This natural color composite photo of Saturn was taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. (NASA)
A baby Adélie penguin nuzzles up to its mother inside one of three bird colonies on Ross Island near Antarctica. (Penguinscience.com)
This is Robonaut 2-R2, the first dexterous humanoid robot in space, in an image taken inside the International Space Station. NASA astronaut Kevin Ford’s reflection can be seen on R2′s helmet visor. (NASA)
Lava from a lava pond, below the peak, flows on the north side of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano. (USGS)
Photo illustration of the magnificent spiral galaxy M106, assembled using data from the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA)
This photograph, taken through a microscope, is of a brown fat cell (brown adipocyte) taken from a muscle stem cell. (Alessandra Pasut, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute)
Technicians prepare NASA’s Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) satellite for its scheduled launch on Monday, Feb. 11 at 1800 UTC. (NASA)
Sockeye salmon migrate from salt water to fresh water in British Columbia’s Fraser River, changing from their silvery ocean colors to red in fresh water. (Tom Quinn, University of Washington)
The Orion nebula is showcased in this sweeping image from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). (NASA)
An Atlas V rocket carrying NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-K (TDRS-K) streaks past a building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (NASA)
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft recently snapped this spectacular view of Saturn, taken while the spacecraft was in Saturn’s shadow. The cameras were turned toward Saturn and the Sun so that the planet and rings are backlit. (NASA)
This sabal causiarum, commonly known as the Puerto Rican hat palm, was planted in 1932 at the Montgomery Botanical Center in Coral Gables Florida. (P. Barry Tomlinson, National Tropical Botanical Garden, Miami/American Journal of Botany)
This linear accelerator produces x-ray pulses that capture images of atoms and molecules in motion and is for an astrophysics experiment at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS),. (Jose R. Crespo Lopez-Urrutia/Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics)
Lava flows down central Ecuador’s Tungurahua volcano in this photo taken at a slow shutter speed. (AP)
A map of the moon’s gravity field, as measured by NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL). Areas colored in red have a high degree of local gravity, the blue blotches show lower local gravity, and other colors indicate varying degrees of local gravity in between red and blue. (NASA)
Scientists use this device, a diamond anvil cell (DAC), in experiments to recreate the pressure that exists deep inside planets. (Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab)
This striking image of the planetary nebula NGC-5198, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA)
These six huge fans provide wind for the wind tunnel at NASA’s National Full-scale Aerodynamics Complex in California. (NASA)
This endangered hawksbill is one of seven species of the world’s sea turtle. Its shell is made up of overlapping plates which are thicker than those of other sea turtles. This heavy-duty shell protects them from being battered. (NOAA)
In a photo captured from the International Space Station, a mammoth plume of smoke emanates from the erupting Ulawan volcano, located on the island of New Britain, Papua New Guinea. (NASA)
After four months aboard the International Space Station, three Expedition 33 crewmembers returned to Earth in their Soyuz spacecraft, making a rare night landing in a remote area of Kazakhstan. (NASA)
Antarctica’s Sheldon Glacier with Mount Barre in the background. This photo was taken by scientists participating in a new NASA/British Antarctica Survey studying the effects of climate change on Antarctic sea ice cover. (British Antarctic Survey)
The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) detector is an important tool in scientists’ search for dark matter, one of nature’s most elusive particles. This is a top-down view of the copper photomultiplier tube mounting structure, a key component of the detector. (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
An adult female walrus sits on an ice floe just off the Eastern Chukchi Sea in Alaska. (S.A. Sonsthagen/USGS)
The Sun recently experienced two prominent eruptions, which occurred one after the other over a four-hour period. Fortunately, the expanding particle clouds shooting into space weren’t directed at Earth. (NASA)
A view of the countryside in Binghamton, NY as seen from inside a US National Weather Service radar radome (which protects radar components from the elements). The weather radar was recently taken offline so that repairs could be made. (NOAA/NWS)
Titan, the world’s most powerful and fastest supercomputer, is located at the Oakridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Titan’s computational capability is on par with each of the world’s 7 billion people being able to carry out 3 million calculations per second. (Oakridge National Laboratory)
A group of galaxies glows like fireflies on a dark night in this image snapped recently by the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA)
A cluster of lightning over a US National Severe Storms Lab Probe minivan which measures weather statistics as it travels through storms. (NOAA)
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Ames Laboratory are working to more effectively remove a rare earth element (group of closely related metallic elements) called neodymium from the mix of other materials in a magnet. Here rare-earth magnet scraps are melted in a furnace with magnesium. (DOE/Ames Laboratory)
Composite image of the galaxy cluster which helped reveal the newly discovered galaxy – MACS0647-JD. The inset at left shows a close up of the young dwarf galaxy. (NASA)
Scientists have discovered what could be the oldest, most distant galaxy in the universe, thanks to a unique combination of man-made and natural telescopes.
It is about 13.3 billion light years, or 125,825,000,000,000,000,000,000 km, from Earth. Scientists are getting to see it just as it was 420 million years after the Big Bang, or when the universe was only three percent of its current age of about 13.7 billion years.
The effect is achieved when the light rays from the distant object are bent by the gravity of the huge galaxy clusters, just like a giant cosmic lens, that lie between the object and Earth.
“While one occasionally expects to find an extremely distant galaxy using the tremendous power of gravitational lensing, this latest discovery has outstripped even my expectations of what would be possible with the CLASH program,” said Rychard Bouwens of Leiden University in the Netherlands, a co-author of the study that outlined the discovery. “The science output in this regard has been incredible.”
The massive galaxy cluster that’s making the distant galaxy appear brighter than it normally would, providing the natural boost to the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes, , is called MACS J0647.7+7015 and is about five billion light years away.
Hubble in orbit above the Earth (Photo: NASA)
Because of the gravitational lensing provided by the cluster, the CLASH team was able to observe three magnified images of MACS0647-JD with the Hubble.
“This cluster does what no man-made telescope can do,” said Marc Postman of the Space Telescope Science Institute, who leads the CLASH team. “Without the magnification, it would require a Herculean effort to observe this galaxy.”
The astronomers say that the distant galaxy is so small, about 600 light years across according to their observations that it may be going through its first stages formation. Our own Milky Way galaxy is about 150,000 light years across.
“This object may be one of many building blocks of a galaxy,” says Dan Coe from the Space Telescope Institute and lead author of the study. “Over the next 13 billion years, it may have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of merging events with other galaxies and galaxy fragments.”
The galaxy could turn out to be too far away for astronomers to confirm its distance with any of the current available technology. But once the new James Webb Space Telescope launches in 2018, astronomers expect to be able to take a definitive measurement of its distance and to study the properties of the galaxy in more detail.
MACS0647-JD, is very young and only a tiny fraction of the size of our Milky Way. The object is observed 420 million years after the big bang. (Video: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI))
Astronauts on the International Space Station recently used a digital camera to capture several hundred photographs of the Aurora Australis, or the “southern lights.” (Photo: NASA)
A research team from the University at Buffalo in New York, studying glaciers at Ayr Lake on Baffin Island, Canada, found the island’s glaciers reacted rapidly to past climate change, providing what they say is a rare glimpse into glacier sensitivity to climate events. (Photo: Jason Briner via NSF)
The lava lake in the Halemaʻumaʻu crater of Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano spits and sputters with occasional bursts of volcanic material. (Photo: USGS)
Two galaxies becoming one. This is a Hubble telescope photo of NGC 2623, two galaxies in the final stages of a titanic galaxy merger, located some 300 million light-years away. (Photo: NASA)
NASA’s Small Multi-Purpose Research Facility ( SMiRF ) evaluates the performance of thermal protection systems required to provide long-term storage and transfer of cryogenic propellants in space. Recent testing was done over a range of temperatures as low as -253°C and tank pressures from 20-80 psia (pounds per square inch absolute). (Photo: NASA & Bridget R. Caswell (Wyle Information Systems, LLC))
The Soyuz rocket carrying ISS Expedition 33 crew members launches to the International Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, on Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012. (Photo: NASA)
Paragorga arborea, also known as bubblegum coral, is an abundant coral species that can grow massive colonies, and has been found at polar, subpolar, and subtropical regions of all of the world’s oceans. It can reach up to eight meters in height and live up to 100 years. (Photo: NOAA/MBARI)
A look at the center of our galaxy. Using a massive nine-gigapixel image, (from the VISTA infrared survey telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile) an international team of astronomers has created a catalog of more than 84 million stars located in the central parts of the Milky Way. The image is so large that, if printed with the resolution of a typical book, it would be 9 meters long and 7 meters tall. (Photo: ESO/VVV Consortium/Ignacio Toledo)
This is a robot at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that has been coded with PaR-PaR, which stands for Programming a Robot; a simple, high-level, biology-friendly, robot-programming language that allows researchers to make better use of liquid-handling robots and thereby make possible experiments that otherwise might not have been considered. (Photo: Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab)
A bright particle of material found in a hole dug by the Curiosity Martian rover caused a bit of concern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory because another similar object, found nearby, was identified as a piece of debris from the spacecraft. However, the mission’s science team assessed the bright particles in this scooped pit to be native Martian material rather than spacecraft debris. (Photo: NASA)
NASA/Goddard physicist Babak Saif checks an oscilloscope as he works on a project that would be capable of detecting, with atomic-level precision, gravitational waves that were predicted in Einstein’s general theory of relativity. (Photo: NASA)
The farthest-ever view of the universe. Hubble’s “extreme Deep Field (XDF) is a composite made from 2,000 images, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope over a 10 year period. (Credit: NASA; ESA; G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch, University of California, Santa Cruz; R. Bouwens, Leiden University; and the HUDF09 Team)
While the images that made up the UDF revealed thousands of near and very distant galaxies, the newly released full-color XDF image reaches much fainter galaxies. NASA scientists say the new XDF also contains about 5,500 galaxies which were taken within a smaller field of view than the UDF.
In creating the XDF, astronomers were able to use very deep exposures in red light taken by Hubble’s new infrared camera, which was installed by the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2009. The data and images taken by the new camera will allow astronomers to study some of the earliest galaxies in the universe. The faintest galaxies in the XDF are one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see, according to NASA.
This illustration separates the XDF into three planes showing foreground, background, and very far background galaxies. These divisions reflect different epochs in the evolving universe. (Image: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levay, F. Summers (STScI))
The XDF not only provides a unique view of some of the deepest recesses of space but also serves as a “time tunnel into the distant past.”
The universe is believed to be 13.7 billion years old, and the XDF shows galaxies that go back some 13.2 billion years, less than 500 million years after the Big Bang. The youngest galaxy found in the XDF existed just 450 million years after the birth of the universe.
The XDF will give astronomers the opportunity to view and study those ancient galaxies when they were young, small and growing.
If you would like to learn more about the eXtreme Deep Field, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which operates the science program for the Hubble Space Telescope, is inviting the public to an online seminar Thursday, September 27, at 1700 UTC.
Three astronomers from the XDF observing team will describe how they assembled the spectacular image and explain what it tells us about the evolving universe. Participants can send in questions for the panel of experts. To participate, visit hubblesite.org.
This video explains how astronomers meticulously assembled mankind’s deepest view of the universe from combining Hubble Space Telescope exposures taken over the past decade. Guest scientists are Dr. Garth Illingworth and Dr. Marc Postman. (Video: NASA, ESA, and M. Estacion and G. Bacon (STScI))
Doppler radar installation in Arizona’s Empire Mountains, east of Tucson (Photo: Bill Morrow via Creative Commons/Flickr)
Curiosity takes a picture of its heat shield dropping away during its descent to the surface of Mars on Aug. 6, 2012 (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
A technician tests a component of the Curiosity rover’s ChemCam unit, which will help identify rock and soil targets on Mars. (Photo: LeRoy Sanchez/NNSA-USDOE)
The Hubble Space Telescope captured two spiral galaxies squaring off in the constellation of Virgo. When two galaxies collide, the stars that compose them usually do not, because galaxies are mostly empty space. (Photo: NASA)
View of the interior of the newly-attached Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) transfer vehicle docked to the International Space Station. (Photo: NASA)
Participants of marine debris removal activities sit atop a mound of derelict fishing gear collected in Hawaii. (Photo: NOAA)
This “fossil” of an electrical discharge is created by striking a nail into a highly-charged block of acrylic where this captured lightning is stored. These creations help scientists create a network of artificial blood vessels. (Photo: Bert Hickman, Stoneridge Engineering via NSF)
Hubble’s deepest view of the universe unveils never-before-seen galaxies (Photo: NASA)
Photo taken from the submersible Alvin of a hydrothermal vent – a break in the surface of the sea floor that spews water which has been heated by the underlying magma of the Axial volcano – some 480 km west of Cannon Beach, Oregon. (Photo: Mark Spear/WHOI via NSF)
Glassy powder being applied to a metal component. When the powder is fused with lasers, it forms a new super-durable coating that helps extend the life of tools that wear out quickly. (Photo:Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
This artist’s concept shows the sky crane maneuver during the descent of NASA’s Curiosity rover to the Martian surface. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
A close-up view of a South American scarab dung beetle (Oxysternon conspicillatum) (Photo: J. Mark Rowland/Douglas J. Emlen/Courtesy: National Science Foundation)
From the Hubble Space Telescope – Star Cluster R136 bursts out (Photo: NASA, ESA, & F. Paresce (INAF-IASF), R. O’Connell (U. Virginia), & the HST WFC3 Science Oversight Committee)
Engineers checking out the Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia (Photo: NASA Langley/Sean Smith)
A fluorescent micrograph capturing the presence of bacteria (shown in green) on the surface of an emerging lateral root of the Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant related to cabbage and mustard (Photo: Sarah Lebeis/University of North Carolina)
As seen through a window in the Cupola, the International Space Station’s Canadarm2 grapples the unpiloted Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-3). (Photo: NASA)
From NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory – X-rays From a young supernova remnant (Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/STScI/K.Long et al., Optical: NASA/STScI)
A new amphibian species, the ‘Mr. Burns Beaked Toad’ (Credit: USFWS)
An aurora borealis visible in the northern sky over Merritt Reservoir in Valentine, Nebraska (Photo: Howard Edin/Courtesy: National Science Foundation)
This enhanced-color image shows sand dunes trapped in an impact crater on Mars. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)
A Kelp Crab captured in a beach fishing net in Washington state during a Bainbridge Island survey which focused on the abundance, habitat use and food habits of larval forage fish. (Photo: Department of the Interior/USGS)
The space shuttle Enterprise shortly after the grand opening of the Space Shuttle Pavilion at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York. (Photo: NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Artist’s conception of a storm of comets around a star near our sun, called Eta Corvi. Evidence for this barrage comes from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
An aerial view of drought-affected Colorado farm lands, 83 miles east of Denver, Colorado on Saturday, July 21, 2012 (Photo: USDA)
This Infrared observation of the Orion nebula highlights fledgling stars hidden in gas and clouds. It was taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the European Space Agency’s Herschel mission. (Photo: (NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech/IRAM )
More than 300 feet off the ground, workers Jonathan Wiley and Eric Kuntzelman perform maintenance on a wind turbine at the National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) near Boulder, Colorado. (Photo: Dennis Schroeder/NREL)
Most of the Universe’s galaxies look like small, amorphous clouds of vapor. One of these galaxies is DDO 82, captured here in an image from the Hubble Space Telescope. (Photo: NASA/ESA)
A magnet girder (in the foreground) for the National Synchrotron Light Source II, a new state-of-the-art, medium-energy electron storage ring. Each girder is a 14-foot, 8-ton structure which holds multiple magnets in the NSLS-II accelerator ring. (Brookhaven National Laboratory/USDOE)
Artist’s conception of NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft passing above Mars’ South Pole. The spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since October 24, 2001. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)
This instrument for exploring the cosmos and the quantum world was developed by researchers at JPL and Caltech. The new type of amplifier boosts electrical signals and can be used for everything from studying stars, galaxies and black holes, to exploring the quantum world and developing quantum computers. ( Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
If you think you have what it takes to build a satellite, NASA has just introduced an online game that might appeal to you.
With “Build It Yourself: Satellite!” the US space agency offers users the chance to act as engineers and astronomers who conceive and build their own special virtual satellite.
“It’s fun to play,” says Maggie Masetti, a NASA webmaster who created the game. “And users will learn something about satellite instrumentation and optics and how they are used to make scientific discoveries, as well about a large range of different existing astronomical missions.”
The game lets players choose what kind of science their satellite will study. They can then customize the sophisticated technical aspects of their satellite – such as what wavelengths their creation will operate at and what kind of tools, instruments and optics will give them the best opportunity to learn as much as possible about their chosen science.
Artist conception of James Webb Space Telescope (Image: NASA)
The game is available in two sizes so players can choose the one better suited to their monitor. If you’re stuck with a slower computer, the game offers a special toggle button that will reduce the quality of the graphics but will make the game run faster.
The new gaming experience was inspired by the James Webb space telescope, which is being built now and is scheduled for launch in 2018.
Said to have the latest cutting-edge technology, the Webb space telescope will help scientists expose the secrets of the universe by taking them far back in time, toward the Big Bang. Webb will be the most powerful telescope ever built by the space agency.
Who knows, maybe after playing “Build It Yourself: Satellite!” you’ll realize you have the talent and ability to become a real-life rocket scientist!
Time-lapse of the construction of the giant structural steel frame that will be used to assemble the mirrors and instruments of the James Webb Space Telescope.
Science World is VOA’s on-air and online magazine covering science, health, technology and the environment.
Hosted by Rick Pantaleo, Science World‘s informative, entertaining and easy-to-understand presentation offers the latest news, features and one-on-one interviews with researchers, scientists, innovators and other news makers.
Science World is VOA’s on-air and online magazine covering science, health, technology and the environment.