TYB
Animalculae
Sun Releases Strong Flare
March 25, 2024
The Sun emitted a strong solar flare, peaking at 9:33 p.m. EDT on Friday, March 22. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the Sun constantly, captured an image of the event.
Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy. Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.
This flare is classified as a X1.1 flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength.
To see how such space weather may affect Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center https://spaceweather.gov/, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts. NASA works as a research arm of the nation’s space weather effort. NASA observes the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from the Sun’s activity to the solar atmosphere, and to the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/solarcycle25/2024/03/
W. Brian Keegan, chief engineer of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, dies
March 25, 2024 at 5:00 a.m.
W. Brian Keegan, a chief engineer at NASA, died of cardiac arrest March 12 at Keswick Multi-Care Center in Baltimore. He was 83.
William Brian Keegan was born in the Irvington neighborhood of West Baltimore to William and Madellyne Keegan. Mr. Keegan’s father was an engineer with Westinghouse, and his mother was an administrative staffer for a surgical practice.
Although Mr. Keegan spent most of his youth living in Parkville, he briefly lived in Biloxi, Mississippi, while his father worked as an aircraft mechanic for the Navy in the mid-1940s.
In 1958, he graduated from Loyola Blakefield in Towson before earning a degree in physics at Loyola College, now Loyola University Maryland, in 1962.
Mr. Keegan met his wife, Charlotte, at a church event at a bowling alley. They married in 1962 and raised their family of three children in the Catonsville and Ellicott City areas.
The family took annual trips to Bethany Beach in Delaware and held Christmas parties that continued after their children married and grandchildren came onto the scene.
“My dad was an example of how you can be a strong person and a strong leader without sacrificing compassion and kindness,” said his son Kevin Keegan. “He taught me how to be a good person and a good husband and father, and quite honestly there are moments at work when I hear his voice and words coming from my own mouth.”
In 1966, he began his career at NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center as a structural engineer. He would eventually work his way up to chief engineer.
In 1986, he was selected as the deputy director of flight assurance at Goddard. In 1994, he became the deputy director of engineering. He then was Goddard’s director of applied engineering and technology from 1997 until his appointment as chief engineer in 2000.
Mr. Keegan resigned from NASA in March 2002.
“Brian was very well regarded and held in high esteem, and had such a lasting impact on Goddard Space Flight Center,” said Lee Niemeyer, a colleague at NASA. “He was sharp, mission-oriented, fair and would push the organization to always be better.”
He was also a mentor to other engineers. Mr. Keegan would mentor his neighbor’s child, Pragnesh Shah, during a critical time in his career, Mr. Shah said.
Mr. Keegan’s advice was to be proficient in the people side of the business as well as the technical side, Mr. Shah said.
“I was in a career transition and called to seek his advice. He quickly responded to schedule a phone call,” said Mr. Shah, a former mechanical engineer at Goddard. “Mr. Keegan’s sage advice regarding the ‘people side’ often rang through as at the end of the day organizations and businesses are driven by people, no matter what the industry, even if rockets are not involved.”
Mr. Keegan enjoyed traveling and visited six of the seven continents. For his 50th wedding anniversary, he went with his wife, children and grandchildren to Hawaii in 2012.
Months after the anniversary trip, his wife was diagnosed with leukemia, and she would die later that year. Mr. Keegan eventually met his partner Melissa Fulton, and they moved to The Carrollton in the Oakenshawe neighborhood of Baltimore.
They would take many many cruises, including on the Mekong River in Vietnam in 2022 and on the Nile in Africa last year.
In addition to his partner Melissa Fulton, Mr. Keegan is survived by his sons, Stephen, of Geneva, Illinois, and Kevin, of Lutherville; daughter Kerry Keegan Naunton, of Nottingham; three grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
A memorial was held at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on March 18.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/03/25/william-brian-keegan-nasa-goddard/
FLY HIGH George Abbey dead at 91: Legendary NASA director & ‘father of modern spaceflight’ mourned after decades-long career
Updated: 11:46 ET, Mar 25 2024
"Our devoted father, mentor, guidepost, and hero, Geroge W.S. Abbey, passed away last night after an illness," the family said in a statement.
"He has been called the father of modern spaceflight, but we called him Dad, Granpa, and Uncle George.
"He was a quiet man, brilliant, humble, and very private. The world will be so emptier without him.
"He had hundreds of friends and associates from all over the world who will miss him.
"His long life was notable for accomplishments as a pilot, engineer, manager, educated, and father."
Abbey was a US Naval Academy graduate who served in the Air Force before starting his career at Nasa in 1964.
He was a technical assistant in the Apollo Spacecraft Program, which prepared and landed the first men on the Moon from 1968 to 1972.
Following the Apollo 1 accident in 1967, which saw the cabin catch fire during prelaunch testing and kill the entire crew onboard, Abbey became a leading developer and implemented critical safety modifications required for future Apollo flights.
He later became the center director’s technical assistant.
As Nasa prepared for the space shuttle's launch, Abbey was named director of Flight Operations and responsible for astronaut training, development, and mission operations support.
Abbey was also responsible for selecting shuttle astronauts, which led to the first female and minority space flyers in 1978.
As director of the Johnson Space Center, he was critical to the Nasa Shuttle-Mir Program, providing crucial oversight, management, and guidance in the first phase of the International Space Station.
https://www.the-sun.com/news/10881278/george-abbey-legendary-nasa-director-dead/
Soyuz Spacecraft Docks to Station With Three Crew Members Aboard
March 25, 2024
NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus on the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft docked to the International Space Station at 11:03 a.m. EDT.
Coverage of hatch opening will air live at 1:15 p.m. on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media.
Once on station, the trio will join Expedition 70 crew members including NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara, Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and Alexander Grebenkin, already living and working aboard the space station.
Dyson will spend six months aboard the station as an Expedition 70 and 71 flight engineer, returning to Earth in September with Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub of Roscosmos, who will complete a year-long mission on the laboratory.
Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya will be aboard the station for 12 days, providing the ride home for O’Hara on Saturday, April 6, aboard Soyuz MS-24 for a parachute-assisted landing on steppe of Kazakhstan. O’Hara will have spent 204 days in space when she returns.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2024/03/25/soyuz-spacecraft-docks-to-station-with-three-crew-members-aboard/
Hubble Sees New Star Proclaiming Presence with Cosmic Lightshow
MAR 25, 2024
Jets emerge from the cocoon of a newly forming star to blast across space, slicing through the gas and dust of a shining nebula in this new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
FS Tau is a multi-star system made up of FS Tau A, the bright star-like object near the middle of the image, and FS Tau B (Haro 6-5B), the bright object to the far right obscured by a dark, vertical lane of dust. The young objects are surrounded by gently illuminated gas and dust of this stellar nursery. The system is only about 2.8 million years old, very young for a star system. Our Sun, by contrast, is about 4.6 billion years old.
FS Tau B is a newly forming star, or protostar, surrounded by a protoplanetary disk, a pancake-shaped collection of dust and gas leftover from the formation of the star that will eventually coalesce into planets. The thick dust lane, seen nearly edge-on, separates what are thought to be the illuminated surfaces of the flared disk.
FS Tau B is likely in the process of becoming a T Tauri star, a type of young variable star that hasn’t begun nuclear fusion yet but is beginning to evolve into a hydrogen-fueled star similar to our Sun. Protostars shine with the heat energy released as the gas clouds from which they are forming collapse, and from the accretion of material from nearby gas and dust. Variable stars are a class of star whose brightness changes noticeably over time.
FS Tau A is itself a T Tauri binary system, consisting of two stars orbiting each other.
Protostars are known to eject fast-moving, column-like streams of energized material called jets, and FS Tau B provides a striking example of this phenomenon. The protostar is the source of an unusual asymmetric, double-sided jet, visible here in blue. Its asymmetrical structure may result from the difference in the rates at which mass is being expelled from the object.
FS Tau B is also classified as a Herbig-Haro object. Herbig–Haro objects form when jets of ionized gas ejected by a young star collide with nearby clouds of gas and dust at high speeds, creating bright patches of nebulosity.
FS Tau is part of the Taurus-Auriga region, a collection of dark molecular clouds that are home to numerous newly forming and young stars, roughly 450 light-years away in the constellations of Taurus and Auriga. Hubble has previously observed this region, whose star-forming activity makes it a compelling target for astronomers. Hubble took these observations as part of an investigation of edge-on dust disks around young stellar objects.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-sees-new-star-proclaiming-presence-with-cosmic-lightshow/
Hubble Views a Galaxy Under Pressure
MAR 25, 2024
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows LEDA 42160, a galaxy about 52 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The dwarf galaxy is one of many forcing its way through the comparatively dense gas in the massive Virgo cluster of galaxies. The pressure exerted by this intergalactic gas, known as ram pressure, has dramatic effects on star formation in LEDA 42160.
The gas and dust that permeates space exerts pressure on a galaxy as it moves. This resistance, called ram pressure, can strip a galaxy of its star-forming gas and dust, reducing or even stopping the creation of new stars. However, ram pressure can also compress gas in the galaxy, which can boost star formation.
The Hubble data used to create this image of LEDA 42160 is part of a project that studied dwarf galaxies undergoing ram pressure stripping that are part of large galaxy clusters, like the Virgo cluster. Studies show that ram pressure stripping can initially cause new stars to form in larger galaxies. The researchers wanted to see if the same holds true for smaller galaxies, like LEDA 42160. The bright patches on LEDA 42160’s lower-right flank may be star-forming regions spurred on by ram pressure stripping. Hubble’s observations of LEDA 42160 will help astronomers determine the processes that created the features we see in this small galaxy.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/hubble-views-a-galaxy-under-pressure/
UK Space Agency to expand with four new bases
Mar 24, 2024
The UK Space Agency (UKSA) is opening four new bases across the UK including a new headquarters.
The main centre will be at Harwell Science Campus in Oxfordshire from June.
Regional bases will also open this year in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Leicester, while existing offices in London and Swindon will be retained.
UKSA said the "transformational" expansion would enhance links with the private sector and boost recruitment.
Chief executive Dr Paul Bate said: "This will place the UK Space Agency at the heart of the space sector we serve, boosting growth.
"We have seen a significant rise in space organisations across the UK and it's crucial we nurture their skills and expertise."
The new premises at William Morgan House in Cardiff and Space Park Leicester will open in April, with the office at Queen Elizabeth House in Edinburgh following in the summer.
Space minister Andrew Griffith said more than 100 organisations were already based at Harwell's Space Cluster, making it the ideal location for the new headquarters.
He said the expansion would "strengthen the UK's science superpower ambitions".
The UK space sector is worth more than £17.5bn per year and employs more than 45,000 people, according to UKSA.
The agency has recently announced plans to fly a team of British astronauts on a commercially-sponsored mission, potentially to the International Space Station.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-68651414
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-space-agency-announces-new-headquarters-and-regional-offices
Alien-like creature with reptile skull, claws and long tail washes up on beach
14:49, 24 MAR 2024
A strange extraterrestrial with a reptilian skull, claws, and a flabby body washed up on a beach in Australia.
Alex Tan couldn't believe his eyes when he stumbled across the unusual sight on the Sunshine Coast.
The stunned passerby immediately snapped pictures and videos of the odd creature, which he thought may have been "unusual sight".
The beast had four legs, a bare, fleshy body, a rat-like long tail, and its head showing almost all bone, reports the Daily Star.
Alex posted his weird find on Instagram, sharing a video where he said: "I've stumbled across something weird. This is like one of those things you see when people claim they've found aliens."
Describing the creature as looking like "a de-haired possum" but "different to anything [he had] ever seen", he then went on to admit he thought it was alien in nature.
Focusing the camera on the bloated carcass, which was covered in flies, Alex said: "How weird is that?"
He then asked followers to guess what it may have been, adding that he was genuinely keen to figure out what creature little buddy is."
Some Instagram users thought it may have been a kangaroo or wallaby that had been in the water too long after dying.
A few suggested Bindi Irwin, famous conservationist and daughter of late nature legend Steve Irwin, might be able to shed some light on it.
Land-dwelling creatures can have their bodies distorted beyond usual recognition if they lie in the water for an extended period. Tides, salt water, and hungry sea creatures can leave corpses almost unidentifiable.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/alien-like-creature-reptile-skull-32429464