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China's 67th Rocket Launch in 2024: Telecom Satellite#12 | Xichang Launch Center
A Long March 3B carrier rocket lifted off at 11:12 p.m. Beijing Time (BJT) on Dec. 20, 2024, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China's southwestern Sichuan Province, sending a test satellite for communication technology into orbit. This communication technology test satellite will be used for satellite communications, radio and television, data transmission, and other services. It will also carry out tests and verification of related technologies. This marked the 554th mission of the Long March series of rockets and the 101st launch of the Long March 3B.
Electron is the "only reusable orbital-class small rocket". Electron’s first stage design provides higher launch frequency and lower launch costs. Rocket Lab's Rutherford Engine is the "world’s first 3D-printed, electric-pump-fed rocket engine." Rocket Lab was founded in New Zealand in 2006. Rocket Lab currently launches from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Wallops Island, Virginia, USA, and from the Māhia Peninsula on New Zealand's North Island.
Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) from Kitt Peak in Arizona
A view of Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) from Kitt Peak National Observatory. 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).
Globular Star Cluster Messier 2 in Aquarius: Largest of its Kind | Hubble
Star clusters are commonly featured in cosmic photoshoots, and are also well-loved by the keen eye of the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope. These large gatherings of celestial gems are striking sights—and the subject of this picture, Messier 2, is certainly no exception.
Messier 2 is located in the constellation of Aquarius (The Water-Bearer), about 55,000 light-years away. It is a globular cluster, a spherical group of stars all tightly bound together by gravity. With a diameter of roughly 175 light-years, a population of 150,000 stars, and an age of 13 billion years, Messier 2 is one of the largest clusters of its kind and one of the oldest associated with the Milky Way.
Most of the cluster’s mass is concentrated at its center with shimmering streams of stars extending outwards into space. It is bright enough that it can even be seen with the naked eye when observing conditions are extremely good.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, G. Piotto et al. Release Date: April 1, 2019
Frosty Martian Dunes | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
These dunes in Mars' northern hemisphere were captured from above by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using its High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. Scientists use such images to track the amount of frost that settles on the landforms and then disappears as the weather warms in spring.
Martian dunes migrate just like dunes on Earth, with wind blowing away sand on one side of the dune and building up on another. Recent research has shown that winter frost stops the movement of sand grains, locking the dunes in place until the spring thaw.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a spacecraft designed to study the geology and climate of Mars, to provide reconnaissance of future landing sites, and to relay data from surface missions back to Earth. It was launched on August 12, 2005, and reached Mars on March 10, 2006.
The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
Rare Celestial Solar Halo Graces China's Northernmost Village | Earth Science
In the crystalline air of China's northernmost edge, where darkness claims 17 hours of each winter day, an extraordinary natural phenomenon has virtually transformed the sky into a canvas of ethereal beauty.
Beiji Village in Heilongjiang province's Mohe City, aptly named "China's North Pole," has become nature's theater for a rare double feature: a magnificent sun halo dancing in partnership with diamond dust.
Solar halos are generally created by randomly oriented ice crystals in thin, high cirrus clouds. Circular 22 degree halos like this one are visible much more often than rainbows.
Against the pristine arctic blue sky, a perfect ring of light encircles the winter sun like a celestial crown. Below, stretching toward the snow-blanketed earth, a brilliant white pillar of light pierces the frigid air, while rainbow-hued parhelia—commonly known as sundogs—shimmer on either side, creating nature's own abstract masterpiece.
Sundogs are one of the most common types of ice halo. They occur when light rays enter the side of an ice crystal and leave through another side inclined about 60 degrees to the first. Sundogs are most easily seen when the Sun is low in the sky; the halos occurring on either side of it at about 22 degrees. The part of a sundog closest to the Sun always forms a layer of red, while greens and blues form beyond that. Sundogs are visible all over the world and at any time of year, regardless of the temperature at the surface.
This rare convergence of optical phenomena arrives just as Beiji Village braces for the Dongzhi, the traditional Chinese winter solstice festival which falls on Saturday this year.
With the opening event featuring "boiling water instantly turning to ice in mid-air" amid the freezing temperatures, the Mohe Dongzhi Festival is now underway. Thousands of locals and tourists have gathered in the village to celebrate the annual festivities.
The celebration blends traditional customs, such as drinking lamb soup and eating dumplings, with lively performances and modern ice and snow attractions. The brief seven hours of daylight make such displays all the more precious.
As winter tourism continues to flourish in northern China, Beiji Village has become an increasingly popular destination for travelers.
Winter Solstice, also known as "Dongzhi" in Chinese, is the 22nd of the 24 Solar Terms on the Chinese lunar calendar. It has the shortest day and longest night of the year.
On this day, the sun shines directly on the Tropic of Capricorn, making the short daylight and long nights particularly noticeable for people living in the Northern Hemisphere.
NASA’s Goldstone Deep Space Network Welcomes New 34-Meter Antenna | JPL
A time-lapse video of construction operations for a new antenna at the NASA Deep Space Network’s Goldstone Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California, on Dec. 18, 2024.
Called Deep Space Station 23 (DSS-23), the new antenna joins others at three Deep Space Network complexes around the world that communicate with spacecraft at the Moon and beyond. During construction operations on Dec. 18, the 112-foot-wide (34-meter-wide) steel parabolic reflector framework was lowered into position by crane before a crew bolted it into place. Shortly after, engineers placed what’s called a quadripod onto the center of the dish framework. A four-legged support structure, the quadripod weighs 16 ½ tons and features a curved subreflector that will direct radio frequency signals from deep space to bounce off the main reflector into the antenna’s pedestal, where the antenna’s receiver is housed.
DSS-23 is a multi-frequency beam waveguide antenna that will boost the DSN’s capacity and enhance NASA’s deep space communications capabilities for decades to come. Once online in 2026, DSS-23 will be the fifth of six new beam waveguide antennas to be added to the network, following DSS-53 that was added at the DSN’s Madrid complex in 2022.
The DSN allows missions to track, send commands to, and receive scientific data from faraway spacecraft. It is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California for the agency’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program, which is located at NASA Headquarters within the Space Operations Mission Directorate.
The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, as seen from Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, USA. Auroras occur in an upper layer of Earth’s atmosphere called the ionosphere, but they typically originate with activity on the Sun. Occasionally, during explosions called coronal mass ejections, the Sun releases charged particles that speed across the solar system.
Auroras are produced when the Earth's magnetosphere is sufficiently disturbed by the solar wind that the trajectories of charged particles in solar wind and magnetospheric plasma, mainly in the form of electrons and protons, precipitate them into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere) due to Earth's magnetic field, where their energy is lost. The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emits light of varying color and complexity. [Wikipedia]
Solid Colored Aurora
Green is common at the upper latitudes, while red is rare. On the other hand, aurora viewed from lower latitudes tend to be red.
Element Emission Colors
Oxygen: The big player in the aurora is oxygen. Oxygen is responsible for the vivid green (wavelength of 557.7 nm) and also for a deep brownish-red (wavelength of 630.0 nm). Pure green and greenish-yellow aurorae result from the excitation of oxygen.
Nitrogen: Nitrogen emits blue (multiple wavelengths) and red light.
Other Gases: Other gases in the atmosphere become excited and emit light, although the wavelengths may be outside of the range of human vision or else too faint to see. Hydrogen and helium, for example, emit blue and purple. Although our eyes cannot see all of these colors, photographic film and digital cameras often record a broader range of hues.
This short animation depicts a concept for a potential follow-on to NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter called Mars Chopper. It remains in early conceptual and design stages. In addition to scouting, such a helicopter could carry science instruments to study terrain rovers cannot reach. The concept was discussed by Chopper project manager Teddy Tzanetos of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, during a Dec. 11, 2024, briefing at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington.
NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center Year 2024 Project Highlights
NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center explores "the unknown in air and space, innovates for the benefit of humanity, and inspires the world through discovery."
To learn more about NASA Armstrong missions featured in this video, follow these links:
What happened at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in 2024? Check out this highlight reel with examples of our favorite moments!
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.
NASA's Artemis II Mission will launch no earlier than April 2026.
NASA Mars Report: New Year/New Mars | Martian Spring Activity Begins | JPL
Planetary scientists have recently marked a new year on Mars, a milestone that occurs every 687 days. Because the Martian new year coincides with spring in the planet’s northern hemisphere, it is a period of high activity, including avalanches and exploding jets of gas. JPL research scientist Serina Diniega explains changes to the Martian surface that scientists can track with spacecraft like NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
Circling Mars since 2006, MRO carries a suite of science instruments that collect data on the planet’s surface and atmosphere. Among them is the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. It captured many of the detailed views seen here.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a spacecraft designed to study the geology and climate of Mars, to provide reconnaissance of future landing sites, and to relay data from surface missions back to Earth. It was launched on August 12, 2005, and reached Mars on March 10, 2006.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) manages MRO for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Caltech, in Pasadena, manages JPL for NASA. The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado. The Context Camera was built by, and is operated by, Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego.
Video Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech; north polar cap image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS; HiRISE images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona; erupting jets artist’s concept: ASU/Ron Miller
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most powerful explosions in the cosmos. They first came to the attention of astronomers in the 1970s when new satellites detected this surprising phenomenon. Over decades, scientists have found that these blasts could be detected in the sky almost every day, and that they were both extremely distant. The closest known GRB was over 100 million light-years away—and enormously powerful. Gamma-ray bursts are now linked to the explosive deaths of massive stars and to mergers of compact objects, like neutron stars and black holes. However, many puzzles remain.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Producer: Scott Wiessinger (eMITS) Science writers: Francis Reddy (University of Maryland College Park) Jeanette Kazmierczak (University of Maryland College Park) Scientist: Brad Cenko (NASA/GSFC) Narrator: Scott Wiessinger (eMITS) Duration: 3 minutes Release Date: Dec. 20, 2024
NASA's "Space to Ground": Year 2024 in Review | International Space Station
The Year 2024 on the International Space Station was filled with excitement, challenges, and milestones as we marked 25 unbroken years of humans living, working, and flying in one of humanity's homes in low-earth orbit.
Update: Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner of Russia concluded their spacewalk on December 19, 2024, at 5:53 p.m. EST after seven hours and 17 minutes. Ovchinin and Vagner completed all of their major objectives, which included installing an experiment package designed to monitor celestial x-ray sources and new electrical connector patch panels and removing several experiments for disposal. The two cosmonauts were unable to complete their non-critical final objective due to time constraints. This was to relocate a control panel for the European robotic arm, attached to the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module.
This was the second spacewalk in Ovinchin’s career, and the first for Vagner. It is the 272nd spacewalk for space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.
Expedition 72 Crew Station Commander: Suni Williams Roscosmos (Russia): Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, Aleksandr Gorbunov NASA: Butch Wilmore, Don Pettit, Nick Hague
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada.
NASA Artemis II Moon Rocket Core Stage Moves to High Bay 2 at Kennedy
The 212-foot-tall Space Launch System (SLS) core stage for NASA Artemis II is seen being moved from a horizontal position to a vertical position in High Bay 2 at the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With the move to High Bay 2, NASA and Boeing technicians now have 360-degree access to the core stage internally and externally.
Artemis II will launch no earlier than April 2026.
Planet Saturn's rings can appear similar to the grooves of a vinyl record. The first 12-inch, 33-revolutions per minute (RPM) record was produced by the American company Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in 1948. Twelve-inch albums could hold an album’s worth of songs on each side. They arrived on the market when the postwar entertainment industry was booming. Consumers were ready to buy these 12-inch LP (long-play) records. They quickly became the industry standard. Instead of the hard shellac that 78s were made from, 12-inch LPs consisted of polyvinyl carbonate, the material that gives vinyl records their name.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft arrived in the Saturn system in 2004 and ended its mission in 2017 by deliberately plunging into Saturn's atmosphere. This method was chosen because it is necessary to ensure protection and prevent biological contamination to any of the moons of Saturn thought to offer potential habitability.
The Cassini-Huygens mission was a cooperative project of NASA, European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter. The Cassini radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the U.S. and several European countries.
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