OrbitalHub

NASA dicit:

Astronomers using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Space Telescope and the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have found a pulsar hurtling through space at nearly 2.5 million miles an hour — so fast it could travel the distance between Earth and the Moon in just 6 minutes.

Pulsars are superdense, rapidly spinning neutron stars left behind when a massive star explodes. This one, dubbed PSR J0002+6216 (J0002 for short), sports a radio-emitting tail pointing directly toward the expanding debris from a recent supernova explosion. Thanks to its narrow dart-like tail and a fortuitous viewing angle, astronomers can trace this pulsar straight back to its birthplace. Further study of J0002 will help us better understand how these explosions are able to ‘kick’ neutron stars to such high speed.

The pulsar is located about 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was discovered in 2017 by a citizen-science project called Einstein@Home , which uses downtime on the computers of volunteers to process Fermi gamma-ray data and has identified 23 gamma-ray pulsars to date. J0002 spins 8.7 times a second, producing a pulse of gamma rays with each rotation, and has about 1.5 times the mass of the Sun. The pulsar lies about 53 light-years from the center of a supernova remnant called CTB 1. Its rapid motion through interstellar gas results in shock waves that produce the tail of magnetic energy and accelerated particles detected at radio wavelengths using the VLA. The tail extends 13 light-years and clearly points back to the center of CTB 1.

Using Fermi data and a technique called pulsar timing, the team was able to measure how quickly and in what direction the pulsar was moving across our line of sight thanks to Fermi’s 10-year data covering the entire sky. J0002 is speeding through space five times faster than the average pulsar and faster than 99 percent of those with measured speeds. It will eventually escape our galaxy.

Francis Reddy (University of Maryland College Park): Lead Science Writer

Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Lead Producer

Jeanette Kazmierczak (University of Maryland College Park): Science Writer

Music credit: “Forensic Scientist” from Killer Tracks

Video Credit: NASA Goddard

Wikipedia dicit:

A Van Allen radiation belt is a zone of energetic charged particles, most of which originate from the solar wind, that are captured by and held around a planet by that planet’s magnetic field. Earth has two such belts and sometimes others may be temporarily created. The discovery of the belts is credited to James Van Allen, and as a result, Earth’s belts are known as the Van Allen belts. Earth’s two main belts extend from an altitude of about 640 to 58,000 km (400 to 36,040 mi) above the surface in which region radiation levels vary. Most of the particles that form the belts are thought to come from solar wind and other particles by cosmic rays. By trapping the solar wind, the magnetic field deflects those energetic particles and protects the atmosphere from destruction.

The belts are located in the inner region of Earth’s magnetosphere. The belts trap energetic electrons and protons. Other nuclei, such as alpha particles, are less prevalent. The belts endanger satellites, which must have their sensitive components protected with adequate shielding if they spend significant time near that zone. In 2013, NASA reported that the Van Allen Probes had discovered a transient, third radiation belt, which was observed for four weeks until it was destroyed by a powerful, interplanetary shock wave from the Sun.

Video Credit: NASA

NASA dicit:

On June 19, 2004, NASA launches Aura, a next generation Earth-observing satellite. One of several instruments on the Aura satellite is the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI). OMI is a contribution of the Netherland’s Agency for Aerospace Programs (NIVR) along with the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI). OMI will continue the TOMS record for total ozone and other atmospheric parameters related to ozone chemistry and climate.

Video Credit: NASA

NASA dicit:

The International Space Station’s High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment is an external camera platform located on the Columbus module of the space station. In addition to providing beautiful views of Earth, one of the goals of HDEV is to monitor the longevity and quality of its image sensors in the space environment. HDEV operations began April 30, 2014 and only a single bad pixel has been identified.

Video Credit: NASA Johnson

Wikipedia dicit:

Helios-A and Helios-B (also known as Helios 1 and Helios 2) are a pair of probes launched into heliocentric orbit for the purpose of studying solar processes. A joint venture of West Germany’s space agency DFVLR (70 percent share) and NASA (30 percent), the probes were launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on December 10, 1974, and January 15, 1976, respectively. Built by the main contractor Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm, they were the first spaceprobes built outside both the United States and the Soviet Union to leave Earth orbit.

The probes set a maximum speed record for spacecraft of 252,792 km/h (157,078 mph; 70,220 m/s). Helios-B flew 3,000,000 kilometres (1,900,000 mi) closer to the Sun than Helios-A, achieving perihelion on April 17, 1976, at a record distance of 43.432 million km (26,987,000 mi; 0.29032 AU), closer than the orbit of Mercury. Helios-B was sent into orbit 13 months after the launch of Helios-A. The Helios space probes completed their primary missions by the early 1980s, and continued to send data up to 1985. The probes are no longer functional but remain in their elliptical orbits around the Sun.

Tom Bridgman (GST): Lead Visualizer

Kathalina Tran (SGT): Lead Writer

Laurence Schuler (ADNET Systems Inc.): Technical Support

Ian Jones (ADNET Systems Inc.): Technical Support

Video Credit: NASA

NASA dicit:

This visualization of Lee Lincoln scarp is created from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographs and elevation mapping. The scarp is a low ridge or step about 80 meters high and running north-south through the western end of the Taurus-Littrow valley, the site of the Apollo 17 Moon landing. The scarp marks the location of a relatively young, low-angle thrust fault. The land west of the fault was forced up and over the eastern side as the lunar crust contracted. In a May 2019 paper published in Nature Geoscience, Thomas Watters and his coauthors provide evidence that this fault and others like it are still active and producing moonquakes today.

Music by Killer Tracks: Smoke and Mirrors – Gresby Race Nash

Ernie Wright (USRA): Lead Visualizer

David Ladd (USRA): Producer

Tom Watters (Smithsonian/Air and Space): Scientist

Video Credit: NASA Goddard