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Keyword: nasa

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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Cat's Paw Nebula from Webb Space Telescope

    07/21/2025 1:01:06 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 6 replies
    NASA ^ | 21 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
    Explanation: Nebulas are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps cats are for getting into trouble. Still, no known cat could have created the vast Cat's Paw Nebula visible toward the constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius). At 5,700 light years distant, Cat's Paw is an emission nebula within a larger molecular cloud. Alternatively known as the Bear Claw Nebula and cataloged as NGC 6334, stars nearly ten times the mass of our Sun have been born there in only the past few million years. Pictured here is a recently released image of the Cat's Paw taken...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Lunar Nearside

    07/20/2025 1:07:31 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 47 replies
    NASA ^ | 20 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit: NASA / GSFC / Arizona State Univ. / Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
    Explanation: About 1,300 images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft's wide angle camera were used to compose this spectacular view of a familiar face - the lunar nearside. But why is there a lunar nearside? The Moon rotates on its axis and orbits the Earth at the same rate, about once every 28 days. Tidally locked in this configuration, the synchronous rotation always keeps one side, the nearside, facing Earth. As a result, featured in remarkable detail in the full resolution mosaic, the smooth, dark, lunar maria (actually lava-flooded impact basins), and rugged highlands, are well-known to earthbound skygazers. To...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Messier 6

    07/19/2025 1:46:58 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 7 replies
    NASA ^ | 19 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Xinran Li
    Explanation: The sixth object in Charles Messier's famous catalog of things which are not comets, Messier 6 is a galactic or open star cluster. A gathering of 100 stars or so, all around 100 million years young, M6 lies some 1,600 light-years away toward the central Milky Way in the constellation Scorpius. Also cataloged as NGC 6405, the pretty star cluster's outline suggests its popular moniker, the Butterfly Cluster. Surrounded by diffuse reddish emission from the region's hydrogen gas the cluster's mostly hot and therefore blue stars are near the center of this colorful cosmic snapshot. But the brightest cluster...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - ISS Meets Saturn

    07/18/2025 12:36:27 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 17 replies
    NASA ^ | 18 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: A.J. Smadi
    Explanation: This month, bright planet Saturn rises in evening skies, its rings oriented nearly edge-on when viewed from planet Earth. And in the early morning hours on July 6, it posed very briefly with the International Space Station when viewed from a location in Federal Way, Washington, USA. This well-planned image, a stack of video frames, captures their momentary conjunction in the same telescopic field of view. With the ISS in low Earth orbit, space station and gas giant planet were separated by almost 1.4 billion kilometers. Their apparent sizes are comparable but the ISS was much brighter than Saturn...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - 3I/ATLAS

    07/17/2025 12:24:19 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 5 replies
    NASA ^ | 17 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit: Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/K. Meech (IfA/U. Hawaii) Processing: Jen Miller, M
    Explanation: Discovered on July 1 with the NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert, System) survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, 3I/ATLAS is so designated as the third known interstellar object to pass through our Solar System It follows 1I/ʻOumuamua in 2017 and the comet 2I/Borisov in 2019. Also known as C/2025 N1, 3I/ATLAS is clearly a comet, its diffuse cometary coma, a cloud of gas and dust surrounding an icy nucleus, is easily seen in these images from the large Gemini North telescope on Maunakea, Hawai‘i. The left panel tracks the comet as it moves across the sky against fixed...
  • "Potential Impact On Saturn": Astronomers Appeal For Help As Video Appears To Show Object Hitting The Gas Giant

    07/17/2025 10:30:00 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 41 replies
    IFLScience ^ | July 7, 2025 | James Felton
    Astronomers at the Planetary Virtual Observatory and Laboratory (PVOL) are appealing for help, after an image taken by NASA's Mario Rana appears to show an object slamming into Saturn.Saturn, like Jupiter, is a gas giant. With their impressive masses, you would expect these giants to attract their share of asteroid impacts. Unlike terrestrial planets, which are usually left with an obvious crater after impact, on gas giants, it is not entirely obvious. With outer layers primarily composed of hydrogen and helium, any trace of an impact can disappear.Astronomers have attempted to model how many impacts take place on the gas...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - The Rosette Nebula from DECam

    07/16/2025 12:10:41 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 8 replies
    NASA ^ | 16 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit: CTIO, NOIRLab, DOE, NSF, AURA; Processing: T. A. Rector (U. Alaska Anchorage), D. de M
    Explanation: Would the Rosette Nebula by any other name look as sweet? The bland New General Catalog designation of NGC 2237 doesn't appear to diminish the appearance of this flowery emission nebula, as captured by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the NSF's Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Inside the nebula lies an open cluster of bright young stars designated NGC 2244. These stars formed about four million years ago from the nebular material and their stellar winds are clearing a hole in the nebula's center, insulated by a layer of dust and hot...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Collapse in Hebes Chasma on Mars

    07/15/2025 12:19:21 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 24 replies
    NASA ^ | 15 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit & License: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)
    Explanation: What's happened in Hebes Chasma on Mars? Hebes Chasma is a depression just north of the enormous Valles Marineris canyon. Since the depression is unconnected to other surface features, it is unclear where the internal material went. Inside Hebes Chasma is Hebes Mensa, a 5 kilometer high mesa that appears to have undergone an unusual partial collapse -- a collapse that might be providing clues. The featured image, taken by ESA's robotic Mars Express spacecraft currently orbiting Mars, shows great details of the chasm and the unusual horseshoe shaped indentation in the central mesa. Material from the mesa appears...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - NGC 2685: The Helix Galaxy

    07/14/2025 12:10:50 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 9 replies
    NASA ^ | 14 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Stefan Thrun
    Explanation: What is going on with this galaxy? NGC 2685 is a confirmed polar ring galaxy - a rare type of galaxy with stars, gas and dust orbiting in rings perpendicular to the plane of a flat galactic disk. The bizarre configuration could be caused by the chance capture of material from another galaxy by a disk galaxy, with the captured debris strung out in a rotating ring. Still, observed properties of NGC 2685 suggest that the rotating helix structure is remarkably old and stable. In this sharp view of the peculiar system also known as Arp 336 or the...
  • Astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary head back to Earth after private space mission

    07/14/2025 10:34:59 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 10 replies
    ny post ^ | 07/14/2025
    The International Space Station’s first visitors from India, Poland and Hungary headed back to Earth on Monday, wrapping up a private mission and catching a ride home with SpaceX. Their capsule undocked from the orbiting lab and aimed for a splashdown the next morning in the Pacific off the Southern California coast. The short, privately financed mission marked the first time in more than 40 years that India, Poland and Hungary saw one of their own rocket into orbit. The three astronauts were accompanied by America’s most experienced space flier, Peggy Whitson, who works for Axiom Space, which chartered the...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Planetary Nebula Mz3: The Ant Nebula

    07/13/2025 12:56:06 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 7 replies
    NASA ^ | 13 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit: NASA, ESA, R. Sahai (JPL) et al., Hubble Heritage Team
    Explanation: Why isn't this ant a big sphere? Planetary nebula Mz3 is being cast off by a star similar to our Sun that is, surely, round. Why then would the gas that is streaming away create an ant-shaped nebula that is distinctly not round? Clues might include the high 1000-kilometer per second speed of the expelled gas, the light-year long length of the structure, and the magnetism of the star featured here at the nebula's center. One possible answer is that Mz3 is hiding a second, dimmer star that orbits close in to the bright star. A competing hypothesis holds...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Clouds and the Golden Moon

    07/12/2025 12:18:04 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 4 replies
    NASA ^ | 12 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Alexsandro Mota
    Explanation: As the Sun set, a bright Full Moon rose on July 10. Its golden light illuminates clouds drifting through southern hemisphere skies in this well-composed telephoto image from Conceição do Coité, Bahia, Brazil. The brightest lunar phase is captured here with both a short and long exposure. The two exposures were combined to reveal details of the lunar surface in bright moonlight and a subtle iridescence along the dramatically backlit cloudscape. Of course, July's Full Moon is a winter moon in the southern hemisphere. But in the north it's known to some as the Thunder Moon, likely a nod...
  • 40 Years Ago: Skylab Reenters Earth’s Atmosphere (46 Yrs)

    07/12/2025 2:42:07 AM PDT · by texas booster · 17 replies
    NASA History ^ | July 11 2019 | John Uri
    Skylab was America’s first space station and first crewed research laboratory in space. The complex consisted of four major components: the Orbital Workshop (OWS), the Airlock Module (AM), the Multiple Docking Adapter (MDA), and the Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM). The Apollo Command and Service Module transported crews to and from Skylab and remained attached to the station throughout a crew’s occupancy. The OWS, converted from the upper stage of a Saturn rocket, served as the main working, living and sleeping compartment for the crews, and contained exercise equipment, a galley, and many of the scientific experiments, in particular for the...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - The Veins of Heaven

    07/11/2025 11:59:16 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 6 replies
    NASA ^ | 11 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: P-M Hedén (Clear Skies, TWAN)
    Explanation: Transfusing sunlight as the sky grew darker, this exceptional display of noctilucent clouds was captured on July 10, reflected in the calm waters of Vallentuna Lake near Stockholm, Sweden. From the edge of space, about 80 kilometers above Earth's surface, the icy clouds themselves still reflect sunlight, even though the Sun is below the horizon as seen from the ground. Usually spotted at high latitudes in summer months, the night shining clouds have made a strong showing so far during the short northern summer nights. Also known as polar mesopheric clouds they are understood to form as water vapor...
  • “Something Unknown Is at Work” Behind NASA’s DART Planetary Defense Mission—and Astronomers Are Worried

    07/11/2025 6:38:41 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 35 replies
    The Debrief ^ | July 10, 2025 | Ryan Whalen·
    NASA’s DART asteroid redirection mission may have inadvertently made future asteroid deflections much more challenging after its test sent boulders hurtling through space on unexpected trajectories. In September 2022, the DART mission successfully altered the orbit of asteroid moon Dimorphos. Unfortunately, the smaller space rocks that were dislodged when the kinetic impactor struck the natural satellite achieved three times the momentum of the spacecraft that created them. The University of Maryland-led team (UMD) behind the new research paper on DART’s repercussions cautions that results demonstrate planetary defense may be considerably more complex than previously suspected, with the potential for many...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Lynds Dark Nebula 1251

    07/10/2025 12:20:21 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 5 replies
    NASA ^ | 10 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Cristiano Gualco
    Explanation: Stars are forming in Lynds Dark Nebula (LDN) 1251. About 1,000 light-years away and drifting above the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, LDN 1251 is also less appetizingly known as "The Rotten Fish Nebula." The dusty molecular cloud is part of a complex of dark nebulae mapped toward the Cepheus flare region. Across the spectrum, astronomical explorations of the obscuring interstellar clouds reveal energetic shocks and outflows associated with newborn stars, including the telltale reddish glow from scattered Herbig-Haro objects hiding in the image. Distant background galaxies also lurk in the scene, almost buried behind the dusty expanse....
  • Water Pours Into Australia's Lake Eyre

    07/10/2025 11:38:12 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 9 replies
    NASA Earth Observatory ^ | June 2025 | Lindsey Doermann
    Lake Eyre (also called Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre) sits in the heart of the Australian outback, the continent's most arid area. Receiving an average of 140 millimeters (5.5 inches) of rain each year, the lake is a dry, salty plain much of the time. But every once in a while, it transforms into an expansive inland sea.Approximately one-sixth of the Australian continent drains toward Lake Eyre, rather than to an ocean. Water often evaporates before it makes it there, although some will end up in the lake every few years. In 2025, extreme autumn rainfall in Queensland flooded several rivers that...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - A Beautiful Trifid

    07/09/2025 12:30:52 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 9 replies
    NASA ^ | 9 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Alessandro Cipolat Bares
    Explanation: The beautiful Trifid Nebula is a cosmic study in contrasts. Also known as M20, it lies about 5,000 light-years away toward the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. A star forming region in the plane of our galaxy, the Trifid does illustrate three different types of astronomical nebulae; red emission nebulae dominated by light from hydrogen atoms, blue reflection nebulae produced by dust reflecting starlight, and dark nebulae where dense dust clouds appear in silhouette. But, the red emission region roughly separated into three parts by obscuring dust lanes is what lends the Trifid its popular name. Pillars and jets sculpted...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - The Pleiades in Red and Blue

    07/08/2025 1:44:31 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 15 replies
    NASA ^ | 8 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Ogetay Kayali (Michigan Tech U.) Text: Ogetay Kayali (Michigan Tech U.)
    Explanation: If you have looked at the sky and seen a group of stars about the size of the full Moon, that's the Pleiades (M45). Perhaps the most famous star cluster in the sky, its brightest stars can be seen even from the light-polluted cities. But your unaided eye can also see its nebulosity -- the gas and dust surrounding it -- under dark skies. However, telescopes can catch even more. The bright blue stars of the Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, light up their surrounding dust, causing it to appear a diffuse blue that can only be...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS

    07/07/2025 11:54:05 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 12 replies
    NASA ^ | 7 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech
    Explanation: It came from outer space. An object from outside our Solar System is now passing through at high speed. Classified as a comet because of its gaseous coma, 3I/ATLAS is only the third identified macroscopic object as being so alien. The comet's trajectory is shown in white on the featured map, where the orbits of Jupiter, Mars, and Earth are shown in gold, red, and blue. Currently Comet 3I/ATLAS is about the distance of Jupiter from the Sun -- but closing, with its closest approach to our Sun expected to be within the orbit of Mars in late October....