? A brilliant aurora streams over the Earth as the International Space Station orbited 274 miles above the southern Indian Ocean. Credit: NASA
See an Aurora Over the Southern Skies
A brilliant aurora streams over the Earth as the International Space Station orbits 274 miles above the southern Indian Ocean in between Australia and Antarctica.
The station orbits the Earth in about 90 minutes. In 24 hours, the space station makes 16 orbits of Earth, traveling through 16 sundowns and daybreaks.
Concept for a set of future robotics interacting to ferry back samples from the surface area of Mars gathered by the Mars Perseverance rover. Credit: NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech
Mars Sample Return Artists Concept
This illustration shows a concept for a set of future robots interacting to transport back samples from the surface area of Mars collected by NASAs Mars Perseverance rover.
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are strengthening concepts for a Mars sample return mission that would seek to take the samples of Martian rocks and other products being collected and kept in sealed tubes by NASAs Mars Perseverance rover and return the sealed tubes to Earth.
According to the current concept, NASA would provide a Mars lander in the area of Jezero Crater, where Perseverance (left) will have collected and cached samples. The Sample Retrieval Lander (right) would bring a NASA rocket (the Mars Ascent Vehicle), together with ESAs Sample Fetch Rover (center) that is approximately the size of the Opportunity Mars rover. The bring rover would gather the cached samples and carry them back to the lander for transfer to the ascent automobile; additional samples might also be delivered straight by Perseverance. The climb automobile would then introduce an unique container holding the samples into Mars orbit. ESA would put a spacecraft in orbit around Mars before the ascent car launches. This spacecraft would rendezvous with and record the orbiting samples prior to returning them to Earth. NASA would provide the capture and containment payload module for the orbiter.
With the Lucy spacecraft aboard, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is seen as it is rolled out of the Vertical Integration Facility. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Lucy Mission Set to Launch to Study Trojan Asteroids
With the Lucy spacecraft aboard, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is viewed as it is presented of the Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41, Thursday, October 14, 2021, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Lucy will be the very first spacecraft to study Jupiters Trojan asteroids. Like the missions namesake– the fossilized human forefather, “Lucy,” whose skeleton offered unique insight into mankinds development– Lucy will reinvent our knowledge of planetary origins and the development of the solar system.
The Lucy objective went for 5:34 a.m. EDT on October 16, 2021, on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Illustration of the Lucy missions seven targets: the binary asteroid Patroclus/Menoetius, Eurybates, Orus, Leucus, Polymele, and the primary belt asteroid DonaldJohanson. Credits: NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
Lucy: Inspiration and Asteroids
NASAs Lucy mission will check out a record-breaking number of asteroids, zipping one asteroid in the planetary systems primary asteroid belt, and by 7 Trojan asteroids.
This illustration is of the Lucy missions seven targets: the binary asteroid Patroclus/Menoetius, Eurybates, Orus, Leucus, Polymele, and the primary belt asteroid DonaldJohanson.
A neighboring supernova residue, LMC N63A. Credit: NASA
Like Monsters in the Sky
A violent and chaotic-looking mass of gas and dust is seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image of a neighboring supernova remnant. Denoted N 63A, the object is the remains of an enormous star that blew up, spewing its gaseous layers out into a currently rough area.
The supernova remnant belongs to a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), an irregular galaxy 160,000 light-years from our own Milky Way.
Supernova residues have long been believed to set off episodes of star development when their expanding shock encounters close-by gas. N 63A is still young, and its ruthless shocks are damaging the ambient gas clouds, instead of pushing them to collapse and kind stars.
With the captivating name of SDSS J0146-0929, this is a galaxy cluster– a monstrous collection of hundreds of galaxies all shackled together in the unyielding grip of gravity. The mass of this galaxy cluster is big enough to badly misshape the space-time around it, producing the odd, looping curves that almost encircle the center of the cluster. In this image, a remote galaxy is considerably magnified and misshaped by the effects of gravitationally warped area. After its public release, astronomers utilized the image to determine the galaxys distance of 9.4 billion light-years. The Sample Retrieval Lander (right) would bring a NASA rocket (the Mars Ascent Vehicle), along with ESAs Sample Fetch Rover (center) that is approximately the size of the Opportunity Mars rover.
With the captivating name of SDSS J0146-0929, this is a galaxy cluster– a monstrous collection of numerous galaxies all shackled together in the unyielding grip of gravity. The mass of this galaxy cluster is big enough to significantly misshape the space-time around it, producing the odd, looping curves that nearly encircle the center of the cluster. Credit: ESA/Hubble & & NASA, S. Jha, Acknowledgement: L. Shatz
Hubble Snapshot of Molten Ring Galaxy Prompts New Research
The Hubble Space Telescopes glamour shots of deep space nearly always have a discovery behind them.
In this image, a remote galaxy is significantly amplified and distorted by the results of gravitationally warped space. After its public release, astronomers used the picture to measure the galaxys range of 9.4 billion light-years. This positions the galaxy at the peak date of star formation in cosmic evolution.
In this specific photo, a science discovery followed the release of a Hubble observation of a striking example of a deep-space optical phenomenon called an “Einstein ring.” The image was released in December 2020 as an example of among the biggest, almost total Einstein rings ever seen.
