RedOrbit Videos Space

The Oklahoma Storms As Seen From Space

2013-05-24T15:52:56+0000

Also, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden received updates on the important work being on done at the agency's California centers, , a New Crew Prepares for Launch to the International Space Station, and a look at Dream Chaser Flight Simulations.

credit: NASA

Earth from Space: Kazakh treasure

2013-05-24T15:47:08+0000

Earth from Space is presented by Kelsea Brennan-Wessels from the ESA Web-TV virtual studios. In the sixty-sixth edition, we discover why the Kazakh region of Mangistau is sometimes called the 'treasure peninsula'. credit: ESA

ScienceCasts: Big Weather on Hot Jupiters

2013-05-24T15:45:07+0000

Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope are making weather maps of an exotic class of exoplanets called "hot Jupiters." What they're finding is wilder than anything we experience here in our own solar system. credit: NASA

NASA 50th Anniversary of Gordon Cooper's Last Flight of Project Mercury

2013-05-24T04:30:43+0000

NASA is celebrating its 50th anniversary since Gordon Cooper took flight on the final Mercury mission. credit: NASA

Hubble Uncovers the Secrets of the Ring Nebula

2013-05-24T04:15:35+0000

Episode 66 of the Hubblecast explores the Ring Nebula (Messier 57). Although this nebula is one of the most famous objects in our skies, more than 200 years after its discovery astronomers are still unveiling some of its secrets. The Ring Nebula was discovered in the late 18th century, but its true shape and structure has remained unclear. Now, a team of astronomers has used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, alongside existing ground-based data, to explore the Ring Nebula in depth. The astronomers wanted to better understand the nebula’s structure, evolution, physical conditions, and motion — and it turns out that the Ring Nebula is not actually very ring-shaped after all. Hubblecast 66 showcases stunning new Hubble images of this beautiful object, showing the bright, colourful centre of the nebula, and the dramatically turbulent space that surrounds it. Credit: ESA/Hubble

Fly-Around and Zoom into the Ring Nebula (3D)

2013-05-23T12:11:23+0000

This video begins with a zoom into the constellation of Lyra, to the location of the Ring Nebula and the new composite Hubble/Large Binocular Telescope image. The view cross-fades to a three-dimensional model of the Ring Nebula that was developed from new Hubble observations. A circuit around the 3D model showcases the main ring structure, the perpendicular lobes, the spike-like emission in the shadows of dense knots, and the halos surrounding the nebula. Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Bacon and F. Summers (STScI)

New Hubble Observations Reveal the Structure of the Ring Nebula

2013-05-23T12:10:14+0000

This is an artist’s impression of the Ring Nebula’s structure, fading from the new Hubble image into a 3D visualisation. It is based on new Hubble observations of the nebula, which is actually shaped a little like a distorted doughnut. Although the centre of this doughnut may look empty, it is actually full of lower density material that stretches both towards and away from us, creating a shape similar to a rugby ball slotted into the doughnut’s central gap. The space around the nebula is turbulent and full of knotty structures that formed in the nebula's past. The brightest part of this nebula is what we see as the colourful main ring. This is composed of gas thrown off by a dying star at the centre of the nebula. Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA, M. Kornmesser.

Visualization of the 3D structure of the Ring Nebula

2013-05-23T12:09:11+0000

This image uses a 3D effect to visualize the Ring Nebula’s structure. The brightest part of this nebula is what we see as the colorful main ring. This is composed of gas thrown off by a dying star at the centre of the nebula. Credit: ESA

Exploring the Ring Nebula (3D)

2013-05-23T12:07:55+0000

This video begins with a zoom into the constellation of Lyra, to the location of the Ring Nebula and the new composite Hubble/Large Binocular Telescope image. Then the three-dimensional model of the Ring Nebula, developed from the new observations, is explored. The main ring glows in the light of nitrogen, shown in red. That ring is filled with oxygen emission, shown in green. Perpendicular lobes are filled with the hottest emission from helium, shown in blue. Dense dark knots line the interior of the ring, and their shadows glow like spikes in Hydrogen emission, shown in red. Hydrogen emission also reveals the inner and outer halos. A circuit around the 3D model showcases the more accurate and most detailed structure that astronomers have uncovered. Credit: NASA, ESA

Zooming in on the Ring Nebula

2013-05-23T12:06:49+0000

This video zooms in on planetary nebula Messier 57, known as the Ring Nebula. The sequence begins with a view of the night sky near the constellation of Lyra. It then zooms through observations from the Digitized Sky Survey 2, and ends with a view of the nebula obtained by Hubble. The data of the region surrounding the Ring Nebula’s central region are provided by the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory. Credit: NASA, ESA

Flipping Adapters for Space Launch System

2013-05-23T09:58:50+0000

The structural test article adapter is flipped at Marshall testing facility Building 4705. The turnover is an important step in finishing the machining work on the adapter, which will undergo tests to certify subsequent flight units used to attach the Orion spacecraft to a Delta IV rocket for its 2014 Exploration Flight Test-1. credit: NASA/MSFC

Zooming in on the Stellar Nursery IC 2944

2013-05-23T05:24:54+0000

This zoom runs from a very wide view of the Milky Way all the way into a very close-up view of the spectacular stellar nursery IC 2944. It is being released to celebrate a milestone: 15 years of ESO’s Very Large Telescope. This image from the VLT also shows a group of thick clouds of dust known as the Thackeray globules, silhouetted against the pale pink glowing gas of the nebula. These globules are under fierce bombardment from the ultraviolet radiation from nearby hot young stars. They are both being eroded away and also fragmenting, rather like lumps of butter dropped onto a hot frying pan. It is likely that Thackeray’s globules will be destroyed before they can collapse and form new stars. Credit: ESO

Satellite Sees Storm System Generate Powerful Oklahoma Tornado

2013-05-23T05:00:53+0000

This animation of imagery from NOAA’s GOES-13 satellite shows the movement of storm systems in the south central U.S. on May 19 and 20, 2013. The system generated tornado outbreaks from Oklahoma to Iowa, from the afternoon into the night. This outbreak was the first reported in Iowa since late May 2012. Toward the end of the animation is the system that generated the Moore, Oklahoma, F-4 tornado (winds between 166 and 200 mph) on May 20 around 3 p.m. CDT. Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project, Dennis Chesters

ESO's VLT Celebrates 15 Years of Success

2013-05-23T04:00:50+0000

May 25 2013 is an important anniversary for the Very Large Telescope – it is exactly fifteen years since the first light on the first of its four Unit Telescopes. Since then the four original giant telescopes have been joined by the four small Auxiliary Telescopes that form part of the VLT Interferometer (VLTI). The VLT is one of the most powerful and productive ground-based astronomical facilities in existence. In 2012 more than 600 refereed scientific papers based on data from the VLT and VLTI were published. This ESOcast shows spectacular images from the VLT for every year of its operation. Credit: ESO

Mega Galaxy Merger

2013-05-22T15:32:01+0000

This simulation shows the merging of two massive galaxies, sped up to cover 1.5 billion years of time. The merging galaxies are split into two views: a visible-light view is on the left, in which blue shows young stars and red indicates older stars and dust. The view at right shows emission from dust, which is what infrared telescopes like the Herschel Space Observatory see. When the galaxies finally merge, the strong burst of star formation can be seen best in infrared views. credit: NASA

SpaceX Fairing Separation Test

2013-05-22T04:45:23+0000

Video of SpaceX's 5.2m fairing—designed in-house by SpaceX—undergoing testing in the world's largest vacuum chamber at NASA Glenn Research Center -- Plum Brook Station. SpaceX's fairing is used to protect a satellite during launch. Separation occurs when the rocket is traveling over 4x faster than a speeding bullet, nearly 10x the speed of sound. credit: SpaceX

Earth from Space: Clearwater Lakes

2013-05-21T04:47:14+0000

Earth from Space is presented by Kelsea Brennan-Wessels from the ESA Web-TV virtual studios. In the sixty-fifth edition, we look at Clearwater Lakes in Canada's Quebec province. credit: ESA

Rover Readies for Second Drilling

2013-05-21T04:00:03+0000

Curiosity prepares for a second drilling and a tutorial on the complicated choreography to get the drill sample to her instruments. credit: NASA

Come Fly With Landsat

2013-05-20T18:48:32+0000

Highlights of the Landsat Data Continuity Mission observations collected on April 19, 2013. The six selections in this video all come from the same continuous data collection as the satellite passed over Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The selections in this video feature the Volga River in Russia, the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Iraq, the cities of Medina and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, Mt. Elgon and Lake Victoria in Uganda and Kenya, and the Great Dyke of Zimbabwe. LDCM orbits at 16,800 mph (27,000 kph), taking slightly more than 20 minutes to cover the full span of Russia to Africa . The animation moves faster, covering 5,665 miles (9,117 kilometers) in nearly 16 minutes. A joint U.S. Geological Survey and NASA mission, LDCM launched on Feb. 11, 2013, and is still in its onboard calibration and checkout phase. The images shown here are considered test data. Once LDCM completes its check-out phase in late May, the satellite will be handed over to the USGS and renamed Landsat 8. After this point, the satellite will be considered operational and data will be available from USGS at no cost over the Internet. credit: NASA

Mission Trailer: IRIS Readies For a New Challenge

2013-05-20T18:43:34+0000

NASA is getting ready to launch a new mission, a mission to observe a mysterious region of the solar atmosphere that may be crucial to understanding what powers space weather. In late June 2013, the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. IRIS will tease out the rules governing the lowest layers of the solar atmosphere -- historically some of the hardest to untangle. Known as the solar interface region, this is one of the most complex areas in the sun's atmosphere: all the energy that drives solar activity travels through it. The interface region lies between the sun's 6,000-degree, white-hot, visible surface, the photosphere, and the much hotter multi-million-degree upper corona. Interactions between the violently moving plasma and the sun's magnetic field in this area may well be the source of the energy that heats the corona to its million-degree temperatures, some hundreds and occasionally thousands of times hotter than the sun's surface. The chromosphere is also considered a candidate as the origin for giant explosions on the sun such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections. IRIS will use high-resolution images, data and advanced computer models to unravel how solar gases move, gather energy and heat up through the lower solar atmosphere. Outfitted with state-of-the-art tools, IRIS will be able to tease apart what's happening in the solar interface region better than ever before. credit: NASA