Friends of NASA (FoN) is an independent non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to building international support for peaceful space exploration, commerce, scientific discovery, and STEM education.
Earth & Space Views: Shenzhou-17 Crew | China Space Station
A set of high-resolution pictures taken by the Shenzhou-17 crew in orbit, was released recently by the China Manned Space Engineering Office.
The three Shenzhou-17 astronauts have nearly completed their six month long-duration mission on China's Tiangong Space Station. The Shenzhou-17 crew launched to the station on October 26, 2023. Shenzhou-17 is the sixth spaceflight to the station. The Shenzhou-18 replacement crew will launch soon.
Shenzhou-17 Crew:
Hongbo Tang (Commander)
Shengjie Tang (Mission Specialist)
Xinlin Jiang (Mission Specialist)
Video Credit : CCTV Video News Agency/China Manned Space Engineering Office
The ocean holds about 97 percent of Earth's water and covers 70 percent of our planet's surface. According to the United Nations, the ocean may be home to 50 to 80 percent of all life on Earth. Even if you live hundreds of miles from a coast, what happens in the ocean is fundamental to your life.
The 2024 NASA Earth Day poster is composited with real satellite imagery from NASA's Terra, Aqua, and Landsat missions. Download the poster and learn more about the imagery below.
The ocean holds about 97 percent of Earth's water and covers 70 percent of our planet's surface. According to the United Nations, the ocean may be home to 50 to 80 percent of all life on Earth. Even if you live hundreds of miles from a coast, what happens in the ocean is fundamental to your life.
The 2024 NASA Earth Day poster is composited with real satellite imagery from NASA's Terra, Aqua, and Landsat missions. Download the poster and learn more about the imagery below.
Image Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Earth from Orbit: Celebrating Earth Day with U.S. Weather Satellites | NOAA
Happy Earth Day 2024! | America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): "Throughout history, humans have wondered what Earth looked like from above. The advent of satellites changed our perspective dramatically, though early imagery was often blurry and lacked detail. Today, thanks to decades of technological advancements and innovation, the quality and resolution of satellite imagery has significantly improved. Satellites from NOAA and other organizations around the world capture vital information that help us stay safe, while also sharing the beauty of our planet from afar. For us, every day is Earth Day!"
"As we celebrate Earth Day, let us marvel at the wonders of our planet and reflect on our responsibility to cherish and protect it. Together, let’s ensure that the view from space remains a symbol of hope and inspiration for generations to come."
Credits: NOAA, NASA, Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA)
Additional imagery courtesy of Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS)
Highlights of Basic Astronaut Training | European Space Agency
The European Space Agency's newly graduated astronauts reach the end of one year of rigorous basic astronaut training. Watch the key moments during the journey of Sophie Adenot, Rosemary Coogan, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Raphaël Liégeois, Marco Sieber, and Australian Space Agency astronaut candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg. Selected in November 2022, the group began their training in April 2023.
Basic astronaut training provides the candidates with an overall familiarization and training in various areas, such as spacecraft systems, spacewalks, flight engineering, robotics and life support systems as well as survival and medical training. They received astronaut certification at European Space Agency's European Astronaut Centre on April 22, 2024.
Following certification, the new astronauts will move on to the next phases of pre-assignment and mission-specific training—paving the way for future missions to the International Space Station and beyond.
Video Credit: European Space Agency / NASA / Royal Netherlands Air Force
Panning across Spiral Galaxy ESO 422-41 in Columba | Hubble
This picture depicts the spiral galaxy ESO 422-41. It lies about 34 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Columba. The patchy, star-filled structure of the galaxy’s spiral arms and the glow from its dense core are laid out in intricate detail here by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images of this galaxy have, however, a decades-long history.
The name ESO 422-41 comes from its identification in the European Southern Observatory (B) Atlas of the Southern Sky. In the times before automated sky surveys with space observatories, such as the European Space Agency’s Gaia, many stars, galaxies and nebulae were discovered by means of large photographic surveys. Astronomers used the most advanced large telescopes of the time to produce hundreds of photographs, covering an area of the sky. They later studied the resulting photographs, attempting to catalogue all the new astronomical objects revealed.
In the 1970s, a new telescope at ESO’s La Silla facility in Chile performed such a survey of the southern sky. It still had not been examined in as much depth as the sky in the north. At the time, the premier technology for recording images was glass plates treated with chemicals. The resulting collection of photographic plates became the ESO (B) Atlas of the Southern Sky. Astronomers at ESO and in Uppsala, Sweden collaborated to study the plates, recording hundreds of galaxies—ESO 422-41 being just one of those—star clusters, and nebulae. Many were new to astronomy.
Image Description: A spiral galaxy, with a brightly shining core and two large arms. The arms are broad, faint overall and quite patchy, and feature several small bright spots where stars are forming. A few foreground stars with small diffraction spikes can be seen in front of the galaxy.
Astronomical sky surveying has since transitioned through digital, computer-aided surveys, such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Legacy Surveys, to surveys made by space telescopes including Gaia and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer. Even so, photographic sky surveys contributed immensely to astronomical knowledge for decades, and the archives of glass plates serve as an important historical reference for large swathes of the sky. Several are still actively used today, for instance to study variable stars through time. The objects that these surveys revealed, including ESO 422-41, can now be studied in depth by telescopes, such as Hubble.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick
Spiral Galaxy ESO 422-41 in Columba | Hubble Space Telescope
This picture depicts the spiral galaxy ESO 422-41. It lies about 34 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Columba. The patchy, star-filled structure of the galaxy’s spiral arms and the glow from its dense core are laid out in intricate detail here by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images of this galaxy have, however, a decades-long history.
The name ESO 422-41 comes from its identification in the European Southern Observatory (B) Atlas of the Southern Sky. In the times before automated sky surveys with space observatories, such as the European Space Agency’s Gaia, many stars, galaxies and nebulae were discovered by means of large photographic surveys. Astronomers used the most advanced large telescopes of the time to produce hundreds of photographs, covering an area of the sky. They later studied the resulting photographs, attempting to catalogue all the new astronomical objects revealed.
In the 1970s, a new telescope at ESO’s La Silla facility in Chile performed such a survey of the southern sky. It still had not been examined in as much depth as the sky in the north. At the time, the premier technology for recording images was glass plates treated with chemicals. The resulting collection of photographic plates became the ESO (B) Atlas of the Southern Sky. Astronomers at ESO and in Uppsala, Sweden collaborated to study the plates, recording hundreds of galaxies—ESO 422-41 being just one of those—star clusters, and nebulae. Many were new to astronomy.
Image Description: A spiral galaxy, with a brightly shining core and two large arms. The arms are broad, faint overall and quite patchy, and feature several small bright spots where stars are forming. A few foreground stars with small diffraction spikes can be seen in front of the galaxy.
Astronomical sky surveying has since transitioned through digital, computer-aided surveys, such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Legacy Surveys, to surveys made by space telescopes including Gaia and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer. Even so, photographic sky surveys contributed immensely to astronomical knowledge for decades, and the archives of glass plates serve as an important historical reference for large swathes of the sky. Several are still actively used today, for instance to study variable stars through time. The objects that these surveys revealed, including ESO 422-41, can now be studied in depth by telescopes, such as Hubble.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick
Star Diary: The Lyrid Meteor Shower Reaches its Peak: April 22-28, 2024
The full Moon will wash out the dimmer meteors, but fortunately there are plenty of other stargazing highlights in this week’s stargazing podcast guide, Star Diary, April 22 to 28, 2024.
NASA's robotic spacecraft Juno is continuing on its 53-day, highly-elongated orbits around our Solar System's largest planet. This video features perijove 16, the sixteenth time that Juno has passed near Jupiter since it arrived in mid-2016. Each perijove passes near a new part of Jupiter's cloud tops.
This color-enhanced video has been digitally composed from 21 JunoCam still images, resulting in a 125-fold time-lapse. The video begins with Jupiter rising as Juno approaches from the north. As Juno reaches its closest view—from about 3,500 kilometers over Jupiter's cloud tops—the spacecraft captures the great planet in detail.
Juno passes light zones and dark belts of clouds that circle the planet, as well as numerous swirling circular storms. Many are larger than hurricanes on Earth. As Juno moves away, a remarkable "dolphin-shaped" cloud is visible. After the perijove, Jupiter recedes into the distance, now displaying the unusual clouds that appear over Jupiter's south. To collect science data, Juno swoops so close to Jupiter that its instruments are exposed to very high levels of radiation.
Starting in April 2024, the spacecraft will carry out a series of occultation experiments that use Juno’s Gravity Science experiment to probe Jupiter’s upper atmospheric makeup. This can provide key information on the planet’s shape and interior structure.
JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott J. Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft.
Video Credit: NASA, Juno, SwRI, MSSS, Gerald Eichstadt
The Sun: New High Resolution Images | Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope
A high-resolution image of solar sunspots captured by the Inouye Solar Telescope on May 11, 2021 (not from the first science observation). The data leading to this image were acquired with the Visible Broadband Imager blue channel at a wavelength of 450 nanometers.
The first images of the chromosphere—the area of the Sun’s atmosphere above the surface—taken with the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope on 3 June 2022. The image shows a region 82,500 kilometers across at a resolution of 18 km. This image is taken at 486.13 nanometers using the hydrogen-beta line from the Balmer series.
The surface of the Sun taken with the Visible Broadband Imager at the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope. The image shows a region 82,500 kilometers across at a resolution of 18 km. The image is taken in the Fraunhofer “G Band” at 430 nanometers.
The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope has produced the highest resolution observations of the Sun’s surface ever taken. These are the latest images that have been released during the telescope's commissioning stage. Interestingly, they are reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh's famous "sunflower" paintings (1888-1889) that he made in France.
Learn about the world's most powerful solar telescope in Maui, Hawai’i:
China's Shenzhou-18 Crew Mission: Launch Prep Completed | China Space Station
China conducted an on-site comprehensive pre-launch rehearsal on Sunday, April 21, 2024, in northwest China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center for the imminent launch of the Shenzhou-18 crewed spaceship to the China Space Station. As scheduled, this new crew will replace the existing Shenzhou-17 astronauts (taikonauts) completing a long duration six-month mission. Shenzhou-18 will be the seventh crew of three astronauts to stay aboard the China Space Station. The Shenzhou-18 crew members will be officially announced shortly before launch.
Zou Pengfei, a staff member of the Astronaut Center of China stated:
"Throughout the joint rehearsal, the Shenzhou-18 crew members were full of energy, very calm and composed. They performed good teamwork in operation and coordinated smoothly with the ground team, thus achieving the expected results. The rehearsal demonstrated their good physical and psychological status and training level. After the joint rehearsal, they will enter the final preparation stage, which mainly includes medical examination and physical and psychological state adjustments, to ensure that they can perform the flight mission in the best shape possible."
Into the Heart of Spiral Galaxy NGC 1232 in Eridanus | ESO
This spectacular image of the large spiral galaxy NGC 1232 was obtained on September 21, 1998, during a period of good observing conditions. It is based on three exposures in ultra-violet, blue and red light, respectively. The colors of the different regions are well visible. The central areas contain older stars of reddish color, while the spiral arms are populated by young, blue stars and many star-forming regions. Note the distorted companion galaxy on the left side, shaped like the greek letter "theta". NGC 1232 was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel on October 20, 1784.
NGC 1232 is located 20º south of the celestial equator, in the constellation Eridanus (The River). The distance is about 60 million light-years, but the excellent optical quality of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and FORS allows us to see an incredible wealth of details. FORS is the visual and near UV FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph for the VLT. At the indicated distance, the edge of the field shown corresponds to about 200,000 light-years, or about twice the size of the Milky Way galaxy.
The image is a composite of three images taken behind three different filters: U (360 nm; 10 min), B (420 nm; 6 min) and R (600 nm; 2:30 min) during a period of 0.7 arcsec seeing. The field shown measures 6.8 x 6.8 arcmin. North is up; East is to the left.
Close-up View: Spiral Galaxy NGC 1232 in Eridanus | ESO
This spectacular image of the large spiral galaxy NGC 1232 was obtained on September 21, 1998, during a period of good observing conditions. It is based on three exposures in ultra-violet, blue and red light, respectively. The colors of the different regions are well visible. The central areas contain older stars of reddish color, while the spiral arms are populated by young, blue stars and many star-forming regions. Note the distorted companion galaxy on the left side, shaped like the Greek letter "theta". NGC 1232 was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel on October 20, 1784.
NGC 1232 is located 20º south of the celestial equator, in the constellation Eridanus (The River). The distance is about 60 million light-years, but the excellent optical quality of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and FORS allows us to see an incredible wealth of details. FORS is the visual and near UV FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph for the VLT. At the indicated distance, the edge of the field shown corresponds to about 200,000 light-years, or about twice the size of the Milky Way galaxy.
The image is a composite of three images taken behind three different filters: U (360 nm; 10 min), B (420 nm; 6 min) and R (600 nm; 2:30 min) during a period of 0.7 arcsec seeing. The field shown measures 6.8 x 6.8 arcmin. North is up; East is to the left.
The striking, large spiral galaxy NGC 1232, and its distorted companion shaped like the Greek letter "theta". The pair is located roughly 60 million light-years away in the constellation Eridanus (The River). Billions of stars and dark dust are caught up in this beautiful gravitational swirl. The blue spiral arms with their many young stars and star-forming regions make a striking contrast with the yellow-reddish core of older stars. NGC 1232 was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel on October 20, 1784.
This image is based on data acquired with the 1.5 m Danish telescope at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile, through three filters (B: 900 s, V: 400 s, R: 400 s).
Credit: ESO/IDA/Danish 1.5 m/R.Gendler and A. Hornstrup.
China Shenzhou-18 Crew Rocket Rollout to Launchpad | China Space Station
The combination of the Shenzhou-18 spaceship and a Long March-2F Y18 carrier rocket has been vertically transferred to the launching area at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Wednesday morning, April 17, 2024. Shenzhou-18 will transport the seventh crew of three astronauts to the China Space Station and replace the Shenzhou-17 crew currently onboard.
Weighing over 40 tons, with a total height of nearly 60 meters, the combination has four support points distributed along the circumference of the rocket's core stage that measures only 3.35 meters in diameter. The total weight of the combination and the launch platform is nearly 800 tons.
According to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), the facilities and equipment at the launch site are in good condition, and various pre-launch function checks and joint tests will be carried out as planned. The crewed spaceship will be launched at an appropriate time in the near future, said the CMSA.
Shenzhou-17 Crew:
Hongbo Tang (Commander)
Shengjie Tang (Mission Specialist)
Xinlin Jiang (Mission Specialist)
The Shenzhou-18 crew members will be announced shortly before launch.
"This will be the first manned mission conducted in April since we started building the space station. Considering the characteristics of high winds and dust during this season, we have conducted statistical analysis of meteorological data over the past 30 years in the launch site, and formulated targeted preventive measures and response strategies. Meanwhile, we have updated power supply system of certain facilities, strengthened equipment operation assessments and status checks, and organized interdisciplinary collaborative training and emergency drills. We have also improved the comprehensive situational awareness and critical information collection and dissemination capabilities of the launch site, optimized our product testing projects and timing, therefore, further improving the site's ability to handle continuous missions," said Wang Xuewu, deputy director of Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
A Silent Watcher of The Earth's Southern Hemisphere
The top half of the image is taken up by the night sky, dotted with thousands of tiny white stars. The sky goes from darker blue at the top to green and orange at the horizon with faint pink patches in between. In the top third of the image are two white-bluish cloud-like structures and a thin white streak. The steely circular dish of a telescope in the center of the image reflects colors of the sky. In the foreground we see the rocks and grass on the ground in front of the telescope; behind it, a mountain range in shades of violet and blue stretches into the distance.
This picture shows the stunning night sky over the Swedish–ESO Submillimeter Telescope (SEST) telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. Until its retirement in 2003, SEST used its 15-meter main dish to observe the cold gas clouds where stars form. Now the telescope, perching at 2,375 meters altitude, watches silently over the landscape of the Atacama Desert.
While SEST stands in one of the darkest places on the planet, the sky itself is not completely black— rather the opposite! Here, besides thousands of stars, the picture features shades of red and green across the sky—an atmospheric phenomenon called airglow. In the bottom-left part of the sky we can see a portion of the band of the Milky Way, our home galaxy, and in the top half, two cloud-like structures that look like galactic fireworks. These are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way, trapped by its gravity. They are visible to the naked eye and have been known since ancient times to indigenous peoples in the Southern Hemisphere,. They often compared them with water ponds or even animals like pigs or tapirs.
In this picture, there is even a shooting star coming by to say hello to SEST. Can you spot it in the sky?
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/A. Ghizzi Panizza )
.jpg)
