The gas arcs, shown in blue, were discovered and first confirmed by amateur astronomers just last year. By November, the orbiter had returned enough data to fill nearly 1,000 CD-ROMs. and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) instrument onboard the Dust in the atmosphere over Opportunity blocked 99% of direct sunlight to the rover, leaving only limited and diffuse sky light to power it. By end-2007, the twin Mars rovers were 46 months into missions originally planned to last three months. But the new Hubble images revealed a rapid transformation in the shape and color of Jupiter's clouds near the equator, marking the entire face of the globe. Editor's Corner. Nothing like this has ever been seen before around a star. and Heliospheric Investigation, NASA Web At approximately 800 meters (half a mile) wide and 70 meters (230 feet) deep, it is the largest crater the rover has visited. Its payload includes three co-aligned nadir-viewing instruments: (1) the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP, pronounced the same as calliope) to provide vertical profiles of aerosol and cloud backscatter and depolarization; (2) an Imaging Infrared Radiometer (IIR) with three channels in the infrared window region optimized for retrievals of cirrus particle size; and (3) the Wide Field Camera (WFC), a moderate spatial resolution imager with one visible channel which provides meteorological context and a means to accurately register CALIPSO observations to those from MODIS on the Aqua satellite. The two-year mission of the two nearly identical space-based observatories, one ahead of Earth in its orbit around the sun (STEREO-A, for ahead), the other trailing behind (STEREO-B, behind) on April 23 provided the first-ever 3D images and stereoscopic measurements of the Sun, to study the nature of its coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, violent eruptions of matter from the Sun that can disrupt satellites and power grids. Launched on shuttle mission STS-93 on July 23, 1999, the massive (12,930 lbs/5,870 kg) Chandra X-ray Observatory uses a high-resolution camera, high-resolution mirrors and a charge-coupled detector (CCD) imaging spectrometer to observe X-rays of some of the most violent phenomena in the universe which cannot be seen by the Hubble's visual-range telescope. Hubble was and is making discoveries at a rate that is unprecedented for a single observatory, and its contributions to astronomy and cosmology are wide-ranging. 2007 January 17. Privacy Policy and Important Notices & Jerry Bonnell NASA Technical Rep.: Phil Newman Specific rights apply. central coma is so bright it saturates. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. Work progressed on the development of two major satellite contracts in 2008,- for the GPS 3 navigation satellites and the T-Sat (Transformational Satellite) Communications System. That is because the location of the termination shock is constantly changing in response to the Sun's activity. A total of three Mercury flybys, each followed about two months later by a course correction maneuver, will put the spacecraft in position to enter Mercury orbit in March 2011. Scientists trying to understand the dynamics of the Earth are using the lasers of ICESat to measure the height of ice sheets, glaciers, forests, rivers, clouds and atmospheric pollutants from space with unprecedented accuracy, providing a new way of understanding our changing planet. Specific rights apply. It was the 120th shuttle mission, the 34th flight of Discovery, and the 66th landing at KSC. Iceberg A-80A was the largest, measuring about 19 kilometers (19 nautical miles) long and 17 kilometers (9 nautical miles) wide. Ulysses firsts include: First direct measurements of interstellar dust and neutral helium gas, first measurements of rare cosmic-ray isotopes, first surveys of the space environment above and below the solar poles, first measurements of so-called pickup ions of both interstellar and near-Sun origin, first in-situ observations of comet tails at large distances from the Sun, and first observations of particles from solar storms over the solar poles. The Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) camera on New Horizons should have been able to spot moons down to a diameter of about 1 kilometer. During the coming years multi-point data from ACE, STEREO, and other spacecraft will provide a new perspective on anomalous cosmic ray (ACR) studies by measuring the longitudinal structure and distribution of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs), interplanetary (IP) shocks, solar energy particle (SEP) events and suprathermal ions, and by correlating these in situ observations with multi-point imaging of the corona and inner heliosphere. It is a fast-moving, older star called a red giant that sheds massive amounts of surface material. The Orion Crew Exploration Cehicle, which sits atop Ares I, is being built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver, put under contract in August 2006. Phoenix will be the first mission to touch the planet's water-ice. Gravity Probe-B (GP-B) was a NASA mission to test two predictions of Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity (GR) using four spherical gyroscopes and a telescope, housed in a satellite orbiting 642 km (400 mi) above the Earth, measuring in a new way and with unprecedented accuracy two extraordinary effects predicted by the General Theory of Relativity (the second having never before been directly measured): (a) The geodetic effect - the amount by which the Earth warps the local spacetime in which it resides, (b) the frame-dragging effect - the amount by which the rotating Earth drags its local spacetime around with it. Russian specialists worked with U.S. teams, troubleshooting and restoring computer capabilities. After another launch delay early in 2007 due to hail storm damage to the shuttle Atlantis on the launch pad, flights resumed in June to continue ISS construction assembly at a brisk rate. STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) is the third mission in NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probes program (STP). NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a riveting snapshot of the Andromeda Galaxy and the oxygen-emitting blue arcs that surround it. Both rovers have found metallic meteorites on Mars. The spacecraft's engines use a unique, hyper-efficient system called ion propulsion, which uses electricity to ionize Xenon gas to generate thrust. In addition, the Dawn spacecraft and how it orbits Vesta and Ceres will be used to measure the celestial bodies' masses and gravity fields. Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS): Through five new Space Act agreements, NASA signed unfunded agreements with SpaceDev, SPACEHAB, Transformational Space, PlanetSpace, and Constellation International, which indicated interest in developing orbital cargo transportation capabilities. Known as 3C 321, the system contains two galaxies in orbit around each other. The first polar passes in 1994 (south) and 1995 (north) took place near solar minimum, whereas the second set occurred at the height of solar activity in 2000 and 2001. The findings are also the first direct evidence that most, if not all, massive galaxies in the distant universe spent their youths building monstrous black holes at their cores. After lifting off on a Delta-2 launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on September 27 at 7:34am EDT, NASAs Dawn spacecraft began a 4.8-billion-kilometer (3-billion-mile) odyssey deep in to the Asteroid Belt, including exploration of asteroid Vesta in 2011 and the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015. javascript is enabled. The Moon will set about 45 minutes later at 7:17 p.m. Searching for January 4 on the NASA Hubble birthday site reveals an incredible image of Saturn taken in infrared by Hubble in 1998, which would have been Newton's 355th birthday. In 2007, at end-April, GALEX celebrated its fourth year in space with some of the "hottest" stars of the M81 spiral galaxy. WMAP measures a remnant of the early universe - its oldest light. The glow from these stars created a thin fog of electrons in the surrounding gas that scatters microwaves, in much the same way fog scatters the beams from a cars headlights. Another breakthrough derived from WMAP data is clear evidence the first stars took more than a half-billion years to create a cosmic fog. EC99-45219-1: October 27, 1999: David A. Wright in ER-2: ED07-0170-2: July 26, 2007: Mark Pestana in F-18: ED07-0294-35: December 27, 2007: Retired NASA research pilot . in filamentary rays. During its first Venus flyby, no scientific observations were made since Venus was at superior conjunction, placing it on the opposite side of the sun from Earth, which resulted in a two-week radio contact blackout between the spacecraft and its operators. Image of the Day Atmosphere Heat Land Water Human Presence Remote Sensing. Primary focus contin ues on GRB research, but about half the time is being spread among the other science areas. On August 23, Spirit maneuvered into position for driving up to the top of a rock platform called Home Plate, its long-term destination in a range of hills that were on the distant horizon from its landing site, and in September climbed onto this a plateau of layered volcanic bedrock bearing clues to an explosive mixture of lava and water. These large fires are about 10 kilometers northeast of the cities of Concepcin and Talcahuano, which are veiled by a smoke from the south. After data from the GRACE satellites in the first-ever gravity survey of the entire Antarctic ice sheet showed that the ice loss in Antarctica increased by 75 percent in the last 10 years due to a speed-up in the flow of its glaciers and is now nearly as great as that observed in Greenland, in 2007 the GRACE mission received the prestigious William T. Pecora Award for outstanding contributions toward understanding the Earth through remote sensing from the U.S. Department of the Interior and NASA. Explanation: The brightest comet of recent decades was a surprising first sight for a new camera in space. Published Apr 12, 2017. It stayed that size through at least January 6, 2023. Its observations are a treasure trove of information, including at least three major findings: (1) New evidence that a sea of cosmic neutrinos permeates the universe, (2) clear evidence that the first stars took more than a half-billion years to create a cosmic fog, and (3) tight new constraints on the burst of expansion in the universe's first trillionth of a second. July 19, 2007. By revealing the CMEs 3D structure, the STEREO satellite pair is a key addition to the fleet of space weather satellites, providing more accurate alerts for the arrival time of Earth-directed solar ejections with its unique side-viewing perspective. In a historical event for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Queen Elizabeth II of England visited the NASA campus on May 8, 2007. Landsat Data Policy Released. The radar imaged several very dark features near Titan's north pole, much larger than similar features seen before on Titan. even in broad daylight by blocking out the Sun with your hand. These are the most significant clue yet in the longstanding mystery of where the dust in our very young universe came from. All major contracts for the Ares I rocket were awarded in 2007. No one is sure. By combining data from Chandra and the Gemini telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, the mass of the black hole, known as M33 X-7, was determined to be 15.7 times that of the Sun. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. New Horizons passed Jupiter on Febrary 28, riding the planets gravity to boost its speed and shave three years off its trip to Pluto. The largest dark feature measures at least 100,000 square kilometers (39,000 square miles), but since the radar has caught only a portion of each of these features, only their minimum size is known. Of the 19 total launch attempts by the United States in 2007 (23 in 2006, 16 in 2005, 19 in 2004, 26 in 2003), only one (5.3%) was a commercial mission (NASA/civil: 9; military: 9): a Delta-2 rocket with the Worldview-1 imaging satellite, the worlds only commercial satellite with a half-meter image resolution. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno, and Asterope. After the two satellites switched position, a special data collection campaign for the inter-satellite separation between about 70 km and about 170 km got underway. NASAs six-ton (5.4-metric-ton) spacecraft Cassini continued its epic 6.7-year, 3.2-billion-km journey inside the planetary system of Saturn. In 2006, Voyager 1, already the most distant human-made object in the cosmos, passed a major milestone when it surpassed the 100 astronomical units (AU) distance from the Sun (August 15), i.e., the spacecraft, which launched nearly three decades ago, was 100 times more distant from the sun than Earth is. The project is a joint partnership between NASA and the German DLR (Deutsches Zentrum fr Luft- und Raumfahrt). The scientists combined atmospheric models with actual measurements of ozone, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide in Earth's lower atmosphere. With a semi-major axis of approximately 200,000 km, its elliptical orbit affords ACE a prime view of the Sun and the galactic regions beyond, from a vantage point approximately 1/100th of the distance from the Earth to the Sun. S71-51273 ( 102k or 668k) Portrait of Ron Evans. Joint USAF/NOAA Solar Geophysical Activity Report and Forecast SDF Number 17 Issued at 2200Z on 17 Jan 2023, Artemis I Orion Post-Flight Payload Processing - Campos/Moonikin, NASA Awards Students Flight Opportunity In The 2021-2022 TechRise Challenge. During the flybys - set for January 2008, October 2008 and September 2009 MESSENGER, the second spacecraft sent to Mercury after Mariner 10 flew past it three times in 1974-75 and gathered detailed data on less than half the surface, will map nearly the entire planet in color, image most of the areas unseen by Mariner 10 in 1974-75, and measure the composition of the surface, atmosphere and magnetosphere. The Voyager missions, now in their 31st year, continue their quest to push the bounds of space exploration. Astronomers used Chandra to observe a neutron star, known as RX J0822-4300, over a period of about five years. U. Their installation plus other maintenance, servicing & inspection tasks were accomplished by the crew in four spacewalks (EVAs/Extravehicular Activities) by Reilly, Olivas, Forrester and Swanson, running up the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th spacewalk in 2007. The AIM data are of very high quality and have changed our view of PMCs and their environment after only one northern hemisphere (NH) season of observations. Two funded agreements were furthermore signed with SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies) and Rocketplane Kistler (RPK) for demonstrations under the COTS competition. The two main origin hypotheses for the arcs are that they really are close to Andromeda ( M31 ), or that they are just coincidentally placed gas filaments in our Milky Way galaxy. However, the objective of the 4th spacewalk changed in order to repair a solar array, inadvertently torn during deployment, and the 5th spacewalk was transferred to the station crew to perform after the shuttles departure. Earth's Southern Hemisphere Credit: SECCHI, STEREO, NRL, NASA. Four EVAs were conducted by Mastracchio, Williams and Exp. At maximum distance from Earth (apogee), the spacecraft lie between the Sun and the Earth. Since the launch of AIM, significant progress has been made in achieving this goal and that progress continues at a rapid rate. After Spirit and Opportunity, NASAs next-generation Mars mission, to land in the Martian arctic in May 2008, is the Phoenix Mars Lander, followed by the next rover, the Mars Science Laboratory, currently in development for launch in 2009. Today, Brandon has refused to run. 2022 Tied for Fifth Warmest Year on Record. It was launched on August 12, 2005, on an Atlas V launch vehicle and arrived at Mars on March 10, 2006, after a 300 million-mile trip, taking more than 35 hours to circle the planet in its initial very elongated (elliptic) orbit for subsequent aerobraking maneuvers to achieve a lower circular orbit. Mars Odyssey. After launch of NASA's THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) mission on February 17 on a Delta-2 rocket, the five THEMIS spacecraft were deployed into a string-of-pearls configuration on near-identical highly elliptical orbits with 31-hour periods. Being in a geostationary orbit allows GOES satellites to hover continuously over one position on the Earth's surface, appearing stationary. Not a good sign for NASA EDGE, but a small window of opportunity for the competition. Shuttle Endeavour lifted off on August 8 at 6:36pm EDT into an early evening sky before sunset on ISS Mission 13A.1, carrying a crew of seven: Commander Scott Kelly, Pilot Charlie Hobaugh, and Mission Specialists Dave Williams (CSA/Canadian Space Agency), Rick Mastracchio, Tracy Caldwell, Alvin Drew and Teacher-turned-Astronaut Barbara R. Morgan. Cosmic neutrinos existed in such huge numbers they affected the universes early development. ICESat (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite), also an Earth Observing System (EOS) spacecraft, is the benchmark mission for measuring ice sheet mass balance, cloud and aerosol heights, as well as land topography and vegetation characteristics. Visible was a spectacular view of the Launched in May 2002, the 1750 kg (3858 lb) NASA satellite Aqua, formerly named EOS PM (signifying its afternoon equatorial crossing time), carrying six instruments weighing 1082 kg (2385 lb) designed to collect information on water-related activities worldwide, has been circling Earth in a polar, sun-synchronous orbit of 438 miles (705 km) altitude. Get access to our automated daily newsletter, both of our premium newsletters and our premium news stories. George Michael on stage in Amsterdam in 2007. . The year 2007 has been a roller coaster ride for the Swift mission. Astronomer Noel Munford reports that the five second long digital camera exposure comes close to capturing the visual appearance . The framework also allows individual nations to share their strategies and efforts so all can achieve their exploration goals more effectively. Get access to our automated daily newsletter and our premium news stories. In 2007, commercial space activities in the United States reached its lowest level since several years, to some extent due to the export restrictions imposed to the US industry on sensitive technologies. Swift has become a key tool not only in studies of GRBs, but also in studying galaxies, quasars, supernova, novae, black holes and neutron stars in our Galaxy, along with active stars, and even comets. In yet another stunning imagery of its radar instrument, the spacecraft found evidence for seas, likely filled with liquid methane or ethane, in the high northern latitudes of Saturn's moon Titan. Discovery docked on 10/25 at 8:40am EDT, smoothly flown by Pam Melroy & George Zambo Zamka. Jan. 29, 2007 . The massive, growing black holes, discovered by NASA's Spitzer and Chandra space telescopes, represent a large fraction of a long-sought missing population. Aura (Latin for breeze), launched from Vandenberg AFB on July 15, 2004, on a Delta-2 rocket, is NASAs third major Earth Observing System (EOS) platform, joining its sister satellites Terra and Aqua, to provide global data on the state of the atmosphere, land, and oceans, as well as their interactions with solar radiation and each other. "The Moon will appear full for about 3 days around this time, from Thursday evening through Sunday morning," NASA's Solar System Exploration said . On August 2, 2005, MESSENGER returned to Earth for a gravity boost. NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center. From January through June, New Horizons seven science instruments made more than 700 separate observations of the Jovian system twice the activity planned at Pluto with most of them coming in the eight days around closest approach to Jupiter. The Small Magellanic Cloud is classified as a dwarf galaxy and is one of the closest galaxies . This is largest number of active spacecraft to study another planet in the history of space exploration. On October 15, 2007, the Cassini spacecraft, in excellent health, had its Diamond Anniversary: it was ten years ago that it departed planet Earth from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and embarked on a seven-year long, circuitous journey of several billion miles across the solar system to the planet Saturn. Phoenix. (MTU) & 1976 - CTS launch. Observations include information about Earth radiation, sea and land surface temperature, atmospheric vertical temperature, water vapor, and ozone profiles in the troposphere and stratosphere. On Wednesday evening, Feb. 2, 2022, the bright planet Jupiter will appear about 5 degrees to the upper right of the waxing crescent Moon. After undocking on 8/19 (7:57am EDT), Endeavour landed on Runway 15 at KSC at 12:32 pm on the first opportunity after deorbit. On June 15, 2007, NASA Headquarters released a report compiling the results of the 2007 Earth Science Senior Review held April 25-27, to evaluate 11 ongoing NASA Earth observing satellite missionsACRIMSAT; Aqua; CloudSat; Earth Observing-1 (EO-1); Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE); Ice, Clouds, and land Elevation . The largest of the fires (outlined in red) are near the coast . The approximately 1.2-ton (1,100-kilogram) spacecraft is in a solar orbit, a 4.9-billion mile (7.9-billion kilometer) journey that includes 15 trips around the sun. Images. Shockingly, these arcs were only . January 17, 2012. At that time Voyager 1 was about 15 billion kilometers (9.3 billion miles) from the sun. Both satellites, operated by NOAA, in 2007 continued to provide global coverage of numerous atmospheric and surface parameters for weather forecasting and meteorological research. Get the latest updates on NASA missions, watch NASA TV live, and learn about our quest to reveal the unknown and benefit all humankind. The Dawn spacecraft carries 425 kilograms (937 pounds) of Xenon propellant. Consequently, main U.S. Air Force (USAF) attention in 2007 continued to be on addressing space acquisition problems such as the ones posed by the missile warning program SBIRS (Space Based Infrared System), eventually to replace the DSP-23 constellation, with some significant progress made. January 17. Anyone interested in supporting a good cause, call 757-864-1296. By 6/15, Yurchikhin and Kotov got two of three lanes in both computers running after bepassing, with external cabling, what appeared to be a faulty power switch, and on 6/18, the Russian partners were able to demonstrate the stations ability to maintain attitude control, enabling the shuttles departure. Dawn's science instrument suite will measure elemental and mineral composition, shape, surface topography, and tectonic history, and will also seek water-bearing minerals. Scientists now believe the bursts, distant yet fleeting explosions, are related to the formation of black holes throughout the universe: the birth cries of black holes. The Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), launched on August 25, 1997, is positioned in a halo orbit around the first Langrangian libration point L1, where gravitational forces are in equilibrium. During 2007, the most astonishing discoveries of SST include final definitive evidence that the universe's first dust -- the celestial stuff that seeded future generations of stars and planets -- was forged in the explosions of massive stars. An instrument on the spacecraft measured the abrupt slowdown of the solar wind that defines the termination shock. But the shock did not look the way it was expected to: instead of seeing a very abrupt drop, the spacecraft observed a gradual slowing of the solar wind ahead of each crossing, followed by a relatively small drop at the termination shock itself. During 2007, Phoenix coasted in its cruise phase, which lasts for approximately 10 months. remain in orbit up to 2022. Hard hats, cranes and bulldozers were the equipment of choice at space facilities across the country. By end-2007, data analysis was still underway, and an agreement was reached with NASA to extend the data analysis phase through September 2008 and probably beyond. MESSENGER will be the first probe to visit the innermost planet in almost 33 years. The CMBR is the light left over from the Big Bang, bathing the whole Universe in this afterglow light. The '01 lander has undergone modifications to improve the spacecraft's robustness and safety during entry, descent, and landing. Dawn uses ion propulsion for years at a time, with interruptions of only a few hours each week to turn to point its antenna to Earth. The Ozone Monitoring Instrument on the Aura satellite measures the total amount of ozone from the ground to the upper atmosphere over the entire Antarctic continent. 16. Its long path through space carries it out to Jupiter's orbit and back. This star cluster has been given the designation of NGC 346. During 2007, scientists continued to use Aura and other satellites for tracking different chemicals present in Earth's atmosphere. This makes it the most massive companion star in a binary system containing a black hole. of Defense Executive Agent for Space. Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory show both galaxies contain supermassive black holes at their centers, but the larger galaxy has a jet emanating from the vicinity of its black hole. Before the stars burned out as white dwarfs, they were among the most massive stars in NGC 6397. As evening twilight ends at 6:31 p.m. EST, the Moon will appear about 7 degrees above the west-southwestern horizon. The engines are thrifty with fuel, using only about 3.25 milligrams of Xenon per second (about 10 ounces over 24 hours) at maximum thrust. MRO is a multipurpose spacecraft designed to conduct reconnaissance and exploration of Mars from orbit. NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day 17 January 2023: Andromeda Galaxy is simply riveting. Each unit is movable in two axes to allow for migration of the spacecraft's center of mass during the mission. On their way out to and back from apogee each orbit, the spacecraft routinely cross the outer boundary of the Earth's magnetic field and a shock wave that stands upstream from this boundary. Bonjour: la Station Spatiale Internationale sera visible l'il nu aujourd'hui (dans un ciel sans nuage) 18h40 partout . Pre-Flight Crew and Equipment Photos. NASA.gov brings you the latest images, videos and news from America's space agency. Its flyby of Jupiter was a special highlight of 2007. The five-craft THEMIS fleet may help scientists to determine why auroras are more common in the spring than at other times. Launched on January 12, 2003, on a Delta-2 Expendable Launch Vehicle (ELV) into a near polar orbit at an altitude of 600 km with an inclination of 94 degrees, the spacecraft in 2007 continued to provide data from its one instrument,- the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS). It is the result of what happened earlier, and a backlight for the later development of the universe. As part of the COTS demos, SpaceX successfully completed the Critical Design Review (CDR) for its first Falcon 9/Dragon mission. Read more on hindustantimes.com . Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. Among else, Cassini discovered a narrow belt harboring moonlets as large as football stadiums in Saturn's outermost ring, probably remains of a larger moon shattered by a wayward asteroid or comet eons ago. The twin STEREO spacecraft were launched on October 25 on a Delta-2 7925-10L rocket from CCAFS (Cape Canaveral Air Force Station) in Florida. Text Size. One focus concerns plans for shifting the advanced technology base toward space in order to continue building a new foundation for more integrated air and space operations in the 21st century as space is becoming increasingly dominant in military reconnaissance, communications, warning, navigation, missile defense and weather-related areas. NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (formerly called the Microwave Anisotropy Mission, MAP), launched on June 30, 2001, on a Delta-2, is now located in an orbit around the second Lagrange libration point L2. Also in 2007, GALEX spotted an amazingly long comet-like tail behind a star streaking through space at supersonic speeds. NOAA-18 has instruments used in the 1982-established international Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking System, called COSPAS-SARSAT. (NASA/Yann Sainty/Marcel Drechsler) RHESSI (Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager, in honor of the late NASA scientist who pioneered the fields of solar-flare physics, gamma-ray astronomy and cosmic ray research), launched on February 5, 2002, in 2007continued its operation in Earth orbit, providing advanced images and spectra to explore the basic physics of particle acceleration and explosive energy release in solar flares. The space agency adds that the satellite moves at the speed of about five miles (8 km) per second - which is fast enough to travel across the United States in about 10 minutes. In another discovery, astronomers have unmasked hundreds of black holes hiding deep inside dusty galaxies billions of light-years away. NASA Official: Phillip Newman The Chandra X-ray Observatory in 2007 also located an exceptionally massive black hole in orbit around a huge companion star, with intriguing implications for the evolution and ultimate fate of massive stars. GLAS sends short pulses of green and infrared light though the sky 40 times a second, all over the globe, and collects the reflected laser light with a one-meter telescope, yielding elevations. Since its launch, WMAP has refined our understanding of the universe and its development. 04.17.15 - Kepler Planet Candidates, January 2014. 16 CDR Peggy Whitson made history in becoming the first female spacecraft commanders to lead shuttle and station missions simultaneously (Whitson also holds the distinction of being the first woman to command a station mission). They have provided a broad, beautiful picture, showing how humans have shaped the planet and lit up the darkness. Its differential radiometers measure, with unprecedented accuracy, the temperature fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). The satellite flies in formation about 15 minutes behind Aqua. In contrast, estimates from WMAP data show the current universe consists of 4.6% percent atoms, 23% dark matter, 72% dark energy and less than 1 percent neutrinos. Phoenix also uses two instruments delivered for the '01 lander that have been in protected storage: the MECA (Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer), and MARDI (Mars Descent Imager). Its telescope has a basic design similar to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), but while HST views the sky in exquisite detail in a narrow field of view - like a grain of sand held at arm's length - GALEX is tailored to view hundreds of galaxies in each observation. Comet McNaught NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey and MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. AIM is the first satellite mission dedicated to the study of noctilucent or night-shining clouds (NLCs) also called Polar Mesospheric clouds (PMCs). The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. In 2007, it entered the heliosheath on August 30 at a distance of 84 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun (1 AU is the distance between the Earth and Sun). Hubble Views a Young and Dynamic Elliptical Galaxy. A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC Discovering the cause of the change will provide scientists with important details on how the planet's magnetosphere works and the important Sun-Earth connection. The work, done at KSC, included addition of a glass cockpit, a Global Positioning System (GPS) for landing and the Station-to-Shuttle Power Transfer System (SSPTS) which allows the Orbiter to draw power from the space station, enabling an extended stay for the mission,- 14 days in this case. . january 31 2007 nasa picture. That, in turn, influenced the microwaves that WMAP observes. Also in 2007, Space Telescope Science Institute (STSI) in Baltimore, the science operations center for Hubble, entered a partnership with Google, to produce Sky in Google Earth, a new feature of the newest version of Google Earth, available free of charge. The ring's discovery is among the strongest evidence yet that dark matter exists. With the objective to improve weather forecasting and monitor environmental events around the world, NOAA-18 continued in 2007 to collect data about the Earth's surface and atmosphere. GOES-N, to be renamed GOES-13, is the latest in a series of Earth monitoring satellites which provide the kind of continuous monitoring necessary for intensive data analysis. Incorporating the instrument's data into numerical weather prediction models improves the accuracy range of experimental six-day Northern Hemisphere weather forecasts by up to six hours, a four-percent increase. There were 28 NASA, DOD, and commercial launches, out of 29 attempts (2006: 22 of 23 attempts, 2005: 16 of 16, 2004: 19 of 19; 2003: 26 of 27 [loss of Columbia]). Discovery landed on 11/7 (1:01pm) on Runway 33 at KSC, returning Clay Anderson after 152 days in space and over 18 EVA hours in 3 spacewalks. The smaller fires in the area around Los Angeles could be agricultural fires, but the larger, smoky fires are more likely to be natural or human-caused forest fires. This allows making detailed measurements of Earth's gravity field, which will lead to discoveries about gravity and Earth's natural systems with possibly far-reaching benefits to society and the world's population. being swept away from the Sun by the It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. In fact, material blowing off Mira is forming a wake 13 light-years long, or about 20,000 times the average distance of Pluto from the sun. It is awash in a sea of cosmic neutrinos, almost weightless sub-atomic particles which move around at nearly the speed of light, passing through us by the millions every second. Their discovery implies there were hundreds of millions of additional black holes growing in our young universe, more than doubling the total amount known at that distance. At end-2007, the twin rovers, nearing the fourth anniversary of their landings, were getting smarter as they got older. The non-US/non-Russian partnership of Boeing, RSC-Energia (Russia, 25% share), NPO Yushnoye (Ukraine) and Kvaerner Group (Norway) launched one Russian Zenit 3SL (SeaLaunch) rocket carrying the NSS-8 (New Skies 8), the eighth comsat in a series intended to provide global coverage at C-band. George Michael on stage in Amsterdam in 2007. . Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is On its way to the surface, those photons or particles of light bounce off clouds, aerosols, ice, leaves, ocean, land and more providing detailed information on the vertical structure of the earth system. In 2007, the telescope saw a powerful jet from a supermassive black hole blasting a nearby galaxy, a never-before witnessed galactic violence that may have a profound effect on planets in the jet's path and trigger a burst of star formation in its destructive wake. The Sun Earth Connection Coronal The star, named Mira after the Latin word for "wonderful," has been a favorite of astronomers for about 400 years. Robert Nemiroff GRACE provides scientists from all over the world with an efficient and cost-effective way to chart the Earth's gravity fields with unprecedented accuracy, yielding crucial information about the distribution and flow of mass within the Earth and its surroundings. Constellation Program: In 2007, NASA began laying the foundation for the future of space exploration. The Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), launched by NASA on April 28, 2003, on a Pegasus XL rocket from a L-1011 aircraft into a nearly circular Earth orbit, is an orbiting space telescope for observing tens of millions of star-forming galaxies in ultraviolet (UV) light across 10 billion years of cosmic history, 80 percent of the way back to the Big Bang. Some significant Space Events in 2007. During that span, three Chandra observations clearly show the neutron star moving away from the center of the Puppis A supernova remnant, a stellar debris field created during the same explosion in which the neutron star was created about 3700 years ago. The increased use of satellites for communications, observations, and through the GPS navigation and high-precision weapons targeting was and is of decisive importance for the military command structure. Launched on March 17, 2002, on a Russian Rockot carrier, the twin satellites GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment), named "Tom" and "Jerry", in 2007 continued to map the Earth's gravity fields by taking accurate measurements of the distance between the two satellites, using Global Positioning System (GPS) and a microwave ranging system. Satellite images of Earth at night have been a curiosity for the public and a tool of fundamental research for at least 25 years. CALIPSO was launched into orbit around the Earth along with CloudSat as part of the "A-train," a constellation of Earth observing satellites. The three 30-centimeter-wide (12-inch) ion thrusters provide less power than conventional engines but can maintain thrust for months at a time. Evert Elzinga/AFP/Getty Images.

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