“I have been interested in aviation for as long as I can remember. There are pictures of me at two years old and younger with my face pinned against the window, watching airplanes taxi around the airport. I had never not known that I wanted to be a pilot. The amazing engineering that goes into [airplanes], but certainly the freedom of flight is just spectacular. Being able to see the world from a different perspective is incredible, and getting to fly in space was the culmination of that, seeing the world from an entirely new vantage point.
“One thing that surprised me was how emotional the launch piece is, especially for a first-time flier. One, it’s the culmination of these lifehood dreams where it’s taken so long to get here, and you’re finally getting to launch to space, which so few people have the privilege to do. Then, for a long-duration mission, you’re leaving your family and kids behind, and there’s that emotion as well. So, all those things piled up, it just makes for an incredibly special experience, and it’s amazing because eight and a half minutes later, after that engine lights, you’re in space, and you look back on it.”
— Bob Hines, Astronaut, NASA’s Johnson Space Center
Image Credit: NASA / Kjell Lindgren Interviewer: NASA / Tahira Allen
This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features a pair of interacting galaxies called, NGC 5410 and UGC 8932/PGC 49896.
NASA/ESA/D. Bowen (Princeton University)/Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
A pair of small, interacting galaxies shine in this new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. The larger of the two galaxies is named NGC 5410 and was discovered in 1787 by British astronomer William Herschel. It spans 80,000 light-years across and has a bright white bar of stars at its center. It is also a spiral galaxy with a medium-sized nucleus and spread-out arms. NGC 5410 contains many young, blue star clusters, especially along its arms.
The smaller of the two galaxies is called UGC 8932 or PGC 49896 and has a diameter of 60,000 light-years. It has a bright blue bar of stars at its core, indicating that it contains younger stars. Its shape is irregular, likely due to distortions from NGC 5410’s gravitational pull.
The pair lies 180 million light-years away in the Canes Venatici constellation and can be seen from the northern hemisphere. Between the two galaxies lies a stream of stars, almost like a bridge, caused by their interaction.
Hubble imaged this galaxy in 2023 to examine if interactions between dwarf galaxies create reservoirs of particles that fuel star formation.
The galaxy NGC 3384 takes center stage in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image.
ESA/Hubble & NASA/B. Lehmer et al.
NGC 3384, visible in this image, has many of the characteristic features of so-called elliptical galaxies. Such galaxies glow diffusely, are rounded in shape, display few visible features, and rarely show signs of recent star formation. Instead, they are dominated by old, aging, and red-hued stars. This stands in contrast to the liveliness of spiral galaxies such as our home galaxy, the Milky Way, which possess significant populations of young, blue stars in spiral arms swirling around a bright core.
However, NGC 3384 also displays a hint of disc-like structure towards its center, in the form of a central ‘bar’ of stars. Many spirals also boast such a bar, the Milky Way included; galactic bars are thought to funnel material through and around a galaxy’s core, which helps maintain and fuel the activities and processes occurring there.
Perseverance Rover’s Entry, Descent and Landing Profile: This illustration shows the events that occur in the final minutes of the nearly seven-month journey that NASA’s Perseverance rover takes to Mars.
In honor of Ingenuity’s final flight on The Red Planet, learn from Dave Prosper about what it takes to land on Mars.
The Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter landed in Mars’s Jezero crater on February 18, 2021, NASA’s latest mission to explore the red planet. Landing on Mars is an incredibly difficult feat that has challenged engineers for decades: while missions like Curiosity have succeeded, its surface is littered with the wreckage of many failures as well. Why is landing on Mars so difficult?
Mars presents a unique problem to potential landers as it possesses a relatively large mass and a thin, but not insubstantial, atmosphere. The atmosphere is thick enough that spacecraft are stuffed inside a streamlined aeroshell sporting a protective heat shield to prevent burning up upon entry – but that same atmosphere is not thick enough to rely on parachutes alone for a safe landing, since they can’t catch sufficient air to slow down quickly enough. This is even worse for larger explorers like Perseverance, weighing in at 2,260 lbs (1,025 kg). Fortunately, engineers have crafted some ingenious landing methods over the decades to allow their spacecraft to survive what is called Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL).
Illustrations of the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) sequences for Viking in 1976,
NASA
The Viking landers touched down on Mars in 1976 using heat shields, parachutes, and retrorockets. Despite using large parachutes, the large Viking landers fired retrorockets at the end to land at a safe speed. This complex combination has been followed by almost every mission since, but subsequent missions have innovated in the landing segment. The 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission added airbags in conjunction with parachutes and retrorockets to safely bounce its way to a landing on the Martian surface. Then three sturdy “petals” ensured the lander was pushed into an upright position after landing on an ancient floodplain. The Opportunity and Spirit missions used a very similar method to place their rovers on the Martian surface in 2004. Phoenix (2008) and Insight (2018) actually utilized Viking-style landings.
Perseverance Rover’s Entry, Descent and Landing Profile: This illustration shows the events that occur in the final minutes of the nearly seven-month journey that NASA’s Perseverance rover takes to Mars.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
The large and heavy Curiosity rover required extra power at the end to safely land the car-sized rover, and so the daring “Sky Crane” deployment system was successfully used in 2012. After an initial descent using a massive heat shield and parachute, powerful retrorockets finished slowing down the spacecraft to about two miles per hour. The Sky Crane then safely lowered the rover down to the Martian surface using a strong cable. Its job done, the Sky Crane then flew off and crash-landed a safe distance away. Having proved the efficacy of the Sky Crane system, NASA used this same method to attempt a safe landing for Perseverance in February 2021!
From left to right, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, and Deputy Chief of Mission for the Embassy of Israel Eliav Benjamin, place wreaths at the Space Shuttle Columbia Memorial during a ceremony that was part of NASA’s Day of Remembrance, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. The wreaths were laid in memory of those men and women who lost their lives in the quest for space exploration.
NASA/Keegan Barber
In honor of the members of the NASA family who lost their lives while furthering the cause of exploration and discovery for the benefit all, the agency hosted its annual Day of Remembrance Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024. Traditionally held on the fourth Thursday in January each year, NASA Day of Remembrance commemorates the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia.
“Our annual Day of Remembrance honors the sacrifice of the NASA family who lost their lives in the pursuit of discovery,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “While it is a solemn day, we are forever thankful that our fallen heroes shared their spirt of exploration with NASA, our country, and the world. Today, and every day, we embrace NASA’s core value of safety as we expand our reach in the cosmos for the benefit of all humanity.”
