NASA 2022: The Future is Now

Watch NASA's James Webb Space Telescope launch into orbit

Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Launch - Vandenberg Space Force Base,California

Crew-3 Launch Day Highlights - 10 November 2021

Watch NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 Mission Launch on Oct. 31 (Trailer)

NASA launches asteroid hunter Lucy from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station

Gateway Lunar Outpost Animation

Orbital Flight Test-2: Crew and Science Briefing - note:The OFT-2 mission has been rescheduled to 3 August 2021 at the earliest because of an accidental firing of the thrusters of the newly arrived Roscosmos (Russian) Nauka laboratory module,which caused the ISS to breifly shift position..

Extrasolar Object Confirmed as Interstellar - revised

Extrasolar object A/2017 U1 is now considered to be the first celestial object from interstellar space-in this case,from somewhere in the direction of the constellation Lyra-to have ever been observed transiting through our solar system.First reported by Rob Weryk of the University of Hawaii with the Pan-STARRS-1 telescope on Haleakala on 19 October 2017,it is beyond a reasonable doubt a major event in the history of astronomy.The original report was almost instantly confirmed by Marco Micheli of the European Space Agency on a telescope at the ESA's Optical Ground Station at Tenerife,Canary Islands.*
How do we know this?The object's speed was such,at 25.5 km/second,that it could not be in a closed elliptical orbit around the Sun,the way an object from our solar system would be.It is just too fast for that.Nor could it have been sling-shot by encountering a planet's gravity.It entered our solar system far above the ecliptic plane,near which all the planetary orbits are.
After its arrival,A/2017 U1 passed about 25 million km below Earth on 14 October.It has accelerated to a blistering 44 km per second as it makes for the constellation Pegasus.By 26 October,a refined set of orbital parameters had been calculated,confirming the interstellar origins of the object with a high degree of confidence.
We do not know exactly what type of object it is-perhaps something new to science.It doesn't conform to the current concept of a comet,as it has no tail or vapor trail from passing by the Sun.A/2017 U1 is thought to be about 400 m in diameter.*
According to Andy Kivkin,a planetary astronomer of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel,Maryland:
There seems to be no question in the community that this is really real.They think this is a legit,bona-fide insterstellar object.This is a visitor from another solar system,and we are here in a time and place to see it.Who knows where it's been before?Who knows where it's going after this?*
It is up to the International Astronomical Union to assign the object a permanent name.As of 3 November,it is expected to be beyond the range of all telescopes.

Voyager I Milestone Thrills Scientists

Just over a year ago,the venerable old Voyager I spacecraft left the solar system,although not the sun's influence entirely,and entered interstellar space,the space between the stars,NASA scientists reported this week.It is now in the transition zone just outside the solar bubble,and in the ionised gas between the stars.Some solar disturbance still obtains in this transition zone.
We believe this is mankind's histric leap into interstellar space,said Ed Stone,Voyager Project Scientist at Caltech,Pasadena.Voyager had entered the heliosphere,or solar bubble of charged particles which defines the edge of the solar system,in 2004.It first entered interstellar space on 12 August,2013,when an abrupt change in the density of energetic particles was first detected by Voyager I.
Suzanne Dodd,Voyager Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,Pasadena,said we expect the fields and particles science instruments on Voyager will continue to send back data through at least 2020.We can't wait to see what the Voyager instruments show us next about deep space.
Voyager I's twin,Voyager II,was actually launched a few weeks ahead of Voyager I in 1977.Both spacecraft flew by Jupiter and Saturn,but Voyager II veered off to fly by Uranus and Neptune as well.Scientists talk to or receive data from both spacecraft almost every day.It takes the weak 23 watt signal of Voyager I about 17 hours to reach earth.As of its February 21,2013 radio telescope image,Voyager I was 11.5 billion miles/18.5 billion kilometers from earth.It is now about 19 billion miles away.

NASA Reveals March Lunar Explosion

NASA made public on Friday the fact that a sizable meteoroid impact on the lunar surface occurred on March 17,2013.Detected by analyst Ron Suggs of the Marshall Space Flight Center with video from a 14-inch telescope,the flash was 10 times greater than anything seen before in the eight years of the lunar impacts monitoring program.
The impact took place in the Mare Imbrium area and had a brightness as of a fourth magnitude star.The meteoroid was traveling at a speed of 56,000 miles an hour when it struck the moon.
The monitoring program has ascertained that meteors hit the moon more often than anyone ever expected,NASA said.Though this particular meteor was only 3-4 meters across,the flash should have been noticeable to anyone who was studying the moon with the naked eye at the time.It looked like a small pinpoint of light when this blog reviewed the video.
On the same date,the earth was also being pelted with numerous meteoroid impacts,as detected by all-sky cameras of NASA and the University of Western Ontario,described by NASA's Bill Cooke of the Meteoroid Environment Office as a short duration cluster of material that the earth and moon were traveling through together.It is a region of small rocks and dust the earth-moon system will travel through again the same time next year.
Cooke believes the lunar impact and the Chelyabinsk event in Russia in February 2013 may be related,both caused by passing through the same rocky,dusty region between the earth and the asteroid belt.The Chelyabinsk event,however,was 100,000 times more powerful than the lunar explosion;it damaged buildings and injured more than 1500 souls.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite will search for the new impact crater when it passes over that region of the moon again.The crater could be up to 66 feet wide.If the crater is found,it will help validate ground impact models of meteoroids.
Also,such knowledge could be useful to any future astronauts who may be spending extended periods on the lunar surface,for their own safety.The moon gets a lot of impacts because it lacks an atmosphere to vaporise meteoroids.

The Russian Meteorite and the Asteroid:Complete Details

An explosion that had the force of a nuclear weapon occurred over Chelyabinsk,Russia Friday morning,injuring more than 1,000 people,as a 10 ton meteorite blew up in the earth's atmosphere.The space rock,a chunk of a comet or asteroid,was about 49 feet wide and traveling at a speed of at least 33,000 miles an hour when it disintegrated,resulting in a sun-like fireball and destructive shock waves.
The meteorite broke into pieces 18-32 miles above the ground over the Ural Mountains city of about a million people about 930 miles east of Moscow.Some of the fragments fell in a reservoir outside the town of Cherbakul,leaving a 26 foot wide crater in the ice.
Over 4,000 buildings were damaged in the Chelyabinsk area,including 6 hospitals and 12 schools.Most of the damage was in the form of shattered windows from the sonic boom the explosion created,but the roof of a zinc factory partially collapsed as well.School had just opened when the meteorite hit at 9:20 am local time.Flying glass injured 258 students.
Around 1100 people received medical treatment,and 48 of them were hospitalised.The broken windows will expose area residents to the region's bitter cold,which dips below zero Fahrenheit at night.
Chelyabinsk is 3,000 miles west of Tunguska,Siberia,site of a 1908 cataclysm caused by a 10 megaton explosion of a space rock.That blast flattened some 80 million trees and was the largest recorded explosion of a space object.
NASA scientist Jim Green said that fireballs happen once a day or so,but go unseen because they are over the ocean or remote areas.An event of the magnitude of  the Chelyabinsk blast happens about once every 10 years.
In a separate and unrelated incident Friday afternoon,asteroid D-14 made a near-earth visit at 2:25 pm EST,coming within the geosynchronous orbit of 22,236 miles.That means it was closer to the earth than weather satellites.The asteroid is about 150 feet wide,or three times as large as the Chelyabinsk object.
Scientists said they would study the asteroid with radar to determine how fast it was spinning and perhaps its composition.It was invisible to the naked eye.

A Blustery Day:Looking For Enterprise

I took up a position along the Pennsylvania-Maryland border,looking for the space shuttle Enterprise to possibly fly over on the way to New York.It was a cool,blustery day.After some weeks of heat,it had become below normal.That alone made it worthwhile to stay outdoors for a while. A man mowing his lawn may have thought I was crazy with my lawn chair and binoculars.I was crazy for history and I needed more fresh air in my lungs,sir.In the end,I didn't sit very much.I walked around watching all the jet aircraft.Most of them headed west,and a few south.No one was going north like the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and its august passenger,the flight test space shuttle Enterprise. It was a memorable time anyway.It's good to be bonkers about something constructive like exploring the heavens.