July 2022
Jupiter icy moon explorer coming together in NASA's clean room
Friday, July 28, 2022: NASA's Europa Clipper mission that will search for traces of life on Jupiter's ice-covered moon Europa is being assembled in NASA's clean room ahead of its planned launch in 2024.
The spacecraft, which will be about the size of a large passenger van, is coming together at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California with components and science instruments "streaming in from across the United States and even Europe," NASA said in a statement.
Europa Clipper is expected to launch in October 2024 on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. – Tereza Pultarova
Eyes in space are getting ever sharper
Wednesday, July 27, 2022: The Binhai Railway Station in northern China is revealed in astonishing detail in this image taken from space by a satellite of U.S.-based Earth observation company Maxar Technologies.
Maxar digitally enhances images taken by their satellites with the resolution of 12 inches (30 centimeters) per pixel to create stunningly detailed photographs in which each pixel covers a square of only 6 by 6 inches (15 by 15 cm).
Instead of blurry features in the original images, fine details emerge on the background, increasing the amount of information users, including governments, the military and city planners can derive from each image.
Even though they are hundreds of miles away, these eyes in space are watching us ever more closely. – Tereza Pultarova
Juno sees hurricane's on Jupiter's North Pole
Wednesday, July 27, 2022: NASA's Juno probe snapped these mesmerizing images of powerful storms around the North Pole of Jupiter during its close approach to the planet on July 5.
The storms are over 30 miles (50 kilometers) deep and hundreds of miles wide, NASA said in a statement. Scientists are still trying to understand what drives the formation of these storms in Jupiter's atmosphere and gives them their striking colors. Observations have revealed that these cyclones have different colors based on the direction of their spin and their location. NASA asks space enthusiasts and citizen scientists to help them categorize these storms and other atmospheric phenomena captured by Juno as part of the Jovian Vortex Hunter project. – Tereza Pultarova
Wildfire near California's Yosemite National Park captured from space
Tuesday, July 26, 2022: NASA's Earth-observing satellite Landsat 9 captured this image of a wildfire that erupted in California's Yosemite National Park on Friday (July 22).
The image reveals the extent of the burnt area as well as the active fire line where hundreds of firefighters are battling to stop the flames. The blaze, dubbed the Oak Fire, has devoured over 25 square miles (65 square kilometers) of parched forest over the weekend.
The fire, experts believe, was helped by the progressing climate change, which exacerbates California's droughts, stripping vegetation of moisture in a way unseen before. – Tereza Pultarova
Sunrise brightens up Chinese space station in a video taken from new module
Monday, July 25, 2022: The rays of sun appearing through Earth's atmosphere on the backdrop of China's space station were filmed by cameras aboard the new Wentian module that arrived at the orbital outpost on Monday (July 25).
Wentian, launched on Sunday (July 24), joined the Tianhe core module of the Tiangong space station. The structure is still waiting for its third module, called Mengtian, which is expected to launch later this year. The three modules together will form a T-shaped structure that China hopes to operate for up to 15 years. – Tereza Pultarova
First European woman ever performs a spacewalk
Friday, July 22, 2022: Italian Samantha Cristoforetti has become the first European woman to perform a spacewalk.
Cristoforetti, who is a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut, spent seven hours in the vacuum of space outside the International Space Station on Thursday, July 21, working with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev to configure the European Robotic Arm installed on the Russian segment of the space station. The pair also hand deployed several small satellites.
The milestone spacewalk took place amid tensions between Russia and its western partners over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Earlier this month, the Russian space agency Roscosmos released images of the current Russian space station crew posing with flags of the separatist regions in eastern Ukraine where Russian military forces killed thousands of civilians in the past months. – Tereza Pultarova
Details of intricate Martian canyon system revealed in a new image
Thursday, July 21, 2022: The European Mars Express spacecraft captured an image revealing massive ruptures in Martian crust that form part of the 2,500-mile-long (4,000 kilometers) Valles Marineris canyon system.
The image, captured on Apr. 21 but only released by the European Space Agency (ESA) on Jul. 20, shows the Ius and Tithonium Chasmata, or trenches, in the western part of the Valles Marineris. Ius Chasma, on the left, is 522 miles long (840 km), while the Tithonium Chasma, on the right, stretches over 500 miles (805 km). At 4.4 miles deep (7 km), the trenches could nearly swallow Earth's highest mountain Mount Everest.
Valles Marines is the largest canyon system in the solar system. If put on Earth, it would stretch from the north of Norway all the way to Sicily in the south of Italy. The canyon system is ten times longer, 20 times wider and five times deeper than the U.S. Grand Canyon. – Tereza Pultarova
Satellite captures cloudfree Europe amid sweltering heat wave
Wednesday, July 20, 2022: The European weather forecasting satellite Meteosat observed as the nearly cloud-free Europe broiled in a record-breaking July heatwave.
The video, capturing views of Europe from 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) afar during the past two weeks, reveals a high pressure ridge over north-west Africa, funneling hot air into western Europe.
This ridge kept low pressure systems at bay, preventing build up of clouds and rain, the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), which operates the Meteosat satellite, said in a statement.
The heatwave broke temperature records in several countries including Portugal, which reached an all time high of 116 degrees Fahrenheit (47 degrees Celsius) and the usually cooler U.K., which for the first time in recorded history saw temperatures exceed 105 degrees F (40 degrees C). – Tereza Pultarova
Wildfire smoke drifting over the sea
Tuesday, July 19, 2022: Smoke from devastating wildfires in southwest France drifts over the Bay of Biscay in this image captured by the European Meteosat weather-forecasting satellite.
The wildfire is one of many blazing through Europe amid a record-breaking heatwave, which has seen temperatures attack 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) even in usually milder climates, such as in the U.K.
According to the European environmental agency Copernicus, over 150 square miles (390 square kilometers) of land have burnt in the past ten days in France, Spain and Portugal alone.
The highest alert for the risk of wildfire breakouts is in place today in Spain, France, Italy and the U.K. – Tereza Pultarova
Hubble captures illusory mirror galaxies through gravitational lens
Monday, July 18, 2022: The mirror galaxy at the center of this image is a mirage caused by a phenomenon called gravitational lensing, in which a super-massive object bends light, acting like a magnifying glass.
The image, obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope, captures a galaxy called SGAS J143845+145407, which sits behind a massive object that causes the lensing effect.
Gravitational lensing is nature's help for astronomers, enabling them to observe stars and galaxies that would otherwise be too distant and faint to see. The image was obtained during a campaign focused on the oldest galaxies in the universe, and scientists hope it will help them piece together how first galaxies emerged in the early universe. – Tereza Pultarova
Europe's Vega C rocket lifts off for its debut flight into the cloudy South American sky
Friday, July 15, 2022: The European Vega C rocket is captured in this image seconds after lifting off for its debut flight on Wednesday, July 13.
The European Space Agency, which oversaw the development of Vega C, shared the image on its Twitter account, saying: "We love this shot from one of ESA photographer Stephane Corvaja's remote cams! @vega_sts lit up the rainy gray skies of Kourou earlier this week."
The rocket, which shot off from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, after a two-hour delay, is an enhanced version of the earlier Vega and can lift larger and heavier payloads compared to its predecessor.
Vega C is expected to play an important role in helping Europe plug the gap in its access to launch services that it struggles with after having ceased cooperation with Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. The French company Arianespace, which manages the European launcher program, used to offer launches on Russia's Soyuz rockets in addition to the European homegrown Vega and the heavy lift Ariane 5. But Russia terminated the cooperation as a retaliation for sanctions imposed by western countries in response to the situation in Ukraine. – Tereza Pultarova
Astronauts observe the sun peeking through Earth's atmosphere
Thursday, July 14, 2022: The sun emerges above Earth's horizon, sending first morning rays through the planet's atmosphere, in an ethereal snapshot taken from the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren shared the image on his Twitter account on Wednesday, July 13.
"The sun is peeking through the atmosphere!" he said in the tweet.
Lindgren arrived at the space station in April this year as a commander of the Crew-4 mission aboard SpaceX's Dragon Freedom. Lindgren and his crewmates, NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Robert Hines, and the European Space Agency's Samantha Cristoforetti will return to Earth later this year. – Tereza Pultarova
Europe's new Vega C rocket lifts off for maiden flight
Wednesday, July 13, 2022: Europe's new Vega C rocket lifted off for its debut flight from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, after a two-hour delay.
The rocket, sporting two new engines in its first and second stages and an upgraded reignatable upper stage, delivered into orbit an Italian scientific satellite called LARES-2, which will measure the distortion of space-time caused by the rotation of Earth. The rocket also gave a ride to six cubesats built by a range of European companies. – Tereza Pultarova
James Webb Space Telescope reveals a magnificent view of the Carina Nebula
Tuesday, July 12, 2022: This striking image of the Carina Nebula was captured by the James Webb Space Telescope and revealed during the mission's first release of scientific-level images to the general public on Tuesday, July 12.
The telescope, which observes the surrounding universe in infrared light, which is essentially heat, can peer through dust and see features that are obscured to optical telescopes, such Webb's predecessor Hubble.
The image, one of five unveiled during the long-awaited release, reveals a cosmic landscape of dusty mountains and valleys strewn with glittering stars. In this region, fittingly called the Cosmic Cliffs, new stars are just being born, a process that has previously been impossible to observe. – Tereza Pultarova
Satellite captures vicious wildfire raging in Utah
Monday, July 11, 2022: The European Earth-observing satellite Sentinel-2 captured this image of a disastrous wildfire near Fillmore, Utah.
The Halfway Hillfire broke out on Friday, July 8, reportedly after a group of young men failed to put out a campfire. The fire has since devoured about 12.5 square miles (32.4 square kilometers) of land.
This image was taken when Sentinel-2 flew over the site on Saturday, July 9. – Tereza Pultarova
Debris ejected as OSIRIS-REx probe touches down at asteroid Bennu
Friday, July 8, 2022: A video captured by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission as it touched down on near-Earth asteroid Bennu in 2020 reveals an unexpected response of the space rock's surface.
The touchdown, during which the probe collected 9 ounces (250 grams) of dust from Bennu, stirred a large amount of dust and gravel and left behind a 26-foot-wide (8 m) crater. The mission team described the aftermath of the impact as "frightening" and completely unexpected as it revealed that the make-up of the asteroid, which has a small probability of hitting Earth in the next two hundred years, is quite different than expected.
The soft and "fluid" composition of the asteroid could make a possible deflection attempt in the future more complicated, scientists said. – Tereza Pultarova
SpaceX flies rocket stage for record-setting 13th time
Thursday, July 7, 2022: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Thursday, July 7, with a first stage flown for the record-breaking 13th time.
The launch, SpaceX's 50th to date, lofted into low Earth orbit a batch of 53 Starlink internet satellites.
The first stage, which previously launched SpaceX's first-ever crewed flight, the Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station in 2020, successfully landed on a droneship off the Florida coast about 8 minutes after lift-off. – Tereza Pultarova
Heatwave in Paris captures from space
Wednesday, July 6, 2022: An instrument mounted on the International Space Station captured a record-breaking heatwave that struck France's capital Paris in June.
The ECOSTRESS instrument, operated by NASA, revealed soaring ground temperatures in the city on June 18 as Paris struggled through a scorching day on which air temperatures exceeded the average for this time of the year by up to 18 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius).
The image clearly shows the cooling effect of parks, vegetation and water bodies, which appear in green and blue hues amid the redness of the boiling developed areas. – Tereza Pultarova
Rocket Lab celebrates CAPSTONE send-off
Tuesday, July 5, 2022: Rocket Lab ground controllers celebrate the successful dispatch of NASA's CAPSTONE cubesat on its historical cruise to the moon.
The microwave-sized satellite separated from the Rocket Lab-built Photon spacecraft bus on Monday (July 4), after completing an engine burn that set it on a course toward Earth's natural satellite.
"That feeling when you send a satellite into deep space for @NASA, unlocking a new interplanetary exploration capability with the Photon spacecraft you helped to design and build," Rocket Lab said on Twitter.
Rocket Lab launched CAPSTONE on its Electron rocket from New Zealand on June 28. The mission is the first beyond Earth's orbit for the company, which is known for launching small satellites into low orbits around our planet. – Tereza Pultarova
Posing on Etna like on the moon
Monday, July 4, 2022: A pair of lunar robots designed by German engineers took this selfie to conclude a successful exercise of autonomous operations on the moon-like slopes of Italy's Mount Etna.
The robots practiced teamwork as they navigated the challenging terrain near the volcano's smoking crater on their own. The robots completed a set of tasks including the collection of samples and analysis of their chemical compositions. They even distributed radio antennas across the volcanic dunes to set up a radio astronomy observatory, pretending it was the far side of the moon.
The robots were built by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). – Tereza Pultarova
Training for the moon
Friday, July 1, 2022: An experimental moon exploration robot called Scout is being tested in the moon-like terrain of Italy's Etna volcano.
The robot, developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) was built to navigate in areas that are difficult to access. In this video, it can be seen moving with confidence on the volcanic soil, which is similar in texture to lunar regolith. – Tereza Pultarova
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