The Saturn System Through the Eyes of Cassini

                    Ebook Size : 26.5 MB

                    Download : The Saturn System Through the Eyes of Cassini

This free NASA e-Book celebrates Saturn as seen through the eyes of the Cassini spacecraft. 

The Cassini-Huygens mission has revolutionized our knowledge of the Saturn system and revealed surprising places in the solar system where life could potentially gain a foothold—bodies we call ocean worlds.

Since its arrival in 2004, Cassini–Huygens has been nothing short of a discovery machine, captivating us with data and images never before obtained with such detail and clarity. Cassini taught us that Saturn is a far cry from a tranquil lone planet with delicate rings. Now, we know more about Saturn’s chaotic, active, and powerful rings, and the storms that rage beneath. Images and data from Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus hint at the possibility of life never before suspected. The rings of Saturn, its moons, and the planet itself offer irresistible and inexhaustible subjects for intense study. As the Cassini mission comes to a dramatic end with a fateful plunge into Saturn on Sept. 15, 2017, scientists are already dreaming of going back for further study.   

Over a period of 13 years, Cassini has captured about 450,000 spectacular images within the Saturn system, providing new views of the “lord of the rings” and a plethora of iconic images. To honor the art and science of Cassini, this book was developed collaboratively by a team from NASA’s Planetary Science Division (PSD), NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI). While these images represent the tip of the iceberg—each telling a story about Saturn and its mysterious moons—our hope is that the mission will inspire future artists and explorers. The sheer beauty of these images is surpassed only by the science and discoveries they represent.

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This book was developed collaboratively by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) including NASA’s Planetary Science Division (PSD), NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), operated for NASA by Universities Space Research Association.

Credit

NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory - Caltech / Lunar and Planetary Institute

International Space Station Research Results Accomplishments

             Ebook Size : 23 MB

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NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) celebrated 15 years of operations in November 2013 and is living up to expectations as a leading space laboratory, hosting state-of-the-art science facilities, and providing researchers with a continuous microgravity environment to conduct investigations across many disciplines.

From the first ISS element, launched in November 1998, the ISS has supported investigations and technology demonstrations that will advance NASA’s human exploration capabilities beyond low Earth Orbit (LEO), and improve the daily lives of people on Earth well beyond its operational lifetime. The first 15 years of utilization on ISS has helped answer scientific questions ranging from “How do fluids flow in space?” to “What are the origins of the universe?” The science and technology returns have grown at a steady pace. Even before the assembly of ISS was completed in 2011, the on-orbit crew were busy performing experiments, and with the full complement of a 6 person crew, more than 1 600 investigations have been conducted to date across the international partnership.

This report is intended to provide an archival record of the internationally-sponsored ISS research results collected for investigations performed from 2000-2011 on ISS (Expedition 0 through 30), including scientific publications from studies based on operational data. These investigations represent the research of thousands of scientists around the globe, and have impacts beyond the field of space research into traditional areas of science in multidisciplinary ways that no Earth-based laboratory has done. Yet much like a typical laboratory on Earth, the logistics of the ISS allows for many investigations to be carried forward over several ISS crew expeditions, enabling repeated experimentation and data collection that traditional science calls for. One example of this is the Seedling Growth-1 (SG-1) joint NASA-ESA experiment that was implemented as an extension of the earlier Tropi-1 and Tropi-2 plant growth experiments that first confirmed the existence red-light based phototropism in roots and hypocotyls of seedlings. Researchers were able to capitalize on Tropi results in the SG-1 design by improving different lighting conditions, decreasing seed storage time, and adding real-time seedling observation through improved image downlink [4] .

The results from ISS have so far yielded updated new insights into how to better live and work in space, such as addressing radiation effects on crew health [4] , combating bone and muscle loss [1, 7] , improving designs of systems that handle fluids in microgravity [12] , and how to most efficiently maintain environmental control [15] . Latest examples of the ISS utilization applications relevant to our life on Earth is published in the second edition of the ISS Benefits for Humanity, which documents several tangible benefits that have resulted from ISS utilization in areas of Earth Observation and Disaster Response, Human Health, Global Education, Innovative Technology, and Economic Development of Space [2] . These benefits include such examples of how space-based research leads to improvements in therapies for balance disorders [2, 16] and contributions to improvements in smart fluids for advanced braking systems and earthquake dampening devices [2, 6] . ISS results also show promise in diverse applications such as medicine [2, 10] and global maritime tracking [11] and have advanced our knowledge of our planet’s health while also contributing to disaster response efforts [2, 13, 9, 8] . With all its diversity, the ISS continues to inspire millions of students in ways that only space can [14, 5, 3] .

The ISS offers a unique platform for science with critical capabilities not available anywhere else. It provides long-duration microgravity exposure, thermosphere exposure, and external environment exposure for material observations at high inclination, altitude, and velocity. The microgravity environment of the ISS allows scientists to observe unique behaviors that are otherwise masked by gravity on Earth, such as thermocapillary and fluid flows, protein crystal growth, flame structures, and the structure of living cells. The ISS platform also provides access to extreme heat and cold cycles, ultra vacuum, atomic oxygen, and high-energy radiation.

Basics of Radio Astronomy

                                
                    Ebook Size : 1.1 MB

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This workbook, although applicable to all radio astronomy, was developed to support training for the Goldstone-Apple Valley Radio Telescope.

Radio astronomy is, for most people, an esoteric subject. It involves the observation and study of something that you can’t even see or feel--that is, radio frequency electromagnetic radiation. So the first part of the training must introduce the physical phenomena to provide some context and meaning for the training that will follow on the actual operation of the telescope.
The next module in the sequence is the GAVRT system theory of operation. Following that are two hands-on workstation classes for participants at the Lewis Center, including basic Sun workstation operation and training on the GAVRT controlling software itself.