From gabe at educatemotivate.com Tue Apr 9 10:53:50 2019
From: gabe at educatemotivate.com (Gabe Gabrielle)
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2019 11:53:50 -0400
Subject: [Spacetalk] https://www.nasa.gov/index.html
Message-ID: <2E404739-6431-4CAF-93F4-846FE183F77B@educatemotivate.com>
good morning all,
I know many of you are still cycling through spring break, I hope enjoying your little ?down time" as I know it is so deserving?I applaud you all for what you do... I truly believe you have the most challenging profession in the world? also the most rewarding?you are asked to take 20-25 kids with different backgrounds, different educational goals, different learning abilities, different personalities?teach them the same thing, at the same speed while dealing with administrators, state testing, micro managing parents?in a classroom environment that you create with your own funds and on evenings or weekends. I visit so many schools?your creativity in the way you inspire kids to want to learn is amazing?your enthusiasm and care for "your kids? is so heartwarming?i want to say thank you and know how much you are appreciated?
On Saturday I attended SunNFun, an amazing week long event in Lakeland, Florida which is not only an awesome air show but also a wonderful event for teachers with so many workshops, educational opportunities, and recognition for you?I hope you will attend in the future and would like to thank all who attended my presentation?the room was full and I appreciate you taking the time to attend?
the space program is so exciting with many missions and a new directive?to go to the moon, establish a base with permanent residence, and use it as a gateway to Mars?also include all commercial companies in this directive which will open so many more opportunities for those interested in being a part of the space program?tomorrow, Wednesday, April 10, at 6:35 PM EDT, Space X will launch it Falcon heavy and will land the rocket and boosters?I hope you will share the with the kids as there will be replays on the the Space X site. you can also goth the NASA site: nasa.gov to see relays and get updates on the next space walk?
we have to remember to always do our best, enjoy everything we do, live in the present, make each day special, let those we care about most know, smile and have fun?:-) :-) love ya, Gabe
www.spotthestation.nasa.gov
Click Here for: "How to Get to Mars. Very Cool !
https://www.spacex.com
NASA Launches Two Rockets Studying Auroras
From the ground, the dance of the northern lights, or aurora borealis, can look peaceful. But those shimmering sheets of colored lights are the product of violent collisions between Earth?s atmosphere and particles from the Sun.
Aurora as seen from Talkeetna, Alaska, on Nov. 3, 2015.
Credits: Copyright Dora Miller
One of two Black Brant XI rockets leaves the launch pad at the And?ya Space Center in Norway.
Credits: NASA/Lee Wingfield
Colorful clouds formed by the release of vapors from the two AZURE rockets allow scientist to measure auroral winds.
Credits: NASA/Lee Wingfield
NASA successfully launched the Auroral Zone Upwelling Rocket Experiment or AZURE mission on April 5 from the And?ya Space Center in Norway.
Two Black Brant XI-A sounding rockets were launched at 6:14 and 6:16 p.m. EDT on April 5 carrying scientific instruments for studying the energy exchange within an aurora.
The AZURE mission is designed to make measurements of the atmospheric density and temperature with instruments on the rockets and deploying visible gas tracers, trimethyl aluminum (TMA) and a barium/strontium mixture, which ionizes when exposed to sunlight. The vapors were released over the Norwegian Sea at 71 through 150 miles altitude.
These mixtures, using substances similar to those found in fireworks, created colorful clouds that allow researchers to track the flow of neutral and charged particles with the auroral wind. By tracking the movement of these colorful clouds via ground-based photography and triangulating their moment-by-moment position in three dimensions, AZURE will provide valuable data on the vertical and horizontal flow of particles in two key regions of the ionosphere over a range of different altitudes.
Many people believe the Earth?s atmosphere ?ends? some 20-30 miles above the ground. However, the air we breathe does not abruptly end at some predefined point ? instead, it gradually thins. At 150 to 200 miles above Earth, the ?air? is extremely thin and these vapor clouds disperse rapidly and follow the winds which can be moving at a few hundred miles per hour.
AZURE is one of nine missions being conducted as part of the Grand Challenge Initiative (GCI) ? Cusp , a series of international sounding rocket missions planned for launch in 2018 - 2020.
NASA and U.S. scientists are joining those from Norway, Japan, Canada and other countries to investigate the physics of heating and charged particle precipitation in this region called the geomagnetic cusp ? one of the few places on Earth with easy access to the electrically charged solar wind that pervades the solar system.
NASA previously conducted two missions in December 2018 and two in January 2019 as part of the Initiative. The final two NASA missions ? the Cusp Heating Investigation and the Cusp Region Experiment ? are scheduled for November 2019.
More information on NASA?s use of vapor tracers in scientific studies is available at:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sounding-rockets/index.html
This Single Mission Could Solve 2 of the Biggest Mysteries of the Universe
ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 Plan is designed to give us new understanding and new views of the Universe.
Credit: NASA/ESA/ESO/W. Freudling (ST-ECF)
Our universe is incredibly vast, mostly mysterious, and generally confusing. We're surrounded by perplexing questions on scales both great and small. We have some answers, for sure, like the Standard Model of particle physics, that help us (physicists, at least) understand fundamental subatomic interactions, and the Big Bang theory of how the universe began , which weaves together a cosmic story over the past 13.8 billion years.
But despite the successes of these models, we still have plenty of work to do. For example, what in the world is dark energy, the name we give to the driving force behind the observed accelerated expansion of the universe? And on the opposite end of the scale, what exactly are neutrinos , those ghostly little particles that zip and zoom through the cosmos without hardly interacting with anything? [The 18 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics ]
At first glance, these two questions seem so radically different in terms of scale and nature and, well, everything that we might assume that we need to answer them.
But it might be that a single experiment could reveal answers to both. A European Space Agency telescope is set to map the dark universe ? looking as far back in time, some 10 billion years, when dark energy is thought to have been raging. Let's dig in.
Go big and go home
To dig in, we need to look up. Way up. On scales much, much bigger than galaxies (we're talking billions of light-years here, folks), where our universe resembles a vast, glowing spider web. Except, this spider web isn't made of silk, but of galaxies. Long, thin tendrils of galaxies linking dense, clumpy nodes. Those nodes are the clusters, bustling cities of galaxies and hot, rich gas ? enormous, broad walls of thousands upon thousands of galaxies. And between these structures, taking up most of the volume in the universe, are the great cosmic voids, celestial deserts filled with nothing much at all.
It's called the cosmic web, and it's the biggest thing in the universe .
This cosmic web was slowly constructed over the course of billions of years by the weakest force in nature: gravity . Way back when the universe was the tiniest fraction of its current size, it was almost perfectly uniform. But the "almost" is important here: There were tiny variations in density from spot to spot, with some corners of the universe being a little bit more crowded than average and others a little less so. [The 12 Strangest Objects in the Universe ]
By looking at a combination of the densest, busiest places in the universe (the galaxy clusters) and the loneliest, emptiest places in the cosmos (the voids), we might get answers to both the nature of dark energy (which will herald an era of brand-new physics knowledge) and the nature of neutrinos (which will do the exact same thing). We might learn, for example, that dark energy is getting worse, or getting better, or maybe even just being the same. And we might learn how massive neutrinos are or how many of them are flitting around the universe. But no matter what, it's hard to tell what we'll get until we actually look.
15 Amazing Images of Stars
Spaced Out! 101 Astronomy Images That Will Blow Your Mind
8 Ways You Can See Einstein's Theory of Relativity in Real Life
Dead Planet's Heavy Metal Core Found Rocketing Around a Dead Sun in a Distant Solar System
Astronomers discovered what they suspect to be a heavy metal fragment of a broken planet (seen in this artist?s rendering), swirling through the dusty ring of death near a white dwarf.
Credit: University of Warwick/Mark Garlick
In case you forgot that nature is totally metal, astronomers have discovered the shattered remains of a dead planet orbiting a dead sun in a distant, desolate solar system.
The dead planet's broken heart consists of heavy metal, and it orbits at breakneck speed through a dirty cosmic boneyard full of other chunks of dead planets. Mourn the dead planet and its dead star if you like, but do not pity them; one day, astronomers say, our solar system will probably look much the same. (Happy spring !)
This grim conclusion, which is described today (April 4) in the journal Science , comes from observing a dead planet chunk (or "planetesimal") circling a white dwarf star in a solar system about 410 million light-years away from Earth. [9 Times Nature Was Totally Metal ]
The Event Horizon Telescope Is Trying to Take the First-Ever Photo of a Black Hole
Astronomers orchestrated radio dish telescopes across the world into an Earth-size virtual camera for a bold new experiment attempting to deliver the first-ever image of a black hole. The telescope collaboration is set to make a big announcement of results this week , and members also described their research approach at a talk in March.
Black holes are extreme warps in space-time that are so strong, their massive gravity doesn't even let light escape once it gets close enough.
The astronomers' idea is to photograph the circular opaque silhouette of a black hole cast on a bright background. The shadow's edge is the event horizon, a black hole's point of no return. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a photograph of a black hole would be an important tool for understanding astrophysics, cosmology and the role of black holes in the universe.
Astronauts Conducting Third Spacewalk to Upgrade Station Power System
Astronauts Anne McClain (left) and David Saint-Jacques work outside the International Space Station during their spacewalk on April 8, 2019.
Expedition 59 Flight Engineers Anne McClain of NASA and David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency concluded their spacewalk at 2 p.m. EDT. During the six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, the two astronauts successfully established a redundant path of power to the Canadian-built robotic arm, known as Canadarm2, and installed cables to provide for more expansive wireless communications coverage outside the orbital complex, as well as for enhanced hardwired computer network capability. The duo also relocated an adapter plate from the first spacewalk in preparation for future battery upgrade operations.
This was the third spacewalk in just under a month on the space station. The first two spacewalks installed powerful lithium-ion batteries for one pair of the station?s solar arrays. On March 22, the first spacewalk was completed by McClain and fellow NASA astronaut Nick Hague . On March 28, the second spacewalk was completed by Hague and NASA astronaut Christina Koch .
March 22 was the first spacewalk for NASA astronauts Hague and McClain. McClain became the 13th female spacewalker in history.
March 29 also was the first spacewalk for NASA astronaut Christina Koch, who became the 14th female to complete a spacewalk.
Saint-Jacques became the first Canadian Expedition astronaut to walk in space and the fourth Canadian astronaut to spacewalk overall.
Space station crew members have conducted 216 spacewalks in support of assembly and maintenance of the orbiting laboratory. Spacewalkers have now spent a total of 56 days 10 hours and 53 minutes working outside the station.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog , @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
AuthorMark Garcia
Posted onApril 8, 2019
Categories
Expedition 59
TagsCanadian Space Agency , European Space Agency , International Space Station , Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency , NASA , Roscosmos , spacewalk
Leave a comment on U.S. and Canadian Astronauts Wrap Up Power Upgrades Spacewalk
NASA astronaut Anne McClain works outside the U.S. Quest airlock during a March 22, 2019, spacewalk to upgrade the International Space Station?s power storage capacity.
NASA astronauts Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques have begun the third spacewalk in under a month on the exterior of the International Space Station . Today?s spacewalk will work to establish a redundant path of power to the Canadian-built robotic arm, known as Canadarm2, and install cables to provide for more expansive wireless communications coverage outside the orbital complex, as well as for enhanced hardwired computer network capability.
Watch the spacewalk on NASA TV and on the agency?s website .
The spacewalkers set their spacesuits to battery power this morning at 7:31 a.m. EDT then exited the Quest airlock into the vacuum of space. The team will spend about six-and-a-half hours installing truss jumpers to provide a redundant power source for the Canadarm2 robotic arm.
This is the 216th spacewalk in support of space station assembly and maintenance. McClain will be designated extravehicular crew member 1 (EV 1), wearing the suit with red stripes. Saint-Jacques will be designated extravehicular crew member 2 (EV 2), wearing the suit with no stripes.
Learn more about station activities by following @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
AuthorMark Garcia
Posted onApril 8, 2019
CategoriesExpedition 59
TagsCanadian Space Agency , European Space Agency , International Space Station , NASA , Roscosmos , spacewalk
Leave a commenton Astronauts Conducting Third Spacewalk to Upgrade Station Power Systems
From gabe at educatemotivate.com Tue Apr 23 17:48:26 2019
From: gabe at educatemotivate.com (Gabe Gabrielle)
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2019 18:48:26 -0400
Subject: [Spacetalk] https://www.nasa.gov/index.html
Message-ID: <117DC5D8-EF4A-4896-A61B-E129B2D3FB8C@educatemotivate.com>
Hi all,
I am on the plane to Sweden and Norway,?then Georgia (in the US), Brazil, California?which will include a visit to NASA?s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, then to Missouri, and heading home on May 25th? every day is filled with either travel or presentations so it will be very interesting to go to all these different places, one after the other?I?ve never attempted to do so much, it will be interesting to see what happens?different languages, cultures, and time zones...everything is excellent with me, I always feel so fortunate and I am very thankful?this is my first visit to Sweden, I?ve been trying for about 5 years so I know will be very special?
I think I may have mentioned that I am now a Solar System Ambassador for NASA?s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena?it is really amazing, can?t wait to see it?on of the cool thins they do is send info for teachers who want to attend lectures on many different space related subjects?I will include one, if you have a chance, try to check it out, let me know what you think?
I will be in Missouri from the 22nd-24th in the Waynesville and Springfield areas... if you would like me to visit your school, please let me know so we can try to get a schedule?if possible, spend a couple of days in Waynesville/Laquey, the the 24th in Springfield?we have to remember to always do our best, enjoy everything we do, believe in ourselves, and let those we care about most know?hugs & smiles?:-) :-) love ya, Gabe
The Astromaterials Research & Exploration Science Division at JSC will be hosting an upcoming webinar entitled: Exploring Mars: Journey to the Red Planet.
Date: April 25, 2019
Time: 10am PT (1pm ET)
Website: https://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/interaction/webinars/webinar_detail.cfm?webinar_id=10
Description
Join us for a FREE NASA Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) interactive webinar designed to engage educators and their students (targeting grades 5-9 ? though other grade levels are welcome to join in!) as they interact with Doug Ming, a NASA Scientist at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. Doug will share information about his career path to NASA as well as information about exploring Mars and considerations for humans and the journey to the Red Planet. Register to participate in the LIVE event or to receive an ARCHIVE recording link. The interactive presentation will last approximately 40-45 minutes followed by an optional ~15-30 bonus minutes for Q&A.
If registration is not received prior to four hours of the start of the live event, you will likely only be able to participate using the archived recording.
NOTE: Events are primarily geared towards students and teachers in grades 5-9 although other grade levels and interested formal or informal educators are welcome to participate.
You are welcome to share this opportunity announcement with any interested formal or informal educators. As Solar System Ambassadors, please note the following details about registration:
If you plan to register to participate as an individual Solar System Ambassador (without other audience members such as students), please register using SSA and your state when asked to provide you school/organization name.
If you are a Solar System Ambassador and also happen to be an educator at a school and plan to attend with your students, please register with your school name and indicate somewhere on the registration form that you are an SSA.
If you have questions about the webinar, please contact Paige Graff at: paige.v.graff at nasa.gov
The Moon Shines with Jupiter and Saturn This Week! Here's How to See It
When the bright planet Jupiter rises in the southeastern sky at about 12:15 a.m. local time on Tuesday morning, April 23, it will be positioned 3 degrees to the lower left of the waning gibbous moon. The moon and planet will cross the sky together for the rest of the night, eventually moving to a point low in the southwestern pre-dawn sky. The duo will make a lovely photo opportunity when composed with an interesting foreground landscape.(Image: ? Starry Night software )
If you're up late in the coming nights, you may want to pay attention to the waning gibbous moon ? for it will be visiting the two largest gas giants of our solar system early on Tuesday and Thursday mornings (April 23 and 25).
On Tuesday morning, the moon will sidle up to the largest planet in our solar system, giant Jupiter. Then, two mornings later, on Thursday, the moon will meet up with the ringed wonder of our planetary system, Saturn.
Of course, such alignments are all just a matter of perspective. Our moon will be about 243,000 miles (390,000 kilometers) away from Earth, while Jupiter is 430 million miles (692 million km) distant and Saturn is even farther out in space, at 907 million miles (1.46 billion km).
Related: Best Night-Sky Events of April (Stargazing Maps)
We Could Soon Watch a Black Hole in Action, Gobbling Up Matter in Real Time
This image by the Event Horizon Telescope project shows the event horizon of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the M87 galaxy.(Image: ? EHT Collaboration)
DENVER ? Last week, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) released the first-ever image of a black hole's shadow cast against the hot gas of its accretion disk. That image, of the black hole at the center of galaxy Messier 87 (M87), was front page news all over the world. Soon, the EHT will produce the first movie of that hot gas whirling chaotically around the shadow, said project leaders who spoke Sunday (April 14) here at the April meeting of the American Physical Society.
The EHT isn't a single telescope. Rather, it's a network of radio telescopes all over the world making precisely timed recordings of radio waves all together, and these recordings can be combined such that the different telescope all act as one. As more individual radio telescopes join the EHT and the team updates the project's recording technology, the detail of the images should increase dramatically , Shep Doeleman, the Harvard University astronomer who lead the EHT project said in his talk. And then, the team should be able to produce movies of black holes in action, he said.
"It turns out that even now, with what we have, we may be able, with certain prior assumptions, to look at rotational signatures [evidence of the accretion disk swirling around the event horizon]," Doeleman said. "And then, if we had many more stations, then we could really start to see in real time movies of the black hole accretion and rotation." [9 Ideas About Black Holes That Will Blow Your Mind ]
In the case of the black hole in M87, Doeleman told Live Science after his talk, making a movie will be pretty straightforward. The black hole is enormous , even for a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy: It's 6.5 billion times the mass of Earth's sun, with its event horizon ? the point beyond which not even light can return ? enclosing a sphere as wide as our entire solar system. So, the hot matter of this black hole's accretion disk takes a long time to make a single trek around the object.
This Is the Last Photo Israel's Beresheet Moon Lander Ever Took
Beresheet's final photo: The Israeli moon lander captured this image on April 11, 2019, when it was just 9 miles (15 kilometers) above the lunar surface.(Image: ? SpaceIL via Twitter)
Beresheet's farewell photo shows the battered patch of lunar ground that would become the little probe's final resting place.
The privately funded Israeli moon lander, whose name means "in the beginning" in Hebrew, crashed during its historic touchdown bid on April 11 after suffering an engine glitch. The problem apparently began with a manually entered command , which led to a regrettable chain reaction, Beresheet's handlers have said.
And now we know what Beresheet was looking at during its last moments, thanks to a photo released yesterday (April 17) by the nonprofit organization SpaceIL, which ran the moon mission along with the company Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).
Related: Israel's 1st Moon Lander Beresheet in Pictures
What Happened Before the Big Bang?
Credit: Shutterstock
The Big Bang is commonly thought of as the start of it all: About 13.8 billion years ago, the observable universe went boom and expanded into being.
But what were things like before the Big Bang?
Short answer: We don't know. Long answer: It could have been a lot of things, each mind-bending in its own way. [How Massive Is the Milky Way? ]
There's a Tiny, Bright Magnetar Photobombing Our Galaxy's Supermassive Black Hole
An image from Chandra shows how the magnetar suddenly lit up in front of the black hole in 2013.
Credit: Chandra X-Ray Observatory
There's a bright magnetar photobombing the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, frustrating astronomers' efforts to study the black hole ? called Sagittarius A* ? using X-ray telescopes.
SagA* is the nearest known supermassive black hole to Earth. And while it's far smaller, quieter and dimmer than the recently imaged black hole at the center of the galaxy Messier 87, it still represents one of the best opportunities astronomers have for understanding how black holes behave and interact with their surrounding environments. But back in 2013, a magnetar ? an ultradense star (also called a neutron star) wrapped in powerful magnetic fields ? between SagA* and Earth lit up, and ever since has been messing with efforts to observe the black hole using X-ray telescopes.
"We think of this as maybe a shattering of the neutron star surface, or some really violent event on the neutron star that causes it to get very, very bright and then fade slowly over time," said Daryl Haggard, a physicist at McGill University in Montreal who studies SagA* and the galactic center. [3 Huge Questions the Black Hole Image Didn't Answer ]