“The video is compiled from a series of images taken on July 25 by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. The angular extent of the widest field of view is six degrees. Visible in the images are the comet C/2018 N1, asteroids, variable stars, asteroids and reflected light from Mars. TESS is expected to find thousands of planets around other nearby stars.”
Video credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology/NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Lead Producer
Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET Systems Inc.): Technical Support
Claire Saravia (NASA/GSFC): Lead Public Affairs Officer
Jeanette Kazmierczak (University of Maryland College Park): Lead Science Writer
“NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission launched August 11 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The mission will be the first to fly directly through the Sun’s corona – the hazardous region of intense heat and solar radiation in the Sun’s atmosphere that is visible during an eclipse. It will gather data that could help answer questions about solar physics that have puzzled scientists for decades. Gathering information about fundamental processes near the Sun can help improve our understanding of how our solar system’s star changes the space environment, where space weather can affect astronauts, interfere with satellite orbits, or damage spacecraft electronics.”
“Astronomers all over the world are eagerly awaiting the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. The infrared space telescope, which will carry the largest astronomical mirror ever flown in space is one of the most complex observatories ever built. It will allow unprecedented science, including investigations into the atmospheres of exoplanets and the formation of galaxies, addressing fundamental questions in astronomy. The mission is an international collaboration between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency, and is planned for launch in 2021 on a European Ariane 5 rocket.”
“Operating between 2009 and 2013, ESA’s Planck mission scanned the sky at microwave wavelengths to observe the cosmic microwave background, or CMB, which is the most ancient light emitted in the history of our Universe. Data from Planck have revealed an “almost perfect Universe”: the standard model description of a cosmos containing ordinary matter, cold dark matter and dark energy, populated by structures that had been seeded during an early phase of inflationary expansion, is largely correct, but a few details to puzzle over remain.”
“Parker Solar Probe mission will revolutionize our understanding of the Sun, where changing conditions can propagate out into the solar system, affecting Earth and other worlds. Parker Solar Probe will travel through the Sun’s atmosphere, closer to the surface than any spacecraft before it, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions — and ultimately providing humanity with the closest-ever observations of a star.
In order to unlock the mysteries of the Sun’s atmosphere, Parker Solar Probe will use Venus’ gravity during seven flybys over nearly seven years to gradually bring its orbit closer to the Sun. The spacecraft will fly through the Sun’s atmosphere as close as 3.8 million miles to our star’s surface, well within the orbit of Mercury and more than seven times closer than any spacecraft has come before. (Earth’s average distance to the Sun is 93 million miles.)
Flying into the outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere, known as the corona, for the first time, Parker Solar Probe will employ a combination of in situ measurements and imaging to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and expand our knowledge of the origin and evolution of the solar wind. It will also make critical contributions to our ability to forecast changes in Earth’s space environment that affect life and technology on Earth.
Parker Solar Probe will perform its scientific investigations in a hazardous region of intense heat and solar radiation. The spacecraft will fly close enough to the Sun to watch the solar wind speed up from subsonic to supersonic, and it will fly though the birthplace of the highest-energy solar particles.
To perform these unprecedented investigations, the spacecraft and instruments will be protected from the Sun’s heat by a 4.5-inch-thick (11.43 cm) carbon-composite shield, which will need to withstand temperatures outside the spacecraft that reach nearly 2,500 F (1,377 C).”
“This is an animated 3D view of the sky as observed by ESA’s Gaia satellite using information from the mission’s second data release. The bright band in the left half of the image is the Milky Way, where most of the stars in our Galaxy reside. The animation starts with the Orion constellation at the centre; we then move towards the neighbouring Taurus constellation and to the Hyades star cluster, which is part of this constellation. Hyades is the closest open cluster to the Solar System, some 150 light-years away.
The animation first shows the 3D structure of the cluster, based on accurate position and distance information from Gaia. Then an animated view of the future motions of stars is shown – both in Hyades and beyond. This is based on Gaia’s measurements of the velocity of stars across the sky, also known as proper motion.”
Credits Video: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, CC BY SA 3.0 IGO/Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC); Gaia Sky; S. Jordan / T. Sagristà , Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Germany
Subscribe to blog posts using RSS
