Author: NeRD

NASA Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month 2024

NeRD

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we recognize Hispanic astronauts who have flown in space. The table below lists these individuals of various nationalities who have made significant contributions to their space programs. The first Hispanic astronauts completed short flights to a Soviet space station and aboard the space shuttle. In the past 23 years, many more have completed flights to the International Space Station and contributed to its assembly, operations, and research activities.   Table of Hispanic astronauts who have flown in space. Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez of Cuba holds…

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NASA to Provide Live Coverage of Crew-8 Return, Splashdown

NeRD

Members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission from right to left, NASA astronauts Jeanette Epps, mission specialist; Matthew Dominick, commander; Michael Barratt, pilot; and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, mission specialist; participate in the Crew Equipment Interface Test at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Friday, Jan. 12, 2024. SpaceX NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than 7:05 a.m. EDT Sunday, Oct. 13, for the agency’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission to undock from the International Space Station. Pending weather conditions, the earliest splashdown time is targeted for 3:38 p.m. Monday,…

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Pioneering NASA Astronaut Health Tech Thwarts Heart Failure

NeRD

3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Dr. Rainee Simons (right) and Dr. Félix Miranda work together to create technology supporting heart health at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Credit: NASA Prioritizing health is important on Earth, and it’s even more important in space. Exploring beyond the Earth’s surface exposes humans to conditions that can impact blood pressure, bone density, immune health, and much more. With this in mind, two NASA inventors joined forces 20 years ago to create a way to someday monitor astronaut…

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Gaia space telescope discovers 55 ‘runaway’ careening away from stellar cluster at 80 times the speed of sound

NeRD

Using Europe’s Gaia space telescope, astronomers have identified 55 runaway stars being ejected at high speeds from a densely packed young cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way. This is the first time so many stars have been seen escaping from a single star cluster. The star cluster R136, located around 158,000 light-years away, is home to hundreds of thousands of stars and sits in a massive region of intense star formation in the LMC. It’s home to some of the biggest…

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Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is being squeezed, Hubble Telescope finds — and nobody knows why (video)

NeRD

The venerable Hubble Space Telescope has watched Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (GRS) oscillating, as though it were being squeezed in and out roughly every 90 days.  Why this huge anticyclone, which has been shrinking over the decades and currently measures about 9,165 miles (14,750 kilometers) across (although astrophotographer Damian Peach has reportedly measured it to be just 7,770 miles, or 12,500 km, wide), is behaving in such fashion is a mystery.  “With Hubble’s high resolution, we can say that the GRS is definitely squeezing in and out at the same…

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Sail Along with NASA’s Solar Sail Tech Demo in Real-Time Simulation

NeRD

Unable to render the provided source NASA invites the public to virtually sail along with the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System‘s space journey using NASA’s “Eyes on the Solar System” visualization tool, a digital model of the solar system. This simulation shows the real-time positions of the planets, moons, and spacecraft – including NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System. Solar sails use the pressure of sunlight for propulsion, angling toward or away from the Sun so that photons bounce off the reflective sail to push a spacecraft. This eliminates the need for heavy…

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NASA Awards Aerospace Research, Technology, and Simulations Contract

NeRD

Credit: NASA NASA has selected Metis Technology Solutions Inc. of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to provide engineering services as well as develop and maintain software and hardware used to conduct simulations for aerospace research and development across the agency. The Aerospace Research, Technology, and Simulations (ARTS) contract is a hybrid cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price contract with an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity component and has a maximum potential value of $177 million. The performance period begins Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024, with a one-year base period, and options to extend performance through November 2029. Under this contract,…

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Hopes dim for another bright October comet after Tsuchinshan-ATLAS

NeRD

While skywatchers around the world have been raving about the performance of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, there has been talk on social media of yet another spectacular comet due to make its appearance at the end of this month.  The lineage of this second object apparently connects it with a family of comets, some of which have been among the most brilliant ever observed. For this reason, some might have already branded it as “The Great Halloween Comet.”  Unfortunately, it now appears likely that this will not happen.   We’ll get into…

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