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 **********
Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., A primera vista,este caleidoscopiocósmico depúrpura, azuly rosaofrece unasorprendente y hermosa-y sereno-instantáneadel cosmos.Sin embargo,esta brumamulticolorrealidadmarca el sitiode lacolisión de doscúmulos de galaxias, formandoun únicoobjeto conocido comoMACSJ0416.1-2403(oMACSJ0416para abreviar).
At first glance, this cosmic kaleidoscope of purple, blue and pink offers a strikingly beautiful — and serene — snapshot of the cosmos. However, this multi-colored haze actually marks the site of two colliding galaxy clusters, forming a single object known as MACS J0416.1-2403 (or MACS J0416 for short).
MACS J0416 is located about 4.3 billion light-years from Earth, in the constellation of Eridanus. This image of the cluster combines data from three different telescopes: the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (showing the galaxies and stars), the NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory (diffuse emission in blue), and the NRAO Jansky Very Large Array (diffuse emission in pink). Each telescope shows a different element of the cluster, allowing astronomers to study MACS J0416 in detail.
As with all galaxy clusters, MACS J0416 contains a significant amount of dark matter, which leaves a detectable imprint in visible light by distorting the images of background galaxies. In this image, this dark matter appears to align well with the blue-hued hot gas, suggesting that the two clusters have not yet collided; if the clusters had already smashed into one another, the dark matter and gas would have separated. MACS J0416 also contains other features — such as a compact core of hot gas — that would likely have been disrupted had a collision already occurred.
Together with five other galaxy clusters, MACS J0416 is playing a leading role in the Hubble Frontier Fields program, for which this data was obtained. Owing to its huge mass, the cluster is in fact bending the light of background objects, acting as a magnifying lens. Astronomers can use this phenomenon to find galaxies that existed only hundreds of million years after the big bang.
Text credit: European Space Agency Image credit: NASA, ESA, CXC, NRAO/AUI/NSF, STScI, and G. Ogrean (Stanford University), Acknowledgment: NASA, ESA, and J. Lotz (STScI), and the HFF team
An artist's rendering of NASA's Green Propellant Infusion Mission payload in flight aboard the Ball Aerospace BCP-100 spacecraft.
Credits: Ball Aerospace
Media are invited to see a NASA spacecraft that is safer on the ground and more efficient in space during a tour March 31 at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado, showcasing NASA's Green Propulsion Infusion Mission (GPIM).
Media are asked to arrive by 10:15 a.m. MDT for badging at the Ball Fisher Building, located at 1600 Commerce St. in Boulder. Remarks will begin at 10:30 a.m., followed at 11 a.m. by a tour of Ball facilities and GPIM spacecraft viewing. NASA and industry officials will be available for questions and one-on-one interviews from 11:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
Speakers include:
Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington
Rob Strain, president of Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.
Chris McLean, principal investigator for GPIM at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.
Julie Van Kleeck, vice president of Space Programs at Aerojet Rocketdyne
GPIM recently passed a major flight readiness milestone with the successful completion of functional and environmental testing of its systems and software. The spacecraft is scheduled for launch in early 2017 and will demonstrate the practical capabilities of a hydroxyl ammonium nitrate based fuel/oxidizer propellant blend, known as AF-M315E, developed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The new propellant offers higher performance and is safer to handle and easier on the environment than traditional chemical fuels such as hydrazine currently used in spacecraft thrusters. It also requires fewer handling restrictions and has potentially shorter launch processing times, resulting in lowered costs.
More of the new propellant can be stored in propellant tanks of the same volume, resulting in a 50-percent increase in spacecraft maneuvering capability for a given volume. It also has a lower freezing point than hydrazine, requiring less spacecraft power to maintain the propellant temperature. These characteristics make it ideal for a wide range of emerging small, deep space satellite missions.
Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., Los abanicos aluvialessoncuñasdesedimentos depositados porel agua que fluyesuave por la pendiente.Algunos delosabanicos aluvialesmejor conservadosen Marteestán enSahekicráter,un área que hasidofotografiadomuchas vecescon anterioridad.
Alluvial fans are gently-sloping wedges of sediments deposited by flowing water. Some of the best-preserved alluvial fans on Mars are in Saheki Crater, an area that has been imaged many times previously.
The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona Caption: Alfred McEwen
NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT Monday, March 28, to discuss cutting edge science investigations launching aboard the upcoming SpaceX commercial resupply flight to the International Space Station. Experiments include the demonstration of an expandable space habitat, a student-designed DNA investigation, and other research that will inform NASA’s journey to Mars.
To participate in the teleconference, reporters must contact Tabatha Thompson at 202-358-1100 or tabatha.t.thompson@nasa.gov by 11 a.m. March 28 for dial-in information.
The briefing will include:
Julie Robinson, chief scientist for the International Space Station Program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, will provide an overview of the more than 250 valuable science investigations that will take place during Expeditions 47 and 48.
Rajib Dasgupta, NASA project and technical integration manager for the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) at Johnson, and Lisa Kauke, BEAM deputy program manager at Bigelow Aerospace in Las Vegas, will discuss BEAM -- a technology demonstration to study the radiation protection, thermal performance and general operations of expandable habitats in space.
Kenneth Savin, Kristofer Gonzalez-DeWhitt, Michael Hickey and Rosamund Smith, of Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, will discuss life science investigations focusing on musculoskeletal changes in space, which could provide insight into muscle-wasting diseases on Earth, and protein crystallization in microgravity, which could enhance the development and potency of therapeutic drugs.
Kasthuri Venkateswaran, principal investigator for Microbial Observatory-1 at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, will discuss tracking and monitoring changes to microbial flora on the space station over time, which could help us understand how such microbes could affect crew health during future long duration missions.
Gioia Massa, principal investigator for Veg-03 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will explain how the Veggie plant growth facility will cultivate cabbage as part of the Pick-and-Eat Salad initiative to develop a sustainable food supplement for long-duration spaceflight.
Clay Wang, principal investigator for Micro-10 at the University of Southern California School Of Pharmacy in Los Angeles, will discuss this study of fungi in space for the purpose of potentially developing new medicine for use both in space and on Earth.
Anna-Sophia Boguraev, student researcher, and Scott Copeland, ISS Research, Systems & Specialty Engineering manager for The Boeing Company in Pasadena, Texas, will discuss Genes in Space-1, a student-designed experiment to test whether the polymerase chain reaction -- a fast and relatively inexpensive technique that can amplify or “photocopy” small segments of DNA -- could be used to study DNA alterations that astronauts experience during spaceflight.
The SpaceX Dragon capsule is targeted to launch at 4:43 p.m. Friday, April 8 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The spacecraft will carry crew supplies, scientific research and hardware to the orbital laboratory to support the Expedition 47 and 48 crews.
This launch is the eighth contracted mission by SpaceX under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services contract.
Audio of the teleconference will stream live online at:
The National Ecological Observatory Network, or NEON, comprises terrestrial, aquatic, atmospheric, and remote sensing measurement infrastructure and cyberinfrastructure that deliver standardized, calibrated data to the scientific community through a single, openly accessible data portal. NEON infrastructure is geographically-distributed across the United States, including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, and will generate data for ecological research over a 30 year period.
NEON is designed to enable the research community to ask and address their own questions on a regional to continental scale around the environmental challenges identified as relevant to understanding the effects of climate change, land-use change and invasive species patterns on the biosphere [see the National Research Council reports: Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences (2001) and NEON: Addressing the Nation’s Environmental Challenges (2003)].
Image Captions and Credits >>
NSF’s Role in NEON
Construction and initial operations of NEON (designed and started by NEON, Inc.) are the responsibility of Battelle Memorial Institute (Battelle). Battelle is funded through a cooperative agreement to design, build and operate NEON. The NSF NEON program, which is part of the Centers and Cooperative Agreements Cluster in the Division of Biological Infrastructure, manages the NEON award in collaboration with the NSF Large Facilities Office and the NSF Division of Acquisition and Cooperative Support. The NSF NEON program is responsible for the oversight of the managing entity to ensure the observatory is built on budget and within schedule, and that it is operated effectively and efficiently within its allocated resources.
Image Captions and Credits >> Stakeholders/Partners
Stakeholders are researchers, engineers, educators, citizens and NSF’s sister agencies. Formal MOUs exist with some agencies: for example with EPA, USGS and NOAA. An interagency working group serves as an advisory committee and summarizes all interagency partnerships and activities.
Examples of partnerships:
USGS, USFS, NOAA, DOE, NASA staff involved in NEON design and development
DOI Climate Response Centers will use NEON Data Products
DOE National Labs developing sensors and analyzing NEON samples
USGS and NASA developing tools for modeling and simulation
CDC developed standards and methods for disease assessments by NEON
Use of NASA AVARIS
Resources
NEON Document Library (reference information about NEON sites, sensors, data collection and processing methods, protocols and Algorithm Theoretical Basis Documents (ATBDs)): data.neonscience.org/documents
NEON at a Glance:
A quick video overview of NEON.
NSF has already funded projects to enable innovative biological research and collaborations that leverage data from this groundbreaking, continent-wide observatory. More >>
Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., Las tormentas solaresestán provocandoaurorasde rayosXen Júpiterque soncerca de ochoveces más brillantede lo normalen una amplia zonadel planetay cientos de vecesmás energía quela Tierra"lucesdel norte",de acuerdo con unnuevo estudiousando datos deChandraXde la NASAObservatoriode rayos.Este resultadoes la primera vezque las aurorasde Júpiterhansido estudiadosa la luzde rayosX cuandouna tormenta solargigantellegó alplaneta.
Solar storms are triggering X-ray auroras on Jupiter that are about eight times brighter than normal over a large area of the planet and hundreds of times more energetic than Earth’s "northern lights," according to a new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This result is the first time that Jupiter's auroras have been studied in X-ray light when a giant solar storm arrived at the planet.
The Sun constantly ejects streams of particles into space in the solar wind. Sometimes, giant storms, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), erupt and the winds become much stronger. These events compress Jupiter's magnetosphere, the region of space controlled by Jupiter's magnetic field, shifting its boundary with the solar wind inward by more than a million miles. This new study found that the interaction at the boundary triggers the X-rays in Jupiter's auroras, which cover an area bigger than the surface of the Earth.
These composite images show Jupiter and its aurora during and after a CME's arrival at Jupiter in October 2011. In these images, X-ray data from Chandra (purple) have been overlaid on an optical image from the Hubble Space Telescope. The left-hand panel reveals the X-ray activity when the CME reached Jupiter, and the right-hand side is the view two days later after the CME subsided. The impact of the CME on Jupiter's aurora was tracked by monitoring the X-rays emitted during two 11-hour observations. The scientists used that data to pinpoint the source of the X-ray activity and identify areas to investigate further at different time points. They plan to find out how the X-rays form by collecting data on Jupiter's magnetic field, magnetosphere and aurora using Chandra and ESA’s XMM-Newton.
A paper describing these results appeared in the March 22, 2016 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research. The authors on the paper are William Dunn (UCL), Graziella Branduardi-Raymont (UCL), Ronald Elsner (NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center), Marissa Vogt (Boston University), Laurent Lamy (University of Paris Diderot), Peter Ford (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Andrew Coates (UCL), Randall Gladstone (Southwest Research Institute), Caitriona Jackman (University of Southampton), Jonathan Nichols (University of Leicester), Jonathan Rae (UCL), Ali Varsani (UCL), Tomoki Kimura (JAXA), Kenneth Hansen (University of Michigan), and Jamie Jasinski (UCL).
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UCL/W.Dunn et al, Optical: NASA/STScI
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.
NASA’s open innovation incubator, the International Space Apps Challenge, will take place April 22-24. The global main stage for this year’s event will be in Pasadena, California, with local events taking place simultaneously in 193 locations spanning 72 countries.
On April 23 and 24, participants are asked to develop mobile applications, software, hardware, data visualizations and platform solutions that could contribute to space exploration missions and help improve life on Earth.
This year’s challenge will include a Data Bootcamp on April 22, streamed live from the global main stage. The bootcamp is open to the public and will give participants the opportunity to learn new skills with computer coding and data.
“We’re reaching out to women’s organizations influential in the data and maker communities to participate, and we encourage women-led teams in the hackathon,” said Deborah Diaz, chief technology officer for information technology.
More than 200 sources, including data sets, services and tools, will be available to challenge participants, which include techy-savvy citizens, scientists, entrepreneurs, educators, families and students to help solve problems and questions relevant to space exploration and broader subjects that impact life on Earth.
This year, NASA is offering 26 challenges in six mission-related categories: Aeronautics, Earth, International Space Station, Journey to Mars, Solar System and Beyond, and Space Technology.
A more information about the Space Apps Challenge, and a full list of NASA challenges, go to:
hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., UncoheteVUnited LaunchAllianceAtlasllevarla nave espacialCygnusde OrbitalATKen unamisión de reabastecimientodela Estación EspacialInternacionaldespegadesde el espacioComplejo de Lanzamiento41 en laestación dela Fuerza Aérea deCaboCañaveralen Floridaa las 11:05pm EDTel 22 demarzo de2016.ElCygnusestá programadopara llegar allaboratorio orbitalsábado por la,26 de marzo.
The Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft sits on top of an Atlas V rocket ready for launch to the International Space Station. The mission is set to lift off on Tuesday, March 22, from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The 30 minute launch window opens at 11:05 p.m. EDT. Today’s L-1 forecast shows a 90 percent chance of favorable weather conditions for launch. NASA TV coverage of the event begins at 10 p.m.
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying Orbital ATK's Cygnus spacecraft on a resupply mission to the International Space Station lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 11:05 p.m. EDT on March 22, 2016. The Cygnus is scheduled to arrive at the orbiting laboratory Saturday, March 26.
Nearly 7,500 pounds of supplies, science payloads and experiments are headed to the station aboard Cygnus, including scientific investigations of fire in microgravity and grippers inspired by geckos, along with equipment to support some 250 other studies. The station’s Expeditions 47 and 48 crews will employ these science payloads to support experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science.
NASA Sends Fire, Meteor Experiments to International Space Station on Commercial Cargo Spacecraft
Scientific investigations of fire in microgravity and grippers inspired by geckos are among the nearly 7,500 pounds of cargo headed to the International Space Station aboard an Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft, along with equipment to support some 250 other experiments and studies aboard the world’s only orbital laboratory.
An Atlas V launch vehicle lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying a Cygnus resupply spacecraft on the Orbital ATK CRS-6 mission to the International Space Station. Liftoff was at 11:05 p.m. EDT. The spacecraft will deliver 7,500 pounds of supplies, science payloads and experiments.
Credits: NASA
Orbital ATK’s fifth cargo delivery flight under its Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA launched at 11:05 p.m. EDT Tuesday on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Cygnus is scheduled to arrive at the orbiting laboratory Saturday, March 26.
The station’s Expeditions 47 and 48 crews will employ these science payloads to support experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science – research that improves life on Earth -- including:
Saffire-I provides a new way to study a large fire on an exploration craft, which has not been possible in the past because the risks for performing such studies on spacecraft with astronauts aboard are too high.
Meteor will enable the first space-based observations of meteors entering Earth’s atmosphere from space.
Strata-I could give us answers about how regolith behaves and moves in microgravity, how easy or difficult it is to anchor a spacecraft in regolith, how it interacts with spacecraft and spacesuit materials, and other important properties.
The Gecko Gripper study tests a gecko-inspired adhesive gripping device that can stick on command in the harsh environment of space.
NASA astronaut and Expedition 46 Commander Tim Kopra will capture Cygnus at about 6:40 a.m. Saturday, March 26, using the space station's Canadarm2 robotic arm to take hold of the spacecraft. Astronaut Tim Peake of ESA (European Space Agency) will support Kopra in a backup position. NASA TV coverage of capture will begin at 5:30 a.m.
Saffire-1 will remain on the spacecraft once all the other supplies are unloaded, and the vehicle will be attached to the space station for about two months. Once it departs and the spacecraft is a safe distance from the space station, engineers will remotely conduct the first Saffire experiment before the Cygnus’ destructive reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. Before detaching from the station, Cygnus will also be filled with about 3,000 pounds of trash, which will be burned up over the Pacific Ocean.
This is the second flight of an enhanced Cygnus spacecraft, and the second using the Atlas V launch system. The cargo freighter features a greater payload capacity, supported by new fuel tanks and solar arrays, and an extended pressurized cargo module that increases the spacecraft’s interior volume by 25 percent, enabling more cargo to be delivered with each launch.
The space station is a convergence of science, technology and human innovation that demonstrates new technologies and makes research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The space station has been continuously occupied since November 2000. In that time, it has been visited by more than 200 people and a variety of international and commercial spacecraft. The space station remains the springboard to NASA's next great leap in exploration, including future missions to an asteroid and Mars.
For more information about Orbital ATK's mission, visit:
Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG.,hemos recibido información de la Fundación Nacional de Ciencias de Los Estados Unidos, sobre la utilización y medición del carbono durante los últimos 66 millones de años.
NSF, nos dice: "Las primerasmediciones delclima de la Tierrautilizandotermómetros yotros instrumentoscomienzanenla década de 1850. Parabuscarmás atrás en eltiempo, los científicosinvestiganlas burbujasde aire atrapadas enlos núcleos de hielo,ampliar el alcance delos registros climáticosdecasi un millón deaños.Peropara estudiar la historiade la Tierradurante millones deaños, los investigadoresexaminanlasfirmas químicasy biológicasen los sedimentosde aguas profundas. Una nueva investigación publicadahoy en la revistaNature GeoscienceporgeocienciasRichardZeebede laUniversidad de Hawaien Manoay sus colegasanaliza los cambios enlatemperatura yel dióxido decarbono atmosférico(CO2)de la Tierradesde el finde laera de los dinosaurios.Laevidencia está enlos núcleos de sedimentosrecuperados dedebajo del lecho marinopor los geólogosque trabajana bordo delbuque de perforaciónJOIDES Resolutionocéano.
Humans responsible for carbon release 10 times faster than any event since age of dinosaurs
The scientists conducted research on sediment cores retrieved by the drillship JOIDES Resolution. Credit and Larger Version
March 21, 2016
The earliest measurements of Earth's climate using thermometers and other tools start in the 1850s.
To look further back in time, scientists investigate air bubbles trapped in ice cores, expanding the scope of climate records to nearly a million years. But to study Earth's history over millions of years, researchers examine the chemical and biological signatures in deep-sea sediments.
New research published today in the journal Nature Geoscience by geoscientist Richard Zeebe of the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and colleagues looks at changes in Earth's temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) since the end of the age of the dinosaurs. The evidence is in sediment cores retrieved from beneath the seafloor by geologists working aboard the ocean drillship JOIDES Resolution.
"In studying one of the most dramatic episodes of global change since the dinosaurs, the researchers show that we are currently in uncharted territory in the rate carbon is being released into the atmosphere and oceans," said Candace Major, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research.
The findings suggest that humans are responsible for releasing carbon about 10 times faster than during any time in the past 66 million years.
The research team developed a new approach and was able to determine the duration of the onset of an important past climate event, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), 56 million years ago.
"As far as we know, the PETM had the largest carbon release during the past 66 million years," Zeebe said.
Zeebe and co-authors Andy Ridgwell, of the University of Bristol and University of California, and James Zachos, of the University of California, combined analyses of chemical properties of sediment cores dating back to the PETM with numerical simulations of Earth's climate and carbon cycle.
The new method allowed them to extract rates of change from a sediment record.
Applied to the PETM, they calculated how fast the carbon was released, how fast Earth's surface warmed, and what constrained the time scale of the onset, which was across 4,000 years.
The rate of carbon release during the PETM was much smaller than the current input of carbon to the atmosphere from human activities.
Carbon release rates from human sources reached a record high in 2014 of about 37 billion metric tons of CO2. The researchers estimated that the maximum sustained carbon release rate during the PETM was less than four billion metric tons of CO2 per year -- about one-tenth the current rate.
"Because our carbon release rate is unprecedented over such a long time period in Earth's history, it also means that we have effectively entered a 'no-analogue' state," said Zeebe. "This represents a big challenge for projecting future climate change because we have no good comparison from the past."
Whereas large climate transitions in the past may have been relatively smooth, there is no guarantee for the future, the scientists said. The climate system is non-linear, which means that its response to inputs, such as CO2 emissions, is a complex process involving multiple components.
"If you kick a system very fast, it usually responds differently than if you nudge it slowly but steadily," Zeebe said. "It is likely that future disruptions of ecosystems will exceed the relatively limited extinctions observed at the PETM."
The PETM suggests that the consequences of our massive burning of fossil fuels will have much longer-lasting effects, said Zeebe.
"Everyone is focused on what happens by 2100, but that's only two generations from today," he said. "It's very clear that over a longer time scale there will be much bigger changes."
The scientists are continuing their work on the PETM to study other aspects of the event -- for example, determining how severe ocean acidification was during that time and what effect it had on calcifying organisms in the ocean. The results will provide insights about what to expect in the future as Earth's climate likely continues to warm and oceans keep acidifying.
-NSF-
Media Contacts Cheryl Dybas, NSF, (703) 292-7734, cdybas@nsf.gov Marcie Grabowski, University of Hawaii - Manoa, (808) 956-3151, mworkman@hawaii.edu
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2016, its budget is $7.5 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities and other institutions. Each year, NSF receives more than 48,000 competitive proposals for funding and makes about 12,000 new funding awards. NSF also awards about $626 million in professional and service contracts yearly.
The brilliant flash of an exploding star’s shockwave—what astronomers call the “shock breakout” -- is illustrated in this video animation. The cartoon video begins with a view of a red supergiant star that is 500 hundred times bigger and 20,000 brighter than our sun. When the star’s internal furnace can no longer sustain nuclear fusion its core to collapses under gravity. A shockwave from the implosion rushes upward through the star’s layers. The shockwave initially breaks through the star’s visible surface as a series of finger-like plasma jets. Only 20 minute later the full fury of the shockwave reaches the surface and the doomed star blasts apart as a supernova explosion. This animation is based on photometric observations made by NASA’s Kepler space telescope. By closely monitoring the star KSN 2011d, located 1.2 billion light-years away, Kepler caught the onset of the early flash and subsequent explosion.
Credits: Credit: NASA Ames, STScI/G. Bacon
Caught For The First Time: The Early Flash Of An Exploding Star
The brilliant flash of an exploding star’s shockwave—what astronomers call the “shock breakout”—has been captured for the first time in the optical wavelength or visible light by NASA's planet-hunter, the Kepler space telescope.
An international science team led by Peter Garnavich, an astrophysics professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, analyzed light captured by Kepler every 30 minutes over a three-year period from 500 distant galaxies, searching some 50 trillion stars. They were hunting for signs of massive stellar death explosions known as supernovae.
The diagram illustrates the brightness of a supernova event relative to the sun as it unfolds. For the first time, a supernova shockwave has been observed in the optical wavelength or visible light as it reaches the surface of the star. This early flash of light is called a shock breakout. The explosive death of this star, called KSN 2011d, as it reaches its maximum brightness takes 14 days. The shock breakout itself lasts only about 20 minutes, so catching the flash of energy is an investigative milestone for astronomers. The unceasing gaze of NASA's Kepler space telescope allowed astronomers to see, at last, this early moment as the star blows itself to bits. Supernovae like these — known as Type II — begin when the internal furnace of a star runs out of nuclear fuel causing its core to collapse as gravity takes over. This type of star is called a red supergiant star and it is 20,000 times brighter than our sun. As the supergiant star goes supernova, the energy traveling from the core reaches the surfaces with a burst of light that is 130,000,000 times brighter than the sun. The star continues to explode and grow reaching maximum brightness that is about 1,000,000,000 times brighter than the sun.
Credits: NASA Ames/W. Stenzel
In 2011, two of these massive stars, called red supergiants, exploded while in Kepler’s view. The first behemoth, KSN 2011a, is nearly 300 times the size of our sun and a mere 700 million light years from Earth. The second, KSN 2011d, is roughly 500 times the size of our sun and around 1.2 billion light years away.
“To put their size into perspective, Earth's orbit about our sun would fit comfortably within these colossal stars,” said Garnavich.
Whether it’s a plane crash, car wreck or supernova, capturing images of sudden, catastrophic events is extremely difficult but tremendously helpful in understanding root cause. Just as widespread deployment of mobile cameras has made forensic videos more common, the steady gaze of Kepler allowed astronomers to see, at last, a supernova shockwave as it reached the surface of a star. The shock breakout itself lasts only about 20 minutes, so catching the flash of energy is an investigative milestone for astronomers.
“In order to see something that happens on timescales of minutes, like a shock breakout, you want to have a camera continuously monitoring the sky,” said Garnavich. “You don’t know when a supernova is going to go off, and Kepler's vigilance allowed us to be a witness as the explosion began.”
Supernovae like these — known as Type II — begin when the internal furnace of a star runs out of nuclear fuel causing its core to collapse as gravity takes over.
The two supernovae matched up well with mathematical models of Type II explosions reinforcing existing theories. But they also revealed what could turn out to be an unexpected variety in the individual details of these cataclysmic stellar events.
While both explosions delivered a similar energetic punch, no shock breakout was seen in the smaller of the supergiants. Scientists think that is likely due to the smaller star being surrounded by gas, perhaps enough to mask the shockwave when it reached the star's surface.
“That is the puzzle of these results,” said Garnavich. “You look at two supernovae and see two different things. That’s maximum diversity.”
Understanding the physics of these violent events allows scientists to better understand how the seeds of chemical complexity and life itself have been scattered in space and time in our Milky Way galaxy
"All heavy elements in the universe come from supernova explosions. For example, all the silver, nickel, and copper in the earth and even in our bodies came from the explosive death throes of stars," said Steve Howell, project scientist for NASA's Kepler and K2 missions at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. "Life exists because of supernovae."
Garnavich is part of a research team known as the Kepler Extragalactic Survey or KEGS. The team is nearly finished mining data from Kepler’s primary mission, which ended in 2013 with the failure of reaction wheels that helped keep the spacecraft steady. However, with the reboot of the Kepler spacecraft as NASA's K2 mission, the team is now combing through more data hunting for supernova events in even more galaxies far, far away.
"While Kepler cracked the door open on observing the development of these spectacular events, K2 will push it wide open observing dozens more supernovae," said Tom Barclay, senior research scientist and director of the Kepler and K2 guest observer office at Ames. "These results are a tantalizing preamble to what's to come from K2!"
In addition to Notre Dame, the KEGS team also includes researchers from the University of Maryland in College Park; the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia; the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland; and the University of California, Berkeley.
The research paper reporting this discovery has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.
Ames manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Authored by H. Pat Brennan/JPL and Michele Johnson/Ames
Media contact:
Michele Johnson Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. 650-604-6982 michele.johnson@nasa.gov
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