Image (Credit): The launch of the CRS-19 resupply mission to the ISS on Thursday, November 9. (NASA)
Yesterday, NASA sent another resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. It will not rendezvous with the ISS until early Saturday morning (no sleeping in for the crew).
This mission, CRS-29, will be SpaceX’s 29th supply mission to the ISS. The next most frequent resupplier is Northrop Grumman, which has sent 19 resupply missions to the ISS.
If you are interested in the material being brought to the station, NASA discusses some of the contents here.
You can also follow the progress of the latest mission here.
Astronomer Carl Sagan was born on this day in 1934. It is always worth taking a few moments to remember his contributions to science as a great communicator. You can read more about the man at this informative site from the Center for Inquiry.
Euclid shows us a spectacularly panoramic and detailed view of the Horsehead Nebula, also known as Barnard 33 and part of the constellation Orion. In Euclid’s new observation of this stellar nursery, scientists hope to find many dim and previously unseen Jupiter-mass planets in their celestial infancy, as well as young brown dwarfs and baby stars.
What kind of ambassador, you ask? Well, NASA is looking for what are called “Partner Eclipse Ambassadors.” Volunteers for this position will assist NASA as it prepares communities for the April 2024 solar eclipse.
NASA promises the following to support volunteer ambassadors:
A supportive network of enthusiasts who regularly share eclipse support;
A partner in your community (each partnership consists of an undergraduate and an eclipse enthusiast);
Materials including solar viewing glasses, activities, handouts, and more;
Connections to local community centers reaching underserved audiences;
Regular social hours and presentations from experts in eclipses and communication; and
Opportunities to continue your journey with NASA through collaborations with partners in heliophysics, education, and communication.
You have plenty of time to prepare for this event, so check it out. You can get all of the details at this link.
Four thousand Martian days after setting its wheels in Gale Crater on Aug. 5, 2012, NASA’s Curiosity rover remains busy conducting exciting science. The rover recently drilled its 39th sample then dropped the pulverized rock into its belly for detailed analysis. To study whether ancient Mars had the conditions to support microbial life, the rover has been gradually ascending the base of 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) Mount Sharp, whose layers formed in different periods of Martian history and offer a record of how the planet’s climate changed over time.
Things may not have ended well for dinosaurs on Earth, but Cornell University astronomers say the “light fingerprint” of the conditions that enabled them to emerge here provide a crucial missing piece in our search for signs of life on planets orbiting alien stars.Their analysis of the most recent 540 million years of Earth’s evolution, known as the Phanerozoic Eon, finds that telescopes could better detect potential chemical signatures of life in the atmosphere of an Earth-like exoplanet more closely resembling the age the dinosaurs inhabited than the one we know today.
Jupiter, by far the biggest planet in our solar system, plays an important protective role. Its enormous gravitational field deflects comets and asteroids that might otherwise hit Earth, helping create a stable environment for life. However, giant planets elsewhere in the universe do not necessarily protect life on their smaller, rocky planet neighbors. A new Astronomical Journal paper details how the pull of massive planets in a nearby star system are likely to toss their Earth-like neighbors out of the “habitable zone.” This zone is defined as the range of distances from a star that are warm enough for liquid water to exist on a planet’s surface, making life possible.
Our Awesome Universe 