Archive for the ‘Space Missions’ Category

Unfortunatelly many places in northern hemisphere of our planet had bad weather and observers from these places could not see this beauty on the night sky. But there are places located above the clouds, especially those in high mountains, which had the perfect chance to watch this nice light theatre. One of these places is small country in central Europe – Slovakia. We are bringing you more nice photos.

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Skywatchers at high latitudes could be in for a spectacular treat of northern lights, the aurora borealis, Tuesday and Wednesday: After a relatively quiet stretch, it appears the sun is ramping up its activity. The sun’s surface erupted early Sunday, blasting  tons of plasma (ionized atoms) into space. These atoms are headed toward Earth and could create a stunning light show in the process.

“This eruption is directed right at us and is expected to get here early in the day on Aug. 4th,” said Leon Golub of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “It’s the first major Earth-directed eruption in quite some time.”

The solar eruption, called a coronal mass ejection, was spotted by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory , which captures high-definition views of the sun at a variety of wavelengths. SDO was launched in February and peers deep into the layers of the sun, investigating the mysteries of its inner workings.

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Europe’s Ariane 5 commercial launcher carried out another uneventful trek to orbit Saturday night, successfully deploying a powerful broadcasting bird for the Arab world and a unique spacecraft to see and communicate with South Korea.

The rocket roared away from a jungle launch base on the northeastern coast of South America at 2141 GMT (5:41 p.m. EDT) atop the thrust produced by its hydrogen-fueled main engine and twin solid boosters.

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The Soyuz TMA-19 rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, June 16, 2010, carrying Expedition 24 NASA astronauts Shannon Walker and Douglas Wheelock, and Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin to the International Space Station. Their Soyuz TMA-19 rocket launched at 3:35 a.m Kazakhstan time, or 5:35 p.m EDT. Image Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi

Space shuttle Atlantis and six astronauts ended a 12-day journey of more than 4.8 million miles with an 8:48 a.m. EDT landing Wednesday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The flawless landing wrapped up a highly successful mission to deliver the Russian-built Mini Research Module-1, known as “Rassvet” (“dawn” in Russian), to the International Space Station.

The third of five shuttle missions planned for 2010, this was the last scheduled flight for Atlantis. Mike Moses, space shuttle launch integration manager, spoke highly of everyone who built and maintained Atlantis during the orbiter’s 25 years of service.

Later today, Atlantis will be towed from the runway to its processing facility. It will go through the normal flow of prelaunch preparations in order to serve as the “launch-on-need” vehicle for Endeavour’s STS-134 mission, the last scheduled flight of the Space Shuttle Program. That flight currently is targeted for November.