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Space News Update — November 18, 2016 —

Contents

In the News

Story 1: New Ceres Views as Dawn Moves Higher

Story 2: Pluto has a Subsurface ‘Antifreeze’ Ocean

Story 3: Soyuz takes off, heads for space station

Departments

The Night Sky

ISS Sighting Opportunities

Space Calendar

NASA-TV Highlights

Food for Thought

Space Image of the Week

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1. New Ceres Views as Dawn Moves Higher

The brightest area on Ceres stands out amid shadowy, cratered terrain in a dramatic new view from NASA's Dawn spacecraft, taken as it looked off to the side of the dwarf planet. Dawn snapped this image on Oct. 16, from its fifth science orbit, in which the angle of the sun was different from that in previous orbits. Dawn was about 920 miles (1,480 kilometers) above Ceres when this image was taken -- an altitude the spacecraft had reached in early October.

Occator Crater, with its central bright region and secondary, less-reflective areas, appears quite prominent near the limb, or edge, of Ceres. At 57 miles (92 kilometers) wide and 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) deep, Occator displays evidence of recent geologic activity. The latest research suggests that the bright material in this crater is comprised of salts left behind after a briny liquid emerged from below, froze and then sublimated, meaning it turned from ice into vapor.

The impact that formed the crater millions of years ago unearthed material that blanketed the area outside the crater, and may have triggered the upwelling of salty liquid.

"This image captures the wonder of soaring above this fascinating, unique world that Dawn is the first to explore," said Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer and mission director, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

Dawn scientists also have released an image of Ceres that approximates how the dwarf planet's colors would appear to the human eye. This view, produced by the German Aerospace Center in Berlin, combines images taken from Dawn's first science orbit in 2015, using the framing camera's red, green and blue filters. The color was calculated based on the way Ceres reflects different wavelengths of light.

The spacecraft has gathered tens of thousands of images and other information from Ceres since arriving in orbit on March 6, 2015. After spending more than eight months studying Ceres at an altitude of about 240 miles (385 kilometers), closer than the International Space Station is to Earth, Dawn headed for a higher vantage point in August. In October, while the spacecraft was at its 920-mile altitude, it returned images and other valuable insights about Ceres.

On Nov. 4, Dawn began making its way to a sixth science orbit, which will be over 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers) from Ceres. While Dawn needed to make several changes in its direction while spiraling between most previous orbits at Ceres, engineers have figured out a way for the spacecraft to arrive at this next orbit while the ion engine thrusts in the same direction that Dawn is already going. This uses less hydrazine and xenon fuel than Dawn's normal spiral maneuvers. Dawn should reach this next orbit in early December.

One goal of Dawn's sixth science orbit is to refine previously collected measurements. The spacecraft's gamma ray and neutron spectrometer, which has been investigating the composition of Ceres' surface, will

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characterize the radiation from cosmic rays unrelated to Ceres. This will allow scientists to subtract "noise" from measurements of Ceres, making the information more precise.

The spacecraft is healthy as it continues to operate in its extended mission phase, which began in July. During the primary mission, Dawn orbited and accomplished all of its original objectives at Ceres and protoplanet Vesta, which the spacecraft visited from July 2011 to September 2012.

More information about Dawn is available at the following sites: http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov,

http://www.nasa.gov/dawn

Source: JPL Return to Contents

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2. Pluto has a Subsurface ‘Antifreeze’ Ocean

The evidence keeps growing for a large subsurface ocean at Pluto, which also provides clues how the iconic ‘heart’ of Pluto was formed.

We reported in early October that thermal models of Pluto’s interior and tectonic evidence suggest an ocean may exist beneath Pluto’s heart-shaped Sputnik Planitia. Now, new research on data from the New Horizons mission shows more indications of an ocean just below Pluto’s surface that consists of a slushy, viscous liquid, kept warm from Pluto’s interior and a hint of anti-freeze.

“As far as we can tell, there’s no tidal heating helping to keep the ocean liquid,” Francis Nimmo from UC Santa Cruz told Universe Today. He is the first author of a paper on the new findings published today in Nature. “The main heat source keeping the ocean liquid is radioactive decay in Pluto’s rocky interior, although it certainly helps if there is an ‘antifreeze’ present.”

This cutaway image of Pluto shows a section through the area of Sputnik Planitia, with dark blue representing a subsurface ocean and light blue for the frozen crust. Artwork by Pam Engebretson, courtesy of UC Santa Cruz.

Nimmo said he suspects the ocean is mostly water with ammonia acting as an antifreeze. This subsurface ocean is also bulging, similar to the ‘mascons’ on the Moon, putting stress on Pluto’s icy outer shell, causing fractures consistent with features seen in the New Horizons images.

Another paper also published in Nature today from James Keane at the University of Arizona, also shows how a bulging subsurface ocean made Pluto’s heart ‘heavy,’ reorienting Pluto on its axis, so that Pluto’s heart is always pointing away from the moon Charon.

High-resolution images of Pluto taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft just before closest approach on July 14, 2015, reveal features as small as 270 yards (250 meters) across, from craters to fractures and faulted mountain blocks, to the textured surface of the vast basin informally called Sputnik Planitia. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

Sputnik Planitia forms one side of the prominent heart-shaped feature seen in some of the first close-up images from New Horizons July 2015 flyby. It was likely created by the impact of a giant meteorite, which would have blasted away a huge amount of Pluto’s icy crust.

But a deep basin is just a “big, elliptical hole in the ground,” Nimmo said, that would not provide the extra mass needed to cause that kind of reorientation. “So, the extra weight must be hiding somewhere beneath the surface. And an ocean is a natural way to get that.”

These schematic diagrams show how the gravity anomaly at Sputnik Planitia is affected by an uplifted ocean and the thickness of the nitrogen layer. Either a nitrogen layer more than 40 km thick (panel b) or an uplifted ocean (panel c) could result in a present-day positive gravity anomaly at Sputnik Planitia; otherwise, the gravity anomaly will be strongly negative (panel a). (Image from Nimmo et al., Nature, 2016)

But Pluto is cold, with temperatures ranging from -387 to -369 Fahrenheit (-233 to -223 Celsius). How could there be an ocean?

“Pluto is small enough that it’s just about almost cooled off but still has a little heat, and it’s about 2 percent the heat budget of the Earth, in terms of how much energy is coming out,” said co-author Richard Binzel, from MIT. “So we calculated Pluto’s size with its interior heat flow, and found that underneath Sputnik Planitia, at those temperatures

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and pressures, you could have a zone of water-ice that could be at least viscous. It’s not a liquid, flowing ocean, but maybe slushy. And we found this explanation was the only way to put the puzzle together that seems to make any sense.”

The massive basin also appears extremely bright relative to the rest of the planet, and the data from New Horizons suggest it is filled with frozen nitrogen ice.

Previous research from the the mission showed evidence that the liquid nitrogen may be constantly refreshing, or convecting, as a result of a weak spot at the bottom of the basin, and this weak spot may let heat rise through Pluto’s interior to continuously refresh the ice.

Additionally, the extra weight of an underground ocean could help explain the longstanding question of why Pluto’s heart aligns almost exactly opposite from Charon. Nimmo said this alignment is “suspicious” and that the likelihood of this being just a coincidence is only 5 percent. Therefore, the alignment suggests that extra mass in that location interacted with tidal forces between Pluto and Charon to reorient Pluto, putting Sputnik Planitia directly opposite the side facing Charon.

A thick, heavy ocean, the new data suggest, may have served as a “gravitational anomaly,” which would factor heavily in Pluto and Charon’s gravitational tug-of-war, the researchers said. Over millions of years, the planet would have spun around, aligning its subsurface ocean and the heart-shaped region above it, almost exactly opposite along the line connecting Pluto and Charon.

While scientists are still studying the data from New Horizons, it is safe to say that Pluto keeps surprising everyone, even the scientists who know it best.

“Pluto is hard to fathom on so many different levels,” said Binzel.

Source: Universe Today Return to Contents

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3. Soyuz takes off, heads for space station

By the light of a waning moon, a Russian rocket carrying a veteran cosmonaut, a French flight engineer making his first flight and America’s most experienced female astronaut blasted off and streaked smoothly into orbit Thursday, the first step in a two-day rendezvous with the International Space Station.

The workhorse Soyuz-FG rocket roared to life with a torrent of fiery exhaust and climbed away from its pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:20 p.m. EST (GMT-5; 2:20 a.m. Friday local time), quickly accelerating through a cold, cloudless sky and flying directly into the plane of the space station’s orbit.

Live television views from inside the Soyuz MS-03/49S ferry craft showed commander Oleg Novitskiy strapped into the center seat, flanked on the left by European Space Agency flight engineer Thomas Pesquet and on the right by Peggy Whitson, making her third flight to the station.

“The crew is feeling fine,” Novitskiy reported as the rocket accelerated toward space.

Eight minutes and 45 seconds after launch, the Soyuz MS-03 spacecraft was released from the booster’s upper stage to fly on its own. Moments later, the ferry ship’s two solar arrays and antennas unfolded and locked in place as as the crew set off after the station.

This is the third flight of an upgraded MS-series Soyuz, featuring improved communications, navigation and propulsion systems. As with the first two flights in July and October, the MS-03 crew will take two days to catch up with the space station, giving Russian engineers and flight controllers time to continue tests of the upgraded systems.

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But if all goes well, Novitskiy and Pesquet a former Air France pilot, will oversee an automated approach to the station Saturday, moving in for a docking at the Earth-facing Rassvet module around 5:01 p.m. The linkup will come 18 years to the day after launch of the Russian Zarya module, the station’s first component.

“This was a perfect evening,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “When we talk about the journey to Mars and the way we’re bringing nations of the world together, this is the epitome of that. It’s a great night … getting three more crew members up there.”

Standing by to welcome Novitskiy and his crewmates aboard will be Expedition 50 commander Shane Kimbrough, Soyuz MS-02 commander Sergey Ryzhikov and flight engineer Andrey Borisenko, who were launched to the station Oct. 19. They’ve had the lab to themselves since Oct. 30 when three other crew members — Soyuz MS-01 commander Anatoly Ivanishin, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins departed and returned to Earth. With the arrival of the MS-03 crew, the station’s crew will be back up to six, allowing a full slate of research.

Whitson, 56, holds a doctorate in biochemistry. She is America’s most experienced female astronaut, veteran of two long-duration stays aboard the station in 2002 and 2007-08 totaling nearly 377 days aloft.

She served as commander of the station during her second visit and was the first non-military pilot, and first female, to serve as chief of NASA’s astronaut office at the Johnson Space Center.

During her third space flight, Whitson will set a new record for total time in space by a U.S. astronaut. On April 24, she will surpass the 534-day mark set in September by astronaut Jeff Williams. With a landing in mid May, her time aloft over three flights will total about 555 days, moving her up to ninth in the world.

Like Whitson, Novitskiy is a veteran space station crew member, serving as a flight engineer during a 144-day visit in 2012-13. Pesquet, an aerospace engineer and veteran Air France pilot, is making his first flight.

Before launch, Pesquet said flying with veterans like Novitskiy and Whitson was a definite bonus, joking that Whitson “built the space station by herself.”

“It’s really a long process for me to learn from these two guys, and I think we’re in good shape now,” he said. “It’s going to be exciting.”

During their stay aboard the station, the expanded crew will welcome a Russian Progress cargo ship on Dec. 3 and a Japanese HTV freighter on Dec. 13. The HTV will be carrying six state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries that will replace 12 aging power packs in one set of the station’s solar arrays. The batteries will be installed during at least two spacewalks in January.

Additional spacewalks are tentatively planned in the March-April timeframe to attach a short tunnel-like pressurized mating adapter to a port on the forward Harmony module that eventually will be used by commercial crew ships being built by Boeing and SpaceX. One such port already is attached to the front of the station.

Along with routine research and spacewalk planning, the station crew also hopes to welcome two SpaceX Dragon cargo ships, one in January and one in March, along with a Progress supply craft in January and an Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo ship in February. SpaceX, however, is still recovering from a Sept. 1 launch pad explosion, and while the company hopes to resume launchings in December, it’s not yet clear when the Dragon cargo missions will actually fly.

“Some of those fine details we don’t know yet,” Whitson said. “But we’re an adaptable crew, we’ll be able to do whatever it is they give us to do, and we’re looking forward to it. We have an incredible number of

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scientific investigations, some are already on board, some will be arriving while we’re up there, and we’ll be able to continue to conduct research no matter what the shuffle is.”

Source: Spaceflight Now Return to Contents

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The Night Sky

Friday, November 18 • Around 8 p.m. this week, the Great Square of Pegasus stands in its level position very high toward the south. (It's straight overhead if you're as far south as Miami.) The Square's right (western) side points very far down toward Fomalhaut. Its eastern side points down less directly toward Beta Ceti, less low.

If you have a very good view down to a dark south horizon — and if you're not much farther north than roughly New York, Denver, or Madrid — picture an equilateral triangle with Fomalhaut and Beta Ceti forming its top two corners. Near where the third corner would be is Alpha Phoenicis, or Ankaa, in the constellation Phoenix. It's magnitude 2.4, not very bright but the brightest thing in its area. It has an orange tint (binoculars help). Have you ever seen anything of the constellation Phoenix before?

Saturday, November 19 • Pulsing stars in Cepheus: High overhead, follow the naked-eye changes of famous Delta Cephei, and the telescopic changes of obscure T Cephei, using the charts and article in the November Sky & Telescope, page 48.

Sunday, November 20 • The last-quarter Moon rises around 11 or midnight, with Regulus accompanying it just a couple degrees to its left (for North America). They stand together high in the south by early dawn Monday morning the 21st, as shown at right.

The Moon is exactly last-quarter at 3:33 a.m. Monday morning EST.)

Monday, November 21 • Whenever Fomalhaut is "southing" (crossing the meridian due south, which it does around 7 or 8 p.m. this week), the first stars of Orion are just about to rise in the east if you're in the world's mid-northern latitudes. And, the Pointers of the Big Dipper stand upright straight below Polaris.

• With the Moon gone from the evening sky, explore the deep-sky sights of northern Lacerta high overhead using Sue French's Deep-Sky Wonders column, chart, photos, and drawings in the November Sky & Telescope, page 54.

Tuesday, November 22 • We're two thirds of the way through fall, so Capella is shining in the northeast as soon as the stars come out. As night grows darker, look to its right by about three fists at arm's length for the frosty little Pleiades cluster. It's the size of your fingertip at arm's length.

Source: Sky & Telescope Return to Contents

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ISS Sighting Opportunities

For Denver:

Date Visible Max Height Appears Disappears Sat Nov 19, 4:43 AM 1 min 28° 28° above NE 19° above E Sat Nov 19, 6:16 AM 5 min 29° 11° above WNW 11° above SSE Sun Nov 20, 5:26 AM 4 min 59° 40° above W 10° above SE Mon Nov 21, 4:37 AM 1 min 23° 23° above ESE 13° above ESE Mon Nov 21, 6:10 AM 2 min 11° 10° above WSW 10° above SSW Tue Nov 22, 5:20 AM 2 min 21° 21° above SSW 10° above S Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Daylight Time)

• 3 p.m., 7 p.m., 11 p.m., Friday, November 18 - Replay of the ISS Expedition 50 Educational In-Flight Event with the Wheat Ridge High School in Wheat Ridge, Colorado and ISS Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA (all channels)

• 4 p.m., 8 p.m., Friday, November 18 - Replay of the GOES-R Social (all channels)

• 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 7 a.m., 11 a.m., 3 p.m., Saturday, November 19 - Replay of the Video File of ISS Expedition 50-51/Soyuz MS-03 (Novitskiy, Whitson, Pesquet) Pre-Launch and Launch Video and Post-Launch Interviews (NTV-1 (Public))

• 8 a.m., Saturday, November 19 - Replay of NASM’S “STEM in 30” – Scientist or Guinea Pig: Science in Space (NTV-1 (Public))

• 1 p.m., Saturday, November 19 - Replay of the GOES-R Prelaunch News Conference (all channels)

• 2 p.m., Saturday, November 19 - Replay of the GOES-R Mission Briefing (all channels)

• 4 p.m., 4:45 p.m., Saturday, November 19 - ISS Expedition 50-51/Soyuz MS-03 Docking to the ISS Coverage (Novitskiy, Whitson, Pesquet; docking scheduled at 5:01 p.m. ET) (Starts at 4:15 p.m) (all channels)

• 5:10 p.m., Saturday, November 19 - GOES-R Launch Coverage and Commentary (all channels)

• 6 p.m., Saturday, November 19 - ISS Expedition 50-51/Soyuz MS-03 Hatch Opening and Welcoming Ceremony (Novitskiy, Whitson, Pesquet; hatch opening scheduled at appx. 7:35 p.m. ET) (Starts at 6:45 p.m.) (all channels)

• 9 p.m., Saturday, November 19 - GOES-R Centaur Burn and Spacecraft Separation Coverage (all channels)

• 9:30 p.m., Saturday, November 19 - Video File of ISS Expedition 50-51/Soyuz MS-03 Docking, Hatch Opening and Other Activities (all channels)

• 11 p.m., Saturday, November 19 - Replay of the ISS Expedition 50 Educational In-Flight Event with the Wheat Ridge High School in Wheat Ridge, Colorado and ISS Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA (NTV-1 (Public))

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• 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 7 a.m., 11 a.m., 3 p.m., 7 p.m., 11 p.m., Sunday, November 20 - Replay of the Video File of ISS Expedition 50-51/Soyuz MS-03 Docking, Hatch Opening and Other Activities (NTV-1 (Public))

• 10 a.m., Sunday, November 20 - Replay of NASM’S “STEM in 30” – Scientist or Guinea Pig: Science in Space (NTV-1 (Public))

• 4 p.m., 8 p.m., Sunday, November 20 - Replay of NASM’S “STEM in 30” – Scientist or Guinea Pig: Science in Space (NTV-1 (Public))

• 8 a.m., Monday, November 21 - Coverage of the Release or the Orbital/ATK Cygnus CRS-5 Cargo Craft from the ISS (Release is scheduled at 8:20 a.m. ET) (all channels)

Watch NASA TV on the Net by going to the NASA website. Return to Contents

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Space Calendar

• Nov 18 - [Nov 18] Shenzhou 11 Return to Earth (Tiangong 2 Space Station), Successful • Nov 18 - Comet 227P/Catalina-LINEAR At Opposition (1.563 AU) • Nov 18 - Comet 340P/Boattini Perihelion (3.064 AU) • Nov 18 - Comet C/2015 GX (PANSTARRS) At Opposition (4.103 AU) • Nov 18 - Apollo Asteroid 2016 UY56 Near-Earth Flyby (0.019 AU) • Nov 18 - Apollo Asteroid 433953 (1997 XR2) Near-Earth Flyby (0.048 AU) • Nov 18 - Apollo Asteroid 11500 Tomaiyowit Closest Approach To Earth (0.209 AU) • Nov 18 - Asteroid 2709 Sagan Closest Approach To Earth (1.309 AU) • Nov 18 - Asteroid 25930 Spielberg Closest Approach To Earth (1.418 AU) • Nov 18 - Aten Asteroid 2340 Hathor Closest Approach To Earth (1.448 AU) • Nov 18 - Asteroid 2023 Asaph Closest Approach To Earth (1.524 AU) • Nov 18 - Plutino 84719 (2002 VR128) At Opposition (38.301 AU) • Nov 18 - Kuiper Belt Object 90377 Sedna At Opposition (84.553 AU) • Nov 19 - [Nov 18] GOES-R Atlas 5 Launch • Nov 19 - Cassini, Distant Flyby of Mimas, Daphnis, Methone & Pandora • Nov 19 - Comet P/2005 S3 (Read) Closest Approach To Earth (1.836 AU) • Nov 19 - Asteroid 3530 Hammel Closest Approach To Earth (1.262 AU) • Nov 19 - Apollo Asteroid 4486 Mithra Closest Approach To Earth (1.645 AU) • Nov 19 - Apollo Asteroid 1981 Midas Closest Approach To Earth (2.138 AU) • Nov 19 - Educators Workshop: Pi in the Sky, Downey, California • Nov 19 - 20th Anniversary (1996), STS-80 Launch (Space Shuttle Columbia, ASTRO-SPAS) • Nov 19 - Eileen Collins' 60th Birthday (1956) • Nov 19 - 135th Anniversary (1881), Grossliebenthal Meteorite Fall (Hit Building in Russia) • Nov 20 - [Nov 15] Tianlian 1 CZ-3C Launch • Nov 20 - Comet 56P/Slaughter-Burnham Closest Approach To Earth (1.727 AU) • Nov 20 - Comet 149P/Mueller At Opposition (4.088 AU) • Nov 20 - Asteroid 17023 Abbott Closest Approach To Earth (1.252 AU) • Nov 20 - Asteroid 2625 Jack London Closest Approach To Earth (1.347 AU) • Nov 20 - Asteroid 3948 Bohr Closest Approach To Earth (1.369 AU) • Nov 20 - Asteroid 2160 Spitzer Closest Approach To Earth (1.824 AU) • Nov 20 - Terry Lovejoy's 50th Birthday (1966) • Nov 21 - Cassini, Orbital Trim Maneuver #465 (OTM-465) • Nov 21 - Aten Asteroid 2013 ND15 (Venus Trojan) Closest Approach To Earth (0.633 AU) • Nov 21 - Comet P/2007 T6 (Catalina) Closest Approach To Earth (1.441 AU) • Nov 21 - Comet P/2005 S3 (Read) At Opposition (1.837 AU) • Nov 21 - Comet 73P-BF/Schwassmann-Wachmann Closest Approach To Earth (1.854 AU) • Nov 21 - Amor Asteroid 2016 VJ2 Near-Earth Flyby (0.067 AU) • Nov 21 - Apollo Asteroid 2016 VT1 Near-Earth Flyby (0.098 AU) • Nov 21 - Asteroid 171183 Haleakala Closest Approach To Earth (1.616 AU) • Nov 21 - Asteroid 9537 Nolan Closest Approach To Earth (1.706 AU) • Nov 21 - Asteroid 9995 Alouette Closest Approach To Earth (1.758 AU) • Nov 21 - Apollo Asteroid 314082 Dryope Closest Approach To Earth (2.464 AU) • Nov 21 - [Nov 15] Online Seminar: What Can Extant Genomes Reveal About Early DNA

Metabolism? • Nov 21 - Georges Fournier's 135th Birthday (1881) • Nov 22 - EKS N2/ Tundra 12L Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat-M Launch • Nov 22 - Comet 338P/McNaught Perihelion (2.302 AU) • Nov 22 - Comet 117P/Helin-Roman-Alu At Opposition (3.735 AU) • Nov 22 - Comet 91P/Russell At Opposition (4.192 AU)

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• Nov 22 - Apollo Asteroid 2016 VC1 Near-Earth Flyby (0.045 AU) • Nov 22 - Amor Asteroid 2016 VS1 Near-Earth Flyby (0.050 AU) • Nov 22 - Aten Asteroid 2012 UK171 Near-Earth Flyby (0.062 AU) • Nov 22 - Asteroid 8120 Kobe Closest Approach To Earth (1.280 AU) • Nov 22 - Asteroid 2807 Karl Marx Closest Approach To Earth (1.532 AU)

Source: JPL Space Calendar Return to Contents

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Food for Thought

China's Shenzhou 11 Crew Lands on Earth After Month-Long Space Lab Mission

Two Chinese astronauts returned to Earth early Friday morning (Nov. 18) after a month-long space lab mission that set a new record for their country's human spaceflight program and advanced preparations for China's first space station.

Jing Haipeng, 50, and Chen Dong, 37, who launched on board China's Shenzhou 11 spacecraft on Oct. 16, landed at 12:59 a.m. EST (0559 GMT or 1:59 p.m. Beijing time) in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. Their 32 days in space more than doubled China's previous longest crewed mission.

Jing, who is now China's first veteran of three spaceflights, and Chen, who was on his first mission, spent 30 days on board the Tiangong-2 space lab, working on maintenance techniques, conducting science experiments and speaking with students and government leaders on the ground.

On Wednesday (Nov. 16), the two taikonauts boarded their Shenzhou 11 spacecraft and undocked from the Tiangong-2, beginning a two-day journey back to Earth. Descending under a parachute on Friday, the Shenzhou capsule fired retro-thrusters just before safely touching down and tipping onto its side.

Live television views from recovery helicopters and ground rescue vehicles showed the capsule's descent, though the coverage was brief due to poor visibility in the area. Once on the ground, the capsule was met by recovery teams to assist the crew out of the spacecraft.

Both taikonauts were reported to be in good health. After a brief period at their landing site, Jing and Chen were to be flown to Beijing Space City to rehabilitate from their time in space and to brief officials on their mission.

The Shenzhou 11 flight was the first and, as planned, only crewed mission to the Tiangong-2, which was launched in September. The space lab will remain in orbit as a platform for remotely-operated experiments and to receive China's first automated resupply and refueling vehicle, Tianzhou-1, which is slated for launch in the first half of 2017.

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During their month on board the space lab, Jing and Chen served as correspondents for Xinhua news service, filing a "Space Journal" describing their life aboard the Tiangong-2. The taikonauts wrote about their daily routine, the space suits they wore, how they exercised and the food they ate.

In their last entry before leaving for Earth, they described the silkworm educational experiment they conducted as "a space lesson for Earth's children."

"Five out of the six silkworms taken aboard our Tiangong-2 space lab have cocooned," Jing and Chen wrote. "We've put them in cold containers. The sixth [silkworm] wasn't as strong as the others and it didn't move much."

The two were also the first Chinese astronauts to cultivate edible crops (lettuce) in space.

"The seeds germinated on the [flight's] fifth day. We were so excited we took some selfies with them," Jing and Chen described. "Our lettuce looked especially fresh and even greener than those on Earth, though we only tend to them for 10 minutes each day."

Jing has now logged 47 days in space, including 3 days on the Shenzhou 7 flight in 2008 and 13 days on Shenzhou 9 in 2012. Chen was the eleventh Chinese astronaut to fly in space since Yang Liwei became the nation's first taikonaut aboard Shenzhou 5 in 2003. Shenzhou 11 marked China's sixth human spaceflight.

China's next crewed mission is scheduled for 2018, after the launch of the core module for the country's first space station.

Source: Space.com Return to Contents

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Space Image of the Week

Hubble Nets a Subtle Swarm

This Hubble image shows NGC 4789A, a dwarf irregular galaxy in the constellation of Coma Berenices. It certainly lives up to its name — the stars that call this galaxy home are smeared out across the sky in an apparently disorderly and irregular jumble, giving NGC 4789A a far more subtle and abstract appearance than its glitzy spiral and elliptical cousins.

These stars may look as if they have been randomly sprinkled on the sky, but they are all held together by gravity. The colors in this image have been deliberately exaggerated to emphasize the mix of blue and red stars. The blue stars are bright, hot and massive stars that have formed relatively recently, whereas the red stars are much older. The presence of both tells us that stars have been forming in this galaxy throughout its history.

At a distance of just over 14 million light-years away NGC 4789A is relatively close to us, allowing us to see many of the individual stars within its bounds. This image also reveals numerous other galaxies, far more distant, that appear as fuzzy shapes spread across the image.

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgements: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla) Text Credit: European Space Agency

Source: NASA Return to Contents