(Source: tomorrowandbeyond)

spaccceee by paooo

mirrormaskcamera:

Astronaut spacesuit concept art for Ridley Scott’s Alien, scanned from Fantastic Films Blake Publishing Corp. in 1979

(via Moebius | hauk sven)

cometsmeteoroids:

Trick or Treat in Space: Halloween Candy on the Space Station

CREDIT: NASA 

Melts in your mouth, not in your hands — or space station. M&M’s in space give new meaning to “playing with your food.”

(Source: kennyxp)

theatlantic:

Here’s What the Space Around Earth Sounds Like

The noises, often picked up here on Earth by ham-radio operators, are called Earth’s “chorus” as they are reminiscent of a chorus of birds chirping in the early morning. 

[Image: NASA]

spaceplasma:

WATER IN MOLECULAR CLOUD EQUAL TO 2,000 TIMES EARTH’S OCEANS

The European Space Agency’s Herschel space observatory has discovered enough water vapor to fill Earth’s oceans more than 2000 times over, in a gas and dust cloud that is on the verge of collapsing into a new Sun-like star. Stars form within cold, dark clouds of gas and dust — ‘pre-stellar cores’ — that contain all the ingredients to make solar systems like our own.

Water, essential to life on Earth, has previously been detected outside of our Solar System as gas and ice coated onto tiny dust grains near sites of active star formation, and in proto-planetary discs capable of forming alien planetary systems.

The new Herschel observations of a cold pre-stellar core in the constellation of Taurus known as Lynds 1544 are the first detection of water vapor in a molecular cloud on the verge of star formation.

“To produce that amount of vapor, there must be a lot of water ice in the cloud, more than three million frozen Earth oceans’ worth,” says Paola Caselli from the University of Leeds, UK, lead author of the paper reporting the results in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“Before our observations, the understanding was that all the water was frozen onto dust grains because it was too cold to be in the gas phase and so we could not measure it. Now we will need to review our understanding of the chemical processes in this dense region and, in particular, the importance of cosmic rays to maintain some amount of water vapor.”

The observations also revealed that the water molecules are flowing towards the heart of the cloud where a new star will probably form, indicating that gravitational collapse has just started.* “There is absolutely no sign of stars in this dark cloud today, but by looking at the water molecules, we can see evidence of motion inside the region that can be understood as collapse of the whole cloud towards the center,” says Dr Caselli.

“There is enough material to form a star at least as massive as our Sun, which means it could also be forming a planetary system, possibly one like ours.”* Some of the water vapor detected in L1544 will go into forming the star, but the rest will be incorporated into the surrounding disc, providing a rich water reservoir to feed potential new planets.

(Source: etamitni)

ikenbot:

Super-Earth Planet Likely Made of Diamond

Move over, Hope Diamond. The most famous gems on Earth have new competition in the form of a planet made largely of diamond, astronomers say.

Illustration: the interior of 55 Cancri e — an extremely hot planet with a surface of mostly graphite surrounding a thick layer of diamond, below which is a layer of silicon-based minerals and a molten iron core at the center. Credit: Haven Giguere

The alien planet, a so-called “super-Earth,” is called 55 Cancri e and was discovered in 2004 around a nearby star in our Milky Way galaxy. After estimating the planet’s mass and radius, and studying its host star’s composition, scientists now say the rocky world is composed mainly of carbon (in the form of diamond and graphite), as well as iron, silicon carbide, and potentially silicates.

At least a third of the planet’s mass is likely pure diamond.

“This is our first glimpse of a rocky world with a fundamentally different chemistry from Earth,” lead researcher Nikku Madhusudhan of Yale University said in a statement. “The surface of this planet is likely covered in graphite and diamond rather than water and granite.”

55 Cancri e is the first likely “diamond planet” to be identified around a sun-like star, though such worlds have been theorized before. Planets like this are vastly different from our Earth, which has relatively little carbon.

“By contrast, Earth’s interior is rich in oxygen, but extremely poor in carbon — less than a part in thousand by mass,” said study co-author and Yale geophysicist Kanani Lee.

55 Cancri e is what’s known as a super-Earth, with a radius twice as wide as that of our own planet, and a mass eight times greater. It speeds around its host star, making a full orbit in just 18 hours (Earth takes 365 days). It is so close in to the star that its surface temperature reaches a scorching 3,900 degrees Fahrenheit (2,100 degrees Celsius), making it probably way too hot for life.

Full Article

 55 Cancri is visible in the night sky, if you know where to look.

View of the International Space Station ISS from the orbiter Discovery as it moves away from the station after undocking. Image taken during STS-121. Earth limb in background.

Aurora from space.

n-a-s-a:

Stars and Dust Across Corona Australis

Image Credit & Copyright: Marco Lorenzi 

sklogw:

SATURN’S SOUTHERN SIDE

Saturn’s southern reaches are draped in the shadow of the huge planet’s iconic ring system in a spectacular new picture from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.

The near-infrared photo, which Cassini snapped on June 15, looks toward the southern, unlit side of Saturn’s rings from 14 degrees below the ringplane, researchers said. The spacecraft was about 1.8 million miles (2.9 million kilometers) from Saturn at the time; the image scale is 11 miles (17 km) per pixel.

Saturn’s ice-covered moon Enceladus, which is 313 miles (504 km) wide, is visible as a tiny, bright speck in the lower lefthand corner of the image.

Many researchers regard Enceladus as one of the best bets in our solar system to host life beyond Earth. Though surface temperatures on the moon are frigid, Enceladus is believed to harbor a vast ocean of liquid water beneath its icy shell.

BIG PICS: Cassini Witnesses Seasonal Shifts on Saturn

Enceladus also boasts huge amounts of internal heat, which power a system of geysers that erupt from the moon’s south polar regions. Cassini discovered these geysers in 2005 and has snapped many photos of them since.

The $3.2 billion Cassini mission is a collaboration involving NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The spacecraft launched in 1997 and arrived at Saturn in 2004. It has been studying the ringed planet and its many moons ever since, and should continue to do so for years to come; the Cassini mission has been extended to at least 2017.

BIG PIC: Janus Patrols Saturn’s Rings

In early 2005, Cassini’s Huygens lander, an ESA probe, touched down on the enormous moon Titan and relayed the first photos ever from the surface of that intriguing world.

Titan has a thick, nitrogen-dominated atmosphere and a weather system based on methane and ethane, which have pooled to form lakes in various places across the moon’s surface.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

sklogw:

SuitSat-1: A Spacesuit Floats Free

Who dunnit? Like a scene from a space mystery movie, a spacesuit floated away from the International Space Station earlier this month, but no investigation was needed. It was pushed out by the space station crew. Dubbed Suitsat-1, the unneeded Russian Orlan spacesuit filled mostly with old clothes was fitted with a faint radio transmitter and released to orbit the Earth. Suitsat-1 will orbit once every 90 minutes until it burns up in the Earth’s atmosphere within a few weeks. The suit circled the Earth twice before its radio signal became unexpectedly weak. Pictured above, the lifeless spacesuit was photographed as it drifted away from the Earth-orbiting space station earlier this month.

Credit: ISS Expedition 12 Crew, NASA