OrbitalHub

NASA dixit:

“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 dixit:

“Engineers at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi on October 19 completed a hot-fire test of RS-25 rocket engine E2063, a flight engine for NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. Engine E2063 is scheduled to help power SLS on its Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2), the first flight of the new rocket to carry humans.”

Video credit: NASA

ESA dixit:

“In this time-lapse the Space Station Expedition 53 crew are seen packing items into the Dragon spacecraft in preparation for its return to Earth. The cargo spacecraft left the Station at 08:40 CEST on 17 September 2017 when ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli and NASA Station commander Randy Bresnik released it from the Harmony module with the support of the Canadarm2 robotic arm. Six hours later the spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. From there it was retrieved together with its science and gear payload.”

Video credit: ESA

ESA dixit:

“This remarkable footage shows the flyby of asteroid 2012 TC4 during the night of 11/12 October 2017. At the time this was recorded, the estimated 10-20 m-diameter asteroid was approaching Earth. It made its closest approach at 07:41 CEST on 12 October, just 43 782 km away – much closer than the Moon and inside the orbit of some satellites.

This was captured by astronomers Peter Schlatter and Dominik Bodenmann working at the ZIMLAT telescope at the Swiss Optical Ground Station and Geodynamics Observatory operated by the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern (AIUB).”

Video credit: ESA / AIUB

NASA dixit:

“Outside the International Space Station, Expedition 53 Commander Randy Bresnik and Flight Engineer Joe Acaba of NASA conducted a spacewalk on October 20 to continue upgrades to and maintenance of station hardware. It was the third spacewalk in two weeks for Expedition 53 crew members outside the Quest airlock. During the excursion, Bresnik and Acaba replaced a failed camera light on the new Latching End Effector “hand” on the Canadarm2 robotic arm, installed a new high definition camera on the starboard truss of the complex, replaced a fuse on the Dextre Special Dexterous Manipulator attachment for the arm and removed thermal blankets from two spare electrical routing units for future robotic replacement work, if required. It was the fifth spacewalk in Bresnik’s career and the third for Acaba.”

Video credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“As wildfires burn across California, NASA satellites help gather data about where the fires are and how smoke travels across the state. The smoke from the fires is even visible a million miles away from Earth, captured by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) onboard NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR).

The Terra spacecraft can see fires in both daylight and at night, helping aid firefighters in tracking and stopping the blazes. NASA’s unique vantage point in space helps better understand our home planet.”

Music: Seven by Andrea Sacco [SACEM]

Video credit: NASA