NASA shared this image of NGC 2264, also known as the “Christmas Tree Cluster,” to brighten everyone’s holiday.
You can read more about this image on this NASA page. You will also find an animated version of the “Tree” on the same NASA page.
Merry Christmas to all!
NASA is sharing a 51-year old photo from Apollo 17 showing both the American flag placed on the lunar surface by the crew as well as their home planet. It is a great shot that gives us plenty to thing about as the U.S. plans a return to the moon (with at least one other national flag to be planted, as noted the other day by Vice President Harris).
Here is more on the image from NASA:
Fifty-one years ago, one of the Apollo 17 astronauts on the Moon took this close-up of the U.S. flag they deployed with the Earth visible in the distance.
The lunar module crew spent 75 hours on the lunar surface, deploying a U.S. flag early in EVA-1 — their mission’s first walk on the Moon. This particular flag had flown in the Mission Operations Control Room (MOCR) in Houston during Apollo and was noticeably larger than the flags deployed on the previous missions.
You may notice the support rod in the top part of the flag. The support rod ensured that the flag was extended and visible in photographs, despite there being no wind on the lunar surface to make the flag wave.
Six U.S. flags in total were planted on the lunar surface, one during each Apollo mission. Experts believe it’s highly unlikely the Apollo flags could have endured the decades of exposure to vacuum, temperature swings from 242 °F (117 °C) during the day to -280 °F (-173 °C) during the night, micrometeorites, radiation, and ultraviolet light.
While the flags are likely no longer there, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imagery taken decades later showed that the flagpoles were still standing and casting shadows.
SpaceX and NASA are trying to get ready for the third launch of the Starship, a key component of the Artemis program. Yet some parties here are Earth are still steamed about the April 2023 Starship launch that spread debris at the Texas rocket site.
A group of organizations – the Center for Biological Diversity, American Bird Conservancy, Surfrider Foundation, Save RGV and the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, Inc. – have filed additional legal claims against the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The group’s main concerns, outlined in a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity, are:
Mary Angela Branch, board member at Save RGV, stated;
Approving a massive rocket test launch facility only steps from our state park and national wildlife refuge is unconscionable…This failed launch shows the extent of damage, not just to our wildlife and sensitive eco-system, but to our residential, recreational and tourist communities. The noise, debris, vibrations and explosion proved far too extreme to not be given full environmental assessment by the FAA and Fish and Wildlife Service. Failure to do so is pure negligence and exhibits a blatant disregard for our community life.
This may further slow down efforts to get the Starship testing back on track.
Many have already noted how dumb the first launch was with no provisions for the rocket exhaust. It set a bad precedent that will hang over the Starship launches as long as they continue in Texas.
“It is essential for the integrity of the United States space program to ensure that the development and production of the space systems that will transport astronauts is conducted in a manner that prioritizes safety…The Safety and Health provision in the contract requires SpaceX to comply with standard industry practices, applicable laws, and other relevant provisions of the contract, such as the requirement to maintain a drug-free workplace.”
-Statement by NASA’s Associate Administrator William Gerstenmaier in a letter to SpaceX back in September 2018, as noted in a recent article in Business Insider. The reporter was not able the results of this expensive audit, but noted that Mr. Gerstenmaier later left NASA and joined SpaceX. Nothing to see here, folks.
This week’s image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope is both violent yet beautiful. It is also NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day for today.
Here are some details about the image from NASA:
Massive stars in our Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular lives. Collapsing from vast cosmic clouds, their nuclear furnaces ignite and create heavy elements in their cores. After only a few million years for the most massive stars, the enriched material is blasted back into interstellar space where star formation can begin anew. The expanding debris cloud known as Cassiopeia A is an example of this final phase of the stellar life cycle. Light from the supernova explosion that created this remnant would have been first seen in planet Earth’s sky about 350 years ago, although it took that light 11,000 years to reach us. This sharp NIRCam image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the still hot filaments and knots in the supernova remnant. The whitish, smoke-like outer shell of the expanding blast wave is about 20 light-years across. Light echoes from the massive star’s cataclysmic explosion are also identified in Webb’s detailed image of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A.
