is also home to many baby stars that are buried deep in the dust, making them difficult to study. In total, the Cat’s Paw Nebula could contain several tens of thousands of stars. Particularly striking is the red, intricate bubble in the lower right part of the image. This is most likely either a star expelling large amount of matter at high speed as it nears the end of its life or the remnant of a star that already has exploded. This new portrait of the Cat’s Paw Nebula was created from images taken with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) instrument at the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, combining images taken through blue, green and red filters, as well as a special filter designed to let through the light of glowing hydrogen. Photo Credit: ESO
ATV “Johannes Kepler” put through its paces“Johannes Kepler”, the second unmanned European cargo spacecraft for the International Space Station (ISS), is currently undergoing its first flightworthiness and functionality tests as a fully integrated unit at the Astrium facility in Bremen. Preparations for the final system tests are running at full capacity. The delivery date for “Johannes Kepler” has been slated for November 2010. On behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA), Astrium is responsible for both the development and production of the ATVs. The production of ATV units two to five, as well as mission preparation and operations support, is covered by the contract which governs the operation and provision of European components to the ISS. Astrium is responsible for carrying out these activities on behalf of ESA. This photo shows Johannes Kepler's cargo compartment. A FULL REPORT AND MORE PHOTOS CAN BE FOUND IN THE3 MANNED SPACEFLIGHT SECTION OF THIS SITE. CLICK READ MORE BELOW AND THEN SELECT THE ISS SLIDE SHOW Photo Credit: Astrium
Expedition 23 Crew Traines In MoscowRoscosmos cosmonauts A. Borisenko and A. Samokutyaev are seen here inspecting the cargo module of one of the Progress space freighters that will visit them once they are launched to the International Space Station. The cosmonauts were in Moscow training for their upcomming mission. Photo Credit: Energia
Rover Gives NASA an "Opportunity" to View Interior of MarsNASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity examined a rock called "Marquette Island" from mid-November 2009 until mid-January 2010. Studies of texture and composition suggest that this rock, not much bigger than a basketball, originated deep inside the Martian crust. A crater-digging impact could have excavated the rock and thrown it a long distance, to where Opportunity found it along the rover's long trek across the Meridiani plain toward Endeavour Crater. This approximately true-color view of Marquette Island comes from combining three exposures that Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam) took through different filters during the rover's 2,117th Martian day, or sol, on Mars (Jan. 6, 2010). On the preceding sol, Opportunity's rock abrasion tool brushed dust out of the circular area where that tool had ground into the rock on sols 2100 and 2103 (Dec. 20 and 23, 2009). The dark circle left by the rock abrasion tool's work is approximately 5 centimeters (2 inches) in diameter. GET THE FULL STORY IN THE ROBOTIC SPACEFLIGHT SECTION. CLICK READ MORE BELOW Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell
China launches third orbiter for indigenous global satellite navigation system An orbiter is launched by a Long-March-3III carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province, Jan. 17, 2010. It was the third orbiter that China has launched for its independent satellite navigation and positioning network, also known as Beidou, or Compass system. GET THE FULL STORY IN THE COMMERCIAL SPACEFLIGHT SECTION. CLICK READ MORE BELOW (Xinhua/Qian Xian'an)
Fault Responsible for Haiti Quake Slices Island's TopographyA magnitude 7.0 earthquake occurred on January 12, 2010, at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with major impact to the region and its citizens. This perspective view of the pre-quake topography of the area clearly shows the fault that is apparently responsible for the earthquake as a prominent linear landform immediately adjacent to the city. Elevation is color coded from dark green at low elevations to white at high elevations, and the topography is shaded with illumination from the left. The topography in this image is exaggerated by a factor of two. The sharp diagonal line exactly at the image center is the Enriquillo fault. Port-au-Prince is immediately to the left (north) at the mountain front and shoreline. The Enriquillo fault generally moves left-laterally (horizontally, with features across the fault shifting to the left when the fault breaks in an earthquake), but vertical movements occur along the fault where irregularities in the fault line cause local compression or extension of the earth. Meanwhile, movements of the topography at the Earth's surface can falsely appear to be vertical where mountain slopes are cut and misaligned by horizontal shifts of the fault. Additionally, differing erosion rates on the two sides of the fault, due to the juxtapositioning of differing rock types by the fault, can give the appearance of vertical offsets of the current topographic surface. All of these real and apparent horizontal and vertical offsets of the topographic surface may (and likely do) occur here, making the fault easily observed in the topographic data. The elevation data used in this image were produced by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), flown aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in February 2000. SRTM acquired elevation measurements for nearly all of Earth's landmass between 60 degrees North and 56 degrees South latitudes. For many areas of the world, SRTM data provide the first detailed three dimensional observation of landforms at regional scales. The mission was a cooperative project between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), and the German and Italian space agencies. It was managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. View Width: One degree latitude (111 kilometers, or 69 miles) View Distance: Five degrees longitude (525 kilometers, or 325 miles) Location: 18 to 19 degrees North latitude, 70 to 75 degrees West longitude Orientation: View east, 5 degrees below horizontal SRTM Data Acquired: February 2000 Image Credit: NASA/JPL/NGA
Resumed Mars Orbiter Observations Yield Stunning ViewsDunes of sand-sized materials have been trapped on the floors of many Martian craters. This is one example, from a crater in Noachis Terra, west of the giant Hellas impact basin. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this view on Dec. 28, 2009. The dunes here are linear, thought to be due to shifting wind directions. In places, each dune is remarkably similar to adjacent dunes, including a reddish (or dust colored) band on northeast-facing slopes. Large angular boulders litter the floor between dunes. The most extensive linear dune fields know in the solar system are on Saturn's large moon Titan. Titan has a very different environment and composition, so at meter-scale resolution they probably are very different from Martian dunes. This image covers a swath of ground about 1.2 kilometers (three-fourth of a mile) wide, centered at 42.7 degrees south latitude, 38.0 degrees east longitude. It is one product from HiRISE observation ESP_016036_1370. The season on Mars is southern-hemisphere autumn. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the HiRISE camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona