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Comet C2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) with Triple Star System Theta Serpentis
Theta (θ) Serpens, Alya, is a binary star, pale yellow and gold yellow, the terminal star in the Snake’s tail. It lies southwest of Aquila, in a comparatively starless region between the two branches of the Milky Way. Theta Serpentis (θ Serpentis, abbreviated as Theta Ser, θ Ser) is a triple star system in the constellation of Serpens. It consists of a binary pair designated Theta Serpentis AB. Its components are designated Theta1 Serpentis or Theta Serpentis A (officially named Alya, the traditional name for the entire system) and Theta2 Serpentis or Theta Serpentis B, together with a third visual companion Theta Serpentis C. Based upon parallax measurements obtained during the European Space Agency's Hipparcos Mission, θ Serpentis AB is approximately 160 light-years, and θ Serpentis C is approximately 86 light-years, from the Sun.
The ancient Arabic name for Alya is Al-Alyah, “The fatty tail of a sheep”. In the early days of Arab astronomy a space in the heavens, coinciding with parts of Hercules, Ophiuchus, and Serpens, was the Raudah, or Pasture. The ancient Chinese knew it as Sen, one of their districts.
C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) is a comet from the solar system's Oort cloud discovered by the Purple Mountain Observatory east of Nanjing, China, on January 9, 2023, and independently found by the automated Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in South Africa on February 22, 2023. ATLAS is funded by NASA's planetary defense office, and developed and operated by the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy. C/2023 A3 passed perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) at a distance of 0.39 AU (58 million km; 36 million miles) on September 27, 2024.
The Oort cloud is theorized to be a vast cloud of icy planetesimals surrounding the Sun at distances ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 AU (0.03 to 3.2 light-years).
Image Details: Quattro 200/800 et ASI1600MC : 9x60s. Traitement SIRIL et Photoshop
Close-up Views of Spiral Galaxy NGC 2090 in Columba | Hubble Space Telescope
In this new NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope picture is the spiral galaxy NGC 2090, located in the constellation Columba.
This galaxy is notable as a part of the group of galaxies studied in Hubble’s Extragalactic Distance Scale Key Project. It aimed to determine a new state-of-the-art value for the Hubble constant, one of the then-new telescope’s primary science goals. The contribution of NGC 2090 was in calibrating the Tully-Fisher (TF) distance method, by observing Cepheid variable stars in the galaxy. The Cepheid-based measurement from that study in 1998 put NGC 2090 as 37 million light-years away; the newest measurement from 2020, using the TF method, has NGC 2090 slightly farther away, at 40 million light-years.
Before and since that project, NGC 2090 has been well studied as a very prominent nearby example of star formation. It has been described as a flocculent spiral, meaning a spiral galaxy with a patchy, dusty disc and arms that are flaky or not visible at all. This Hubble image shows well why NGC 2090 earned that description, but its spiral arms do appear among the dust as winding lanes of light.
NGC 2090 is a galaxy still full of activity, with clusters of star formation at various stages of evolution spread across the disc. Examining star formation and the movement of matter in galaxies was the motivation for these Hubble observations, taken in October 2024.
Image Description: A spiral galaxy with a wide, oval-shaped disc. It has a shining spot at the center that is surrounded by a whirl of dark threads and patches of dust, all atop a luminous disc. Brighter lanes curving through the disc indicate the galaxy’s spiral arms. The glow of the disc fades smoothly into a dark background where faint, extended patches of stars can be seen, as well as foreground stars.
Spiral Galaxy NGC 2090 in Columba | Hubble Space Telescope
In this new NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope picture is the spiral galaxy NGC 2090, located in the constellation Columba.
This galaxy is notable as a part of the group of galaxies studied in Hubble’s Extragalactic Distance Scale Key Project. It aimed to determine a new state-of-the-art value for the Hubble constant, one of the then-new telescope’s primary science goals. The contribution of NGC 2090 was in calibrating the Tully-Fisher (TF) distance method, by observing Cepheid variable stars in the galaxy. The Cepheid-based measurement from that study in 1998 put NGC 2090 as 37 million light-years away; the newest measurement from 2020, using the TF method, has NGC 2090 slightly farther away, at 40 million light-years.
Before and since that project, NGC 2090 has been well studied as a very prominent nearby example of star formation. It has been described as a flocculent spiral, meaning a spiral galaxy with a patchy, dusty disc and arms that are flaky or not visible at all. This Hubble image shows well why NGC 2090 earned that description, but its spiral arms do appear among the dust as winding lanes of light.
NGC 2090 is a galaxy still full of activity, with clusters of star formation at various stages of evolution spread across the disc. Examining star formation and the movement of matter in galaxies was the motivation for these Hubble observations, taken in October 2024.
Image Description: A spiral galaxy with a wide, oval-shaped disc. It has a shining spot at the center that is surrounded by a whirl of dark threads and patches of dust, all atop a luminous disc. Brighter lanes curving through the disc indicate the galaxy’s spiral arms. The glow of the disc fades smoothly into a dark background where faint, extended patches of stars can be seen, as well as foreground stars.
NASA Artemis II Moon Rocket Stacking | Kennedy Space Center
Engineers and technicians with the Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) Program attach an overhead crane to the left aft assembly, or bottom portion of the solid rocket boosters for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. The crane will lift the aft assembly on top of mobile launcher 1 followed by the right aft assembly and stack the remaining booster segments for the Artemis II mission.
Down the transfer aisle from the Artemis II Space Launch System (SLS) core stage, engineers and technicians with the Exploration Ground Systems Program attach an overhead crane to the left aft assembly, or bottom portion of the solid rocket boosters for the SLS rocket inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. The crane will lift the aft assembly on top of the mobile launcher 1 followed by the right aft assembly and stack the remaining booster segments for the Artemis II mission.
Engineers and technicians with the Exploration Ground Systems Program attach an overhead crane to the left aft assembly, or bottom portion of the solid rocket boosters for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. The crane will lift the aft assembly on top of mobile launcher 1 followed by the right aft assembly and stack the remaining booster segments for the Artemis II mission.
Engineers and technicians with the Exploration Ground Systems Program stack the first Moon rocket segment – the left aft assembly for the Artemis II Space Launch System (SLS) solid rocket booster onto mobile launcher 1 inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. The first of 10 booster segments to be stacked, the boosters will help support the remaining rocket components and the Orion spacecraft during final assembly of the Artemis II Moon rocket and provide more than 75 percent of the total SLS thrust during liftoff from NASA Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39B.
Down the transfer aisle from the Artemis II Space Launch System (SLS) core stage, engineers and technicians with the Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) Program attach an overhead crane to the left aft assembly, or bottom portion of the solid rocket boosters for the SLS rocket inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. The crane will lift the aft assembly on top of the Mobile Launcher 1 followed by the right aft assembly and stack the remaining booster segments for the Artemis II mission.
The Artemis II test flight will be NASA’s first mission with crew under the Artemis campaign, sending NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Reid Wiseman, as well as Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back.
Artemis II will launch no earlier than September 2025.
In this video, take a flight through millions of galaxies mapped using coordinate data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) on NOIRLab's Mayall Telescope in Arizona. Researchers have used DESI to map nearly six million galaxies across 11 billion years of cosmic history, allowing them to study how galaxies clustered throughout time and investigate the growth of the cosmic structure.
This complex analysis of DESI’s first-year data provides one of the most stringent tests yet of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. DESI is a state-of-the-art instrument that can capture light from 5,000 galaxies simultaneously. It was constructed, and is operated, with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.
DESI is mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of the National Science Foundation's NOIRLab. The program is now in its fourth of five years surveying the sky and is set to observe roughly 40 million galaxies and quasars by the time the project ends.
The DESI project is an international collaboration of more than 900 researchers from over 70 institutions around the world and is managed by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).
In this video, take a flight through millions of galaxies mapped using coordinate data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) on NOIRLab's Mayall Telescope in Arizona. Researchers have used DESI to map nearly six million galaxies across 11 billion years of cosmic history, allowing them to study how galaxies clustered throughout time and investigate the growth of the cosmic structure.
This complex analysis of DESI’s first-year data provides one of the most stringent tests yet of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. DESI is a state-of-the-art instrument that can capture light from 5,000 galaxies simultaneously. It was constructed, and is operated, with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.
DESI is mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of the National Science Foundation's NOIRLab. The program is now in its fourth of five years surveying the sky and is set to observe roughly 40 million galaxies and quasars by the time the project ends.
The DESI project is an international collaboration of more than 900 researchers from over 70 institutions around the world and is managed by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).
Shenzhou-19 Crew at Work after Receiving Earth Supplies | China Space Station
China's Shenzhou-19 crew aboard the orbiting Tiangong Space Station has been carrying out microgravity experiments, performing equipment maintenance, and conducting other tasks in an orderly manner over the past week after receiving supplies from Earth in mid-November.
China launched the cargo craft Tianzhou-8 on Nov. 15, 2024, to deliver supplies for its Tiangong Space Station.
Tianzhou-8 carried approximately six tons of materials, including consumables for the astronauts' in-orbit residency, propellants, experiment equipment, and 458 kilograms of scientific research supplies.
The supplies aboard the cargo craft are primarily intended to support the Shenzhou-19 astronauts and the upcoming Shenzhou-20 crew.
The Shenzhou-19 crew received supplies after the Tianzhou-8 successfully docked with the space station on Nov. 16.
Last week, the crew completed the replacement of the biomechanics module's drawers and the installation of sample units in the biotechnology experiment cabinet. These tasks will assist researchers in exploring the impact of biological segregation on lipid metabolism in microgravity.
They also transported and installed the cell tissue experiment module. It will support the crew in conducting a variety of biotechnology experiments using cells and tissues as biological samples.
The crew has completed several other tasks, including inspecting the sample tray and replacing experimental samples for the solid-liquid mesoscopic experimental unit in the fluid physics experiment cabinet.
They also cleaned the experimental chamber, replaced samples, and maintained the axial mechanism electrodes of the container-free material cabinet.
In terms of space medicine experiments, the astronauts have conducted research regarding the effects of changes in intraocular and intracranial pressure on vision function and related protective techniques.
Last week, they also completed inspections and maintenance of the space treadmill and the regenerative life support system aboard the space station.
For environmental monitoring within the China Space Station, the crew has measured noise exposure doses, wind speed, and temperatures.
In terms of station management, they have performed regular cleaning, inspection, and maintenance across all modules.
The crew has also regularly undergone a range of medical examinations as required, including cardiovascular ultrasounds, ECGs, dynamic heart and blood pressure monitoring, bone density measurement, and strength tests.
For the first time, fruit flies have been brought into space aboard Tianzhou-8.
In the sub-magnetic, microgravity composite environment, researchers can study the growth and behavior of fruit flies to conduct research in fields such as genetics and neuroscience.
During their stay in space, the Shenzhou-19 crew will carry out 86 space science research and technology experiments, covering areas such as space life science and space medicine.
China launched the Shenzhou-19 crewed spaceship at the end of October 2024, sending three astronauts—including the country's first female space engineer—to its space station for a six-month mission.
Shenzhou-19 Crew:
Commander Cai Xuzhe (蔡旭哲) Mission Specialist Wang Haoze (王浩泽) Mission Specialist Song Lingdong (宋令东)
The Super Heavy booster successfully lifted off at the start of the launch window with all 33 Raptor engines powering it and Starship off the pad from Starbase. Following a nominal ascent and stage separation, the booster successfully transitioned to its boostback burn to begin the return to launch site. During this phase, automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt. The booster then executed a pre-planned divert maneuver, performing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
Starship completed another successful ascent, placing it on the expected trajectory. The ship successfully reignited a single Raptor engine while in space, demonstrating the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn before starting fully orbital missions. With live views and telemetry being relayed by Starlink, the ship successfully made it through reentry and executed a flip, landing burn, and soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Data gathered from the multiple thermal protection experiments, as well as the successful flight through subsonic speeds at a more aggressive angle of attack, provides invaluable feedback on flight hardware performing in a flight environment as we aim for eventual ship return and catch.
With data and flight learnings as our primary payload, Starship’s sixth flight test once again delivered. Lessons learned will directly make the entire Starship system more reliable as we close in on full and rapid reusability.
"Starship is essential to both SpaceX’s plans to deploy its next-generation Starship system as well as for NASA, which will use a lunar lander version of Starship for landing astronauts on the Moon during the Artemis III mission through the Human Landing System (HLS) program."
The Super Heavy booster successfully lifted off at the start of the launch window with all 33 Raptor engines powering it and Starship off the pad from Starbase. Following a nominal ascent and stage separation, the booster successfully transitioned to its boostback burn to begin the return to launch site. During this phase, automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt. The booster then executed a pre-planned divert maneuver, performing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
Starship completed another successful ascent, placing it on the expected trajectory. The ship successfully reignited a single Raptor engine while in space, demonstrating the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn before starting fully orbital missions. With live views and telemetry being relayed by Starlink, the ship successfully made it through reentry and executed a flip, landing burn, and soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Data gathered from the multiple thermal protection experiments, as well as the successful flight through subsonic speeds at a more aggressive angle of attack, provides invaluable feedback on flight hardware performing in a flight environment as we aim for eventual ship return and catch.
With data and flight learnings as our primary payload, Starship’s sixth flight test once again delivered. Lessons learned will directly make the entire Starship system more reliable as we close in on full and rapid reusability.
"Starship is essential to both SpaceX’s plans to deploy its next-generation Starship system as well as for NASA, which will use a lunar lander version of Starship for landing astronauts on the Moon during the Artemis III mission through the Human Landing System (HLS) program."
The Super Heavy booster successfully lifted off at the start of the launch window with all 33 Raptor engines powering it and Starship off the pad from Starbase. Following a nominal ascent and stage separation, the booster successfully transitioned to its boostback burn to begin the return to launch site. During this phase, automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt. The booster then executed a pre-planned divert maneuver, performing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
Starship completed another successful ascent, placing it on the expected trajectory. The ship successfully reignited a single Raptor engine while in space, demonstrating the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn before starting fully orbital missions. With live views and telemetry being relayed by Starlink, the ship successfully made it through reentry and executed a flip, landing burn, and soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Data gathered from the multiple thermal protection experiments, as well as the successful flight through subsonic speeds at a more aggressive angle of attack, provides invaluable feedback on flight hardware performing in a flight environment as we aim for eventual ship return and catch.
With data and flight learnings as our primary payload, Starship’s sixth flight test once again delivered. Lessons learned will directly make the entire Starship system more reliable as we close in on full and rapid reusability.
"Starship is essential to both SpaceX’s plans to deploy its next-generation Starship system as well as for NASA, which will use a lunar lander version of Starship for landing astronauts on the Moon during the Artemis III mission through the Human Landing System (HLS) program."
Rollout of China's Upgraded Landspace Zhuque II Methalox Commercial Rocket
Little snow has arrived, it is the perfect time . . . An improved Landspace Zhuque-2E methane/liquid oxygen-fueled (methalox/CH4) carrier rocket has been moved in preparation for launch in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Landspace is a commercial world leader in methane/liquid oxygen powered rocket engines that have proved capable of delivering payloads to low-Earth orbit.
The new Zhuque-2E rocket has upgraded first stage engines and a new second stage with an engine nozzle that swivels. The Zhuque-2E will finally reach the 6 metric ton low-Earth orbit (LEO)/4 metric ton Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) capability Landspace planned. China's pioneering commercial space launch company, LandSpace, now has the opportunity to send heavy satellite payloads to Earth orbit before SpaceX's Starship does using methane/liquid oxygen engines.
LandSpace Technology Corporation is a Chinese commercial space launch provider based in Beijing. It was founded in 2015 by Zhang Changwu. In July 2023, the company's Zhuque-2 rocket became the first methane-fueled orbital launch vehicle in the world after reaching orbit on its second flight. LandSpace planned three Zhuque-2 launches in 2024 and another six in 2025.
The Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (JSLC) was founded in 1958. It was the first of China's four spaceports. The launch center has been the focus of many of China's historic space ventures, including the country's first satellite Dong Fang Hong I in 1970 and their first crewed space mission, Shenzhou V, on October 15, 2003. JSLC is now a home for many new Chinese commercial space launch firms, like Landspace.
What’s Behind This Door? – Chamber A | NASA's Johnson Space Center
"What’s Behind This Door?" takes you behind the doors of facilities located at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, being used to return humanity to the Moon, through the Artemis campaign. This episode one takes place in Building 32 at NASA Johnson in the Chamber A facility. It features NASA subject matter expert, Steven Del Papa. He details the science behind the thermal testing conducted in the chamber.
Chamber A was upgraded to support the James Webb Space Telescope test program. Additions involved an ultra-clean hydrocarbon-free high vacuum pumping systems and the ability to simulate the extremely low temperatures of deep space (35K) within a 45 foot diameter by 80 foot tall shroud volume. The chamber systems are now able to maintain class 10,000 clean room conditions for ambient operations.
Blue Origin New Shepard Human Spaceflight Mission NS-28: "Apogee"
On November 22, 2024, Blue Origin successfully completed its ninth sub-orbital human spaceflight and the 28th flight for the New Shepard program. The astronaut crew included: Emily Calandrelli, Sharon Hagle, Marc Hagle, Austin Litteral, James (J.D.) Russell, and Henry (Hank) Wolfond. Sharon and Marc Hagle both flew for the second time. Including [this] crew, New Shepard has now flown 47 people to space (three people have flown twice).
Apogee: This is the most distant point (ap-) on an elliptical orbit around Earth (-gee). The word is derived from the Greek "apogaion" meaning "away from the Earth". Earth in Greek is "gaia/ge".
Emily Dawn Calandrelli, seen at the beginning of the video, is an "American science communicator, engineer, author, commercial astronaut, and television presenter. She was the host and an executive producer of Xploration Outer Space and Emily's Wonder Lab."
Space Station Crew on 25th Anniversary of China's First Uncrewed Spacecraft
China's Shenzhou-19 crew aboard the orbiting Tiangong Space Station recorded a video to pay tribute to the heroes that dedicated their lives to China's space industry. The video was released on Wednesday, November 20, 2024, a day marking the 25th anniversary of the successful launch of China's first uncrewed spacecraft, Shenzhou-1, on November 20, 1999, from northwest China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
To date, China has launched 19 Shenzhou spacecraft, 14 of these have sent 24 astronauts into space with the number of total trips reaching 38.
Crew members, Cai Xuzhe, Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze, were sent to the Tiangong Space Station on October 30, 2024, for a six-month long duration mission.
"On the same day 25 years ago, China's first uncrewed spacecraft was successfully launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The debut of the Long March 2F carrier rocket or CZ 2F shocked the world and the first flight of the Shenzhou-1 spacecraft made all the Chinese proud. China's crewed space program has taken the first step from blueprinting and dreaming to striving to realize the dream, laying a solid foundation for realizing the Chinese nation's millennium skyward dream," said Cai.
"Over the past 25 years, generations of astronauts have been confident, self-reliant and hardworking. With a coordinated national response and all people being of one mind, we have set new heights in exploring space again and again, including completing the strategic mission of three-step crewed space program, building the Chinese people's own space station, highlighting the Chinese Dream through realizing the Space Dream and writing a brilliant chapter in exploring the vast space," said Song.
"Our quest for the vast space will never end. Space exploration is a great feat in human history. It is an expedition with no end and we are always on the road. As astronauts in the new era, we must inherit the revolutionary traditions, shoulder the responsibility of building a great country, continue to climb on the shoulders of giants, and relay well the baton of history of our generation," said Wang.
"To accomplish our great mission, we must always remain true to our original aspiration. On such a memorable day, we pay tribute to all the heroes who have dedicated their youth, blood and even their lives to our country's aerospace industry. The prosperity is as you wish, please rest assured in the future," said the Shenzhou-19 mission crew.
Shenzhou-19 Crew:
Commander Cai Xuzhe (蔡旭哲) Mission Specialist Wang Haoze (王浩泽) Mission Specialist Song Lingdong (宋令东)
NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Views of Martian Yardang Unit
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this view of a geological region called the Yardang Unit using its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, on Nov. 2, 2024, the 4,352nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. This mosaic is made up of 18 images that were stitched together after being sent back to Earth. The color has been adjusted to match lighting conditions as the human eye would see them on Earth.
A yardang is an elongated ridge created by wind erosion. The Yardang Unit is a layer found at the uppermost reaches of the foothills at the base of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that Curiosity has been ascending since 2014. The color, texture, and tilt of the layers in the Yardang Unit make it distinct from lower layers on the mountain. Mount Sharp is an exciting place for scientists to study because it is made up of a number of layers, each representing a distinct era in the climate of ancient Mars.
Yardangs on Earth are formed by wind erosion, typically of an originally flat surface formed from areas of harder and softer material. The soft material is eroded and removed by the wind, and the harder material remains. The resulting pattern of yardangs is therefore a combination of the original rock distribution, and the fluid mechanics of the air flow and resulting pattern of erosion.
The word itself is of Turkic origin, meaning ‘steep bank’. The word was first introduced to the English-speaking world by the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin in 1903. In China, they are sometimes known as yadan from the Chinese adaptation of the Uyghur form of the same name.
Curiosity was built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego built and operates Mastcam.
Celebrating 12+ Years on Mars (2012-2024)
Mission Name: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)
Rover Name: Curiosity
Main Job: To determine if Mars was ever habitable to microbial life.
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