A strong flare erupted into space from an active region that was roughly facing towards Earth on Mar. 11, 2015. X-class flares are rather uncommon. The bright flash of the flare was followed by streams of dark ejecta that move across the sun to the left. The flare did cause some radio blackouts on Earth when it disturbed our ionosphere. The flare was also associated with a coronal mass ejection. The video clip covers about 2.5 hours.
ESA’s (European Space Agency) fifth and final Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) undocked from the International Space Station’s aft port of the Zvezda service module at 8:42 a.m. EST today.
ATV-5 launched to the space station in July 2014, delivering supplies and experiments to the orbital laboratory. It will move to a safe distance from the space station for its deorbit and destructive entry in the Earth’s atmosphere Sunday.
This is the last in a series of European resupply spacecraft that began servicing the space station in the spring of 2008. In all, the ATVs delivered approximately 34 tons of supplies to the complex while docked to the station of 776 days. ESA is applying its technology and knowledge from the cargo ship to develop the service module for NASA’s Orion spacecraft.
This video was shared earlier today by Astronaut Barry 'Butch' Wilmore on the International Space Station.
Aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Barry (Butch) Wilmore posted this video and wrote, '#sunrise touches #aurora. All we need now are angels singing.' For more images from space station, visit @ISS on Instagram.
New woven composite materials are an advanced space technology that mark a major milestone toward development of the space systems that will enable extending human and robotic presence throughout the solar system. Today, our Administrator Charles Bolden and Space Technology Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Michael Gazarik toured the Bally Ribbon Mills facility in Bally, Pa. to get a first-hand look at the manufacturer's high-performance multidimensional (3D) woven materials. The company is weaving the multifunctional thermal protection system padding used to insulate and protect our Orion spacecraft. Orion, which recently completed its first flight test, will carry astronauts to Mars and return them safely to Earth with the help of this technology. The next test of this thermal protection technology will be on Orion on Exploration Mission-1 in 2017.
Video and Image credit: Bally Ribbon Mills/ NASA JPL
Recently, astronaut Terry Virts looked out the window aboard the International Space Station and saw the moon. He shared this video on Vine of moonset behind Earth’s atmosphere saying it "appears to land on a soft pillow of clouds." For him and the rest of the station crew, this extraordinary event is a daily occurrence. The space station and its crew orbit Earth from an altitude of about 250 miles, traveling at a speed of approximately 17,500 miles per hour. Since the station orbits Earth every ninety minutes, the crew experiences sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset about sixteen times a day.
Severe weather in the form of tornadoes is not something people expect on Christmas week but a storm system on Dec. 23 brought tornadoes to Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana. As the storm moved, NASA's RapidScat captured data on winds while NOAA's GOES satellite tracked the movement of the system.
NASA's RapidScat instrument flies aboard the International Space Station and captured a look at some of the high winds from the storms that brought severe weather to the U.S. Gulf Coast on Dec. 23. In addition, this animation of images from NOAA's GOES-East satellite showed the movement of those storms and other weather systems from Canada to South America from Dec. 21 to 24.
An animation of visible and infrared satellite data from NOAA's GOES-East satellite that showed the development and movement of the weather system that spawned tornadoes affecting the Gulf Coast of the U.S. on Dec. 23 and early Dec. 24.
To create the images and the video, NASA/NOAA's GOES Project takes the cloud data from NOAA's GOES-East satellite and overlays it on a true-color image of land and ocean created by data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites. Together, those data created the entire picture of the storm systems and show their movement.
Coupled with local weather observations, soundings, and computer models, data from satellites like NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite or GOES-East (also known as GOES-13) gives forecasters information about developing weather situations. In real-time, the NOAA's GOES-East satellite data in animated form showed forecasters how the area of severe weather was developing and moving.
A series of elliptical loops seemed to droop down out of an active region on the Sun that was rotating into view (Dec. 7-9, 2014). The loops are actually particles spiraling along magnetic field lines when viewed in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. Above this group other loops above another active region are tighter and less elongated, but always changing as well. The video covers two days of activity.
It's #BlackFriday, but for us, it's the 2nd annual #BlackHoleFriday. Thank you for joining us as we shared images & information about black holes. We'll keep hunting for black holes and studying them.
How? Spotting black holes is tricky. Because they don’t give off light, astronomers have a difficult time pinpointing their location. But when a black hole gets close enough to an object, like a star, for example, and begins consuming the object's mass, the matter that pours into its gravitational clutches can get so hot that it glows and releases energy in the form of X-ray light. The most powerful X-rays are emitted from the hottest material swirling just outside the edge of the black hole. By observing this light with space telescopes, scientists can determine where black holes are hiding in the cosmos.
Five hundred million years after the sun was born, Jupiter’s massive gravity disrupts countless asteroids and comets.
These hammer down on the inner planets.
Did this impact deliver water and organics? The key ingredients to life?
The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security -- Regolith Explorer spacecraft (OSIRIS-REx) will travel to a near-Earth asteroid, called Bennu, and bring a sample back to Earth for study. The mission will help scientists investigate how planets formed and how life began, as well as improve our understanding of asteroids that could impact Earth.
OSIRIS-REx is scheduled for launch in late 2016. As planned, the spacecraft will reach its asteroid target in 2018 and return a sample to Earth in 2023.
A filament, which at one point had an eerie similarity to a snake, broke away from the Sun and out into space on Nov. 1, 2014. This video covers just over three hours of activity.
This kind of eruptive event is called a Hyder flare. These are filaments (elongated clouds of gases above the Sun's surface) that erupt and cause a brightening at the Sun's surface, although no active regions are in that area. It did thrust out a cloud of particles but not towards Earth. The images were taken in a wavelength of extreme UV light.
Credit: NASA/SDO
The only way to know how thing are changing is to monitor them at regular intervals. When it comes to climate change, regular measurements are essential. As the Earth’s polar caps respond to changing global climate conditions, experts rely on satellite measurements to make accurate, regular measurements. But satellites don’t last forever, and while the world waits for a new vehicle to get into space, NASA has a team in the field to gather vital data and fill in the gaps. It’s called Operation IceBridge, and it’s going on right now in the low altitude skies over Antarctica.
Credit: NASA/Goddard/IceBridge
#IceBridge #EarthRightNow #EarthScience #Ice #IceSat #NASA #Space #AirborneScience
This timelapse video from space was taken by ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst from the Cupola observatory module on the International Space Station as it orbited Earth at around 400 km altitude. As the Space Station passes over Earth at night we can see city lights and lightning. The International Space Station travels at 28 800 km/h meaning that it only takes 90 minutes to circle Earth completely. Each orbit the Station moves around 2200 km to the West in relation to 90 minutes before.
Astronauts often use normal consumer digital cameras to take pictures of Earth through Europe’s observatory module Cupola in their spare time. Setting the camera to take an image every few seconds and then playing the images back quickly create this timelapse effect.
Video credit: ESA
#esa #astro_alex #space #iss @iss #spacestation #internationalspacestation
In case you missed it, here's a Hyper-Lapse video of SpaceX Falcon9 Dragon cargo ship launch as seen from the NASA Causeway at @NASAKennedy. Launch occurred Sunday, Sept. 21, at 1:52 a.m. EDT.
The Dragon spacecraft will deliver, and later return, new technology, biology, biotechnology and Earth and space science research.
Credit: NASA
#space #spacex4 #falcon9 #iss #isscargo #nasasocial #nasa
We're poised to announce the final phase of development and certification to provide safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station from the U.S. on American systems.
We will make a major announcement today at 4 p.m. EDT regarding the return of human spaceflight launches to the United States. Whoever is chosen will have the goal to achieve certification of the system – including a test flight to the International Space Station with a NASA astronaut -- in 2017, returning a critical capability to America and greatly expanding the scientific research potential of the orbiting laboratory. Watch the announcement live on NASA TV.
Of all the planets we've explored, none have matched the dynamic complexity of our own. Earth is constantly changing, and we're working constantly to explore and understand the planet on scales from local to global.
The time-lapse video shows the VIIRS composite for the eastern hemisphere from January 18 to July 25, 2014. Subtle changes in the snow and vegetation cover of the land vie for attention with a dynamic, swirling layer of clouds that are constantly present and constantly moving.
While not photon torpedoes, Astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this video of two small satellites being deployed from the International Space Station. The pair of Planet Labs Dove satellites were deployed Tuesday, August 19, 2014 in the first of the latest series of NanoRacks CubeSat deployments from the station. By next Monday, 16 CubeSats out of the 28 on tap for this series are expected to be deployed from the station. The CubeSats were among the nearly 3,300 pounds of science and supplies delivered to the station in July by Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus cargo vehicle.
In his newest film released recently, Dwayne Johnson is Hercules—the demigod who fights against evil and helps to end a civil war. But back in 2011, after playing the American astronaut Captain Chuck Baker in Planet 51, The Rock was touting the benefits of NASA technology for people here on earth.
Video credit: NASA
#TBT #321TechOff #nasa #space #spinoffs
As Seen on @CBSThisMorning, which is posting some of our images each morning this week: Making Tracks on Mars. Our Curiosity rover is driving toward Mount Sharp on Mars. Using the front and rear hazard cameras ("hazcams") we see the 3-kilometer-tall Mount Sharp looming ahead, and fresh rover tracks left behind. Since landing, Curiosity has driven 5 miles (8 kilometers) stopping to do science along the way. One of Curiosity's first major findings after landing on the Red Planet in August 2012 was an ancient riverbed at its landing site. Nearby, at an area known as Yellowknife Bay, the mission met its main goal of determining whether the Martian Gale Crater ever was habitable for simple life forms. The answer, a historic "yes," came from two mudstone slabs that the rover sampled with its drill. Analysis of these samples revealed the site was once a lakebed with mild water, the essential elemental ingredients for life, and a type of chemical energy source used by some microbes on Earth. If Mars had living organisms, this would have been a good home for them.
Rovers are gathering valuable scientific information and helping pave the #PathToMars as part of our #NextGiantLeap -- sending astronauts to the Red Planet.
A Giant Leap for Mankind: 45 years ago at 10:56 p.m. EDT Neil Armstrong is ready to plant the first human foot on another world. With more than half a billion people watching on television, he climbs down the ladder and proclaims: "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind." Buzz Aldrin joins him shortly, and offers a simple but powerful description of the lunar surface: "magnificent desolation." They explore the surface for two and a half hours, collecting samples and taking photographs. Today, we stand on a new horizon, poised to take the next giant leap-deeper into the solar system. The Apollo missions blazed a path for human exploration to the moon and today we are extending that path to near-Earth asteroids, Mars and beyond.
Video Credit: NASA
#pathtomars #nextgiantleap #nasa #apollo11 #apollo45
Two active regions with their intense magnetic fields produced towering arches and spiraling coils of solar loops above them (June 29 - July 1, 2014) as they rotated into view. When viewed in extreme ultraviolet light, magnetic field lines are revealed by charged particles that travel along them. These active regions appear as dark sunspots when viewed in filtered light. Note the small blast in the upper of the two major active regions, followed by more coils of loops as the region reorganizes itself.
Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory/NASA
#sdo #sun #solar #solarloops #nasa #space
