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Looking down the mouth of an interstellar cavern GEMINI OBSERVATORY NEWS RELEASE Posted: January 5, 2006 A storm of billowing clouds blown by the winds from massive stars, and set aglow by their light, is the focus of a striking image released by Gemini Observatory.
"This region is like a giant laboratory providing us with a glimpse into many unique phenomena," said Sally Oey of the University of Michigan, who has studied this object extensively. "Observations from space have even revealed x-ray-emitting gas escaping from this superbubble, and while this is expected, this is the only object of its kind where we have actually seen it happening." One of the mysteries surrounding this object points to the role that supernova explosions (marking the destruction of the most massive of the central cluster's stars) could have played in sculpting the cloud. Philip Massey of Lowell Observatory, who studied this region along with Oey, adds "When we look at the speed of the gases in this cloud we find inconsistencies in the size of the bubble and the expected velocities of the winds from the central cluster of massive stars. Supernovae, the ages of the central stars, or the orientation and shape of the cloud might explain this, but the bottom line is that there's still lots of exciting science to be done here and these new images will undoubtedly help." The Gemini data used to produce this image are being released to the astronomical community for further research and follow- up analysis. The image provides one of the most detailed views ever obtained of this relatively large region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way, located some 150,000 light- years away and visible from the Southern Hemisphere. The images captured light of specific colors that reveal the compression of material and the presence of gases (primarily excited hydrogen gas and lesser amounts of oxygen and "shocked" sulfur) in the cloud. Multiple smaller bubbles appear in the image as bulbous growths clinging to the central superbubble. Most of these regions were probably formed as part of the same process that shaped the central cluster. Their formation could also have been "sparked" by compression as the central stars pushed the surrounding gas outward. Our view into this cavern could really be like looking through an elongated tube, which lends the object its monstrous mouth-like appearance. The images used to produce the color composite were obtained with the Gemini Multi-object Spectrograph (GMOS) at the Gemini South Telescope on Cerro Pachón in Chile. The color image was produced by Travis Rector of the University of Alaska Anchorage. |
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The space shuttle program was grounded for 32 months in the painful wake of the 1986 Challenger accident. Americans finally returned to space in September 1988 when shuttle Discovery safely launched for its mission to deploy a NASA communications satellite. Enjoy this post-flight presentation narrated by the astronauts as they show movies and tell the story of the STS-26 mission.
Imagine a space shuttle mission in which the astronaut crew launched two commercial and one military communications spacecraft, then conducted a pair of incredible spacewalks to recover, fix and redeploy a satellite that malfunctioned just four months earlier. The rescue mission was a success, starting with an astronaut making a catch of the spinning satellite with just his gloved-hand. Enjoy this post-flight presentation narrated by the astronauts as they tell the story of shuttle Discovery's August 1985 mission known as STS-51I.
In our continuing look back at the classic days of the space shuttle program, today we show the STS-41D post-flight presentation by the mission's astronauts. The crew narrates this film of home movies and mission highlights from space shuttle Discovery's maiden voyage in August 1984. STS-41D deployed a remarkable three communications satellites -- a new record high -- from Discovery's payload bay, extended and tested a 100-foot solar array wing and even knocked free an icicle from the shuttle's side using the robot arm.
As the title aptly describes, this movie straps you aboard the flight deck for the thunderous liftoff, the re-entry and safe landing of a space shuttle mission. The movie features the rarely heard intercom communications between the crewmembers, including pilot Jim Halsell assisting commander Bob Cabana during the landing.
On Christmas Eve in 1968, a live television broadcast from Apollo 8 offered this message of hope to the people of Earth. The famous transmission occurred as the astronauts orbited the Moon.
The International Space Station receives its 20th Russian Progress cargo ship, bringing the outpost's two-man Expedition 12 crew a delivery of fresh food, clothes, equipment and special holiday gifts just in time for Christmas.