{ "count": 450, "next": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/api/search/?keywords=Space+science&limit=100&offset=100", "previous": null, "results": [ { "id": 13357, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13357/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2021-06-14T17:00:00-04:00", "title": "Webb Telescope Beauty Shots - Final Sunshield Deployment on Earth", "description": "Beauty shots of the James Webb Space Telescope during its final sunshield deployment test. This b-roll was captured on December, 13, 2020 in 8K. This b-roll is available in 8K, 4K and 1080 resolutions. || ", "hits": 31 }, { "id": 10662, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10662/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2021-04-14T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Webb Science Simulations: Planetary Systems and Origins of Life", "description": "Supercomputer simulations of planeratry evolution. Part 1: Turbulent Molecular Cloud Nebula with Protostellar ObjectsThe Advanced Visualization Laboratory (AVL) at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) collaborated with NASA and Drs. Alexei Kritsuk and Michael Norman to visualize a computational data set of a turbulent molecular cloud nebula forming protostellar objects and accretion disks approximately 100 AU in diameter, on the order of the size of our solar system. AVL used its Amore software to interpolate and render the Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) simulation generated from ENZO code for cosmology and astrophysics. The AMR simulation was developed by Drs. Kritsuk and Norman at the Laboratory for Computational Astrophysics. The AMR simulation generated more than 2 terabytes of data and follows star formation processes in a self-gravitating turbulent molecular cloud with a dynamic range of half-a-million in linear scale, resolving both the large-scale filamentary structure of the molecular cloud (~5 parsec) and accretion disks around emerging young protostellar objects (down to 2 AU). Part 2: Protoplanetary Disk and Planet FormationThe Advanced Visualization Laboratory (AVL) at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) collaborated with NASA and Dr. Aaron Boley to visualize the 16,000 year evolution of a young, isolated protoplanetary disk which surrounds a newly-formed protostar. The disk forms spiral arms and a dense clump as a result of gravitational collapse. Dr. Aaron Boley developed this computational model to investigate the response of young disks to mass accretion from their surrounding envelopes, including the direct formation of planets and brown dwarfs through gravitational instability. The main formation mechanism for gas giant planets has been debated within the scientific community for over a decade. One of these theories is 'direct formation through gravitational instability.' If the self-gravity of the gas overwhelms the disk's thermal pressure and the stabilizing effect of differential rotation, the gas closest to the protostar rotates faster than gas farther away. In this scenario, regions of the gaseous disk collapse and form a planet directly. The study, presented in Boley (2009), explores whether mass accretion in the outer regions of disks can lead to such disk fragmentation. The simulations show that clumps can form in situ at large disk radii. If the clumps survive, they can become gas giants on wide orbits, e.g., Fomalhaut b, or even more massive objects called brown dwarfs. Whether a disk forms planets at large radii and, if so, the number of planets that form, depend on how much of the envelope mass is distributed at large distances from the protostar. The results of the simulations suggest that there are two modes of gas giant planet formation. The first mode occurs early in the disk's lifetime, at large radii, and through the disk instability mechanism. After the main accretion phase is over, gas giants can form in the inner disk, over a period of a million years, through the core accretion mechanism, which researchers are addressing in other studies.Thanks to R. H. Durisen, L. Mayer, and G. Lake for comments and discussions relating to this research. This study was supported in part by the University of Zurich, Institute for Theoretical Physics, and by a Swiss Federal Grant. Resources supporting this work were provided by the NASA High-End Computing (HEC) Program through the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center.AVL at NCSA, University of Illinois. || ", "hits": 241 }, { "id": 4851, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4851/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2020-09-09T13:15:00-04:00", "title": "Deep Star Maps 2020", "description": "The star map in celestial coordinates, at five different resolutions. The map is centered at 0h right ascension, and r.a. increases to the left. || starmap_2020_4k_print.jpg (1024x512) [41.8 KB] || starmap_2020_4k_searchweb.png (320x180) [53.9 KB] || starmap_2020_4k_thm.png (80x40) [5.5 KB] || starmap_2020_4k.exr (4096x2048) [34.3 MB] || starmap_2020_8k.exr (8192x4096) [124.5 MB] || starmap_2020_16k.exr (16384x8192) [422.9 MB] || starmap_2020_32k.exr (32768x16384) [1.4 GB] || starmap_2020_64k.exr (65536x32768) [3.8 GB] || ", "hits": 3657 }, { "id": 3458, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3458/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2017-10-01T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Destination Asteroid", "description": "Not far from Earth, dark bodies of rock circle the sun in lonely orbits. These near Earth objects, or NEOs, are asteroids found outside the traditional belt between Mars and Jupiter. Protected from the gravitational tugs and tumbles that affect objects found closer to the gas giant, these asteroids may contain clues about the origins of the solar system. That's why experts from NASA and The University of Arizona want to send a research vehicle to collect a sample. That's OSIRIS. Once approved, the OSIRIS vehicle would leave Earth on a multi-year mission to map and collect samples from a particular NEO called RQ-36.In DESTINATION: ASTEROID, we look behind the scenes as a team of government scientists demonstrates for a visiting group of reporters how the mission will work. This short film explores the basics of the mission, including scientific goals, technical design plans, and a timeline of planned events. Imagination and invention meet in this spirited paean to NASA's legacy for great feats of exploration and discovery. Join us as we set our navigation systems to DESTINATION: ASTEROID. || ", "hits": 53 }, { "id": 12472, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12472/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2016-12-30T10:00:00-05:00", "title": "Hubble: Humanity's Quest for Knowledge", "description": "Launched on April 24, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has provided over a million observations, advancing studies of the solar system, nebulae, exoplanets, stars, black holes, galaxies, dark matter, and dark energy. The culmination of decades of human ingenuity, the Hubble Space Telescope remains at peak performance and continues humanity's quest for knowledge. Follow Hubble online at nasa.gov/hubble and @NASA_Hubble || ", "hits": 38 }, { "id": 12459, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12459/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2016-12-13T15:00:00-05:00", "title": "Webb Telescope Launch and Deploy (12-minute)", "description": "12-minute produced video describing the James Webb Space Telescope deploy sequence, trajectory and operating orbit. || Webb_Animation_IMAGE_ONLY.00001_print.jpg (1024x576) [100.7 KB] || Webb_Animation_IMAGE_ONLY.00001_searchweb.png (180x320) [68.6 KB] || Webb_Animation_IMAGE_ONLY.00001_web.png (320x180) [68.6 KB] || Webb_Animation_IMAGE_ONLY.00001_thm.png (80x40) [5.7 KB] || 1511201_JWST_L-D_Apvd_Final_G.mp4 (1920x1080) [1.5 GB] || 1511201_JWST_L-D_Apvd_Final_G.mov (1920x1080) [11.7 GB] || 1511201_JWST_L-D_Apvd_Final_G.webm (1920x1080) [97.8 MB] || 1511201_JWST_L-D_Apvd_Final_G-cc-srt.en_US.srt [13.0 KB] || 1511201_JWST_L-D_Apvd_Final_G-cc-srt.en_US.vtt [13.0 KB] || ", "hits": 113 }, { "id": 12379, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12379/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2016-09-28T10:00:00-04:00", "title": "Space Radiation Highlights", "description": "A collection of space radiation highlights featuring:NASA's Van Allen ProbesNASA's CubeSats || ", "hits": 98 }, { "id": 11886, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11886/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2015-06-03T14:00:00-04:00", "title": "JWST Arm Over-Deploy at GSFC", "description": "JWST Arm-Over Deploy || Screen_Shot_2015-06-03_at_10.40.24_AM.png (1409x752) [1.2 MB] || Screen_Shot_2015-06-03_at_10.40.24_AM_print.jpg (1024x546) [126.5 KB] || Screen_Shot_2015-06-03_at_10.40.24_AM_searchweb.png (320x180) [97.3 KB] || Screen_Shot_2015-06-03_at_10.40.24_AM_web.png (320x170) [92.9 KB] || Screen_Shot_2015-06-03_at_10.40.24_AM_thm.png (80x40) [10.4 KB] || JWST_Arm_Over-Deploy_ProRes_appletv.m4v (960x540) [88.4 MB] || JWST_Arm_Over-Deploy_ProRes_prores.mov (1280x720) [3.1 GB] || JWST_Arm_Over-Deploy_ProRes_1280x720.wmv (1280x720) [110.0 MB] || JWST_Arm_Over-Deploy_ProRes_youtube_hq.mov (1280x720) [336.3 MB] || JWST_Arm_Over-Deploy_ProRes_youtube_hq.webm (1280x720) [23.1 MB] || JWST_Arm_Over-Deploy_ProRes_ipod_lg.m4v (640x360) [34.5 MB] || JWST_Arm_Over-Deploy_ProRes_ipod_sm.mp4 (320x240) [18.3 MB] || ", "hits": 22 }, { "id": 11887, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11887/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2015-06-03T14:00:00-04:00", "title": "JWST Pathfinder Backplane Mirror Placement GSFC", "description": "Backplane Pathfinder Mirror Placement || Screen_Shot_2015-06-03_at_11.07.44_AM.png (1273x713) [972.9 KB] || Screen_Shot_2015-06-03_at_11.07.44_AM_print.jpg (1024x573) [136.0 KB] || Screen_Shot_2015-06-03_at_11.07.44_AM_searchweb.png (320x180) [96.8 KB] || Screen_Shot_2015-06-03_at_11.07.44_AM_web.png (320x179) [96.4 KB] || Screen_Shot_2015-06-03_at_11.07.44_AM_thm.png (80x40) [9.9 KB] || Backplane_Pathfinder_EDU_Mirror_Placement_only-ITAR_cleared_youtube_hq.mov (1280x720) [91.8 MB] || Backplane_Pathfinder_EDU_Mirror_Placement_only-ITAR_cleared_prores.mov (1280x720) [1.8 GB] || Backplane_Pathfinder_EDU_Mirror_Placement_only-ITAR_cleared_1280x720.wmv (1280x720) [61.2 MB] || Backplane_Pathfinder_EDU_Mirror_Placement_only-ITAR_cleared_appletv.m4v (960x540) [51.1 MB] || Backplane_Pathfinder_EDU_Mirror_Placement_only-ITAR_cleared_youtube_hq.webm (1280x720) [13.3 MB] || Backplane_Pathfinder_EDU_Mirror_Placement_only-ITAR_cleared_ipod_lg.m4v (640x360) [20.0 MB] || Backplane_Pathfinder_EDU_Mirror_Placement_only-ITAR_cleared_ipod_sm.mp4 (320x240) [10.1 MB] || ", "hits": 14 }, { "id": 11888, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11888/", "result_type": "B-Roll", "release_date": "2015-06-03T14:00:00-04:00", "title": "JWST Backplane Pathfinder Prepped for Cryo Test in Chamber A B-roll Part 1", "description": "JWST's Backplane Pathfinder enters into Chamber A || 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"https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10874/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2013-04-17T16:00:00-04:00", "title": "Science in the Media Press Conference", "description": "This video supports the Science in the Media curriculum module, which culminates with students playing the role of reporters viewing this simulated press conference and writing a story about it. The findings discussed in the video are actual results from the Suzaku satellite.Science in the Media curriculum module here. || ", "hits": 39 }, { "id": 10857, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10857/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2013-04-05T16:00:00-04:00", "title": "SEXTANT: Navigating by Cosmic Beacon", "description": "Imagine a technology that would allow space travelers to transmit gigabytes of data per second over interplanetary distances or to navigate to Mars and beyond using powerful beams of light emanating from rotating neutron stars. The concept isn't farfetched.In fact, Goddard astrophysicists Keith Gendreau and Zaven Arzoumanian plan to fly a multi-purpose instrument on the International Space Station to demonstrate the viability of two groundbreaking navigation and communication technologies and, from the same platform, gather scientific data revealing the physics of dense matter in neutron stars. || ", "hits": 71 }, { "id": 10943, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10943/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-04-02T12:30:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi Observations of Dwarf Galaxies Provide New Insights on Dark Matter", "description": "There's more to the cosmos than meets the eye. About 80 percent of the matter in the universe is invisible to telescopes, yet its gravitational influence is manifest in the orbital speeds of stars around galaxies and in the motions of clusters of galaxies. Yet, despite decades of effort, no one knows what this \"dark matter\" really is. Many scientists think it's likely that the mystery will be solved with the discovery of new kinds of subatomic particles, types necessarily different from those composing atoms of the ordinary matter all around us. The search to detect and identify these particles is underway in experiments both around the globe and above it. Scientists working with data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have looked for signals from some of these hypothetical particles by zeroing in on 10 small, faint galaxies that orbit our own. Although no signals have been detected, a novel analysis technique applied to two years of data from the observatory's Large Area Telescope (LAT) has essentially eliminated these particle candidates for the first time.WIMPs, or Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, represent a favored class of dark matter candidates. Some WIMPs may mutually annihilate when pairs of them interact, a process expected to produce gamma rays — the most energetic form of light — that the LAT is designed to detect. The team examined two years of LAT-detected gamma rays with energies in the range from 200 million to 100 billion electron volts (GeV) from 10 of the roughly two dozen dwarf galaxies known to orbit the Milky Way. Instead of analyzing the results for each galaxy separately, the scientists developed a statistical technique — they call it a \"joint likelihood analysis\" — that evaluates all of the galaxies at once without merging the data together. No gamma-ray signal consistent with the annihilations expected from four different types of commonly considered WIMP particles was found.For the first time, the results show that WIMP candidates within a specific range of masses and interaction rates cannot be dark matter. A paper detailing these results appeared in the Dec. 9, 2011, issue of Physical Review Letters. || ", "hits": 222 }, { "id": 10909, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10909/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-03-13T11:00:00-04:00", "title": "NASA's Visualization Explorer iPad App Expands Coverage Across the Universe", "description": "NASA has peered 13 billion years back into the history of the universe. You won't have to look as far to find our cutting-edge science. The NASA Visualization Explorer app has broadened its scope to include more awe-inspiring discoveries beamed back to Earth from the agency's entire fleet of satellites, spacecraft and space telescopes. Expect stories each week that cover all four fields of NASA's science research: planetary, heliophysics, astrophysics and Earth. You'll get new views of the planets and sun from satellites such as Cassini and Solar Dynamics Observatory; visualizations and animations of stars, distant galaxies and the cosmic stuff in between; and dramatic images taken by the legendary Hubble Space Telescope. || ", "hits": 39 }, { "id": 20122, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20122/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2012-02-25T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Fermi's LAT Instrument", "description": "Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) detects particles produced in a physical process known as pair production that epitomizes Einstein's famous equation, E=mc2. When a gamma ray, which is pure energy (E), slams into a layer of tungsten in one of the tracking towers that compose the LAT, it creates mass (m) in the form of a pair of subatomic particles, an electron and its antimatter counterpart, a positron. Several layers of high-precision silicon detectors track the particles as they move through the instrument. The direction of the incoming gamma ray is determined by projecting the particle paths backward. The particles travel through the trackers until they reach a separate detector called a calorimeter, which absorbs and measures their energies. The LAT produces gamma-ray images of astronomical objects, while also determining the energy of each detected gamma ray. || ", "hits": 130 }, { "id": 10905, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10905/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-01-31T13:00:00-05:00", "title": "Interstellar Neutral Atoms", "description": "Animation of the interstellar interaction with our Sun-one of billions of stars that orbits around the galaxy. As we zoom in through the galaxy we can see our heliosphere; then if we travel along with the interstellar material, we can see how only a very rare few are directed along precisely the right path to make the 30 year, 15 billion mile journey and enter IBEX's low energy sensor and be detected.For press release media associated with this animation, go: here. || ", "hits": 65 }, { "id": 3895, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3895/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2012-01-17T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Deep Star Maps", "description": "This set of star maps was created by plotting the position, brightness, and color of just over 100 million stars from the Bright Star, Tycho-2, and UCAC3 star catalogs. The constellation boundaries are those established by the International Astronomical Union in 1930. The constellation figures also come from the IAU, although they're not official.The maps are presented in plate carrée projections using either celestial (J2000 geocentric right ascension and declination) or galactic coordinates. They are designed for spherical mapping in animation software. The oval shapes near the top and bottom of the star maps are not galaxies. The distortion of the stars in those parts of the map is just an effect of the projection.The celestial coordinate mapping will be the more useful one for animation, since camera rotations in the software will correspond in a straightforward way to the right ascension and declination in astronomy references. The galactic coordinate mapping works as a standalone image showing the edge-on view of our home galaxy, from the inside.The animation demonstrates the use of the maps in a tour of the sky. The tour starts at W-shaped Cassiopeia, then heads south through Perseus to the winter constellation of Orion the Hunter and the Hyades and Pleiades star clusters in Taurus. It moves southeast past Orion's canine companion and its star, Sirius, brightest in the sky, eventually pausing at the rich southern hemisphere portion of the Milky Way in Carina and Crux, the Southern Cross.East of the Cross, in Centaurus, is the binary star Alpha Centauri, at 4.4 light-years the naked-eye star system nearest to the Sun. Also visible as a fuzzy spot near the top of the frame is the globular cluster Omega Centauri. The number of stars used to draw the star maps is large enough to reveal many globular and open star clusters as well as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.After passing near the celestial south pole, the tour moves north along the Milky Way to the center of our galaxy near the teapot in Sagittarius. The tour veers northwest from there, finally stopping at the familiar Big Dipper or Plough asterism in Ursa Major.This is an update to entry 3572. || ", "hits": 1128 }, { "id": 10869, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10869/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-01-10T11:00:00-05:00", "title": "NASA's RXTE Helps Pinpoint Launch of 'Bullets' in a Black Hole's Jet", "description": "Using observations from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite and the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) radio telescope, an international team of astronomers has identified the moment when a black hole in our galaxy launched superfast knots of gas into space. Racing outward at about one-quarter the speed of light, these \"bullets\" of ionized gas are thought to arise from a region located just outside the black hole's event horizon, the point beyond which nothing can escape.The research centered on the mid-2009 outburst of a binary system known as H1743-322, located about 28,000 light-years away toward the constellation Scorpius. Discovered by NASA's HEAO-1 satellite in 1977, the system is composed of a normal star and a black hole of modest but unknown masses. Their orbit around each other is measured in days, which puts them so close together that the black hole pulls a continuous stream of matter from its stellar companion. The flowing gas forms a flattened accretion disk millions of miles across, several times wider than our sun, centered on the black hole. As matter swirls inward, it is compressed and heated to tens of millions of degrees, so hot that it emits X-rays.Some of the infalling matter becomes re-directed out of the accretion disk as dual, oppositely directed jets. Most of the time, the jets consist of a steady flow of particles. Occasionally, though, they morph into more powerful outflows that hurl massive gas blobs at significant fractions of the speed of light. || ", "hits": 63 }, { "id": 10887, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10887/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2012-01-10T10:00:00-05:00", "title": "NASA's Fermi Space Telescope Explores New Energy Extremes", "description": "After more than three years in space, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is extending its view of the high-energy sky into a range that to date has been largely unexplored territory. Now, the Fermi team has presented its first \"head count\" of sources in this new realm.Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) scans the entire sky every three hours, continually deepening its portrait of the sky in gamma rays, the most extreme form of light. While the energy of visible light falls between about 2 and 3 electron volts, the LAT detects gamma rays with energies ranging from 20 million electron volts (MeV) to more than 300 billion (GeV).But at higher energies, gamma rays are few and far between. Above 10 GeV, even Fermi's LAT detects only one gamma ray every four months from some sources. The LAT's predecessor, the EGRET instrument on NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, detected only 1,500 individual gamma rays in this range during its nine-year lifetime, while the LAT detected more than 150,000 in just three years.Any object producing gamma rays at these energies is undergoing extraordinary astrophysical processes. More than half of the 496 sources in the new census are active galaxies, where matter falling into a supermassive black hole powers jets that spray out particles at nearly the speed of light. || ", "hits": 47 }, { "id": 3896, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3896/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2011-12-28T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Mars Roll", "description": "A redux of entry #2455 using MGS/MOLA data for the Martian topography and MGS/MOC for the Martian surface color. The animation rolls Mars to show major features of the Martian topography. Major features depicted include: Olympus Mons, Valles Marineris, Hellas Basin, and the Martian North and South Poles. || ", "hits": 54 }, { "id": 10875, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10875/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-12-15T10:00:00-05:00", "title": "RXTE Detects 'Heartbeat' Of Smallest Black Hole Candidate", "description": "Data from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite has identified a candidate for the smallest-known black hole. The evidence comes from a specific type of X-ray pattern — nicknamed a \"heartbeat\" because of its resemblance to an electrocardiogram — that until now has been recorded in only one other black hole system. Named IGR J17091-3624 after the astronomical coordinates of its sky position, the binary system pairs a normal star with a black hole that may weigh less than three times the sun's mass, near the theoretical boundary where black-hole status first becomes possible. Flare-ups occur when gas from the normal star streams toward the black hole and forms a disk around it. Friction within the disk heats the gas to millions of degrees, which is hot enough to radiate X-rays.The record-holder for ubiquitous X-ray variability is another black hole binary named GRS 1915+105. This system is unique in displaying more than a dozen highly structured patterns — typically lasting between seconds and hours — that scientists distinguish by Greek-letter names. Seven of these patterns are now seen in IGR J17091, including the so-called rho-class oscillations that astronomers describe them as the \"heartbeat\" of black hole systems.It's thought that strong magnetic fields near the black hole's event horizon eject some of the gas into dual, oppositely directed jets that blast outward at nearly the speed of light. The peak of its heartbeat emission corresponds to the emergence of the jet. Changes in the X-ray spectrum observed by RXTE during each beat in GRS 1915 reveal that the innermost region of the disk emits enough radiation to push back the gas, creating a strong outward wind that staunches the inward flow, briefly starving the black hole and shutting down the jet. This corresponds to the faintest emission. Eventually the inner disk gets so bright and so hot that it essentially disintegrates and plunges toward the black hole, re-establishing the jet and beginning the cycle anew. In GRS 1915+105, which at 14 solar masses is by for the more massive of the two, this cycle can take as little as 40 seconds. In IGR J17091, the emission can be 20 times fainter than GRS 1915, and the heartbeat cycle can occur up to eight times faster.Download the animations here. || ", "hits": 52 }, { "id": 10876, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10876/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-12-15T10:00:00-05:00", "title": "Black Hole Pulse Animation", "description": "Animations associated with the RXTE Black Hole 'Heartbeat' release.View the short video using these animations here. || ", "hits": 168 }, { "id": 10808, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10808/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-11-30T13:00:00-05:00", "title": "The Dual Personality of the 'Christmas Burst'", "description": "The Christmas burst, also known as GRB 101225A, was discovered in the constellation Andromeda by Swift's Burst Alert Telescope at 1:38 p.m. EST on Dec. 25, 2010. Two very different scenarios successfully reproduce features of this peculiar cosmic explosion. It was either caused by novel type of supernova located billions of light-years away or an unusual collision much closer to home, within our own galaxy. Common to both scenarios is the presence of a neutron star, the crushed core that forms when a star many times the sun's mass explodes. According to one science team, the burst occurred in an exotic binary system where a neutron star orbited a normal star that had just entered its red giant phase. The outer atmosphere of the giant expanded so much that it engulfed the neutron star, which resulted in both the ejection of the giant's atmosphere and rapid tightening of the neutron star's orbit. Once the two stars became wrapped in a common envelope of gas, the neutron star may have merged with the giant's core after just five orbits, or about 18 months. The end result of the merger was the birth of a black hole and the production of oppositely directed jets of particles moving at nearly the speed of light, which made the gamma rays, followed by a weak supernova. Based on this interpretation, the event took place about 5.5 billion light-years away, and the team has detected what may be a faint galaxy at the right location.Another team supports an alternative model that involves the tidal disruption of a large comet-like object and the ensuing crash of debris onto a neutron star located only about 10,000 light-years away. Gamma-ray emission occurred when debris fell onto the neutron star. Clumps of cometary material likely made a few orbits, with different clumps following different paths before settling into a disk around the neutron star. X-ray variations detected by Swift's X-Ray Telescope that lasted several hours may have resulted from late-arriving clumps that struck the neutron star as the disk formed. The NASA release is here. || ", "hits": 54 }, { "id": 10878, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10878/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-11-28T14:00:00-05:00", "title": "Gamma rays in the Heart of Cygnus", "description": "Located in the vicinity of the second-magnitude star Gamma Cygni, the Cygnus X star-forming region was discovered as a diffuse radio source by surveys in the 1950s. Now, a study using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope finds that the tumult of star birth and death in Cygnus X has managed to corral fast-moving particles called cosmic rays.Cosmic rays are subatomic particles — mainly protons — that move through space at nearly the speed of light. In their journey across the galaxy, the particles are deflected by magnetic fields, which scramble their paths and make it impossible to backtrack the particles to their sources. Yet when cosmic rays collide with interstellar gas, they produce gamma rays — the most energetic and penetrating form of light — that travel to us straight from the source.The Cygnus X star factory is located about 4,500 light-years away and is believed to contain enough raw material to make two million stars like our sun. Within it are many young star clusters and several sprawling groups of related O- and B-type stars, called OB associations. One, called Cygnus OB2, contains 65 O stars — the most massive, luminous and hottest type — and nearly 500 B stars. These massive stars possess intense outflows that clear out cavities in the region's gas clouds. A tangled web of shockwaves associated with this process impedes the movement of cosmic rays throughout the region. Cosmic rays striking gas nuclei or photons from starlight produce the gamma rays Fermi detects.The release on NASA.gov is here. || ", "hits": 104 }, { "id": 10871, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10871/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-11-11T09:00:00-05:00", "title": "Swift Captures Flyby of Asteroid 2005 YU55", "description": "As asteroid 2005 YU55 swept past Earth in the early morning hours of Wednesday, Nov. 9, telescopes aboard NASA's Swift satellite joined professional and amateur astronomers around the globe in monitoring the fast-moving space rock. The unique ultraviolet data will aid scientists in understanding the asteroid's surface composition.The challenge with 2005 YU55 was its rapid motion across the sky, which was much too fast for Swift to track. Instead, the team trained the spacecraft's optics at two locations along the asteroid's predicted path and let it streak through the field. The first exposure began a few hours after the asteroid's closest approach and fastest sky motion — near 9 p.m. EST on Nov. 8 — but failed to detect it.Six hours later, around 3 a.m. EST on Nov. 9, Swift began an exposure that captured the asteroid sweeping through the Great Square of the constellation Pegasus. The 11th- magnitude rock was then 333,000 miles away and moving at 24,300 mph, about an hour from its closest approach to the Moon. That exposure gave the Swift team more than a streak through the stars. \"A novel feature of Swift is the ability to go into a mode tracking the arrival of every photon captured by the instrument. With that information, we can reconstruct the asteroid as a point source moving through the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope's field of view,\" said Neil Gehrels, lead scientist for Swift at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.The 27-minute-long image was effectively sliced into short 10-second-long exposures, which then were combined into a movie. This allows scientists to study short-term brightness variations caused by the object's rotation.The result is a movie of 2005 YU55 at ultraviolet wavelengths unobtainable from ground-based telescopes. For planetary scientists, this movie is a treasure trove of data that will help them better understand how this asteroid is put together, information that may help make predictions of its motion more secure for centuries to come. The press release on NASA.gov is here. || ", "hits": 61 }, { "id": 10867, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10867/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-11-09T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Swift HD Beauty Shot", "description": "Animation of the Swift spacecraft. || ", "hits": 44 }, { "id": 10858, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10858/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-11-03T14:00:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi Discovers Youngest Millisecond Pulsar", "description": "An international team of scientists using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a surprisingly powerful millisecond pulsar that challenges existing theories about how these objects form. At the same time, another team has exploited improved analytical techniques to locate nine new gamma-ray pulsars in Fermi data.A pulsar, also called a neutron star, is the closest thing to a black hole astronomers can observe directly, crushing half a million times more mass than Earth into a sphere no larger than a city. This matter is so compressed that even a teaspoonful weighs as much as Mount Everest.Typically, millisecond pulsars are a billion years or more old, ages commensurate with a stellar lifetime. But in the Nov. 3 issue of Science, the Fermi team reveals a bright, energetic millisecond pulsar only 25 million years old.The object, named PSR J1823—3021A, lies within NGC 6624, a spherical assemblage of ancient stars called a globular cluster, one of about 160 similar objects that orbit our galaxy. The cluster is about 10 billion years old and lies about 27,000 light-years away toward the constellation Sagittarius.\"With this new batch of pulsars, Fermi now has detected more than 100, which is an exciting milestone when you consider that before Fermi's launch only seven of them were known to emit gamma rays,\" said Pablo Saz Parkinson, an astrophysicist at the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, University of California Santa Cruz. || ", "hits": 185 }, { "id": 10861, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10861/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-11-03T14:00:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi Pulsar Interactive Videos", "description": "These videos originally accompanied a Fermi Pulsar Interactive. That interactive is now available here. || ", "hits": 151 }, { "id": 10847, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10847/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-10-19T09:30:00-04:00", "title": "Spiral Arms Point to Possible Planets in a Star's Dusty Disk", "description": "A new image of the disk of gas and dust around a sun-like star is the first to show spiral-arm-like structures. These features may provide clues to the presence of embedded but as-yet-unseen planets.The newly imaged disk surrounds SAO 206462, an 8.7-magnitude star located about 456 light-years away in the constellation Lupus. Astronomers estimate that the system is only about 9 million years old. The gas-rich disk spans some 14 billion miles, which is more than twice the size of Pluto's orbit in our own solar system. The Subaru near-infrared image reveals a pair of spiral features arcing along the outer disk. Theoretical models show that a single embedded planet may produce a spiral arm on each side of a disk. The structures around SAO 206462 do not form a matched pair, suggesting the presence of two unseen worlds, one for each arm. || ", "hits": 83 }, { "id": 10819, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10819/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-09-09T09:00:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi's Latest Gamma-ray Census Highlights Cosmic Mysteries", "description": "Every three hours, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope scans the entire sky and deepens its portrait of the high-energy universe. Every year, the satellite's scientists reanalyze all of the data it has collected, exploiting updated analysis methods to tease out new sources. These relatively steady sources are in addition to the numerous transient events Fermi detects, such as gamma-ray bursts in the distant universe and flares from the sun.Earlier this year, the Fermi team released its second catalog of sources detected by the satellite's Large Area Telescope (LAT), producing an inventory of 1,873 objects shining with the highest-energy form of light. More than half of these sources are active galaxies whose supermassive black hole centers are causing the gamma-ray emissions. || ", "hits": 105 }, { "id": 10807, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10807/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-08-24T13:00:00-04:00", "title": "NASA's Swift Satellite Spots Black Hole Devouring A Star", "description": "In late March 2011, NASA's Swift satellite alerted astronomers to intense and unusual high-energy flares from a new source in the constellation Draco. They soon realized that the source, which is now known as Swift J1644+57, was the result of a truly extraordinary event — the awakening of a distant galaxy's dormant black hole as it shredded and consumed a star. The galaxy is so far away that the radiation from the blast has traveled 3.9 billion years before reaching Earth. Most galaxies, including our own, possess a central supersized black hole weighing millions of times the sun's mass. According to the new studies, the black hole in the galaxy hosting Swift J1644+57 may be twice the mass of the four-million-solar-mass black hole lurking at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. As a star falls toward a black hole, it is ripped apart by intense tides. The gas is corralled into a disk that swirls around the black hole and becomes rapidly heated to temperatures of millions of degrees. The innermost gas in the disk spirals toward the black hole, where rapid motion and magnetism creates dual, oppositely directed \"funnels\" through which some particles may escape. Particle jets driving matter at velocities greater than 80-90 percent the speed of light form along the black hole's spin axis. In the case of Swift J1644+57, one of these jets happened to point straight at Earth.Theoretical studies of tidally disrupted stars suggested that they would appear as flares at optical and ultraviolet energies. The brightness and energy of a black hole's jet is greatly enhanced when viewed head-on. The phenomenon, called relativistic beaming, explains why Swift J1644+57 was seen at X-ray energies and appeared so strikingly luminous. When first detected on March 28, the flares were initially assumed to signal a gamma-ray burst, one of the nearly daily short blasts of high-energy radiation often associated with the death of a massive star and the birth of a black hole in the distant universe. But as the emission continued to brighten and flare, astronomers realized that the most plausible explanation was the tidal disruption of a sun-like star seen as beamed emission. || ", "hits": 269 }, { "id": 10806, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10806/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-07-22T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Beyond Einstein", "description": "Albert Einstein's theories rank among humanity's greatest achievements. They sparked the scientific revolution of the 20th Century. In their attempts to understand how space, time and matter are connected, Einstein and his successors made three predictions:First, that space is expanding from a Big Bang. Second, that black holes exist — these extremely dense places in the universe where space and time are tied into contorted knots and where time itself — stops. And third, that there is some kind of energy pulling the universe apart. These three predictions seemed so far-fetched, that everyone, including Einstein himself, thought they were unlikely. Incredibly, all three have turned out to be true. This is where NASA's Beyond Einstein program begins. Using advanced space-based technology to explore these three questions, NASA and its partners begin the next revolution in our understanding of the universe. NASA's Beyond Einstein program is poised to complete Einstein's legacy — and ultimately unravel the mysteries of the Universe. || ", "hits": 82 }, { "id": 10770, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10770/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-05-20T09:00:00-04:00", "title": "Radio Telescopes Capture Best-Ever Snapshot of a Black Hole's Jets", "description": "Centaurus A is a giant elliptical active galaxy 12 million light years away. Radio and X-ray images reveal features associated with jets emanating from near the galaxy's central supermassive black hole, which has a mass of 55 million suns. Now, the TANAMI project has provided the best-ever view of these jets. In the radio image of the galaxy's core, the black hole is invisible but the jets show in great detail. Features as small as 15 light-days across can be resolved. The powerful jets feed vast lobes of radio-emitting gas that reach far beyond the visible galaxy. || ", "hits": 79 }, { "id": 10116, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10116/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-03-17T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Afterschool Universe", "description": "Afterschool Universe is an out-of-school-time astronomy program for middle school students that explores basic astronomy concepts through engaging hands-on activities and then takes participants on a journey through the Universe beyond the Solar System. These videos are designed for instructors using the Afterschool Universe program. They are designed to give a better understanding of the assembly, technique and layout of some of the more complicated demonstrations. || ", "hits": 37 }, { "id": 10698, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10698/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2011-01-20T09:00:00-05:00", "title": "NASA's Swift Finds 'Missing' Active Galaxies", "description": "Most large galaxies contain a giant central black hole. In an active galaxy, matter falling toward the supermassive black hole powers high-energy emissions so intense that two classes of active galaxies, quasars and blazars, rank as the most luminous objects in the universe. Thick clouds of dust and gas near the central black hole screens out ultraviolet, optical and low-energy (or soft) X-ray light. Although there are many different types of active galaxy, astronomers explain the different observed properties based on how the galaxy angles into our line of sight. We view the brightest ones nearly face on, but as the angle increases, the surrounding ring of gas and dust absorbs increasing amounts of the black hole's emissions. || ", "hits": 157 }, { "id": 10688, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10688/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-11-09T13:00:00-05:00", "title": "Fermi discovers giant gamma-ray bubbles in the Milky Way", "description": "Using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, scientists have recently discovered a gigantic, mysterious structure in our galaxy. This never-before-seen feature looks like a pair of bubbles extending above and below our galaxy's center. But these enormous gamma-ray emitting lobes aren't immediately visible in the Fermi all-sky map. However, by processing the data, a group of scientists was able to bring these unexpected structures into sharp relief. Each lobe is 25,000 light-years tall and the whole structure may be only a few million years old. Within the bubbles, extremely energetic electrons are interacting with lower-energy light to create gamma rays, but right now, no one knows the source of these electrons.Are the bubbles remnants of a massive burst of star formation? Leftovers from an eruption by the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's center? Or or did these forces work in tandem to produce them? Scientists aren't sure yet, but the more they learn about this amazing structure, the better we'll understand the Milky Way.For an animation that shows the inverse Compton scattering responsible for the gamma rays, go to #10690.For an animation that shows an artist's interpretation of the Milky Way galaxy and the lobes, go to#10691. || ", "hits": 316 }, { "id": 10690, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10690/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-11-09T13:00:00-05:00", "title": "How to make a gamma ray", "description": "A series of animations showing how gamma rays can be created through various particle interactions. || ", "hits": 338 }, { "id": 10679, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10679/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-11-02T09:00:00-04:00", "title": "Using Color to Search for Alien Earths", "description": "NASA astronomer Lucy McFadden and UCLA graduate Carolyn Crow recently made a discovery that will help identify characteristics of extrasolar planets, such as the compositions of their surfaces and atmospheres. By comparing the reflected red, blue, and green light from planets in our solar system, a team led by Crow and McFadden was able to group the planets according to their similarities. As it turns out, the planets fall into very distinct regions on this plot, where the vertical direction indicates the relative amount of blue light, and the horizontal direction the relative amount of red light. This technique works even when the source of the reflected light is visible only as a point, like exoplanets appear when observed through a telescope. Therefore, scientists can use it to identify earthlike planets more easily. || ", "hits": 179 }, { "id": 10661, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10661/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-11-01T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "JWST Science Simulations: Galaxy Formation", "description": "Supercomputer Simulations of Galaxy Formation and Evolution. This visualization shows small galaxies forming, interacting, and merging to make ever-larger galaxies. This 'hierarchical structure formation' is driven by gravity and results in the creation of galaxies with spiral arms much like our own Milky Way galaxy. The Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) simulation generated from ENZO code for cosmology and astrophysics was developed by Drs. Brian O'Shea and Michael Norman. The AMR code generated 1.8 terabytes of data and was computed at NCSA. AVL used Amore software (http://avl.ncsa.illinois.edu/what-we-do/software) to interpolate and render 2700 frames (42 gigabytes of HD images). The simulation spans a time period of 13.7 billion years. This visualization provides insight into the assembly and formation of galaxies. James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will probe the earliest periods of galaxy formation by looking deep into space to see the first galaxies that form in the universe, only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. The Advanced Visualization Laboratory (AVL) at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) collaborated with NASA and Drs. Brian O'Shea and Michael Norman to visualize the formation of a Milky Way-type galaxy. The Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) simulation generated from ENZO code for cosmology and astrophysics was developed by Drs. Brian O'Shea and Michael Norman. The AMR code generated 1.8 terabytes of data and was computed at NCSA. AVL used Amore software (http://avl.ncsa.illinois.edu/what-we-do/software) to interpolate and render 2700 frames (42 gigabytes of HD images). The simulation spans a time period of 13.7 billion years. This visualization provides insight into the assembly and formation of galaxies. James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will probe the earliest periods of galaxy formation by looking deep into space to see the first galaxies that form in the universe, only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.AVL(http://avl.ncsa.illinois.edu/) at NCSA (http://ncsa.illinois.edu/), University of Illinois (www.illinois.edu) || ", "hits": 437 }, { "id": 10663, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10663/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-11-01T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Webb Science Simulations: Re-Ionization Era", "description": "The visualization shows galaxies, composed of gas, stars and dark matter, colliding and forming filaments in the large-scale universe providing a view of the Cosmic Web. The Advanced Visualization Laboratory (AVL) at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) collaborated with NASA and Drs. Renyue Cen and Jeremiah Ostriker to visualize a simulation of the nonlinear cosmological evolution of the universe. Drs. Cen and Ostriker developed one of the largest cosmological hydrodynamic simulations and computed over 749 gigabytes of raw data at the NCSA in 2005. AVL used Amore software (http://avl.ncsa.illinois.edu/what-we-do/software) to interpolate and render approximately 322 gigabytes of a subset of the computed data. The simulation begins about 20 million years after the Big Bang - about 13.7 billion years ago - and extends until the present day.AVL(http://avl.ncsa.illinois.edu/) at NCSA (http://ncsa.illinois.edu/), University of Illinois (www.illinois.edu) || ", "hits": 297 }, { "id": 20186, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20186/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2010-10-01T11:00:00-04:00", "title": "Cosmic Rays and the Heliopause", "description": "This animation shows how variations in the size of the heliosphere affect how many cosmic rays reach Earth. As the heliosphere expands, it blocks more cosmic rays, and as it contracts, more cosmic rays get through and can affect astronauts and satellites. || ", "hits": 85 }, { "id": 10669, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10669/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-09-30T13:00:00-04:00", "title": "NASA Mission Shows Evolution of Conditions at Edge of Solar System", "description": "New data from NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, spacecraft, reveal that conditions at the edge of our solar system may be much more dynamic than previously thought. Future exploration missions will benefit in design and mission objectives from a better understanding of the changing conditions in this outer region of our solar system.The IBEX has produced a new set of \"all-sky\" maps of our solar system's interaction with the galaxy, allowing researchers to continue viewing and studying the interaction between our galaxy and sun. The new maps reveal changing conditions in the region that separates the nearest reaches of our galaxy, called the local interstellar medium, from our heliosphere — a protective bubble that shields and protects our solar system.In October 2009, scientists announced that the first map data produced by IBEX revealed an unpredicted bright ribbon of energetic neutral atoms emanating toward the sun from the edge of the solar system. This discovery was unexpected to scientists, because the ribbon of bright emissions did not resemble any previous theoretical models of the region.The IBEX spacecraft creates sky maps by measuring and counting particles referred to as energetic neutral atoms that are created in an area of our solar system known as the interstellar boundary region. This imaging technique is required since this region emits no light that can be collected by conventional telescopes. This interstellar boundary is where charged particles from the sun, called the solar wind, flow outward far beyond the orbits of the planets and collide with material between stars. These collisions cause energetic neutral atoms to travel inward toward the sun from interstellar space at velocities ranging from 100,000 mph to more than 2.4 million mph.This second set of all-sky maps, created using data collected during six months of observations, show the evolution of the interstellar boundary region. The maps help delineate the interstellar boundary region, the area at the edge of our solar system that shields it from most of the dangerous galactic cosmic radiation that would otherwise enter from interstellar space. The new findings were published this week in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Space Physics, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. || ", "hits": 71 }, { "id": 10635, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10635/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-09-23T09:00:00-04:00", "title": "Dust Simulations Paint Alien's View of the Solar System", "description": "Dust ground off icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt, the cold-storage zone that includes Pluto and millions of other objects, creates a faint infrared disk potentially visible to alien astronomers looking for planets around the sun. Neptune's gravitational imprint on the dust is always detectable in new simulations of how this dust moves through the solar system. By ramping up the collision rate, the simulations show how the distant view of the solar system might have changed over its history. More here. || ", "hits": 152 }, { "id": 10625, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10625/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-08-17T08:00:00-04:00", "title": "RXTE Sees Eclipses from Fast X-ray Pulsar", "description": "Astronomers using NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) have found the first fast X-ray pulsar to be eclipsed by its companion star. Further studies of this unique stellar system will shed light on some of the most compressed matter in the universe and test a key prediction of Einstein's relativity theory.Known as Swift J1749.4-2807 — J1749 for short — the system erupted with an X-ray outburst on April 10. During the event, RXTE observed three eclipses, detected X-ray pulses that identified the neutron star as a pulsar, and even recorded pulse variations that indicated the neutron star's orbital motion. More information here. || ", "hits": 75 }, { "id": 10549, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10549/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-05-26T10:00:00-04:00", "title": "Swift Survey Finds 'Smoking Gun' of Black Hole Activation", "description": "Astronomers using X-ray data from an ongoing survey by NASA's Swift satellite have solved a decades-long mystery. Why, when most galaxies host giant black holes in their centers, do only about one percent of them emit vast amounts of energy? The new findings confirm that the black holes \"light up\" when galaxies collide — and may offer insight into the future behavior of the black hole in our own galaxy. The intense emission from galaxy centers, or nuclei, arises near a supermassive black hole containing between a million and a billion times the sun's mass. Giving off as much as 10 billion times the sun's energy, some of these active galactic nuclei (AGN) — a class that includes quasars and blazars — are the most luminous objects in the universe. || ", "hits": 66 }, { "id": 10590, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10590/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-04-19T11:00:00-04:00", "title": "Swift's 500 Gamma-ray Bursts", "description": "On April 13, 2010, NASA's Swift Gamma-ray Burst Explorer satellite discovered its 500th burst. Swift's main job is to quickly localize each gamma-ray burst (GRB), report its position so that others can immediately conduct follow-up observations, and then study the burst using its X-ray and Ultraviolet/Optical telescopes. The plots and videos below illustrate Swift's first 500 GRBs. For more on the story, see the feature \"NASA's Swift Catches 500th Gamma-ray Burst\".This page has been updated with a new version of this animation highlighting Swift's detection of the most distant gamma-ray burst ever seen—13.14 billion light years. || ", "hits": 63 }, { "id": 10580, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10580/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-03-10T12:00:00-05:00", "title": "Dark Flow", "description": "Distant galaxy clusters mysteriously stream at a million miles per hour along a path roughly centered on the southern constellations Centaurus and Hydra. A new study led by Alexander Kashlinsky at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., tracks this collective motion — dubbed the \"dark flow\" — to twice the distance originally reported, out to more than 2.5 billion light-years. The study used a new technique to determine the motion of X-ray-emitting galaxy clusters. The clusters appear to be moving along a line extending from our solar system toward Centaurus/Hydra, but the direction of this motion is less certain. Evidence indicates that the clusters are headed outward along this path, away from Earth, but the team cannot yet rule out the opposite flow. The video shows the team's catalog of galaxy clusters separated into four \"slices\" representing different distance ranges. A colored ellipse shows the flow axis for the clusters within each slice. While the size and exact position of the ellipses vary, the overall trends show remarkable agreement. The video includes images of representative clusters in each distance slice. The dark flow is controversial because the distribution of matter in the observed universe cannot account for it. Its existence suggests that some structure beyond the visible universe — outside our \"horizon\" — is pulling on matter in our vicinity. || ", "hits": 213 }, { "id": 10582, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10582/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-03-05T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Pulsar Blinking", "description": "A pulsar is a neutron star which emits beams of radiation that sweep through the earth's line of sight. Like a black hole, it is an endpoint to stellar evolution. The \"pulses\" of high-energy radiation we see from a pulsar are due to a misalignment of the neutron star's rotation axis and its magnetic axis. Pulsars pulse because the rotation of the neutron star causes the radiation generated within the magnetic field to sweep in and out of our line of sight with a regular period. External viewers see pulses of radiation whenever this region above the the magnetic pole is visible. Because of the rotation of the pulsar, the pulses thus appear much as a distant observer sees a lighthouse appear to blink as its beam rotates. The pulses come at the same rate as the rotation of the neutron star, and, thus, appear periodic. || ", "hits": 491 }, { "id": 10543, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10543/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-01-26T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Neutron Star Merge", "description": "Binary systems containing neutron stars are born when the cores of two orbiting stars collapse in supernova explosions. Neutron stars pack the mass of our sun into the size of a city. They are so dense and packed so tightly that the boundaries atoms nuclei disappear. In such systems, Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that neutron stars emit gravitational radiation, ripples of space-time. This causes the orbits to shrink and gradually brings the neutron stars closer together. Shown here is such a system after about 1 billion years, when two equal-mass neutron whirl around each other at 60,000 times a minute. The stars merge in a few milliseconds, sending out a burst of gravitational waves and a brief, intense gamma-ray burst. || ", "hits": 380 }, { "id": 10544, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10544/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-01-26T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Black Hole Binary Creates Gravity Waves", "description": "When smaller black holes orbit around a supermassive black hole, Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that they will emit gravitational radiation. These ripples of space-time cause the orbits to shrink and gradually brings the black holes closer enough together to merge. || ", "hits": 139 }, { "id": 10545, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10545/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-01-26T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Black Hole Accretion Disc Energies", "description": "A black hole is a massive object whose gravitational field is so intense that nothing - not even light (electromagnetic radiation) — can escape from within its so-called event horizon. Accretion disks of hot material encircle many black holes, and this material emits X-rays and other forms of energy. Gas closer to the black hole is hotter and emits more energetic radiation. Gas at the innermost stable orbit tells astronomers whether the black hole is spinning because a rotating black hole can host material in stable orbits much closer to its event horizon. Oppositely directed jets of gas often form in the innermost zone of black hole accretion disks. || ", "hits": 1478 }, { "id": 10546, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10546/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-01-26T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Neutron Star and Red Giant Binary Destruction", "description": "After a supernova, a binary star may be composed of one red giant and one neutron star. The red giant can be torn apart by the neturon star's gravity if it is too close. || ", "hits": 172 }, { "id": 10547, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10547/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-01-26T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Supernova with Expanding Shell", "description": "Stars which are 8 times or more massive than our Sun end their lives in a most spectacular way; they go supernova. A supernova explosion will occur when there is no longer enough fuel for the fusion process in the core of the star to create an outward pressure which combats the inward gravitational pull of the star's great mass. In less than a second, the star begins the final phase of gravitational collapse. The core temperature rises to over 100 billion degrees as the iron atoms are crushed together. The repulsive force between the nuclei is overcome by the force of gravity. So the core compresses but then recoils. The energy of the recoil is transferred to the envelope of the star, which then explodes and produces a shock wave. As the shock encounters material in the star's outer layers, the material is heated, fusing to form new elements and radioactive isotopes. The shock then propels that matter out into space. The material that is exploded away from the star is now known as a supernova remnant. || ", "hits": 222 }, { "id": 10555, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10555/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-01-26T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Massive Merger of Galaxies is Most Powerful on Record", "description": "In 2004, an international team of scientists, led by a NASA-funded researcher, observed a nearby head-on collision of two galaxy clusters. The clusters smashed together thousands of galaxies and trillions of stars. It is one of the most powerful events ever witnessed. Such collisions are second only to the Big Bang in total energy output.The event was captured with the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton observatory. Scientists are calling the event the perfect cosmic storm: galaxy clusters that collided like two high-pressure weather fronts and created hurricane-like conditions, tossing galaxies far from their paths and churning shock waves of 100-million-degree gas through intergalactic space. The cluster, Abell 754 in the constellation Hydra, has been known for decades. However, the new observation reveals the merger may have occurred from the opposite direction than was previously thought.This unprecedented view of merger in action crystallizes the theory the universe built its magnificent hierarchal structure from the \"bottom up,\" essentially through mergers of smaller galaxies and galaxy clusters into bigger ones.Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally bound structures in the universe, containing hundreds to thousands of galaxies. || ", "hits": 303 }, { "id": 20217, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20217/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2010-01-26T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "Stellar Nursery", "description": "Animation of stellar nursery with shockwaves. || Stellar_nursery_UpRes0240.jpg (1280x720) [58.4 KB] || Stellar_nursery_UpRes0240_web.png (320x180) [238.4 KB] || Stellar_nursery_UpRes0240_thm.png (80x40) [16.6 KB] || Stellar_Nursery_.webmhd.webm (960x540) [1.7 MB] || Stellar_Nursery_.mov (1280x720) [125.8 MB] || 1280x720_16x9_60p (1280x720) [64.0 KB] || 10548_Stellar_Nursery_H264_1280x720_59.94.mov (1280x720) [12.0 MB] || 10548_Stellar_Nursery_MPG2_1280x720_29.97.m2v (1280x720) [9.5 MB] || 10548_Stellar_Nursery_H264_1280x720_30.mov (1280x720) [8.3 MB] || 10548_Stellar_Nursery_M4v_1280x720_29.97.m4v (1280x720) [8.0 MB] || Stellar_nursery_UpRes0240.tif (1280x720) [2.6 MB] || 10548_Stellar_Nursery_MPG4_320x180_29.97.mp4 (320x180) [1.3 MB] || 10548_Stellar_Nursery_MPG1_352x240_29.97_.mpg (352x240) [2.9 MB] || ", "hits": 153 }, { "id": 10520, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10520/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-01-05T14:30:00-05:00", "title": "New Millisecond Radio Pulsars Found in Fermi LAT Unidentified Sources", "description": "Radio searches netted 17 new millisecond pulsars by examining the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope's list of unidentified sources. Colored circles indicate the positions of the new pulsars on the Fermi one-year all-sky map. || ", "hits": 62 }, { "id": 10540, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10540/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-12-09T10:00:00-05:00", "title": "Brightest-ever Flare From Blazar 3C 454.3", "description": "The blazar 3C 454.3, which lies 7.2 billion light-years away in the constellation Pegasus, underwent a series of intense flares in the fall of 2009. By December, it had become the brightest persistent gamma-ray source in the sky — more than ten times brighter than it was in the summer. These all-sky images, which record the numbers of high-energy gamma-rays captured by Fermi's Large Area Telescope on Dec. 3 and Nov. 18, clearly show the change. Typically, the Vela pulsar, which lies only 1,000 light-years away, is the sky's brightest persistent source of gamma rays. Blazar 3C 454.3, which is millions of times farther away, rose to twice Vela's brightness. Astronomers suspect the activity is driven by some change within the galaxy's black-hole-powered particle jet, but they do not understand the details. || ", "hits": 70 }, { "id": 10536, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10536/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-12-02T06:00:00-05:00", "title": "Suzaku: Intergalactic Prospector", "description": "Recently astronomers used the Suzaku orbiting X-ray observatory, operated jointly by NASA and the Japanese space agency, to discover the largest known reservoir of rare metals in the universe. Suzaku detected the elements chromium and manganese while observing the central region of the Perseus galaxy cluster. The metallic atoms are part of the hot gas, or \"intergalactic medium,\" that lies between galaxies. Exploding stars, or supernovas, forge the heavy elements. The supernovas also create vast outflows, called superwinds. These galactic gusts transport heavy elements into the intergalactic void. || ", "hits": 28 }, { "id": 10489, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10489/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-10-28T01:45:00-04:00", "title": "Gamma-ray Burst Photon Delay as Expected by Quantum Gravity", "description": "In this illustration, one photon (purple) carries a million times the energy of another (yellow). Some theorists predict travel delays for higher-energy photons, which interact more strongly with the proposed frothy nature of space-time. Yet Fermi data on two photons from a gamma-ray burst fail to show this effect, eliminating some approaches to a new theory of gravity. || ", "hits": 141 }, { "id": 10505, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10505/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-10-28T01:45:00-04:00", "title": "Blazars at Galactic North Pole, Seen in Fermi's First Year of Observations", "description": "Fermi has detected more than 1,000 gamma-ray sources. Half are associated with active galaxies called blazars. This movie shows one year of blazar activity, starting on Aug. 4, 2008, around the galactic north pole. This region includes the constellations Ursa Major, Virgo, Leo, Boötes, and Coma Berenices. || ", "hits": 31 }, { "id": 10507, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10507/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-10-28T01:45:00-04:00", "title": "Gamma-Rays from High-Mass X-Ray Binaries", "description": "In its first year, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope discovered GeV (billions of electron volts) intensity variations revealing orbital motion in high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs). These are systems where a compact companion, such as a neutron star or a black hole, rapidly orbits a hot, young, massive star. The first examples include LSI +61 303, which sports a 26-day orbital period, and LS 5039 (3.9 days). This animation shows such a system. When the compact object lies far from its host star, TeV (trillions of electron volts) gamma-rays (white) are seen by ground-based gamma-ray observatories. But, as the object plunges closer to the star, the TeV emission is quenched and GeV emission turns on. Interactions by accelerated particles from the compact source with gas encircling the star — or in some systems, the star's light itself — is thought to be responsible for this change. || ", "hits": 61 }, { "id": 10508, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10508/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-10-28T01:45:00-04:00", "title": "Fermi All-Sky First Year Progress", "description": "This view of the gamma-ray sky constructed from one year of Fermi LAT observations is the best view of the extreme universe to date. The map shows the rate at which the LAT detects gamma rays with energies above 300 million electron volts — about 120 million times the energy of visible light — from different sky directions. Brighter colors equal higher rates. || ", "hits": 53 }, { "id": 10510, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10510/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2009-10-28T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Einstein's Cosmic Speed Limit", "description": "In its first year of operations, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has mapped the entire sky with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity in gamma-rays, the highest-energy form of light. On May 10, 2009 a pair of gamma-ray photons reached Fermi only 900 milliseconds apart after traveling for 7 billion years. Fermi's measurement gives us rare experimental evidence that space-time is smooth as Einstein predicted, and has shut the door on several approaches to gravity where space-time is foamy enough to interfere strongly with light.Watch this video on the NASAexplorer YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here. || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_512x288_web.png (320x180) [223.5 KB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_512x288_thm.png (80x40) [16.5 KB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_Thumbnail.jpg (346x260) [107.4 KB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_AppleTV.webmhd.webm (960x540) [82.4 MB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_AppleTV.m4v (960x540) [208.4 MB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_1280x720_H264.mov (1280x720) [433.5 MB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_1280x720_ProRes.mov (1280x720) [5.2 GB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_640x480_ipod.m4v (640x360) [68.6 MB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_512x288.mpg (512x288) [38.3 MB] || Einsteins_Cosmic_Speed_Limit_320x240.mp4 (320x180) [26.5 MB] || GSFC_20091029_EinsteinsCosmicSpeedLimit.wmv (346x236) [38.4 MB] || ", "hits": 255 }, { "id": 10263, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10263/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-10-07T11:00:00-04:00", "title": "Resonant Dust Ring Sculpted by a Super-Earth", "description": "A planet twice the mass of Earth shepherds dust near its orbit into a circumstellar ring structure. Both the planet and the dust structure orbit the host star with a period of 5.2 years. Two regions of enhanced dust density lead and trail the planet, which causes periodic localized brightening. This simulation was computed using NASA GSFC's 420-processor Thunderhead cluster. Stark used the cluster to create a catalog of debris-disk structures caused by Earth-like planets. The catalog is available at http://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/Christopher.Stark/catalog.php || ", "hits": 106 }, { "id": 10259, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10259/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-09-29T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Vision. Hope. Triumph.", "description": "'They had to have vision; they had to have hope. And ultimately there was the triumph of seeing it come to fruition.' Heidi Hammel, a Senior Research Scientist from the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, expresses her views on the past, present, and future of the Hubble Space Telescope and its upcoming repair mission.For more information go to http://www.nasa.gov/hubble. || ", "hits": 29 }, { "id": 10253, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10253/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-09-26T01:00:00-04:00", "title": "Scientists Watch Baby Black Hole Get to Work Fast", "description": "Scientists using NASA's Swift satellite say they have found newborn black holes, just seconds old, in a confused state of existence, sloppily gorging on material falling into them while somehow propelling other material away at great speeds. These black holes are born in massive star explosions. An initial blast obliterates the star. Yet the chaotic black hole activity appears to re-energize the explosion again and again over the course of several minutes. This is a dramatically different view of star death, one that entails multiple explosive outbursts and not just a single bang, as previously thought.When a massive star runs out of fuel, it no longer has the energy to support its mass. The core collapses and forms a black hole. Shockwaves bounce out and obliterate the outer shells of the star. Previously scientists thought that a single explosion is followed by a graceful afterglow of the dying embers. Now, according to Swift observations, it appears that a newborn black hole in the core somehow re-energizes the explosion again and again, creating multiple bursts all within a few minutes. || ", "hits": 45 }, { "id": 10347, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10347/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-08-26T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST First Light All Sky Map", "description": "NASA's newest observatory, the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), has begun its mission of exploring the universe in high-energy gamma rays. The spacecraft and its revolutionary instruments passed their orbital checkout with flying colors. NASA announced today that GLAST has been renamed the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The new name honors Prof. Enrico Fermi (1901 - 1954), a pioneer in high-energy physics. Scientists expect Fermi will discover many new pulsars in our own galaxy, reveal powerful processes near supermassive black holes at the cores of thousands of active galaxies across, and enable a search for signs of new physical laws. || ", "hits": 118 }, { "id": 10345, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10345/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-08-25T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLASTcast in HD for Apple TV and iTunes", "description": "The Universe is home to numerous exotic and beautiful phenomena, some of which can generate inconceivable amounts of energy. GLAST will open a new window on this high-energy world. With GLAST, astronomers will have a superior tool to study how black holes, notorious for pulling matter in, can accelerate jets of gas outward at fantastic speeds. Physicists will be able to search for signals of new fundamental processes that are inaccessible in ground-based accelerators and observatories. GLAST's spectacular high-energy gamma-ray 'eyeglasses' will reveal hidden wonders, opening our minds to new possibilities and discoveries, expanding our understanding of the Universe and our place in it. || ", "hits": 23 }, { "id": 10323, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10323/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-08-05T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLASTCast Episode 3 - Swift and GLAST", "description": "NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S. What's the difference between the Swift and GLAST satellites? Both missions look at gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), but in different ways. Swift can rapidly and precisely determine the locations of GRBs and observe their afterglows at X-ray, ultraviolet, and optical wavelengths. GLAST will provide exquisite observations of the burst over the gamma ray spectrum, giving scientists their first complete view of the total energy released in these extraordinary events. Beyond GRB science, GLAST is a multipurpose observatory that will study a broad range of cosmic phenomena. Swift is also a multipurpose observatory, but was built primarily to study GRBs. Interviews with (in order of appearance): David Thompson - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Charles \"Chip\" Meegan - GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) Principal Investigator, NASA Marshall Lynn Cominsky - GLAST Astrophysicist and Education and Public Outreach Lead, Sonoma State University Neil Gehrels - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Steve Ritz - GLAST Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Alan Marscher - Professor of Astronomy, Boston University || ", "hits": 28 }, { "id": 10324, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10324/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-08-05T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLASTcast Episode 4: Launching a Spacecraft", "description": "NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S. The GLAST satellite will launch in 2008 from Cape Canaveral Air Station, on Florida's east coast. GLAST will be carried on a Delta II Heavy launch vehicle, with 9 solid rocket boosters. GLAST is the first imaging gamma-ray observatory to survey the entire sky every day and with high sensitivity. It will give scientists a unique opportunity to learn about the ever-changing Universe at extreme energies. Interviews with (in order of appearance): Peter Michaelson - Large Area Telescope (LAT) Principal Investigator, Stanford University Lynn Cominsky - GLAST Astrophysicist and Education and Public Outreach Lead, Sonoma State University David Thompson - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Kevin Grady - GLAST Project Manager, NASA Goddard Neil Johnson - Large Area Telescope (LAT) Deputy Principal Investigator, US Naval Research Lab Jonathan Ormes - Large Area Telescope (LAT) Senior Scientist Advisory Committee, University of Denver Charles \"Chip\" Meegan - GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) Principal Investigator, NASA Marshall Luke Drury - Professor of Astronomy, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies Per Carlson - Professor of Elementary Particle Physics, Manne Siegbahn Laboratory Isabelle Grenier - Principal Investigator of the GLAST French contribution, French Atomic Energy Commission || ", "hits": 31 }, { "id": 10325, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10325/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-08-05T01:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLASTcast Episode 5: Meet the U.S. Team", "description": "NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S. This video introduces only a small fraction of the hundreds of U.S. and international GLAST team members. To meet more of the team go to: www.nasa.gov/glast. Interviews with (in order of appearance): Bill Atwood - GLAST Co-Creator, Santa Cruz Institute of Particle Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz David Thompson - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Julie McEnery - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Steve Ritz - GLAST Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Neil Gehrels - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Peter Michaelson - Large Area Telescope (LAT) Principal Investigator, Stanford University Kevin Grady - GLAST Project Manager, NASA Goddard Charles \"Chip\" Meegan - GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) Principal Investigator, NASA Marshall || ", "hits": 19 }, { "id": 10322, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10322/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-07-30T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST Soundbites", "description": "Selected soundbites with Steve Ritz, GLAST Project Scientist; Peter Michelson, LAT Principal Investigator; Charles 'Chip' Meegan, GBM Principal Investigator. NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S. || ", "hits": 23 }, { "id": 20155, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20155/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2008-07-21T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Swift Spacecraft Animations", "description": "Swift searches for Gamma Ray Bursts and stellar explosions || ", "hits": 27 }, { "id": 10250, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10250/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-06-03T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLASTcast for iTunes", "description": "The GLAST mission launched on June 11, 2008 and has been returning remarkable and revolutionary discoveries ever since. Recently renamed to the Fermi Space Telescope, after Nobel Prize winner Enrico Fermi, the mission is expected to discover dozens of new pulsars within the first year alone. The telescope is also giving us new insights into gamma-ray bursts and the massive jets that erupt from distant galaxies. Stay tuned — the mission of NASA's Fermi telescope is just getting started. || ", "hits": 22 }, { "id": 10251, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10251/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-05-31T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST Prelude, for Brass Quintet, Op.12", "description": "NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institiutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S. Music composed by Nolan Gasser, © 2008 Music performed by the American Brass Quintet || ", "hits": 21 }, { "id": 10248, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10248/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-05-23T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLASTcast Episode 2: What are Gamma Rays?", "description": "NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S. Somewhere out in the vast depths of space, a giant star explodes with the power of millions of suns. As the star blows up, a black hole forms at its center. The black hole blows two blowtorches in opposite directions, in narrow jets of gamma rays. NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, will catch about 200 of these explosions, known as gamma-ray bursts, each year. GLAST's detailed observations may give astronomers the clues they need to unravel the mystery of what exactly produces these gamma-ray bursts, which are the brightest explosions in the universe since the Big Bang. Interviews with (in order of appearance): Phil Plait - Astronomer, Bad Astronomy David Thompson - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Valerie Connaughton - GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) Team, NASA Marshall/University of Alabama Neil Gehrels - GLAST Deputy Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Isabelle Grenier - Principal Investigator of the GLAST French contribution, French Atomic Energy Commission Peter Michaelson - Large Area Telescope (LAT) Principal Investigator, Stanford University Charles \"Chip\" Meegan - GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) Principal Investigator, NASA Marshall Martin Pohl - GLAST Interdisciplinary Scientist, Iowa State University Steve Ritz - GLAST Project Scientist, NASA Goddard || ", "hits": 15 }, { "id": 20139, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20139/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2008-05-22T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Gamma Ray Burst", "description": "This animation was used to illustrate a gamma ray burst that NASA's SWIFT might see. || Gamma Ray Burst || GRBHD039100377_print.jpg (1024x576) [43.9 KB] || GRBHD0391_web.png (320x180) [267.8 KB] || GRBHD0391_thm.png (80x40) [15.0 KB] || 1280x720_16x9_60p (1280x720) [32.0 KB] || grb_hd_720p.m2v (1280x720) [20.5 MB] || grb_hd_720p.webmhd.webm (960x540) [2.0 MB] || a010245_grb_hd_720p.mp4 (640x360) [1.6 MB] || grb_hd_512x288.m1v (512x288) [2.9 MB] || ", "hits": 34 }, { "id": 20135, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20135/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2008-04-16T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Gamma Rays in Active Galactic Nuclei", "description": "This animation shows how gamma rays possibly form in Active Galactic Nuclei. || ", "hits": 92 }, { "id": 20136, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20136/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2008-04-16T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Gamma Rays in Pulsars", "description": "This animation takes us into a spinning pulsar, with its strong magnetic field rotating along with it. Clouds of charged particles move along the field lines and their gamma-rays are beamed like a lighthouse beacon by the magnetic fields. As our line of sight moves into the beam, we see the pulsations once every rotation of the neutron star. || ", "hits": 86 }, { "id": 10192, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10192/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2008-03-31T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Venus: Long Time, No See", "description": "The last U.S. spacecraft mission to Venus was in 1989 with the launch of Magellan. Even though Magellan spent the next five years radar mapping the surface and gathering high resolution gravity data, much remains a mystery about our so-called sister planet. Did Venus experience a run-a-way greenhouse effect at some point in its history? Why is the surface pressure 90 times greater on Venus then on Earth? Why is the planet so hot? These are only a few of the question that must be answered if we are to learn more about Venus's past and possibly Earth's future. || ", "hits": 35 }, { "id": 10165, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10165/", "result_type": "B-Roll", "release_date": "2007-09-17T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST LAT Testing - B-Roll", "description": "The GLAST LAT (Large Area Telescope) was tested extensively during the summer of 2006 at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. The NRL also contributed to the GLAST project by managing the construction of the LAT Calorimeter. || ", "hits": 30 }, { "id": 10169, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10169/", "result_type": "B-Roll", "release_date": "2007-09-17T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST LAT Integration - B-Roll", "description": "In fall of 2006, the LAT was shipped to the General Dynamics facility in Arizona for integration onto the spacecraft bus. The General Dynamics spacecraft bus provides the power, data, and pointing resources that will enable the LAT to perform its survey of the Universe. Subsequent to the mechanical integration, the command, data, and power interfaces between the instrument and the spacecraft were tested rigorously to insure the compatibility of this spaceflight hardware that had been manufactured all around the globe. || ", "hits": 25 }, { "id": 10172, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10172/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2007-09-17T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST Promo Video", "description": "NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) is a powerful space observatory that will open a wide window on the universe. Gamma rays are the highest-energy form of light and the gamma-ray sky is spectacularly different from the one we perceive with our own eyes. With a huge leap in all key capabilities, GLAST data will enable scientists to answer persistent questions across a broad range of topics, including supermassive black-hole systems, pulsars, the origina of cosmic rays, and searches for signals new physics. NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S. || ", "hits": 17 }, { "id": 20119, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20119/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2007-09-14T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "The GLAST (Fermi) Spacecraft in Orbit", "description": "GLAST will be launched into a circular orbit around the Earth at an altitude of about 560 km (350 miles). At that altitude, the observatory will circle Earth every 90 minutes. In sky-survey mode, GLAST will be able to view the entire sky in just two orbits, or about 3 hours. Because gamma rays in the GLAST's energy band are unable to penetrate the Earth's atmostphere, it is essential that GLAST perform its observations from space. || ", "hits": 62 }, { "id": 20120, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20120/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2007-09-14T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "360 Degrees of GLAST", "description": "GLAST will carry two instruments: the Large Area Telescope (LAT) and the GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM). The LAT is GLAST's primary instrument and consists of four components: the Tracker, the Calorimeter, the Anticoincidence Detector (ACD), and the Data Acquisition System (DAQ). These instrument components working together will detect gamma rays by using Einstein's famous equation (E=mc(squared) in a technique known as pair production. The GLAST Burst Monitor is a complementary instrument and consists of low-energy detectors, high-energy detectors, and data processing unit. The GBM can see all directions at once, except for the area where Earth blocks its view. When the GBM detects a bright gamma-ray burst, it immediately sends a signal to the LAT to observe that area of the sky. || ", "hits": 49 }, { "id": 20121, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20121/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2007-09-14T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST's New Window on the Universe", "description": "The Universe is home to numerous extoic and beautiful phenomena, some of which can generate inconceiveable amounts of energy. GLAST (Gamma-ray Large Area Telescope) will open this high-energy world as the first imaging gamma-ray observatory to survey the entire sky every day and with high sensitivity. Astronomers will gain a superior tool to study how black holes, notorious for pulling matter in, can accelerate jets of gas outward at fantastic speeds. Physicists will be able to search for signals of new fundamental processes that are inaccessable in ground-based accelerators and observatories. And scientists will have a unique opportunity to learn about the every-changing Universe at extreme energies. || ", "hits": 53 }, { "id": 20123, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20123/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2007-09-14T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "GLAST Launch and Deployment", "description": "GLAST's launch is scheduled for early 2008 from Cape Canaveral Air Station on Florida's eastern coast. GLAST will be carried on a Delta II Heavy launch vehicle, with 9 solid rocket boosters. The solids are actually from the Delta III series (hence the term 'heavy'), mounted on a Delta II. It has a 10-foot fairing and two stages. Stowed in the launch vehicle, the spacecraft is 9.2 feet (2.8 meters) high by 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) in diameter. Once deployed, GLAST becomes a little bit taller and much wider (15 meters) with the Ku-band antenna deployed and the solar arrays extended. || ", "hits": 41 }, { "id": 20113, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20113/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2007-09-07T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Gamma Ray Creation", "description": "Gamma rays are the highest-energy forms of light in the electromagnetic spectrum and they can have over a billion times the energy of the type of light visible to the human eye. Gamma rays can be created in several different ways: a high-energy particle can collide with another particle, a particle can collide and annihilate with its anti-particle, an element can undergo radioactive decay, or a charged particle can be accelerated. In this animation, we see a high-energy photon collide with a free electron, which causes the creation of a gamma-ray. || ", "hits": 268 }, { "id": 10140, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10140/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2007-07-03T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Merging Black Holes", "description": "A black hole is a massive object whose gravitational field is so intense that no light (electromagnetic radiation) can escape it. When two orbiting black holes merge, a massive amount of energy is released in the form of jets. Meanwhile, the movement of these massive bodies disturbs the fabric of space-time around them, sending ripples of gravitational waves radiating outward. These waves are predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity, but have yet to be directly detected. || ", "hits": 671 }, { "id": 10144, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10144/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2007-07-03T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Millisecond Pulsar with Magnetic Field Structure", "description": "A pulsar is a rapidly rotating neutron star that emits pulses of radiation (such as X-rays and radio waves) at regular intervals. A millisecond pulsar is one with a rotational period between 1 and 10 milliseconds, or from 60,000 to 6,000 revolutions per minute. Pulsars form in supernova explosions, but even newborn pulsars don’t spin at millisecond speeds, and they gradually slow down with age. If, however, a pulsar is a member of a binary system with a normal star, gas transferred from the companion can spin up an old, slow pulsar to the millisecond range. || ", "hits": 1010 }, { "id": 3412, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3412/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2007-03-22T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Hinode's High-resolution view of solar granulation", "description": "This zoom-in from a full view of the Hinode Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) (the same as in animation 3411) shows details of solar granulation and how rapidly it changes. || ", "hits": 61 }, { "id": 3407, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3407/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2007-03-01T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "STEREO's Extreme UltraViolet Imager (EUVI)", "description": "At a pixel resolution of 2048x2048, the STEREO EUVI instrument provides views of the Sun in ultraviolet light that rivals the full-disk views of SOHO/EIT. This image is through the 171 angstrom (ultraviolet) filter which is characteristic of iron ions (missing eight and nine electrons) at 1 million degrees. There is a short data gap in the latter half of the movie that creates a freeze and then jump in the data view. STEREO: Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory SOHO: SOlar Heliospheric Observatory EIT: Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope EUVI: Extreme UltraViolet Imager || ", "hits": 81 }, { "id": 20077, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20077/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2006-08-18T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Cosmic Explosion Second Only to the Sun in Brightness", "description": "The gamma ray flare produced by neutron star SGR 1806-20, traveled 50,000 light years before impacting Earth. The burst was so powerful, that it disrupted Earth's ionosphere. Scientists know of only two other giant flares in the past 35 years, and this December 27, 2005 event was one hundred times more powerful than either of those || ", "hits": 275 }, { "id": 3356, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3356/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2006-05-22T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "THEMIS Mission and Substorm Simulation", "description": "This visualization combines simulations of the THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) mission orbits with a GGCM (Geospace General Circulation Model) simulation. It illustrates how the five THEMIS satellites will work together to detect substorm events in the magnetosphere. One goal of the THEMIS mission is to test how these substorm events are related to the formation of the aurora.This mission consists of five identical spacecraft (usually designated P1, P2, P3, P4 and P5) with orbits aligned so they reach their apogee along the same line from the Earth. This alignment remains fixed in space so as the Earth moves around the Sun, the constellation of spacecraft will extend on the nightside of the Earth in winter to sample the Earth's magnetosphere, and on the dayside of the Earth in summer to sample the incoming solar wind. This way they can better map the geospace environment.Probes P1 and P2 are called the 'outer probes' and P3, 4, and 5 are the 'inner probes'. P3 and P4 share the same orbit. The outer probes will detect the onset of the substorm, while the inner probes will monitor the Earthward plasma flows from the event.For more information on the GGCM model, visit the Community Coordinated Modeling Center and OpenGGCM. || ", "hits": 38 }, { "id": 2946, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2946/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2006-05-15T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Europa's Synthetic Subsurface Heat Transport (Version 2)", "description": "Encounters with Jupiter's moon Europa by the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft indicated that a liquid salty ocean might exist below a layer of surface ice that is up to 10 kilometers thick. An ocean general circulation model developed to study the earth's oceans was used to investigate the tidally-forced ocean circulations on Europa. The orbit of Europa is 'gravity locked' so that the same side of Europa always faces Jupiter as is the case with the earth's moon. The icy surface of Europa heaves up and down 50 meters due to the strong tidal forces. This visualization shows the temperature changes induced from the flow fields calculated for a European ocean 50 kilometers deep. The warmest temperatures tend to be near the equator, not because of heating by the sun, but because the currents in the European ocean move the warmest waters to that location. Understanding the thermal and flow fields from these model runs will help to interpret observations from future missions to Europa such as the Jupiter's Icy Moons Orbiter mission proposed for launch in 2012. || ", "hits": 66 }, { "id": 2947, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2947/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2006-05-15T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Europa's Synthetic Subsurface Heat Transport (Version 1)", "description": "Under Europa's icy surface are vast extraterrestrial oceans. This conceptual animation depicts simulated heat transport of these subsurface oceans. Please note that the simulated heat transport in this animation is only conceptual and a more accurate representation can be found at animation #2946. || ", "hits": 37 }, { "id": 3336, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3336/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2006-04-01T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "The Visible Sun Revisited", "description": "Scientists working with the SOHO/MDI instrument have continued to improve on previous results. Since the first release (SOHO/MDI's 'Window' Through the Sun), improvements in helioseismology techniques have enabled them to extract more information from the same data. In this case, sonogram-type imaging of the solar far side (the side of the Sun NOT facing the Earth) has been improved to provide a more complete view of the farside. This is important in space weather forecasting as it enables us to see large sunspots and active regions before they are visible directly from the Earth. Active regions are a source of solar flares which can send high-energy protons towards the Earth. These protons can damage satellite electronics, endangering communications and weather forecasting, and are a health threat to astronauts. || ", "hits": 29 }, { "id": 3211, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3211/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2005-08-16T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Space Weather Forecasting: Quiet Times Ahead", "description": "SOHO/MDI magnetograms combined with the Potential-Field Source-Surface (PFSS) model can be used to generate a model of magnetic field lines in the lower part of the solar corona. When these models are compared to the loops visible in TRACE imagery, a good match (as in this case) indicates that the region will not generate flare events over the next few days. || ", "hits": 12 }, { "id": 3212, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3212/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2005-08-16T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "Space Weather Forecasting: Active Times Ahead", "description": "SOHO/MDI magnetograms combined with the Potential-Field Source-Surface (PFSS) model can be used to generate a model of magnetic field lines in the lower part of the solar corona. When these models are compared to the loops visible in TRACE imagery, a bad match (as in this case) indicates that the region will generate flare events over the next few days. || ", "hits": 14 }, { "id": 3159, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3159/", "result_type": "Visualization", "release_date": "2005-05-24T12:00:00-04:00", "title": "SOHO/LASCO View of January 2005 Solar Events", "description": "The January 20 flare began just before 2 a.m. ET. A storm of energetic protons impacted Earth just 15 minutes later. These views of the flare are from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). The proton storm near Earth causes `snow' in the images, obscuring the Sun as radiation swamps the cameras. The structure at the 1:30 position in the SOHO/LASCO/C3 data is the occulting disk pylon. || ", "hits": 40 } ] }