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View of a Mach 1000 Shock Wave

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Mach1000Shockwave
A photograph of the Tycho supernova remnant taken by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Low-energy X-rays (red) in the image show expanding debris from the supernova explosion and high energy X-rays (blue) show the blast wave, a shell of extremely energetic electrons.
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/K. Eriksen et al.; Optical (starry background): DSS

 

This incredible image is of a remnant of the supernova Tycho, which blew up long ago. Supernova remnants are often able to be seen hundreds of years after the initial explosion because of a reverse shockwave that occurs.

This reverse shockwave is created when the outwardly ejected material of the supernova explosion creates sort of a backward current or backwash of material that heads inward at speeds up to mach 1000 or 1000 times the speed of sound. This material then begins to heat up to the point where it begins to emit X-rays, and that’s what you see here in the image above. This image is from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics where you can read more about this particular image.

We wouldn’t be able to study ancient supernova remnants without a reverse shock to light them up,” – Hiroya Yamaguchi

 

LeVar Burton Explains NASA’s Martian MAVEN Mission

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In this cool NASA Public Service Announcement, LeVar Burton tells us all about MAVEN’s mission and explains why it’s important.  On November 18th, NASA has had a successful launch of MAVEN, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission. The Atlas V rocket lifted off at approximately 1:30 P.M EST and is now on it’s way towards Mars to hopefully allow us to better understand why Mars has become so inhospitable and to possibly help us better understand our climate here on Earth.

We’re currently about 14,000 miles away from Earth and heading out to the Red Planet right now,” – MAVEN Project Manager David Mitchell-

NASA is trying to understand why most of the Martian atmosphere has disappeared and just how it lost all of it’s liquid water. Perhaps we can even answer the question we have all been really wanting to know, was there ever life on Mars? The only way to find out is to keep on studying our neighboring planet and to continue to dig deeper into the past of the great red planet.

A Incredible View of The Stars From Space

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Looking up at the night sky reminds us of how small we really are compared to the vastness of the universe but our view down here on the Earth’s surface doesn’t compare to the view the Space Station crew has.

This video shows off not only an amazing view of Earth, which we tend to focus on the most, but also it showcases the stars and even the Milky Way galaxy. Notice how the video captures the lights from the cites, the lightning from storms and the auroras high up in the atmosphere, which looks incredibly thin.

A Rare View of Saturn

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CassiniSaturnSolo
NASA / JPL / SSI / Gordan Ugarkovic

On October 10, 2013, Cassini captured a rare view of Saturn separated from it’s rings, a view that can never be seen from Earth. The image is a three-by-four mosaic of red, green, and blue filter images take from high above the equatorial plane. Click on the image to view a higher resolution version.

An overview of the Cassini spacecraft and it’s mission is outlined on the Cassini JPL NASA website.

Frog Meets Rocket Launch

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LADEEFrog

Photographer Chris Perry has captured an amazing photo of the launch of NASA’s LADEE spaceship, but it was photobombed by a highflying frog making this image likely to be remembered for some time. Unfortunately, it’s highly unlikely that the frog survived it’s flight through the air as it was probably directly below the launch area.

The LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer) spacecraft successfully launched from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on September 6th and it’s 100-day mission is to orbit around the Moon’s equator and study the lunar exosphere and surrounding dust.

If you would like to follow up on the mission status of the LADEE spacecraft you can head over to NASA’s mission page.