Friends have been asking me to write something on space exploration and my presidential campaign policy on it, so here it is just out on TechCrunch. http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/18/space-exploration-will-spur-transhumanism-and-mitigate-existential-risk/ #SpaceExploration

Who will survive? #SciFi #SpaceExploration #Kindle #Paperback
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Hubble Captures Stars Going Out in Style
 
* ABOUT THIS IMAGE: *
 
The colorful, intricate shapes in these NASA Hubble Space Telescope images reveal how the glowing gas ejected by dying Sun-like stars evolves dramatically over time.
 
These gaseous clouds, called planetary nebulae, are created when stars in the last stages of life cast off their outer layers of material into space. Ultraviolet light from the remnant star makes the material glow. Planetary nebulae last for only 10,000 years, a fleeting episode in the 10-billion-year lifespan of Sun-like stars.
 
The name planetary nebula has nothing to do with planets. They got their name because their round shapes resembled planets when seen through the small telescopes of the eighteenth century.
 
The Hubble images show the evolution of planetary nebulae, revealing how they expand in size and change temperature over time. A young planetary nebula, such as He 2-47, at top, left, for example, is small and is dominated by relatively cool, glowing nitrogen gas. In the Hubble images, the red, green, and blue colors represent light emitted by nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, respectively.
 
Over thousands of years, the clouds of gas expand away and the nebulae become larger. Energetic ultraviolet light from the star penetrates more deeply into the gas, causing the hydrogen and oxygen to glow more prominently, as seen near the center of NGC 5315. In the older nebulae, such as IC 4593, at bottom, left, and NGC 5307, at bottom, right, hydrogen and oxygen appear more extended in these regions, and red knots of nitrogen are still visible.
 
These four nebulae all lie in our Milky Way Galaxy. Their distances from Earth are all roughly the same, about 7,000 light-years. The snapshots were taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in February 2007. Like snowflakes, planetary nebulae show a wide variety of shapes, indicative of the complex processes that occur at the end of stellar life.
 
He 2-47, at top, left, is dubbed the "starfish" because of its shape. The six lobes of gas and dust, which resemble the legs of a starfish, suggest that He 2-47 puffed off material at least three times in three different directions. Each time, the star fired off a narrow pair of opposite jets of gas. He 2-47 is in the southern constellation Carina.
 
NGC 5315, the chaotic-looking nebula at top, right, reveals an x-shaped structure. This shape suggests that the star ejected material in two different outbursts in two distinct directions. Each outburst unleashed a pair of diametrically opposed outflows. NGC 5315 lies in the southern constellation Circinus.
 
IC 4593, at bottom, left, is in the northern constellation Hercules.
 
NGC 5307, at bottom, right, displays a spiral pattern, which may have been caused by the dying star wobbling as it expelled jets of gas in different directions. NGC 5307 resides in the southern constellation Centaurus.
 
Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
 
#spaceexploration #hubble

Frosted Dunes on Mars

In this image taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) you can see frosted dunes on Mars in late winter. They are getting more and more sunlight and because of that start to defrost their cover of carbon dioxide. Read more on the seasons of Mars here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars#Seasons

More information on the image here:
http://www.uahirise.org/ESP_045311_1205

A wider near-natural color view can be found here:
http://goo.gl/6TjDpX

A 3D anaglyph image of this scene can be found here:
http://goo.gl/lEnzkk

More on the geology of Mars:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Mars

More on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE):
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/main/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/spacecraft/sc-instru-hirise.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiRISE

Image credit: ESP_045311_1205 NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona http://goo.gl/hIFeth

My Space/Space Technology collection recently surpassed 145,000 followers. I would have never expected that much interest, thanks to all of you! If you haven't already, maybe also try my Astronomy/Astrophysics collection here https://goo.gl/x0zPAJ , or circle me +Pierre Markuse to get all of my posts which usually are science-related.

#science #mars #mro #hirise #MarsReconnaissanceOrbiter #nasa #space #spaceexploration #solarsystem #frost #dunes   #carbondioxide   #anaglyph  

Satellite Footprints Seen in Jupiter Aurora
 
ABOUT THIS IMAGE: This is a spectacular NASA Hubble Space Telescope close-up view of an electric-blue aurora that is eerily glowing one half billion miles away on the giant planet Jupiter. Auroras are curtains of light resulting from high-energy electrons racing along the planet's magnetic field into the upper atmosphere. The electrons excite atmospheric gases, causing them to glow. The image shows the main oval of the aurora, which is centered on the magnetic north pole, plus more diffuse emissions inside the polar cap.
 
Though the aurora resembles the same phenomenon that crowns Earth's polar regions, the Hubble image shows unique emissions from the magnetic "footprints" of three of Jupiter's largest moons. (These points are reached by following Jupiter's magnetic field from each satellite down to the planet).
 
Auroral footprints can be seen in this image from Io (along the left hand limb), Ganymede (near the center), and Europa (just below and to the right of Ganymede's auroral footprint). These emissions, produced by electric currents generated by the satellites, flow along Jupiter's magnetic field, bouncing in and out of the upper atmosphere. They are unlike anything seen on Earth.
 
This ultraviolet image of Jupiter was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on November 26, 1998. In this ultraviolet view, the aurora stands out clearly, but Jupiter's cloud structure is masked by haze.
 
December 14, 2000 inaugurates an intensive two weeks of joint observation of Jupiter's aurora by Hubble and the Cassini spacecraft. Cassini will make its closest approach to Jupiter enroute to a July 2004 rendezvous with Saturn. A second campaign in January 2001 will consist of Hubble images of Jupiter's day-side aurora and Cassini images of Jupiter's night-side aurora, obtained just after Cassini has flown past Jupiter. The team will develop computer models that predict how the aurora operates, and this will yield new insights into the effects of the solar wind on the magnetic fields of planets.
 
Object Name: Jupiter Image
 
Type: Astronomical Credit: NASA/ESA, John Clarke (University of Michigan)
 
#spaceexploration #nasa #esa

Space Exploration Fueling Focus of WSU Mechanical Engineering Student's NASA Research
When mechanical engineering student Carl Bunge was 3 years old, his brother and sister convinced him he was an alien born from an egg his parents found in a field.

“I started thinking, maybe I’m different from these Earthlings around me,” he said. “I guess that started a journey of looking up at the sky.”

The Washington State University senior from Monroe, Wash., will continue studying the heavens as recipient of a highly competitive NASA Space Grant Fellowship that will provide $70,000 a year in research support. He will spend summers interning at one of NASA’s space centers.

He is the second WSU student to win the grant. Both Bunge and Ian Richardson, who received the award last year, work in the Hydrogen Properties for Energy Research lab with Jake Leachman, assistant professor in the WSU School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering.

See article at WSU News, https://news.wsu.edu/2016/05/02/nasa-funds-student-study-fueling-space-exploration.

#engineering   #fuel   #energy   #hydrogen   #spaceexploration   #NASA   #WSU   #GoCougs   #spacestation  

Burning lithium inside a star (artist's impression) Artist’s impression of a baby star still surrounded by a protoplanetary disc in which planets are forming. Using ESO’s very successful HARPS spectrograph, a team of astronomers has found that Sun-like stars which host planets have destroyed their lithium much more efficiently than planet-free stars. This finding does not only shed light on the low levels of this chemical element in the Sun, solving a long-standing mystery, but also provides astronomers with a very efficient way to pick out the stars most likely to host planets. It is not clear what causes the lithium to be destroyed. The general idea is that the planets or the presence of the protoplanetary disc disturb the interior of the star, bringing the lithium deeper down into the star than usual, into regions where the temperature is so hot that it is destroyed.
 
 *Credit: *ESO/L. Calçada
 
#spaceexploration #esa

A Dust Angel Nebula
 
Explanation: The combined light of stars along the Milky Way are reflected by these cosmic dust clouds that soar some 300 light-years or so above the plane of our galaxy. Dubbed the Angel Nebula, the faint apparition is part of an expansive complex of dim and relatively unexplored, diffuse molecular clouds. Commonly found at high galactic latitudes, the dusty galactic cirrus can be traced over large regions toward the North and South Galactic poles. Along with the refection of starlight, studies indicate the dust clouds produce a faint reddish luminescence, as interstellar dust grains convert invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Also capturing nearby Milky Way stars and an array of distant background galaxies, the deep, wide-field 3x5 degree image spans about 10 Full Moons across planet Earth's sky toward the constellation Ursa Major.
 
Image Credit & Copyright: Rogelio Bernal Andreo (Deep Sky Colors)
 
#nasa #spaceexploration

#space   #spacex   #spaceexploration   #spacecraft   #launch   #delta2   #rocket  

Montauk Beach House by Space Exploration http://buff.ly/1rP1Vty #Montauk #Design #Architecture #MissigNam #BeachHouse #SpaceExploration

Some cool drone footage of the first Long March 7 rocket being delivered to China's new Wenchang spaceport. Debut launch on June 26. #space #china #rocket #spaceexploration #spacestation #launch

#Hubble takes super-snap of #Mars...

http://wn.com/a/PCtpWdnK

#HubbleTelescope #NASA #SpaceExploration

Daniel watched every mission of the Apollo program (http://bit.ly/AstroFB).  Space was his passion.  #SaturnV #CapeKennedy #space #astronaut #Apollo11 #apolloprogram #spaceprogram #astronauts #saturnVrocket #launchpad #blastoff #rocket #spacetravel #moonlanding #spaceexploration #filmmaking #indiefilm #filmmaker #oregonfilm #CapeCanaveral #ProjectGemini #ProjectMercury