Región Activa Solar AR2786 (Izquierda) Y AR2785 (Derecha) En Comparativa Con Nuestro Planeta.

Our Space Launch System Rocket’s “Green Run” Engine Testing By the Numbers

We continue to make progress toward the first launch of our Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for the Artemis I mission around the Moon. Engineers at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi are preparing for the last two tests of the eight-part SLS core stage Green Run test series.

The test campaign is one of the final milestones before our SLS rocket launches America’s Orion spacecraft to the Moon with the Artemis program. The SLS Green Run test campaign is a series of eight different tests designed to bring the  entire rocket stage to life for the first time.

As our engineers and technicians prepare for the wet dress rehearsal and the SLS Green Run hot fire, here are some numbers to keep in mind:

212 Feet

The SLS rocket’s core stage is the largest rocket stage we have ever produced. From top to bottom of its four RS-25 engines, the rocket stage measures 212 feet.

35 Stories

For each of the Green Run tests, the SLS core stage is installed in the historic B-2 Test Stand at Stennis. The test stand was updated to accommodate the SLS rocket stage and is 35 stories tall – or almost 350 feet!

4 RS-25 Engines

All four RS-25 engines will operate simultaneously during the final Green Run Hot Fire. Fueled by the two propellant tanks, the cluster of engines will gimbal, or pivot, and fire for up to eight minutes just as if it were an actual Artemis launch to the Moon.

18 Miles

Our brawny SLS core stage is outfitted with three flight computers and special avionics systems that act as the “brains” of the rocket. It has 18 miles of cabling and more than 500 sensors and systems to help feed fuel and direct the four RS-25 engines.

773,000 Gallons

The stage has two huge propellant tanks that collectively hold 733,000 gallons of super-cooled liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The stage weighs more than 2.3 million pounds when its fully fueled.

114 Tanker Trucks

It’ll take 114 trucks – 54 trucks carrying liquid hydrogen and 60 trucks carrying liquid oxygen – to provide fuel to the SLS core stage.

6 Propellant Barges

A series of barges will deliver the propellant from the trucks to the rocket stage installed in the test stand. Altogether, six propellant barges will send fuel through a special feed system and lines. The propellant initially will be used to chill the feed system and lines to the correct cryogenic temperature. The propellant then will flow from the barges to the B-2 Test Stand and on into the stage’s tanks.

100 Terabytes

All eight of the Green Run tests and check outs will produce more than 100 terabytes of collected data that engineers will use to certify the core stage design and help verify the stage is ready for launch.

For comparison, just one terabyte is the equivalent to 500 hours of movies, 200,000 five-minute songs, or 310,000 pictures!

32,500 holes

The B-2 Test Stand has a flame deflector that will direct the fire produced from the rocket’s engines away from the stage. Nearly 33,000 tiny, handmade holes dot the flame deflector. Why? All those minuscule holes play a huge role by directing constant streams of pressurized water to cool the hot engine exhaust.

One Epic First

When NASA conducts the SLS Green Run Hot Fire test at Stennis, it’ll be the first time that the SLS core stage operates just as it would on the launch pad. This test is just a preview of what’s to come for Artemis I!

The Space Launch System is the only rocket that can send NASA astronauts aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft and supplies to the Moon in a single mission. The SLS core stage is a key part of the rocket that will send the first woman and the next man to the Moon through NASA’s Artemis program.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Tránsito de la Estación Espacial Tiangong

Se utilizo un refractor de 8 ′′ a lo largo del Mar Mediterráneo, para este tránsito solar de 1/2 segundo de la nueva Estación Espacial Tiangong de China, que incluye los 3 módulos con sus paneles solares y sin duda el brazo robótico. Pueden acceder al video de este tránsito a través de su canal de YouTube o el siguiente link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp3jCKvX_tY

Credito: Thierry Legault

https://www.facebook.com/thierry.legault.5

~Antares

Cometa C/2021 A1 (Leonard).

Descubierto el día 3 de enero de 2021 por el astrónomo Gregory J. Leonard a través de imágenes obtenidas mediante el telescopio reflector de 1.5 m del Sistema de Vigilancia Mt. Lemmon en Arizona (EEUU).

El mayor acercamiento que tendrá este objeto a la Tierra será el 12 de Diciembre del 2021 a una distancia de 35 millones de kilómetros aproximadamente.

Las estimaciones de los astrónomos indican que Leonard debería alcanzar una magnitud visual entre cinco y 2.6, lo que permitiría distinguirlo a simple vista, pues mientras más bajo es el índice, más brillante es un cuerpo celeste.

Así que ya lo saben, es posible que el 2021 nos de un excelente espectáculo estelar. Estén atentos a las noticias por medios confiables sobre su estado.

Fuente: Cometografía

https://cometografia.es/cometa-leonard-2021

Fotografía: Da Ko

https://instagram.com/dakouniverse

~Antares

Vía Láctea sobre Santuario de Santa Luzia

Crédito: Sebastien Pontoizeau.

https://instagram.com/alasy_photography

https://www.oceanculture.life/ocl/sebastien-pontoizeau

~Antares

Vía Láctea desde el Joshua Tree National Park, ubicado en California. Zona desértica que incluye partes de los desiertos de Colorado y Mojave.

Crédito: Alex Mcgregor

https://instagram.com/chasing.luminance

~Antares

Vía Láctea en Enchanted Rock State Natural Area - Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Crédito: Spencer McGee

https://www.facebook.com/TheSpencerMcGee

https://instagram.com/thespencermcgee

https://www.youtube.com/c/TwoBrothers4K

~Antares

Vía Láctea en Isla Mujeres.

Esta isla se encuentra en el mar Caribe a 13 kilómetros de la ciudad de Cancún, el cual es el principal centro turística de la región.

Crédito: Robert Fedez

https://instagram.com/robert_fedez

~Antares

Dodge GT de hormigón de Wolf Vostell en el paraje natural de Los Barruecos.

Crédito: Lancho

https://instagram.com/lancho._

https://lanchofotografia4.webnode.es/

~Antares

Black Holes: Seeing the Invisible!

Black holes are some of the most bizarre and fascinating objects in the cosmos. Astronomers want to study lots of them, but there’s one big problem – black holes are invisible! Since they don’t emit any light, it’s pretty tough to find them lurking in the inky void of space. Fortunately there are a few different ways we can “see” black holes indirectly by watching how they affect their surroundings.

Speedy stars

If you’ve spent some time stargazing, you know what a calm, peaceful place our universe can be. But did you know that a monster is hiding right in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy? Astronomers noticed stars zipping superfast around something we can’t see at the center of the galaxy, about 10 million miles per hour! The stars must be circling a supermassive black hole. No other object would have strong enough gravity to keep them from flying off into space.

Two astrophysicists won half of the Nobel Prize in Physics last year for revealing this dark secret. The black hole is truly monstrous, weighing about four million times as much as our Sun! And it seems our home galaxy is no exception – our Hubble Space Telescope has revealed that the hubs of most galaxies contain supermassive black holes.

Shadowy silhouettes

Technology has advanced enough that we’ve been able to spot one of these supermassive black holes in a nearby galaxy. In 2019, astronomers took the first-ever picture of a black hole in a galaxy called M87, which is about 55 million light-years away. They used an international network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope.

In the image, we can see some light from hot gas surrounding a dark shape. While we still can’t see the black hole itself, we can see the “shadow” it casts on the bright backdrop.

Shattered stars

Black holes can come in a smaller variety, too. When a massive star runs out of the fuel it uses to shine, it collapses in on itself. These lightweight or “stellar-mass” black holes are only about 5-20 times as massive as the Sun. They’re scattered throughout the galaxy in the same places where we find stars, since that’s how they began their lives. Some of them started out with a companion star, and so far that’s been our best clue to find them.

Some black holes steal material from their companion star. As the material falls onto the black hole, it gets superhot and lights up in X-rays. The first confirmed black hole astronomers discovered, called Cygnus X-1, was found this way.

If a star comes too close to a supermassive black hole, the effect is even more dramatic! Instead of just siphoning material from the star like a smaller black hole would do, a supermassive black hole will completely tear the star apart into a stream of gas. This is called a tidal disruption event.

Making waves

But what if two companion stars both turn into black holes? They may eventually collide with each other to form a larger black hole, sending ripples through space-time – the fabric of the cosmos!

These ripples, called gravitational waves, travel across space at the speed of light. The waves that reach us are extremely weak because space-time is really stiff.

Three scientists received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for using LIGO to observe gravitational waves that were sent out from colliding stellar-mass black holes. Though gravitational waves are hard to detect, they offer a way to find black holes without having to see any light.

We’re teaming up with the European Space Agency for a mission called LISA, which stands for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. When it launches in the 2030s, it will detect gravitational waves from merging supermassive black holes – a likely sign of colliding galaxies!

Rogue black holes

So we have a few ways to find black holes by seeing stuff that’s close to them. But astronomers think there could be 100 million black holes roaming the galaxy solo. Fortunately, our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide a way to “see” these isolated black holes, too.

Roman will find solitary black holes when they pass in front of more distant stars from our vantage point. The black hole’s gravity will warp the starlight in ways that reveal its presence. In some cases we can figure out a black hole’s mass and distance this way, and even estimate how fast it’s moving through the galaxy.

For more about black holes, check out these Tumblr posts!

⚫ Gobble Up These Black (Hole) Friday Deals!

⚫ Hubble’s 5 Weirdest Black Hole Discoveries

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Eclipse Solar Total 2020 desde Valcheta, Río negro en Argentina

Crédito: Pablo Barrios

Instagram.com/Pd.barrios