Apply to explore with Fly NASA!!!

NASA came up with an amazing idea. They encourage people to apply for working with them and become astronauts. Want a career that’ll take you full circle? Adventure. Commitment. Leadership. Achievement. These are the core values of NASA’s distinguished astronaut corps. They’re also the rewards of fulfilling work. The 21st century astronaut will serve on long-duration missions aboard the International Space Station – and future deep space missions. NASA is going places where there are no boundaries. Your unique talents and experiences can take you there too.Because NASA understands it is what makes us different that makes us successful as a nation, it seeks fresh perspectives to take us out of this world.
All U.S. civilians and active duty military personnel with a bachelor’s degree in engineering, science or math and three years of professional experience meet the requirements to apply to become the next highest class of astronaut candidates on Earth. Apply to explore with us. Fly NASA, where the sky is not the limit !!!

Voyage to Mars!

Florida,United States

NASA began a historic travel to Mars with the November 26 launch of the Mars Science Laboratory, which carries a car-sized rover named Curiosity. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard an Atlas V rocket occurred at 10:02 a.m. EST.

"We are very excited about sending the world's most advanced scientific laboratory to Mars," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "MSL will tell us critical things we need to know about Mars, and while it advances science, we'll be working on the capabilities for a human mission to the Red Planet and to other destinations where we've never been."

Three days ago I went to visit this location of NASA and I think was my best experience ever!

I really recommend it!

Solar Orbiter in 2017 !!!

On October 4, 2011, the European Space Agency announced it's two next science missions, including Solar Orbiter, a spacecraft geared to study the powerful influence of the sun. Solar Orbiter will be an ESA-led mission, with strong NASA contributions managed from Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Solar Orbiter will use multiple gravity assists from Venus to tilt its orbit until it can see the poles of the Sun, and that's never been done before," said Chris St. Cyr, NASA's project scientist for Solar Orbiter at Goddard. "A full view of the solar poles will help us understand how the sun's magnetic poles reverse direction every 11 years, causing giant eruptions and flares, called space weather, that can affect the rest of the solar system. The mission's launch is planned for 2017 from Cape Canaveral, Florida aboard a NASA provided launch vehicle. Solar Orbiter will be placed into an elliptical orbit around the sun. Its closest approach will be near the orbit of Mercury, 75% of the distance between Earth and the sun, around 21,000,000 miles away from the sun's surface. This is awesome!!!

Earth newest satellite!

 The Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder on board NASA's newest Earth-observing satellite, NPP, acquired its first measurements on November 8, 2011. The image shows the ATMS channel 18 data, which measures water vapor in the lower atmosphere. Tropical Storm Sean is visible in the data, as the patch of blue, in the Atlantic off the coast of the Southeastern United States. The data were processed at the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility in Suitland, Md.

"NPP data will improve our forecast skills out to 5 to 7 days in advance of extreme weather events, including hurricanes, and severe weather outbreaks," said Dr. Louis Uccellini, director of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction. "With NPP, our goal is to make the accurate forecasts achieved for this year’s events even better in the future." 

  

Solar Cycle

It was not until the first half of the 20th century that scientists began to understand what causes the sunspot cycle. Researchers determined that the sunspots were a magnetic phenomenon and that, indeed, the entire sun was magnetized with a north and a south magnetic pole just like a bar magnet. The comparison to a simple bar magnet ends there, however, as the sun's interior is constantly on the move. This cycle may peak in late 2013, or early 2014, and should reach a minimum around 2020, eventhough predictions about the sun's cycle are still quite uncertain. This has been the slowest sunspot cycle of the space age, which is the time frame during which we have the most detailed observations.

Asteroid 2005 YU55 near Earth!

Asteroid 2005 YU55 is one of about 8,500 near-Earth objects to be catalogued to date. What makes this space rock special is that its orbital path carries it safely past Earth within the moon's orbit in early November 2011. The trajectory of 2005 YU55 is well understood. At the point of closest approach, it will be no closer than 201,700 miles, or 0.85 the distance from the moon to Earth. The last time a space rock as big as 2005 YU55 came as close to Earth was in 1976, although astronomers did not know about the flyby at the time. The next known approach of an asteroid this large will be in 2028. This is really close if we take a look at this imagine!

Giant structure in Milky Way

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has unveiled a previously unseen structure centered in the Milky Way. The feature spans 50,000 light-years and may be the remnant of an eruption from a supersized black hole at the center of our galaxy.One possibility includes a particle jet from the supermassive black hole at the galactic center. In many other galaxies, astronomers see fast particle jets powered by matter falling toward a central black hole. While there is no evidence the Milky Way's black hole has such a jet today, it may have in the past. The bubbles also may have formed as a result of gas outflows from a burst of star formation, perhaps the one that produced many massive star clusters in the Milky Way's center several million years ago.

Ozone layer stretched to 10.05 million square miles

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration use balloon-borne instruments, ground-based instruments and satellites to monitor the annual Antarctic ozone hole, global levels of ozone in the stratosphere and the manmade chemicals that contribute to ozone depletion.
The Antarctic ozone hole, which yawns wide every Southern Hemisphere spring, reached its annual peak on Sept. 12. It stretched to 10.05 million square miles.

The ozone layer helps protect the planet's surface from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Ozone depletion results in more incoming radiation that can hit the surface, elevating the risk of skin cancer and other harmful effects.
"The manmade chemicals known to destroy ozone are slowly declining because of international action, but there are still large amounts of these chemicals doing damage," said James Butler, director of NOAA's Global Monitoring Division in Boulder, Colo.

Deterioration of Earth's Magnetosphere in 2012

Scientists have found two large leaks in Earth's magnetosphere, the region around our planet that shields us from severe solar storms. Now in 2012 the suns poles will reverse, during this time a massive solar storm will rack havoc on earth - usually this is no problem - but now due to the 'cracks' in it, Earth's protective Magnetosphere may fail us, so the violent solar and electromagnetic radiation will make it through and cause many problems to life as we know it (example: disabling communication satellites, mobile phones, effective sleep patterns, & radiation poisoning of humans). Also as earth has to absorb extra radiation & energy this will cause possible changes within the earth's core - with energy being re-dissipated from the earth with new volcanoes formed and crust movement.

 

People found water in the Universe!!!

Pasadena, California

Using data from the Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers have detected for the first time cold water vapor enveloping a dusty disk around a young star. The findings suggest that this disk, which is poised to develop into a solar system, contains great quantities of water, suggesting that water-covered planets like Earth may be common in the universe. Herschel is a European Space Agency mission with important NASA contributions. "Our observations of this cold vapor indicate enough water exists in the disk to fill thousands of Earth oceans," said astronomer Michiel Hogerheijde of Leiden Observatory in The Netherlands. So people found water in space. Imagine that there could develop life in the future? Is so interesting!!!

Why does Uranus rotate on its side?

Uranus is a strange planet. While all the other planets in the Solar System have their axis of rotation pointing “up” from the ecliptic plane, Uranus is lying on its side. The axial tilt is 98 degrees. This means that for very long periods, 42 years at a time, either its North or South Pole points directly at the Sun.Some scientists think that Uranus was the victim of a cosmic hit-and-run, but others believe there may be a more elegant way of describing the phenomenon. So what exactly happened to Uranus for having this strange configuration?

What is the shape of the Universe?

What do you think is the shape of the Universe? Is it round like a ball, flat like a sheet of paper or doubly curved like a western saddle? This may seem like a pretty abstract question. Our modern ideas of space and time come from Albert Einstein. Einstein's Theory of Relativity is a potent set of physics ideas that gives us a completely new view of the nature of space. It also turns out to be the principal piece of physics needed for cosmology. He, recognized that Space was not just emptiness but had its own separate reality. Space and time are a kind of "fabric" of reality and like any fabric they can stretch, bend and even fold. What do you think about this? J

What is a Supernova?

“Supernovae” occur when a giant star, one much bigger than our own Sun collapses upon itself and then explodes spectacularly, releasing in an instant

the Energy of a hundred billion suns, burning for a time brighter than all the

stars in its Galaxy.  If a Supernova exploded within five hundred light years of

us we would be annihilated instantaneously. That is why these Supernova can

be so hard to recognize, they are so distant that they appear when seen as a

twinkle in the night sky and for just a short period of time from hours to days

until they ultimately disappear. What makes them significant is that they

occupy a point in space that was dark and now suddenly has a point of light

emerging from it, that will last for just a short span of time.

How to build a Universe?

      An ATOM represents the smallest amount of a chemical that exists and still retains the properties and characteristics of that chemical. An atom is made up of three elementary particles: Protons (+), Neutrons and Electrons (-) and a # of sub-elementary particles that are derived from protons and neutrons. In order to build a “Universe” according to the latest theory you must: Begin with a Proton (+ electrical particle in the Nucleus of an Atom), 500 billion Protons can fit into the period at the end of a sentence, now shrink it down to one billionth of its original size and within the space of that Proton put an ounce of MATTER. This is how we begin to create an “Inflationary Universe”. To create a regular old-fashioned “Big Bang Universe” you will have to assemble all of the matter that can be found within the universe and pack it into a spot so small that it has no dimensions. Once you do that it becomes what is called a “Singularity”. The idea of the “Big Bang” for the creation of the Universe has now morphed into the Universe being described as “INFLATIONARY” rather than Big Bang.

1.Big Bang Universe = Not a classic explosion but rather a sudden “EXPANSION or INFLATION” from a Singularity.

2.“Inflationary Universe” = the creation of the Universe as a result of a sudden expansion at the Singularity ".

What is a black hole?

  A black hole is a region of space-time from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform space time to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizont that marks the point of no return. It is called "black" because it absorbs all the light that hits the horizon, reflecting nothing, just like a perfect black body in thermodynamics. Quantum mechanics predicts that black holes emit radiation like a black body with a finite temperature. This temperature is inversely proportional to the mass of the black hole, making it difficult to observe this radiation for black holes of stellar mass or greater. Black holes of stellar mass are expected to form when massive stars collapse in a supernova the end of their life cycle. After a black hole has formed it can continue to grow by absorbing mass from its surroundings. By absorbing other stars and merging with other black holes, supermassive black holes of millions of solar masses may be formed.

Do you know how many stars are in the Universe?

       A study by Yale astronomer Pieter van Dokkum just took the estimated number of stars in the universe. There are 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or 100 sextillion but tripled it. He came out with this news in 2010, a big interesting discovery for humanity.  Van Dokkum’s study in the journal "Nature"  focuses on red drafts, a class of small, cool stars. They’re so small and cool, in fact, that up to now astronomers haven’t been able to spot them in galaxies outside our own. That’s a serious holdup when you’re trying to account for all the stars there are.But here are some secondary implications in we take a better look: more stars means more opportunities for life!!! 

                       Do you think there is any type of life in the universe???

Aurora From Orbit September 17, 2011

As we all know, an aurora is a natural light display in the sky particularly in the high latitude like Arctic and Antarctic regions, caused by the collision of energetically charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere. The charged particles originate in the magnetosphere and solar wind and are directed by the Earth's magnetic field into the atmosphere.

This gorgeous view of the aurora was taken from the International Space Station as it crossed over the southern Indian Ocean on September 17, 2011. The sped-up movie spans the time period from 12:22 to 12:45 PM ET. 

NASA Announces Tweetup for Mars Rover Launch

In Pasadena, California, NASA will host a two-day launch Tweetup for 150 of its Twitter followers on November 23 and 25 at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This is expected to culminate in the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch window is scheduled to open at 7:21 a.m. PST (10:21 a.m. EST) on Nov. 25.The Tweetup will provide NASA's social media followers with the opportunity to tour Kennedy Space Center; speak with scientists and engineers; and, if all goes as scheduled, view the spacecraft launch. The event also will provide participants the opportunity to meet fellow tweeps and members of NASA's social media team.

How do you think everything started?

Three main observational results over the past century led astronomers to become convinced that the universe get started from a big explosion, named Big Bang. First they analyzed and found out that the separation between galaxies is getting larger and larger. Second, the abundance of helium and other nuclei like deuterium prove there was an explosion and third , astronomers observed the cosmic background radiation from every direction in the universe. This are the theories we use today to explain our beginning. But my question are: what do you think was before the Big Bang? Did the black matter existed forever? How do you thing looks the edge of our universe? This questions make me so curious and I would be so excited to hear interesting news from astronomers.

Hello!

I want to share with you few of the most important mysteries that composed our universe over the last 13,5 billion years.We will analyze and discuss the latest news about our sky, planet but also people. The universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exist, including all space, time, matter energy, planets, stars, galaxies, intergalactic space. I want to find a way of including every single step that brought us here ,from the Big Bang to the complex cells that are part of us.This blog will include Biology,Geology but also unsolved mysteries. :)

     
              Hope you will enjoy it !!! :)