OrbitalHub

NASA JPL dixit:

“With optical telescopes, it\’s difficult to make out the surface features of asteroid Toutatis. Radar gives us a different picture. On Dec. 12 and 13, 2012, scientists pointed NASA\’s Goldstone Solar System Radar precisely on the asteroid while it was over four million miles/6.9 million kilometers away. Using the bounced radar signals scientists assembled these “images” showing the surface features of Toutatis, an asteroid measuring about 3 miles long (4.8 km). The orbit of Toutatis is well understood. An analysis indicates there is zero possibility of an Earth impact over the entire interval over which its motion can be accurately computed, which is about the next four centuries.”

Credit: NASA JPL

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Test of the improved TM 65 engine.

Credit: Copenhagen Suborbitals

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NASA dixit:

“After launching in their Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft, Expedition 34/35 Soyuz Commander Roman Romanenko, Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn of NASA and Flight Engineer Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency arrived at the International Space Station on Dec. 21, docking their craft to the Rassvet module on the Russian segment of the complex.”

Credit: NASA/Roscosmos

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On December 19, 2012, Soyuz TMA-07M lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz spacecraft is carrying NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn, CSA astronaut Chris Hadfield and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko to the International Space Station.

Credit: NASA/Roscosmos

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NASA Goddard dixit:

“This cosmological simulation follows the development of a single disk galaxy over about 13.5 billion years, from shortly after the Big Bang to the present time. Colors indicate old stars (red), young stars (white and bright blue) and the distribution of gas density (pale blue); the view is 300,000 light-years across. The simulation ran on the Pleiades supercomputer at NASA\’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and required about 1 million CPU hours. It assumes a universe dominated by dark energy and dark matter.”

Credit: F. Governato and T. Quinn (Univ. of Washington), A. Brooks (Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison), and J. Wadsley (McMaster Univ.)

Read more about NASA\’s Goddard Space Flight Center…

NASA dixit:

“Since Sentinels of the Heliosphere in 2008, there have been a few new missions, and a few missions have been shut down. As of Fall of 2012, here\’s a tour of the NASA Near-Earth Heliophysics fleet, covering the space from near-Earth orbit out to the orbit of the Moon.”

Credit: NASA

Read more about Heliophysics at NASA…