“ESA’s CryoSat and the Copernicus Sentinel-1 missions have been used to measure subtle changes in the elevation and flow of ice shelves that, in turn, reveals how huge canyons are forming underneath. Warm bottom ocean water is entering the cavity under Antarctica’s Dotson ice shelf and is stirred by Earth’s rotation. This is causing one side of the ice shelf to melt. The canyon, which has formed over 25 years, is now 200 m deep in places and the ice just above it is heavily crevassed, affecting the shelf’s future ability to buttress the ice on land.”
Video credit: ESA/University of Edinburgh–N. Gourmelen/Planetary Visions
“A team from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is developing a new, third-generation facility science instrument for the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA.
The High Resolution Mid-InfrarEd Spectrometer (HIRMES), is a spectrometer optimized to detect neutral atomic oxygen, water, as well as normal and deuterated (or “heavy”) hydrogen molecules at infrared wavelengths between 25 and 122 microns (a micron is one-millionth of a meter). These wavelengths are key to determining how water vapor, ice, and oxygen combine at different times during planet formation, and will enable new observations of how these elements combine with dust to form the mass that may one day become a planet.
HIRMES will provide scientists with a unique opportunity to study this aspect of planetary formation, as SOFIA is currently the only NASA observatory capable of accessing these mid-infrared wavelengths. Infrared wavelengths between 28 and 112 microns do not reach ground-based telescopes because water vapor and carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere block this energy. SOFIA is able to access this part of the electromagnetic spectrum by flying between 39,000 feet and 45,000 feet, above more than 99 percent of this water vapor.”
Francis Reddy (Syneren Technologies): Science Writer
Rob Andreoli (AIMM): Videographer
John Caldwell (AIMM): Videographer
Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Animator
Music credit: “Sparkle Shimmer” and “The Orion Arm”, both from Killer Tracks.
“A team of scientists led by Laura Hayes –a solar physicist who splits her time between NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland – investigated a connection between solar flares and Earth’s atmosphere. They discovered pulses in the electrified layer of the atmosphere – called the ionosphere – mirrored X-ray oscillations during a July 24, 2016 flare.”
Genna Duberstein (USRA): Lead Producer
Kathalina Tran (Wyle Information Systems): Lead Science Writer
Jack Ireland (ADNET Systems): Scientist
Laura Hayes (Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland): Lead Scientist
“Doomed neutron stars whirl toward their demise in this animation. Gravitational waves (pale arcs) bleed away orbital energy, causing the stars to move closer together and merge. As the stars collide, some of the debris blasts away in particle jets moving at nearly the speed of light, producing a brief burst of gamma rays (magenta). In addition to the ultra-fast jets powering the gamma-rays, the merger also generates slower moving debris. An outflow driven by accretion onto the merger remnant emits rapidly fading ultraviolet light (violet). A dense cloud of hot debris stripped from the neutron stars just before the collision produces visible and infrared light (blue-white through red). The UV, optical and near-infrared glow is collectively referred to as a kilonova. Later, once the remnants of the jet directed toward us had expanded into our line of sight, X-rays (blue) were detected. This animation represents phenomena observed up to nine days after GW170817.”
Music credit: “Exploding Skies” from Killer Tracks
Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab
“NASA tested a parachute platform during the flight of a Terrier-Black Brant IX suborbital sounding rocket on October 4, from the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The rocket carried the Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiment (ASPIRE) from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The mission will evaluate the performance of the ASPIRE payload, which is designed to test parachute systems in a low-density, supersonic environment.”
“The first generation X-1 aircraft changed aviation history in numerous ways, and not simply because they were the first aircraft to fly faster than the speed of sound. Rather, they established the concept of the research aircraft, built solely for experimental purposes. NASA continues this legacy of experimental aircraft today.”
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