NASA ISS Image: Poti on the Black Sea

Poti on the Black sea - you can clearly see the fishing boats and the loads of silt washing out to sea.

Credit: Nasa, Chris Hadfield

EO-1 Advanced Land Imager (ALI): Tolbachik Volcanic eruption

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After more than a month of eruption, lava continues to flow from Tolbachik, one of many active volcanoes on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. 

Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

The current eruption at Tolbachik began on Nov. 27, 2012.

Lava flowed up to 20 kilometers (12 miles) from a line of fissures on the volcano’s southern flank.

Since then, some of the lava has cooled enough to allow snow to accumulate.

Snow-covered lava flows appear gray in this natural-color satellite image. Fresher lava appears black. A faint orange glow at the head of the northern flow marks the location of an erupting fissure.

The image was collected on Dec. 22, 2012, by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) Satellite.

According to the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) the eruption continued through Dec. 30, 2012.

ESA ESO ALMA: Greedy gas Giants

Great currents of gas flowing through a gap in the disk of material surrounding a young star. 

This is what, for the first time, a team of astronomers observed using Chilean ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array). 

It is a fundamental stage in the emergence of the giant planets. The findings are published in the journal Nature on January 2.

The study the young star HD 142527 , at more than 450 light years from Earth and is surrounded by a disk of gas and cosmic dust, the remnants of cloud from which the star was formed.

The dust disk is divided into an inner and an outer by a discontinuity which is believed to have been formed by gas giant planets in formation that clean away their path as they orbit around the star.

The internal area of the disk and the star reaches the equivalent of the orbit of Saturn in the Solar System, while the exterior of the disc begins about 14 times farther away.

The outside area of the disc evenly around the star, but has the shape of a horseshoe, probably caused by the gravitational effects of the giant planets in orbit.

The theory predicts that giant planets grow capturing the gas from the external drive by means of currents which form bridges across the discontinuity of the disk.

The discontinuity in the dust disc was already known, but they also found the diffuse gas in the discontinuity and two currents of dense gas that flowed from the external drive through the gate, the internal disk.

Read the full story here:

NASA Hadfield ISS Image: The Andros Islands

Andros Island, a lesser populated island with some great diving. At the bottom center you can see the island's runway.

Credit: NASA, Chris Hadfield

NASA Hadfield Image: The Beauty of the Bahamas

The beauty of the Bahamas is surreal; every blue that exists. Taken by Chris Hadfield on New Year's Day, 2013 from the Space Station.

NASA Hubble Image: Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1097

The Hubble Space Telescope captured a spectacular image of the bright star-forming ring that surrounds the heart of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1097, also known as Caldwell 67.

Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble

In this image, the larger-scale structure of the galaxy is barely visible: its comparatively dim spiral arms, which surround its heart in a loose embrace, reach out beyond the edges of this frame.

This face-on galaxy, lying 45 million light-years away from Earth in the southern constellation of Fornax (The Furnace), is particularly attractive for astronomers.

NGC 1097 is a Seyfert galaxy. Lurking at the very center of the galaxy, a supermassive black hole 100 million times the mass of our sun is gradually sucking in the matter around it.

The area immediately around the black hole shines powerfully with radiation coming from the material falling in.

The distinctive ring around the black hole is bursting with new star formation due to an inflow of material toward the central bar of the galaxy.

These star-forming regions are glowing brightly thanks to emission from clouds of ionized hydrogen.

The ring is around 5000 light-years across, although the spiral arms of the galaxy extend tens of thousands of light-years beyond it.

Aerospace Legends - Age shall not dull their achievements

A historic gathering of Aerospace legends in 2010. 

From left: Neil Armstrong, first man on the Moon; James Lovell, Commander, Apollo 13; Security man; Eugene Cernan, last man on the Moon (Apollo 17); Capt Eric Brown; Wg Cdr Andy Green, driver of first supersonic car ThrustSSC; Security man and Bob Gilliland, former Principal Test Pilot on the SR-71 at the Lockheed Skunk Works. 

Credit: Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown, CBE, DSC, AFC, HonFRAeS, RN

Eric Brown is a former UK Royal Navy officer and test pilot who has flown more types of aircraft than anyone else.

He is the UK Fleet Air Arm’s most decorated pilot and holds the world record for aircraft carrier landings. He was UK Royal Aeronautical Society's (RAeS) President 1982-1983.

Arguably the UK’s greatest test pilot, aviation record holder and former RAeS President Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown wrote a personal tribute to astronaut Neil Armstrong ‘a kindred spririt’, who passed away earlier this year.

Read this article from the December edition of Aerospace Professional here.