NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

Dec 27, 2023

Rainbow Aurora over Icelandic Waterfall

Yes, but can your aurora do this? First, yes, auroras can look like rainbows even though they are completely different phenomena. Auroras are caused by Sun-created particles being channeled into Earth's atmosphere by Earth's magnetic field, and create colors by exciting atoms at different heights. Conversely, rainbows are created by sunlight backscattering off falling raindrops, and different colors are refracted by slightly different angles. Unfortunately, auroras can’t create waterfalls, but if you plan well and are lucky enough, you can photograph them together. The featured picture is composed of several images taken on the same night last month near the Skógafoss waterfall in Iceland. The planning centered on capturing the central band of our Milky Way galaxy over the picturesque cascade. By luck, a spectacular aurora soon appeared just below the curving arch of the Milky Way. Far in the background, the Pleiades star cluster and the Andromeda galaxy can be found.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?

NASA Issues New Space Security Best Practices Guide

Dec 22, 2023

As space missions and technologies grow increasingly interconnected, NASA has released the first iteration of its Space Security Best Practices Guide to bolster mission cybersecurity efforts for both public sector and private sector space activities.

The guide represents a significant milestone in NASA’s commitment to ensuring the longevity and resilience of its space missions and will serve as a resource for enhancing their security and reliability.

Additionally, the Space Security Best Practices Guide was designed to benefit users beyond NASA – international partners, industry, and others working in the expanding fields of space exploration and development. The guide is designed to provide security guidance for missions, programs, or projects of any size.

“At NASA, we recognize the importance of protecting our space missions from potential threats and vulnerabilities” said Misty Finical, deputy principal advisor for Enterprise Protection at NASA. “This guide represents a collective effort to establish a set of principles that will enable us to identify and mitigate risks and ensure continued success of our missions, both in Earth’s orbit and beyond.”

In terms of both information systems and operational technologies, space systems are becoming more integrated and interconnected. These developments carry benefits – NASA and other organizations have unprecedented new possibilities for working, communicating, and gathering data in space. But new, complex systems can also have vulnerabilities. Through its new guide, NASA aims to provide best practices for adapting to these new challenges and implementing safety and security measures.

The guide reflects NASAs continued commitment to helping develop clear cybersecurity principles for its space systems, encapsulated in its Space System Protection Standard. The agency developed the handbook to further support the goals of Space Policy Directive 5, Cybersecurity Principles for Space Systems.

NASA will collect feedback from the space community to integrate into future versions of the guide.

https://www.nasa.gov/general/nasa-issues-new-space-security-best-practices-guide/

>>20137340

One of my favorite Dan pictures.

What does it mean!?

>>20137401

NASA Aeronautics in 2023

In 2023, NASA advanced aviation technologies to improve passenger experiences, stimulate U.S. economic growth, and create a future of cleaner, quieter, and safer skies — all while working to support the U.S. goal of reaching net-zero aviation greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-aeronautics-highlights-for-2023/

Discovery of 'calendar' rock carvings from Ancestral Pueblo in US Southwest surpasses 'wildest expectations'

Dec 26, 2023

While investigating a site in the US Southwest, archaeologists discovered a series of ancient rock carvings that early Native Americans may have used as a calendar.

The site, known as the Castle Rock Pueblo, is on the Mesa Verde plateau straddling the Colorado-Utah border and is best known for the Ancestral Pueblo settlements that are carved into the surrounding canyon walls, according to a statement.

The Ancestral Pueblo were a group of Indigenous peoples who inhabited the Castle Rock Pueblo from about the 1250s to 1274, according to a 2020 study in the journal Antiquity.

The agricultural Pueblo communities developed one of the most advanced Pre-Columbian cultures in North America," Radosław Palonka, an archaeology professor at Jagiellonian University in Poland who led the investigation, said in the statement. "They perfected the craft of building multi-story stone houses, resembling medieval town houses or even later blocks of flats. The Pueblo people were also famous for their rock art, intricately ornamented jewelry and ceramics bearing different motifs painted with a black pigment on white background."

During their investigation, the archaeologists discovered a series of petroglyphs (rock carvings) chiseled into the canyon walls high above the cliff settlements. The carvings, which include spirals stretching more than 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter, continue across more than 2.5 miles (4 kilometers), according to the statement.

"I used to think that we studied this area thoroughly, conducting full-scale excavations, geophysical surveying and digitalization," Palonka said in the statement. "Yet, I had some hints from older members of the local community that something more can be found in the higher, less accessible parts of the canyons. We wanted to verify this information, and what we found surpassed our wildest expectations."

Researchers think the Ancestral Pueblo used the panels as a calendar for "astronomical observations" and to commemorate "special days," including the summer and winter solstices and the spring and autumn equinoxes, according to the statement.

https://www.space.com/calendar-rock-carvings-ancestral-pueblo