Space

cee134

NASA's Hubble Spots Embryonic Galaxy SPT0615-JD Download



This Hubble Space Telescope image shows the farthest galaxy yet seen in an image that has been stretched and amplified by a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.

The embryonic galaxy, named SPT0615-JD, existed when the universe was just 500 million years old. Though a few other primitive galaxies have been seen at this early epoch, they have essentially all looked like red dots, given their small size and tremendous distances.

However, in this case, the gravitational field of a massive foreground galaxy cluster, called SPT-CL J0615-5746, not only amplified the light from the background galaxy but also smeared the image of it into an arc (about 2 arcseconds long).

Image analysis shows that the galaxy weighs in at no more than 3 billion solar masses (roughly 1/100th the mass of our fully grown Milky Way galaxy). It is less than 2,500 light-years across, half the size of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.

The object is considered prototypical of young galaxies that emerged during the epoch shortly after the big bang.

cee134

A Christmas Day sunrise is photographed from the International Space Station as the four astronauts and two cosmonauts of Expedition 54 orbited above the Pacific Ocean.

cee134

A composite of three consecutive exposures, this night skyscape follows the January 7 launch and first stage landing of a Falcon 9 rocket from a beach on planet Earth's space coast.

With the launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the bright streak beginning farthest left traces the initial phase of the rocket's flight.

A visible upward hook marks the first stage beginning its return trajectory with a "boostback burn" near the top of the arc, while the second stage separates and continues toward orbit.

Above the top of the launch arc due to perspective, a bright streak shows the returning first stage slowing and descending toward the Cape.

Centered below, the streak at the horizon is a 17 second burn finally slowing the first stage to a successful vertical landing about 8 minutes after launch at Landing Zone 1.

During the scene's effective long exposure time, the background stars leave short trails in the night sky of the rotating planet.

cee134

Jupiter’s Colorful Cloud Belts



Colorful swirling cloud belts dominate Jupiter’s southern hemisphere in this image captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft.

Pkov123

cee134 wrote: »

Jupiter’s Colorful Cloud Belts



Colorful swirling cloud belts dominate Jupiter’s southern hemisphere in this image captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft.

I always wanted to go to mars and Pluto and Jupiter

cee134

Even in the Desert



For the second time in three years, snow has accumulated in the desert near the northern Algerian town of Aïn Séfra.

cee134

All the Glittering Stars



A new analysis of about 10,000 normal Sun-like stars in the Milky Way's galactic bulge reveals that our galaxy's hub is a dynamic environment.

cee134

The combination of morphological and topographic information from stereo images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as compositional data from near-infrared spectroscopy has been proven to be a powerful tool for understanding the geology of Mars.

Beginning with the OMEGA instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter in 2003, the surface of Mars has been examined at near-infrared wavelengths by imaging spectrometers that are capable of detecting specific minerals and mapping their spatial extent. The CRISM (Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars) instrument on our orbiter is a visible/near-infrared imaging spectrometer, and the HiRISE camera works together with it to document the appearance of mineral deposits detected by this orbital prospecting.

Mawrth Vallis is one of the regions on Mars that has attracted much attention because of the nature and diversity of the minerals identified by these spectrometers. It is a large, ancient outflow channel on the margin of the Southern highlands and Northern lowlands. Both the OMEGA and CRISM instruments have detected clay minerals here that must have been deposited in a water-rich environment, probably more than 4 billion years ago.

For this reason, Mawrth Vallis is one of the two candidate landing sites for the future Mars Express Rover Mission planned by the European Space Agency. This image was targeted on a location where the CRISM instrument detected a specific mineral called alunite, KAl3(SO4)2(OH)6. Alunite is a hydrated aluminum potassium sulfate, a mineral that is notable because it must have been deposited in a wet acidic environment, rich in sulfuric acid.

Our image shows that the deposit is bright and colorful, and extensively fractured. The width of the cutout is 1.2 kilometers.

huntersvonnegut

Space? That's what followed Drums at a Dead show

cee134

In this view, individual layers of haze can be distinguished in the upper atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

Titan's atmosphere features a rich and complex chemistry originating from methane and nitrogen and evolving into complex molecules, eventually forming the smog that surrounds the moon.

This natural color image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on March 31, 2005, at a distance of approximately 20,556 miles (33,083 kilometers) from Titan.

The view looks toward the north polar region on the moon's night side. Part of Titan's sunlit crescent is visible at right. The Cassini spacecraft ended its mission on Sept. 15, 2017.

cee134

Investigating Mars: Arsia Mons



This THEMIS image shows part of the southern margin of the summit caldera. This image contains a variety of features representing the major events related to the formation of the volcano.

At the top of the image a small linear vent has produced lava flows increasing the elevation of the surface around it. The flat floor of the caldera surrounds the vent and the cliff faces at the center of the image were created during the collapse event that formed the caldera.

Depressions at the bottom illustrate collapse into empty voids like lava tubes. Arsia Mons is the southernmost of the Tharsis volcanoes. It is 270 miles (450 km) in diameter, almost 12 miles (20 km) high, and the summit caldera is 72 miles (120 km) wide. For comparison, the largest volcano on Earth is Mauna Loa. From its base on the sea floor, Mauna Loa measures only 6.3 miles high and 75 miles in diameter.

A large volcanic crater known as a caldera is located at the summit of all of the Tharsis volcanoes. These calderas are produced by massive volcanic explosions and collapse. The Arsia Mons summit caldera is larger than many volcanoes on Earth. The Odyssey spacecraft has spent over 15 years in orbit around Mars, circling the planet more than 69000 times. It holds the record for longest working spacecraft at Mars.

THEMIS, the IR/VIS camera system, has collected data for the entire mission and provides images covering all seasons and lighting conditions. Over the years many features of interest have received repeated imaging, building up a suite of images covering the entire feature.

From the deepest chasma to the tallest volcano, individual dunes inside craters and dune fields that encircle the north pole, channels carved by water and lava, and a variety of other feature, THEMIS has imaged them all.

cee134

NASA's Juno spacecraft was a little more than one Earth diameter from Jupiter when it captured this mind-bending, color-enhanced view of the planet's tumultuous atmosphere.

Jupiter completely fills the image, with only a hint of the terminator (where daylight fades to night) in the upper right corner, and no visible limb (the curved edge of the planet).

Juno took this image of colorful, turbulent clouds in Jupiter's northern hemisphere on Dec. 16, 2017 at 9:43 a.m. PST (12:43 p.m. EST) from 8,292 miles (13,345 kilometers) above the tops of Jupiter's clouds, at a latitude of 48.9 degrees.

buggsby83

cee134 wrote: »

Image analysis shows that the galaxy weighs in at no more than 3 billion solar masses (roughly 1/100th the mass of our fully grown Milky Way galaxy). It is less than 2,500 light-years across, half the size of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.

Hey that's almost as much as I weigh...

empresssue

My addition is an observation: Neil Degrasse Tyson makes space talk sexy.

He is a hot nerd

cee134

Signs of Ships in the Clouds



Ships churning through the Atlantic Ocean produced this patchwork of bright, criss-crossing cloud trails off the coast of Portugal and Spain.

cee134

(Jan. 7, 2017) --- The SpaceX Dragon resupply ship with its dual outstreched solar arrays is pictured attached to the Harmony module as the International Space Station orbited above Brazil.

cee134

Jupiter's Stormy North



See Jupiter's northern polar belt region in this view taken by NASA's Juno spacecraft.

This color-enhanced image was taken on Dec. 16, 2017 at 9:47 a.m. PST (12:47 p.m. EST), as Juno performed its tenth close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was about 5,600 miles (8,787 kilometers) from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a latitude of 38.4 degrees north.

Citizen scientist Björn Jónsson processed this image using data from the JunoCam imager.

This image has been processed from the raw JunoCam framelets by removing the effects of global illumination. Jónsson then increased the contrast and color and sharpened smallscale features.

The image has also been cropped. While at first glance the view may appear to be in Jupiter's south, the raw source images were obtained when Juno was above the planet's northern hemisphere looking south, potentially causing a sense of disorientation to the viewer.

The geometry of the scene can be explored using the time of the image and the Juno mission module of NASA's Eyes on the Solar System.

cee134

Investigating Mars: Kaiser Crater Dunes



This VIS image of Kaiser Crater shows individual dunes and where the dunes have coalesced into longer dune forms. The addition of sand makes the dunes larger and the intra-dune areas go from sand-free to complete coverage of the hard surface of the crater floor.

With a continued influx of sand the region will transition from individual dunes to a sand sheet with surface dune forms. Kaiser Crater is located in the southern hemisphere in the Noachis region west of Hellas Planitia. Kaiser Crater is just one of several large craters with extensive dune fields on the crater floor. Other nearby dune filled craters are Proctor, Russell, and Rabe.

Kaiser Crater is 207 km (129 miles) in diameter. The dunes are located in the southern part of the crater floor. The Odyssey spacecraft has spent over 15 years in orbit around Mars, circling the planet more than 69000 times. It holds the record for longest working spacecraft at Mars. THEMIS, the IR/VIS camera system, has collected data for the entire mission and provides images covering all seasons and lighting conditions.

cee134

A colony of hot, young stars is stirring up the cosmic scene in this new picture from NASA Spitzer Space Telescope. The image shows the Orion nebula, a happening place where stars are born.