Beautifully illustrated poems celebrating Space and Science - Joanna Tilsley

“The ideal scientist thinks like a poet and works like a bookkeeper,” the influential biologist E.O. Wilson said in his spectacular recent conversation with the former Poet Laureate Robert Hass, exploring the shared creative wellspring of poetry and science.

A beautiful embodiment of it comes from 30 Days, an unusual and bewitching series of “quantum poetry” by xYz, the pseudonym of British biologist and poet Joanna Tilsley, who began writing poetry at the age of eight and continued, for her own pleasure, until she graduated college with a degree in biology.

In April of 2013, while undergoing an emotional breakdown, Tilsley took a friend up on a dare and decided to participate in NaPoWriMo, an annual creative writing project inviting participants to write a poem a day for a month.

Immersed in cosmology and quantum physics at the time, she found herself enchanted by the scientific poetics of nature as she strolled around her home in North London.

Translating that enchantment in lyrical form, she produced a series of thirty poems on everything from DNA to the exoplanet Keppler-62F, a “super-Earth-sized planet orbiting a star smaller and cooler than the sun,” to holometabolism, the process by which the caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly, to the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human being to see Earth from space.

 I had been reading a lot about cosmology and new physics at the time, and as I took my habitual walks across the marshes surrounding my home in North London, I pondered deeply upon the dimensions of space and time through which I was passing, as well as existing euphorically in the moment with the first stirrings of spring. 

The poems followed naturally through; in fact they burst out of me, allowing me to weave a pattern of deep emotion through a weft of scientific fact.

Read more here

NASA Celebrates World Ozone Day

Minimum concentration of ozone in the southern hemisphere for each year from 1979-2013 (there is no data from 1995). 

Each image is the day of the year with the lowest concentration of ozone. A graph of the lowest ozone amount for each year is shown.

Credit: NASA

Miles above the surface of the Earth, a thin layer of ozone gas acts as a shield that protects us from harmful ultraviolet light. 

Image Credit: NASA

What is ozone, and why is some ozone “good" while some is "bad?"

Just as humans need sunblock, the Earth needs protection too. Earth’s sunscreen is called ozone.

The ozone that protects us, and all life on Earth, from the Sun’s harmful UV radiation is high in the atmosphere, in the stratosphere.

But there is also ozone closer to Earth in the troposphere and that is harmful to the health of people, plants and animals.

Decades ago scientists discovered that the Earth’s “good” ozone layer was thinning. It was being depleted by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), but the international community came together with an agreement to vastly curtail the use CFCs.

The UN General Assembly proclaimed September 16 the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, commemorating the date of the signing of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

The theme for this year’s celebration is “Ozone Layer Protection: The Mission Goes On.”

The Montreal Protocol has so far been successful in meeting some of its targets, as a result, the abundance of ozone-depleting substances in the atmosphere is declining and the ozone layer is expected to recover around the middle of this century.

NASA NuSTAR: Celebrating two years of science in space

Artist's concept of NuSTAR on orbit.

NuSTAR has a 10-m (30') mast that deploys after launch to separate the optics modules (right) from the detectors in the focal plane (left). 

The spacecraft, which controls NuSTAR's pointings, and the solar panels are with the focal plane. 

NuSTAR has two identical optics modules to increase sensitivity. The background is an image of the Galactic center obtained with the Chandra X-ray Observatory. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), a premier black-hole hunter among other talents, has finished up its two-year prime mission, and will be moving onto its next phase, a two-year extension.

"It's hard to believe it's been two years since NuSTAR launched," said Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

"We achieved all the mission science objectives and made some amazing discoveries I never would have predicted two years ago."

In this new chapter of NuSTAR's life, it will continue to examine the most energetic objects in space, such as black holes and the pulsating remains of dead stars.

In addition, outside observers, astronomers not on the NuSTAR team, will be invited to compete for time on the telescope.

"NuSTAR will initiate a general observer program, which will start execution next spring and will take 50 percent of the observatory time," said Suzanne Dodd, the NuSTAR project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"We are very excited to see what new science the community will propose to execute with NuSTAR."

NuSTAR blasted into space above the Pacific Ocean on June 13, 2012, with the help of a plane that boosted the observatory and its rocket to high altitudes.

After a 48-day checkout period, the telescope began collecting X-rays from black holes, supernova remnants, galaxy clusters and other exotic objects.

With its long mast - the length of a school bus, NuSTAR has a unique design that allows it to capture detailed data in the highest-energy range of X-rays, the same type used by dentists.

It is the most sensitive high-energy X-ray mission every flown.

In its prime mission, NuSTAR made the most robust measurements yet of the mind-bending spin rate of black holes and provided new insight into how massive stars slosh around before exploding.

Other observations include: the discovery of a highly magnetized neutron star near the center of our Milky Way galaxy, measurements of luminous active black holes enshrouded in dust, and serendipitous discoveries of supermassive black holes.

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory celebrates 15th anniversary

Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO

Fifteen years ago, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched into space aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia.

Since its deployment on July 23, 1999, Chandra has helped revolutionize our understanding of the universe through its unrivaled X-ray vision.

Chandra, one of NASA's current "Great Observatories," along with the Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope, is specially designed to detect X-ray emission from hot and energetic regions of the universe.

With its superb sensitivity and resolution, Chandra has observed objects ranging from the closest planets and comets to the most distant known quasars.

It has imaged the remains of exploded stars, or supernova remnants, observed the region around the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and discovered black holes across the universe.

Chandra also has made a major advance in the study of dark matter by tracing the separation of dark matter from normal matter in collisions between galaxy clusters. It is also contributing to research on the nature of dark energy.

To celebrate Chandra's 15th anniversary, four new images of supernova remnants; the Crab Nebula, Tycho, G292.0+1.8, and 3C58 – are being released.

These supernova remnants are very hot and energetic and glow brightly in X-ray light, which allows Chandra to capture them in exquisite detail.

"Chandra changed the way we do astronomy. It showed that precision observation of the X-rays from cosmic sources is critical to understanding what is going on," said Paul Hertz, NASA's Astrophysics Division director in Washington.

"We're fortunate we've had 15 years, so far, to use Chandra to advance our understanding of stars, galaxies, black holes, dark energy, and the origin of the elements necessary for life."

Chandra orbits far above Earth's X-ray absorbing atmosphere at an altitude up to 139,000 km (86,500 mi), allowing for long observations unobscured by Earth's shadow.

When it was carried into space in 1999, it was the largest satellite ever launched by the shuttle.

"We are thrilled at how well Chandra continues to perform," said Belinda Wilkes, director of the Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"The science and operations teams work very hard to ensure that Chandra delivers its astounding results, just as it has for the past decade and a half."

"We are looking forward to more ground-breaking science over the next decade and beyond."

Originally called the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), the telescope was first proposed to NASA in 1976.

Prior to its launch aboard the shuttle, the observatory was renamed in honour of the late Indian-American Nobel laureate, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.

Known to the world as Chandra (which means "moon" or "luminous" in Sanskrit), he was widely regarded as one of the foremost astrophysicists of the 20th century.

"Chandra continues to be one of the most successful missions that NASA has ever flown as measured against any metric, cost, schedule, technical success and, most of all, scientific discoveries," said Martin Weisskopf, Chandra Project Scientist at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

"It has been a privilege to work on developing and maintaining this scientific powerhouse, and we look forward to many years to come."

NASA Cassini Probe Celebrates 10 Years orbiting Saturn - Video

A photo taken of Saturn by the Cassini spacecraft, which has been exploring the Saturn system for 10 years. Image uploaded June 30, 2014.

Credit: NASA/JPL

NASA spacecraft Cassini passes a big milestone, a decade exploring Saturn and its many moons.

Since arriving in orbit around Saturn 10 years ago today, the Cassini probe has made a number of unprecedented observations and discoveries.

Although the spacecraft was originally approved for a four-year mission, it has been granted three mission extensions, allowing it to continue roaming the gas giant’s system.

Linda Spilker

"Having a healthy, long-lived spacecraft at Saturn has afforded us a precious opportunity," Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement.

"By having a decade there with Cassini, we have been privileged to witness never-before-seen events that are changing our understanding of how planetary systems form and what conditions might lead to habitats for life."

For example, Cassini has helped scientists learn more about what kinds of molecules populate our solar system.

The spacecraft discovered plumes containing water-ice shooting out into space from the south polar region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus.



The Enceladus discovery is one of Cassini’s most remarkable findings because it marked an extension of the search for life in the solar system, NASA officials said.

Researchers know that life as we understand it relies on water, so finding the substance on a moon or planet could be a sign that life might be able to exist there.

Scientists now think that Enceldus harbors an underground ocean.

Enceladus wasn’t the only mysterious moon Cassini helped reveal. Saturn’s huge satellite Titan has also been studied by the long-lasting orbiter.

Cassini’s measurements have shown that Titan has rain, lakes, seas and rivers like Earth, NASA officials said. Unlike Earth, however, Titan is a cold world with seas of liquid methane rather than water.

The Titan-exploring Huygens probe also launched to the Saturn system with Cassini in October 1997.

The European Space Agency’s Huygens robot landed on Titan in 2005 and became the first manmade craft to land on a moon in the outer solar system.

It measured the atmosphere and beamed images of the moon back to Earth.

“The probe’s 2 hour and 27 minute descent revealed Titan to be remarkably like Earth before life evolved, with methane rain, erosion and drainage channels and dry lake beds,” NASA officials said.

“A soup of complex hydrocarbons, including benzene, was found in Titan's atmosphere.”

Saturn's moon Tethys with its prominent Odysseus Crater silently slips behind Saturn's largest moon Titan.

Cassini has also unveiled how Saturn’s rings change over time, and because of its long tenure in the planetary system, the probe has observed seasonal changes taking place on the planet and its moons, according to NASA.

Cassini will continue to beam back data to Earth for a few more years, until 2017 when it is scheduled to intentionally plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere, ending its mission.

Hydrocarbon Lakes on Titan

Happy Anniversary Yuri! Celebration of Yuri Gagarin's Epic Trip

On April 12, 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (left, on the way to the launch pad) made the first human spaceflight, a 108-minute orbital journey in his Vostok 1 spacecraft. 

Newspapers like The Huntsville Times (right) trumpeted Gagarin's accomplishment.

Credit: NASA

It was 53 years ago today on April 12, 1961 when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin launched into space aboard his Soviet Vostok 1 and ushered in an era of space travel that continues to this today.

ISS Astronauts Celebrate 'Cosmos' with Weightless Experiment in Space Station - Video

The new "Cosmos" science TV series on Fox has received an out-of-this-world from astronauts on the International Space Station in a new video showing how weightlessness works.

In the new video beamed from space, NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio considers Isaac Newton's third law of motion - every action produces an equal and opposite reaction - and demonstrates how this works in microgravity, 260 miles (418 kilometers) above Earth.

To demonstrate this, Rick Mastracchio pushes his colleague and ISS Commander, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, along with a model of NASA's now-retired space shuttle.

As Wakata and the model spacecraft float forward, Mastracchio drifts backwards.

NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio shows how Newton's third law of motion works in microgravity. 

Credit: YouTube | NASA

"This is simple science but the more complex science we're doing here on the space station will help us bring real world benefits back to humanity on Earth, as well as take us further into the cosmos than ever before, including to an asteroid, the moon or on to Mars," Mastracchio said.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, host of "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey," introduced the video of his "friends in high places," saying, "when you're doing science, you have to do experiments."

NEOWISE celebrates first month of operations after reactivation

In its first 25 days of operations, the newly reactivated NEOWISE mission has detected 857 minor bodies in our solar system, including 22 near-Earth objects (NEOs) and four comets. 

Three of the NEOs are new discoveries; all three are hundreds of meters in diameter and dark as coal.

The mission has just passed its post-restart survey readiness review, and the project has verified that the ability to measure asteroid positions and brightness is as good as it was before the spacecraft entered hibernation in early 2011.

At the present rate, NEOWISE is observing and characterizing approximately one NEO per day, giving astronomers a much better idea of the objects' sizes and compositions.

Out of the more than 10,500 NEOs that have been discovered to date, only about 10 percent have had any physical measurements made of them; the reactivated NEOWISE will more than double that number.

ISS Astronauts Celebrate Holidays in Orbit

NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio performs a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Dec. 22, 2013, the first of two spacewalks to replace an ammonia coolant pump in one of two cooling loops on the orbiting lab.

Credit: NASA

Six space travelers living in orbit definitely aren't home for Christmas today, but that doesn't mean they won't get into the holiday spirit on the International Space Station.

The space station's six-man Expedition 38 crew includes two Americans, three Russians and one Japanese astronaut.

This year, Christmas falls between two spacewalks — a Christmas Eve spacewalk to fix the outpost's cooling system and a Dec. 27 excursion by Russian cosmonauts — so it is likely a welcome rest in an otherwise busy week.

"Hey folks, MERRY CHRISTMAS!" NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio wrote in a Twitter post Sunday (Dec. 22), adding that he would write more after finishing the station's "home improvement project" to replace a cooling system pump.

He and NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins finished that work in a spacewalk on Tuesday.

Celebrating Fifteen Years of the International Space Station (ISS)

Astronaut James H. Newman waves during a spacewalk preparing for release of the first combined elements of the International Space Station. 

The Russian-built Zarya module, with its solar array panel visible here, was launched into orbit fifteen years ago on Nov. 20, 1998. 

Two weeks later, on Dec. 4, 1998, NASA's space shuttle Endeavour launched Unity, the first U.S. piece of the complex. 

During three spacewalks on the STS-88 mission, the two space modules built on opposite sides of the planet were joined together in space, making the space station truly international.

Since that first meeting of Zarya and Unity, the space station grew piece by piece with additions from each of the international partners built across three continents and leading to the largest and most complex spacecraft ever constructed. 

The space station, now four times larger than Mir and five times larger than Skylab, represents a collaboration between NASA, Roscosmos, the European Space Agency, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, representing 15 countries in all.

In support of station assembly and maintenance, station and shuttle crews have conducted 174 spacewalks totaling almost 1,100 hours – the equivalent to nearly 46 days of spacewalks to build and maintain the complex. 

The station, with a mass of almost a million pounds and the size of a football field, is second only to the moon as the brightest object in the night sky.

Over the years, a great deal of research has been done on the space laboratory, which has already yielded tremendous results toward various fields. 

The science of the space station has provided benefits to humankind in areas such as human health, Earth observation and education. 

Many more results and benefits for both space exploration and life on Earth are expected in the coming years.

Image Credit: NASA

NASA Spitzer telescope celebrates ten years in space

A montage of images taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope over the years. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Ten years after a Delta II rocket launched NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, lighting up the night sky over Cape Canaveral, Fla., the fourth of the agency's four Great Observatories continues to illuminate the dark side of the cosmos with its infrared eyes.

The telescope studied comets and asteroids, counted stars, scrutinized planets and galaxies, and discovered soccer-ball-shaped carbon spheres in space called buckyballs.

Moving into its second decade of scientific scouting from an Earth-trailing orbit, Spitzer continues to explore the cosmos near and far.

One additional task is helping NASA observe potential candidates for a developing mission to capture, redirect and explore a near-Earth asteroid.

"President Obama's goal of visiting an asteroid by 2025 combines NASA's diverse talents in a unified endeavor," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science in Washington.

"Using Spitzer to help us characterize asteroids and potential targets for an asteroid mission advances both science and exploration."

Spitzer's infrared vision lets it see the far, cold and dusty side of the universe.

Close to home, the telescope has studied the comet dubbed Tempel 1, which was hit by NASA's Deep Impact mission in 2005.

Spitzer showed the composition of Tempel 1 resembled that of solar systems beyond our own. Spitzer also surprised the world by discovering the largest of Saturn's many rings.

The enormous ring, a wispy band of ice and dust particles, is very faint in visible light, but Spitzer's infrared detectors were able to pick up the glow from its heat.

ESA Columbus ISS Module Celebrates 5 Years of Space Science

NASA Astronauts John Olivas (left) and Nicole Stott, STS-128 mission specialists, in the mission's first spacewalk as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station. 

During the six-hour, 35-minute spacewalk, they removed an empty ammonia tank from the Station's truss and temporarily stowed it on the Station's robotic arm. 

They also retrieved the ESA experiments European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF) and Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) from the Columbus laboratory module and installed them in Space Shuttle Discovery's payload bay for return. 

Credit NASA/ESA.

Since Europe's Columbus laboratory module was attached to the International Space Station five years ago, it has offered researchers worldwide the opportunity to conduct science beyond the effects of gravity.

A total of 110 ESA-led experiments involving some 500 scientists have been conducted since 2008, spanning fluid physics, material sciences, radiation physics, the Sun, the human body, biology and astrobiology.

NASA Astronaut Rex Walheim hanging on to Columbus

The Space Station allows researchers to play with a force that is fixed on Earth: gravity.

'Turning off' gravity and performing experiments in space over long periods can reveal the inner workings of natural phenomena.

"We focus research on achieving scientific discoveries, developing applications and benefitting people on Earth while preparing for future space exploration," explains Martin Zell, responsible for ESA's utilisation of the European orbital laboratory.

John Olivas

Studying colloids - tiny particles in liquids - is one area of research hampered by gravity. Colloids are found in many liquids such as milk, paint and even in our bodies, yet they are so small you need an electron microscope to study them. At this scale, gravity will always influence the results, but in space experiments can be run repeatedly without interference.

The Colloid experiment on Columbus has shown how 'quantum forces' can be used to control colloid structures. It confirmed the effect of these forces as predicted theoretically over 30 years ago, but observed for the first time in 2008. The findings are part of the building blocks for creating nano-materials.

Research inside Columbus is also helping scientists to understand the human body. Astronauts in space absorb more salt without absorbing more fluids - contradicting generally accepted medical knowledge.

Nicole Stott

It turns out that high-salt diets seem to be causing bone loss in astronauts. Until now, bone loss was thought to be caused by the physical effect of living in weightlessness. This new result has implications for people suffering from osteoporosis on Earth.

Delving deeper, cell research is offering clues on how to control ageing.

The Roald biology experiment revealed that certain enzymes in our immune systems are more active in space, showing scientists on the ground where to look to combat premature cell death.

There are also experiments mounted outside of the Columbus module. The first of a series of Expose experiments has shown that living organisms can survive space travel.