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NASA Sets Coverage for Crew Launch; Trio to Join Expedition 71
NASA astronaut Don Pettit will launch aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft, accompanied by cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, to the International Space Station where they will join the Expedition 71 crew in advancing scientific research.
Pettit, Ovchinin, and Vagner will lift off at 12:23 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Sept. 11 (9:23 p.m. Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Coverage will stream on NASA+, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms including social media.
After a two-orbit, three-hour trajectory to the station, the spacecraft will automatically dock at 3:33 p.m. at the orbiting laboratory’s Rassvet module. Shortly after, hatches will open between the spacecraft and the station.
Once aboard, the trio will join NASA astronauts Tracy C. Dyson, Mike Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin, and Oleg Kononenko.
NASA’s coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):
11:15 a.m. – Launch coverage begins on NASA+, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.
12:23 p.m. – Launch
2:30 p.m. – Rendezvous and docking coverage begins on NASA+, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.
3:33 p.m. – Docking
5:30 p.m. – Hatch opening and welcome remarks coverage begins on NASA+, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.
5:50 p.m. – Hatch opening
The trio will spend approximately six months aboard the orbital laboratory as Expedition 71 and 72 crew members before returning to Earth in the spring of 2025. This will be the fourth spaceflight for Pettit and Ovchinin, and the second for Vagner.
For more than two decades, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge, and making research breakthroughs that are not possible on Earth. The station is a critical testbed for NASA to understand and overcome the challenges of long-duration spaceflight and to expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit. As commercial companies focus on providing human space transportation services and destinations as part of a robust low Earth orbit economy, NASA is focusing more resources on deep space missions to the Moon as part of Artemis in preparation for future human missions to Mars.
Learn more about International Space Station research and operations at:
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Joshua Finch / Claire O’Shea
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov
An annular solar eclipse will put a 'ring of fire' above one of the most isolated spots on Earth: Easter Island
NASA Invites Media to Discuss Europa Clipper Mission
NASA will hold a media teleconference at 4 p.m. EDT, Monday, Sept. 9, to provide an update on Europa Clipper, a mission that will study whether Jupiter’s moon Europa could be hospitable to life. The teleconference will occur after a key decision point meeting earlier that day regarding next steps for the mission.
Audio of the teleconference will stream live on the agency’s website at:
Participants in the teleconference include:
- Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
- Laurie Leshin, center director, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- Curt Niebur, Europa Clipper program scientist, NASA Headquarters
- Jordan Evans, Europa Clipper project manager, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
To ask questions during the teleconference, media must RSVP no later than two hours before the event to Molly Wasser at: molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.
Europa Clipper’s main science goal is to determine whether there are places below the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon that could support life. The mission’s objectives are to understand the nature of Europa’s ice shell and the ocean beneath it, as well as to study the moon’s composition and geology. A detailed exploration of Europa also will help astrobiologists better understand the potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.
To learn more about Europa Clipper, visit:
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Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-6215
gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov
Sharks leap out of the water more often than you might think
Sharks leap out of the water more often than you might think
Netflix's 'Apollo 13: Survival' is a superb examination of NASA's finest hour (review)
JWST Reveals Star Formation at Cosmic Noon
Understanding the star formation rate (SFR) in a galaxy is critical to understanding the galaxy itself. Some galaxies are starburst galaxies with extremely high SFRs, some are quenched or quiescent galaxies with very low SFRs, and some are in the middle. Researchers used the JWST to observe a pair of galaxies at Cosmic Noon that are just beginning to merge to see how SFRs vary in different regions of both galaxies.
A rare alignment of massive objects in space allowed astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope to observe a pair of distant, ancient galaxies that are just beginning to interact and merge. The JWST sees the galaxies as they were about seven billion years ago, near the end of the Universe’s Cosmic Noon. The Cosmic Noon was when star formation was at its peak.
One of the galaxies is a blue, face-on galaxy, and the other is a dusty red, edge-on galaxy. The JWST can only see them because of an intervening galaxy cluster named MACS-J0417.5-1154. It’s a gravitational lens that magnifies the light from the galaxy pair and smears the galaxies’ light into an arc.
Astronomers have found many gravitational lenses and regularly use them to observe objects that are otherwise nearly impossible to see. But this lens is different. It’s a hyperbolic umbilic gravitational lens and produces multiple images of the same objects, where each one has a different magnification and brightness.
“We know of only three or four occurrences of similar gravitational lens configurations in the observable universe, which makes this find exciting, as it demonstrates the power of Webb and suggests maybe now we will find more of these,” said astronomer Guillaume Desprez of Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Desprez works with the CAnadian NIRISS Unbiased Cluster Survey (CANUCS), the team presenting the Webb results.
Not only does the cluster magnify the distant background galaxies, but it also warps their appearance and produces multiple copies. Together with an unrelated one, the galaxies combine to look like a question mark. They’ve been dubbed the Question Mark Galaxy Pair.
False colour images of the Question Mark Pair and MACS J0417.5?1154 (right-hand panel). The left two panels are zoom-in images of four of the multiply lensed images of the Question Mark Pair taken with HST and JWST. By comparing the JWST and HST images, we see how dusty the red edge-on galaxy is as it is barely visible in the HST/ACS imaging. Image Credit: Estrada-Carpenter et al. 2024.This isn’t the first time astronomers have observed these galaxies. The Hubble observed it previously. But the Hubble and the JWST see things differently. The JWST can see longer wavelengths of infrared light that pass through cosmic dust, while the Hubble only sees the wavelengths of light that get trapped in the dust. So, the Hubble couldn’t detect the question mark shape, whereas the JWST could.
“This is just cool looking. Amazing images like this are why I got into astronomy when I was young,” said astronomer Marcin Sawicki of Saint Mary’s University, one of the lead researchers on the team.
But the question mark shape is just an interesting visual curiosity. The research is about star formation, and these results highlight the JWST’s ability to identify star formation regions in distant galaxies.
“Knowing when, where, and how star formation occurs within galaxies is crucial to understanding how galaxies have evolved over the history of the universe,” said astronomer Vicente Estrada-Carpenter of Saint Mary’s University. Estrada-Carpenter used both Hubble’s ultraviolet and Webb’s infrared data to show where new stars are forming in the galaxies.
The researchers developed a new method to probe SFRs on different timescales of about ten million years and one hundred million years. The ten-million-year timescale relied on H-alpha emission line maps, and the one-hundred-million-year timescale relied on UV observations. H-alpha is sensitive to ten-million-year timescales because it stems from gas around massive, short-lived stars. UV is sensitive to one-hundred-million-year timescales because it originates from longer-lived stars.
Together, the ratio between the two can spatially resolve star formation burstiness.
They found that SFRs decrease at longer distances from the galactic center. That’s not surprising since star-forming gas tends to accumulate near galactic nuclei. However, they also found that overall, the SFR has increased by a factor of 1.6 over the last ~100 Myr, an indication that the galaxies are beginning to merge.
To better understand the merger aspect, the researchers broke the QMP down into segments: blue galaxy bulge and disc, red bulge and disc, and three types of clumps: bursting, equilibrium, and quenching.
This figure from the study shows how the researchers broke the QMP into segments to better understand it. Image Credit: Estrada-Carpenter et al. 2024.“Both galaxies in the Question Mark Pair show active star formation in several compact regions, likely a result of gas from the two galaxies colliding,” said Estrada-Carpenter. “However, neither galaxy’s shape appears too disrupted, so we are probably seeing the beginning of their interaction with each other.”
They identified twenty star-forming clumps in the galaxy pair, highlighting the JWST’s ability to spatially resolve star formation in distant galaxies. Of those 20, seven were experiencing bursty star formation, 10 were quenching, and three were in equilibrium. The blue face-on galaxy, especially its disk, is mostly in a quenching phase, which makes sense since the JWST is seeing the galaxy pair as they were near the end of Cosmic Noon.
Galaxies grow massive by merging, and one of the JWST’s science goals is to better understand mergers and how they affect star formation. The QMP could be beginning to merge which only increases its value as an observational target.
“What makes the QMP so interesting is that these galaxies are possibly at the beginning of an interaction (as their morphologies do not seem to be disturbed). An interaction between the galaxy pair could lead to a burst of star formation, and this may be the reason why the blue face-on galaxy contains so many clumpy star-forming regions,” the authors write in their paper.
These results are also giving us a look at what our own galaxy was like during Cosmic Noon.
“These galaxies, seen billions of years ago when star formation was at its peak, are similar to the mass that the Milky Way galaxy would have been at that time. Webb is allowing us to study what the teenage years of our own galaxy would have been like,” said Sawicki.
The post JWST Reveals Star Formation at Cosmic Noon appeared first on Universe Today.
NASA Summer Camp Inspires Future Climate Leaders
2 min read
NASA Summer Camp Inspires Future Climate LeadersFrom July 15-19, 2024, the Coastal Equity and Resilience Hub at the Georgia Institute of Technology collaborated with the University of Georgia (UGA) Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant to host a week-long NASA Sea Level Changemakers Summer Camp. The camp introduced 14 rising 7th-8th graders to how coastal areas are changing due to sea level rise. Set at the UGA Marine Education Center and Aquarium on Skidaway Island, the camp offered students hands-on activities and outdoor educational experiences, where they analyzed real data collected by NASA scientists and learned about community adaptations to flooding. Students interacted with experts from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, UGA, and Georgia Tech, gaining insights into satellite observations, green infrastructure, environmental sensors, and careers related to sea level rise. The camp also included a visit to the Pin Point Heritage Museum, where students engaged with leaders from the historic Gullah Geechee community of Pin Point. The camp concluded with a boat trip to Wassaw Island, where students observed the effects of sea level rise on an undeveloped barrier island and compared these observations with earlier findings from urban environments. Funding from the NASA’s Science Activation Program and its Sea Level Education, Awareness, and Literacy (SEAL) team ensured that the camp was accessible to all students, eliminating financial barriers for groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM education.
“This investment from NASA has provided an amazing opportunity for youth in coastal Georgia to utilize NASA data and resources on a critical issue affecting their communities,” said Jill Gambill, executive director of the Coastal Equity and Resilience (CEAR) Hub at Georgia Tech. “They have more confidence now in their knowledge of sea level rise and potential solutions.”
The Sea Level Education, Awareness, and Literacy (SEAL) team is supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNH21ZDA001N-SCIACT and is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about how Science Activation connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learn
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