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Showing posts with the label NASA Kelli Mars December 18

Space News: 50 Years Ago: Skylab 4 Astronauts Push Past the One-Month Mark

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https://ift.tt/CMOtHsJ In December 1973, Skylab 4 astronauts Gerald P. Carr , Edward G. Gibson , and William R. Pogue passed the one-month mark of the third and final mission aboard the Skylab space station. Launching on Nov. 16, they began a planned 56-day flight that mission managers fully expected to extend to 84 days. They continued the science program begun by the previous two Skylab crews , including biomedical studies on the effects of long-duration space flight on the human body, Earth observations using the Earth Resources Experiment Package (EREP), and solar observations with instruments mounted on the Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM). To study newly discovered Comet Kohoutek, scientists added cometary observations to the crew’s already busy schedule, including adding a far ultraviolet camera to Skylab’s instrument suite. Left: Image of a massive solar flare taken by one of the Apollo Telescope Mount instruments. Middle: Earth Resources Experiment Package infrared photog...
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APOD: M15: Dense Globular Star Cluster

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Messier 15 is an immense swarm of over 100,000 stars. A 13 billion year old relic of the early formative years of our galaxy it's one of about 170 globular star clusters that still roam the halo of the Milky Way. Centered in this sharp reprocessed Hubble image, M15 lies some 35,000 light-years away toward the constellation Pegasus. Its diameter is about 200 light-years, but more than half its stars are packed into the central 10 light-years or so, making one of the densest concentrations of stars known. Hubble-based measurements of the increasing velocities of M15's central stars are evidence that a massive black hole resides at the center of the dense cluster. M15 is also known to harbour a planetary nebula. Called Pease 1 (aka PN Ps 1), it can be seen in this image as a small blue blob below and just right of center. via NASA https://ift.tt/aQoCO61
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APOD: Encke and the Tadpoles

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History's second known periodic comet is Comet Encke (2P/Encke). As it swings through the inner Solar System, Encke's orbit takes it from an aphelion, its greatest distance from the Sun, inside the orbit of Jupiter to a perihelion just inside the orbit of Mercury. Returning to its perihelion every 3.3 years, Encke has the shortest period of the Solar System's major comets. Comet Encke is also associated with (at least) two annual meteor showers on planet Earth, the North and South Taurids. Both showers are active in late October and early November. Their two separate radiants lie near bright star Aldebaran in the head-strong constellation Taurus. A faint comet, Encke was captured in this telescopic field of view imaged on the morning of August 24. Then, Encke's pretty greenish coma was close on the sky to the young, embedded star cluster and light-years long, tadpole-shaped star-forming clouds in emission nebula IC 410. Now near bright star Spica in Virgo Comet Encke p...
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APOD:

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What causes this unusual curving structure near the center of our Galaxy? The long parallel rays slanting across the top of the featured radio image are known collectively as the Galactic Center Radio Arc and point out from the Galactic plane. The Radio Arc is connected to the Galactic Center by strange curving filaments known as the Arches. The bright radio structure at the bottom right surrounds a black hole at the Galactic Center and is known as Sagittarius A*. One origin hypothesis holds that the Radio Arc and the Arches have their geometry because they contain hot plasma flowing along lines of a constant magnetic field. Images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory appear to show this plasma colliding with a nearby cloud of cold gas. via NASA https://ift.tt/R1WxbZ7
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