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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Viewing Martian Moon Orbiting the Red Planet

    July 21, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    While photographing Mars, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured a cameo appearance of the tiny moon Phobos on its trek around the Red Planet. Discovered in 1877, the diminutive, potato-shaped moon is so small that it appears star-like in the Hubble pictures. Phobos orbits Mars in just 7 hours and 39 minutes, which is faster than Mars rotates. The moon's orbit is very slowly shrinking, meaning it will eventually shatter under Mars' gravitational pull, or crash onto the planet. Hubble took 13 separate exposures over 22 minutes. Credit: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levay (STScI)

    While photographing Mars, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured a cameo appearance of the tiny moon Phobos on its trek around the Red Planet. Discovered in 1877, the diminutive, potato-shaped moon is so small that it appears star-like in the Hubble pictures. Phobos orbits Mars in just 7 hours and 39 minutes, which is faster than Mars rotates. The moon’s orbit is very slowly shrinking, meaning it will eventually shatter under Mars’ gravitational pull, or crash onto the planet. Hubble took 13 separate exposures over 22 minutes. Credit: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levay (STScI)

     
    The sharp eye of Hubble Space Telescope has captured the tiny moon Phobos during its orbital trek around Mars. Because the moon is so small, it appears star-like in the Hubble pictures...
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    High-energy trap in our galaxy’s center, revealed by gamma-ray telescopes 

    July 20, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An illustration of NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope orbiting Earth. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

    An illustration of NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope orbiting Earth. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

    The center of our Milky Way contains a ‘trap’ that concentrates some of the highest-energy cosmic rays, among the fastest particles in the galaxy, a combined analysis of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the High Energy Stereoscopic System, a ground-based observatory in Namibia, suggests.

    “Our results suggest that most of the cosmic rays populating the innermost region of our galaxy, and especially the most energetic ones, are produced in active regions beyond the galactic center and later slowed there through interactions with gas clouds,” said lead author Daniele Gaggero at the University of Amsterdam...

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    Ancient, massive c could explain Martian geological mysteries

    July 20, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A global false-color topographic view of Mars from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) experiment. The spatial resolution is about 15 kilometers at the equator and less at higher latitudes, with a vertical accuracy of less than 5 meters. The figure illustrates topographic features associated with resurfacing of the northern hemisphere lowlands in the vicinity of the Utopia impact basin (at the near-center of the image in blue). Credit: MOLA Science Team

    A global false-color topographic view of Mars from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) experiment. The spatial resolution is about 15 kilometers at the equator and less at higher latitudes, with a vertical accuracy of less than 5 meters. The figure illustrates topographic features associated with resurfacing of the northern hemisphere lowlands in the vicinity of the Utopia impact basin (at the near-center of the image in blue). Credit: MOLA Science Team

    A colossal impact with a large asteroid early in Mars’ history may have ripped off a chunk of the northern hemisphere and left behind a legacy of metallic elements in the planet’s interior. The crash also created a ring of rocky debris around Mars that may have later clumped together to form its moons, Phobos and Deimos.

    The origin and ...

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    NASA Neutron Star mission begins Science Operations

    July 19, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This time-lapse animation shows NICER being extracted from the SpaceX Dragon trunk on June 11, 2017. Credit: NASA

    This time-lapse animation shows NICER being extracted from the SpaceX Dragon trunk on June 11, 2017. Credit: NASA

    NASA’s new Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) mission to study the densest observable objects in the universe has begun science operations. Launched June 3 on an 18-month baseline mission, NICER will help scientists understand the nature of the densest stable form of matter located deep in the cores of neutron stars using X-ray measurements.

    NICER operates around the clock on the International Space Station (ISS). In the two weeks following launch, NICER underwent extraction from the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, robotic installation on ExPRESS Logistics Carrier 2 on board ISS and initial deployment...

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