Daily Archives: May 11, 2017

From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset

Nasa

This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter

Nasa

The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars

Nasa

The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays

Nasa

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account

Nasa

Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead sharing pictures of black holes

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X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

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This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan

Nasa

Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass

Nasa

An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory

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An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013

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A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory

Nasa

An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust

Nasa

Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack

Nasa

Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station

The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts

Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity

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

The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower

The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 more commonly known as WR 124 and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it

Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto

The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta

This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3

For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU)

This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way

Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014

On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa

A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan

Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere

This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region

More:
Nasa should get rid of International Space Station as soon as possible and go to Mars instead, says Buzz Aldrin - The Independent

Astronaut Jack Fischer, a crew members on the International Space Station, waved prior to the launch of the Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft at the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in April.

Educators from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are expanding their classroom space this week.

On Wednesday, graduate and undergraduate students from the Cambridge schools department of Aeronautics and Astronautics will get the chance to participate in a live videochat with NASA astronaut Jack Fischer, an MIT alumnus who is currently aboard the International Space Station, 220 miles above the earth.

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The question-and-answer session between students, faculty, and Fischer marks somewhat of a rare occasion for those interested in life as an astronaut. The last time MIT conducted such an interview was in 2011, when two MIT graduates, Greg Chamitoff and Mike Fincke, were aboard the ISS.

Its kind of an exciting opportunity, said William Litant, spokesman for the Aeronautics and Astronautics department. Its a good kind of community-building experience here, too.

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Litant said MIT has produced more astronauts than any other school in the country besides the Military Academies. He said it seems that at any given moment theres a former or current astronaut strolling through the schools campus. Four of the astronauts who walked on the moon got their degrees from MIT, according to NASA officials.

This is where astronauts tend to visit, he said. No matter where you turn, you see an astronaut.

Fischer, Wednesdays visitor, wont be grounded when he speaks to students. He will field questions from them as he floats inside the space station, taking a break from his day-to-day duties as an outer space explorer.

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Fischer, who received a masters degree in aerospace engineering from MIT in 1998, is part of the Expedition 51/52 crew that launched to the space station in April, according to NASA.

The roughly 20-minute conversation will be streamed live on NASA TV, so those who arent part of the classroom environment can still get a feel for what its like to be an astronaut.

Litant said the questions from students tend to range from What is it like sleeping in space? to What do you do to entertain yourself?

It really runs the gamut, from serious technical questions to real human-interest type stuff, he said. It adds to the enthusiasm that our students already have here.

In a statement, NASA officials said that by connecting students directly to astronauts, it provides unique, authentic experiences designed to enhance student learning.

The video call offers a real-time opportunity for aspiring young aerospace engineers to pose questions about living, working, and researching in space to an alumnus who is doing just that, officials said.

Read the original post:
MIT students will chat live with astronaut on International Space Station - The Boston Globe

Milton-Freewater Rotarians enjoyed a video screening recently about astronaut Peggy Whitson, who holds the all-time woman-in-space record with more than 534 days. She broke the record on April 24 this year. She holds the record for the most spacewalks by a woman astronaut and is the first woman to command the International Space Station twice, noted Rotarian Robby Robbins in a report.

The video takes viewers on a tour of International Space Station modules while Peggy describes life on board. Peggy shows the living facilities aboard, including a galley, bedrooms, bathrooms and viewing lounge while addressing typical questions people ask about life there.

She also went through the science labs that support activities for the United States, Russia, Japan and Europe.

The first piece of the ISS was launched in 1998 aboard a Russian rocket. As more pieces were added it was ready for the first crew to arrive on Nov. 2, 2000. It currently supports the 51st mission crew of six. It is approximately the size of a football field and has the facilities of a five-bedroom house.

At the meeting, Rotary President Ben Currin said the Rotary district conference this year will be held May 25-28 in Seaside, Ore. Rotarys international convention follows on June 10-14 in Atlanta.

Etcetera appears in daily and Sunday editions. Annie Charnley Eveland can be reached at annieeveland@wwub.com or afternoons at 526-8313.

View post:
MF Rotarians watch Space Station video - Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

After a few years in Early Access, Starbound launched in full last year. Chris liked it, and it's since introduced some pretty wholesome updatesthe latest of which will let players craft and customise their own space stations.

"All for a relatively reasonable cost", personalised interstellar dwellings will come with an entrance for your mech and a teleported for your convenience. Stations can then be upgraded and expanded, so says developer Chucklefish in this blog post, so as to create the "intricate corridor maze of your dreams", should that be something you're into.

"This is something weve wanted for a really long time and it has finally found its place in the upcoming update," Chucklefish adds, in reference to the incoming but as yet dateless update 1.3.

When that arrives it'll also come packing a new mech assembly feature which, as you might imagine, lets you assemble your own mechs. Doing so involves visiting a Mech Assembly Station, where you can swap parts, paint, and view the appearance and stats of your mechs. Horns are optional too, apparently.

Again, Starbound's update 1.3 is without a concrete launch date for now, however its updates are typically filled with gifs. Here are but a few:

View post:
Starbound is getting player-made space stations - PC Gamer

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The International Space Station is passing over Staffordshire in May 2017 - and there's chance to see it as long as the night skies are clear.

The ISS is the brightest man-made object in the sky and the third brightest overall.

It can sometimes be spotted during the day but is mostly visible at night during part of the 10 minutes it takes to travel from one horizon to the other.

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The space station is visible as a bright white dot because of sunlight reflecting off its surface and it should be possible to get a glimpse when it passes over Staffordshire this month.

It can sometimes be mistaken for a fast-moving plane or a shooting star.

The ISS is moving at four-and-a-half miles per second or about 17,500 miles per hour as it orbits the earth about 15 times a day from more than 200 miles up.

The station is a research facility and has a crew of six who may well be looking down on us as we look up at them.

The first expedition launched in October 2000. More than 200 people have visited it since then.

In 2012, NASA launched a Spot The Station service giving notifications of when the ISS is calculated to be visible from specific locations on the earth's surface.

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Date

Visible

Max Height

Appears

Disappears

Tue May 9, 4:20 AM

3 min

14

10 above S

10 above ESE

Thu May 11, 4:11 AM

5 min

24

11 above SSW

10 above E

Fri May 12, 3:21 AM

3 min

16

15 above SSE

11 above ESE

Sat May 13, 2:31 AM

< 1 min

10

10 above SE

10 above ESE

Sat May 13, 4:03 AM

5 min

37

14 above SW

10 above E

Sun May 14, 3:13 AM

4 min

27

23 above S

10 above E

Mon May 15, 2:22 AM

2 min

18

18 above SE

11 above ESE

Mon May 15, 3:55 AM

6 min

53

12 above WSW

10 above E

Tue May 16, 3:05 AM

4 min

41

29 above SSW

11 above E

Wed May 17, 2:14 AM

2 min

29

29 above SE

11 above E

Wed May 17, 3:47 AM

6 min

67

10 above WSW

11 above E

Thu May 18, 1:23 AM

1 min

15

15 above ESE

10 above E

Thu May 18, 2:56 AM

5 min

58

22 above WSW

10 above E

Thu May 18, 4:31 AM

< 1 min

15

10 above W

15 above W

Fri May 19, 2:06 AM

4 min

46

42 above SSW

10 above E

Fri May 19, 3:39 AM

6 min

70

10 above W

11 above E

Sat May 20, 1:15 AM

2 min

28

Read more here:
See the International Space Station pass over Staffordshire this May ... - Stoke Sentinel