Scott Kelly Prepares For a Spacewalk

 

Expedition 45 Commander Scott Kelly tries on his spacesuit inside the U.S. Quest airlock of the International Space Station. Kelly and Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren will venture outside the station for a pair of spacewalks, the first of their careers, on Wednesday, Oct. 28 and Friday, Nov. 6.

The Oct. 28 spacewalk is set to last six hours and 30 minutes after Kelly and Lindgren set their spacesuits to battery power. It will be the 32nd U.S. spacewalk, and will focus on station upgrades and maintenance tasks, including installing a thermal cover on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which is a state-of-the-art particle physics detector that has been attached to the station since 2011. NASA TV coverage will begin at 6:30 a.m. EDT.

Sharing this photograph of the spacesuit fit check with his social media followers, Kelly wrote, "Day 212 Getting my game face on for #spacewalk Thanks for sticking w me #GoodNight from @space_station! #YearInSpace"

Image Credit: NASA

Last Updated: Oct. 27, 2015

Editor: Sarah Loff

Oct. 5, 1984, Launch of History-Making STS-41G Mission

 

A Florida dawn scene on Oct. 5, 1984 forms the backdrop for the climbing Space Shuttle Challenger, its two solid rocket boosters and external fuel tank, launched on the eight-day STS-41G mission. The scene was photographed by astronaut Paul J. Weitz, who was piloting the Shuttle training aircraft (STA). Crewed by Robert L. Crippen, Commander; Jon A. McBride, Pilot; Mission Specialists Kathryn D. Sullivan (now NOAA administrator), Sally K. Ride, David C. Leestma and Payload Specialists Marc Garneau of the Canadian Space Agency and Paul D. Scully-Power, the mission’s objectives included the deployment of the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite and the demonstration of the Orbital Refueling System by Sullivan and Leestma during a spacewalk. On this mission, Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk. Marc Garneau became the first Canadian astronaut to fly to space. The shuttle's crew of seven was the largest ever to fly on a single spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts. STS-41G completed 132 orbits of the Earth in 197.5 hours, before landing at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on Oct. 13. Image Credit: NASA Last Updated: Oct. 5, 2015 Editor: Sarah Loff http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/oct-5-1984-launch-of-history-making-sts-41g-mission

The Nile at night

 

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, recently past the halfway mark of his one-year mission to the International Space Station, photographed the Nile River during a nighttime flyover on Sept. 22, 2015. Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) wrote, "Day 179. The #Nile at night is a beautiful sight for these sore eyes. Good night from@space_station! #YearInSpace."

 

Image Credit: NASA

Last Updated: Sept. 25, 2015

Editor: Sarah Loff

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-nile-at-night

Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant

 

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago.

Called the Veil Nebula, the debris is one of the best-known supernova remnants, deriving its name from its delicate, draped filamentary structures. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan.

This view is a mosaic of six Hubble pictures of a small area roughly two light-years across, covering only a tiny fraction of the nebula’s vast structure.

This close-up look unveils wisps of gas, which are all that remain of what was once a star 20 times more massive than our sun. The fast-moving blast wave from the ancient explosion is plowing into a wall of cool, denser interstellar gas, emitting light. The nebula lies along the edge of a large bubble of low-density gas that was blown into space by the dying star prior to its self-detonation.

Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team

Last Updated: Sept. 24, 2015

Editor: Sarah Loff

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/veil-nebula-supernova-remnant

Clear skies over the United States

 

 

On Sept. 17, 2015, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly captured images and video from the International Space Station during an early morning flyover of the United States. Sharing with his social media followers, Kelly wrote, "Clear skies over much of the USA today. #GoodMorning from @Space_Station! #YearInSpace."

Tuesday, Sept. 15 marked the midpoint of the one-year mission to the space station for Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. The average International Space Station expedition lasts four to six months. Research enabled by the one-year mission will help scientists better understand how the human body reacts and adapts to long-duration spaceflight. This knowledge is critical as NASA looks toward human missions deeper into the solar system, including to and from Mars, which could last 500 days or longer.

Image Credit: NASA

Last Updated: Sep. 18, 2015

Editor: Sarah Loff

 

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/clear-skies-over-the-united-states

Gaue Crater - Ceres

 

NASA's Dawn Spacecraft took this image of Gaue crater, the large crater on the bottom, on Ceres. Gaue is a Germanic goddess to whom offerings are made in harvesting rye.

The center of this crater is sunken in. Its diameter is 84 kilometers (52 miles). The resolution of the image is 450 feet (140 meters) per pixel.

The image was taken from a distance of 915 miles (1,470 kilometers) on August 18, 2015.

Dawn's mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK, Inc., in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team. For a complete list of acknowledgments, see http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission.

For more information about the Dawn mission, visit http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Image Credit:

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Last Updated: Aug. 25, 2015

Editor: Tony Greicius

Hubble Peers into the Heart of a Galactic Maelstrom

 

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows Messier 96, a spiral galaxy just over 35 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo (The Lion). It is of about the same mass and size as the Milky Way. It was first discovered by astronomer Pierre Méchain in 1781, and added to Charles Messier’s famous catalogue of astronomical objects just four days later.
The galaxy resembles a giant maelstrom of glowing gas, rippled with dark dust that swirls inwards towards the nucleus. Messier 96 is a very asymmetric galaxy; its dust and gas are unevenly spread throughout its weak spiral arms, and its core is not exactly at the galactic center. Its arms are also asymmetrical, thought to have been influenced by the gravitational pull of other galaxies within the same group as Messier 96.
This group, named the M96 Group, also includes the bright galaxies Messier 105 and Messier 95, as well as a number of smaller and fainter galaxies. It is the nearest group containing both bright spirals and a bright elliptical galaxy (Messier 105).

Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA and the LEGUS Team, Acknowledgement: R. Gendler
Text credit: European Space Agency

Last Updated: Sep. 4, 2015

Editor: Ashley Morrow

Good morning from the International Space Station

 

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly), currently on a year-long mission on the International Space Station, took this photograph of a sunrise and posted it to social media on Aug. 10, 2015. Kelly wrote, "#GoodMorning to those in the western #USA. Looks like there's a lot going on down there. #YearInSpace"

The space station and its crew orbit Earth from an altitude of 220 miles, traveling at a speed of approximately 17,500 miles per hour. Because the station completes each trip around the globe in about 92 minutes, the crew experiences 16 sunrises and sunsets each day.

Image Credit: NASA

Last Updated: Aug. 11, 2015

Editor: Sarah Loff

 

Algae Bloom in Lake St. Clair

 

On July 28, 2015, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite captured images of algal blooms around the Great Lakes, visible as swirls of green in this image of Lake St. Clair and in western Lake Erie.

Earlier in July, NOAA scientists predicted that the 2015 season for harmful algal blooms would be severe in western Lake Erie. They suggest that algae growth in western Lake Erie could rival the blooms of 2011. Algae in this basin thrive when there is an abundance of nutrients (many from agricultural runoff) and sunlight, as well as warm water temperatures. The season runs through summer and peaks in September.

Research confirmed that in 2011, phosphorus from farm runoff combined with favorable weather and lake conditions to produce a bloom three times larger than previously observed. The researchers noted that if land management practices and climate change trends continue, the lake is likely to see more blooms like the 2011 event.

Harmful algal blooms can lead to fish kills. They also can affect the safety of water for recreation and for consumption (as was the case in Toledo, Ohio, and southeast Michigan during a 2014 bloom). As of July 30, 2015, drinking water was reported to be safe in these areas.

In April 2015, NASA and several partners announced a new multi-agency effort to develop an early warning indicator for harmful algal blooms in fresh water. The system is expected to make ocean color satellite imagery more easily available to environmental and water quality managers.

More information and annotated images: NASA Earth Observatory

Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey
Caption: Kathryn Hansen

Last Updated: Aug. 4, 2015

Editor: Sarah Loff

Blue Moon over Washington

 

July 23, 1999, Chandra X-ray Observatory Awaits Deployment

 

 

This 70mm frame shows the 50,162-pound Chandra X-ray Observatory before it was tilted upward for its release from the Space Shuttle Columbia's payload bay on July 23, 1999, just a few hours following the shuttle's arrival in Earth orbit. Chandra was spring-ejected from a cradle in the payload bay at 6:47 a.m. Central time. Commander Eileen Collins, the first female Shuttle Commander, maneuvered Columbia to a safe distance away from the telescope as an internal timer counted down to the first of a two-phase ignition of the solid-fuel Inertial Upper Stage (IUS). The IUS lit up as scheduled at 7:47 a.m., and a few minutes later, shut down as planned, sending Chandra on a highly elliptical orbit which was refined over the next few weeks by a series of firings of telescope thrusters, designed to place Chandra in an orbit about 6900 x 87,000 statute miles above the Earth.

In August 2015, Chandra will pass the 16th anniversary of another milestone in the mission – the release of the “First Light” images from the telescope. As of July 1st, 2015, Chandra has traveled over 17 billion miles while completing about 2,200 orbits of the Earth. Chandra has made over 14,000 observations over the last 16 years. The targets include objects as close as the Earth and as distant as black holes near the edge of the observable universe.

Image Credit: NASA/JSC

Last Updated: July 23, 2015

Editor: NASA Administrator

NASA Satellite Camera Provides “EPIC” View of Earth

 

A NASA camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite has returned its first view of the entire sunlit side of Earth from one million miles away.

The color images of Earth from NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) are generated by combining three separate images to create a photographic-quality image. The camera takes a series of 10 images using different narrowband filters -- from ultraviolet to near infrared -- to produce a variety of science products. The red, green and blue channel images are used in these Earth images.

"This first DSCOVR image of our planet demonstrates the unique and important benefits of Earth observation from space,” said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden. “As a former astronaut who’s been privileged to view the Earth from orbit, I want everyone to be able to see and appreciate our planet as an integrated, interacting system. DSCOVR’s observations of Earth, as well as its measurements and early warnings of space weather events caused by the sun, will help every person to monitor the ever-changing Earth, and to understand how our planet fits into its neighborhood in the solar system.”

These initial Earth images show the effects of sunlight scattered by air molecules, giving the images a characteristic bluish tint. The EPIC team now is working on a rendering of these images that emphasizes land features and removes this atmospheric effect. Once the instrument begins regular data acquisition, new images will be available every day, 12 to 36 hours after they are acquired by EPIC. These images will be posted to a dedicated web page by September.

"The high quality of the EPIC images exceeded all of our expectations in resolution," said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "The images clearly show desert sand structures, river systems and complex cloud patterns. There will be a huge wealth of new data for scientists to explore."

The primary objective of DSCOVR, a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Air Force, is to maintain the nation’s real-time solar wind monitoring capabilities, which are critical to the accuracy and lead time of space weather alerts and forecasts from NOAA.

“These new views of the Earth, a result of the great partnership between NOAA, the U.S. Air Force, and NASA, give us an important perspective of the true global nature of our spaceship Earth," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The satellite was launched in February and recently reached its planned orbit at the first Lagrange point or L1, about one million miles from Earth toward the sun. It’s from that unique vantage point that the EPIC instrument is acquiring science quality images of the entire sunlit face of Earth.  Data from EPIC will be used to measure ozone and aerosol levels in Earth’s atmosphere, cloud height, vegetation properties and the ultraviolet reflectivity of Earth. NASA will use this data for a number of Earth science applications, including dust and volcanic ash maps of the entire planet.

In addition to space weather instruments, DSCOVR carries a second NASA sensor -- the National Institute of Science and Technology Advanced Radiometer (NISTAR). Data from the NASA science instruments will be processed at the agency’s DSCOVR Science Operations Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. This data will be archived and distributed by the Atmospheric Science Data Center at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

The Air Force provided the Space X Falcon 9 rocket for the mission. NOAA operates DSCOVR from its Satellite Operations Facility in Suitland, Maryland, and processes the space weather data at its Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives, and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.

For more information about NASA’s Earth science activities, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/earth

For more information about DSCOVR, visit:

http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/DSCOVR/

STEREO-A Spacecraft Returns Data From the Far Side of the Sun

 

 

This image of the sun was taken on July 15, 2015, with the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager onboard NASA's Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory Ahead (STEREO-A) spacecraft, which collects images in several wavelengths of light that are invisible to the human eye. This image shows the sun in wavelengths of 171 angstroms, which are typically colorized in blue. STEREO-A has been on the far side of the sun since March 24, where it had to operate in safe mode, collecting and saving data from its radio instrument. The first images in over three months were received from STEREO-A on July 11.

The three-month safe mode period was necessary because of the geometry between Earth, the sun, and STEREO-A. STEREO-A orbits the sun as Earth does, but in a slightly smaller and faster orbit.  The orbit ensured that over the course of years, Earth and the spacecraft got out of sync, with STEREO-A ending up on the other side of the sun from Earth, where it could show us views of our star that we couldn’t see from home. Though the sun only physically blocked STEREO-A from Earth’s line of sight for a few days, STEREO-A was close enough to the sun—from our perspective -- that from March 24 until July 8, the sun interfered with STEREO-A’s data transmission signal, making it impossible to interpret.

As STEREO-A kept orbiting, it eventually made its way far enough from the sun to come out of this transmission dark zone. In late June, the STEREO-A team began receiving status updates from the spacecraft, confirming that it had made it through its long safe-mode journey unharmed.

STEREO is the third mission in NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probes program (STP). The mission, launched in October 2006, has provided a unique and revolutionary view of the sun-Earth system. The two nearly identical observatories - one ahead of Earth in its orbit, the other trailing behind - have traced the flow of energy and matter from the sun to Earth.

Image Credit: NASA/STEREO

Last Updated: July 16, 2015

Editor: Sarah Loff