Notícies d'astronomia

Official NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 portraits with Zena Cardman, Nick Hague, Stephanie Wilson, and Aleksandr Gorbunov.Credit: NASA

NASA will host a pair of news conferences Friday, July 26, from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to highlight upcoming crew rotation missions to the International Space Station.

NASA will host a mission overview news conference at 12 p.m. EDT and provide coverage on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. The news conference will cover NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the microgravity laboratory and Expeditions 71 and 72.

NASA also will host a crew news conference at 2 p.m., and provide coverage on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website, followed by individual astronaut interviews at 3 p.m. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms, including social media.

The Crew-9 mission, targeted to launch in mid-August, will carry NASA astronauts Zena Cardman, Nick Hague, Stephanie Wilson, and cosmonaut Alexsandr Gorbunov of Roscosmos to the orbiting laboratory. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the crew aboard a Dragon spacecraft from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the company’s ninth crew rotation mission for NASA.

These events will be the final media opportunity to speak to the Crew-9 astronauts before they travel to NASA Kennedy for launch. United States-based media seeking to attend in person must contact the NASA Johnson newsroom no later than 5 p.m., Thursday, July 25, at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov. U.S. and international media interested in participating by phone must contact NASA Johnson by 9:45 a.m. the day of the event.

U.S. or international media seeking remote interviews must submit requests to the NASA Johnson newsroom by 5 p.m., Thursday, July 25. A copy of NASA’s media accreditation policy is online.

Briefing participants are as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):

12 p.m.: Mission Overview News. Conference

• Steve Stich, manager, Commercial Crew Program, NASA Johnson
• Dana Weigel, manager, International Space Station Program, NASA Johnson
• Sarah Walker, director, Dragon Mission Management, SpaceX
• Sergei Krikalev, executive director of Human Space Flight Programs, Roscosmos

2 p.m.: Crew News Conference

• Zena Cardman, spacecraft commander, NASA
• Nick Hague, pilot, NASA
• Stephanie Wilson, mission specialist, NASA
• Alexsandr Gorbunov, mission specialist, Roscosmos

3 p.m.: Crew Individual Interview Opportunities

• Crew-9 members available for a limited number of interviews

The Crew-9 mission will be the first spaceflight for Cardman, who was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2017. The Williamsburg, Virginia, native holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology and a master’s in Marine Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the time of selection, she was a doctoral candidate in geosciences. Cardman’s research focused on geobiology and geochemical cycling in subsurface environments, from caves to deep sea sediments. Since completing initial training, Cardman has supported real-time station operations and development for lunar surface exploration. Follow @zenanaut on X and @zenanaut on Instagram.

With 203 days logged in space, this will be Hague’s third launch and second mission to the orbiting laboratory. During his first launch in 2018, Hague and his crewmate, Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, experienced a rocket booster failure, resulting in an in-flight launch abort and safe landing for their Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft. Five months later, Hague launched aboard Soyuz MS-12 and served as a flight engineer aboard the space station during Expeditions 59 and 60. Hague conducted three spacewalks to upgrade space station power systems and install a docking adapter for commercial spacecraft. As an active-duty colonel in the U.S. Space Force, Hague completed a developmental rotation at the Department of Defense in Washington, where he served as the USSF director of test and evaluation from 2020 to 2022. In August 2022, Hague resumed duties at NASA, working on the Boeing Starliner Program until this flight assignment. Follow @astrohague on X and @astrohauge on Instagram.

A veteran of three spaceflights aboard space shuttle Discovery, Wilson has spent 42 days in space. During her first mission, STS-121, in July 2006, she and her crewmates spent 13 days in orbit. Wilson served as the robotic arm operator for spacecraft inspection, the installation of the “Leonardo” Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, and spacewalk support. In October 2007, Wilson and her STS-120 crewmates delivered the Harmony module to the station and relocated a solar array. In April 2010, Wilson and her STS-131 crewmates completed another resupply mission to the orbiting complex, delivering a new ammonia tank for the station cooling system, new crew sleeping quarters, a window observation facility, and a freezer for experiments. During nearly 30 years with NASA, Wilson served as the integration branch chief for NASA’s Astronaut Office, focusing on International Space Station systems and payload operations. She also completed a nine-month detail as the acting chief of NASA’s Program and Project Integration Office at the agency’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Follow @astro_stephanie on X.

This will be Gorbunov’s first trip to space and the station. Born in Zheleznogorsk, Kursk region, Russia, he studied engineering with qualifications in spacecraft and upper stages from the Moscow Aviation Institute. Gorbunov graduated from the military department with a specialty in operating and repairing aircraft, helicopters, and aircraft engines. Before being selected as a cosmonaut in 2018, he worked as an engineer for Rocket Space Corporation Energia and supported cargo spacecraft launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Learn more about how NASA innovates for the benefit of humanity through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program at:

https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew

-end-

Joshua Finch / Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov

Leah Cheshier / Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
leah.d.cheshier@nasa.gov / sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov

Share

Details Last Updated Jul 19, 2024 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms

• Humans in Space
• Commercial Crew
• Commercial Space
• International Space Station (ISS)
• ISS Research
• Johnson Space Center
• Kennedy Space Center

3 min read

Hubble Studies a Potential Galactic Merger This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures the dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 5238. ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Annibali

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 5238, located 14.5 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici. Its unexciting, blob-like appearance seems to resemble an oversized star cluster more than a classic image of a galaxy. Its lackluster appearance belies its complicated structure, which is the subject of a great deal of research. As the image reveals, Hubble is able to pick out the galaxy’s countless stars, as well as its associated globular clusters — glowing, bright spots both inside and around the galaxy swarmed by even more stars.

Astronomers theorize that NGC 5238 may have had a close encounter with another galaxy as recently as a billion years ago. NGC 5238’s distorted shape provides evidence for this interaction. As the two galaxies interacted, their gravity caused distortions in the distribution of stars in each galaxy. There’s no nearby galaxy which could have caused this disturbance, so astronomers think NGC 5238 devoured a smaller satellite galaxy. Astronomers look for traces of the consumed galaxy by closely examining the population of stars in NGC 5238, a task made for Hubble’s excellent resolution. One tell-tale sign of the smaller galaxy would be groups of stars with different properties from most of NGC 5238’s other stars, indicating they were originally formed in a separate galaxy. Another sign would be a burst of star formation that occurred abruptly at around the same time the two galaxies merged. The Hubble data used to create this image will help astronomers determine NGC 5238’s history.

Despite their small size and unremarkable appearance, it’s not unusual for dwarf galaxies like NGC 5238 to drive our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution. One main theory of galaxy evolution is that galaxies formed ‘bottom-up’ in a hierarchical fashion: star clusters and small galaxies were the first to form out of gas and dark matter. Over time, gravity gradually assembled these smaller objects into galaxy clusters and superclusters, which explains the shape of the largest structures we see in the universe today. A dwarf irregular galaxy like NGC 5238 merging with a smaller companion is just the type of event that might have started the process of galaxy assembly in the early universe. Hubble’s observations of tiny NGC 5238 may help test some of our most fundamental ideas of how the universe evolves!

Download this image

Explore More
Galaxy Details and Mergers

Tracing the Growth of Galaxies

Hubble’s Galaxies

Hubble’s Star Clusters

Facebook logo @NASAHubble

@NASAHubble

Instagram logo @NASAHubble

Media Contact:

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

Share

• 
  
  
• 
  
  
• 
  
  
• 
  
  

Details

Last Updated

Jul 19, 2024

Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Related Terms

• Astrophysics
• Astrophysics Division
• Galaxies
• Goddard Space Flight Center
• Hubble Space Telescope
• Irregular Galaxies
• Missions
• The Universe

Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble

Hubble Space Telescope

Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.

Hubble E-books

Hubble Science

Hubble Online Activities

Members of the Artemis II crew met with the crew of NASA’s Pegasus barge prior to their departure to deliver the core stage of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket to the Space Coast.

NASA astronaut and pilot of the Artemis II mission Victor Glover met the crew July 15.

From left to right: Ashley Marlar, Jamie Crews, Nick Owen, Jeffery Whitehead, Scott Ledet, Jason Dickerson, John Campbell, NASA astronaut Victor Glover, Farid Sayah, Kelton Hutchinson, Terry Fitzgerald, Bryan Jones, and Joe Robinson.NASA/Brandon Hancock

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, commander, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist, visited the barge July 16 shortly before the flight hardware was loaded onto it.

The Pegasus crew and team, from left, includes Kelton Hutchinson, Jeffery Whitehead, Jason Dickerson, Arlan Cochran, John Brunson, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, Marc Verhage, Terry Fitzgerald, Scott Ledet, CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen, Wil Daly, Ashley Marlar, Farid Sayah, Jamie Crews, Joe Robinson, and Nick Owen.NASA/Sam Lott

Pegasus is currently transporting the SLS core stage from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will be integrated and prepared for launch. During the Artemis II test flight, the core stage with its four RS-25 engines will provide more than 2 million pounds of thrust to help send the Artemis II crew around the Moon.

Pegasus, which was previously used to ferry space shuttle tanks, was modified and refurbished to ferry the SLS rocket’s massive core stage. At 212 feet in length and 27.6 feet in diameter, the Moon rocket stage is more than 50 feet longer than the space shuttle external tank.

See more images:

Members of NASA’s Pegasus barge crew meet with Artemis II crew members at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans July 15 and 16. NASA/Eric Bordelon Members of NASA’s Pegasus barge crew meet with Artemis II crew members at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans July 15 and 16. NASA/Eric Bordelon Members of NASA’s Pegasus barge crew meet with Artemis II crew members at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans July 15 and 16. NASA/Brandon Hancock Members of NASA’s Pegasus barge crew meet with Artemis II crew members at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans July 15 and 16.NASA/Evan DeRoche

NASA is working to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon under Artemis. SLS is part of NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration, along with the Orion spacecraft, advanced spacesuits and rovers, the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, and commercial human landing systems. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single launch.

On July 16, 2024, the Artemis II core stage rolled out of the Vertical Assembly Building to the waiting Pegasus barge at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans in preparation for delivery to Kennedy Space Center.

"I found out years later that seeing me in high school and hearing my experience in college inspired her to major in physics, and so she became the first robotics director at her school. And now she’s a principal. And it just rocked me because I was just being me and trying to share. It seemed like I paid it forward the same way that NASA mechanical engineer made a mark on me.” — Dr. Phillip Williams, Acting Center Chief Technologist, NASA's Langley Research Center

Apollo 11 launches from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:32 a.m. EDT, July 16, 1969. Aboard the Apollo 11 spacecraft were astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, command module pilot; and Buzz Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot. Apollo 11 was the United States' first lunar landing mission. While Armstrong and Aldrin descended in the Lunar Module "Eagle" to explore the Sea of Tranquility region of the Moon, Collins remained in lunar orbit.

Painting of the NASA logo, also called the meatball, continued on the 525-foot-tall Vehicle Assembly Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 29, 2020.

The distorted spiral galaxy at center, the Penguin, and the compact elliptical at left, the Egg, are locked in an active embrace. This near- and mid-infrared image combines data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), and marks the telescope’s second year of science. Webb’s view shows that their interaction is marked by a glow of scattered stars represented in blue. Known jointly as Arp 142, the galaxies made their first pass by one another between 25 and 75 million years ago, causing “fireworks,” or new star formation, in the Penguin. The galaxies are approximately the same mass, which is why one hasn’t consumed the other.

Several transient luminous events illuminate pockets of Earth’s upper atmosphere. A line of thunderstorms off the coast of South Africa powers the rare phenomena.

The Artemis II Core Stage moves from final assembly to the VAB at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans in preparation for delivery to Kennedy Spaceflight Center later this month. Image credit: NASA/Michael DeMocker

Space shuttle Columbia heads skyward after clearing the fixed service structure tower at Launch Complex Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Plant life appears in the foreground. Launch occurred at 12:43 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on July 8, 1994. Once in Earth orbit, STS-65's six NASA astronauts and a Japanese payload specialist aboard conducted experiments in support of the second International Microgravity Laboratory.

Technicians used a 30-ton crane to lift NASA’s Orion spacecraft on Friday, June 28, 2024, from the Final Assembly and System Testing cell to the altitude chamber inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft, which will be used for the Artemis II mission to orbit the Moon, underwent leak checks and end-to-end performance verification of the vehicle’s subsystems.

NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick captured this image of Hurricane Beryl in the Caribbean on July 1, 2024, while aboard the International Space Station, and posted it to X. The Category 4 hurricane had winds of about 130 mph (215 kph).

Saturn and its rings completely fill the field of view of Cassini's narrow angle camera in this natural color image taken on March 27, 2004. This was the last single "eyeful" of Saturn and its rings achievable with the narrow angle camera on approach to the planet.

This labyrinth – with a silhouette of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes at its center – is used as a calibration target for the cameras and laser that are part of SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals), one of the instruments aboard NASA's Perseverance Mars rover. The image was captured by the Autofocus and Context Imager on SHERLOC on May 11, 2024, the 1,147th day, or sol, of the mission, as the rover team sought to confirm it had successfully addressed an issue with a stuck lens cover.

Named RCW 7, the nebula is located just over 5300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Puppis. Nebulae are areas of space that are rich in the raw material needed to form new stars. Under the influence of gravity, parts of these molecular clouds collapse until they coalesce into protostars, surrounded by spinning discs of leftover gas and dust. In the case of RCW 7, the protostars forming here are particularly massive, giving off strongly ionising radiation and fierce stellar winds that have transformed it into what is known as a H II region. The ultraviolet radiation from the massive protostars excites the hydrogen, causing it to emit light and giving this nebula its soft pinkish glow. Here Hubble is studying a particular massive protostellar binary named IRAS 07299-1651, still in its glowing cocoon of gas in the curling clouds towards the top of the nebula. To expose this star and its siblings, this image was captured using the Wide Field Camera 3 in near-infrared light. The massive protostars here are brightest in ultraviolet light, but they emit plenty of infrared light which can pass through much of the gas and dust around them and be seen by Hubble.

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration GOES-U (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite U) lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. The GOES-U satellite is the final satellite in the GOES-R series, which serves a critical role in providing continuous coverage of the Western Hemisphere, including monitoring tropical systems in the eastern Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

"You know, there's the whole impostor syndrome thing, and I didn’t feel like I was qualified to be here because I didn't have some sort of traditional path or because my educational background looks different than that of most of my colleagues. But I'm now at a place where I've come to understand that's true for everyone." – Garrett Sadler, Human Factors Researcher, NASA’s Ames Research Center

Crews transport NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-U) from the Astrotech Space Operations facility to the SpaceX hangar at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida beginning on Friday, June 14, 2024, with the operation finishing early Saturday, June 15, 2024. The fourth and final weather-observing and environmental monitoring satellite in NOAA’s GOES-R Series will assist meteorologists in providing advanced weather forecasting and warning capabilities. The two-hour window for liftoff opens 5:16 p.m. EDT Tuesday, June 25, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

“HuskyWorks,” a team from Michigan Technological University’s Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab, tests the excavation tools of a robot on a concrete slab, held by a gravity-offloading crane on June 12 at NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge at Alabama A&M’s Agribition Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Led by Professor Paul van Susante, the team aimed to mimic the conditions of the lunar South Pole, winning an invitation to use the thermal vacuum chambers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center to continue robotic testing.