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    Category Astronomy/Space

    NASA Aeronautics Combines Past, Present and Future in 2015: celebrating a century of innovation

    December 30, 2015, Categories  Technology/Electronics, Astronomy/Space, Environment/Geology

    The Boeing ecoDemonstrator 757 flight test airplane, makes a final approach to King County Field in Seattle, WA.

    Two experiments that could reduce aviation’s impact on the environment flew aboard the Boeing ecoDemonstrator 757 flight test aircraft in 2015. Credits: Boeing / John D. Parker

    Did you know NASA is with you when you fly? Here’s their 2015 aeronautics innovations incl. making air travel more fuel efficient, less harmful to the environment and much quieter, all the while enabling the skies to safely handle unprecedented growth in global air traffic that will increasingly include unmanned aircraft systems.

    Within NASA, this work – in labs, workshops and wind tunnels throughout the nation, often in partnership with other federal agencies, industry and academia – is managed in D.C. by Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, ARMD...

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    James Webb Space Telescope Mirror Halfway Complete

    December 29, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    James Webb Space Telescope mirror halfway complete

    This rare overhead shot of the James Webb Space Telescope shows the nine primary flight mirrors installed on the telescope structure in a clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Gunn

    Inside NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s massive clean room in Greenbelt, Maryland, the 9th flight mirror was installed onto the telescope structure with a robotic arm. This marks the halfway completion point for the James Webb Space Telescope’s segmented primary mirror. The James Webb Space Telescope team has been working tirelessly to install all 18 of Webb’s mirror segments onto the telescope structure.

    In these NASA images, the engineering team is seen using a robotic arm to lift and lower the hexagonal-shaped segment that...

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    Magnetic Fields in Powerful Radio Jets

    December 28, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Magnetic Fields in Powerful Radio Jets

    X-ray jets from the galaxy Pictoris A. The greyscale image was taken by the Chandra X-ray Observatory and reveals the detailed X-ray structure of the jets, which extend over nearly one million light-years. The red contours show the radio emission. Astronomers analyzing these and other data have concluded that the X-ray emission is produced by rapidly moving charged particles in magnetic fields. Credit: NASA/Chandra, Hardcastle et al.

    Super-massive black holes at the centers of galaxies can spawn tremendous bipolar jets when matter in the vicinity forms a hot, accreting disk around the black hole. The rapidly moving charged particles in the jets radiate when they are deflected by magnetic fields; these jets were discovered at radio wavelengths several decades ago...

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    Image: For the 1st time ever, a Curiosity Mastcam Self-portrait from Mars

    December 28, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Image: For the first time ever, a Curiosity Mastcam self-portrait from Mars

    Curiosity took the photos for this panorama shortly after arriving at the lee face of Namib dune, on sol 1197 (December 19, 2015). For the first time since landing on Mars, the panorama taken by the rover’s left Mastcam includes the entire deck of the rover, permitting a rover self-portrait. Since Mastcam is on the mast, the self-portrait does not include the rover mast, but, unlike previous self-portraits taken with the MAHLI camera, it does contain the arm. The deck was included to look for sand grains that may have been carried onto the deck of the rover from the sand dune. For a 360-degree virtual reality version of this panorama, visit Andrew Bodrov’s 360cities page. Credit: NASA / JPL / MSSS / Andrew Bodrov Read more at: http://phys...

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