RIP Sally Ride, the first American woman in space

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Challenger, died, NASA, Sally Ride, science, woman in space

Sally Ride floats alongside Challenger’s middeck airlock hatch. Caption and photo courtesy of NASA

Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, passed away yesterday after battling pancreatic cancer. She was 61.

“Sally Ride broke barriers with grace and professionalism – and literally changed the face of America’s space program,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in this release. “The nation has lost one of its finest leaders, teachers and explorers. Our thoughts and prayers are with Sally’s family and the many she inspired. She will be missed, but her star will always shine brightly.”

Ride made the history books when she rode to orbit on Challenger’s STS-7 mission in 1983. The very next year, she took another trip to orbit.

After the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle tragedies, Ride helped investigate the accidents. She was the only person to serve on both investigation boards.

Check out this great video of Ride talking about flying into orbit and what she saw when she looked at Earth from the space shuttle’s window. Spectacular!

RIP Sally Ride.

 

Spotted! Shuttle Discovery gets quite a piggyback ride

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Discovery, Discovery shuttle, NASA, shuttle carrier aircraft, shuttle mission sts, shuttle program, space shuttle

Space shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), flies over the Washington skyline today, Tuesday, April 17. NASA will transfer Discovery to the National Air and Space Museum to begin its new mission to commemorate past achievements in space and to educate and inspire future generations of explorers. Photo and caption courtesy of NASA/Robert Markowitz

I just love how these shuttles get around. Pictured above is space shuttle Discovery, the first orbiter retired from NASA’s fleet.  The shuttle traveled 148,221,675 miles, spent a total of 1 year in space, and completed 29 missions, according to NASA.

It was part of the NASA’s 30-year space shuttle program, which concluded in July 2001. According to NASA:

Starting with Columbia and continuing with Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour, the spacecraft has carried people into orbit repeatedly, launched, recovered and repaired satellites, conducted cutting-edge research and built the largest structure in space, the International Space Station. The final space shuttle mission, STS-135, ended July 21, 2011 when Atlantis rolled to a stop at its home port, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

See more photos here.

Want to see a shuttle? Here’s where they’re going.

Photo of the week: NASA rockets light up the sky

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ATEX, chemical tracer, NASA, rocket experiment, rocket launch, Wallops flight facility, white clouds

NASA launched five rockets that released a chemical tracer into the sky, which created these milky, white clouds which could be seen throughout locations in the east coast. Photo courtesy of NASA

I usually warn people about seeing auroras in New Jersey. If you see something around here, I say, run to the supermarket and stock up on food and supplies, then head to the gas station and fill up your tank because some serious crap is about to go down.

But this week was different. I looked forward to seeing some interesting lights in the night sky. That’s because for several weeks now, NASA had planned to launch five rockets within five minutes. The mission – dubbed ATREX (Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment) – would help scientists study the Earth’s upper level jet stream.

Finally, after several weather-related delays, the rockets launched on March 27 from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The rockets released a chemical tracer into the sky, which created milky, white clouds which could be seen throughout locations in the east coast.

Photo of the week: Dust devil on Mars

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dust devil, HiRISE, mars exploration programs, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars sufrace, martian surface, NASA

A towering dust devil casts a serpentine shadow over the Martian surface in this image acquired by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Photo and caption courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

This image was taken late spring in the northern part of Mars.  The dust plume reaches more than half a mile in height, according to NASA. Pretty sweet.

Unfortunately every time I read or see something about Mars, I think about the loss of funding for future Mars exploration programs. I hope something can be worked out. Let’s cross our fingers, shall we?

Photo of the week: A Supernova is coming …

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Eta Carinae, hubble telescope, NASA, sn 2006gy, supernova

NASA's Hubble Telescope captured an image of Eta Carinae. This image consists of ultraviolet and visible light images from the High Resolution Channel of Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Image and caption courtesy of the ESA and NASA.

Here’s Eta Carinae, a star system in the constellation of Carina that will likely explode into a supernova in the “near future.”

When it eventually blows to kingdom come, we’ll actually be able to see it. After all, the star system is only about 8,000 light years away. Sweet!

According to NASA,

When it does [explode], expect an impressive view from Earth, far brighter still than its last outburst: SN 2006gy, the brightest supernova ever observed, came from a star of the same type, though from a galaxy over 200 million light-years away.

You’re worried because this star system is much, much closer than SN 2006gy? Oh, don’t get all nervous on us! While NASA says it’ll explode in the “near future,” in astronomical terms, that could still be millions of years away.

Read more about this image of Eta Carinae, obtained by NASA’s Hubble Telescope, here.

Kepler: The search for planets outside our Solar System

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Ames Research Center, Destination Innovation, Exoplanets, Kepler, NASA

Look what I found. This, I gotta say, is pretty sweet!

It’s a six-minute video about the Kepler mission and the search for planets outside of our Solar System. You can learn all about the mission, what it’s found so far (dozens of confirmed planets, thousands of candidates), and how it works.

“Kepler has been a game changer in exoplanet science.” Yeah, well we known that! See here, here, here and here.

According to the video, scientists will be working on Kepler data for “decades” to come. “What we will end up with is a deeper understanding of the abundance of Earth- sized, potentially habitable worlds in our galaxy.”

Watch the video. It’s the first episode of Destination Innovation, a series that explains some of the projects over at the NASA Ames Research Center.

Video: the Dark side of the moon

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dark side of the moon, GRAIL, GRAIL mission, NASA, video of the moon

NASA’s GRAIL mission sent back its first video of the dark side of the moon. This short clip certainly left me wanting more.

Fastest spinning star found: It rotates one million miles per hour!

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fastest spinning star, Large Megallanic Cloud, NASA, VFTS 102

Rendering courtesy of NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

This star, dubbed VFTS 102, spins 1 million miles an hour! That’s 100 times faster than our Sun rotates. Whoa. That’s pretty crazy, right? “Centrifugal forces from this dizzying spin rate have flattened the star into an oblate shape and spun off a disk of hot plasma, seen edge on in this view from a hypothetical planet,” according to NASA. The star is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which according to NASA is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.

Cast your vote for Photo of the Week!

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antarctica, Dione, ESO, Meteorites, NASA, snow angel galaxy, spiral galaxy NGC 253

The Spiral Galaxy

The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) has captured in sharp detail the beauty of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 253. The new portrait is probably the most detailed wide-field view of this object and its surroundings ever taken, according to the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Image and caption courtesy of ESO/INAF-VST

Searching for meteorites in Antarctica

Although meteors fall all over the world, they usually just sink to the bottom of an ocean, are buried by shifting terrain, or are easily confused with terrestrial rocks. Image and caption courtesy of Ralph P. Harvey (CWRU), Antarctic Search for Meteorites Program, NASA, NSF

 Hubble’s snow angel

The bipolar star-forming region, called Sharpless 2-106, looks like a soaring, celestial snow angel. Image and caption courtesy of NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Saturn’s moon, Dione

NASA's Cassini spacecraft obtained this unprocessed image on Dec. 12, 2011. The camera was pointing toward Saturn's moon Dione from approximately 76,344 miles (122,864 kilometers) away. Image and caption courtesy of NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

VOTING HAS NOW ENDED.

Photo of the week: More evidence of water on Mars?

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gypsum Mars, Mars, mineral vein on Mars, NASA, opportunity, Rover Opportunity, wter

Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU

There’s now more evidence that water did in fact flow on Mars. The NASA Exploration Rover Opportunity, which has been exploring the Martian surface for more than 7 years, found a “mineral vein” made up of gypsum.

According to NASA:

“This tells a slam-dunk story that water flowed through underground fractures in the rock … This stuff is a fairly pure chemical deposit that formed in place right where we see it. That can’t be said for other gypsum seen on Mars or for other water-related minerals Opportunity has found. It’s not uncommon on Earth, but on Mars, it’s the kind of thing that makes geologists jump out of their chairs.”

Read more about the possibility of water on other planets, and even some moons, here.

 

Photo of the week: Enceladus and its ice

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Cassini, enceladus, NASA, Saturn

Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

From NASA:

“The moon Enceladus, one of the jewels of the Saturn system, sparkles peculiarly bright in new images obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The images of the moon, the first ever taken of Enceladus with Cassini’s synthetic aperture radar, reveal new details of some of the grooves in the moon’s south polar region and unexpected textures in the ice. These images, obtained on Nov. 6, 2011, are the highest-resolution images of this region obtained so far.”

Read more here.

Want to see more ice worlds? Check out our gallery.

Photo of the week: Mars Science Laboratory launches

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Atlas V rocket, Curosity, Mars, Mars Science Laboratory, MSL, NASA

Courtesy of NASA/Darrell L. McCall

From NASA.GOV:

The Atlantic Ocean provides a backdrop as the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket clears the tower on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Sealed inside the rocket is NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft, beginning a 9-month interplanetary cruise to Mars. Liftoff was at 10:02 a.m. EST Nov. 26. MSL’s components include a car-sized rover, Curiosity, which has 10 science instruments designed to search for signs of life, including methane, and help determine if the gas is from a biological or geological source.

A video of the moon crossing the sun captured by the STEREO mission

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Moon, NASA, solar eclipse, STEREO, sun

Happy Birthday, STEREO!

Tomorrow, Oct. 26, is the fifth anniversary of the launch of NASA’s STEREO mission, which has helped scientists understand the structure and evolution of solar storms as they blast from the Sun and move out through space. 

In honor of the milestone, NASA will be posting video of STEREO’s discoveries and observations on one of its YouTube pages. Here’s a pretty amazing video taken in 2007. It shows a solar eclipse, a transit of the Moon across the face of the Sun.

For your viewing pleasure: The waterfall nebula

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astronomy picture, HH-222, NASA, waterfall nebula

The waterfall nebula, designated as HH-222. Image Credit: Z. Levay (STScI/AURA/NASA), T.A. Rector (U. Alaska Anchorage) & H. Schweiker (NOAO/AURA/NSF), KPNO, NOAO

No one knows how the Waterfall Nebula was created. It’s one of the mysterious structures found in the sky, according to NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day site.

Designated HH-222, the elongated gaseous stream stretches about ten light years and emits an unusual array of colors.

Click here to read some very interesting thoughts on why. One hypothesis has to do with a black hole.

Want to see what Mars really looks like? Rover provides real photographs of Martian surface

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Mars, NASA, opportunity, rover

A NASA rover photographed 309 images of Mars during a three-year journey on planet. Here’s what the rover, called Opportunity, captured. What do you think? Is Mars what you expected? Too bad the video isn’t in color … and less jumpy.