Explore Space Together
This new Hubble Space Telescope image shows spiral galaxy ESO 373-8, which is located some 25 million light-years away. Together with at least seven of its galactic neighbors, this galaxy is a member of the NGC 2997 group. We see it side-on as a thin, glittering streak across the sky, with all its contents neatly aligned in the same plane. Continue reading “Hubble Eyes Galaxy as Flat as a Pancake”
Here are some beautiful space photos and videos that have been posted on the Internet recently. Enjoy!
Here’s a beautiful, new video from NASA: “The World Outside My Window – Time Lapse of Earth from the International Space Station”
Newborn stars, hidden behind thick dust, are revealed in this image of a section of the Christmas Tree Cluster from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. The newly revealed infant stars appear as pink and red specks toward the center and appear to have formed in regularly spaced intervals along linear structures in a configuration that resembles the spokes of a wheel or the pattern of a snowflake. Hence, astronomers have nicknamed this the “Snowflake Cluster.”
Star-forming clouds like this one are dynamic and evolving structures. Since the stars trace the straight line pattern of spokes of a wheel, scientists believe that these are newborn stars, or “protostars.” At a mere 100,000 years old, these infant structures have yet to “crawl” away from their location of birth. Over time, the natural drifting motions of each star will break this order, and the snowflake design will be no more.
While most of the visible-light stars that give the Christmas Tree Cluster its name and triangular shape do not shine brightly in Spitzer’s infrared eyes, all of the stars forming from this dusty cloud are considered part of the cluster.
Like a dusty cosmic finger pointing up to the newborn clusters, Spitzer also illuminates the optically dark and dense Cone Nebula, the tip of which can be seen towards the bottom left corner of the image.
Name A Star Live makes you part of real space missions by launching your star name into space. As the holiday season is upon us, we thought we’d share some of the ways Christmas is celebrated in outer space. We even provide a futuristic, and amusing, look at Christmas through the vision of Star Trek!
The Christmas Eve Broadcast of Apollo 8 from the Moon
Perhaps the most famous celebration of Christmas in the final frontier occurred on the evening of December 24, 1968 when Apollo 8 Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders became the first humans to orbit the Moon … and the first astronauts to spend Christmas in space.
To mark the occasion, they sent Christmas greetings and live images back to their home planet and read from the Book of Genesis. Borman closed the message with the words “good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth.”
It is estimated that as many as one billion people watched the historic broadcast or listened on the radio. Listen to the message they delivered that Christmas Eve.
Apollo 8 launched from Earth on Dec. 21 and entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve. The Apollo 8 crewmembers ended their history-making journey when they splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 27. Eight more Apollo missions would visit the Moon, with six of them landing on its surface.
Christmas in Earth Orbit
The Skylab 4 crew was the next set of astronauts to spend Christmas in space, in 1973. To give Skylab a touch of the holiday season, Commander Gerald Carr, Pilot William Pogue and Scientist Edward Gibson made a Christmas tree with food cans. (See photo at left.)
It would be 22 years before another American would spend Christmas outside Earth’s atmosphere. Astronaut John Blaha celebrated the holiday in orbit aboard the Russian Mir space station in 1996.
The first Space Shuttle mission to fly during Christmas was STS-103, on the Space Shuttle Discovery. The mission, which lasted from Dec. 19 to Dec. 27, 1999, gave NASA and the world a Christmas present that is still giving to the scientific community. After three consecutive days of spacewalks to make repairs and upgrades, they returned the Hubble Space Telescope to service on Christmas Day. Hubble had been in hibernation since the loss of its fourth gyroscope, designed to enable the telescope to point precisely at distant astronomical targets for scientific observations.
The first Christmas aboard the International Space Station (ISS) occurred in 2000 with the Expedition One crew. Astronaut Bill Shepherd and Cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev spent a quiet Christmas Day opening gifts and talking to their families.
NASA helps Santa Claus
Sometimes Santa needs some help navigating around the world on Christmas Eve, so on Dec. 24, 2001 Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Daniel Bursch and Carl Walz joined space station Flight Director John Curry and his Mission Control personnel in Houston to help Santa Claus complete his mission on time. Click on any of the links below to see how NASA helped Santa out:
QuickTime Format
Media Player Format – 28K / 56K
Real Video Format – 28K / 56K
Make it so, Make it so, Make it so
As we look to the future, humans might one day celebrate the holidays on the Moon and Mars, in a free-floating space colony orbiting Jupiter, or in some other part of the Milky Way galaxy. But perhaps we should look to Star Trek for guidance — humorous guidance in this case!
Happy Holidays!
Comet ISON Update
As we wrote last month, Comet ISON was to make its closest approach to the Sun on November 28, 2013, which was Thanksgiving Day in the United States. The comet flew very close to the Sun and thus faced the Sun’s tremendous gravitational and radiation forces. As we stated, it was impossible to predict what would happen to the comet upon its encounter with our nearest star. Unfortunately, the latest reports are that the Sun has pretty much destroyed this comet, which many astronomers had dubbed the “comet of the century.”
But do not fret: There’s still plenty to see in the night sky this December!
The planet Venus is particularly bright this month. In fact, if you observe Venus on a clear, dark night (without moonlight and far from city lights) while snow remains on the ground, hold your hand about a foot off the ground: You might just see Venus casting a shadow on the ground! Venus is the really bright ‘star’ you will see above the west-southwestern horizon after sunset.
Meteor Shower
One of the best meteor showers of the year occurs this month: The “Geminid Meteor Shower,” s0-called because the shooting stars all appear to fly out of the constellation Gemini.
The Geminids are active between Dec. 4 and 17, and peak on Dec. 14. But, because the Moon will be fairly bright the night of Dec. 13/14, the best time to see the Geminids that night will be during the hour, or so, before sunrise. However, you should still see shooting stars no matter what time of the night you look for them in the Dec. 4-17 time period.
No telescopes or binoculars required! To observe shooting stars, the best thing to do is lie down on a lawn chair or blanket and look up! Depending on where you live in the world, be sure to bring along plenty of winter clothing or mosquito repellant!
Follow the Moon through the Constellations
Did you know you can use the Moon to help identify constellations (areas of the night sky) like Aries, Taurus and Sagittarius? Follow us on Twitter where we Tweet what constellation the Moon is in each night. (Note that during certain times of the month, the Moon will not appear during the night hours, and so we do not Tweet info about the Moon at those times of the month.)
Finding your star in the night sky
Stars are located within constellations, which are just areas of the night sky. Scorpius, Aries and Taurus are examples of constellations. Your Name A Star Live Star Certificate displays the name of your constellation. You can use our online World Constellation Guide to determine if you can see your constellation during the evening hours (between sunset and midnight). Of course, you’ll need a telescope to see your star. But you can see your constellation without the use of a telescope. You can also find your constellation by using our Virtual Planetarium™ astronomy software. A planisphere is another useful device.
Comet ISON shines brightly in this image taken on the morning of Nov. 19, 2013. This is a 10-second exposure taken with the Marshall Space Flight Center 20″ telescope in New Mexico. The camera there is black and white, but the smaller field of view allows for a better “zoom in” on the comet’s coma, which is essentially the head of the comet.
The comet makes its closest approach to the Sun on Nov. 28, 2013 — Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. Should the comet survive its close encounter with our star, the comet could put on quite a show in December. Its tail would demonstrate the effect of the physical pressure of sunlight — the force the Sunjammer solar sail will use to fly into deep space. Sunjammer will carry our customers’ star names into the final frontier. Read more about the comet and Sunjammer in our blog post from early November entitled, “The Comet & the Sunjammer Solar Sail.”
And check out this neat video (below) of Comet ISON rising over the Canary Islands just a few days ago!
This spectacular image of the sun shows yet another powerful solar flare that the sun has emitted in recent weeks. The image was taken Nov. 19 by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Your star name will fly on board a new solar observing spacecraft, the Sunjammer solar sail, which will give us even earlier warning of solar storms that could adversely affect Earth.
This solar flare peaked at 5:26 a.m. EST (10:26 am GMT) Nov. 19. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.
This flare is classified as an X1.0 class flare. “X-class” denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, etc.
This flare came from an active region numbered AR 1893 that is just rotating out of sight over the sun’s right side. Increased numbers of flares are quite common at the moment, since the sun’s normal 11-year activity cycle is ramping up toward solar maximum conditions. Humans have tracked this solar cycle continuously since it was discovered in 1843, and it is normal for there to be many flares a day during the sun’s peak activity.
Here are some beautiful space photos and videos that have been posted on the Internet recently. Enjoy!
From the highest volcano to the deepest canyon, from impact craters to ancient river beds and lava flows, this flyover video from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express takes you on an unforgettable journey across the Red Planet.
Venus is the bright ‘star’ you’ll see in the west at sunset. It will be in the Name A Star Live constellation Sagittarius throughout November. The Moon will help you identify Venus the night of November 6.
Astronomers have high hopes for a new comet called “Comet ISON,” which is predicted to reach peak visibility in late November and into December. Although predicting how bright a comet will appear is notoriously difficult, we may be in for quite a show! Below we discuss how you can view the comet. Assuming the comet makes for an interesting site in the night sky, it would help illustrate how the Sunjammer solar sail will be propelled through space, carrying your star’s name on a mission that could last for millions of years!
Lying more than 110 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Antlia (The Air Pump) is the spiral galaxy IC 2560, shown here in an image from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. At this distance it is a relatively nearby spiral galaxy, and is part of the Antlia cluster — a group of over 200 galaxies held together by gravity. This cluster is unusual; unlike most other galaxy clusters, it appears to have no dominant galaxy within it.
In this image, it is easy to spot IC 2560’s spiral arms and barred structure. This spiral is what astronomers call a Seyfert-2 galaxy, a kind of spiral galaxy characterized by an extremely bright nucleus and very strong emission lines from certain elements — hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, and oxygen. The bright center of the galaxy is thought to be caused by the ejection of huge amounts of super-hot gas from the region around a central black hole.
There is a story behind the naming of this quirky constellation — Antlia was originally named “antlia pneumatica” by French astronomer Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, in honor of the invention of the air pump in the 17th century.
Credit: Hubble/European Space Agency and NASA