Blog dedicado a cuentos, notas de interés, actividades políticas , sociales, historia, artes culinarias, fiestas patronales, astronomía, ciencia ficción, temas del Medio Ambiente ,y del acontecer Peruano y Mundial desde otro punto de vista muy personal y diferente!!!!!
********** Blog Fundado el 03 de Enero del 2008 **********
The primary mirror of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope consisting of 18 hexagonal mirrors looks like a giant puzzle piece standing in the massive clean room of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Appropriately, combined with the rest of the observatory, the mirrors will help piece together puzzles scientists have been trying to solve throughout the cosmos.
Webb's primary mirror will collect light for the observatory in the scientific quest to better understand our solar system and beyond. Using these mirrors and Webb's infrared vision scientists will peer back over 13.5 billion years to see the first stars and galaxies forming out of the darkness of the early universe. Unprecedented infrared sensitivity will help astronomers to compare the faintest, earliest galaxies to today's grand spirals and ellipticals, helping us to understand how galaxies assemble over billions of years. Webb will see behind cosmic dust clouds to see where stars and planetary systems are being born. It will also help reveal information about atmospheres of planets outside our solar system, and perhaps even find signs of the building blocks of life elsewhere in the universe.
The Webb telescope was mounted upright after a "center of curvature" test conducted at Goddard. This initial center of curvature test ensures the integrity and accuracy, and test will be repeated later to verify those same properties after the structure undergoes launch environment testing. In the photo, two technicians stand before the giant primary mirror.
A prototype of the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) robotic capture module system is tested with a mock asteroid boulder in its clutches at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The robotic portion of ARM is targeted for launch in 2021.
Located in the center’s Robotic Operations Center, the mockup helps engineers understand the intricate operations required to collect a multi-ton boulder from an asteroid’s surface. The hardware involved here includes three space frame legs with foot pads, two seven degrees of freedom arms that have with microspine gripper “hands” to grasp onto the boulder.
NASA and students from West Virginia University built the asteroid mockup from rock, styrofoam, plywood and an aluminum endoskeleton. The mock boulder arrived in four pieces and was assembled inside the ROC to help visualize the engagement between the prototype system and a potential capture target.
Inside the ROC, engineers can use industrial robots, a motion-based platform, and customized algorithms to create simulations of space operations for robotic spacecraft. The ROC also allows engineers to simulate robotic satellite servicing operations, fine tuning systems and controllers and optimizing performance factors for future missions when a robotic spacecraft might be deployed to repair or refuel a satellite in orbit.
Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., la Agencia Espacial NASA, nos informa que el Telescopio Espacial Hubble, ha captado el núcleo de una gigantesca Galaxia Espiral, conocida como : "NGC6814tieneun núcleoextremadamente brillante,un signo reveladorde que la galaxiaesuna galaxiaSeyfert.Estas galaxiastienen centrosmuyactivosque pueden emitirfuertesexplosiones de radiación.Elluminoso corazónde NGC6814es una fuentealtamente variablede la radiaciónde rayosX,provocando que los científicossospechanquealbergaun agujeronegrosupermasivocon una masade unos 18millones de veces ladel sol...."
Together with irregular galaxies, spiral galaxies make up approximately 60 percent of the galaxies in the local universe. However, despite their prevalence, each spiral galaxy is unique — like snowflakes, no two are alike. This is demonstrated by the striking face-on spiral galaxy NGC 6814, whose luminous nucleus and spectacular sweeping arms, rippled with an intricate pattern of dark dust, are captured in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image.
NGC 6814 has an extremely bright nucleus, a telltale sign that the galaxy is a Seyfert galaxy. These galaxies have very active centers that can emit strong bursts of radiation. The luminous heart of NGC 6814 is a highly variable source of X-ray radiation, causing scientists to suspect that it hosts a supermassive black hole with a mass about 18 million times that of the sun.
As NGC 6814 is a very active galaxy, many regions of ionized gas are studded along its spiral arms. In these large clouds of gas, a burst of star formation has recently taken place, forging the brilliant blue stars that are visible scattered throughout the galaxy.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt Text credit: European Space Agency
Discovered in 1784 by the German–British astronomer William Herschel, NGC 4394 is a barred spiral galaxy situated about 55 million light-years from Earth. The galaxy lies in the constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair) and is considered to be a member of the Virgo Cluster.
NGC 4394 is the archetypal barred spiral galaxy, with bright spiral arms emerging from the ends of a bar that cuts through the galaxy’s central bulge. These arms are peppered with young blue stars, dark filaments of cosmic dust, and bright, fuzzy regions of active star formation. At the center of NGC 4394 lies a region of ionized gas known as a low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER). LINERs are active regions that display a characteristic set of emission lines in their spectra— mostly from weakly ionized atoms of oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur.
Although LINER galaxies are relatively common, it’s still unclear where the energy comes from to ionize the gas. In most cases it is thought to be the influence of a black hole at the center of the galaxy, but it could also be the result of a high level of star formation. In the case of NGC 4394, it is likely that gravitational interaction with a nearby neighbor has caused gas to flow into the galaxy’s central region, providing a new reservoir of material to fuel the black hole or to make new stars.
Text credit: European Space Agency Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
NASA to Provide Coverage of May 9 Mercury Transit of the Sun
NASA is inviting media and viewers around the world to see a relatively rare celestial event, with coverage of the Monday, May 9 transit of the sun by the planet Mercury. Media may view the event at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Agency scientists will be available at the Goddard viewing event for live media interviews from 6 to 11:30 a.m. EDT. To attend, media must contact Michelle Handleman at michelle.z.handleman@nasa.gov. To schedule an interview with a NASA scientist at the event, contact Claire Saravia, claire.g.desaravia@nasa.gov.
Mercury passes between Earth and the sun only about 13 times a century, its last trek taking place in 2006. Due to its diminutive size, viewing this event safely requires a telescope or high-powered binoculars fitted with solar filters made of specially-coated glass or Mylar.
NASA is offering several avenues for the public to view the event without specialized and costly equipment, including images on NASA.gov, a one-hour NASA Television special, and social media coverage.
Mercury will appear as a small black dot as it crosses the edge of the sun and into view at 7:12 a.m. The planet will make a leisurely journey across the face of the sun, reaching mid-point at approximately 10:47 a.m., and exiting the golden disk at 2:42 p.m. The entire 7.5-hour path across the sun will be visible across the Eastern United States – with magnification and proper solar filters – while those in the West can observe the transit in progress after sunrise.
NASA also will stream a live program on NASA TV and the agency’s Facebook page from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. -- an informal roundtable during which experts representing planetary, heliophysics and astrophysics will discuss the science behind the Mercury transit. Viewers can ask questions via Facebook and Twitter using #AskNASA.
Roundtable participants include:
Jim Green, planetary science director at NASA Headquarters in Washington
Lika Guhathakurta, heliophysics program scientist at NASA Headquarters
Nicky Fox, project scientist for the Solar Probe Plus mission at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland
Doug Hudgins, Exoplanet Exploration Program scientist at NASA Headquarters
To view a NASA ScienceCast video on the rare opportunity the Mercury transit poses for professional astronomers and backyard sky watchers alike, go to:
NASA takes you on a world tour with this animation as we kick off major new field campaigns to study regions of critical change from land, sea and air.
NASA is sending scientists around the world in 2016 – from the edge of the Greenland ice sheet to the coral reefs of the South Pacific – to delve into challenging questions about how our planet is changing and what impacts humans are having on it.
While Earth science field experiments are nothing new for NASA, the next six months will be a particularly active period with eight major new campaigns taking researchers around the world on a wide range of science investigations. The public is invited to follow this journey of exploration online through NASA’s social media channels and the new Earth Expeditions webpage, which will feature regular video, photos and blog posts from these missions and other ongoing field activities.
Eight major new NASA field research campaigns get underway this year from the Greenland ice sheet to Pacific coral reefs that will provide scientists with a deeper view of how our home planet works to complement what they’ve learned from space.
Credits: NASA
“Combining the long-term global view from space with detailed measurements from field experiments is a powerful way of deciphering what’s happening in our world,” said Michael Freilich, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division in Washington. “Scientists worldwide use NASA Earth science field data together with satellite data and computer models to tackle many of today's environmental challenges and advance our knowledge of how the Earth works as a complex, integrated system.”
NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives, and safeguard our future with a fleet of orbiting satellites and instruments. To gain a more complete picture of how and why our planet is changing, NASA also sponsors intensive field studies targeting critical science issues that can benefit from a deeper look.
The first of the new projects, currently in the field, is an examination of the extent to which the oceans around Greenland are melting the edges of the ice sheet from below. The Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) team is now conducting its first airborne survey of the ice edge around the entire coast of Greenland. This fall, they will return to measure coastal water temperatures by dropping sensors in the sea from a plane.
Air quality is the focus of the Korea U.S.-Air Quality (KORUS-AQ) campaign in South Korea, which begins in May. This joint study between NASA and the Republic of Korea will advance our ability to monitor air pollution from space, with coordinated observations from aircraft, ground sites, ships and satellites.
Also in May, the North Atlantic Aerosols and Marine Ecosystems Study (NAAMES) takes to the sea and air for the second year to study how the world’s largest plankton bloom gives rise to small organic particles that influence clouds and climate.
Throughout much of this year, teams of scientists working on the Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) will be in the tundra and forests of Alaska and northwestern Canada investigating the role of climate in wildfires, thawing permafrost, wildlife migration habits and insect outbreaks.
In June, the COral Reef Airborne Laboratory (CORAL) project team will begin testing airborne and in-water instruments in Hawaii to assess the condition of threatened coral-based ecosystems. CORAL’s next stop, in the fall, will be Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
Three airborne research campaigns will take to the skies this summer, focusing on critical climate-related components of the atmosphere. Flying tracks over the Pacific and Atlantic oceans thousands of miles long, the team of the Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) mission will gather measurements on more than 200 different chemical species from the ocean surface up to approximately seven miles in the atmosphere to understand how the movement and transformation of short-lived greenhouse gases, such as ozone and methane, contribute to climate change.
Focusing on the skies over the eastern half of the United States, the Atmospheric Carbon and Transport – America (ACT-America) research team will track the movement of atmospheric carbon to better understand the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases. Flights will originate from Louisiana, Nebraska and Virginia.
The Observations of Clouds above Aerosols and their Interactions (ORACLES) study will use airborne instruments to probe the impact on climate and rainfall of the interaction between clouds over the southeastern Atlantic Ocean and smoke from massive vegetation burning in southern Africa. A better understanding of how the smoke particles alter stratocumulus clouds that play a key role in regional and global surface temperatures and precipitation will help improve current climate models.
KORUS-AQ and ABoVE originated from NASA’s ongoing research program in the Earth Science Division. The other six new experiments are the latest in a series of multi-year NASA Earth Venture Suborbital investigations selected in 2014. Earth Venture projects provide the U.S. scientific community with regular opportunities to accommodate new Earth science research priorities. Earth Venture is part of NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program managed at the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
NASA is sending scientists around the world in 2016 – from the edge of the Greenland ice sheet to the coral reefs of the South Pacific – to delve into challenging questions about how our planet is changing and what impacts humans are having on it.
While Earth science field experiments are nothing new for NASA, the next six months will be a particularly active period with eight major new campaigns taking researchers around the world on a wide range of science investigations. The public is invited to follow this journey of exploration online through NASA’s social media channels and the new Earth Expeditions webpage, which will feature regular video, photos and blog posts from these missions and other ongoing field activities.
Eight major new NASA field research campaigns get underway this year from the Greenland ice sheet to Pacific coral reefs that will provide scientists with a deeper view of how our home planet works to complement what they’ve learned from space.
Credits: NASA
“Combining the long-term global view from space with detailed measurements from field experiments is a powerful way of deciphering what’s happening in our world,” said Michael Freilich, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division in Washington. “Scientists worldwide use NASA Earth science field data together with satellite data and computer models to tackle many of today's environmental challenges and advance our knowledge of how the Earth works as a complex, integrated system.”
NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives, and safeguard our future with a fleet of orbiting satellites and instruments. To gain a more complete picture of how and why our planet is changing, NASA also sponsors intensive field studies targeting critical science issues that can benefit from a deeper look.
The first of the new projects, currently in the field, is an examination of the extent to which the oceans around Greenland are melting the edges of the ice sheet from below. The Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) team is now conducting its first airborne survey of the ice edge around the entire coast of Greenland. This fall, they will return to measure coastal water temperatures by dropping sensors in the sea from a plane.
Air quality is the focus of the Korea U.S.-Air Quality (KORUS-AQ) campaign in South Korea, which begins in May. This joint study between NASA and the Republic of Korea will advance our ability to monitor air pollution from space, with coordinated observations from aircraft, ground sites, ships and satellites.
Also in May, the North Atlantic Aerosols and Marine Ecosystems Study (NAAMES) takes to the sea and air for the second year to study how the world’s largest plankton bloom gives rise to small organic particles that influence clouds and climate.
Throughout much of this year, teams of scientists working on the Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) will be in the tundra and forests of Alaska and northwestern Canada investigating the role of climate in wildfires, thawing permafrost, wildlife migration habits and insect outbreaks.
In June, the COral Reef Airborne Laboratory (CORAL) project team will begin testing airborne and in-water instruments in Hawaii to assess the condition of threatened coral-based ecosystems. CORAL’s next stop, in the fall, will be Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
Three airborne research campaigns will take to the skies this summer, focusing on critical climate-related components of the atmosphere. Flying tracks over the Pacific and Atlantic oceans thousands of miles long, the team of the Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) mission will gather measurements on more than 200 different chemical species from the ocean surface up to approximately seven miles in the atmosphere to understand how the movement and transformation of short-lived greenhouse gases, such as ozone and methane, contribute to climate change.
Focusing on the skies over the eastern half of the United States, the Atmospheric Carbon and Transport – America (ACT-America) research team will track the movement of atmospheric carbon to better understand the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases. Flights will originate from Louisiana, Nebraska and Virginia.
The Observations of Clouds above Aerosols and their Interactions (ORACLES) study will use airborne instruments to probe the impact on climate and rainfall of the interaction between clouds over the southeastern Atlantic Ocean and smoke from massive vegetation burning in southern Africa. A better understanding of how the smoke particles alter stratocumulus clouds that play a key role in regional and global surface temperatures and precipitation will help improve current climate models.
KORUS-AQ and ABoVE originated from NASA’s ongoing research program in the Earth Science Division. The other six new experiments are the latest in a series of multi-year NASA Earth Venture Suborbital investigations selected in 2014. Earth Venture projects provide the U.S. scientific community with regular opportunities to accommodate new Earth science research priorities. Earth Venture is part of NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program managed at the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., Un nuevo estudio dela NASAy de la Universidadde Harvard; concluye queel cambio climáticoestá disminuyendoun vínculo importante entrelas sequíasy el momento derecoger la uvade vinoen Franciay Suiza.
A new study from NASA and Harvard University finds that climate change is diminishing an important link between droughts and the timing of wine grape harvests in France and Switzerland.
French vineyards like the one in the photograph are experiencing earlier harvests in recent years as the region's climate has warmed.
Credits: Elizabeth Wolkovich/Harvard University
The best years for wine grape quality typically have warm summers with above-average rainfall early in the growing season and late-season drought. Those factors are shifting as the area's climate changes.
Credits: Elizabeth Wolkovich/Harvard University
During a study of wine grape harvest dates from 1600 to 2007, researchers discovered harvests began shifting dramatically earlier during the latter half of the 20th century. These shifts were caused by changes in the connection between climate and harvest timing. While earlier harvests from 1600 to 1980 occurred in years with warmer and drier conditions during spring and summer, from 1981 to 2007 warming attributed to climate change resulted in earlier harvests even in years without drought.
The finding is important because higher-quality wines are typically associated with earlier harvest dates in cooler wine-growing regions, such as France and Switzerland.
“Wine grapes are one of the world’s most valuable horticultural crops and there is increasing evidence that climate change has caused earlier harvest days in this region in recent decades,” said Ben Cook, lead author and climate scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York. “Our research suggests that the climate drivers of these early harvests have changed.”
Indicators of wine quality, such as wine ratings, show the best years for grape harvest typically include warm summers with above-average rainfall early in the growing season and late-season drought.
“This gives vines plenty of heat and moisture to grow early in the season, while drier conditions later in the season shift them away from vegetative growth and toward greater fruit production,” said the study’s co-author, ecologist Elizabeth Wolkovich of Arnold Arboretum and the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Researchers conducted an analysis using 400 years of harvest data from Western Europe. The study considered variability and trends in harvest dates, climate data from instruments during the 20th century, and reconstructions from historical documents and tree rings of temperature, precipitation and soil moisture dating back to 1600.
That analysis was compared with shifts in wine quality in the Bordeaux and Burgundy regions of France based on the ratings of vintages during the past 100 years. Detailed quality information was available for those two regions in addition to the broader harvest data available throughout France and Switzerland.
The results indicate a fundamental shift in the role of drought and moisture as large-scale drivers of harvest time and wine quality. While warm temperatures have consistently led to earlier harvests and higher-quality wines, in recent decades the impact of drought has largely disappeared as a result of large-scale shifts in climate.
“Wine quality also depends on a number of factors beyond climate, including grape varieties, soils, vineyard management and winemaker practices,” Cook said. “However, our research suggests the large-scale climate drivers these local factors operate under has shifted. And that information may prove critical to wine producers as climate change intensifies during the coming decades in France, Switzerland and other wine-growing regions."
The paper was published March 21 in the journal Nature Climate Change.
For more information about NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, visit:
Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., The Regolith X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (REXIS), Elregolitode rayosXEspectrómetro de Imágenes(REXIS) determinarálas abundanciaselementalesen la superficie delasteroideBennu, complementando lascapacidades demineralesy cartografíaquímicaproporcionadas porotros dos instrumentosen la nave espacial. "Losestudiantes trabajaronmuy duropara llegar a estepunto", dijoMikeDonnelly, director del proyectoOSIRIS-Rexen el Centrode Vuelo Espacial Goddardde la NASA enGreenbelt, Maryland."Esun gran logropara desarrollar uninstrumento de vueloy lo hanintegradoa unnave espacial quedirigea un asteroide".
A student-built experiment aboard NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission has been integrated onto the spacecraft.
MIT graduate students Pronoy Biswas (left) and Mark Chodas prepare the Regolith X-Ray Imaging Spectrometer (REXIS) instrument for flight.
Credits: William Litant/MIT
The Regolith X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (REXIS) will determine elemental abundances on the surface of asteroid Bennu, complementing the mineral and chemical mapping capabilities provided by two other instruments on the spacecraft.
"The students worked incredibly hard to get to this point,” said Mike Donnelly, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It is quite an accomplishment to develop a flight instrument and have it integrated to a spacecraft that's headed to an asteroid."
REXIS will observe the solar X-rays and their interaction with the asteroid’s surface material, or regolith. The surface responds to this incoming energy by glowing faintly, or fluorescing, by emitting X-rays. These X-rays have an energy that is uniquely characteristic of the elements. REXIS is a telescope that images this X-ray fluorescence, allowing the production of maps of the different elements present on Bennu's surface.
REXIS brings together students and faculty from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University, both in Cambridge. After a competitive process REXIS was selected as a student collaboration experiment as part of OSIRIS-REx.
The instrument will involve more than 100 students throughout the mission. Students at Harvard and MIT will perform data analysis as part of their coursework.
“The REXIS instrument has already achieved its primary objective – to train the next generation of scientists and engineers,” said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “This team should be proud of all they have accomplished. I look forward to seeing the REXIS data from Bennu and using it to learn more about the chemistry of the asteroid surface.”
OSIRIS-REx will be the first U.S. mission to sample an asteroid. After launch in September 2016, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will travel to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu and retrieve at least 60 grams (2.1 ounces) of surface material and return it to Earth for study. Scientists expect that Bennu may hold clues to the origin of the solar system and the source of the water and organic molecules that may have made their way to Earth. OSIRIS-REx’s investigation will also inform future efforts to develop a mission to mitigate an asteroid impact on Earth, should one be required.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering and safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta is the mission's principal investigator at the University of Arizona. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver is building the spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages New Frontiers for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
The sparkling centerpiece of Hubble’s anniversary fireworks is a giant cluster of about 3,000 stars called Westerlund 2, named for Swedish astronomer Bengt Westerlund who discovered the grouping in the 1960s.
In 2015, NASA explored the expanse of our solar system and beyond, and the complex processes of our home planet, while also advancing the technologies for our journey to Mars, and new aviation systems as the agency reached new milestones aboard the International Space Station.
“It was a fantastic year that brought us even closer to Mars,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “Our space program welcomed advances from commercial partners who will soon launch astronauts from the United States to the International Space Station, and progress on new technologies and missions to take us into deep space, improve aviation and explore our universe and home planet.”
Solar System & Beyond
NASA is exploring our solar system and beyond to unravel the mysteries of our universe. After a decade-long journey, the agency’s New Horizons spacecraft completed a historic flyby of Pluto in July, making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth. New Horizons captured never-before-seen views of the distant dwarf planet and its moons, and collected data that will keep scientists busy for years to come, returning the data and images to Earth using NASA’s Space Network.
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft made history in March with another dwarf planet, Ceres, when it became the first spacecraft to orbit such a celestial body.
In October, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft made the closest-ever flyby of Saturn’s moon Enceladus -- capturing valuable scientific data from the plume of icy spray coming from the moon’s subsurface ocean.
Back on Earth, NASA managers working the early stages of the agency’s Europa mission selected nine science instruments to investigate whether Jupiter’s mysterious icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life.
The first of 18 flight mirrors for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope were installed in November, beginning a critical piece of the observatory’s construction ahead of its 2018 launch.
In April, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, a Great Observatory that forever transformed our understanding of the universe, celebrated 25 years of scientific discovery. After its last astronaut servicing mission in 2009, Hubble is better than ever and expected to continue to provide valuable data into the next decade.
The agency’s Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) celebrated its 20th anniversary as the longest-running solar observatory, as well as the discovery of its 3,000th comet, the study of which can shed light on how our solar system was formed.
In March, the four Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft were launched and positioned in Earth’s orbit to study magnetic reconnection, the interaction between our sun and Earth’s magnetic field that can disrupt modern technological systems such as communications networks, GPS navigation, and electrical power grids.
Dark, narrow streaks on Martian slopes such as these at Hale Crater are inferred to be formed by seasonal flow of water on contemporary Mars.
NASA astronaut Suni Williams exits a test version of the Orion spacecraft in the agency’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Houston. The testing is helping NASA identify the best ways to efficiently get astronauts out of the spacecraft after deep space missions..
At the Promontory, Utah test facility of Orbital ATK, the booster for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket was fired for a two minute test on March 11, 2015.
NASA’s journey to Mars was advanced in 2015 by valuable science findings from current missions traversing and orbiting the Red Planet. In September, NASA announced its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provided the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars.
NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission identified the process that appears to have played a key role in the transition of the Martian climate from an early, warm and wet environment that might have supported surface life to the cold, arid planet Mars is today. MAVEN findings also showed how space weather near Mars affected its potential to support life.
The Opportunity and Curiosity rovers continued to explore the surface of the Red Planet this year, with data from Curiosity showing signs of a form of nitrogen -- further evidence that conditions on ancient Mars may have been able to support life
Development of the core capabilities required to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s continued this year with significant progress on NASA’s Orion crewed spacecraft, Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, Asteroid Redirect Mission, and revitalized space launch complex at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. And in October, NASA held its first workshop to brainstorm with the science community to identify the best Martian landing sites for astronauts to carry out scientific exploration.
Building on the success of Orion’s first flight test in 2014, agency officials completed their rigorous technical and programmatic review of Orion to establish NASA’s commitment to the program’s technical, cost and schedule baseline.
In March, Orion’s Launch Abort System (LAS) was tested to prove it can survive the intense temperatures, pressures, noise and vibrations experienced during a launch emergency and get the crew to safety. The spacecraft’s heat shield arrived in June at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, where it will be readied for water-impact tests in 2016.
Technicians at Michoud also have begun welding the primary structure of Orion’s crew module and joined the middle part of the spacecraft to the bottom portion of the crew module, and expect to finish welding in early 2016. Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, analyzed core samples from Orion’s heat shield, which was used in the 2014 spaceflight test, to better understand its performance and to provide improvements in thermal protection models, as the agency continues to refine Orion’s overall design and reduce its mass.
NASA received in November a full-size test version of the Orion European Service Module provided by ESA (European Space Agency), which is being prepared for testing early next year at the Plum Brook Station test facilities in Sandusky, Ohio.
Progress also continues on SLS -- the world’s most powerful rocket. The booster and engines that will propel SLS and the Orion spacecraft to space passed significant tests this year. The upgraded rocket booster passed a major ground test in March after firing for two minutes, the amount of time it will fire when it lifts SLS off the launch pad. Engineers will conduct a second and final qualification booster firing test in 2016. In August, NASA completed the first series of tests for the upgraded developmental RS-25 engines on the A-1 test stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Preparations will continue in 2016 as the flight engines that will power SLS on missions into deep space will be tested for flight.
For the first time in almost 40 years, a NASA human-rated rocket completed all steps needed to clear a critical design review while the hardware is being built: a structural test article of the rocket’s propulsion system was finished and numerous other flight and qualification hardware were completed and are ready for welding.
Work also began on infrastructure projects supporting SLS and Orion. Construction began in May on a 215-foot-tall structural test stand for SLS at Marshall. In August, NASA completed modifications to the Pegasus barge, previously used to move space shuttle hardware. For its new mission, transporting the core stage of the SLS, a 165-foot center section was added to the barge, bringing its total length from 260 feet to 310 feet.
In addition, Kennedy continued its transformation into a 21st century, multi-user spaceport for both government and commercial customers. Modifications continue on the ground structures that will launch the next generation of rockets and spacecraft. Several new work platforms that will be used to access, test and process SLS and Orion arrived on site, and the giant steel platforms are being installed in the center’s Vehicle Assembly Building.
Testing began at Kennedy on the umbilical system that provides power and ground communications between the mobile launcher tower, rocket and Orion spacecraft. Upgrades and designs in progress were reviewed to ensure they will be ready to support all system and processing requirements for the first launch of SLS and Orion.
Working outside the International Space Station on the second spacewalk of Expedition 45, Nov. 6, 2015.
NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) passed a pivotal mission milestone in the spring with the successful completion of the agency's mission concept review. After extensive expert and public engagement forums and workshops to gather ideas on how to best meet the president's challenge to redirect an asteroid, NASA refined its robotic capture approach that will achieve the goal of redirecting a large asteroid boulder back to a parked orbit near our moon, allowing astronauts to train and conduct sampling of the space rock.
Having an asteroid parked near the moon also will open up commercial opportunities for American companies interested in learning the challenges of mining asteroids. In October, NASA issued a call to American industry for innovative ideas on how the agency could obtain a core advanced solar electric propulsion-based spacecraft for the robotic boulder retrieval mission.
The agency also took steps to stimulate the development of deep space capabilities in the commercial aerospace sector with the selection of 12 projects on which NASA will partner to advance development of necessary exploration capabilities.
To further prepare for the journey to Mars, the eight candidates from NASA’s 2013 astronaut class received their astronaut pins in July, symbolizing the completion of their training. And in December, NASA began a search for its next group of astronaut candidates.
In October, Hollywood and NASA science and technology came to audiences around the world with the premier of “The Martian.” The agency collaborated on this journey to Mars film with 20th Century Fox Entertainment, providing guidance on production design and technical consultants. Across NASA, dozens of people already are working on many of the technologies seen in the movie that astronauts will need when they begin to explore Mars in real life.
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is seen inside a Soyuz simulator at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, March 4, 2015 in Star City, Russia.
The International Space Station (ISS) is a critical step on the agency’s journey to Mars. 2015 marked the 15th year of continuous human presence aboard the station. Since November 2000, more than 220 people from 17 countries have visited the ISS, and the orbiting laboratory has hosted more than 1,700 research investigations from researchers in more than 80 countries.
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly kicked off a one-year mission in March living and working in space. In October, he broke records for both the most time and cumulative days in space for a NASA astronaut. While Scott is in orbit, his identical twin brother and former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly remains on Earth, and both are participating in the Twins Study. When Scott returns in 2016 and concludes post-flight tests, researchers will have important data about the medical, psychological and biomedical challenges faced by astronauts during long-duration spaceflight.
A total of 16 people lived and worked aboard the space station in 2015. Some of them sampled the first vegetables grown in space. Crew members conducted hundreds of other scientific investigations off the Earth, for the Earth.
Crew members participated in six spacewalks to maintain the space station and continue reconfiguration of ISS systems and modules to accommodate the delivery of new docking adapters, which will be used by future U.S. commercial spacecraft.
With six deliveries thus far in 2015, and a seventh set to arrive to the space station on Dec. 23, four different cargo spacecraft have provided some 30 tons of supplies and science research to the station this year. NASA’s commercial partners conducted three of those missions: SpaceX sent its Dragon spacecraft on two successful missions, and the launch of Orbital ATK’s Cygnus in December heralded a resumption of U.S. cargo resupply missions to the station after mishaps by both companies. The agency is expected to award its second commercial resupply services contract in early 2016 to ensure cargo deliveries to the station through at least 2024.
The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) arrived at Kennedy Space Center this year. When SpaceX’s Dragon returns to flight and brings BEAM to the station during its eighth resupply mission in 2016, the module will be berthed to the station for a two-year test and validation of technology that could help advance the agency’s long-duration human spaceflight goals.
In addition to delivering cargo to the space station, NASA’s commercial crew providers continue to meet critical development and certification milestones on their space systems that will return America’s capability to launch crew members to the station from the United States in 2017. The agency’s Commercial Crew Program ordered its first two crew rotation missions from Boeing for its Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Starliner and the first from SpaceX for its Crew Dragon. NASA also named four experienced astronauts and test pilots to train and prepare for these commercial spaceflights, working closely with the commercial companies to develop their systems.
In May, SpaceX successfully demonstrated how crew members would quickly and safely escape from their rocket while on the launch pad and through their ascent into orbit. The low bay of the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility (C3PF) at Kennedy Space for the Starliner is complete and the high bay is nearing completion. Boeing and United Launch Alliance recently completed construction of the crew access tower at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41, which will provide access to Starliner prior to launch.
The Americas, as captured on Oct. 15, 2015 by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on the NASA/NOAA Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR).
NASA continued in 2015 to develop new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems and share this unique knowledge with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.
NASA launched in October a new website that brings the world to the world with new images every day of the sunlit side of the Earth, captured by a NASA camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), approximately one million miles away.
About 71 percent of the Earth's surface is covered with water, making the health of aquatic ecosystems a critical piece of the overall health of our planet. NASA uses the unique vantage point of space and cutting-edge technologies to study the world’s water, providing vital data. Earth scientists and engineers at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland have been studying Lake Erie’s algal blooms for a number of years. But when drinking water was declared contaminated for half a million people in Toledo, NASA stepped up its investigation into the nature of the algal blooms to get answers.
The relationship between oceans and climate also was studied in depth in 2015. Over the summer, NASA released the results of a study of ocean temperature measurements that showed extra heat from greenhouse gases has been trapped in the waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans in recent years, accounting for the slowdown in the global surface temperature trend observed during the past decade.
Satellite measurements gathered by NASA and its partners revealed that seas around the world have risen an average of nearly three inches since 1992, with some locations rising more than 9 inches due to natural variation. An intensive research effort, aided by NASA observations and analysis, points to an unavoidable rise of several feet in the future. In November, NASA began research flights for an intensive, five-year investigation into ocean plankton, a tiny sea creature that has an enormous impact on Earth’s climate.
The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III on the International Space Station, or SAGE III on ISS, was shipped to Kennedy Space Center where it is scheduled to launch to the space station in 2016 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. SAGE III will give NASA a new way to monitor Earth’s protective ozone layer and document its ongoing recovery, helping scientists monitor the ozone layer’s gradually improving health.
NASA's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator hangs from a launch tower at U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii.
NASA wasted no time in 2015 advancing new technologies with the unveiling in January of its Integrated Structural Assembly of Advanced Composites (ISAAC) robotic arm used at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, to develop lighter, stronger composite structures and materials for aerospace vehicles.
In June, the agency successfully conducted its second, full-scale flight test of its Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD), a cross-cutting demonstration mission for its rocket-powered, saucer-shaped vehicle. Following up on the 2014 test, this year’s flight served as a crucial milestone for proving two key technologies for landing future robotic and human missions on the surface of Mars.
NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative continued to provide opportunities for small satellite payloads to fly on rockets and to the space station. Two 4.5-pound satellites, launched in December to the International Space Station, will test networking technology critical to future operations of small satellite swarms. These Nodes small satellites will be deployed from the station into low-Earth orbit in early 2016.
In a more earthly endeavor, NASA research into flexible, high-temperature space materials may someday improve personal fire shelter systems and help wildland firefighters better survive dangerous wildfires.
NASA also unveiled in 2015 Startup NASA, an initiative that offers start-up companies a diverse portfolio of more than 1,200 patented NASA technologies that range from materials and coatings to sensors, aeronautics technologies, instrumentation and more.
In this photo taken from a chase plane, the Boeing ecoDemonstrator 757 flight test airplane --with NASA's Active Flow Control technology installed on the tail -- makes a final approach to King County Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington.
NASA's long aviation research heritage was marked in 2015 as the agency celebrated the 100th anniversary of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the organization from which NASA was created in 1958. NASA continued to build on this legacy throughout the year, making significant progress on studies into several technologies aimed at making aviation greener and safer.
NASA’s Environmental Responsible Aviation project concluded demonstrations of eight new technologies to reduce the environmental footprint of aviation through reduced aircraft drag, weight reduction from advanced composite materials, and advanced engines and airframe designs to reduce fuel consumption, emissions and noise. If adopted as an integrated suite, these technologies resulting from an unprecedented six-year effort with industry partners could result in a fuel savings of more than $250 billion by the year 2050. Two of these technologies -- air nozzles on the vertical tail, which could potentially enable the ability to have smaller tails on future aircraft, and special wing coatings, which could reduce bug residue that contributes to drag -- were flown aboard Boeing’s ecoDemonstrator 757 flying laboratory.
NASA continued to push the boundaries of aviation through NASA’s new Convergent Aeronautics Solutions project, exploring the feasibility of novel ideas that would potentially transform aviation as we know it. NASA launched studies of six revolutionary concepts, such as using an aircraft fuselage as a battery for electric propulsion, and equipping an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle with artificial intelligence that could respond to unforeseen situations the same way a human pilot would.
NASA concluded a multi-year effort with the U.S. Defense Department and industry partners. The goal was to develop and demonstrate new engine health management technologies that can improve performance of future aircraft, including aircraft encountering volcanic ash in flight. NASA also studied potentially hazardous icing conditions at high altitude, flying its DC-8 aircraft into tropical storms as part of the High Ice Water Content campaign.
NASA and its government and industry partners made significant progress this year investigating detect and avoid systems and command and control technologies that could enable routine access by full-size unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the national airspace. NASA also engaged with the aviation community to identify key challenges and research needs associated with smaller, low-altitude UAS, commonly called drones, and conducted a flight demonstration of initial concepts.
In April, NASA researchers completed initial flight-testing of a radically new morphing wing technology that has the potential to lower fuel costs, reduce drag and airframe weight, and decrease noise during takeoff and landing.
Astronaut Cady Coleman speaks to a group of fifty fourth-grade Girl Scouts about her time in space, at the first-ever White House Campout, hosted by the First Lady as part of the Let's Move! Outside initiative on Tuesday, June 30, 2015 in Washington, DC. NASA also provided telescopes and led a stargazing activity.
Credits: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani
Public Engagement
With an exciting and diverse mission that captivates audiences around the world, public engagement is a vital aspect of NASA’s work. Through events, including South by Southwest, the Essence Festival, World Science Festival and nationwide Earth Day activities, more than two million people had the chance to interact with representative of America’s space agency and more than 400 million people were reached through NASA’s use of social media during these events.
NASA's award-winning website, NASA.gov, launched a major redesign in April that focuses on mission updates, images and videos in a layout that makes it easier for users to discover new content and works equally well across devices. The site's customer satisfaction scores, consistently among the highest in government, rose substantially after the redesign, with October showing the highest user satisfaction level in three years. The site now averages more than a quarter-million visitors a day, up more than 25 percent from 2014, with an increase in new visitors and an audience that is increasingly mobile, social, and international.
NASA‘s award-winning social media presence also continued to soar in 2015. The agency’s Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Instagram accounts are the most followed in the federal government on those platforms. This year, NASA also launched an official presence on Tumblr. The agency's Twitter account broke into the top 100 Twitter accounts, by number of followers, the only government account to be on a list heavy with celebrities. NASA posted in July the agency’s most-liked image ever onto Instagram -- Pluto from the New Horizons spacecraft -- generating more than 363,000 likes. The agency also hosted 15 NASA Socials, bringing together more than 1,000 followers who engage with NASA via social media for unique in-person experiences of exploration and discovery.
NASA continued its work with other federal agencies, industry partners and academia to provide to students and teachers throughout the United States unique and compelling opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math education. In addition to funding research at minority serving institutions, NASA’s Space Grant program supported science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs in schools in every state.
The agency also brought real space exploration experts from NASA and cast members of the movie “The Martian” together during a record-breaking NASA Digital Learning Network event called So You Want to Be a Martian, watched by more than 10,000 students and teachers.
The work NASA does, and will continue in 2016, helps the United States maintain its world leadership in space exploration and scientific discovery. The agency will continue investing in its journey to Mars, returning human spaceflight launches from American soil, fostering groundbreaking technology development, breakthroughs in aeronautics and bringing to every American the awe-inspiring discoveries and images captured by NASA’s missions in our solar system and beyond.
For more about NASA’s missions, research and discoveries, visit:
Semana Mundial del Ahorro en Perú
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Semana Mundial del Ahorro en Perú “No ahorres lo que te queda después de
gastar, gasta lo que te queda después de ahorrar”, éstas son palabras
sabias del g...
EL CUERPO DE CRISTO
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#lamentedeCristoelprimerdia
Ef 2: 19 Así que ya no sois extranjeros ni advenedizos, sino conciudadanos
de los santos, y miembros de la familia de Dios.
Fo...
