Where the Small Moon Rules Pan may be small as satellites go, but like many of Saturn’s ring moons, it has a has a very visible effect on the rings.
<em>Monthly</em> novembre, 2016
Space Station Flight Over the Southern Tip of Italy The southern tip of Italy is visible in this image taken by the Expedition 49 crew aboard the International Space Station on Sept. 17, 2016. The brightly lit city of Naples can be seen in the bottom section of the image. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft can
One Billion Base Pairs Sequenced on the Space Station NASA astronaut Kate Rubins checks a sample for air bubbles prior to loading it in the biomolecule sequencer. When Rubins’ expedition began, zero base pairs of DNA had been sequenced in space. Within just a few weeks, she and the Biomolecule Sequencer team had sequenced their
Hubble Views a Colorful Demise of a Sun-like Star This star is ending its life by casting off its outer layers of gas, which formed a cocoon around the star’s remaining core.
Tectonically Active Planet Mercury New NASA-funded research suggests that Mercury is contracting even today, joining Earth as a tectonically active planet. Images obtained by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft reveal previously undetected small fault scarps— cliff-like landforms that resemble stair steps.
Water Swirls, Gulf of St. Lawrence Orbiting above eastern North America, a crew member on the International Space Station photographed a dense pattern of eddies in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Caught briefly in the Sun’s “glint point,” reflections off the water surface show an interlinked mass of swirls and eddies in the shallow water
‘Pandora’s Cluster’ Seen by Spitzer This image of galaxy cluster Abell 2744, also called Pandora’s Cluster, was taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope.
Space Station’s Expandable Habitat The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) is seen attached to the Tranquility module of the International Space Station. BEAM is an is an experimental expandable habitat. Expandable habitats, occasionally described as inflatable habitats, greatly decrease the amount of transport volume for future space missions.
A Trio of Plumes in the South Sandwich Islands On September 29, 2016, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this false-color image (MODIS bands 7-2-1) showing volcanic activity in the South Sandwich Islands. Located in the South Atlantic Ocean, the uninhabited South Sandwich Islands include several active stratovolcanoes.
Hurricane Matthew Hits Haiti On October 4, 2016, Hurricane Matthew made landfall on southwestern Haiti as a category-4 storm—the strongest storm to hit the Caribbean nation in more than 50 years. Just hours after landfall, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this natural-color image.