Exposed Bedrock on the Red Planet's Hale Crater


This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows Hale Crater, a large impact crater. via NASA https://ift.tt/2xEBCOL

Final: Giants 7 Rockies 4. WP: SF D Holland (3-6) LP: COL H Musgrave (0-1) SV: SF H Strickland (11) (ESPN)

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MLB Draft Hits & Misses: Who was the Giants' best first-round pick, late-round gem and one that got away? - David Schoenfield (ESPN)

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Black Hole Bounty Captured in the Center of the Milky Way


Astronomers have discovered evidence for thousands of black holes located near the center of our Milky Way galaxy using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. via NASA https://ift.tt/2LI5Tz7

The Case of the Backwards Orbiting Asteroid


Why does asteroid 2015 BZ509 orbit the Sun the backwards? As shown in the featured animation, Jupiter's trojan asteroids orbit the Sun in two major groups -- one just ahead of Jupiter, and one just behind -- but all orbit the Sun in the same direction as Jupiter. Asteroid BZ509 however, discovered in 2015 and currently unnamed, orbits the Sun in retrograde and in a more complex gravitational dance with Jupiter. The reason why is currently unknown and a topic of research -- but if resolved might tell us about the early Solar System. A recently popular hypothesis holds that BZ509 was captured by Jupiter from interstellar space billions of years ago, while a competing conjecture posits that BZ509 came from our Solar System's own distant Oort cloud of comets, perhaps more recently. The answer may only become known after more detailed models of the likelihood and stability of orbits near Jupiter are studied, or, possibly, by observing direct properties of the unusual object. via NASA https://ift.tt/2L64roZ

Final: Rockies 11 Giants 4. WP: COL K Freeland (5-5) LP: SF J Samardzija (1-4) (ESPN)

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Our Sputtering Sun


An active region rotated into view and sputtered with numerous small flares and towering magnetic field lines that stretched out many times the diameter of Earth. via NASA https://ift.tt/2kvu6vY

🔊 Giants Interview: Brandon Belt talks about why baseball has become so "judgy" and how his new grip has impacted his performance (ESPN)

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Aurora and Manicouagan Crater from the Space Station


How many of these can you find in today's featured photograph: an aurora, airglow, one of the oldest impact craters on the Earth, snow and ice, stars, city lights, and part of the International Space Station? Most of these can be identified by their distinctive colors. The aurora here appears green at the bottom, red at the top, and is visible across the left of image. Airglow appears orange and can be seen hovering over the curve of the Earth. The circular Manicouagan Crater in Canada, about 100 kilometers across and 200 million years old, is visible toward the lower right and is covered in white snow and ice. Stars, light in color, dot the dark background of space. City lights appear a bright yellow and dot the landscape. Finally, across the top, part of the International Space Station (ISS) appears mostly tan. The featured image was taken from the ISS in 2012. via NASA https://ift.tt/2GYClJV

F/10: Rockies 6 Giants 5. WP: COL B Shaw (2-3) LP: SF H Strickland (2-2) (ESPN)

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Final: Giants 5 Cubs 4. WP: SF C Stratton (6-3) LP: CHC J Quintana (5-4) SV: SF H Strickland (10) (ESPN)

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Coronal Rain on the Sun


Does it rain on the Sun? Yes, although what falls is not water but extremely hot plasma. An example occurred in mid-July 2012 after an eruption on the Sun that produced both a Coronal Mass Ejection and a moderate solar flare. What was more unusual, however, was what happened next. Plasma in the nearby solar corona was imaged cooling and falling back, a phenomenon known as coronal rain. Because they are electrically charged, electrons, protons, and ions in the rain were gracefully channeled along existing magnetic loops near the Sun's surface, making the scene appear as a surreal three-dimensional sourceless waterfall. The resulting surprisingly-serene spectacle is shown in ultraviolet light and highlights matter glowing at a temperature of about 50,000 Kelvin. Each second in the featured time lapse video takes about 6 minutes in real time, so that the entire coronal rain sequence lasted about 10 hours. Recent observations have confirmed that that coronal rain can also occur in smaller loops for as long as 30 hours. via NASA https://ift.tt/2KZNNHD

Hubble’s Galaxy Cluster Cornucopia


The swirling spiral to the lower left of the frame is far from the most interesting spectacle here — behind it sits a galaxy cluster. via NASA https://ift.tt/2xexaWF

Galaxies Away


This stunning group of galaxies is far, far away, about 450 million light-years from planet Earth and cataloged as galaxy cluster Abell S0740. Dominated by the cluster's large central elliptical galaxy (ESO 325-G004), this reprocessed Hubble Space Telescope view takes in a remarkable assortment of galaxy shapes and sizes with only a few spiky foreground stars scattered through the field. The giant elliptical galaxy (right of center) spans over 100,000 light years and contains about 100 billion stars, comparable in size to our own spiral Milky Way galaxy. The Hubble data can reveal a wealth of detail in even these distant galaxies, including arms and dust lanes, star clusters, ring structures, and gravitational lensing arcs. via NASA https://ift.tt/2IKtSQj

Going Forward


This close-up image is of a 2-inch-deep hole produced using a new drilling technique for NASA's Curiosity rover. The hole is about 0.6 inches (1.6 centimeters) in diameter. This image was taken by Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) on Sol 2057. via NASA https://ift.tt/2x8O5d9

The Gum Nebula Expanse


Named for a cosmic cloud hunter, Australian astronomer Colin Stanley Gum (1924-1960), The Gum Nebula is so large and close it is actually hard to see. In fact, we are only about 450 light-years from the front edge and 1,500 light-years from the back edge of this interstellar expanse of glowing hydrogen gas. Covered in this 40+ degree-wide monochrome mosaic of Hydrogen-alpha images, the faint emission region stands out against the background of Milky Way stars. The complex nebula is thought to be a supernova remnant over a million years old, sprawling across the Ship's southern constellations Vela and Puppis. This spectacular wide field view also explores many objects embedded in The Gum Nebula, including the younger Vela supernova remnant. via NASA https://ift.tt/2J8zOBM

LIFTOFF!


The GRACE Follow-On spacecraft launched onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Tuesday, May 22, 2018. via NASA https://ift.tt/2knuFI1

GRACE-FO Launches to Provide a Unique View of Earth’s Climate


(GRACE-FO) mission launched onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Tuesday, May 22, 2018, from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California via NASA https://ift.tt/2scBdNx

Spiral Galaxy NGC 4038 in Collision


This galaxy is having a bad millennium. In fact, the past 100 million years haven't been so good, and probably the next billion or so will be quite tumultuous. Visible toward the lower right, NGC 4038 used to be a normal spiral galaxy, minding its own business, until NGC 4039, to its upper left, crashed into it. The evolving wreckage, known famously as the Antennae, is featured here. As gravity restructures each galaxy, clouds of gas slam into each other, bright blue knots of stars form, massive stars form and explode, and brown filaments of dust are strewn about. Eventually the two galaxies will converge into one larger spiral galaxy. Such collisions are not unusual, and even our own Milky Way Galaxy has undergone several in the past and is predicted to collide with our neighboring Andromeda Galaxy in a few billion years. The frames that compose this image were taken by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope by professional astronomers to better understand galaxy collisions. These frames -- and many other deep space images from Hubble -- have since been made public, allowing interested amateurs to download and process them into, for example, this visually stunning composite. via NASA https://ift.tt/2xdXGj1

Craters and Shadows at the Lunar Terminator


Why does the right part of this image of the Moon stand out? Shadows. The terminator line -- the line between light and dark -- occurs in the featured image so that just over half the Moon's face is illuminated by sunlight. The lunar surface appears different nearer the terminator because there the Sun is nearer the horizon and therefore causes shadows to become increasingly long. These shadows make it easier for us to discern structure, giving us depth cues so that the two-dimensional image, when dominated by shadows, appears almost three-dimensional. Therefore, as the Moon fades from light to dark, shadows not only tell us the high from the low, but become noticeable for increasingly shorter structures. For example, many craters appear near the terminator because their height makes them easier to discern there. The image was taken two weeks ago when the lunar phase was waning gibbous. The next full moon, a Moon without shadows, will occur one week from today. via NASA https://ift.tt/2IBQM8k

Orbital ATK Antares Rocket Lifts Off on Resupply Mission to the International Space Station


The Orbital ATK Antares rocket, with the Cygnus spacecraft onboard, launches from Pad-0A, Monday, May 21, 2018 at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Cygnus will deliver approximately 7,400 pounds of science and research, crew supplies and vehicle hardware to the International Space Station and its crew. via NASA https://ift.tt/2x5XtxU

Jupiter Cloud Animation from Juno


How do Jupiter's clouds move? To help find out, images taken with NASA's Juno spacecraft during its last pass near Jupiter have been analyzed and digitally extrapolated into a time-lapse video. The eight-second time-lapse video, digitally extrapolated between two images taken only nine minutes apart, estimates how Jupiter's clouds move over 29 hours. Abstractly, the result appears something like a psychedelic paisley dream. Scientifically, however, the computer animation shows that circular storms tend to swirl, while bands and zones appear to flow. This overall motion is not surprising and has been seen on time-lapse videos of Jupiter before, although never in this detail. The featured region spans about four times the area of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Results from Juno are showing, unexpectedly, that Jupiter's weather phenomena can extend deep below its cloud tops. via NASA https://ift.tt/2GAdjka

Antares Rocket Set to Launch NASA Science to the International Space Station


The Orbital ATK Antares rocket, with the Cygnus spacecraft onboard, is seen at launch Pad-0A, Saturday, May 19, 2018, at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Liftoff is currently targeted for 4:39 a.m. Eastern on Monday, May 21. via NASA https://ift.tt/2KDn4jU

Reflections of Venus and Moon


Posing near the western horizon, a brilliant evening star and slender young crescent shared reflections in a calm sea last Thursday after sunset. Recorded in this snapshot from the Atlantic beach at Santa Marinella near Rome, Italy, the lovely celestial conjunction of the two brightest beacons in the night sky could be enjoyed around the world. Seaside, light reflected by briefly horizontal surfaces of the gentle waves forms the shimmering columns across the water. Similar reflections by fluttering atmospheric ice crystals can create sometimes mysterious pillars of light. Of course, earthlight itself visibly illuminates the faint lunar night side. via NASA https://ift.tt/2kaAqsO

Orbital ATK Rocket Rolls Out for May 21 Launch


An Orbital ATK rocket rolls out to launch Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on May 17, 2018, in advance of a May 21 launch from Wallops Island, VA. The Antares will launch a Cygnus spacecraft on a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. via NASA https://ift.tt/2k8bPor

Hubble Catches a Spiral Galaxy in Disguise


NGC 1032 cleaves the quiet darkness of space in two in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. via NASA https://ift.tt/2KCXCuN

Dodging powerful laser beams, a drone captured this stunning aerial view. The confrontation took place above the 8.2 meter diameter Very Large Telescopes of the Paranal Observatory on planet Earth. Firing during a test of the observatory's 4 Laser Guide Star Facility, the lasers are ultimately battling against the blurring effect of atmospheric turbulence by creating artificial guide stars. The guide stars are actually emission from laser excited sodium atoms at high altitudes within the telescopic field of view. Guide star image fluctuations are used in real-time to correct for atmospheric blurring by controlling a deformable mirror in the telescope's optical path. Known as adaptive optics, the technique can produce images at the diffraction limit of the telescope. That's the same sharpness you would get if the telescope were in space. via NASA https://ift.tt/2IuA1vD

An Amazing View


Astronaut Ricky Arnold took this selfie during the May 16, 2018, spacewalk. via NASA https://ift.tt/2L8kFyR

Milky Way vs Airglow Australis


Captured last week after sunset on a Chilean autumn night, an exceptional airglow floods this allsky view from Las Campanas Observatory. The airglow was so intense it diminished parts of the Milky Way as it arced horizon to horizon above the high Atacama desert. Originating at an altitude similar to aurorae, the luminous airglow is due to chemiluminescence, the production of light through chemical excitation. Commonly recorded in color by sensitive digital cameras, the airglow emission here is fiery in appearance. It is predominately from atmospheric oxygen atoms at extremely low densities and has often been present during southern hemisphere nights over the last few years. Like the Milky Way, on that dark night the strong airglow was very visible to the eye, but seen without color. Jupiter is brightest celestial beacon though, standing opposite the Sun and near the central bulge of the Milky Way rising above the eastern (top) horizon. The Large and Small Magellanic clouds both shine through the airglow to the lower left of the galactic plane, toward the southern horizon. via NASA https://ift.tt/2rL5eU4

Giants: Madison Bumgarner (hand) threw 30-pitch bullpen session Wednesday and is on track for May 26 rehab assignment (ESPN)

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Blue Waters


This image of the southern Greenland town of Narsaq was taken during an Operation IceBridge flight on Apr. 26, 2018. via NASA https://ift.tt/2Itd8IW

Rotation of the Large Magellanic Cloud


This image is not blurry. It shows in clear detail that the largest satellite galaxy to our Milky Way, the Large Cloud of Magellan (LMC), rotates. First determined with Hubble, the rotation of the LMC is presented here with fine data from the Sun-orbiting Gaia satellite. Gaia measures the positions of stars so accurately that subsequent measurements can reveal slight proper motions of stars not previously detectable. The featured image shows, effectively, exaggerated star trails for millions of faint LMC stars. Inspection of the image also shows the center of the clockwise rotation: near the top of the LMC's central bar. The LMC, prominent in southern skies, is a small spiral galaxy that has been distorted by encounters with the greater Milky Way Galaxy and the lesser Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). via NASA https://ift.tt/2IFqgy2

Final: Giants 5 Reds 3. WP: SF P Johnson (2-1) LP: CIN T Mahle (3-5) (ESPN)

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A Sunny Day


Each and every day NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) observes our Sun and relays observational data to scientists on Earth. via NASA https://ift.tt/2IkYsf2

Kepler s House in Linz


Four hundred years ago today (May 15, 1618) Johannes Kepler discovered the simple mathematical rule governing the orbits of the solar system's planets, now recognized as Kepler's Third Law of planetary motion. At that time he was living in this tall house on The Hofgasse, a narrow street near the castle and main square of the city of Linz, Austria, planet Earth. The conclusive identification of this residence (Hofgasse 7) as the location of the discovery of his third law is a recent discovery itself. Erich Meyer of the Astronomical Society of Linz was able to solve the historical mystery, based in part on descriptions of Kepler's own observations of lunar eclipses. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, Kepler supported Galileo's discoveries and the Copernican system of planets orbiting the Sun instead of the Earth. He showed that planets move in ellipses around the Sun (Kepler's First Law), that planets move proportionally faster in their orbits when they are nearer the Sun (Kepler's Second Law), and that more distant planets take proportionally longer to orbit the Sun (Kepler's Third Law). via NASA https://ift.tt/2rKgSi2

Final: Giants 10 Reds 7. WP: SF C Stratton (4-3) LP: CIN S Romano (2-4) (ESPN)

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Europa by the Numbers


Galileo Galilei discovered Jupiter's moon Europa in 1610. More than four centuries later, astronomers are still making discoveries about its icy surface. via NASA https://ift.tt/2wElr3b

Final: Giants 5 Pirates 0. WP: SF D Holland (2-4) LP: PIT I Nova (2-3) (ESPN)

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Sakurajima Volcano with Lightning


Why does a volcanic eruption sometimes create lightning? Pictured above, the Sakurajima volcano in southern Japan was caught erupting in 2013 January. Magma bubbles so hot they glowed shot away as liquid rock burst through the Earth's surface from below. The featured image is particularly notable, however, for the lightning bolts caught near the volcano's summit. Why lightning occurs even in common thunderstorms remains a topic of research, and the cause of volcanic lightning is even less clear. Surely, lightning bolts help quench areas of opposite but separated electric charges. Volcanic lightning episodes may be facilitated by charge-inducing collisions in volcanic dust. Lightning is usually occurring somewhere on Earth, typically over 40 times each second. via NASA https://ift.tt/2IeY6e5

Final: Pirates 6 Giants 5. WP: PIT F Vazquez (2-0) LP: SF T Watson (1-2) (ESPN)

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Hubble Spies Glowing Galaxies in Massive Cluster


In the darkness of the distant universe, these galaxies resemble glowing fireflies, flickering candles, charred embers floating up from a bonfire, and light bulbs softly shining. via NASA https://ift.tt/2rA7xKw

Andrew McCutchen, even in his new Giants threads, will be at home in his return to Pittsburgh - Jerry Crasnick (ESPN)

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NGC 1360: The Robin s Egg Nebula


This pretty cosmic cloud lies some 1,500 light-years away, it shape and color reminiscent of a blue robin's egg. It spans about 3 light-years, nested securely within the boundaries of the southern constellation Fornax. Recognized as a planetary nebula it doesn't represent a beginning though, but instead corresponds to a brief and final phase in the evolution of an aging star. In fact, visible in the telescopic image the central star of NGC 1360 is known to be a binary star system likely consisting of two evolved white dwarf stars, less massive but much hotter than the Sun. Their intense and otherwise invisible ultraviolet radiation has stripped away electrons from the atoms in the surrounding gaseous shroud. The predominant blue-green hue of NGC 1360 seen here is the strong emission produced as electrons recombine with doubly ionized oxygen atoms. via NASA https://ift.tt/2rA7lKt

Final: Phillies 6 Giants 3. WP: PHI V Velasquez (3-4) LP: SF T Blach (3-4) SV: PHI H Neris (8) (ESPN)

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Giants: P Johnny Cueto (elbow) transferred to 60-day DL; P Madison Bumgarner (hand) to throw bullpen session next week (ESPN)

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🔊 Giants Interview: Bruce Bochy talks about his favorite championship squad in San Francisco, Madison Bumgarner's health (ESPN)

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Galaxies in the River


Large galaxies grow by eating small ones. Even our own galaxy practices galactic cannibalism, absorbing small galaxies that get too close and are captured by the Milky Way's gravity. In fact, the practice is common in the universe and illustrated by this striking pair of interacting galaxies from the banks of the southern constellation Eridanus, The River. Located over 50 million light years away, the large, distorted spiral NGC 1532 is seen locked in a gravitational struggle with dwarf galaxy NGC 1531 (right of center), a struggle the smaller galaxy will eventually lose. Seen edge-on, spiral NGC 1532 spans about 100,000 light-years. Nicely detailed in this sharp image, the NGC 1532/1531 pair is thought to be similar to the well-studied system of face-on spiral and small companion known as M51. via NASA https://ift.tt/2G0R8Dl

Full Moon Over Newfoundland


The crew of the International Space Station snapped this image of the full moon on April 30, 2018, as the station orbited off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. via NASA https://ift.tt/2rviCfM

The Red Rectangle Nebula from Hubble


How was the unusual Red Rectangle nebula created? At the nebula's center is an aging binary star system that surely powers the nebula but does not, as yet, explain its colors. The unusual shape of the Red Rectangle is likely due to a thick dust torus which pinches the otherwise spherical outflow into tip-touching cone shapes. Because we view the torus edge-on, the boundary edges of the cone shapes seem to form an X. The distinct rungs suggest the outflow occurs in fits and starts. The unusual colors of the nebula are less well understood, however, and speculation holds that they are partly provided by hydrocarbon molecules that may actually be building blocks for organic life. The Red Rectangle nebula lies about 2,300 light years away towards the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros). The nebula is shown here in great detail as recently reprocessed image from Hubble Space Telescope. In a few million years, as one of the central stars becomes further depleted of nuclear fuel, the Red Rectangle nebula will likely bloom into a planetary nebula. via NASA https://ift.tt/2rvELus

Stock watch: Why the Giants will stay put at the trade deadline - Bradford Doolittle (ESPN)

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Spring Color in the North Sea


Warm air and sunlight beget warmer ocean waters and provoke blooms of the “grass of the sea”—phytoplankton. via NASA https://ift.tt/2IqMWlB

Astronaut-Educator Ricky Arnold Conducts Science on Station


Astronaut-educator Ricky Arnold conducts student-designed science on the Space Station. via NASA https://ift.tt/2rskpSU

Final: Phillies 11 Giants 0. WP: PHI Z Eflin (1-0) LP: SF J Samardzija (1-2) (ESPN)

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Giants: P Johnny Cueto does not have torn ligament in elbow, but still expected to miss 6-8 weeks - multiple reports (ESPN)

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The Unusual Boulder at Tychos Peak


Why is there a large boulder near the center of Tycho's peak? Tycho crater on the Moon is one of the easiest features to see, visible even to the unaided eye (inset, lower right). But at the center of Tycho (inset, upper left) is a something unusual -- a 120-meter boulder. This boulder was imaged at very high resolution at sunrise, over the past decade, by the Moon-circling Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The leading origin hypothesis is that that the boulder was thrown during the tremendous collision that formed Tycho crater about 110 million years ago, and by chance came back down right near the center of the newly-formed central mountain. Over the next billion years meteor impacts and moonquakes should slowly degrade Tycho's center, likely causing the central boulder to tumble 2000 meters down to the crater floor and disintegrate. via NASA https://ift.tt/2wfHQUp

Final: Giants 4 Braves 3. WP: SF A Suarez (1-1) LP: ATL M Soroka (1-1) SV: SF H Strickland (8) (ESPN)

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Meteors, Planes, and a Galaxy over Bryce Canyon


Sometimes land and sky are both busy and beautiful. The landscape pictured in the foreground encompasses Bryce Canyon in Utah, USA, famous for its many interesting rock structures eroded over millions of years. The featured skyscape, photogenic in its own right, encompasses the arching central disk of our Milky Way Galaxy, the short streaks of three passing planes near the horizon, at least four long streaks that are likely Eta Aquariid meteors, and many stars including the three bright stars that make up the Summer Triangle. The featured image is a digital panorama created from 12 smaller images during this date in 2014. Recurring every year, yesterday and tonight mark the peak of this year's Eta Aquriids meteor shower, where a patient observer with dark skies and dark-adapted eyes might expect to see a meteor every few minutes. via NASA https://ift.tt/2FNEyam

InSight Mars Mission Lifts Off From Vandenberg Air Force Base


The NASA InSight spacecraft launches onboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas-V rocket, Saturday, May 5, 2018, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is a Mars lander designed to study the "inner space" of Mars: its crust, mantle, and core. via NASA https://ift.tt/2wo8P0f

Voyage to the Red Planet


NASA's InSight spacecraft rests aboard a ULA Atlas V rocket, awaiting launch scheduled on May 5, 2018. via NASA https://ift.tt/2jsm0Uk

The View Toward M101


Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this galaxy is enormous, almost twice the size of our own Milky Way galaxy. M101 was also one of the original spiral nebulae observed by Lord Rosse's large 19th century telescope, the Leviathan of Parsontown. M101 shares this modern telescopic field of view with spiky foreground stars within the Milky Way and a companion dwarf galaxy NGC 5474 (lower right). The colors of the Milky Way stars can also be found in the starlight from the large island universe. Its core is dominated by light from cool yellowish stars. Along its grand design spiral arms are the blue colors of hotter, young stars mixed with obscuring dust lanes and pinkish star forming regions. Also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 lies within the boundaries of the northern constellation Ursa Major, about 23 million light-years away. NGC 5474 has likely been distorted by its past gravitational interactions with the dominant M101. via NASA https://ift.tt/2jqsjHW

Tangled Up in Blue


The lone active region visible on our Sun put on a fine display with its tangled magnetic field lines swaying and twisting above it (Apr. 24-26, 2018) when viewed in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. via NASA https://ift.tt/2w8P906

MLB's Early Returns: Grading Giants' roster retooling and baseball's other big offseason moves - Jerry Crasnick (ESPN)

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Giants P Johnny Cueto considering seeing Dr. James Andrews about sore pitching elbow pending results of MRI (ESPN)

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Training 'Guardian Angels'


"Guardian Angel" Pararescue specialists secure a covered life raft during an astronaut rescue training exercise. This exercise is part of preparation, with NASA's commercial partners Boeing and SpaceX, to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station aboard the Starliner and Crew Dragon spacecraft. via NASA https://ift.tt/2HHOiIZ

Final: Padres 3 Giants 2. WP: SD K Yates (1-0) LP: SF H Strickland (2-1) SV: SD B Hand (7) (ESPN)

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Moon Halo over Stone Circle


Have you ever seen a halo around the Moon? This fairly common sight occurs when high thin clouds containing millions of tiny ice crystals cover much of the sky. Each ice crystal acts like a miniature lens. Because most of the crystals have a similar elongated hexagonal shape, light entering one crystal face and exiting through the opposing face refracts 22 degrees, which corresponds to the radius of the Moon Halo. A similar Sun Halo may be visible during the day. Exactly how ice-crystals form in clouds remains under investigation. In the featured image, the ice circle in the sky is mirrored by a stone circle on the ground. Taken just over a month ago in Pontypridd Common, Wales, UK, the central Rocking Stone survives from the last ice age, while the surrounding stones in the circles were placed much more recently -- during the 1800s. via NASA https://ift.tt/2FzcDLd

Testing the InSight Mars Lander's Solar Arrays


NASA's InSight Mars mission will help scientists understand the processes that shaped the rocky planets of the inner solar system (including Earth) more than four billion years ago. InSight, the first planetary mission to take off from the West Coast, is targeted to launch Saturday, May 5 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. via NASA https://ift.tt/2HJbe6R

Best and worst for Giants and the rest of baseball in April - David Schoenfield (ESPN)

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The Aurora and the Sunrise


On the International Space Station (ISS), you can only admire an aurora until the sun rises. Then the background Earth becomes too bright. Unfortunately, after sunset, the rapid orbit of the ISS around the Earth means that sunrise is usually less than 47 minutes away. In the featured image, a green aurora is visible below the ISS -- and on the horizon to the upper right, while sunrise approaches ominously from the upper left. Watching an aurora from space can be mesmerizing as its changing shape has been compared to a giant green amoeba. Auroras are composed of energetic electrons and protons from the Sun that impact the Earth's magnetic field and then spiral down toward the Earth so fast that they cause atmospheric atoms and molecules to glow. The ISS orbits at nearly the same height as auroras, many times flying right through an aurora's thin upper layers, an event that neither harms astronauts nor changes the shape of the aurora. via NASA https://ift.tt/2I2IGZs

Final: Giants 6 Padres 5. WP: SF P Johnson (1-1) LP: SD B Hand (1-3) (ESPN)

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