Swift has become a key tool not only in studies of GRBs, but also in studying galaxies, quasars, supernova, novae, black holes and neutron stars in our Galaxy, along with active stars, and even comets. Comet McNaught is now reportedly so bright that it is visible On October 15, 2007, the Cassini spacecraft, in excellent health, had its Diamond Anniversary: it was ten years ago that it departed planet Earth from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and embarked on a seven-year long, circuitous journey of several billion miles across the solar system to the planet Saturn. 04.17.15 - Kepler Planet Candidates, January 2014. This series of images, taken by the Opportunity rover in July 2007, shows a darkening sky as a huge regional dust storm covered . 08/01/2023. A total of three Mercury flybys, each followed about two months later by a course correction maneuver, will put the spacecraft in position to enter Mercury orbit in March 2011. During 2007, Phoenix coasted in its cruise phase, which lasts for approximately 10 months. The mission continued to produce data at record levels. Fifty weeks worth of more than a terabyte of science data were downloaded from the spacecraft and relayed to a comprehensive computer database in the Mission Operations Center at Stanford University, Stanford, Calif., where scientists began the painstaking task of data analysis and validation of the measurements collected from the gyros, telescope, and SQUID (Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) magnetometer readouts, until the liquid helium in the Dewar was exhausted on September 25, 2005. NASA and NOAA scientists, working with experimental data from Aquas Atmospheric Infrared Sounder, a high-spectral resolution infrared instrument that takes 3-D pictures of atmospheric temperatures, water vapor and trace gases, are conducting research on improving the accuracy of medium-range weather forecasts in the Northern Hemisphere. The satellite, later renamed NOAA-M, is part of the POES program, a cooperative effort between NASA and NOAA, the United Kingdom (UK), and France. Ulysses carries a comprehensive suite of sophisticated scientific instruments, several of which are of a kind never flown in space before. Browse historical events, famous birthdays and notable deaths from Jan 17, 2007 or search by date, day or keyword. solar wind NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (formerly called the Microwave Anisotropy Mission, MAP), launched on June 30, 2001, on a Delta-2, is now located in an orbit around the second Lagrange libration point L2. It is awash in a sea of cosmic neutrinos, almost weightless sub-atomic particles which move around at nearly the speed of light, passing through us by the millions every second. Images taken by a camera onboard the spacecraft revealed a series of eight propeller-shaped "wakes" in a thin belt of the outermost "A" ring, indicating the presence of corresponding moonlets. The two main origin hypotheses for the arcs are that they really are close to Andromeda ( M31 ), or that they are just coincidentally placed gas filaments in our Milky Way galaxy. The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a riveting snapshot of the Andromeda Galaxy and the oxygen-emitting blue arcs that surround it. According to NASA, it is located about 210,000 light-years away. The star, named Mira after the Latin word for "wonderful," has been a favorite of astronomers for about 400 years. Evert Elzinga/AFP/Getty Images. With the objective to improve weather forecasting and monitor environmental events around the world, NOAA-18 continued in 2007 to collect data about the Earth's surface and atmosphere. Both rovers have found metallic meteorites on Mars. From January through June, New Horizons seven science instruments made more than 700 separate observations of the Jovian system twice the activity planned at Pluto with most of them coming in the eight days around closest approach to Jupiter. According to NASA's website, the bluish tint is a result of sunlight scattered by air molecules.. Below is the famous image taken when the US last sent people to the moon, in 1972 on Apollo 17 . The 2202-lb (999-kg) CloudSat was launched with the CALIPSO satellite by a Delta-2 from VAFB on April 28, 2006, into a polar orbit at an altitude of 438 miles (705 km). After lifting off on a Delta-2 launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on September 27 at 7:34am EDT, NASAs Dawn spacecraft began a 4.8-billion-kilometer (3-billion-mile) odyssey deep in to the Asteroid Belt, including exploration of asteroid Vesta in 2011 and the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015. Hatches were open at 5:04pm, and the new crew was welcomed aboard the ISS and given the mandatory safety briefing (5:25pm). Global Exploration Strategy (GES): In May, fourteen space agencies interested in working together on space exploration, met in Italy at the 11th Century Abbey of Spineto near Sarteano (Siena), and signed the Global Exploration Strategy, to determine, on a voluntary basis for each member, how NASAs Vision for Space Exploration, mandated by President George W. Bush in January 2004, Europes Aurora program, and similar initiatives in Russia, China, India, Japan and elsewhere can be melded into a cohesive global effort. S71-51273 ( 102k or 668k) Portrait of Ron Evans. Ulysses firsts include: First direct measurements of interstellar dust and neutral helium gas, first measurements of rare cosmic-ray isotopes, first surveys of the space environment above and below the solar poles, first measurements of so-called pickup ions of both interstellar and near-Sun origin, first in-situ observations of comet tails at large distances from the Sun, and first observations of particles from solar storms over the solar poles. The companion star also has an unusually large mass, 70 times that of the Sun. Get access to our automated daily newsletter and our premium news stories. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Chandra X-ray Observatory in 2007 also located an exceptionally massive black hole in orbit around a huge companion star, with intriguing implications for the evolution and ultimate fate of massive stars. In 2007, the spacecraft continued to return stunning imagery from its continuing journey through the Saturnian system. The ACE spacecraft remains healthy, and a fuel use strategy has been implemented that will allow continued operations through the year 2022. The main event in 2007 for NASAs Mars program was the launch of yet another unmanned exploration probe, Phoenix, to the Red Planet, joining five other spacecraft currently studying Mars: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Express, Mars Odyssey, and two Mars Exploration Rovers. After the two satellites switched position, a special data collection campaign for the inter-satellite separation between about 70 km and about 170 km got underway. Georgia, is seen on January 20, 2013, in this image from the International Space Station as it flew approximately 240 . being swept away from the Sun by the As of February 2, 2022, Hubble is located about 340 miles (547 km) above Earth's surface, where it completes 15 orbits per day, according to Nasa. Image of the Day Atmosphere Heat Land Water Human Presence Remote Sensing. The six-wheeled rover vehicle Spirit, launched on June 10, 2003, on a Delta-2/Heavy rocket, landed on January 3, 2004 (ET) almost exactly at its intended landing site in Gusev Crater in excellent condition. These data have now been officially incorporated into the NOAA National Weather Service operational weather forecasts. Scientists now believe the bursts, distant yet fleeting explosions, are related to the formation of black holes throughout the universe: the birth cries of black holes. MRO began its its primary science phase in November 2006. Discovery docked on 10/25 at 8:40am EDT, smoothly flown by Pam Melroy & George Zambo Zamka. The CMBR is the light left over from the Big Bang, bathing the whole Universe in this afterglow light. Voyager 2 then extended the planetary adventure when it flew by Uranus and Neptune, becoming the only spacecraft ever to visit these worlds. NASA informed that the evening after the full Moon, which is January 7, the moon will rise around 7 degrees on the other side of the bright star Pollux. Later, GOES-N is aimed at becoming the primary U.S. hurricane-monitoring spacecraft. This star cluster has been given the designation of NGC 346. Among its findings are some of the weirdest landscapes on Mars as well as more familiar-looking parts of the Red Planet: One type of landscape near its south pole is called "cryptic terrain" because it once defied explanation, but new observations bolster and refine recent interpretations of how springtime outbursts of carbon-dioxide gas there sculpt intricate patterns and paint seasonal splotches. Preparations have begun for a space shuttle mission to the HST in October 2008, the fourth Hubble Service Mission, for some necessary maintenance and repair work by spacewalking astronauts. The Voyager missions, now in their 31st year, continue their quest to push the bounds of space exploration. Both spacecraft are part of a constellation of spacecraft called the "A-Train," including Aqua, Aura and PARASOL, dedicated to studying the Earths weather and environment, with CloudSat orbiting approximately one minute behind Aqua. One such feature is larger than any of the Great Lakes of North America and is about the same size as several seas on Earth. It is the oldest light in the Universe, having traveled across the cosmos for 14 billion years, and the patterns in this light across the sky encode a wealth of details about the history, shape, content, and ultimate fate of the Universe. Images. Being in a geostationary orbit allows GOES satellites to hover continuously over one position on the Earth's surface, appearing stationary. After launch of NASA's THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) mission on February 17 on a Delta-2 rocket, the five THEMIS spacecraft were deployed into a string-of-pearls configuration on near-identical highly elliptical orbits with 31-hour periods. Scientists had suspected that exploding stars, or supernovae, were the primary source, but nobody had been able to demonstrate that they can create copious amounts of dust -- until now. When its temperature reaches 2 degrees Celsius, the spacecraft will be impossible to maneuver, and the mission will end, probably in 2008. At end-2007, after almost four times its expected mission lifetime, the venerabvle spacecraft was approaching the end of its operations. New Horizons passed Jupiter on Febrary 28, riding the planets gravity to boost its speed and shave three years off its trip to Pluto. Formerly known as SIRTF (Space Infrared Telescope Facility) and launched on August 24, 2003, the Spitzer Space Telescope is the fourth and final element in NASA's family of Great Observatories and represents an important scientific and technical bridge to NASA's Astronomical Search for Origins program. 2022 Tied for Fifth Warmest Year on Record. Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory show both galaxies contain supermassive black holes at their centers, but the larger galaxy has a jet emanating from the vicinity of its black hole. In 2007, the joint European/NASA solar polar mission Ulysses celebrated its 17th launch anniversary. By combining how far it has moved across the sky with its distance from Earth, astronomers determined the neutron star is moving at over 3 million miles per hour. These flashes are brighter than a billion suns, yet last only a few milliseconds. The Voyagers owe their longevity to their nuclear power sources, called radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs). Its differential radiometers measure, with unprecedented accuracy, the temperature fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). Highly complementary with CloudSat, the CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) satellite continued in 2007 to provide new insight into the role that clouds and atmospheric aerosols (airborne particles) play in regulating Earth's weather, climate, and air quality. Authors & editors: Highlights of military space in 2007 included the launch of the first USAF Wideband Global System (WGS) broadband communications satellite which marked a major step in military capabilities, on an Atlas-5 (Oct. 11). On the moon Enceladus, Cassini observed jets of fine, icy particles spraying from the moon that originate from the hottest spots on the moon's "tiger stripe" fractures that straddle the moon's south polar region. After NASA formally extended the operational mission of Chandra from five years to 10 years in September 2001 (including the science grants that fund astronomers to analyze their data and publish their results), in 2007 Chandra astronomers discovered one of the fastest moving stars ever seen, a cosmic cannonball that is challenging theories to explain its blistering speed. The Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), launched on August 25, 1997, is positioned in a halo orbit around the first Langrangian libration point L1, where gravitational forces are in equilibrium. Their discovery implies there were hundreds of millions of additional black holes growing in our young universe, more than doubling the total amount known at that distance. 16 FE Clay Anderson to install the S5 truss segment and other outboard equipment. A difficulty arose during the mission with the Russian computers that provide backup attitude control and orbital altitude adjustments. That, in turn, influenced the microwaves that WMAP observes. Incorporating the instrument's data into numerical weather prediction models improves the accuracy range of experimental six-day Northern Hemisphere weather forecasts by up to six hours, a four-percent increase. Plasma burps from the Sun called coronal mass ejections (CMEs) temporarily push the boundary outwards, for example, so that it washes back and forth over the spacecraft like a wave on the beach. It was the 120th shuttle mission, the 34th flight of Discovery, and the 66th landing at KSC. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. Grouped stars sometimes form patterns in the sky recognized by humans known as Constellations. At this rate, RX J0822-4300 is destined to escape from the Milky Way after millions of years, even though it has only traveled about 20 light years so far. Before the undocking on 11/5 (5:32am EST) crew members transferred 2,020 lbs (916 kg) of equipment and scientific samples to the shuttle, including the metal shavings from the SARJ for engineers to study and try to determine the cause of resistance in the starboard rotary joint. Featured Resources . Earth in 2022 was about 1.11C (2F) warmer than the late 19th century average. The 6800-lbs (3100-kg) spacecraft was launched on April 20, 2004, on a Delta-2 rocket. The five-craft THEMIS fleet may help scientists to determine why auroras are more common in the spring than at other times. AIM is the first satellite mission dedicated to the study of noctilucent or night-shining clouds (NLCs) also called Polar Mesospheric clouds (PMCs). During 2007, the spacecraft were in a coast phase collecting information about the interaction of the solar wind and the Earths magnetic field. 2023 Multiverse Media Inc. All right are reserved. Landsat Data Policy Released. even in broad daylight by blocking out the Sun with your hand. However, in radio and X-ray images, two additional spiral arms dominate the picture, appearing as ghostly apparitions between the main arms. The landing was diverted to California due to marginal weather at Kennedy. 1976 - CTS launch. 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