Daily Views of Earth on NASA Website….

October 21, 2015Natarajan1 Comment

Earth rotates through an entire day as captured in this animation of 22 still images taken on Sept. 17, 2015 by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft.

Credits: NASA

NASA launched a new website Monday so the world can see images of the full, sunlit side of the Earth every day. The images are taken by a NASA camera one million miles away on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Air Force.

Once a day NASA will post at least a dozen new color images of Earth acquired from 12 to 36 hours earlier by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC). Each daily sequence of images will show the Earth as it rotates, thus revealing the whole globe over the course of a day. The new website also features an archive of EPIC images searchable by date and continent.

The primary objective of NOAA’s DSCOVR mission is to maintain the nation’s real-time solar wind monitoring capabilities, which are critical to the accuracy and lead time of space weather alerts and forecasts from NOAA. NASA has two Earth-observing instruments on the spacecraft. EPIC’s images of Earth allow scientists to study daily variations over the entire globe in such features as vegetation, ozone, aerosols, and cloud height and reflectivity.

EPIC is a four megapixel CCD camera and telescope. The color Earth images are created by combining three separate single-color images to create a photographic-quality image equivalent to a 12-megapixel camera. The camera takes a series of 10 images using different narrowband filters — from ultraviolet to near infrared — to produce a variety of science products. The red, green and blue channel images are used to create the color images. Each image is about 3 megabytes in size.

“The effective resolution of the DSCOVR EPIC camera is somewhere between 6.2 and 9.4 miles (10 and 15 kilometers),” said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.

Since Earth is extremely bright in the darkness of space, EPIC has to take very short exposure images (20-100 milliseconds). The much fainter stars are not visible in the background as a result of the short exposure times.

The DSCOVR spacecraft orbits around the L1 Lagrange point directly between Earth and the sun. This orbit keeps the spacecraft near the L1 point and requires only occasional small maneuvers, but its orbit can vary from 4 to 15 degrees away from the sun-Earth line over several years.

EPIC was built by Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center, in Palo Alto, California. Using an 11.8-inch (30-centimeter) telescope and 2048 x 2048 CCD detector, EPIC measures in the ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared areas of the spectrum. The data from all 10 wavelengths are posted through a website hosted by the Atmospheric Science Data Center at NASA’s Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia. All images are in the public domain.

NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives, and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth’s interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.

For daily images from EPIC, visit:

http://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/

For more information about the DSCOVR mission, visit:

http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/DSCOVR/

Source……www.nasa.gov

Image of the Day… Earth Art From Australia as seen from International Space Station

October 21, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

On Oct. 12-13, 2015, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly took a series of seventeen photographs from the International Space Station during a single flyover of Australia. This first photo of the series was posted with the caption, “#EarthArt in one pass over the #Australian continent. Picture 1 of 17. #YearInSpace”.

Image Credit: NASA

Source…..www.nasa.gov

These are the songs that make astronaut Scott Kelly feel less alone while travelling through space

October 20, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Scott Kelly recently broke the record for most time spent in space by a US astronaut, logging his 383rd day aboard the International Space Station. He’s also on pace to break another record on October 29th, when he spends his 216th consecutive day orbiting the earth — the most in a row.

For many people, this seems like a dream. The idea of floating up in space, where so few people in the history of the world have ever been, is intoxicating. But it can, of course, get intensely lonely, Kelly says.

“A year really is a long time…a long time to never be able to go outside, or feel the sun on your face, or to see your family through anything besides a computer screen,” he muses.

And one of the ways he stays connected to the world below is through music.

“When living in a place isolated from the rest of the world like here aboard the International Space Station, [music] becomes more significant,” he tells Spotify.

Kelly has created a playlist that reflects his space journey so far. It spans many genres, but there is a contemplative wistfulness that runs through it. It’s not hard to imagine listening to these songs as you stare across the void back at your home planet.

And to be honest, it’s a bit dorky — the kind of earnest emotion unconcerned with looking cool.

Here are the tracks, which Kelly suggests you listen to in order:

Stay — Jasmine Thompson
Lose Yourself — Eminem
Feel This Moment — Pitbull and Christina Aguilera
Speed of Sound — Coldplay
These Are Days — 10,000 Maniacs
Hazy Shade of Winter — The Bangles
Chasing Cars — Snow Patrol
Fire And Rain — James Taylor
Imagine — John Lennon
Lights — Ellie Goulding
Black — Pearl Jam
Dark Horse — Katy Perry and Juicy J
In Your Eyes — Peter Gabriel
Just Like Heaven — The Cure
Wish You Were Here — Pink Floyd
1. Leader of The Band — Dan Fogelberg
2. Babylon — David Grey
3. Hotel California — Eagles
4. Adagio for Strings — Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, and the New York Philharmonic
5. The Promise — Michael Nyman
6. Sunrise — Norah Jones
7. A Thousand Years — Christina Perri
8. Landslide — Fleetwood Mac
9. Wide Open Spaces — Dixie Chicks
10. Time To Say Goodbye (Con Te Partiro) — Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli
11. Brand New Day — Sting
12. Kryptonite — 3 Doors Down
13. Thunder Road — Bruce Springsteen

Source…..www.businessinsider.com

Natarajan

Scott Kelly Becomes U.S. Astronaut to Spend the Most Time in Space…

October 17, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Just before the 15th anniversary of continuous human presence on the International Space Station on Nov. 2, 2015, U.S. astronaut and commander of the current Expedition 45 crew, Scott Kelly, is breaking spaceflight records. On Friday, Oct. 16, Kelly begins his 383rd day living in space, surpassing U.S. astronaut Mike Fincke’s record of 382 cumulative days. Kelly will break another record Oct. 29 on his 216th consecutive day in space, when he will surpass astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria’s record for the single-longest spaceflight by an American. Lopez-Alegria spent 215 days in space as commander of the Expedition 14 crew in 2006.

In this July 12 photograph, Kelly is seen inside the Cupola, a special module which provides a 360-degree viewing of the Earth and the space station. On each additional day he spends in orbit as part of his one-year mission, Kelly will add to his record and to our understanding of the effects of long-duration spaceflight.

Kelly is scheduled to return to Earth on March 3, 2016, by which time he will have compiled 522 total days living in space during four missions.

Image Credit: NASA

Source….www.nasa.gov

Natarajan

Ever Wondered How Astronauts Get Into Their Spacesuits….?

October 11, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

photo credit: brownpau/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

It turns out it’s even harder to get into a spacesuit than getting into a pair of skinny jeans after a few drinks.

NASA has released a video of astronaut Peggy Whitson putting on her spacesuit before an underwater training session. The video was filmed earlier this summer at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. It’s fairly understandable that it’s a bit of a pain to put on when you appreciate the amount of equipment it has to hold. Essentially acting as a one-man spaceship, it has multiple layers of insulation, oxygen supplies, a power supply, communication equipment, and even an emergency propulsion system.

Source….www.iflscience.com

Natarajan

NASA Release Six Incredible Images From Their Chandra Archives….

October 11, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

photo credit: Chandra X-ray Observatory awaiting deployment from the Space Shuttle Columbia. NASA

In celebration of American Archive Month, NASA has released six mind-blowing images from the Chandra archive.

The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched and deployed from Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999. Since then, it has collected data on thousands of cosmic objects such as pulsars, supernovae, interstellar gas clouds, and galaxies. NASA hopes that by releasing these images to the public and scientific community, it will inspire new perspectives and serve as inspiration for future exploration.

The images can take hours, and in some instances days, to capture. They are imaged using a combination of light waves, X-rays, and radio waves.

Below is W44, also known as G34.7-0.4, which is an expanding supernova remnant that is interacting with the dense cosmic material surrounding it.

^{Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Georgia/R.Shelton & NASA/CXC/GSFC/R.Petre; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech}

Next is SN 1987A, the brightest and nearest supernova to Earth in the last century. This image shows the result of the supernova explosion, which occurs when a star runs out of fuel and then hurls layers of itself out into space.

^{Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/PUS/E.Helder et al; Optical: NASA/STScI}

Below is Kesteven 79, another remnant of a supernova explosion. This one, however, occurred thousands of years ago.

^{Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/F.Seward et al, Optical: DSS}

Next is MS 0735.6+7421, a galaxy cluster where one of the most powerful eruptions ever observed by humanity was seen.

^{Image credit: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Waterloo/A.Vantyghem et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; Radio: NRAO/VLA}

Here, we see the galaxy cluster 3C295. The pink area is superheated gas and the yellow regions are individual galaxies. Galaxy clusters like this contain huge amounts of dark matter, which hold the hot gas (pink) and galaxies (yellow) together.

^{Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Cambridge/S.Allen et al; Optical: NASA/STScI}

Last but not least is the “Guitar Nebula,” containing a pulsar officially called B2224+65. This pulsar is traveling at an extremely high speed of approximately 800 kilometers (500 miles) per second.

^{Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UMass/S.Johnson et al, Optical: NASA/STScI & Palomar Observatory 5-m Hale Telescope}

Check out NASA’s website for more details on each image.

Source….Tom Hale in http://www.iflscience.com and http://www.businessinsider.com.au

natarajan

Image of the day….

October 10, 2015Natarajan2 Comments

Morning Aurora From the Space Station

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station on Oct. 7, 2015. Sharing with his social media followers, Kelly wrote, “The daily morning dose of #aurora to help wake you up. #GoodMorning from @Space_Station! #YearInSpace”

Image Credit: NASA

Source….www.nasa.gov

natarajan

Here’s what it’s like to live in space….

October 8, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

A $US150-billion contraption floating 270 miles above Earth is one of the most impressive achievements of humankind.

It’s called the International Space Station (ISS), and a rotating astronaut crew has occupied it since 2000. The work of those astronauts has yielded some incredible scientific insights.

Astronaut is not a profession where you get to go home at the end of the day though. One ticket from Earth to the ISS costs about $US70 million, so normally each crew lives and works on the station for a six-month shift.

Right now NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are in the middle of a year-long shift aboard the ISS. They will be the first humans to spend a consecutive year living in space.

But what is it like to actually live on the ISS?

The first step to living in space is getting there. All astronauts hitch a ride to the ISS on board a giant space shuttle that launches from Russia.

NASA

The shuttle takes astronauts all the way up to the ISS, which floats about 250 miles above the planet.

NASA

The station is a system of labs, living quarters, and control rooms, and it spans about the length of a football field. A rotating crew of six astronauts share the space.

NASA

The ISS is hurtling around the Earth at about 17,150 miles per hour. That extreme velocity puts the ISS in a constant free fall around the planet.

So everything on board experiences weightlessness, including the astronauts.

So they get around the station by floating. Which means sometimes it’s too hard to resist the temptation to strike a Superman pose.

NASA

Weightlessness causes a lot of weird problems though — the kind of problems we never experience here on Earth thanks to gravity.

NASA

For example, sweat doesn’t evaporate. Instead, it pools on astronauts’ bodies, so they are constantly toweling off sweat. You can see sweat droplets escape from this astronaut’s towel after he wipes his head.

If objects escape inside the ISS, they can float away, get lodged in equipment, and cause malfunctions.

For example, even small tasks like clipping your nails become a problem. Astronauts clip them near a vent, so that tiny pieces of nail don’t end up floating all over the station.

RAW Embed

Water is also difficult to manage. It likes to stick together in a big blob.

So washing and showering is a challenge. Astronauts squirt a few lines of water on their skin and hair and then use no-rinse soap and shampoo to clean themselves.

The station only gets resupplied every few months, so astronauts have to be mindful of their supplies. Luckily, over 90% of the water on board gets recycled and reused.

That includes everything from dirty wash water, water from astronauts’ breath, and yes, even urine is recycled. It’s all sent through this high-tech water filter on board.

YouTube/Canadian Space Agency

The water is perfectly safe to drink after it’s run through the filter (it’s actually cleaner than the water we drink on Earth), but many astronauts say they try not to think about it too much when they refill their water pouches.

YouTube/Canadian Space Agency

Getting back to that urine thing, ‘How do you go to the bathroom?’ is one of the most common questions astronauts get.

YouTube/ESA

If you’re going number one, it gets sucked into this tube through the yellow nozzle.

YouTube/ESA

Things are little more complicated when you need to go number two. There’s a tiny seat, a container for the waste, and a suction pump.

YouTube/ESA

Once you do your business and suction it away, you have to change out the ‘poop bag’ for the next person.

YouTube/ESA

Still, all the complications that come from weightlessness don’t get in the way of what astronauts are really there for. They spend most of their time working on various research projects and repairing the station.

NASA

Sometimes that even involves venturing out into the dangerous vacuum of space. Trips outside the station are called ‘spacewalks,’ and they take a lot of preparation and safety training.

NASA

One wrong move and an astronaut could just float off into the vacuum of space (like George Clooney in ‘Gravity’). They also have to watch for leaks in the spacesuits that protect them from the bitterly cold temperatures and radiation in space.

NASA

When they aren’t working, astronauts still have to stick to a pretty tight schedule. They have mandatory workouts so they don’t lose too much muscle mass in the weightless environment. (Since they don’t have to fight gravity, they get a lot less exercise while moving around.)

You can easily lift hundreds of pounds in a weightless environment, so astronauts have a cleverly designed machine for weight lifting.

After a good work out, you gonna eat. Space meals are stored in dehydrated packets. Once you add a little water, dinner is served.

And the menu isn’t half bad. Here’s an astronaut enjoying a milkshake.

NASA

After dinner it’s time for bed. The middle section of the station is where most of the crew sleeps. Labs and work spaces make up the rest of the structure, and the giant yellow panels collect sunlight to help power everything.

YouTube/Canadian Space Agency

Each astronaut has their own tiny room that includes a work space and a sleeping bag strapped to the wall. You can see on the screens that it appears astronaut Scott Kelly is chatting on Facebook.

NASA

Sleeping in space is hard to get used to since you don’t feel the sensation of lying down. Astronauts zip themselves into a sleeping bag every night so they don’t float around in their sleep.

And they have to keep careful track of their sleep schedule since days don’t pass the same on the ISS as they do on Earth. The station is whizzing around the planet so quickly that the crew sees about 16 sunrises and sunsets during a 24-hour Earth day.

NASA

When it’s time to return to Earth, a shuttle flies up to the station to pick up the astronauts. Then they parachute back down to Earth in a landing pod.

NASA

Astronauts are a little wobbly on their feet when they first land, but it doesn’t take long to readjust to a weighted environment.

NASA

Living on the ISS is no picnic, but it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. Most astronauts say they wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.

NASA

Source…… KELLY DICKERSON….. http://www.businessinsider,com.au

Natarajan

How do the Astronauts Sleep in Space….

October 7, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

After months of intense training and a white-knuckled trip through the ozone layer at nine times the speed of a rifle bullet, you can bet that NASA astronauts need to bank some rest.

Space sailors log really long hours throughout their days on tasks that require intense concentration, which is why NASA schedules precisely 8.5 hours of sleep per 24 on deck.

How exactly does ‘nighttime’ play out in space?

Astronauts Pam Melroy, George Zamka, and European Space Agency’s Paolo Nespoli, sleep in their sleeping bags, which are secured on the middeck of the Space Shuttle Discovery while docked with the International Space Station.

The International Space Station (ISS) orbits the Earth at 17,150 miles per hour, clocking one lap around our planet every hour and a half. Doing the math, this means 16 sunsets every 24 hours — a new day every 90 minutes.

Fascinating, yes, but this unrelenting motion can create colossal jet lag and wreak havoc on an astronaut’s internal body clock.

Hence, Mission Control’s strict bedtime schedule and windows-shut policy.

(Though according to one report, snoozing astronauts still see streaks and bursts of bright color caused by high-energy cosmic rays bursting harmlessly onto their retinas.)

What time zone do they use?

To establish to a regular schedule in zero gravity, Mission Control keeps our diurnal astronauts on Greenwich Mean Time.

I’m guessing no cushy mattresses?

The crew members are provided sleep pods that look like padded broom closets. They have custom sleeping sacks fastened to a wall or the ceiling, lest they float about the cabin.

According to retired astronaut Marsha Ivins, who spent 42 days in space on five different missions, their sleeping bag has armholes that allow you to reach outside the bag to zip it up. You then settle yourself in by tightening the attached Velcro straps. If you don’t tuck your appendages into the bag, they’ll drift out in front of you.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield offers this video tour of his very own sleep sack aboard the ISS. After showing off his astro-PJs you can watch him zip up and close the doors to his pod.

Pillows?

That’s a whole other issue. Though not everyone wants or needs one, Ivins says she did, to help her neck relax. She actually attached her head to a block of foam.

“You put the back of your head on [the ‘pillow’],” she says, “and then you Velcro the front of your head to it.”

What about parasomnias? Any chance of sleepwalking?

Actually there was one reported case of … drifting.

According to a British reporter, one Russian crew member apparently preferred to do without a sleep pod or sleeping bag. His fellow crewmembers, still awake after he turned in, saw him float by — presumably in the midst of sweet dreams. They watched him “bouncing off the walls, his course set by the air currents that gently pushed and pulled him.”

Do they end up getting their hard eight?

No. As hard as they try to get comfy, most astronauts don’t get enough rest. Many are routinely sleep deficient, logging just six hours of sleep every 24 hours.

However, some astronauts speculate that these short sleep sessions may be the result of the body’s feeling less fatigued in a microgravity environment. Less fatigue may equal less sleep need.

Do they report any weird dreams?

According to dream studies conducted aboard the Russian space shuttle Mir, astronauts experience significantly diminished REM sleep in space compared to us Earthlings. They are therefore continually monitored for any and all ill effects.

“Efforts are planned to understand more fully the spaceflight environment and the role that other factors may play in reducing or promoting sleep,” said Lauren Leveton, PhD, senior research scientist in NASA’s Behavioral Health and Performance Division.

Who wakes them up when it’s ‘morning’?

During the 30-year space shuttle program, which ended in 2011, it was a NASA tradition to have wake-up calls during the shuttle missions. Each “morning” at the scheduled wake-up time, ground operations broadcast a song into the space shuttle cabin. A wide range of musical styles were played, including rock, pop, western and classical.

Each song was selected for a particular astronaut. Sometimes the astronauts requested the tune; other times their families selected a song with special meaning.

Unfortunately, the wake-up service is not available on the ISS. There, the crew must use a regular alarm clock.

Source….www.businessinsider.com.au

Natarajan

Image of the Day…Nile at Night

September 26, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, recently past the halfway mark of his one-year mission to the International Space Station, photographed the Nile River during a nighttime flyover on Sept. 22, 2015. Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) wrote, “Day 179. The #Nile at night is a beautiful sight for these sore eyes. Good night from@space_station! #YearInSpace.”

Image Credit: NASA

Source……www.nasa.gov

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