NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured an incredible final image of Earth from 1.4 billion km away during its orbit of Saturn's rings.  The space probe was facing Earth's Southern Atlantic Ocean, some 870 million miles (1.4 billion km) away, when the image of earth was captured on April 12, says NASA.

In a zoomed-in version of the image, Earth's moon is also clearly visible, seeming to float alongside our bright planet in the dark vastness of space.

The image marks Cassini's last view of Earth as the spacecraft prepares to end its mission by dramatically plunging into Saturn's atmosphere on September 15.  The probe's 'Grand Finale' mission begins on Friday when the spacecraft will complete a close flyby of Saturn's moon, Titan - passing a mere 600 miles above its surface - before beginning its final set of 22 orbits between Saturn and its rings.

Cassini, a $3.2 billion mission from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency, launched in 1997 and has delivered unprecedented data of Saturn and its moons.
You can see video from the mission here.

In a surprising development, NASA has regained contact with the STEREO-B spacecraft after two years of silence. STEREO-B, which can see the farside of the sun, went quiet in 2014 after mission controllers tested a communications reset procedure. Unfortunately, STEREO-B failed the test. Since then, NASA has regularly attempted to regain contact using the Deep Space Network. On Aug. 21st, they succeeded, managing to receive a downlink carrier for several hours. In the days and weeks ahead, engineers will take steps to assess the health of STEREO-B and return it to service.
www.spaceweather.com

NASA is advising the world to pack up and go hiking on the night of August 11-12 to watch a spectacular shooting star show, as the annual Perseid meteor shower is forecast to beat all records this year.

"Forecasters are predicting a Perseid outburst this year with double normal rates on the night of August 11-12," Bill Cooke, from NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office in Huntsville, Alabama, said on Tuesday. Cooke noted that under perfect conditions, we will be treated to up to 200 meteors every hour.

The "outburst" the NASA man is referring to means this year's cosmic dance is set to be far more crowded than usual. The last time the event happened on such a scale was 2009.

The Perseid meteor shower wows spectators with its swift and extremely bright meteors, traveling at a speed of 60km per second. A Perseid meteor is a small piece of debris left in the wake of the ancient Swift-Tuttle comet, which orbits the sun every 133 years. Despite these visits into the inner solar system being so rare, each of them gives off trillions of comet particles. When Earth passes through this trail of debris, the particles enter the planet's atmosphere and break up in bright specs of light.

From down here they seem to fly from the direction of the Perseus constellation, leading to the meteors being given the name "Perseids."

"Here's something to think about: The meteors you'll see this year are from comet flybys that occurred hundreds if not thousands of years ago. And they've traveled billions of miles before their kamikaze run into Earth's atmosphere," Cooke says.

Earth flies through the trail of these comet particles every August, usually grazing the edge of the debris stream. But its trajectory shifts somewhat every now and then thanks to Jupiter's gravity pull, and according to NASA experts this year our planet may be getting a seat in the front row, flying closer to the middle, where there are more particles. In fact, they claim that three or more debris trails will cross paths with Earth in but a few days.

According to NASA, the best opportunity to watch the Perseids will be between midnight and dawn on the morning of August 12. If you're not all that into getting out in the fresh air, the agency has also promised a live broadcast of the shooting star display on its Ustream channel starting at 2am GMT.

The Perseids are no danger to Earth, as even the largest ones mostly burn up in its atmosphere some 80km above the planet's surface. But the outburst could still land spacecraft in a spot of trouble: the bigger particles are capable of causing minor damage to the hulls of rockets and satellites.

Let's hope for the best though, and get the binoculars ready.

There's a new room on the International Space Station. NASA inflated it Saturday. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) was filled with air by astronaut Jeff Williams as the ISS flew over the south Pacific, kicking off an experiment to learn how inflatable habitats perform in a microgravity environment. "I think I am the first amateur astronomer to photograph BEAM from Earth," says Philip Smith, who sends these before-and-after images from Manorville, New York:

"Using a backyard telescope, I tracked the ISS as it passed overhead on May 26th (before inflation) and May 28th (after)," says Smith. "The new addition was clearly visible in my images."

"The Bigelow Aerospace-built BEAM is a prototype space habitat for future space stations, moon colonies and moon bases," he adds. "I am glad to be a small part of that history."
BEAM will remain attached to station for a two-year test period. Astronauts will not occupy the new room, but they will enter from time to time and monitor its performance. For more information about BEAM, visit: www.nasa.gov/beam.                 www.spaceweather.com

Published on May 12, 2016
Like sending sensors up into a hurricane, NASA has flown four spacecraft through an invisible maelstrom in space, called magnetic reconnection. Magnetic reconnection is one of the prime drivers of space radiation and so it is a key factor in the quest to learn more about our space environment and protect our spacecraft and astronauts as we explore farther and farther from Earth.

MMS is made of four identical spacecraft that launched in March 2015. They fly in a pyramid formation to create a full 3-dimensional map of any phenomena it observes. On October 16, 2015, the spacecraft traveled straight through a magnetic reconnection event at the boundary where Earth’s magnetic field bumps up against the sun’s magnetic field.

This short video outlines the MMS mission and its first results. Since it launched, MMS has made more than 4,000 trips through the magnetic boundaries around Earth, each time gathering information about the way the magnetic fields and particles move. A surprising result was that at the moment of interconnection between the sun’s magnetic field lines and those of Earth the crescents turned abruptly so that the electrons flowed along the field lines. By watching these electron tracers, MMS made the first observation of the predicted breaking and interconnection of magnetic fields in space.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/Genna Duberstein
If you like this video, subscribe to the NASA Goddard YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/NASAExplorer

This video is public domain and along with other supporting visualizations can be downloaded from the Scientific Visualization Studio at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/deta...

NASA Goddard: Published on Apr 26, 2016

From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Kayvon Sharghi

This video is public domain and may be downloaded at:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12222

Anyone wondering why the sun has been so quiet lately? The reason is shown in the graph below. The 11-year sunspot cycle is crashing:

For the past two years, the sunspot number has been dropping as the sun transitions from Solar Max to Solar Min. Fewer sunspots means there are fewer solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). As the explosions subside, we deem the sun "quiet."

But how quiet is it, really? A widely-held misconception is that space weather stalls and becomes uninteresting during periods of low sunspot number. In fact, by turning the solar cycle sideways, we see that Solar Minimum brings many interesting changes. For instance, the upper atmosphere of Earth collapses, allowing space junk to accumulate around our planet. The heliosphere shrinks, bringing interstellar space closer to Earth. And galactic cosmic rays penetrate the inner solar system with relative ease. Indeed, a cosmic ray surge is already underway. (Bringing higher vibrational energy.  Messenger Spirit)
www.spaceweather.com

© Flickr/ NASA Johnson
For years, NASA has been working on an engine capable of providing tons of thrust without consuming fuel. It now looks like that pursuit is bearing fruit: the second-generation EmDrive upgrade gives necessary "anomalous thrust signals" while its main characteristics have been solidly improved, Paul March, a researcher participating in the project, wrote on the online NASA Space Flight forum. A peer-reviewed article on the successes of the EmDrive project is yet to be published, but the online "leak" clearly indicates humanity may be a step closer to a brand-new range of speeds.

From @digitaltrends: NASA Confirms that the EM Drive thrusters work, after new tests https://t.co/l7u4iA9PZG pic.twitter.com/2yCjGzMjpy— Perth Observatory (@perthobs) November 5, 2015

A magnetron and microwaves create a propellant-less propulsion system. Basically, waves resonate inside an enclosed conical container, generating thrust toward the wide end of the cone.

It goes against the traditional laws of physics, and the initial design of the system by British researcher Roger Shawyer was met with skepticism by specialists worldwide back in 2003. Luckily, NASA has been known for supporting experiments, so it took the discovery under its wing.

Just think about all the possibilities a fuel-free drive promises. With 'warp-drive,' a journey to Mars could take just two and a half months.

A stunning fireworks show will be thrown by Mother Nature overnight on Tuesday 17 November, as the Leonid meteor shower sends out a series of spectacular fireballs and shooting stars. The annual lights show contains some of the fastest meteors in existence. "Leonids travel at speeds of 71 km (44 miles) per second, and are considered to be some of the fastest meteors out there," NASA said in a statement.

Skywatchers hoping to see the light show with their own eyes are in luck, according to NASA, which says that a "waxing-crescent moon will set before midnight, leaving dark skies to view these bright and colorful meteors."  Those who want a front-row seat should head outdoors at around midnight, local time, says NASA.  "Find an area well away from city or street lights...orient yourself with your feet towards east, lie flat on your back, and look up, taking in as much of the sky as possible," the space agency wrote online, noting that the show will last until dawn.

But although the Leonid shower has produced tens of thousands of meteors per hour in the past, this year's event won't be quite as remarkable. Viewers should at most expect 10 to 20 meteors per hour, according to Space.com.

The Leonids are created when Earth travels through a trail of debris shed by Comet Tempel-Tuttle. However, since the comet is now just about as far from the sun as it gets during its roughly 33-year orbit, there's not a lot of debris for Earth to collide with - which results in a less impressive meteor shower than previous years.

Those with compromised views due to clouds or light pollution can watch the meteor shower online, via a Leonids webcast hosted by the Slooh Community Observatory, which will take place at 01:00 GMT on Wednesday. The webcast will feature live shots from five different countries on four continents.

For the first time, NASA has confirmed the existence of liquid water on the surface of Mars, according to new research announced Monday. The finding stems from data and analysis by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has verified that dark, seasonal streaks that have appeared on Mars' surface come from briny water flows.

The research, which is yet to be published in a peer-reviewed magazine, so far has been presented as a record breaking invention. "The current record, held by NASA's HiPEP system, allows 9600 (+/- 200) seconds of specific impulse," the newspaper wrote. "However, results recorded by the Neumann Drive have been as high as 14,690 (+/- 2000), with even conservative results performing well above NASA's best."

NASA's variation of the ion thruster (High Power Electric Propulsion, or HiPEP) was ground-tested in 2003 and was intended to be used on a mission of Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, that was canceled in 2005. The concept behind HiPEP is quite simple: The gas xenon is given an electrical charge or ionized. It is then electrically accelerated to a speed of about 30 km/second. When xenon ions are emitted at high speed, for example, as exhaust from a spacecraft, they push the spacecraft in the opposite direction. The ultimate speed a spacecraft can reach using ion thrust depends upon how much propellant it carries.

Neumann's variation of the engine however uses metal as fuel, which is struck by electric arcs to produce ions that are focused by a magnetic nozzle. While magnesium allegedly showed the best results, Neumann's drive can utilize a number of different metals, giving the drive a competitive advantage over similar technologies in terms of cost savings. "NASA's HiPEP runs on Xenon gas, while the Neumann Drive can be powered on a number of different metals, the most efficient tested so far being magnesium," the paper explains. "As it runs on metals commonly found in space junk, it could potentially be fueled by recycling exhausted satellites, repurposing them into fresh fuel."

Neumann is now seeking to patent the technology he has developed with Professors David McKenzie and Marcela Bilek. The team is expected to present their research at the 15th Australian Space Research Conference late this month.

© NASA
The latest images from Pluto taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft show amazing new details about the dwarf planet's atmosphere, weather patterns and streams of frozen nitrogen. NASA is calling it "a scientific bonanza."

A stunning panoramic image of Pluto's crescent, backlit by the Sun shining through the world's hazy atmosphere, was taken just two months ago by NASA's New Horizon spacecraft, and downloaded to Earth on September 13. It is the first spacecraft to fly by Pluto and record images of the intriguing icy dwarf planet.  "This image really makes you feel you are there, at Pluto, surveying the landscape for yourself," said Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and a principal investigator for New Horizons, in a NASA statement.  "But this image is also a scientific bonanza, revealing new details about Pluto's atmosphere, mountains, glaciers and plains."

Scientists say the recent images provide evidence for an Earth-like "hydrological" cycle - more commonly known as the water cycle - on Pluto. But unlike on our watery Earth, this cycle involves haze or fog and "exotic ices" made of nitrogen and methane.

One noted feature on Pluto is its icy plain, Sputnik Planum, a smooth upland region that is flanked by rugged mountains up to 11,000 feet high. The new images shown to the east of Sputnik might feature glaciers that are probably composed of frozen nitrogen, with clues suggesting that the ices might have evaporated from the plain. Scientists say the features are similar to frozen streams on the margins of ice caps on Greenland and Antarctica.

"We did not expect to find hints of a nitrogen-based glacial cycle on Pluto operating in the frigid conditions of the outer solar system," said Alan Howard, a member of the mission's Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, in the statement. "Driven by dim sunlight, this would be directly comparable to the hydrological cycle that feeds ice caps on Earth, where water is evaporated from the oceans, falls as snow, and returns to the seas through glacial flow."

Pluto is the tenth massive object to orbit the sun in our solar system and has five moons. It is about 18 percent the size of Earth, over 1,400 miles (2,370 kilometers) in diameter.  "Pluto is surprisingly Earth-like in this regard" said Stern about its valley glaciers and hydro-like cycle "and no one predicted it."

On Sept. 2nd, an Atlas V rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral carrying a Navy communications satellite to orbit. The dawn launch was much anticipated by local sky watchers. Waking up early turned out to be a good decision. "What see saw blew our, and everyone's, minds," reports Jack Jewell, who took these pictures from a grassy hill near the NASA causeway:

"I've seen enough launches just before sunrise to know that sunlit rocket plumes against a darkish sky can be magical," says Jewell. "This was one of the best."

The Atlas V created a man-made noctilucent cloud. Water vapor in the rocket's exhaust crystallized in the high atmosphere, creating an icy cloud that turned blue when it was hit by the rays of the morning sun. Years ago, space shuttle launches produced similar displays.

Natural noctilucent clouds form around Earth's poles when water vapor in the mesosphere crystalizes around meteor smoke. Sometimes they spread as far south as Colorado and Utah, but rarely or never Florida. Electric-blue over the Sunshine State requires a rocket launch.    www.spaceweather.com

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/...

Gigapixels of Andromeda [4K]
The video shows over 100 million stars and thousands of star clusters embedded in a section of the Galaxy,
stretching over 40,000 light-years.    Nature is truly breathtaking and immensely vast!