Japan's Mount Ontake Volcano eruption 27th Sept 2014 - Video - UPDATE

Mount Ontake erupted late Saturday morning, sending a plume of smoke and ash into the sky, the Japan Meteorological Agency reported.

The bodies of 31 hikers have been found near the top of Japan's Mount Ontake a day after a sudden volcanic eruption.

The hikers were not breathing and their hearts had stopped. The search for a total of 45 for missing climbers has now been called off for the night. 

They have observed 17-20 inches (40-50 centimeters) of volcanic ash covering the ground.

Local authorities had said there were roughly 150 hikers in the area at the time, according to the agency, which raised the Volcanic Alert Level for Ontake from 1 to 3.

Japan is at a triple-plate subduction boundary between the Eurasian continental plate and the Philippine and Pacific oceanic plates.

As the denser oceanic plates dive below the low-density continental plate, water from the saturated sediments lowers the melting point of surrounding rock.

That magma feeds a range of volcanoes mirroring the plate boundary.

Twitter images taken on the volcano were released by hikers.

Left: Hikers evacuating after the eruption. 

Credit: @mori_mori. 

Right: Aerial view of the Mount Ontake eruption. 

Credit: NHK

The volcano is a popular destination for religious pilgrimages, and many hikers were out enjoying the beautiful start to the weekend when the eruption hit.

This photo was posted from near the volcano shortly before the eruption.

The public is advised to not approach the volcano, and police and firefighters have deployed to help hikers near the summit.

About 250 people living near the mountain have decided to remain in their homes, police said.

The volcano last erupted in 2007.

It is located about 155 miles (250 kilometers) west of Tokyo.

A second CNN Video report.

International Space Station update: Astronauts' activity schedule

In this photo posted to Twitter by Flight Engineer Reid Wiseman, he and ESA Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst (right) pose for a picture with spacesuits in the International Space Station's Quest airlock.

Image Credit: NASA

Reid Wiseman and Alexander Gerst spent much of the afternoon in the Quest airlock to configure tools and equipment for a pair of U.S. spacewalks set for October.

Wiseman and Gerst are slated to suit up for the first Expedition 41 spacewalk on Oct. 7, while newly-arrived astronaut Barry Wilmore will join Wiseman for the Oct. 15 excursion.

Among the tasks scheduled for the spacewalks will be the transfer of a previously uninstalled pump module from its temporary stowage location to the External Stowage Platform-2 and the replacement of a failed sequential shunt unit designed to regulate current from one of the station’s solar arrays.

A Russian spacewalk on Oct. 21 is also on the schedule.

Throughout the day, Wiseman participated in the Pro K study, as nutritionists monitor how dietary changes may affect the loss of bone density that occurs during long-duration spaceflight.

Wiseman has been following a prescribed diet and testing his urine samples to provide data for the researchers.

On Sunday, Wiseman and Gerst will once again review the procedures for grappling Dragon and conduct a final Canadarm2 robotics training session with the Robotics Onboard Trainer.

Over the weekend, all three crew members also will take care of weekly housekeeping chores and continue their daily 2.5-hour exercise sessions to stay fit.

NASA ISS Space to Ground Update - Video

NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station.

Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies set to collide - update 2014

The Andromeda spiral galaxy. 

Image courtesy NASA.

A short time ago, in a galaxy very, very close by, a NASA satellite thought it detected a gamma ray burst in Andromeda.

It was a false alarm, but astronomers used the opportunity as a reminder that our galaxy and Andromeda are set for a head-on collision.

NASA's Swift satellite discovers and measures gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe, and their afterglow in X-ray, optical, and ultraviolet wavelengths of light.

The space agency says the spacecraft is designed "with powerful telescopes and quick reflexes to capture gamma-ray bursts as they flash and leave a lingering afterglow."

On Wednesday, astronomers and astrophiles alike buzzed with the news that Swift's equipment had captured a powerful flash of gamma rays, believed to be coming from the Andromeda Galaxy.

Those who watch the sky were caught up in the possibility that a clashing pair of neutron stars or a bright X-ray source was acting up a mere 2.5 million light-years away, NBC News reported.

But, alas, the excitement was short-lived. By the time more raw data came in and the initial information was re-analyzed, the project team realized what they thought was a giant burst of radiation was not the dense remnants of dead stars crashing together.

"We... do not believe this source to be in outburst. Instead, it was a serendipitous constant source in the field of view of a BAT subthreshold trigger," Swift team member Kim Page wrote in a NASA message.

The reason scientists (and the Twittersphere) were in such a tizzy was because, "The Andromeda galaxy, known in astronomical parlance as M31, holds a special place in our own future," the New York Times wrote.

NASA astronomers announced in 2012 "with certainty" that the next major cosmic event to hit the Milky Way will quite literally hit the Milky Way.

Our galaxy will have a "titanic collision" with neighbouring Andromeda. Not only that, the Triangulum galaxy, M33, is likely to join in on the action, causing a three-galaxy pile-up (and could even merge with the other two), scientists said in a statement.

The Milky Way and Andromeda are the dominant members of a small family of galaxies called the Local Group. Family ties bind the bevy together in the form of their mutual gravity.

NASA sought to assure the world that the sun and Earth are unlikely to be hit by stars or planets from Andromeda because of the vast emptiness of the two galaxies.

So Earth, they said, should easily survive what will be a 1.9 million kilometer per hour (1.2 million mile per hour) galactic merger. Even at that speed, the event would take about 2 billion years.

"It's like a bad car crash in galaxy-land," Roeland van der Marel, an astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which operates Hubble, told the media.

Scientists said in 2012 the collision would take place in 4 billion years. But the New York Times reported Wednesday, “Recent measurements with the Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed that they will hit head on in about two billion years.”

NASA Space to Ground Video Update: New ISS Crew arrive at Space Station

NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station.

Credit: NASA

Nasa Space to Ground ISS Update Video

NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station.

In this video the Soyuz launch and successful arrival of new ISS crew members and the ESA Minus Eighty-Degree Laboratory Freezer, (MELFI) used to freeze experiment samples.

The ESA Minus Eighty-Degree Laboratory Freezer (MELFI) is seen here in ESA, undergoing tests on the ground, prior to launch and installation in ISS

MELFI is not used for food storage, as you may imagine, because food storage and retrieval is a more complex and power hungry issue on the ISS, a space vessel with limited resources.

ISS Astronaut Rick Mastracchio gives an update on the cooling system failure

ISS crew member Rick Mastracchio gives an update on the cooling system failure that occurred on Dec. 12, 2013 and the possible spacewalk to repair.

ISS Video Update: Space to Ground

NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station. Got a question or comment? Use #spacetoground to talk to them.

Links mentioned this week:

Expedition 38 Photo Gallery:

Capillary Flow Experiment:

SLAMM-D:

Spot The Station:

Space Station Live: June 6, 2013 - YouTube

The Space Station Live recap video for June 6, 2013. Watch the full Space Station Live broadcast weekdays on NASA TV at 10 a.m.

NASA Cowboys Plan to Lasso a passing NEO /Asteroid - Video update

Sen. Bill Nelson announced a bold plan to 'lasso' a passing asteroid and bring it closer to our planetary system for examination. 

Credit: Nasa

ESA News Update: Flying in Zero- Gravity - Video

If you fly a plane in the right way at the right speed, you can be weightless for a few seconds. By throwing the aircraft into an orbit-like path within Earth's atmosphere, you can enter the wonderful world of weightlessness.

It is one of the best ways to simulate the environment of space, and a valuable experimental tool for scientists with a special interest in microgravity.

If they want to find out how the brain works, study the natural posture of humans in space, or how water boils in a weightless environment, this is the way to do it. Take a journey into a free-floating world of the parabola in this edition of Space.

NASA ISS Update - Dec. 20, 2012

Nasa Mars Rover Curiosity: Update video

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