Landing Day...

The Mars rover is landing in about 24 hours, the gravity of Mars has accelerated the craft to more than 8000 miles an hour and will reach 13000 by tomorrow night. This is the end of a long flight and with luck a successful landing. Fingers crossed for Curiosity.

Black hole in a nearby galaxy

An extraordinary outburst produced by a black hole in a nearby galaxy has provided direct evidence for a population of old, volatile stellar black holes. The discovery, made by astronomers using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, provides new insight into the nature of a mysterious class of black holes that can produce as much energy in X-rays as a million suns radiate at all wavelengths.

Dream Chaser video: New Space Plane

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=149743281

A wind tunnel test model of Dream Chaser

The Dream Chaser is a new space plane under development by a private company, it is being built as an alternative to the capsule approach to space flight.

Mars Landing video simulation

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=149477451
Here is a nice video for the Mars Landing, 3 days to go...

New Horizons spacecraft

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is designed to make the first close-up study of Pluto and its moons and other icy worlds in the distant Kuiper Belt. The spacecraft has seven scientific instruments to study the atmospheres, surfaces, interiors and intriguing environments of Pluto and its distant neighbors.

The spacecraft is still en route to its primary science target, but it completed a thrilling study of the Jupiter system during its gravity assist flyby of the giant planet in 2007. The spacecraft took pictures of the planet and its moons, and detected clumps in Jupiter's rings and lightning near its poles. As it departed Jupiter, New Horizons observed a unique space environment, traveling a long distance down the tadpole-shaped tail of Jupiter's magnetic field.

Mars landing update: 3 days to go....

Curiosity remains in good health, with no significant issues currently in work. There are no real-time activities planned today. The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft remains on a consistent and stable course, well within the limits required to reach its target landing ellipse. As a result, yesterday the flight team decided to cancel the build and test of a contingency version of Trajectory Correction Maneuver 5. This contingency manuever, had it been needed, would have been used in the event an emergency prevented the team from executing the nominal scheduled TCM-5 maneuver, which is planned for Friday, Aug. 3, if needed. The project also canceled a corresponding update to parameters for the autonomous software controlling events during entry, descent and landing.

With Curiosity now flying under the control of the autonomous entry, descent and landing timeline, the Mars Science Laboratory team continues to monitor the spacecraft's health and trajectory. There are no real-time activities planned today. In the event that a fifth trajectory correction maneuver is needed to further fine-tune the spacecraft's course to reach its target landing ellipse, the flight team is making preparations for it. If needed, that maneuver would be executed on Friday, Aug. 3. Curiosity remains in good health, with no significant issues currently in work.

Small Magellanic Cloud

This image shows the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy in infrared light from the Herschel Space Observatory, a European Space Agency-led mission, and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Considered dwarf galaxies compared to the big spiral of the Milky Way, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are the two biggest satellite galaxies of our home galaxy.

In combined data from Herschel and Spitzer, the irregular distribution of dust in the Small Magellanic Cloud becomes clear. A stream of dust extends to the left in this image, known as the galaxy's "wing," and a bar of star formation appears on the right.

The colors in this image indicate temperatures in the dust that permeates the Cloud. Colder regions show where star formation is at its earliest stages or is shut off, while warm expanses point to new stars heating surrounding dust. The coolest areas and objects appear in red, corresponding to infrared light taken up by Herschel's Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver at 250 microns, or millionths of a meter. Herschel's Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer fills out the mid-temperature bands, shown here in green, at 100 and 160 microns. The warmest spots appear in blue, courtesy of 24- and 70-micron data from Spitzer.

Enceladus

A masterpiece of deep time and wrenching gravity, the tortured surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus and its fascinating ongoing geologic activity tell the story of the ancient and present struggles of one tiny world. The enhanced color view of Enceladus seen here is largely of the southern hemisphere and includes the south polar terrain at the bottom of the image. Ancient craters remain somewhat pristine in some locales, but have clearly relaxed in others. Northward-trending fractures, likely caused by a change in the moon's rate of rotation and the consequent flattening of the moon's shape, rip across the southern hemisphere. The south polar terrain is marked by a striking set of `blue' fractures and encircled by a conspicuous and continuous chain of folds and ridges, testament to the forces within Enceladus that have yet to be silenced.

Mars landing in 4 days....

Color coding in this image of Gale Crater on Mars represents differences in elevation, with blue relatively low and tan relatively high. The vertical difference from a low point inside the landing ellipse for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory to a high point on the mountain inside the crater is about 3 miles (5 kilometers).

Messier 107

Messier 107 is one of more than 150 globular star clusters found around the disc of the Milky Way galaxy. These spherical collections each contain hundreds of thousands of extremely old stars and are among the oldest objects in the Milky Way. The origin of globular clusters and their impact on galactic evolution remains somewhat unclear, so astronomers continue to study them. Messier 107 can be found in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer) and is located about 20,000 light-years from our solar system.