Images
NASA / GSFC / ASU |
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This image shows a cratered region near the moon's Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds)
region, as photographed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. Click on
the image for a larger version from NASA's Web site.
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Today's first images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter provide a fresh perspective on the moon, just weeks before the 40th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing.
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Kevin Frank / The Tonight Show / NASA |
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Apollo 12 astronaut Pete Conrad stands near the southern rim of Surveyor Crater
during a moonwalk on Nov. 19, 1969. Conrad holds a sampling scoop, and a tool
carrier rests by his foot. Put on red-blue glasses for the 3-D effect, which was
added by graphic artist Kevin Frank. Click on the image for a larger version.
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Our latest crop of cosmic pictures puts you hundreds of miles above an erupting volcano, sends you zooming over the moon and plunks you down on Mars. But if you really want to feel as if you're in outer space, you'll have to put on your red-blue 3-D glasses. It's the next best thing to being there.
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BioMed Central |
Click for video: Watch
mating worms. (Credit:
Paul Sternberg, Allyson
Whittaker, Caltech)
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How do you spice up a report about the mating habits of nematode worms? Well, how about an online video of hot nematode-on-nematode action?
The video and an accompanying news release are related to a research paper published today in the open-access journal BMC Biology.
The paper focuses on the male mating behavior of Caenorhabditis elegans, an oft-studied worm species.
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NASA / JPL / SSI |
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The spiky shadow of Saturn's moon Mimas dips onto the planet's rings and
straddles the Cassini Division in this natural color image taken by the Cassini
spacecraft on April 8, 2009. Click on the image for a larger view.
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Leapin' and hoppin' on a moonshadow? The Cassini space mission turns that line from the Cat Stevens classic completely around by revealing the leapin' and hoppin' moonshadows on Saturn's rings.
Those shadows are taking on an especially eerie look as the planet nears equinox, an event that happens only twice during Saturn's 29.5-year-long orbit. In August, Saturn's rings will be facing the sun exactly edge-on. During the buildup to that event, the Cassini orbiter has been focusing on the shadows cast by moons as well as structures on the rings themselves.
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Kelley Knight Heins |
Click for video: John Callas, project manager for the Mars rover mission,
explains how a duplicate rover is being used at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in Pasadena, Calif., to figure out how best to free up a rover stuck in Martian sand.
Click on the image to watch an msnbc.com video.
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Take two parts diatomaceous earth, add one part clay ... and voila! You've got a blend of simulated Martian sand fine enough to get a rover stuck in.
"It's not a secret formula," John Callas, project manager for the Mars Exploration Rovers, said as he showed us around the place at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory where a stand-in for the Spirit rover is mired in buckets of the stuff.
The semi-impromptu tour, arranged for me and a few other folks who attended last week's American Astronomical Society meeting in Pasadena, Calif., provided an inside look at the clean room where NASA's future Mars rover is taking shape, as well as the not-so-clean room where rovers are put to the test.
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NASA / JPL / SSI |
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A natural-color image provided by the Cassini orbiter shows Saturn's southern
hemisphere and the planet's main rings. Click on the image for a larger version.
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Did you know that Saturn's rings are wavy? Which Mars probe is back in business after it ran into trouble? How many rookies are on the space shuttle Endeavour? Which Apollo 11 crew member never set foot on the moon? Test your wits - and exercise your curiosity.
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S.V. Ramirez / NExSci / Caltech / JPL / NASA |
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This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the center of the
Milky Way galaxy, with three baby stars highlighted in the inset images.
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NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has turned up infrared evidence of baby stars being born near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. The discovery demonstrates that our home galaxy's most crowded neighborhood is more diverse than astronomers may have thought.
"These stars are like needles in a haystack," Solange Ramirez, principal investigator of the research program at NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology, said in a news release issued Wednesday. "There's no way to find them using optical light, because dust gets in the way. We needed Spitzer's infrared instruments to cut through the dust and narrow in on the objects."
In its current condition, the Milky Way's center isn't the kind of place you'd think infant stars would find much footing. Until now, astronomers haven't had much luck finding young stellar objects. But the Spitzer science team focused in on about 100 candidates and identified three stars that were less than a million years old, based on their spectral signatures in infrared wavelengths.
"It is amazing to me that we have found these stars," Ramirez said. "The galactic center is a very interesting place. It has young stars, old stars, black holes, everything. We started mining a catalog of about 1 million sources and managed to find three young stars - stars that will help reveal the secrets at the core of the Milky Way."
And not just the Milky Way, according to Deokkeun An of Caltech's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, who is the lead author of a research paper submitted to The Astrophysical Journal. "By studying individual stars in the galactic center, we can better understand how stars are formed in different interstellar environments," An said in Wednesday's news release.
The Spitzer imagery was unveiled during this week's meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, Calif. Here are other tales of galactic goings-on from the AAS agenda:
NASA / ESA / STScI / AURA |
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Scores of books let you hold Hubble imagery in your hands — including "Touch
the Invisible Sky," from which this photoillustration is taken.
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Only a few astronauts have ever held the Hubble Space Telescope in their hands, but "Hubble huggers" on Earth have plenty of opportunities to get hold of Hubble's finest - including books that focus on coffee-table-sized imagery, the deeper stories behind the telescope's travails, and even the feel of outer space.
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NASA / ESA / STScI / AURA |
This view of the planetary nebula
Kohoutek 4-55 will be the last
"pretty picture" from Hubble's Wide
Field and Planetary Camera 2. Click
on the image for a larger view.
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With only a few days before it goes dark, the camera that arguably saved the Hubble Space Telescope has delivered a stunning image of a dying star. The picture of planetary nebula Kohoutek 4-55 was snapped just last week by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (a.k.a. WFPC2), the instrument that also imaged the iconic "Pillars of Creation" and the Hubble Deep Field.
WFPC2 was built in the 1980s as a "clone" of the space telescope's first wide-field camera, to be used as a spare in case something went wrong with the original instrument. Something went wrong, all right, but not with the camera. Shortly after Hubble's launch in 1990, scientists discovered to their horror that the telescope's primary mirror was shaped incorrectly, crippling its optics.
Fortunately, the Hubble team figured out a way to adjust WFPC2's optics to compensate for the mirror flaw - turning the tide in the telescope's favor.
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NASA / JPL-Caltech |
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Rivers of stars create a smooth swirl in this infrared view of the galaxy NGC 2841,
captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Click on the image for a larger view.
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The month of May is bringing in so many outer-space wonders, it's as if a three-ring circus were rolling into town with four or five rings. Today is Space Day, which morphs into Astronomy Day and the Astronaut Hall of Fame on Saturday, followed by the peak of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower next week ... all leading up to one of the greatest shows off Earth, the final upgrade to the Hubble Space Telescope.
And if that still isn't enough rings for you, there's a sparkling new image of a ring galaxy from Hubble's younger sibling, the Spitzer Space Telescope.
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