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The Mark of a Dying Star
Title The Mark of a Dying Star
Description Six hundred and fifty light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, a dead star about the size of Earth, is refusing to fade away peacefully. In death, it is spewing out massive amounts of hot gas and intense ultraviolet radiation, creating a spectacular object called a "planetary nebula." In this false-color image, NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes have teamed up to capture the complex structure of the object, called the Helix nebula, in unprecedented detail. The composite picture is made up of visible data from Hubble and infrared data from Spitzer. The dead star, called a white dwarf, can be seen at the center of the image as a white dot. All of the colorful gaseous material seen in the image was once part of the central star, but was lost in the death throes of the star on its way to becoming a white dwarf. The intense ultraviolet radiation being released by the white dwarf is heating and destabilizing the molecules in its surrounding environment, starting from the inside out. Like an electric stovetop slowly heating up from the center first, the hottest and most unstable gas molecules can be seen at the center of the nebula as wisps of blue. The transition to more stable and cooler molecules is clearly depicted as the color of the gas changes from very hot (blue) to hot (yellow) and warm (red). A striking feature of the Helix, first revealed by ground-based images, is its collection of thousands of filamentary structures, or strands of gas. In this image the filaments can be seen under the transparent blue gas as red lines radiating out from the center. Astronomers believe that the molecules in these filaments are able to stay cooler and more stable because dense clumps of materials are shielding them from ultraviolet radiation. This image is a composite showing ionized H-alpha (green) and O III (blue) gases from the Hubble Space Telescope, and molecular hydrogen (red) from Spitzer observations at 4.5 and 8.0 microns.
The Mark of a Dying Star
Title The Mark of a Dying Star
Description Six hundred and fifty light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, a dead star about the size of Earth, is refusing to fade away peacefully. In death, it is spewing out massive amounts of hot gas and intense ultraviolet radiation, creating a spectacular object called a "planetary nebula." In this false-color image, NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes have teamed up to capture the complex structure of the object, called the Helix nebula, in unprecedented detail. The composite picture is made up of visible data from Hubble and infrared data from Spitzer. The dead star, called a white dwarf, can be seen at the center of the image as a white dot. All of the colorful gaseous material seen in the image was once part of the central star, but was lost in the death throes of the star on its way to becoming a white dwarf. The intense ultraviolet radiation being released by the white dwarf is heating and destabilizing the molecules in its surrounding environment, starting from the inside out. Like an electric stovetop slowly heating up from the center first, the hottest and most unstable gas molecules can be seen at the center of the nebula as wisps of blue. The transition to more stable and cooler molecules is clearly depicted as the color of the gas changes from very hot (blue) to hot (yellow) and warm (red). A striking feature of the Helix, first revealed by ground-based images, is its collection of thousands of filamentary structures, or strands of gas. In this image the filaments can be seen under the transparent blue gas as red lines radiating out from the center. Astronomers believe that the molecules in these filaments are able to stay cooler and more stable because dense clumps of materials are shielding them from ultraviolet radiation. This image is a composite showing ionized H-alpha (green) and O III (blue) gases from the Hubble Space Telescope, and molecular hydrogen (red) from Spitzer observations at 4.5 and 8.0 microns.
Comets Kick up Dust in Helix …
Title Comets Kick up Dust in Helix Nebula
Description This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Helix nebula, a cosmic starlet often photographed by amateur astronomers for its vivid colors and eerie resemblance to a giant eye. The nebula, located about 700 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, belongs to a class of objects called planetary nebulae. Discovered in the 18th century, these colorful beauties were named for their resemblance to gas-giant planets like Jupiter. Planetary nebulae are the remains of stars that once looked a lot like our sun. When sun-like stars die, they puff out their outer gaseous layers. These layers are heated by the hot core of the dead star, called a white dwarf, and shine with infrared and visible colors. Our own sun will blossom into a planetary nebula when it dies in about five billion years. In Spitzer's infrared view of the Helix nebula, the eye looks more like that of a green monster's. Infrared light from the outer gaseous layers is represented in blues and greens. The white dwarf is visible as a tiny white dot in the center of the picture. The red color in the middle of the eye denotes the final layers of gas blown out when the star died. The brighter red circle in the very center is the glow of a dusty disk circling the white dwarf (the disk itself is too small to be resolved). This dust, discovered by Spitzer's infrared heat-seeking vision, was most likely kicked up by comets that survived the death of their star. Before the star died, its comets and possibly planets would have orbited the star in an orderly fashion. But when the star blew off its outer layers, the icy bodies and outer planets would have been tossed about and into each other, resulting in an ongoing cosmic dust storm. Any inner planets in the system would have burned up or been swallowed as their dying star expanded. So far, the Helix nebula is one of only a few dead-star systems in which evidence for comet survivors has been found. This image is made up of data from Spitzer's infrared array camera and multiband imaging photometer. Blue shows infrared light of 3.6 to 4.5 microns, green shows infrared light of 5.8 to 8 microns, and red shows infrared light of 24 microns.
Comets Kick up Dust in Helix …
Title Comets Kick up Dust in Helix Nebula
Description This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Helix nebula, a cosmic starlet often photographed by amateur astronomers for its vivid colors and eerie resemblance to a giant eye. The nebula, located about 700 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, belongs to a class of objects called planetary nebulae. Discovered in the 18th century, these colorful beauties were named for their resemblance to gas-giant planets like Jupiter. Planetary nebulae are the remains of stars that once looked a lot like our sun. When sun-like stars die, they puff out their outer gaseous layers. These layers are heated by the hot core of the dead star, called a white dwarf, and shine with infrared and visible colors. Our own sun will blossom into a planetary nebula when it dies in about five billion years. In Spitzer's infrared view of the Helix nebula, the eye looks more like that of a green monster's. Infrared light from the outer gaseous layers is represented in blues and greens. The white dwarf is visible as a tiny white dot in the center of the picture. The red color in the middle of the eye denotes the final layers of gas blown out when the star died. The brighter red circle in the very center is the glow of a dusty disk circling the white dwarf (the disk itself is too small to be resolved). This dust, discovered by Spitzer's infrared heat-seeking vision, was most likely kicked up by comets that survived the death of their star. Before the star died, its comets and possibly planets would have orbited the star in an orderly fashion. But when the star blew off its outer layers, the icy bodies and outer planets would have been tossed about and into each other, resulting in an ongoing cosmic dust storm. Any inner planets in the system would have burned up or been swallowed as their dying star expanded. So far, the Helix nebula is one of only a few dead-star systems in which evidence for comet survivors has been found. This image is made up of data from Spitzer's infrared array camera and multiband imaging photometer. Blue shows infrared light of 3.6 to 4.5 microns, green shows infrared light of 5.8 to 8 microns, and red shows infrared light of 24 microns.
Multiple Generations of Star …
Title Multiple Generations of Stars in the Tarantula Nebula
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. In the most active starburst region in the local universe resides a cluster of brilliant, massive stars, known to astronomers as Hodge 301. Hodge 301, seen in the lower right hand corner of this image, lives inside the Tarantula Nebula, which resides in our galactic neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud. Many of the stars in Hodge 301 are so old that they have exploded as supernovae. These exploded stars are blasting material into the surrounding region at speeds of almost 200 miles per second. The high-speed matter is plowing into the surrounding Tarantula Nebula, shocking and compressing the gas into a multitude of sheets and filaments, seen in the upper left portion of the picture.
Hubble's Panoramic Portrait …
Title Hubble's Panoramic Portrait of a Vast Star-Forming Region
Hubble's Panoramic Portrait …
Title Hubble's Panoramic Portrait of a Vast Star-Forming Region
Hubble's Panoramic Portrait …
Title Hubble's Panoramic Portrait of a Vast Star-Forming Region
Gaseous Streamers Flutter in …
Title Gaseous Streamers Flutter in Stellar Breeze
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Gaseous Streamers Flutter in …
Title Gaseous Streamers Flutter in Stellar Breeze
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Gaseous Streamers Flutter in …
Title Gaseous Streamers Flutter in Stellar Breeze
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Hubble Photographs 'Double B …
Title Hubble Photographs 'Double Bubble' in Neighboring Galaxy
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Iridescent Glory of Nearby P …
Title Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day
Iridescent Glory of Nearby P …
Title Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day
Iridescent Glory of Nearby P …
Title Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day
Iridescent Glory of Nearby P …
Title Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day
Iridescent Glory of Nearby P …
Title Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day
Iridescent Glory of Nearby P …
Title Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day
Iridescent Glory of Nearby P …
Title Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day
Iridescent Glory of Nearby P …
Title Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day
Iridescent Glory of Nearby P …
Title Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day
Celestial Fireworks
Title Celestial Fireworks
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Astronomers Use Innovative T …
Title Astronomers Use Innovative Technique to Find Extrasolar Planet
Wispy Dust and Gas Paint Por …
Title Wispy Dust and Gas Paint Portrait of Starbirth
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. This active region of star formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), as photographed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, unveils wispy clouds of hydrogen and oxygen that swirl and mix with dust on a canvas of astronomical size. The LMC is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. This particular region within the LMC, referred to as N 180B, contains some of the brightest known star clusters. This image was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in 1998 using filters that isolate light emitted by hydrogen and oxygen gas.
Hubble Studies Generations o …
Title Hubble Studies Generations of Star Formation in Neighboring Galaxy
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Hubble Studies Generations o …
Title Hubble Studies Generations of Star Formation in Neighboring Galaxy
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Hubble Studies Generations o …
Title Hubble Studies Generations of Star Formation in Neighboring Galaxy
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Hubble Peers Inside a Celest …
Title Hubble Peers Inside a Celestial Geode
A New Twist on an Old Nebula
Title A New Twist on an Old Nebula
A New Twist on an Old Nebula
Title A New Twist on an Old Nebula
A New Twist on an Old Nebula
Title A New Twist on an Old Nebula
A New Twist on an Old Nebula
Title A New Twist on an Old Nebula
A New Twist on an Old Nebula
Title A New Twist on an Old Nebula
A New Twist on an Old Nebula
Title A New Twist on an Old Nebula
Supernova Remnant Menagerie
Title Supernova Remnant Menagerie
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Supernova Remnant Menagerie
Title Supernova Remnant Menagerie
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Supernova Remnant Menagerie
Title Supernova Remnant Menagerie
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Supernova Remnant Menagerie
Title Supernova Remnant Menagerie
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Supernova Remnant Menagerie
Title Supernova Remnant Menagerie
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Supernova Remnant Menagerie
Title Supernova Remnant Menagerie
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Astronomers Use Innovative T …
Title Astronomers Use Innovative Technique to Find Extrasolar Planet
Research pilot John Griffith …
Photo Description In this photo, NACA research pilot John Griffith is leaning out the hatch of the X-1 #2. Surrounding him (left to right) are Dick Payne, Eddie Edwards, and maintenance chief Clyde Bailey.
Project Description John Griffith became a research pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics's Muroc Flight Test Unit in August of 1949, shortly before the NACA unit became the High-Speed Flight Research Station (now, NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards, California). He flew the early experimental airplanes-the X-1, X-4, and D-558-1 and -2-flying the X-1 nine times, the X-4 three times, the D-558-1 fifteen times, and the D-558-2 nine times. He reached his top speed in the X-1 on 26 May 1950 when he achieved a speed of Mach 1.20. He was the first NACA pilot to fly the X-4. He left the NACA in 1950 to fly for Chance Vought in the F7U Cutlass. He then flew for United Airlines and for Westinghouse, where he became the Chief Engineering Test Pilot. He went on to work for the Federal Aviation Administration, assisting in the development of a supersonic transport before funding for that project ended. He then returned to United Airlines and worked as a flight instructor. John grew up in Homewood, Illinois, and attended Thornton Township Junior College in Harvey, Illinois, where he graduated as valedictorian in pre-engineering. He entered the Army Air Corps in November 1941, serving in the South Pacific during the Second World War that started soon after he joined. In 1942 and 1943 he flew 189 missions in the P-40 in New Guinea and was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses and four air medals. In October 1946, he left the service and studied aeronautical engineering at Purdue University, graduating with honors. He then joined the NACA at the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio (today's Glenn Research Center), where he participated in ramjet testing and icing research until moving to Muroc. Following his distinguished career, he retired to Penn Valley, California.
Photo Date November 8, 1950
Hurricane Katrina
Title Hurricane Katrina
Description Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. Images and movie courtesy of NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. Caption details provided by Clare Averill (Raytheon ITSS/Jet Propulsion Laboratory), David J. Diner, Mike Garay and Ralph Kahn (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and Greg McFarquhar (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)., MISR stereo-height estimates (not shown here) indicate that the highest clouds reach 18-19 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. The stereo anaglyph shows relative height variations and enhances the appearance of thin clouds, such as those that mark the series of gravity waves north-east of the eyewall. Atmospheric gravity waves are caused by air displacements in an otherwise stable air layer. In this case, the gravity waves are above the hurricane arms in the upper troposphere, and were probably generated as the towering storm updraft tried to push into the stable air between the troposphere and the stratosphere (known as the tropopause). Some of Katrina's cloud tops were about 2 kilometers above the tropopause. Such high "overshooting tops" are also characteristic of strong and rapidly growing storms. The animation progresses from MISR's most forward-pointing camera, which views the scene first, to the most backward-pointing camera, which views the scene last. It was created by aligning the views from all 9 cameras using the high clouds within the eyewall as a reference point. North is at the top. The convective cloud towers, especially those along the eastern sides of the inner and outer eyewalls, attain the highest altitudes and indicate that the storm is strengthening. Those areas that do not exhibit cloud-top convection are clouds experiencing vertical wind shear, and tend to be lower than the towering cloud structures. The vertical and horizontal development of the convective clouds and the formation of an outer ring of growing clouds (referred to as an "eyewall replacement cycle") also indicate rapid strengthening. During this stage of hurricane development, an outer band of clouds may gradually move inward to replace the existing hurricane eyewall, causing the central pressure to increase and weaken the storm in the short term. However, eyewall replacement may sometimes be a forerunner for rapid strengthening in the longer term. This was the case with Hurricane Katrina, whose central pressure increased slightly on Saturday, but then dropped again significantly on Sunday when Katrina became a Category 5 storm. Observing the development of a concentric eyewall at this spatial and temporal resolution is a unique feature of these MISR observations. The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer observes the daylit Earth continuously, viewing the entire globe between 82 degrees North and 82 degrees South latitude every nine days. The still images each cover an area of about 827 kilometers by 380 kilometers, and the animation covers an area of about 202 kilometers by 214 kilometers. The data products were generated from a portion of the imagery acquired during Terra orbit 30280 and utilize data from blocks 69 to 74 within World Reference System-2 path 17. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's, This image and animation from NASA's Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) show the strong convective development of Hurricane Katrina on Saturday, August 27, as it moved west through the Gulf of Mexico. Over 7 minutes during which all 9 MISR cameras viewed Katrina, the animation captures the cloud-top sides, the counterclockwise rotation of the eyewall, and the bubbling growth of the towering cloud structures. At this time, Katrina was undergoing rapid development— it had just been upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane, and within 24 hours it would reach Category 5. On Monday morning when the eyewall made landfall over the United States, it was a Category 4 storm. Hurricane Katrina was one of the most powerful and destructive storms on record for the Atlantic Basin. The image above is a false-color view (near-infrared, red, and blue wavelengths of reflected light displayed as red, green and blue) from MISR's nadir (pointing straight down) camera. In the image above, north is up. The high resolution image linked above shows a wider view of this false-color image, with north to the left. The vegetated Alabama coast in the upper left-hand corner in this high-resolution image appears in red hues. The bottom panel in the high-resolution image is a 3-D stereo anaglyph created with red band data from MISR's 70-degree-forward-viewing and 60-degree-forward-viewing cameras, displayed as red and green/blue, respectively. To observe the height variations in 3-D, you will need to use red/blue glasses. [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/Help/VendorList.html#Glasses ]
Hurricane Katrina
Title Hurricane Katrina
Description Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. Images and movie courtesy of NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. Caption details provided by Clare Averill (Raytheon ITSS/Jet Propulsion Laboratory), David J. Diner, Mike Garay and Ralph Kahn (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and Greg McFarquhar (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)., MISR stereo-height estimates (not shown here) indicate that the highest clouds reach 18-19 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. The stereo anaglyph shows relative height variations and enhances the appearance of thin clouds, such as those that mark the series of gravity waves north-east of the eyewall. Atmospheric gravity waves are caused by air displacements in an otherwise stable air layer. In this case, the gravity waves are above the hurricane arms in the upper troposphere, and were probably generated as the towering storm updraft tried to push into the stable air between the troposphere and the stratosphere (known as the tropopause). Some of Katrina's cloud tops were about 2 kilometers above the tropopause. Such high "overshooting tops" are also characteristic of strong and rapidly growing storms. The animation progresses from MISR's most forward-pointing camera, which views the scene first, to the most backward-pointing camera, which views the scene last. It was created by aligning the views from all 9 cameras using the high clouds within the eyewall as a reference point. North is at the top. The convective cloud towers, especially those along the eastern sides of the inner and outer eyewalls, attain the highest altitudes and indicate that the storm is strengthening. Those areas that do not exhibit cloud-top convection are clouds experiencing vertical wind shear, and tend to be lower than the towering cloud structures. The vertical and horizontal development of the convective clouds and the formation of an outer ring of growing clouds (referred to as an "eyewall replacement cycle") also indicate rapid strengthening. During this stage of hurricane development, an outer band of clouds may gradually move inward to replace the existing hurricane eyewall, causing the central pressure to increase and weaken the storm in the short term. However, eyewall replacement may sometimes be a forerunner for rapid strengthening in the longer term. This was the case with Hurricane Katrina, whose central pressure increased slightly on Saturday, but then dropped again significantly on Sunday when Katrina became a Category 5 storm. Observing the development of a concentric eyewall at this spatial and temporal resolution is a unique feature of these MISR observations. The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer observes the daylit Earth continuously, viewing the entire globe between 82 degrees North and 82 degrees South latitude every nine days. The still images each cover an area of about 827 kilometers by 380 kilometers, and the animation covers an area of about 202 kilometers by 214 kilometers. The data products were generated from a portion of the imagery acquired during Terra orbit 30280 and utilize data from blocks 69 to 74 within World Reference System-2 path 17. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's, This image and animation from NASA's Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) show the strong convective development of Hurricane Katrina on Saturday, August 27, as it moved west through the Gulf of Mexico. Over 7 minutes during which all 9 MISR cameras viewed Katrina, the animation captures the cloud-top sides, the counterclockwise rotation of the eyewall, and the bubbling growth of the towering cloud structures. At this time, Katrina was undergoing rapid development— it had just been upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane, and within 24 hours it would reach Category 5. On Monday morning when the eyewall made landfall over the United States, it was a Category 4 storm. Hurricane Katrina was one of the most powerful and destructive storms on record for the Atlantic Basin. The image above is a false-color view (near-infrared, red, and blue wavelengths of reflected light displayed as red, green and blue) from MISR's nadir (pointing straight down) camera. In the image above, north is up. The high resolution image linked above shows a wider view of this false-color image, with north to the left. The vegetated Alabama coast in the upper left-hand corner in this high-resolution image appears in red hues. The bottom panel in the high-resolution image is a 3-D stereo anaglyph created with red band data from MISR's 70-degree-forward-viewing and 60-degree-forward-viewing cameras, displayed as red and green/blue, respectively. To observe the height variations in 3-D, you will need to use red/blue glasses. [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/Help/VendorList.html#Glasses ]
Hurricane Katrina
Title Hurricane Katrina
Description Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. Images and movie courtesy of NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. Caption details provided by Clare Averill (Raytheon ITSS/Jet Propulsion Laboratory), David J. Diner, Mike Garay and Ralph Kahn (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and Greg McFarquhar (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)., MISR stereo-height estimates (not shown here) indicate that the highest clouds reach 18-19 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. The stereo anaglyph shows relative height variations and enhances the appearance of thin clouds, such as those that mark the series of gravity waves north-east of the eyewall. Atmospheric gravity waves are caused by air displacements in an otherwise stable air layer. In this case, the gravity waves are above the hurricane arms in the upper troposphere, and were probably generated as the towering storm updraft tried to push into the stable air between the troposphere and the stratosphere (known as the tropopause). Some of Katrina's cloud tops were about 2 kilometers above the tropopause. Such high "overshooting tops" are also characteristic of strong and rapidly growing storms. The animation progresses from MISR's most forward-pointing camera, which views the scene first, to the most backward-pointing camera, which views the scene last. It was created by aligning the views from all 9 cameras using the high clouds within the eyewall as a reference point. North is at the top. The convective cloud towers, especially those along the eastern sides of the inner and outer eyewalls, attain the highest altitudes and indicate that the storm is strengthening. Those areas that do not exhibit cloud-top convection are clouds experiencing vertical wind shear, and tend to be lower than the towering cloud structures. The vertical and horizontal development of the convective clouds and the formation of an outer ring of growing clouds (referred to as an "eyewall replacement cycle") also indicate rapid strengthening. During this stage of hurricane development, an outer band of clouds may gradually move inward to replace the existing hurricane eyewall, causing the central pressure to increase and weaken the storm in the short term. However, eyewall replacement may sometimes be a forerunner for rapid strengthening in the longer term. This was the case with Hurricane Katrina, whose central pressure increased slightly on Saturday, but then dropped again significantly on Sunday when Katrina became a Category 5 storm. Observing the development of a concentric eyewall at this spatial and temporal resolution is a unique feature of these MISR observations. The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer observes the daylit Earth continuously, viewing the entire globe between 82 degrees North and 82 degrees South latitude every nine days. The still images each cover an area of about 827 kilometers by 380 kilometers, and the animation covers an area of about 202 kilometers by 214 kilometers. The data products were generated from a portion of the imagery acquired during Terra orbit 30280 and utilize data from blocks 69 to 74 within World Reference System-2 path 17. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's, This image and animation from NASA's Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) show the strong convective development of Hurricane Katrina on Saturday, August 27, as it moved west through the Gulf of Mexico. Over 7 minutes during which all 9 MISR cameras viewed Katrina, the animation captures the cloud-top sides, the counterclockwise rotation of the eyewall, and the bubbling growth of the towering cloud structures. At this time, Katrina was undergoing rapid development— it had just been upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane, and within 24 hours it would reach Category 5. On Monday morning when the eyewall made landfall over the United States, it was a Category 4 storm. Hurricane Katrina was one of the most powerful and destructive storms on record for the Atlantic Basin. The image above is a false-color view (near-infrared, red, and blue wavelengths of reflected light displayed as red, green and blue) from MISR's nadir (pointing straight down) camera. In the image above, north is up. The high resolution image linked above shows a wider view of this false-color image, with north to the left. The vegetated Alabama coast in the upper left-hand corner in this high-resolution image appears in red hues. The bottom panel in the high-resolution image is a 3-D stereo anaglyph created with red band data from MISR's 70-degree-forward-viewing and 60-degree-forward-viewing cameras, displayed as red and green/blue, respectively. To observe the height variations in 3-D, you will need to use red/blue glasses. [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/Help/VendorList.html#Glasses ]
NGC 6888: X-Rays in the Wind
Title NGC 6888: X-Rays in the Wind
Explanation NGC 6888, also known as the Crescent Nebula [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030415.html ], is a cosmic bubble of interstellar gas about 25 light-years across. Created by winds [ http://www.peripatus.gen.nz/Astronomy/SteWin.html ] from the bright, massive star seen near the center of this composite image, the shocked filaments of gas glowing at optical wavelengths are represented in green and yellowish hues. X-ray image data [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2003/ngc6888/ ] from a portion of the nebula viewed by the Chandra Observatory is overlaid in blue. Such isolated stellar wind bubbles [ http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0310311 ] are not usually seen to produce energetic x-rays [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/ history1_xray.html ], which require heating gas to a million degrees celsius. Still, NGC 6888 seems to have accomplished this as slow moving winds from the central star's initial transition to a red supergiant [ http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/ redsup.html ] were overtaken and rammed by faster winds driven by the intense radiation from the star's exposed inner layers. Burning fuel [ http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm? articleID=000607EA-5B27-1E56-A98A809EC5880105 ] at a prodigious rate and near the end of its stellar life [ http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xmm_lc/edu/lessons/ background-lifecycles.html ], NGC 6888's central star should ultimately go out with a bang, creating a supernova explosion in 100,000 years or so. NGC 6888 is about 5,000 light-years close, toward the constellation Cygnus [ http://www.astronomical.org/constellations/cyg.html ].
Structure in N63A
Title Structure in N63A
Explanation Shells and arcs abound in this false-color, multiwavelength [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/ multiwavelength.html ] view of supernova remnant N63A [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2003/n63a/ ], the debris of a massive stellar explosion. The x-ray emission [ http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0209370 ] (blue), is from gas heated to 10 million degrees C as knots of fast moving material from the cosmic blast [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/xray_sources/supernovas.html ] sweep up surrounding interstellar matter. Radio (red) and optical emission (green) are brighter near the central regions where the x-rays seem to be absorbed by denser, cooler material on the side of the expanding debris cloud facing the Earth. Located in the neighboring galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/ multiwavelength.html ], the apparent [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/ cosmic_lookback.html ] age [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/0237/age.html ] of this supernova remnant is between 2,000 and 5,000 years, its extended glow spanning about 60 light-years. The intriguing image is a composite of [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2003/n63a/ more.html ] x-ray data from the orbiting Chandra Observatory [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/chronicle/index.html ], optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope [ http://hubblesite.org ], and radio from the Australia Telescope Compact Array [ http://www.narrabri.atnf.csiro.au/cgi-bin/Public/ atca_live.cgi ].
Shaded Relief with Color as …
PIA03346
Sol (our sun)
C-Band Interferometric Radar
Title Shaded Relief with Color as Height, St. Louis, Missouri
Original Caption Released with Image The confluence of the Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois rivers are shown in this view of the St. Louis area from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. The Mississippi flows from the upper left of the image and first meets the Illinois, flowing southward from the top right. It then joins the Missouri, flowing from the west across the center of the picture. The rivers themselves appear black here, and one can clearly see the green-colored floodplains in which they are contained. These floodplains are at particular risk during times of flooding. The Mississippi forms the state boundary between Illinois (to the right) and Missouri (to the left), with the city of St. Louis located on the Mississippi just below the point where it meets the Missouri. This location at the hub of the major American waterways helped establish St. Louis' reputation as the "Gateway to the West." Two visualization methods were combined to produce this image: shading and color coding of topographic height. The shade image was derived by computing topographic slope in the northwest-southeast direction. North-facing slopes appear bright and south-facing slopes appear dark. Color coding is directly related to topographic height, with blue and green at the lower elevations, rising through yellow and brown to white at the highest elevations. Elevation data used in this image was acquired by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, launched on Feb. 11, 2000. SRTM used the same radar instrument that comprised the Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar(SIR-C/X-SAR) that flew twice on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1994. SRTM was designed to collect 3-D measurements of the Earth's surface. To collect the 3-D data, engineers added a 60-meter (approximately 200-foot)mast, installed additional C-band and X-band antennas, and improved tracking and navigation devices. The mission is a cooperative project between NASA, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) of the U.S. Department of Defense and the German and Italian space agencies. It is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Earth Science Enterprise, Washington, D.C. Size: 173.0 by 222.6 kilometers (107.5 by 138.3 miles) Location: 339 degrees North latitude, 91 degrees West longitude Orientation: North toward the top Image Data: shaded and colored SRTM elevation model Original Data Resolution: SRTM 1 arcsecond (30 meters or 98 feet) Date Acquired: February 2000 (SRTM)
Lunar Landing Site 2 compari …
Title Lunar Landing Site 2 comparisons with size of various metropolitan areas
Description A photographic illustration comparing the size of Apollo Landing Site 2 with that of the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area. Site 2 is one of three Apollo 11 lunar landing sites. Site 2 is located at 23 degrees 42 minutes 28 seconds east longitude and 0 degrees 42 minutes 50 seconds north latitude, in southwestern Mare Tranquillitatis (38667), Comparison of Site 2 area with that of metropolitan Chicago, Illinois area (38668), Comparison of Site 2 area with that of Metropolitan New York City area (38669), Comparison of Site 2 area with that of the metropolitan Los Angeles, California area (38670), Comparison of Site 2 area with that of the metropolitan Houston, Texas area (38671).
Date Taken 1969-07-03
Lunar Landing Site 2 compari …
Title Lunar Landing Site 2 comparisons with size of various metropolitan areas
Description A photographic illustration comparing the size of Apollo Landing Site 2 with that of the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area. Site 2 is one of three Apollo 11 lunar landing sites. Site 2 is located at 23 degrees 42 minutes 28 seconds east longitude and 0 degrees 42 minutes 50 seconds north latitude, in southwestern Mare Tranquillitatis (38667), Comparison of Site 2 area with that of metropolitan Chicago, Illinois area (38668), Comparison of Site 2 area with that of Metropolitan New York City area (38669), Comparison of Site 2 area with that of the metropolitan Los Angeles, California area (38670), Comparison of Site 2 area with that of the metropolitan Houston, Texas area (38671).
Date Taken 1969-07-03
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