Pic of the Week: Blue Ring Around the Crater

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Martian crater. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

This week’s image may appear to be a mining pit in Arizona, but in fact it is a crater in Mar’s southern hemisphere. The blue dust near the top of the crater’s rim is frozen carbon dioxide. The image was taken from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment.

Here is more information about the image from NASA:

Every winter, a layer of carbon dioxide frost (dry ice) forms on the surface of Mars. At its greatest extent in mid-winter, this frost reaches from the poles down to the middle latitudes, until it is too warm and sunny to persist. In most places this is around 50 degrees latitude, similar to the latitude of southern Canada on Earth.

However, small patches of dry ice are found closer to the equator on pole-facing slopes, which are colder because they receive less sunlight. This image was taken in the middle of winter in Mars’ Southern Hemisphere, and shows a crater near 37 degrees south latitude. The south-facing slope has patchy bright frost, blue in enhanced color. This frost occurs in and around the many gullies on the slope, and in other images, has caused flows in the gullies.

Pic of the Week: Orbital Sunrise

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): SpaceX Dragon capsule approaching the ISS. (NASA)

This week’s image is from the International Space Station (ISS) as it awaits incoming cargo from an uncrewed SpaceX Dragon capsule approaching the station on July 16th. NASA noted that what we are seeing is an orbital sunrise above the Pacific Ocean.

NASA also highlighted the various experiments aboard the Dragon that will be added to the station, including one on extraterrestrial concrete:

Biopolymer Research for In-Situ Capabilities looks at how microgravity affects the process of creating a concrete alternative made with an organic material and on-site materials, such as lunar or Martian dust, known as a biopolymer soil composite. Using resources available where construction takes place makes it possible to increase the amount of shielding.

Pic of the Week: The Carina Nebula

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Carina Nebula as captured by the JWST. (NASA)

This week’s image is an amazing view of the Carina Nebula from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It is one of the first images released by NASA this week. More of the early images are available here.

Here is NASA’s description of what you are seeing in this image:

This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth.

Called the Cosmic Cliffs, Webb’s seemingly three-dimensional picture looks like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening. In reality, it is the edge of the giant, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, and the tallest “peaks” in this image are about 7 light-years high. The cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located in the center of the bubble, above the area shown in this image.

I look forward to posting more such images as they are released.

Pic of the Week: The Durable Hubble

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA/ESA)

This week’s image is the Hubble Space Telescope, still going strong after more than 32 years. It left the Space Shuttle Discovery’s cargo bay on April 25, 1990. With all of the attention on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), it’s important to remember this dependable space telescope that brought us so many amazing images over the years, including those shown below.

Given the concern over the recent concerns about a micrometeroid impacting the JWST, let’s not forget that the Hubble had a few growing pains as well. Most importantly, it had to deal with a flawed mirror that required astronauts to visit the space telescope so they could add five pairs of corrective mirrors. More than three years had passed before the astronauts could make this correction. So the current issues with the JWST are pretty minor by comparison.

Image (Credit): The Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7635, located 8 000 light-years away. (NASA/ESA)
Image (Credit): A pillar of gas and clouds within the stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7500 light-years away in the southern constellation of Carina. (NASA/ESA).
Image (Credit): The planet Jupiter. (NASA/ESA)