अन्तरिक्ष बिज्ञान र प्रबिधि (Astronomy Science and Technology)

This interacting pair of galaxies is included in Arp's catalog of peculiar galaxies as number 148. Arp 148 is the staggering aftermath of an encounter between two galaxies, resulting in a ring-shaped galaxy and a long-tailed companion. The collision between the two parent galaxies produced a shockwave effect that first drew matter into the center and then caused it to propagate outwards in a ring. The elongated companion perpendicular to the ring suggests that Arp 148 is a unique snapshot of an ongoing collision. Infrared observations reveal a strong obscuration region that appears as a dark dust lane across the nucleus in optical light. Arp 148 is nicknamed Mayall's object and is located in the constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear, approximately 500 million light-years away. This image is part of a large collection of 59 images of merging galaxies taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released on April 24, 2008, the observatory's 18th anniversary.

All six Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne space shuttle main engines from Endeavour's STS-134 and Atlantis' STS-135 missions sit in test cells inside the Engine Shop at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. For the first time, all 15 shuttle main engines are in the shop at the same time, being prepped for shipment to NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, where they are being repurposed for use on NASA's next generation heavy lift rocket, the Space Launch System.

This swirling landscape of stars is known as the North America Nebula. In visible light, the region resembles North America, but in this image infrared view from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the continent disappears. Where did the continent go? The reason you don't see it in Spitzer's view has to do, in part, with the fact that infrared light can penetrate dust whereas visible light cannot. Dusty, dark clouds in the visible image become transparent in Spitzer's view. In addition, Spitzer's infrared detectors pick up the glow of dusty cocoons enveloping baby stars. Clusters of young stars (about one million years old) can be found throughout the image. Some areas of this nebula are still very thick with dust and appear dark even in Spitzer's view. The Spitzer image contains data from both its infrared array camera and multi-band imaging photometer. Light with a wavelength of 3.6 microns has been color-coded blue; 4.5-micron light is blue-green; 5.8-mic

This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows what lies near the sword of the constellation Orion -- an active stellar nursery containing thousands of young stars and developing protostars. Many will turn out like our sun. Some are even more massive. These massive stars light up the Orion nebula, which is seen here as the bright region near the center of the image.

The Carina Nebula is a star-forming region in the Sagittarius-Carina arm of the Milky Way that is 7,500 light years from Earth and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory has detected more than 14,000 stars in the region. Chandra's X-ray vision provides strong evidence that massive stars have self-destructed in this nearby star-forming region. Firstly, there is an observed deficit of bright X-ray sources in the area known as Trumpler 15, suggesting that some of the massive stars in this cluster were already destroyed in supernova explosions. Trumpler 15 is located in the northern part of the image and is one of ten star clusters in the Carina complex. The detection of six possible neutron stars, the dense cores often left behind after stars explode in supernovas, provides additional evidence that supernova activity is increasing up in Carina. Previous observations had only detected one neutron star in Carina.

G299.2-2.9 is an intriguing supernova remnant found about 16,000 light years away in the Milky Way galaxy. Evidence points to G299.2-2.9 being the remains of a Type Ia supernova, where a white dwarf has grown sufficiently massive to cause a thermonuclear explosion. Because it is older than most supernova remnants caused by these explosions, at an age of about 4,500 years, G299.2-2.9 provides astronomers with an excellent opportunity to study how these objects evolve over time. It also provides a probe of the Type Ia supernova explosion that produced this structure. This composite image shows G299.2-2.9 in X-ray light from Chandra and the ROSAT satellite, in orange, that has been overlaid on an infrared image from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey, or 2MASS. The faint X-ray emission from the inner region reveals relatively large amounts of iron and silicon, as expected for a remnant of a Type Ia supernova. The outer shell of the remnant is complex, with at least a doubl

This image of galaxy cluster MACS J1206.2-0847 (or MACS 1206 for short) is part of a broad survey with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The distorted shapes in the cluster are distant galaxies from which the light is bent by the gravitational pull of an invisible material called dark matter within the cluster of galaxies. This cluster is an early target in a survey that will allow astronomers to construct the most detailed dark matter maps of more galaxy clusters than ever before. These maps are being used to test previous, but surprising, results that suggest that dark matter is more densely packed inside clusters than some models predict. This might mean that galaxy cluster assembly began earlier than commonly thought. The multi-wavelength survey, called the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH), probes, with unparalleled precision, the distribution of dark matter in 25 massive clusters of galaxies. So far, the CLASH team has completed observa

Left: This is an image of the star HR 8799 taken by Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) in 1998. A mask within the camera (coronagraph) blocks most of the light from the star. In addition, software has been used to digitally subtract more starlight. Nevertheless, scattered light from HR 8799 dominates the image, obscuring any details. Center: Recent, sophisticated software processing of the NICMOS data removes most of the scattered starlight to reveal three planets orbiting HR 8799. The positions of these planets coincide with orbits of planets observed by ground-based telescopes in 2007 and 2008. Right: This is an illustration of the HR 8799 exoplanet system based on the reanalysis of Hubble NICMOS data and ground-based observations. The positions of the star and the orbits of the four known planets are shown schematically. The size of the dots is not to scale with their true size. The three outermost planets, a, b, a

This full view of the giant asteroid Vesta was taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, as part of a rotation characterization sequence on July 24, 2011, at a distance of 3,200 miles (5,200 kilometers). A rotation characterization sequence helps the scientists and engineers by giving an initial overview of the character of the surface as Vesta rotated underneath the spacecraft. This view of Vesta shows impact craters of various sizes and grooves parallel to the equator. The resolution of this image is about 500 meters per pixel.

Using a precision formation-flying technique, the twin GRAIL spacecraft will map the moon's gravity field, as depicted in this artist's rendering. Radio signals traveling between the two spacecraft provide scientists the exact measurements required as well as flow of information not interrupted when the spacecraft are at the lunar farside, not seen from Earth. The result should be the most accurate gravity map of the moon ever made. The mission also will answer longstanding questions about Earth's moon, including the size of a possible inner core, and it should provide scientists with a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed. GRAIL is a part of NASA's Discovery Program.

This image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, highlights the dust that speckles the Andromeda galaxy's spiral arms. It shows light seen by the longest-wavelength infrared detectors on WISE (12-micron light has been color coded orange, and 22-micron light, red). The hot dust, which is being heated by newborn stars, traces the spidery arms all the way to the center of the galaxy. Telltale signs of young stars can also be seen in the centers of Andromeda's smaller companion galaxies, M32 and M110. Andromeda, also called M31, is 2.5 million light-years away, and is the nearest large neighbor to our Milky Way galaxy.

This image of spiral galaxy NGC 6744 from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is a mosaic of frames covering an area three full moons tall and three full moons wide (1.56 by 1.56 degrees). It is located in a constellation in the southern sky, Pavo, which is Latin for peacock. There are relatively few large spiral galaxies in the local universe (within about 40 million light-years of our Local Group of galaxies). NGC 6744 is about 30 million light-years away and, compared to other local galaxies, is very similar to our Milky Way galaxy. In fact, if there are observers somewhere in this sibling galaxy looking back at the Milky Way, they might see a very similar image. The galaxy's disk is about 175,000 light-years across, which is larger than the Milky Way's disk, making NGC 6744 kind of like the Milky Way's big brother. It has an elongated, or barred, core and distinct spiral arms. The spiral arms of the disk are the sites of star formati

A new image taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WISE) shows the Rosette nebula located within the constellation Monoceros, or the Unicorn. This flower-shaped nebula, also known by the less romantic name NGC 2237, is a huge star-forming cloud of dust and gas in our Milky Way galaxy. Estimates of the nebula's distance vary from 4,500 to 5,000 light-years away.

There's something special going on in the nearby Circinus galaxy, as revealed by this image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The Circinus galaxy is located in the constellation of Circinus and is obscured by the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. At a distance of 14 million light-years, it is one of the nearest galaxies, yet is largely unexplored because the Milky Way veils it. There are so many stars and so much dust from our own galaxy obscuring the Circinus galaxy. In fact, this galaxy has two extended spiral arms, which look like a great green "S" in this WISE image. These arms had not been seen until NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and WISE observed them. The infrared wavelengths of light detected by these observatories pierce through the foreground dust of the Milky Way, revealing aspects of the special nature of the Circinus galaxy. At the center of the "S," the core of the Circinus galaxy glows intensely in l

NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, is a little like the Vincent van Gogh of the infrared sky. Just like the famous Impressionist painter created beautiful images of nature through use of color and light, WISE has provided the world with picturesque images of the cosmos by representing infrared light through color. This image of the nebula NGC 2174, on the border of the Gemini and Orion constellations, is a perfect example. The colors in this image may look like brush strokes of paint but actually represent specific wavelengths of infrared light. Particles of interstellar dust are warmed by the star cluster in the center of the nebula, and glow in wavelengths of 12 and 22-microns, which WISE represents by the colors green and red. The blue and cyan (blue-green) stars scattered throughout the “canvas” of the image are hot compared to the dust, and emit light at 3.4 and 4.6 microns. Affectionately called the “Monkey nebula” by some, NGC2174 is a clou

Scientists think that a giant asteroid, which broke up long ago in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, eventually made its way to Earth and led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Data from NASA's WISE mission likely rules out the leading suspect, a member of a family of asteroids called Baptistina, so the search for the origins of the dinosaur-killing asteroid goes on. This artist's concept shows a broken-up asteroid.

Flaring Black Hole This artist's concept illustrates what the flaring black hole called GX 339-4 might look like. Infrared observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) reveal the best information yet on the chaotic and extreme environments of this black hole's jets. GX 339-4 likely formed from a star that exploded. It is surrounded by an accretion disk (red) of material being pulled onto the black hole from a neighboring star (yellow orb). Some of this material is shot away in the form of jets (yellow flows above and below the disk). The region close in to the black hole glows brightly in infrared light.

NASA is planning an Oct. 27 launch of the first Earth-observing satellite to measure both global climate changes and key weather variables. The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) is the first mission designed to collect critical data to improve weather forecasts in the short-term and increase our understanding of long-term climate change. NPP continues observations of Earth from space that NASA has pioneered for more than 40 years. NPP's five science instruments, including four new state-of-the-art sensors, will provide scientists with data to extend more than 30 key long-term datasets. These records, which range from the ozone layer and land cover to atmospheric temperatures and ice cover, are critical for global change science. "NPP's observations of a wide range of interconnected Earth properties and processes will give us the big picture of how our planet changes," said Jim

Cambridge, MA - Astronomers have discovered the darkest known exoplanet - a distant, Jupiter-sized gas giant known as TrES-2b. Their measurements show that TrES-2b reflects less than one percent of the sunlight falling on it, making it blacker than coal or any planet or moon in our solar system. "By combining the impressive precision from Kepler with observations of over 50 orbits, we detected the smallest-ever change in brightness from an exoplanet: just 6 parts per million," said astronomer David Kipping of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). "In other words, Kepler was able to directly detect visible light coming from the planet itself."

The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA's Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet -- a planet orbiting two stars -- 200 light-years from Earth. Unlike Star Wars’ Tatooine, the planet is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor life, but its discovery demonstrates the diversity of planets in our galaxy. Previous research has hinted at the existence of circumbinary planets, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Kepler detected such a planet, known as Kepler-16b, by observing transits, where the brightness of a parent star dims from the planet crossing in front of it. "This discovery confirms a new class of planetary systems that could harbor life," Kepler principal investigator William Borucki said. "Given that most stars in our galaxy are part of a binary system, this means the opportunities for life are much broader

A team of researchers led by Bill Cochran, senior research scientist with the University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory and co-investigator on NASA's Kepler Mission, used data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft to discover an unusual multiple-planet system containing a super-Earth and two Neptune-sized planets orbiting in resonance with each other. The findings were announced today in Nantes, France, at a joint meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Science and the European Planetary Science Conference. The research will be published in a special Kepler issue of the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series in November.

On Oct. 4, 1957, Sputnik 1 successfully launched and entered Earth's orbit. Thus, began the space age. The successful launch shocked the world, giving the former Soviet Union the distinction of putting the first human-made object into space. The word 'Sputnik' originally meant 'fellow traveler,' but has become synonymous with 'satellite' in modern Russian. This historic image shows a technician putting the finishing touches on Sputnik 1, humanity's first artificial satellite. The pressurized sphere made of aluminum alloy had five primary scientific objectives: Test the method of placing an artificial satellite into Earth orbit; provide information on the density of the atmosphere by calculating its lifetime in orbit; test radio and optical methods of orbital tracking; determine the effects of radio wave propagation though the atmosphere; and, check principles of pressurization used on the satellites.

This composite image, created using data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Spitzer Space Telescope, shows the molecular cloud Cepheus B, located in our galaxy about 2,400 light years from the Earth. A molecular cloud is a region containing cool interstellar gas and dust left over from the formation of the galaxy and mostly contains molecular hydrogen. The Spitzer data, in red, green and blue shows the molecular cloud (in the bottom part of the image) plus young stars in and around Cepheus B, and the Chandra data in violet shows the young stars in the field. The Chandra observations allowed the astronomers to pick out young stars within and near Cepheus B, identified by their strong X-ray emission. The Spitzer data showed whether the young stars have a so-called "protoplanetary" disk around them. Such disks only exist in very young systems where planets are still forming, so their presence is an indication of the age of a star system. These data pro

  This NASA Hubble Space Telescope infrared mosaic image represents the sharpest survey of the Galactic Center to date. It reveals a new population of massive stars and new details in complex structures in the hot ionized gas swirling around the central 300 x 115 light-years. This sweeping infrared panorama offers a nearby laboratory for how massive stars form and influence their environment in the often violent nuclear regions of other galaxies. The infrared mosaic was taken with Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS). The Galactic core is obscured in visible light by dust clouds, which infrared light can penetrate. The new NICMOS data show the glow from ionized hydrogen gas as well as a multitude of stars. NICMOS shows a large number of these massive stars distributed throughout the region. A new finding is that astronomers now see that the massive stars are not confined to one of the three known clusters of massive stars in the Ga

Looking like a pair of eyeglasses only a rock star would wear, this nebula brings into focus a murky region of star formation. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope exposes the depths of this dusty nebula with its infrared vision, showing stellar infants that are lost behind dark clouds when viewed in visible light. Best known as Messier 78, the two round greenish nebulae are actually cavities carved out of the surrounding dark dust clouds. The extended dust is mostly dark, even to Spitzer's view, but the edges show up in mid-wavelength infrared light as glowing, red frames surrounding the bright interiors. Messier 78 is easily seen in small telescopes in the constellation of Orion, just to the northeast of Orion's belt, but looks strikingly different, with dominant, dark swaths of dust. Spitzer's infrared eyes penetrate this dust, revealing the glowing interior of the nebulae. A string of baby stars that have yet to burn their way through their natal shel

These images show Mercury and the nearside of the Moon at their correct relative brightness. On average, the surface of Mercury is about 15% darker at visible wavelengths than is the nearside of the Moon. This is perplexing to planetary scientists because Mercury's surface is lower in iron, the element in lunar rocks that contributes most to absorbing light. MESSENGER observations will help to solve this puzzle.

  This graphical representation of the Orion crew module is from one of a series of student-produced videos. › View the Orion overview piece developed by NASA’s interns. Cleveland State University graduates Adina Feigenbaum and Nick Matej. Recent Cleveland State University graduates Adina Feigenbaum and Nick Matej were tapped by NASA’s Glenn Research Center to design an exciting new look into the Orion spacecraft, the agency’s deep space exploration vehicle. During an 11-week intern program, Adina and Nick focused on the difficult task of translating extensive technical information and acronyms into entertaining and educational animations that can be easily understood by a new generation of space explorers. These new designs will give an engaging look at NASA’s new focus on deep space exploration following the retirement of the historic Space Shuttle Program. Possessing a variety of different skills, each student chose a different product in which to fo

Gene Kranz (foreground, back to camera), an Apollo 13 Flight Director, watches Apollo 13 astronaut and lunar module pilot Fred Haise onscreen in the Mission Operations Control Room, during the mission's fourth television transmission on the evening of April 13, 1970. Shortly after the transmission, an explosion occurred that ended any hope of a lunar landing and jeopardized the lives of the crew.