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Curiosity - The Next Mars Rover.jpg

Science · Photo

Curiosity - The Next Mars Rover.jpg

This artist concept features NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, a mobile robot for investigating Mars' past or present ability to sustain microbial life. Curiosity is being tested in preparation for launch in the fall of 2011. In this picture, the rover examines a rock on Mars with a set of tools at the end of the rover's arm, which extends about 2 meters (7 feet). Two instruments on the arm can study rocks up close. Also, a drill can collect sample material from inside of rocks and a scoop can pick up samples of soil. The arm can sieve the samples and deliver fine powder to instruments inside the rover for thorough analysis. The mast, or rover's "head," rises to about 2.1 meters (6.9 feet) above ground level, about as tall as a basketball player. This mast supports two remote-sensing instruments: the Mast Camera, or "eyes," for stereo color viewing of surrounding terrain and material collected by the arm; and, the ChemCam instrument, which is a laser that vaporizes material from rocks up to about 9 meters (30 feet) away and determines what elements the rocks are made of.

Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · ♥ 0

MSL HeatShield.jpg

Science · Photo

MSL HeatShield.jpg

The finished heat shield for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, with a diameter of 4.5 meters (14 feet, 9 inches), is the largest ever built for descending through the atmosphere of any planet. This image shows the heat shield and a spacecraft worker at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, which built and tested the heat shield. The heat shield and the spacecraft's backshell together form an encapsulating aeroshell that will protect the mission's rover, Curiosity, from the intense heat and friction that will be generated as the flight system descends through the Martian atmosphere. The aeroshell has a steering capability produced by ejecting ballast that offsets the center of mass prior to entry into the atmosphere. This offset creates lift as it interacts with the thin Martian atmosphere and allows roll control and autonomous steering through the use of thrusters.

Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · ♥ 0

Msl capsule cruiseStage.jpg

Science · Photo

Msl capsule cruiseStage.jpg

The major components of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft—cruise stage atop the aeroshell, which has the descent stage and rover inside—were connected together in October 2008 for several weeks of system testing, including simulation of launch vibrations and deep-space environmental conditions. These components will be taken apart again, for further work on each of them, after the environmental testing. The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is being assembled and tested for launch in 2011.

Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · ♥ 0

MSL DescentStage.jpg

Science · Photo

MSL DescentStage.jpg

This image from early October 2008 shows personnel working on the descent stage of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory inside the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The descent stage will provide rocket-powered deceleration for a phase of the arrival at Mars after the phases using the heat shield and parachute. When it nears the surface, the descent stage will lower the rover on a bridle the rest of the way to the ground. The larger three of the orange spheres in the descent stage are fuel tanks. The smaller two are tanks for pressurant gas used for pushing the fuel to the rocket engines.

Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · ♥ 0

MSL parachute.jpg

Science · Photo

MSL parachute.jpg

The team developing the landing system for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory tested the deployment of an early parachute design in mid-October 2007 inside the world's largest wind tunnel, at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. In this image, two engineers are dwarfed by the parachute, which holds more air than a 280-square-meter (3,000-square-foot) house and is designed to survive loads in excess of 36,000 kilograms (80,000 pounds). The parachute, built by Pioneer Aerospace, South Windsor, Connecticut, has 80 suspension lines, measures more than 50 meters (165 feet) in length, and opens to a diameter of nearly 17 meters (55 feet). It is the largest disk-gap-band parachute ever built and is shown here inflated in the test section with only about 3.8 meters (12.5 feet) of clearance to both the floor and ceiling. The wind tunnel, which is 24 meters (80 feet) tall and 37 meters (120 feet) wide and big enough to house a Boeing 737, is part of the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex, operated by the U.S. Air Force, Arnold Engineering Development Center.

Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · ♥ 0

MSL-Crusie stage.jpg

Science · Photo

MSL-Crusie stage.jpg

This portion of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, called the cruise stage, will do its work during the flight between Earth and Mars after launch in the fall of 2011.

Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · ♥ 0

Dart impact replay.webm

Space · Video

Dart impact replay.webm

The final five-and-a-half minutes of images leading up to the DART spacecraft's intentional collision with asteroid Dimorphos. The DART spacecraft streamed these images from its DRACO camera back to Earth in real time as it approached the asteroid. This replay movie is 10 times faster than reality, except for the last six images, which are shown at the same rate that the spacecraft returned them. Both Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos are visible at the start of the movie. At the end, Dimorphos fills the field of view. The final image in the movie shows a patch of Dimorphos that is 51 feet 16 meters) across. DART's impact occurred during transmission of the final image to Earth, resulting in a partial picture at the end of this movie. Didymos is roughly 2,500 feet (780 meters) in diameter; Dimorphos is about 525 feet (160 meters) in length.

Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · ♥ 0

NASA-WeeklyArcticSeaIceAge-1984-2019.webm

Space · Video

NASA-WeeklyArcticSeaIceAge-1984-2019.webm

NASA video "Weekly Arctic Sea Ice Age with Graph of Ice Age By Area: 1984 - 2019" Public domain video (2:05) NASA Scientific Visualization Studio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjFfcPC_4JE https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=4750&button=recent This visualization shows the age of the Arctic sea ice between 1984 and 2019. Younger sea ice, or first-year ice, is shown in a dark shade of blue while the ice that is four years old or older is shown as white. The animation shows the seasonal variability of the ice, growing in the Arctic winter and melting in the summer. In addition, this also shows the changes from year to year. One significant change in the Arctic region in recent years has been the rapid decline in perennial sea ice. Perennial sea ice, also known as multi-year ice, is the portion of the sea ice that survives the summer melt season. Perennial ice may have a life-span of nine years or more and represents the thickest component of the sea ice; perennial ice can grow up to four meters thick. By contrast, first year ice that grows during a single winter is generally at most two meters thick. Note that data for the sea ice age is not available along the coastlines. The region where data is not available is shown in a dark lavender color. Another version of this visualization includes a graph that quantifies the area covered by sea ice 4 or more years old in millions of square kilometers. See https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4750 . Visualizers: Cindy Starr (lead), Horace Mitchell For more information or to download this public domain video, go to https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4750#27895

Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · ♥ 0

1880- Global surface temperature - heat map animation - NASA SVS.webm

Space · Video

1880- Global surface temperature - heat map animation - NASA SVS.webm

Global surface temperature heat map animation for 1880—___. Produced by NASA 's Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS) from data from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies . Direct links to source are provided in "Source" box below. Version 7 (data through 2024) Global Temperature Anomalies from 1880 to 2024 Scientific consulting by: Gavin A. Schmidt Visualizations by: Mark SubbaRao Version 6 (data through 2023) Original source page, titled "Global Temperature Anomalies from 1880 to 2023" Visualizations by Mark SubbaRao, includes the descriptions: This color-coded map in Robinson projection displays a progression of changing global surface temperature anomalies. Normal temperatures are shown in white. Higher than normal temperatures are shown in red and lower than normal temperatures are shown in blue. Normal temperatures are calculated over the 30 year baseline period 1951-1980. The maps are averages over a running 24 month window. The final frame represents global temperature anomalies in 2023. Scale in degrees Celsius and Fahrenheit. Version 5 (data through 2022) Original source page, titled "Global Temperature Anomalies from 1880 to 2022" Visualizations by Lori Perkins, includes the descriptions: This color-coded map in Robinson projection displays a progression of changing global surface temperature anomalies. Normal temperatures are shown in white. Higher than normal temperatures are shown in red and lower than normal temperatures are shown in blue. Normal temperatures are calculated over the 30 year baseline period 1951-1980. The final frame represents the 5 year global temperature anomalies from 2018-2022. Scale in degrees Celsius and Fahrenheit. Version 4 (data through 2021) Original source page, titled "Global Temperature Anomalies from 1880 to 2021" Visualizations by Lori Perkins, includes the descriptions: This color-coded map in Robinson projection displays a progression of changing global surface temperature anomalies. Normal temperatures are shown in

Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · ♥ 0

Orbiting Jupiter.webm

Space · Video

Orbiting Jupiter.webm

Video Credit & License: NASA, Juno, SwRI, MSSS Image Processing: Gerald Eichstadt Video Processing: Sean Doran Details: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170607.html

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0 · ♥ 0

Flying along Venus Express orbit in the HYB simulation.webm

Space · Video

Flying along Venus Express orbit in the HYB simulation.webm

Fly-through Venus's plasma regions along the Venus Express (VEX) spacecraft orbit on November 20, 2006, as simulated by the HYB model (Jarvinen et al., Ann.Geo., 2009). In the animation, the colours on two perpendicular planes give the density of the solar wind (red: high density; dark blue: low density). At the beginning VEX is above Venus's geographical South pole and then starts to move along a highly elliptic one-day orbit toward the closest point (~200 km) of the orbit near the North pole. (Animation by R. Jarvinen/FMI).

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0 · ♥ 0

Millisecond pulsar and accretion disk NASA animation hi res.webm

Space · Video

Millisecond pulsar and accretion disk NASA animation hi res.webm

This is a public domain file from Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Millisecond_pulsar_and_accretion_disk_-_NASA_animation_%28hi-res%29.ogv This is the description from Wikimedia Commons........... Animation showing neutron star and accretion disk evolving into a millisecond pulsar, with magnetic fields. The formation of a pulsar: A star in a binary star system has collapsed to a neutron star. It begins to gain material from its companion star (known as "accretion"). The infalling matter causes it to speed up and begin emitting high energy radiation, eventually forming a pulsar rotating at up to 1000 times a second. Date 1 June 2004 Source Millisecond pulsar and accretion disk - NASA animation (hi-res).ogv http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010100/a010144/index.html Author NASA (animator: Dana Berry) YouTube only offers you a choice between the Standard YouTube license and the Creative Commons license, so I selected Creative Commons. However, let me state here that I make no claim for this video and it's in the public domain.

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0 · ♥ 0

GW170817- Last Dance of Neutron Star Pair.webm

Space · Video

GW170817- Last Dance of Neutron Star Pair.webm

This simulation shows the final stages of the merging of two neutron stars. The merger shown in the simulation is happening much faster in reality, within less than a hundredth of a second, and produces strong gravitational waves. The simulation illustrates one of the possible scenarios for the merger event GW170817, detected by the LIGO-Virgo gravitational-wave network. The outcome could have been a neutron star or a black hole, the latter of which is shown here. Visualisation: Wolfgang Kastaun Simulation: T. Kawamura, B. Giacomazzo, W. Kastaun, R. Ciolfi, and A. Endrizzi Acknowledgements Those results were obtained with the help of the following grants: PRACE grant GRSimStar (PI Giacomazzo) MIUR FIR grant No. RBFR13QJYF (PI Giacomazzo) Reference: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016PhRvD..94f4012K

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0 · ♥ 0

Binary Neutron Star Merger (with magnetic fields).webm

Space · Video

Binary Neutron Star Merger (with magnetic fields).webm

This movie shows the final stages of the coalescence and the merging of two neutron stars. Neutron stars are dense objects created in certain supernova explosions, and concentrate around 1.5 solar masses inside a radius less than 20 km. Further, they can have extreme magnetic fields. The merging of two neutron stars is believed to be the source of the frequently observed so-called short gamma ray bursts, and is also the most likely source for the creation of heavy elements in the universe, such as gold. In the movie, the white solid surfaces depict the surfaces of the two neutron stars and the merged object. The latter collapses to a black hole after a while, shown in yellow for better visibility. Afterwards, various amplification effects create strong magnetic fields near the black hole, shown as transparent colors. This movie illustrates a possible scenario for an event ("GW170817") that was recently detected by the LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave detector network as well as the Fermi and INTEGRAL gamma-ray observatories, and many other telescopes. The magnetic field likely plays a key role in the gamma-ray emission, but the exact mechanism is still a field of active research, in particular with the help of computer simulations such as the one this movie is based on. Visualisation: Wolfgang Kastaun Simulation: T. Kawamura, B. Giacomazzo, W. Kastaun, R. Ciolfi, and A. Endrizzi Acknowledgements Those results were obtained with the help of the following grants: PRACE grant GRSimStar (PI Giacomazzo) MIUR FIR grant No. RBFR13QJYF (PI Giacomazzo) Reference: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016PhRvD..94f4012K

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0 · ♥ 0

Binary Neutron Star Merger (without magnetic fields).webm

Space · Video

Binary Neutron Star Merger (without magnetic fields).webm

This movie shows the final stages of the coalescence and the merging of two neutron stars. Neutron stars are dense objects created in certain supernova explosions, and concentrate around 1.5 solar masses inside a radius less than 20 km. The merger shown in the movie is happening much faster in reality, within less than a hundredth of a second, and produces strong gravitational waves. Matter ejected from merging neutron stars is also the most likely source for the creation of heavy elements in the universe, such as gold. The movie illustrates one of the possible scenarios for the merger event ("GW170817") that was recently detected by the LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave detector network. The outcome of this merger could have been a black hole or a stable neutron star. In this movie, a short-lived neutron star is produced that collapses quickly to a black hole. The white solid surfaces depict the surfaces of the two neutron stars and the merged object. The black hole horizon is shown as yellow surface for better visibility. The movie also shows that the remnant is surrounded by a debris disk of hot plasma much denser than any matter on Earth. This disk is visualized as transparent layers. The movie shows a case with slightly different masses than the detected event. The main uncertainty when predicting the outcome is however the behavior of matter at the extreme densities reached in neutron stars. In fact, performing computer simulations based on different assumption will help us to better understand superdense matter. Visualisation: Wolfgang Kastaun Simulation: T. Kawamura, B. Giacomazzo, W. Kastaun, R. Ciolfi, and A. Endrizzi Acknowledgements Those results were obtained with the help of the following grants: PRACE grant GRSimStar (PI Giacomazzo) MIUR FIR grant No. RBFR13QJYF (PI Giacomazzo) Reference: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016PhRvD..94f4012K

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0 · ♥ 0

A fly-though of the GAMA galaxy survey.webm

Space · Video

A fly-though of the GAMA galaxy survey.webm

The Galaxy and Mass Assembly catalogue is a detailed map of the Universe showing where galaxies are in 3D. This simulated flythrough shows the real positions and images of the galaxies that have been mapped so far. Distances are to scale, but the galaxy images have been enlarged for your viewing pleasure.

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0 · ♥ 0