A Christmas gift from Hubble Telescope

Hubble Space Telescope has produced a lot of images and hence the The Big Picture at The Boston Globe is doing an advent calender to countdown the days until Christmas.

Until Christmas every day you can see a new image by Hubble Space Telescope . The images are awesome.

Explore Mars from Earth

For everyone who want to explore Mars but scared of going there , you can have your dream realised by going to NASA's Be a Martian website.

The Be a Martian site is a collaboration between NASA and Microsoft that uses the tool of crowsourcing to sift through the hundreds of thousands of photos sent back by Mars rovers and orbiters. The format of the site is much like a game, where you complete tasks to earn points and badges.
There is a forum on the site where one can ask questions, vote on questions and make comments to earn "Curiousity Points". NASA Mars experts will read the questions to see what the virtual Martian community is interested, and will host town hall-type meetings in the future where members can participate.
For games and videos you need to have Microsoft’s Silverlight application to work for this site.

Eta Carinae

Image of Eta Carinae which is a blue hot star, in 1843 was the second brightest star in sky after Sirius but it soon faded after 50 years.

Leonid meteor shower

For those who love to watch meteor shower , there is going to be Leonid meteor shower during the night 16 th and 17 th November , 2009.

These meteor emanate from the constellation Leo hence they are named as Lenoid.

Astronomers believe that we can observe upto hundreds of meteors.

On 17 th November, 2009 we can observe meteor shower between 1:30 am EST and sunrise.

If you are not outside on 17 th November night then you will surely miss it.

Water found on Moon surface

My earlier post was Was moon bombing a success now LCROSS team has successfully found water on permanently shadowed lunar crater . The team was able to observe 25 liters of water with spectroscopic telescope.

The team has also found some components such as Sodium and Carbondioxide which they are analysing.

The impact created by the LCROSS Centaur upper stage rocket created a two-part plume of material from the bottom of the crater. The first part was a high angle plume about 10-12 meters across of vapor and fine dust and the second a lower angle ejecta curtain of heavier material. This material has not seen sunlight in billions of years.

Lunar scientists are trying to find out that how the water has come, whether by comets , meteorites or by some process in moon or the moon surface is creating water.

Spirit Rover finally moves in Martian soil

Spirit Rover which was stuck in Martian soil since April, 2009 has finally showed some movements from its current position.

The Spirit Rover team is trying to get her out from the sand trap in which she has got stuck.

Enjoy the animations of recent movement of Spirit

NASA is planning to have a press conference on 12th November, 2009 regarding the escape plan of the Rover.

" Marquette Island" a Martian Rock

3D image of the rock

Opportunity Rover has found a big rock on planet Mars. It is not clear that the rock is a meteorite or some thing else.

The rock has been named as "Marquette Island".

Enjoy these amazingly beautiful images of the " Marquette Island".

Amazing Enceladus Images

Image of plume from far away.

In my previous post Happy Halloween from Cassini Spacecraft Team i mentioned about Cassini spacecraft going to the Moon of Saturn, Enceladus on 2th November, 2009.

Cassini has captured some amazing images of the plumes shooting from Enceladus , they are simply the raw images.

The objective of Cassini is to analyse the particles in the plume with the instruments that can detect the mass , size, charge, speed and composition.

These are the first images of the plume and are amazing.

Happy Halloween from Cassini spacecraft team

Cassini spacecraft team has wished every one Happy Halloween.

Cassini spacecraft would be flying to the moon of Saturn, Enceladus on Nov 2, 2009 .

Cassini will go deep into the moon of Saturn.

First ever close-up look of solar flare

NASA's spacecraft Messenger has recorded a closed-ever-look at the solar flare . It was the first time that the scientists have got a close-up look at neutron production during solar flare. The scientists were able to record neutrons from this flare over 6 to 10 hours.

The study of solar flare radiation is important for space flight programs as they can damage satellites and can endanger astronauts working in International Space Station.