Con Pinceladas Cósmicas De Gas Hidrógeno Brillante , Este Hermoso Paisaje Celeste Se Despliega A Través

A veces solo es necesario alejarse de la ciudad, tomar aire fresco y apreciar las estrellas.

Crédito: Tero Marin

https://instagram.com/teromarin

~Antares

What Would These Astronauts Put in Their #NASAMoonKit?

NASA is hard at work to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon, and we want to know: what would you pack for a trip to the Moon?   

We will be soon conducting our last in a series of Green Run tests for the core stage of our Space Launch System (SLS) — the most powerful rocket ever built.

The series of tests is designed to gradually bring the rocket stage and all its systems to life for the first time — ensuring that it’s ready for missions to the Moon through the Artemis program.  

To mark this critical time in the history of American spaceflight, we’ve been asking people like you — what would you take with you on a trip to the Moon? Social media users have been regaling us with their images, videos, and illustrations with the hashtag #NASAMoonKit!

Looking for a little inspiration? We asked some of our astronauts and NASA leaders the same question:

1. NASA Astronaut Chris Cassidy

NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy recently took this photo from the International Space Station and posted it to his Twitter account with this caption:

“If I was on the next mission to the Moon, I would have to bring this tiny spaceman with me! He’s flown with me on all of my missions and was in my uniform pocket for all the SEAL missions I have been a part of. Kind of like a good luck charm.”

2. European Space Agency Astronaut Tim Peake

European Space Agency astronaut Tim Peake asked his two sons what they would take with them to the Moon. This is what they decided on!

3. NASA Astronaut Scott Tingle

Based on previous missions to space, NASA astronaut Scott Tingle would put a can of LiOH, or Lithium Hydroxide, into his #NASAMoonKit. 

A LiOH can pulls carbon dioxide out of the air — very important when you’re in a closed environment for a long time! Apollo 13 enthusiasts will remember that the astronauts had to turn off their environmental system to preserve power. To keep the air safe, they used LiOH cans from another part of the vehicle, but the cans were round and the fitting was square. Today we have interoperability standards for space systems, so no more square pegs in round holes!

4. NASA Astronaut Drew Morgan

NASA astronaut Drew Morgan received some feedback from his youngest daughter when she was in kindergarten about she would put into her #NASAMoonKit.

5. Head of Human Spaceflight Kathy Lueders

Although Kathy Lueders is not an astronaut, she is the head of human spaceflight at NASA! Her #NASAMoonKit includes activities to keep her entertained as well as her favorite pillow.

How to Show Us What’s In Your #NASAMoonKit:

There are four social media platforms that you can use to submit your work:

Instagram: Use the Instagram app to upload your photo or video, and in the description include #NASAMoonKit  

Twitter: Share your image on Twitter and include #NASAMoonKit in the tweet  

Facebook: Share your image on Facebook and include #NASAMoonKit in the post  

Tumblr: Share your image in Tumblr and include #NASAMoonKit in the tags

If your #NASAMoonKit catches our eye, we may share your post on our NASA social media accounts or share it on the Green Run broadcast!

Click here for #NASAMoonKit Terms and Conditions.  

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

What’s Inside a ‘Dead’ Star?

Matter makes up all the stuff we can see in the universe, from pencils to people to planets. But there’s still a lot we don’t understand about it! For example: How does matter work when it’s about to become a black hole? We can’t learn anything about matter after it becomes a black hole, because it’s hidden behind the event horizon, the point of no return. So we turn to something we can study – the incredibly dense matter inside a neutron star, the leftover of an exploded massive star that wasn’t quite big enough to turn into a black hole.

Our Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, is an X-ray telescope perched on the International Space Station. NICER was designed to study and measure the sizes and masses of neutron stars to help us learn more about what might be going on in their mysterious cores.

When a star many times the mass of our Sun runs out of fuel, it collapses under its own weight and then bursts into a supernova. What’s left behind depends on the star’s initial mass. Heavier stars (around 25 times the Sun’s mass or more) leave behind black holes. Lighter ones (between about eight and 25 times the Sun’s mass) leave behind neutron stars.

Neutron stars pack more mass than the Sun into a sphere about as wide as New York City’s Manhattan Island is long. Just one teaspoon of neutron star matter would weigh as much as Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth!

These objects have a lot of cool physics going on. They can spin faster than blender blades, and they have powerful magnetic fields. In fact, neutron stars are the strongest magnets in the universe! The magnetic fields can rip particles off the star’s surface and then smack them down on another part of the star. The constant bombardment creates hot spots at the magnetic poles. When the star rotates, the hot spots swing in and out of our view like the beams of a lighthouse.

Neutron stars are so dense that they warp nearby space-time, like a bowling ball resting on a trampoline. The warping effect is so strong that it can redirect light from the star’s far side into our view. This has the odd effect of making the star look bigger than it really is!

NICER uses all the cool physics happening on and around neutron stars to learn more about what’s happening inside the star, where matter lingers on the threshold of becoming a black hole. (We should mention that NICER also studies black holes!)

Scientists think neutron stars are layered a bit like a golf ball. At the surface, there’s a really thin (just a couple centimeters high) atmosphere of hydrogen or helium. In the outer core, atoms have broken down into their building blocks – protons, neutrons, and electrons – and the immense pressure has squished most of the protons and electrons together to form a sea of mostly neutrons.

But what’s going on in the inner core? Physicists have lots of theories. In some traditional models, scientists suggested the stars were neutrons all the way down. Others proposed that neutrons break down into their own building blocks, called quarks. And then some suggest that those quarks could recombine to form new types of particles that aren’t neutrons!

NICER is helping us figure things out by measuring the sizes and masses of neutron stars. Scientists use those numbers to calculate the stars’ density, which tells us how squeezable matter is!

Let’s say you have what scientists think of as a typical neutron star, one weighing about 1.4 times the Sun’s mass. If you measure the size of the star, and it’s big, then that might mean it contains more whole neutrons. If instead it’s small, then that might mean the neutrons have broken down into quarks. The tinier pieces can be packed together more tightly.

NICER has now measured the sizes of two neutron stars, called PSR J0030+0451 and PSR J0740+6620, or J0030 and J0740 for short.

J0030 is about 1.4 times the Sun’s mass and 16 miles across. (It also taught us that neutron star hot spots might not always be where we thought.) J0740 is about 2.1 times the Sun’s mass and is also about 16 miles across. So J0740 has about 50% more mass than J0030 but is about the same size! Which tells us that the matter in neutron stars is less squeezable than some scientists predicted. (Remember, some physicists suggest that the added mass would crush all the neutrons and make a smaller star.) And J0740’s mass and size together challenge models where the star is neutrons all the way down.

So what’s in the heart of a neutron star? We’re still not sure. Scientists will have to use NICER’s observations to develop new models, perhaps where the cores of neutron stars contain a mix of both neutrons and weirder matter, like quarks. We’ll have to keep measuring neutron stars to learn more!

Keep up with other exciting announcements about our universe by following NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Cometa C/2021 A1 (Leonard).

Descubierto el día 3 de enero de 2021 por el astrónomo Gregory J. Leonard a través de imágenes obtenidas mediante el telescopio reflector de 1.5 m del Sistema de Vigilancia Mt. Lemmon en Arizona (EEUU).

El mayor acercamiento que tendrá este objeto a la Tierra será el 12 de Diciembre del 2021 a una distancia de 35 millones de kilómetros aproximadamente.

Las estimaciones de los astrónomos indican que Leonard debería alcanzar una magnitud visual entre cinco y 2.6, lo que permitiría distinguirlo a simple vista, pues mientras más bajo es el índice, más brillante es un cuerpo celeste.

Así que ya lo saben, es posible que el 2021 nos de un excelente espectáculo estelar. Estén atentos a las noticias por medios confiables sobre su estado.

Fuente: Cometografía

https://cometografia.es/cometa-leonard-2021

Fotografía: Da Ko

https://instagram.com/dakouniverse

~Antares

Rastro estelar sobre los árboles muertos en el embalse de Manasquan, Jersey Shore, NJ. Para esta fotografía fueron tomadas más de 280 fotos en el transcurso de 1.5 horas y apiladas para mostrar el aparente movimiento de las estrellas.

Crédito: John Entwistle.

https://instagram.com/johnentwistle_photography

~Antares

Dark Energy

This bone-chilling force will leave you shivering alone in terror! An unseen power is prowling throughout the cosmos, driving the universe to expand at a quickening rate. This relentless pressure, called dark energy, is nothing like dark matter, that mysterious material revealed only by its gravitational pull. Dark energy offers a bigger fright: pushing galaxies farther apart over trillions of years, leaving the universe to an inescapable, freezing death in the pitch black expanse of outer space. Download this free poster in English and Spanish and check out the full Galaxy of Horrors.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

Luna

Crédito: Steven A Sweet

Para este trabajo al autor le tomó aproximadamente 3 meses.

Consta de 9 fotografías de nuestro satélite lunar en cada una de sus diferentes fases lunares; durante un poco más de 90 días se realizaron casi 100 tomas en donde se seleccionó 9 días correspondientes a 9 fases lunares distintas.

Se llevó tanto tiempo debido a dificultades meteorológicas y la duración de la lunación (ciclo lunar) completa que es de 29.531 días.

📸 Camilo Morales

https://instagram.com/dreamland_cm

~Félicette

El cohete Soyuz que lanzará a la astronauta Kate Rubins y los cosmonautas Sergey Ryzhikov y Sergey Kud-Sverchkov de la Expedición 64 a la estación el miércoles se prepara en plataforma de lanzamiento en Kazajstán.

Crédito: ISS

Más información: go.nasa.gov/2I1em2L

Vía Láctea desde el Joshua Tree National Park, ubicado en California. Zona desértica que incluye partes de los desiertos de Colorado y Mojave.

Crédito: Alex Mcgregor

https://instagram.com/chasing.luminance

~Antares