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Jumping Spider Aboard the Space Station Does Without Gravity | NASA Science HD – Video

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Jumping Spider Aboard the Space Station Does Without Gravity | NASA Science HD
Visit my website at http://www.junglejoel.com - Nefertiti is a red-backed jumping spider (Phiddipus johnsoni) who was taken aboard the space station. Here sh...

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Jumping Spider Aboard the Space Station Does Without Gravity | NASA Science HD - Video

Just in Time for Halloween – A Ghostly Image of the Vela Pulsar | NASA Space Science – Video

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Just in Time for Halloween - A Ghostly Image of the Vela Pulsar | NASA Space Science
Visit my website at http://www.junglejoel.com - a strange new image of the Vela Pulsar shows a massive star in its afterlife. You could say it #39;s a "ghost sta...

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Just in Time for Halloween - A Ghostly Image of the Vela Pulsar | NASA Space Science - Video

Annual Call for Nominations for NASA science advisory subcommittees

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NASA invites nominations for service on NASA science advisory subcommittees of the NASA Advisory Council. U.S. citizens may nominate individuals and also submit self-nominations for consideration as potential members of NASA's science advisory subcommittees. NASA's science advisory subcommittees have member vacancies from time to time throughout the year, and NASA will consider nominations and self-nominations to fill such intermittent vacancies. NASA is committed to selecting members to serve on its science advisory subcommittees based on their individual expertise, knowledge, experience, and current/past contributions to the relevant subject area.

The following qualifications/experience are highly desirable in nominees, and should be clearly presented in their nomination letters:

* At least 10 years post-Ph.D. research experience including publications in the scientific field of the subcommittee they are nominated for, or comparable experience;

* Leadership in scientific and/or education and public outreach fields as evidenced by award of prizes, invitation to national and international meetings as speaker, organizer of scientific meetings/workshops, or comparable experience;

* Participation in NASA programs either as member of NASA mission science team, Research & Analysis program, membership on an advisory/working group or a review panel, or comparable experience;

* Good knowledge of NASA programs in the scientific field of the subcommittee they are applying for, including the latest NASA Science Plan (available as a link from http://science.nasa.gov/about-us/science-strategy/), or comparable experience; and,

* Knowledge of the latest Decadal Survey conducted by the National Research Council or other relevant advisory reports for the scientific field of the subcommittee.

These are not full-time positions. Successful nominees will be required to attend meetings of the subcommittee approximately two or three times a year, either in person (NASA covers travel-related expenses for this non-compensated appointment) or via telecom and/or virtual meeting medium.

DATES: The deadline for NASA receipt of all public nominations is November 22, 2013.

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Annual Call for Nominations for NASA science advisory subcommittees

NASA's great observatories begin deepest-ever probe of the universe

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Oct. 28, 2013 NASA's Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra space telescopes are teaming up to look deeper into the universe than ever before. With a boost from natural "zoom lenses" found in space, they should be able to uncover galaxies that are as much as 100 times fainter than what these three great observatories typically can see.

In an ambitious collaborative program called The Frontier Fields, astronomers will make observations during the next three years peering at six massive clusters of galaxies, exploiting a natural phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, to learn not only what is inside the clusters but also what is beyond them. The clusters are among the most massive assemblages of matter known, and their gravitational fields can be used to brighten and magnify more distant galaxies so they can be observed.

"The Frontier Fields program is exactly what NASA's Great Observatories were designed to do; working together to unravel the mysteries of the universe" said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Each observatory collects images using different wavelengths of light with the result that we get a much deeper understanding of the underlying physics of these celestial objects."

The first object they will view is Abell 2744, commonly known as Pandora's Cluster. The giant galaxy cluster appears to be the result of a simultaneous pile-up of at least four separate, smaller galaxy clusters that took place over a span of 350 million years.

Astronomers anticipate these observations will reveal populations of galaxies that existed when the universe was only a few hundred million years old, but have not been seen before.

"The idea is to use nature's natural telescopes in combination with the great observatories to look much deeper than before and find the most distant and faint galaxies we can possibly see," said Jennifer Lotz, a principal investigator with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.

Data from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes will be combined to measure the galaxies' distances and masses more accurately than either observatory could measure alone, demonstrating their synergy for such studies.

"We want to understand when and how the first stars and galaxies formed in the universe, and each great observatory gives us a different piece of the puzzle," said Peter Capak, the Spitzer principal investigator for the Frontier Fields program at NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "Hubble tells you which galaxies to look at and how many stars are being born in those systems. Spitzer tells you how old the galaxy is and how many stars have formed."

The Chandra X-ray Observatory also will peer deep into the star fields. It will image the clusters at X-ray wavelengths to help determine their mass and measure their gravitational lensing power, and identify background galaxies hosting supermassive black holes.

High-resolution Hubble data from Frontier Fields will be used to trace the distribution of dark matter within the six massive foreground clusters. Accounting for the bulk of the universe's mass, dark matter is the underlying invisible scaffolding attached to galaxies.

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NASA's great observatories begin deepest-ever probe of the universe

NASA mountain climbing on Mars

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NASA's Opportunity Mars rover has started scaling the tallest hill it has yet encountered in its nearly 10 years of Red Planet exploration.

Opportunity is working its way up "Solander Point," the northern tip of a 130-foot-tall hill on the rim of Mars' Endeavour Crater. The rover is currently studying rocky outcrops that lie between 6.5 feet and 20 feet above the surrounding plains, and it may climb higher in the coming days and weeks, NASA officials said.

"This is our first real Martian mountaineering with Opportunity," Opportunity principal investigator Steve Squyres, of Cornell University, said in a statement. "We expect we will reach some of the oldest rocks we have seen with this rover a glimpse back into the ancient past of Mars." [Latest Mars Photos from NASA's Opportunity Rover]

The Opportunity rover began climbing Solander Point on Oct. 8 and has gone higher and higher on three additional drives since then, mission officials said. The rocks in Solander's upper reaches are older than those below because they were lifted up by the impact event that created Endeavour Crater.

- Opportunity project manager John Callas

Opportunity arrived at Solander Point in August after a long drive from another part of Endeavour's rim called "Cape York," where the rover worked for 20 very productive months. Mission scientists have high hopes for Solander as well.

"At Cape York, we found fantastic things," Squyres said. "Gypsum veins, clay-rich terrain, the spherules we call newberries. We know there are even larger exposures of clay-rich materials where we're headed. They might look like what we found at Cape York, or they might be completely different."

During its time in the Solander area, Opportunity has already studied a transition zone between two geological formations, the younger of which records evidence of a wet but very acidic ancient environment. Further study of the older rocks could shed light on when conditions changed, mission scientists said.

In addition to its scientific potential, Solander Point provides a good place for Opportunity to wait out the southern hemisphere Martian winter, which will peak in February. Solander's slopes are north-facing, allowing Opportunity to tilt its solar panels toward the sun to catch precious but dwindling rays.

"We're in the right place at the right time, on a north-facing slope," Opportunity project manager John Callas, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement.

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NASA mountain climbing on Mars

Weightless Astronaut Pushes Herself With a Single Hair | NASA ISS Space Science HD – Video

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Weightless Astronaut Pushes Herself With a Single Hair | NASA ISS Space Science HD
Visit my website at http://www.junglejoel.com - after the recent interview between actress Sandra Bullock and astronaut Cady Coleman about hair in space, ast...

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Weightless Astronaut Pushes Herself With a Single Hair | NASA ISS Space Science HD - Video

Space Station Astronauts Interviewed by TV News Stations | NASA ISS Science HD – Video

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Space Station Astronauts Interviewed by TV News Stations | NASA ISS Science HD
Visit my website at http://www.junglejoel.com - space station crew members Karen Nyberg and Michael Hopkins talk about their activities during an interview o...

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Space Station Astronauts Interviewed by TV News Stations | NASA ISS Science HD - Video

Sun's Canyon Of Fire: New NASA Video Shows Spectacular Eruption

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NASA said that the 200,000-mile-long filament ripped through the sun's atmosphere called the corona, leaving behind something like a fiery gorge. The video, which was created by combining two days of satellite data, shows a tongue of flame blasting away from the sun, firing superheated gas into space.

The images were captured on Sept. 29 and Sept. 30 by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, which constantly observes the sun at a variety of wavelengths. Different wavelengths help capture different aspect of events in the corona.

According to scientists, the sun is not made of fire, but of something called plasma, which are particles so hot that their electrons have boiled off and created a charged gas that is interwoven with magnetic fields.

The red images shown in the movie help highlight plasma at temperatures of 90,000 F and are good for observing filaments as they form and erupt, NASA said in a statement. The yellow images, showing temperatures at 1,000,000 F, are useful for observing material coursing along the sun's magnetic field lines, seen in the movie as an arcade of loops across the area of the eruption.

The video also contains brown images at the beginning, which highlight material at temperatures of 1,800,000 F.

By comparing this with the other colors, one sees that the two swirling ribbons moving farther away from each other are, in fact, the footprints of the giant magnetic field loops, which are growing and expanding as the filament pulls them upward, NASA said.

On Wednesday, the sun emitted another mid-level solar flare, which peaked at 8:30 p.m. EDT. According to scientists, the flare was among the weakest that could cause some space weather effects near Earth.

Harmful radiation from a solar flare cannot pass through the Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, but if they are intense enough, they can create disturbances in the atmospheric layer that is home to satellites hosting Global Positioning System, or GPS, and other communications systems.

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Sun's Canyon Of Fire: New NASA Video Shows Spectacular Eruption


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